What am I missing???

Malita215

First I want to note that I attached my resume just in case you want to look at it before you read the rest of my post.

Here's my dilemma.

I'm new to the information security field in regards to work experience. I'm actively pursuing my Master's degree as you will see on my resume and will be done in April, May graduation.

I steadily worked my way up from working in CVS in my early years to a barista onto hospital cafeterias to eventually landing my first IT gig in desktop. To some, I made great progress in my career. But to me, it's going very slow and I'm not getting many hits with security positions as I would hope, especially with my educational background. I know work experience plays a bigger factor in landing the job, but where are the companies that are willing to train someone as eager as I am to LEARN? I pride myself on the fact that if you teach me, I will learn it.

My last position (no longer employed) was a contract position that I held for 8 months. The official title was Information Security Analyst. However, I changed the title on my resume because going through school, I know what I did was nowhere near InfoSec. It was more user account provisioning. The department cared less about InfoSec. I was always told that "if they ask for access (to highly secured systems) give it to them. It's not our responsibility to determine if they should/shouldn't get the access".

Wrapping this up soon..

Also, in my graduate classes, a lot of my fellow classmates are working in the DoD or some other military branch and have years experience in the field already. When its time to introduce myself, it kinda suck knowing that I'm nowhere near their experience. They usually take the classes to fulfill work requirements. But for me, I thought it would help me get a shot.

My question is, what am I missing? Why am I not marketable? I get more hits for Help/Service Desk and desktop than what I'm actually going to school for.

I also want to note that I am actively studying for Security+ although my degree programs prepared me for the CISSP. I just thought I start small and work myself up.

I just need some guidance because it's becoming a little discouraging.

Thanks!

BerkshireHerd

I'm not a pro, but I think your resume could use some help. You start by saying "I" but then start listing of other things like they are bullet points, then back to "I", and that is just the first paragraph. Service/Help Desk has capitalization but Desktop Support does not?

Also, I noticed a typo on your resume (just by glancing) March 2011 –October0 2013 You got an extra O after the r.

Has your Master classes required you to earn any certs? Are you applying for Master's level job? There is a fine line between education, certs and experience.

There are some awesome folks on here with killer resumes that I'm sure can give way better advice help than I could. Does your school offer career services? Most will help write up great resume's

My best advice, get S+ and start applying for JR. level positions.

Hang in there, your time will come.

TechGuru80

A few things right off the bat.

First, for your platforms and software...make that a table that is short and sweet. Right now it's too wordy.

Second, some of your bullets towards the bottom don't line up with the rest.

Third, put your education towards the top since you don't have a lot of infosec experience and are going need to leverage that more.

Fourth, your previous jobs should be in past tense...Created, managed, etc. not manages, creates.

Last, try to make each bullet stronger language...some of them are longer than they need to be.

TechGuru80

Also...certifications are a must. The degree is great...but it's easier to use the degree to standout when you can match people's certifications.

AverageJoe

First, congrats on closing in on your master's degree!

I second the recommendation that you move education to the top. You're new to the field so your most important asset will likely be your education.

Check all your formatting and spacing. It looks like the line spacing between Capitol and Masters does not match spacing between Peirce and Bachelor. In some of your date ranges you have a space after the hyphen and in others you don't. Be consistent.

You waste quite a bit of space with lines that have only 1 or 2 words. You have 5 lines with only one word on them, and 2 more lines with only two words on them. As a manager that tells me you had nothing of importance to really fill in so you stretched things out to make it look like more. A couple of those might be fine, but 7 is a lot of wasted space.

Your summary of qualifications is too long and hard to read, in my opinion.

I'm guessing you sanitized by stripping your contact information off for posting here.

Some of your experience bullets are unclear. "Daily creation of new contractors and/or new hires to company." You created contractors??? Or you created user accounts? Or what? You "Insured proper documentation" or you ENsured proper documentation? What are RC's? And should there really be an apostrophe there?

Unnecessary words? "Partner with appropriate Information Technology teams to..." You abbreviated RC but spelled out Information Technology? Is "appropriate" needed? Maybe "Partnered with IT teams to..."

And I agree that experience should be in past tense.

For the info you have, I think you should probably be able to get this down to one page by cutting out some of the fluff. I also a agree that Security+ would be beneficial.

In the end, you have to know two things about resumes:

1) It's good to have a base-line version that you can use anywhere, but then try to tailor specific versions for the job you're applying for. For example, if you're applying for a senior help desk position, be more descriptive about your help desk experience. If you're applying for an infosec position, focus on your infosec qualifications.

2) YOU have to be satisfied with it. Others can offer advice, but it's a document that represents and sells YOU. So take what we say with a grain of salt... if you want a 2-pager, go with a 2-pager... if you want education at the bottom, keep it there.

Just my 2 cents. Good luck!

bpenn

/u/srabiee writes great tips for resumes. You should check out this link.


http://www.techexams.net/forums/jobs-degrees/113891-resume-writing-resources.html

CyberSecurity

Definitely work on the resume formatting as you revise. Keep alignment in mind and what fonts you use. I've thrown out resumes because of inconsistencies in people saying "pays attention to detail" and they used 2 different fonts and alignments for the same content.

Obtain certifications, they're trending. #Security+

If you want to go Govt Contractor, it doesn't hurt to go IAM III which the GSLC Cert will help since it's open book and not too difficult.

RoyalRaven

Yes, shorten the summary or break parts out into separate sections. The summary is your elevator pitch. You have to be concise.

My other suggestion after reading it is to tell me what you accomplished, not so much about what your duties are on your job descriptions. I like to provide a very brief summary of the duties of the role (can be done in one-two lines), but spend the other 75% of the area telling everyone what was "accomplished". Examples would be of the like: "Completed three major upgrades of X application", "Reduced time to process new accounts by 50%", "Processed 1k support tickets to satisfactory closure", etc.

I want to know what YOU accomplished in your time there. Once I switched my own resume to the "what have I done", it has worked out so much better. It is a better discussion point during an interview than just saying I supported accounts or built things. Many times I get asked how I accomplished "x", which leads into stuff I already know!

Malita215

Thanks so much everyone! All of these suggestions are very helpful. I really didn't think of a formatting problem. I guess I was focused more on experience. But I think modifying my resume as most suggested will help me get noticed more.

I also like the suggestion for the GSLC cert. That's been 1 of my biggest problems is focusing on what cert to get. I've jumped around so many times that I just continued to focus on obtaining my Master's.

Again, thanks so much. I look forward to hearing more from the TE community.