Not sure what to apply for

I know this sounds quite dumb.

Long story short I left a desktop support job to work in what I thought was system administrations, started working with the new company.......and find out its more or less the same thing as desktop support. Stayed for a year thinking things would change.......other than a minor projects it didn't. So I picked up a cert during that time period. Then 2 weeks ago I was "promoted" to a help desk position within this organization. Unlocking passwords, creating accounts, the most mundane things you can think of.

So besides studying I've been applying for some jobs here and there. Problem is I don't know what to apply for. Like I mentioned before in a previous thread I want to keep my clearance. Either I don't qualify for most jobs or I over qualify. Cyber security seems interesting but without current certs, TS clearance, its a no go.

I feel so stuck

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Comments

scaredoftests

Linked in is good for searching of jobs as well.

NetworkNewb

Chevel wrote: »

No advice on the resume I posted just as requested? Are there any books I should be looking at?

As far as the resume, that is the first 5 page resume I've ever seen... That needs to be shortened. I'm sure being so long is part of the issue. That last 2 pages can pretty much be completely removed. No one is going to read those.

I would put your Certifications and Education at the end

There is also just way too much random information in there. Also, hate the formatting. Its like you put spacing in between each of the lines to make a already too long of resume even longer.

That is my brief advice. Could possibly take a longer look at it later.

Noticed a couple of random errors in there as well. Needs to be looked over thoroughly

NetworkNewb

Here is a good example of nice looking resume someone posted before

http://www.techexams.net/forums/jobs-degrees/91333-resume-time.html

Chevel

NetworkNewb wrote: »

As far as the resume, that is the first 5 page resume I've ever seen... That needs to be shortened. I'm sure being so long is part of the issue. That last 2 pages can pretty much be completely removed. No one is going to read those.

I would put your Certifications and Education at the end

There is also just way too much random information in there. Also, hate the formatting. Its like you put spacing in between each of the lines to make a already too long of resume even longer. Especially for USA jobs.

That is my brief advice. Could possibly take a longer look at it later.

Noticed a couple of random errors in there as well. Needs to be looked over thoroughly

Thank you for the critique, I'm sorry I get confused I've been told so many conflicting things some say 2 page resume other say I need 5-7 and add as much detail as possible.

I'm an English snob lol I put the spacing in there to make it easier to read. I can't stand jumbled things, I try to make things brief but I don't quite know how to do it. Plus with my limited experience I thought it would help. You have a format I should use.

If you can look at it later that would be great. Thank you!

Chevel

NetworkNewb wrote: »

Here is a good example of nice looking resume someone posted before

http://www.techexams.net/forums/jobs-degrees/91333-resume-time.html

It says page not found?

Now it works wow that resume is short........

NetworkNewb

hehe, yea. I use almost this exact same formatting on mine. Except I removed the bezel around the whole thing and use dots instead of the check marks. (Went back and forth on the check marks) Always had a decent callback ratio. I'd recommend doing the same.

Chevel

NetworkNewb wrote: »

hehe, yea. I use almost this exact same formatting on mine. Except I removed the bezel around the whole thing and use dots instead of the check marks. (Went back and forth on the check marks) Always had a decent callback ratio. I'd recommend doing the same.

I'm going to try and see what happens. I also have another question some one mentioned that I should have multiple resumes do you agree?

NetworkNewb

As far as multiple resumes, it is a good idea to try and tailor resume based the job and what they are looking for. You would want your resume to focus on skills and achievements you have done that would relate to a specific position. And remove things that have nothing related to the position you are applying for.

When I'm applying for a position, I would scrutinize every line that I wrote in my resume and try to think of what a manager hiring for that position would think of each line. I want to describe a skill or achievement in each line that I think the manger wants to see in their future employee for that position.

thomas_

Maybe check the major employers for the area if you haven't already:

Top Employers - Virginia's Gateway Region

A lot of the bigger companies will usually have IT jobs. It's worth checking out their website even if you think they won't have a job, you never know. You might also want to find a list of cities, counties, school districts and colleges/universities in your surrounding area and look on those websites. A lot of times I don't find these jobs listed any where else besides that organization's website.

Chevel

@NetworkNewb thank you for the insight that's very helpful, very good suggestions I did not think of putting myself in the hiring manager position.

@thomas yes I've done so but thanks!

cyberguypr

Whoever told you 5-7 pages has either has no idea what a resume should look like or is not a involved in hiring in any way. As said above, post separately a "resume review" thread so we can dissect it. Tons of room for improvement here.

NavyIT

As others have said, it's way too long. I have 7 years of experience and mine is 1 page. Short, sweet, to the point and hits the key words they are looking for. The point of a resume is to get an interview, not to sell yourself to the company, that's what the interview is for. Keep your job duties shorter, remove the agency names under certifications and just list the certs, your education doesn't specify a school or year or anything so I would add that.

This is the resume I currently use and I've never had an issue getting a call.

Attachment not found.

for_tech_exams.PDF

ITSpectre

NavyIT wrote: »

As others have said, it's way too long. I have 7 years of experience and mine is 1 page. Short, sweet, to the point and hits the key words they are looking for. The point of a resume is to get an interview, not to sell yourself to the company, that's what the interview is for. Keep your job duties shorter, remove the agency names under certifications and just list the certs, your education doesn't specify a school or year or anything so I would add that.

This is the resume I currently use and I've never had an issue getting a call.

Attachment not found.

That is a very good format to use... I may have to update my resume to this format... What type should the font be?? I have heard everything from 10 to 14.

NavyIT

ITSpectre wrote: »

That is a very good format to use... I may have to update my resume to this format... What type should the font be?? I have heard everything from 10 to 14.

Mine uses Verdana 9

cyberguypr

Wait, so is Comic Sans 16pt frowned upon?

Chevel

cyberguypr wrote: »

Whoever told you 5-7 pages has either has no idea what a resume should look like or is not a involved in hiring in any way. As said above, post separately a "resume review" thread so we can dissect it. Tons of room for improvement here.

I was told if I was applying for a government job it needed to be as long and as detailed as possible. I was told 10 pages of resume was not uncommon ( although I think that's a bit much lol) The "rule" I remember in school was no more than 2 pages.

Stand by though I'm going to post a resume thread.

NavyIT wrote: »

As others have said, it's way too long. I have 7 years of experience and mine is 1 page. Short, sweet, to the point and hits the key words they are looking for. The point of a resume is to get an interview, not to sell yourself to the company, that's what the interview is for. Keep your job duties shorter, remove the agency names under certifications and just list the certs, your education doesn't specify a school or year or anything so I would add that.

This is the resume I currently use and I've never had an issue getting a call.

Attachment not found.

I can see why you have a lot of VERY GOOD credentials.

Me not so much.....:/

Also is that just one page?

doctorlexus

Never understood the hate on comic sans. Around Halloween time I sent out a couple resumes in some spooky-looking horror font. Never got any calls, but I still succeeded in amusing myself, so there's that.

NavyIT

Chevel wrote: »

I was told if I was applying for a government job it needed to be as long and as detailed as possible. I was told 10 pages of resume was not uncommon ( although I think that's a bit much lol) The "rule" I remember in school was no more than 2 pages.

Stand by though I'm going to post a resume thread.

I can see why you have a lot of VERY GOOD credentials. Me not so much.....:/

Also is that just one page?

Yes it's the one and only page. Honestly the only cert that matters that I have that you don't is CISSP. I'm not sure what type of jobs you're applying for, but in the government world that should be plenty enough.

Chevel

NavyIT wrote: »

Yes it's the one and only page. Honestly the only cert that matters that I have that you don't is CISSP. I'm not sure what type of jobs you're applying for, but in the government world that should be plenty enough.

I'm planning to start the CISSP after I finish the server exam. Already brought the books

I'm applying for jobs in the government as I have my clearance and I want to keep it. I was a government employee but when the base closed my temp job went away that was in 2011. I've been a government contractor ever since and am currently.

OctalDump

To echo several comments here: Everything. If you get interviews, then they think you might be a good fit and you can use that interview to help figure it out (along with some other research on the company).

Also, just this process can help give you a much better idea of what is out there, what you might like, and how to get there.

TheFORCE

Chevel wrote: »

Attachment not found.

I attached my (general) resume. Critiques highly inquired. Thanks

Your resume is too long, you need better formatting and reduce the clutter. Try to bring it down to 2 pages the most. Also, no need to have different certification sections for each vendor. List all your certs under 1 "Certifications" section. Put Comptia certs last, put your CCNA first followed by Micrososft certs, an MCSA is more important than Sec+.

There is too much spacing between your sentences on the job positions, save space on your resume by using no spacing.
Under professional skills, no need to itemize everything you have ever touched. "Microsoft suite of products" works fine for all the Microsoft products you have listed, same applies to adobe, this will save you additional spacing. No need to itemize every browser or OS out there. Again, No need to itemize every printer model or hardware equipment. A sentence like, "Familiar with various printer models and hardware technologies" will work fine. Just removing that will save you 1 page. You are listing "Snag-It" as a tool you have professional skills in? Again, this is a tool everyone can use and requires no real skills.
Now Wireshark is a different thing you have it listed under professional skills but no mention of it in any of your job positions, so have you use it in a work environment or have you used it at home or are you just aware that the tool exists? If you have used it in a work environment, you need to list it under your job positions that you used it and give a 1 sentence explanation of how you used it and for what purpose. Same thing with SCCM, list it as something you used at a job and performed a task with, not something you are familiar that it exists.

Chevel

The force thank you for reviewing my resume. I appreciate it, so basically it sounds like I'm babbling and not really elaborating what I actually performed. Based on the suggestions I need to keep "key" points.

I'm going to tweak some things over the weekend.

TheFORCE

Chevel wrote: »

The force thank you for reviewing my resume. I appreciate it, so basically it sounds like I'm babbling and not really elaborating what I actually performed. Based on the suggestions I need to keep "key" points.

I'm going to tweak some things over the weekend.

Yes exactly! You need to elaborate the key points and describe the most important tasks of your job. Consider your resume the fishing line and the fishing rod, the contents of the resume is the bait. You need to make the bait enticing for recruiters to look at the resume. Recruiters usually spend 30 seconds or 1 minute looking at a resume so you need to grab their attention quickly. You have good experience, its your resume that has been holding you back.

Chevel

TheFORCE wrote: »

Yes exactly! You need to elaborate the key points and describe the most important tasks of your job. Consider your resume the fishing line and the fishing rod, the contents of the resume is the bait. You need to make the bait enticing for recruiters to look at the resume. Recruiters usually spend 30 seconds or 1 minute looking at a resume so you need to grab their attention quickly. You have good experience, its your resume that has been holding you back.

That makes a lot of sense, and perfectly understandable. I redid my resume and looked backed at my old YIKES lol. Although I was still getting calls from it. I replaced it with my current re-written resume...... nothing.

Which brings me to question. ( I didn't want to make another thread about it) I've not had much luck with the job department the calls I had originally did not go through. I did receive a call for a desktop support position, nailed the interview, 5 years of experience helps...... The pay is less and the benefits suck IMO to say the least. Its not something I want to do (again) but I'm almost tempted to take it to get out of my current position which has demoted me to just copying and pasting tickets. At least with the desktop job I would be doing desktop work.....I don't know. Is the job worth it?

Chevel

Well scratch that.....the recruiter or the person who interviewed me didn't call back so I guess I'm just stuck here. Trying LinkedIn again hoping I'll catch a break and get out of this dead in cycle.

scaredoftests

You will, when you least expect it..

Chevel

scaredoftests wrote: »

You will, when you least expect it..

Thanks I hope so copying and pasting for 40 hours a week gets old. I have to study at home now lol because I get so tired of looking at text.

Chevel

Just so I thought I would keep this like a little journal for the next poor soul lol. I don't know what's going on but it seems the contracting job market sucks around here now. No phone calls, e-mails or anything.....seems worse after I changed my resume. Deleted the LinkedIn account again, no hits on that either.

I see the same jobs posted daily on the numerous job sites I visit. Something must be going on. I've been applying to the few jobs up north in DC area. Problem I've run into with them is that they don't pay anything lol. $45K- 60K I make 60K now 20 minutes from work. There's no way I'm driving 3 hours to make the same unless they allow tele-work and as a federal contractor its forbidden. So that's out. In the mean time studying a bit for CISSP when I'm not too burnt out from copying and pasting text.

NetworkNewb

I would post your updated resume on here just get opinions on it again.

Also, not sure why you deleted your LinkedIn account. I recommend always just having that up, never know when some one is going to be looking.

scaredoftests

Yes, why delete LinkedIn? I find it a great resource.