Resume Review. No Luck finding a job.

techie113

Hi Guys,

I have been sending more than 20 applications in indeed every other day. But no luck. I am a new graduate and here is my resume. I know it is a 3 page resume, but I had to add many tasks done at my previous work and "I think" I need to show relevant courses taken at my institution.

I am looking for entry level IT job, more on IT support or IT analyst.

Resume: http://i.imgur.com/uK5Urzi.png

Hoping you guys can give a proper feedback. I am averaging 1 call per month.

thomas_

I would completely cut out the technical skills, soft skills, and accomplishments sections. If you are skilled enough I would try to rework those skills that you listed in technical skills in a different section if they aren't already mentioned.

For your inventory specialist position I would probably put a brief two or three sentence summary of duties and cut all of the bullet points. I would then try to work in things that you did that are somewhat relevant to IT. IT has inventory, so I might try to clme up with a bullet point along the lines of unpacking, performing jnventories, tracking, etx. I would make a bullet for any customer service skills.

For your web developer position I would try to list what impact your new design had on the website. Did increase conversions, sign ups, organic traffic, etc.

No_Nerd

Keep it up

I sent out 120 to 150 quality applications and even called each one for a follow up. Finding a decent job takes time

iBrokeIT

Usually your resume gets 15-30 seconds of attention before the hiring manager decides which pile it goes in for further consideration or pass.

Here's probably what's going on:

You start off with a generic and obvious objective statement, to get a job - "why is that there?"

Next you list acronym soup that does nothing to convey your experience or technical depth with those technologies - "great more fluff and I'm losing interest"

Education section, not the best formatting and a bit inconsistent. "A 'Computer Systems Technican - Networking Diploma' - what type of program is that? - a BS or Professional Certificate, no idea. Oh and he has a BS great but why wasn't it listed first."

Work Experience, Inventory Specialist - looks ok, Assist Web Dev - wow played acronym soup to start then doesn't tell me any of the specific technologies he used to accomplish duties this job."

Volunteer Work - "don't care"

Academic Projects - "cool, tell me more about problem you solved, why it was important and why you choose that solution if you need more space to fill after a revision"

Qualifications, Accomplishments, Soft Skills - unnecessary

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Rearrange it into three sections: experience, education, academic projects. Format it consistently and move the dates to be right aligned instead of to the left. Work the technical and soft skills into your experience and projects sections.

Cheers!

TechGuru80

Find a way to incorporate your soft skills into your objective at the beginning and make it stronger...seeking position in networking (or whatever discipline) requiring strong communication skills and so on. Are your publications relevant? If not drop them. Make sure your first job is all past tense if you no longer work there..."counting" is not past tense. Also you can probably drop the academic projects unless a company actually adopted them.

iBrokeIT

TechGuru80 wrote: »

Find a way to incorporate your soft skills into your objective at the beginning and make it stronger...seeking position in networking (or whatever discipline) requiring strong communication skills and so on.

Also you can probably drop the academic projects unless a company actually adopted them.

Interesting, I'm of the opinion that you would use your resume to talk about your accomplishments which academic projects would cover as well as being technically relevant to position that he is seeking.

The objective statements always seem to be vague and obvious no matter how you dress them up - to get a job with that company using your skills blah blah blah! If you want to about goals, objectives and why you are a good fit then do it in a cover letter.

DatabaseHead

@iBrokeIT good advice. I personally agree about providing accomplishments backed with quantitative information.

Tremie24

I would probably cut out your academic projects, qualifications, and accomplishments. As said earlier I would combine your tech and soft skills into one. Your academic projects, qualifications, and accomplishments can all be discussed in a initial phone call or interview. The key is to keep your resume somewhat short, most employers don't want to sift through more than a few pages. Remember you resume is your ticket to an interview, when you get a interview that's when you want to boast about all the things mention above. Don't worry, keep giving out resume and something will come along.

techie113

Thanks for the replies guys. I will definitely improve my resume based on your suggestions.

TechGuru80

iBrokeIT wrote: »

Interesting, I'm of the opinion that you would use your resume to talk about your accomplishments which academic projects would cover as well as being technically relevant to position that he is seeking.

The objective statements always seem to be vague and obvious no matter how you dress them up - to get a job with that company using your skills blah blah blah! If you want to about goals, objectives and why you are a good fit then do it in a cover letter.

The main reason I said to drop them is because early in your career, three pages is too long. It's not that they aren't important, especially if you are transitioning to a different area, but it's "extra stuff" that you don't want to take away from the bulk of the information.

For the objective...it's really just a bold statement that sums up your cover letter and resume. The statement can be used to state where you want to go (management, SOC, etc.).

RellyRale

My advice would be to cater and customize a resume to the job discription of every job you apply for. Having one size fits all resume is not always appealing to HR. After i passed my A+ cert it was 3 months and I only received 2 call backs. I changed my resume to fit every single application I submitted and then I started receiving calls for interviews.

techie113

RellyRale wrote: »

My advice would be to cater and customize a resume to the job discription of every job you apply for. Having one size fits all resume is not always appealing to HR. After i passed my A+ cert it was 3 months and I only received 2 call backs. I changed my resume to fit every single application I submitted and then I started receiving calls for interviews.

What did you change in the resume per application? Are those the keywords in the job description you put in your resume or something else?

ThePawofRizzo

I think you're getting a lot of good advice here. Overall I think the layout looks basically organized, and that's way better than a lot of resumes I've seen. Overall, to me anyway, your resume is readable. In short - no pun intended - it's simply way too long.

I have more than 20 years in the industry, many certs, several degrees, and I would be hard-pressed to present a three pager to an employer.....Yes, I could fill three or four pages with all types of information, but there is no need. Note that I've found jobs at 7 different organizations over those 20+ years using my resume format (and in a couple cases some connections as well), and a shorter resume will work.

As others have recommended, you have some "fluff" that needs removed:

"Objective" statement - I have mixed thoughts about objective statements in resumes. When applying for a job use an objective in a cover letter to explain what you're seeking, and customize that objective statement per the job you are applying. While many resume advisers present an objective statement as important, I've seen many resumes with out one that were impressive enough. If you leave it, I would change the objective to specifically mention the job you are seeking, so customize this for each job application in most cases.

Get rid of the section on "Volunteer Work" - Generally, such looks like "fluff" in any resume, and isn't really IT related in this instance. The only way I'd see a reason to put volunteer work on a resume would be if, let's say during a long period of unemployment where you want to show you were productive, you dedicated a large portion of that time out of work to build an brag-worthy IT project at a charitable organization.

Get rid of the "Tech Skills" section - work those technical skills into your work experience lists, but I wouldn't make your work experience bullet lists too much longer in the process.

Get rid of the "Soft Skills" section - To emphasize "soft skills" use terms moreso like "mentored", "trained", "customer service", etc. Many of the soft skills you've used should be removed as they are not presenting useful information about you. For instance, the interviewers will be evaluating how you handle yourself duing a stressful interview to see if you remain "confident and calm in any situation", so no need to tell them ahead of time as they'll pay attention. Further, you may have great "problem solving skills", but really I'll aim to figure that out in the interview as well.

Remove the "Qualifications" section - I don't see anything in that section that would make me want to interview you. It simply looks like more fluff. IF you are truly multilingual...and I mean you can speak all those languages pretty solidly, then put those in an "Additional Qualifications" note when the job mentions they are seeking someone multilingual, or perhaps if you know you are applying for an international organization where such would be valued. If you only kinda sorta speak other languages, nix that qualification.

If the book accomplishments seem relevant to the job that section may be worth leaving, but determine that by job. For instance, if applying for an IT Trainer type job, that accomplishment could be meaningful. If simply applying to do Helpdesk Support it's probably a bit much to note.

You're fresh out of school so the "Academic Projects" section initially seems like it might be useful. However, the three projects you listed really are coursework anyone with a Bachelor's in IT should have gone through, so it comes across as fluff, too. I would say unless you did some really outstanding project to which you could say "Our class project was implemented at an organization resulting in a savings of $X amount of dollers", the projects you list are pretty standard. So, I'd nix the "Academic Projects".

So, to finish this lengthy critique....I'd say your resume should mostly consist of the "Objective" (which could be optional), then "Education" (with your Bachelor's FIRST), followed by "Work Experience", where you could add a couple more bullet points emphasizing soft skills (customer service, mentoring, etc, not stating how you keep your cool in tense scenarios). As needed add an "Additional Qualifications" mentioning your language skills, or the "Accomplishments" with your publications, although when adding those you may need to shorten your bullet lists for work skills.

Again, I think the general layout of your resume looks organized, and would overall be easy to read. Aim for no more than two full pages, but I would keep the line spacing about what you have, don't cram a lot more on each line and get more wordy or descriptive.

Good luck in your search. Hopefully these suggestions are worthwhile.

fmitawaps

Well OP, since you asked, I will give you the fmitawaps opinion.

That resume is teh suck for any IT job.

There is very little in it that shows what you have DONE IN A JOB, aside from some basic web design. Your technical skills section looks like you copied it down out of a book. Your Objective section is the most common, trite, bland type of lawyer speak that says nothing specific. I found it hard to even complete reading that sentence, it was so boring and dull.

In short, a complete rewrite is needed.

Since you have no real IT experience at all, aside from a bit of web design, and drawing from my own experience, I would suggest "fabricating" some experience. 2-3 years doing desktop support at a company out of your local area. A big company, supporting thousands of users. Doing reimages, hardware refreshes, printer installs, training users, telephone and remote access support, installing IP phones, like that. Then go get one of those cheap pay per minute phones or a tracfone, and use that phone's number as the referral number for your "manager" at that job. When an employer calls it, they will be speaking to you, and you can give yourself an excellent referral. Try to change your voice during the call. I wonder if any phones can get an app to do that.

Find a resume of someone who has that type of experience and model your wholly new resume off of it. Because you ain't gonna get an IT job with this waste of paper you're handing out now.

And yes, I will admit that "creating" experience isn't the most ethical thing to do, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. I have had a very frustrating 3 months of applying to every IT job under the sun, getting a few interviews, and NO JOBS. So my moral flexibility is pretty high right now.

MeanDrunkR2D2

Fabricating prior work experience is completely unethical and when they do find out (They will) you'll be canned immediately. And if it's a big enough company they likely have contacts within those organizations that they personally know and will reach out to. Don't lie.

ThePawofRizzo

fmitawaps wrote: »

Well OP, since you asked, I will give you the fmitawaps opinion.

That resume is teh suck for any IT job. ......

I would pretty much ignore "fmitawaps opinion". "Fabricate"? Create a fake referrence, then fake your voice to sound like said fake reference? Completely ill-advised.

thomas_

If you're going to fabricate a contact at least do it the proper way and hire some one instead of doing it yourself. Don't skimp on it either. Be prepared to shell out the big bucks and spend $5 at fiverr for one of those people that do the fake video testimonials. I'm sure it would pretty easy to convince them to take a phone call and give you a fake reference... :P

sillymcnasty

I haven't read every reply so if this is repeat advice, I'm sorry.

But don't have the education so early on in the resume. I would put the work experience before the education. It is much more relevant.

techie113

Sorry for bumping, I have literally no luck finding entry level (desktop suppport, etc.) jobs.

Here is my 2 page resume : Online viewer - y4ertdfcsrwd.pdf

What must be the problem, I am applying for technical or customer support jobs. Not sure why they don't even bother contacting me.

ratbuddy

The problem is simple: you have a bad resume. You do not have two pages worth of experience and education, so firstly, give it a ruthless trimming. I mean it. 'Maintained confidentiality' is not something that belongs on your resume, any more than 'showed up on time' would belong on there.

Get rid of enough stuff to bring it down to one page, then post it up for review.

Kuvuli21

In all honesty, I also want to suggest looking at the possibility of applying elsewhere. Besides my time in the U.S. Army I've had to move a few times to get to where I am as a Network Administrator. Sometimes it is hard to land anything to get the ball rolling in IT experience unless willing to move away for a bit, or just keep going until you get to where you want to be! I personally am still gunning for positions in Florida. I'm in Atlanta, GA right now as a NA.

Kuvuli21

and IbrokeIT has a valid point as well in regards to what needs to be trimmed up. try a paid service to help with a Resume. if you need help finding a good one, I know of a few.

DCD

Write a summary of computer work you have done about 3 lines. Like fix windows errors, optimize windows operating system, virus removal. Move Operating System where Network services and Device is. Remove qualifications section. Take off relevant on relevant work experience. And add more job history and if it not relevant keep the description short. To big of a employment gap. What part of Canada are you in?

techie113

DCD wrote: »

Write a summary of computer work you have done about 3 lines. Like fix windows errors, optimize windows operating system, virus removal. Move Operating System where Network services and Device is. Remove qualifications section. Take off relevant on relevant work experience. And more job history and if it not relevant to it keep it short. To big of a employment gap. What part of Canada are you in?

I was planning on removing the 'Other Work Experience' since it is not relevant. I am in Toronto.

TechGromit

My opinion, it's a little long with no real IT experience. See if you can condense it down to one page, unless you have a lot of experience, there's no reason why it should be three pages long.

Get rid of the outdated crap no one uses, hubs, bridges, unless the Philippines is 20 years behind in technology. Get rid of redundant information, first you tell me you have Operating Systems Windows 7 and Unix/Linux, then you tell me the same thing again under education Cenrennial College.

Get rid of the courses you took in college, just list the college and what degree you earned under education, I don't need to know every course you took. Also I'm just interested in the year your graduated, I'm not interest in the length of time it took to earn your degree.

I'd get rid of the Academic projects as well. I'd bring them up in an interviews, but leave them off the resume. There's just not enough room to list them, makes you resume too busy.

iBrokeIT wrote: »

Oh and he has a BS great but why wasn't it listed first."

I concur, this is the strongest thing on your resume, it should first Read name, contract info, Bachelors of Science from Saint Benilde University in 2015, but I wouldn't advertise where it's from. I don't know about Canada, but in the United States if your college degree wasn't earned in the United States, it might as well be printed on toilet paper, that's how valuable it is here. It's possible to have it converted into a United States accredited degree, but you have to pay for a college to look at every course you took and if any are not accepted, you'll have to retake them. It's a very expensive process. There's more than one Russian engineer working as a janitor in the United States because there doctorate degree from Russia is worthless here.

Remedymp

No Linkedin account?

techie113

TechGromit wrote: »

I concur, this is the strongest thing on your resume, it should first Read name, contract info, Bachelors of Science from Saint Benilde University in 2015, but I wouldn't advertise where it's from. I don't know about Canada, but in the United States if your college degree wasn't earned in the United States, it might as well be printed on toilet paper, that's how valuable it is here. It's possible to have it converted into a United States accredited degree, but you have to pay for a college to look at every course you took and if any are not accepted, you'll have to retake them. It's a very expensive process. There's more than one Russian engineer working as a janitor in the United States because there doctorate degree from Russia is worthless here.

Same in Canada. My degree is worthless (in their eyes), I removed it.

TechGromit

techie113 wrote: »

Same in Canada. My degree is worthless (in their eyes), I removed it.

I wouldn't remove it, it may be worthless in Canada, but unless they ask, I wouldn't volunteer that information.

techie113

TechGromit wrote: »

I wouldn't remove it, it may be worthless in Canada, but unless they ask, I wouldn't volunteer that information.

Thank You. Also, Should I remove my "inventory specialist" work experience because it is not related. I'm just worried they might think of why there is a huge gap or no work experience for long time.

Btw, I am going to seek professional help on this after few days.

BerkshireHerd

You just graduated right? Being a student is a full time job in itself.

BillHoo

You will probably find that your resume responses increase after Labor Day.

Most Hiring Managers and staff are on vacation in the summer months.

There is an uptick in hiring after Labor Day as they have to fill positions before end of the fiscal year (usually October).

After Halloween, everything gears down again due to holiday vacations and comes to a dead stop in January.

The most job interview activity you will get will be between the months of February/March and April/May for start dates. You may also notice that the frequency of Tech recruiting fairs also increase in this timeframe to meet their customer demands.

The smart college students usually start sending their resumes out in February to have a job in May. This is the same strategy for internships too.

Layoffs usually happen just before Thanksgiving or Christmas. not to rub salt on the wound, but to meet business requirements (bad managers trying to "make the numbers" to saisfy the CFO demands and close out books before the Chirstmas/NewYear break) when the "New Fiscal Year Budget" come out.

A second wave of layoffs usually happens in February/March. Again, bad managers who realise in order to hire the needed programmers or IT staff, they have to fire a few people that they don't really need at the moment. (ie. the guys who have been doing a good job for decades and have high salaries, but they don't have certs for their jobs - good reason to get a younger guy with certs at a cheaper salary). It's not personal. Just good business. (I guess that's what they tell them at bean counter school)

I tell people who have been let go in the Feb/Mar timeframe, if you don't get hired by May, just enjoy your summer and start sending resumes in late September. Too early and it sits in a pile til after Labor Day.

techie113 wrote: »

Hi Guys,

I have been sending more than 20 applications in indeed every other day. But no luck. I am a new graduate and here is my resume. I know it is a 3 page resume, but I had to add many tasks done at my previous work and "I think" I need to show relevant courses taken at my institution.

I am looking for entry level IT job, more on IT support or IT analyst.

Resume: http://i.imgur.com/uK5Urzi.png

Hoping you guys can give a proper feedback. I am averaging 1 call per month.