Resume critique for eventual network engineer?

Hey all,

I've been on this forum for about 3 years now and during that time my skillset has increased tremendously, espicially in networking, Unfortunately the company i planned on working with for many years has been acquired and the parent company is notorious for only giving COL raises year over year. Due to this I am now looking for greener pastures as I believe a CCNP shouldn't be making 37k especially one with 3 years experience.

So before I start shopping my resume around just wanted you guys to take a look and offer any advice if possible?

Thanks again all

https://drive.google.com/open?id=11UMIg4CqmdskIvYdXL9pelQ9SEJWTr1mrFi_VB-Kx3I

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Comments

CCNTrainee

For starters, unless you have a CCNA in a different discipline (Security, Wireless, etc.) it is kind of pointless to put your CCNA R/S if you already have CCNP R/S.

kiki162

Not bad on the resume. Try getting it on 1 page. Here's my thoughts:

Move the certs to a 2 column format
Under skills for Site to Site, EIGRP, BGP, and OSPF, I'd leave that out unless you can correlate that within your skills/experience.
For bullet point #1 and #5, you can revise that. Seems a bit long-winded. For #5 revise that to say something like this so it makes more sense.
"Implemented Cisco’s HSRP protocol into main Cisco 2911ISR routers for redundancy and disaster recovery purposes"
Your Education can be revised - Associates of Science - Cybersecurity
State what year you obtained your degree

I think you should get an opinion from a network guy in here who understands this more. Most of your stuff is good, but can be cleaned up.

NetworkNewb

For formatting, I like the look of the resume in this thread and use almost the exact same look for my resume.

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

Also, I'm not huge fan of having a "skills" section myself. I think if you feel it is important enough to say you are proficient in something you should tell it in your experience section on how you used it.

Thexzeno

NetworkNewb wrote: »

For formatting, I like the look of the resume in this thread and use almost the exact same look for my resume.

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

Also, I'm not huge fan of having a "skills" section myself. I think if you feel it is important enough to say you are proficient in something you should tell it in your experience section on how you used it.

Ok, The entire reason i had it there in the first place was to help my resume placement in algorithms

hurricane1091

I've never posted my resume on here, but I have an extensive skills section on my resume, as well as listing my CCNA R/S and CCNA Security, despite having a CCNP R/S. If I did not have both CCNAs though, I would probably not list it. Recruiters tend to be clueless, so it just never hurts to list it. If you applied to a job requiring the CCNA, it's possible the guy just searches for CCNA and does not even realize you have the CCNP. Food for thought, but this is debatable.

Why I have a skills section? Well, I know HSRP for example. It's something mentioned a lot in job postings. I have no way to tie that into my experience, but I want it to be known that I indeed do understand HSRP and use it, just not in a way worth putting under experience. Every new office I open up uses HSRP, but if I list every single technology used on switches/routers when I set up a new office, it will be 8 lines long. Formatting can be improved on your resume for sure though. I wouldn't just list HSRP though. For example, something like "Layer 3 Switching - SVIs with HSRP" seems better than simply listing "HSRP". Everything is up for debate though.

ccie14023

I would say, as someone who has reviewed hundreds of resumes including hiring for Cisco and Juniper, that I am always looking for some polish on a resume. If you don't show attention to detail, especially at the junior level, it reflects badly.

All words in a job title are capitalized. (Except words like "of".)
Don't call yourself "Jr. Network Administrator." If you're not senior then put "Network Administrator."
Catalyst is a product name and is capitalized. You were right 50% of the time.
Site-to-site, Point-to-point, etc., take hyphens. Troubleshooting does not.
I prefer skills categorized. So, something like this:

Routing protocols: OSPF, EIGRP, BGP
Hardware: Cisco Catalyst 3650, 3850, 4500-series, ISR routers, SonicWall, blah, blah

Otherwise not a bad junior-level resume. As for the CCNA/CCNP debate, it doesn't really matter. CCNP implies CCNA, so it's not necessary to list it separately. But whatever.

NetworkNewb

I guess if someone is just posting their resume on a random site in hopes they find a position that way it would be alright to have a "skills" section. To me it looks like they are just listing random things they could've just watched Youtube video on or maybe something they touched once before.

Like you put in your skills section things like OSPF, BGP, and EIGRP. You have a CCNP so should obviously have a good idea of what those things are and how they work. Or are you trying to say you have experience doing those things... who knows. I understand the algorithm theory, but what is a manager going to think when they look at a resume like that when they just see a bunch of random words. I just prefer to focus a resume on specific things posted on each job ad and try to explain why my experience fits the skills they are looking for. I just don't think it looks good and doesn't add any value to resume listing things like that. I liked Hurricane's and Ccie's examples better on how to list them.

Just my personal opinion, if it works for you to have it there though my opinion doesn't mean much.

EANx

Having a separate skills section is a valid tool for those organizations that use it but you should be sure to use a format that is easily read by those tools as well. DOCX ix a compressed file format and many of the resume scanning tools can't process it properly. If you're going to submit to one, don't assume it's been modernized, use DOC instead.

Rather than putting CCNA and CCNP on separate lines, I'd say "Cisco CCNA / CCNP"

hurricane1091

I'd like to just add that I've literally seen jobs asking for the CCNA or CCIE, which in itself is a statement that makes zero sense. Completely neglecting to mention the CCNP, but how can a job listing ask for a CCNA OR CCIE? CCNA might fetch you what, 50k lets say. CCIE is 125K+. What job are we hiring for here folks, because there's a big difference in pay and skill-set. I have a friend in recruiting, and he literally searches for buzz words and acronyms. Maybe he just isn't good, but I'll go into things with the belief more people are like him than not. Dealing with a recruiter is a lot different than applying directly to a company potentially. If I apply to a job, you always see the same stuff. QoS, EIGRP, BGP, layer 3 switching, load-balancing, firewalls, etc. I've got to have that stuff listed on my resume! Agreed that the CCNP should imply I know EIGRP and BGP, but I won't even let it be questioned by a person looking at my resume. I want everything that I know and that I have done on there.

Ultimately, there is no firm answer, and no one here who posts advice is completely right or wrong. Everything is subjective, but everyone with experience will come to some general conclusion that formatting is important, correct spelling is important, and being clear/concise is important. The rest is subjective, but following the first three points will at least put you on a path to success.

NetworkNewb is also correct that listing things like HSRP does no good. How do you know HSRP specifically? For me, we use layer 3 switches at our small branch offices that are trunked together, with SVIs, using HSRP so one switch is the default gateway for some VLANs, and the other switch is the default gateway for other VLANs. We can go on about why this is a good set up, and how we're able to use each uplink from switch 1/2 to the router (and how using EIGRP off set lists allow us to control return traffic to use both links as well) but that's something for an interview if it came up.

Hope this helps!