Technical Resume Review
johnIT
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I was told to post my official resume. So this is my general technical skills resume. I feel like I'm not an expert in anything that would help me get to my next job. RezScore says this gets a B+ and I could focus more on my accomplishments so any help tailoring it could help me I suppose. John IT Resume Review.pdf
Working on: A+, MCSE Server 2012
Comments
Your margins need fixed, I think thats what is going on, but the lines shouldn't be wrapping back around into where your bullets are aligned to on the left.
Place some margin space between headings such as job date range headings and paragraph text below
All of your headings for job date ranges should align vertically.
I should mention that this resume format has also been edited and approved by an HR recruiter I know at Johnson & Johnson. I have applied to anything from basic IT positions to IT manager and server admin jobs and it gets no bites. Does format of margins really matter all that much?
A resume is the first impression people will get of you, the next is potentially speaking on the phone and the third is seeing you in person, like it not you will be judged on factors that have nothing to do with skillset, and I think that is fair in some or even a lot cases.
When I hire folks I look for visual clues that tell me what the person stands for, questions I want to answer.
Does this person care enough to look presentable?
Will this person conduct themselves respectfully and practice good manners when my/our superiors are present? - Who I hire reflects on me.
Is this person a "worker" and will they put in extra effort to elevate the team - which again reflects on me.
Is this person the sort of person who will cause interpersonal issues on the team and a slew of fights that I will have to mediate - again impacts me.
And probably 15 other questions that I want to answer about the person, skills are often secondary to personality, attention to detail and overall giving a damn, I can train anyone that has the personal qualites I am looking for, motivation being a big one, and if you aren't motivated enough to put forward a crisp resume that oozes "give a damn" I won't call you, I won't interview you.
Also, another red flag, people who can't make it to an interview around my schedule, if you can't spare time for an interview during work hours, that is a tell tale sign you aren't up to a challenge, or you already have so many attendance issues at your existing job that you can't leave and maybe thats why you are bailing out.
If/when you become a manager, and you hire the wrong person a few times, which I have, you will gain a whole new appreciation to why getting hired can be really tough. With all the rules and laws, it can take a year to get rid of the wrong person, and even then, you as a manger pay a price for terminating an employee, employee fails, you the manager have failed, at least in some way.
Well I get all that but I never even knew that format was a problem here. Since I got the OK from my cousin. I mean at least it's all on one page. I was shocked at how bad the resumes I got when I was involved with hiring my co-workers replacement.
Is there a standard format you prefer?
M.S. Cybersecurity and Information Assurance, WGU
Rezscore says B- B+ and that I should be making $65-90k. I'm making nowhere near that but that is the price range I ask for. Usually its lower $60-70k. Higher for Manhattan jobs
- "Tasked with Organizing Warehouse" - why is this capitalized?
- "Some Custom HTML" - again, what's up with capitalization
- "powershell" - again, capitalize properly
- "Anti-Virus Administration" - WHYYYYYY CAPITALIZE????
- "Teamviewer, logmein" - at this point I would throw resume in trash due to capitalization
- "VSphere" - guess what I''m going to complain about here...
I also recommend a better Linkedin Picture and revamping your profile over there to get rid of the same bullet fest.
I'm almost positive some of that was auto-word capitalization. HTML, I thought was always capitalized. So what should I use instead of bullet points? Sentences highlighting my accomplishments?
Some might be... But alot appear as they would never be
Yes, but "custom" isn't.
I think it just seems like there are ALOT of them for one position. You go into a lot of detail. Which isn't too terrible IMO. But If possible I would definitely tailor that down for the specific jobs I applied too.
I do a lot, which is why I thought it would be easy to get a new job. I wear many hats on my small IT team so I never know what to include so I include practically everything/any new project I work on.
I was mostly with you till you got here. I'm the first one here and the last one to leave. I turn out quality, creative and voluminous work. I couldn't make it to an out of town interview a few weeks ago. We had auditors in town along with a sick kid that I couldn't leave in the interview window.
Am I a bad worker with attendance issues? Nope. Am I more loyal to the bird in the hand? You bet your hind end I am.
The purpose of a bullet is to highlight something. In the resume context you want the person reading it to remember your key accomplishments, so that's what you use the bullets for. If you bullet everything it loses all meaning.
Opinions may vary, but this is how I format my resume and love to read them: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B62C7HpuIwINb19rQkdOMmhPMTQ/view. Here's another: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B62C7HpuIwINYWEyTmY2UVZXVkk/view. Finally TE's own ptilsen posted his here: http://www.techexams.net/attachments/forums/jobs-degrees/4106d1374162428-resume-time-sr-systems-eng.doc
I kind of never thought of it that way, because to me, I think most of these big companies use some type of automation to skim through resumes and find keywords. That's what I've always been told too. Keywords matter. So I try to be as specific as possible.
These will help. Thank you.
As mentioned before make sure the wrap around sentence tabs to the begin of the original line.
Instead of listing Company with the title UNDERNEATH, try: Senior Computer Technician at Well Known Non-Profit Org This will save you some space and IMO look cleaner.
Make sure your bullets are the same size, they are different sizes.
Take the large spacing between your headers and topics, it looks like a 6 point space, I would bring it down to 2.
For your header I would consider using a word table, 2 rows 3 columns. Merge the top and put your name in the top cell. Bottom you can list address, linkedin, email, ph etc (in those 3 cells below).
I'm on the fence with the webmaster bullet, part of me likes the idea you understand development, design and websites. The other side of me thinks it looks confusing and cheesy. Play around with it.......
Think about rolling up the Eagle Scout and the two school projects together. Maybe under Professional Development or something like that. Education is education, so your CIS would fall in their the other achievements should be group differently. IMO
Center your contact info
I would align hiring dates, as everyone else has said.
Your first job has two many bullet points.
Can you get them down to 5-6 key bullet points?
I would keep a running list of all the projects you are doing, and you can swap out bullet points when you apply for jobs that call for that specific skill set.
Also, if you mention how much money or time you save the organization by doing these projects, that would really help your resume.
One trick I have is that I find one accomplishment at each job, were I helped save the company money, and I bold that bullet point.
You should check out the star method:
STAR Method - "Situation, Task, Action, Result" method of resume writing
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6...kFjV1dieWVlQ1U
--Alexander Graham Bell,
American inventor
Oh thanks. This will help me a lot. I have probably save the organization upwards of about $100K+ with automation tasks and in consulting fees because I like to solve problems. Not just do temporary fixes like what my boss has done forever. So I will have to re-focus on the money.
Thanks DH, I'm going to work on your suggestions today. Well Eagle Scout isn't really education so that's why I made it separate. I did that before college. And all the other projects I did under projects were done in college. Lolz. So Eagle Scout is a separate thing and has nothing whatsoever to do with computers
I've received positive comments from HR people and recruiters that like the fact that I can make a website.
I'm sure there are exceptions, but I've seen this a few times and it's been fairly accurate in the past, it's not an absolute deal killer, but it's something I consider, I also consider how believeable the person is when they inevetiably bring it up, if they get an interview. Yea life happens, I get it, just saying I use all info available to me to form an opinion.