Gigs VS Home Labs on Resume

johnIT

What is more important on a resume to stand out? 

I've had 3 Jobs in IT since 2013. One for five months. One for 3 months and this job I've had for five years. Yet I found the gigs aren't really adding much in the way of conversation or resume views and may be hurting me at this point. I was thinking of switching up my resume to focus more on my projects and labs that I've done at home, since the current job and the old jobs aren't really adding anything more. All I did at the old jobs were basically content editing and inventory tracking. Even though I've spruced it up, nobody ever asks about those and sometimes I just plainly leave them off. Especially now that I've got the 5 years of exp sweet spot.

What I'd like to highlight instead is my labs that I do at home, like creating my own wordpress website, playing around with certain cloud stuff AWS, and Office 365, starting to learn python etc... I have no professional exp in that stuff. I also do a lot of IT support outside of work and I've always helped family and friends which frankly has gotten me even more exp than on the job stuff. With this stuff included I'll have like 10-15+ years exp. I think it's more important to include that over data entry at a furniture store where I occasionally would help with computers... Advice?

JDMurray

Putting together and using a home lab for research and personal security/privacy, volunteer work in the InfoSec community (coding projecting, helping to run conferences, etc.), and belonging to security clubs where you have a governing role are all excellent ways to show that you are seriously engaged in InfoSec as your chosen career path. These are things the hiring committee on my team certainly looks for.

mikey88

Be prepared to discuss in detail whatever is on your resume! I've only been asked once about my home lab on previous interviews. But for someone with limited experience, it may be helpful.