Skills - what should i add

Okay so i currently have my resume posted on Monster.com, its not getting views (not too worried right now) but i'm not really qualified for anything. I'm currently working towards my CCNA, and will start vista and XP exam studying this summer. What i'm wondering is what i should add under the "skills" section of the resume i have on monster? Ie, should i go through the objectives for CCNA and list some of the things from there? hum..

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JDMurray

Skills would be any formal or self-taught abilities you do well but aren't represented in the job experience section on your resume. Anything you have hands-on experience doing in a front office or back office, mechanical, electrical, drafting, programming, etc. is worth listing. The objectives of an IT certification aren't actually skills unless you have practical work experience doing them.

motherwolf

I think that would be a great idea! I was just thinking of actually starting a thread on here asking forum members what they thought were essential skills an MCSE (or CCNA if that's the route you're taking) should have or know. I know it's a pretty broad subject but I think it would be pretty valuable for people with minimal real world experience to know what a sys/network admin/engineer might be required to do on the job, as opposed to what's required on a test. There are some pretty intelligent members on this forum with a lot of knowledge to share(if they so desire

). Anyone want to start?
And if you do participate thanks for doing so!

Darthn3ss

Do you think it would be helpful for me to make a thread basically giving assignments and letting you guys who are getting started learn how to do things right and how to learn to fish for yourselves?

Good idea. i'd be down for that.

Speaking of servers, i need to install Server 2003 on mine..

Darthn3ss

by the way, i'd say my resume is doing pretty good on monster. two thirds of my views have been saved.

with that being said, i've only gotten 3 views. :-p

JDMurray

You do have your resume posted on other job boards, like HotJobs and Jobster, don't you?

JDMurray

DarbyWeaver wrote:

Guys I am not in the market at the moment, but monster is working miracles for me even passively - I had over 1200 hits since the last time I reset the counters only like 1 or 2 months ago.

So...

I don't want to burst anyone's bubble of hope, but recruiters pay monster.com to access monster's job listings so the recruiters can add the listings to their own jobs databases. Most of the accesses that you are seeing are automated programs simply scraping all job listings and periodically checking back to see if anything in your listing has changed. There's no way that I know of to tell if a human or a script "viewed" your resume.

sir_creamy_

I would suggest writing your skills.

Darthn3ss

JDMurray wrote:

You do have your resume posted on other job boards, like HotJobs and Jobster, don't you?

not yet. i'll giive them a shot though.

Kaminsky

JDMurray wrote:

.... but recruiters pay monster.com to access monster's job listings so the recruiters can add the listings ....

That is so scummy. Not only of the recruiting firms (who are just out for the quick buck obviously - the clients hourly rate they are willing to pay minus what you are willing to accept the job for... or ... the percentage of the first years salary they can get for proposing you as a finders fee) but of Monster.com and other such sites. For this very reason I won't go anywhere near these sites. I tried once when the funding got pulled off the contract I had been on for a while and I was left short notice looking for something fast to keep the bread on the table. However, the spam I was getting from these sites was horrendous. Mostly unintelligent and I kept thinking "errr... did you actually read my CV/resume at all ?? !"

The trouble it's not just the full on recruitment firms, but any idiot that thinks they can become a one man/woman recruitment agent like some sort of IT version of a sports agent. Grab your CV off one of these sites and push it out to potential clients and only let you know anything about this missuse when they get a sniff on your CV (if it looks profitable enough) and then emial/phone you like they are doing you some sort of favour. Offer you as little as possible so they can slice the best they can from the actual hourly rate and bingo! they are in the money for a little bit of proactive research at the keyboard. Utter scumbags! [well.. I suppose you can't blame them for tryng in this day and age - If you're mug enough to be missused then that's your problem as far as they are concerned]

We all realise it is tough when you are starting out in our profession and we have all been through the same process to get where we are. [admittedly it is sooo much tougher now with so many trying to get into IT in some form] I have been messing about with computers for 25 years and for the last 15 years actually making a living out of it, so I will gladly relate a more intelligent way of looking for your first break/ the next move on than becoming food for these bottom feeders.

What I used to do before I landed this really sweet permanent deal I am on now, was not to post my resume/CV anywhere in the hope someone somewhere would be nice, feel pity and sort me out. What I did was to think logically [that's our best talent remember] and look through the regular job ad web pages and look at the agencies with the above board jobs ... and plenty of them!, typical proper salaries/hourly rates/working hours/etc, reasonable requirements/certifications and plenty of these jobs in the area I was willing to commute to. [Back in the day, I had this whole daily downloaded csv to access db conversion process going then hitting my queries so that I could stay upto the minute on where the best agency to target actually was]

What this incoming data actually meant is that the resulting agencies get client companies coming to them a lot and on a regular basis. Now you have to think that there is a real reason for this - we are not the only ones who worry about dodgy agencies/ one man bands - the end client is just as nervous of hiring a bum steer, paying through the nose for it and eventually going to another agency that supplies the good quality resources they were after in the first place.

Once you find these agencies, you go to them and give it your best pitch of why they should represent you and how punting you out could make them money. Their clients, once they know they are onto a good thing, will stick to that agency for ages until they find someting better and that is where you are actually getting the proper agency/agent relationship you actually wanted in the first place! Not only will you get nice jobs coming your way on a regular basis but you will be able to get them one after the other in the direction you want to go. [I won't tell you the agency who regulary supplied me with work for four continous years just in case this nice sweet permanent deal ever falls through - we all have to protect our sources in the long term no matter what]

With so many of these scum feeding of our infant proper profession (that's a whole other debate of mine), we have to use our talents intelligently in order to get to the end result we want and certainly not hoping for some shark to take pity on our application and then end up raping us for whatever they can get out of us.

So, do your own research using your own talents and skills to target more effectively because if your not doing it, some bottom feeding scumbag will! Remember, if some wise guy contacts you offering less than you could get at McDonalds flipping burgers, tell them to get stuffed and go for the free lunch option.