Critique my resume please!!

jovan88

be as harsh as you like

I didn't put experience first because I hardly have any

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Comments

BradleyHU

you dont need the references on ya resume...
me personally, i would seperate Education & Certifications

paintb4707

The non technical skills and references don't need to be listed. Especially the "can translate IT Jargon" line.

Overall I think the resume needs to be re-worded, I don't really see anything that stands out and convinces me that you're an intellectual person. I'm drawing a blank right now, but for starters you could change "individually conducted" to "independently". Careful with these though, if you work on a team then make it so. People don't like to hear ME ME ME, instead make it WE WE WE.

I know people on here will also frown upon listing "Technical Skills" that you don't necessarily have a working knowledge in. It's better to list your skills in job descriptions and write a detailed summary on how you applied them.

Here's an excerpt from my resume:

Increased server availability by performing a split migration of a promoted Exchange server, hardware independent image-based backups, implemented redundant server hardware, and Double-Take replication and failover

Now if you break that into separate parts, you can see I'm listing experience with the following:

- Maintaining server availability and up-time of mission critical services

Everything below are things that I felt contributes to this...

- Migration and implementation of Exchange servers and Domain Controllers

- Hardware independent image-based backups

- Server redundancy (RAID, etc)

- Double-Take Replication/Failover

I was in the same boat as you not too long ago. I didn't have any experience so I wanted some way to show that I still knew my stuff, but you have to keep in mind that if you don't have working knowledge with skills that you're listing then their value is completely obsolete. Might actually hurt you more than help because it may seem like you're just trying to list technical keywords and abbreviations for the hell of it. It all comes down to making the interview and having the ability to sell yourself and show that you can learn fast.

dynamik

Why didn't you put the months you were in high school? It looked like it took you five years at first glance

Use a consistent tense (probably past) for your experience items.

Show what results you achieved, don't just list off items. i.e. Backups and restoration => Ensured availability and integrity of data through disaster recovery operations

Do the same with things like the team meetings item. That basically tells me you can sit in a chair and talk. I think most people would assume you're capable of that. What did you accomplish by contributing to team meetings?

Unless you're looking to get a position as a courier, I'd leave of the car and driver's license bit. I think you have a few items like that which really don't add anything to the resume. Trim it down. For where you are, you really shouldn't exceed a page. Play with the font size, spacing (you have a ton of unnecessary white space), etc. HR is going to glance at your resume as they're going through a stack. Condense it to the most important items.

If they want references, they'll ask. There's no reason to put them on your resume.

Don't forget to add your MS Paint skills. That's some fantastic editing you did there!

ilcram19-2

give little short experianciances in the technical skill area

Andretii

The experience section looks like a Technical Skill section. Be more specific on the technology. Ex: AD Administration - Created and managed users and groups. It might seem unnecessary but HR might not know what you mean if you don't put it easy for them.

jovan88

thanks guys

cisco_trooper

If you have graduated from college it is no longer necessary to list your high school. Also, since you have obtained the CCNA I personally probably wouldn't even list the CCNA course unless I needed to fill up some space. Also, I would separate the Certifications from your Education.

Leave off the non-technical skills and references.

References will be submitted on a different sheet. Take these to you with the interview so when they ask for references you can present them professionally and immediately.

In each job role you have held try to use some action words - don't just list the technologies but tell the prospective employer what you did with them. For instance and just as an example, let's say you deployed WSUS. Rather than just list:
- WSUS

say something like
- Deployed WSUS resulting in $XXX savings and more secure computing environment

Also, don't get discouraged. I've been working on my resume for 8 years and it still isn't perfect.