Resume Critique

smg1138

I've been putting out my resume for about 6 weeks now and have only had 1 interview in that time. I'm starting to get worried because I'm not even getting callbacks for jobs I'm totally qualified for. I chalk a lot of that up to the current economic climate, but I'm wondering if my resume could use improvement as well? I've never been a great resume writer, but I've really worked on trying to make it better. The main thing I'm worried about is that I might look like a job hopper due to the number of jobs I've had over the last 4.5 years. It wasn't intentional, but due to various circumstances like needing a higher salary, being laid off, and doing contract work, it just turned out that way. I'd appreciate any feedback and tips you guys can offer to help me improve it. Thanks.

phantasm

The experience sections looks great to me! I like that part.

The first thing I wonder is did you remove your name and contact details just to post the resume or do you not have it on their at all? If you don't have it on there then you will want to add it.

The next thing I would recommend is change your summary to a free flowing paragraph style that summarizes your skillset.

Then as for your technical skills, put them into a bullet list. Right now they look like a conglomerate of meta tages and honesty, I didn't read them all because it's to busy. Also, add action words that stae what you know about that device or software.

I would also add "Certifications" as its own heading and place it under "Education".

ipconfig.all

Looks good, you seem to have some solid experience in I.T to back up your certifications.

smg1138

Thanks for the suggestions. My normal resume has my name and contact info at the top, but I removed before posting it here for privacy. I may try using bullets for my technical area and see how that works out. It may be difficult to make room for it all though. I was intending it to be like a keyword search area for those resume scanners to pick up.

N2IT

smg1138 wrote: »

Thanks for the suggestions. My normal resume has my name and contact info at the top, but I removed before posting it here for privacy. I may try using bullets for my technical area and see how that works out. It may be difficult to make room for it all though. I was intending it to be like a keyword search area for those resume scanners to pick up.

Looks solid. I have my education and certifications in the same section, but that's not a recommendation I am just offering how I do it.

Looks solid to me. BTW great experience.

apr911

As a person who has done hiring in the past there are several things that stand out to me...

You have a very large number of Technical Proficiencies listed. Are you prepared to talk, in depth, about each one? A lot of managers, myself included, look at technical proficiencies and see them as a place to trip candidates up. A lot of candidates tend to go with a "well, Ive worked with it so it can go on my resume" attitude and in reality they either arent proficient at all or they dont have any depth with it. They also do this to get passed the keyword search, so most managers immediately discount it anyway for the interview selection process and only use it when interviewing to weed out candidates.

Personally I would recommend getting rid of the proficiency section. Embed your proficiencies in your resume and job descriptions. It will get you passed the keyword searches and it will show the hiring manager just what sort of work you did with those technologies, at which point, they can make determination just how advanced you are in those topics.

For example.
Windows XP/Vista/7 proficiency.
Using Job 2 Computer Forensics Technician
Bullet 2.

Instead of
"Added workstation and servers to the domain and managed all accounts in Active Directory"

I would try
"Added Windows XP/Vista/7 workstations and Windows Server 2003/2008 servers to the domain and managed all accounts in Windows 200x Active Directory"

I would also recommend spelling out dates. Instead of 1/2006, do January 2006. 1/2006 looks lazy and only hiring managers are allowed to be lazy (which means, no time or thought process available to convert numbers to months).

I also dont know if its due to the privacy edits or if it actually is the case but you dont really need to re-list the company in the bullet points...

You have several bullet points where you say something along the lines of the 1st bullet point of the last job on your resume

[FONT=&quot]Resolved technical issues for ***Edited for Privacy*** customers via phone, email and remote assistance[/FONT]

You already specified what company you are working for. No need to reiterate, unless of course you were doing support for another company as part of your job at the company listed, in which case, its good to put it on there but you should check with your previous employer to ensure there were no privacy agreements between the 2 before doing so.

I also see some things that could help within your job bullet points that could use some tweaking. To that end Ill just say that reading your resume, it is very wordy. Try not to write a sentence when a word will do (extreme example)... Basically you need to balance bullet length with actual duties things such as who did your offsite backup tape storage wont matter to a hiring manager.

Also try not to write a paragraph when a sentence will do (again extreme example). You need to balance job responsibility length with expectations of the role. For example I would already expect a Technical Analyst to know how to add computers to a domain. Try to list your more advanced job functions, the simple stuff naturally follows that. I know it doesnt but the best example I can give would be your resume says something along the lines of "Deployed Windows Failover Clustering for SQL" I would automatically assume since you know how to build a cluster, you know how to use a cluster and do simple management tasks like failover cluster resources so you dont need to list that.

I could give you feedback on each job individually but I think I gave you enough to get a pretty good start. If you want some more advice Id definitely be happy to provide it but I think making the already advised changes will clean up your resume a great deal, highlighting your experiences and make it flow much nicer.

za3bour

apr911 wrote: »

As a person who has done hiring in the past there are several things that stand out to me...

You have a very large number of Technical Proficiencies listed. Are you prepared to talk, in depth, about each one? A lot of managers, myself included, look at technical proficiencies and see them as a place to trip candidates up. A lot of candidates tend to go with a "well, Ive worked with it so it can go on my resume" attitude and in reality they either arent proficient at all or they dont have any depth with it. They also do this to get passed the keyword search, so most managers immediately discount it anyway for the interview selection process and only use it when interviewing to weed out candidates.

Personally I would recommend getting rid of the proficiency section. Embed your proficiencies in your resume and job descriptions. It will get you passed the keyword searches and it will show the hiring manager just what sort of work you did with those technologies, at which point, they can make determination just how advanced you are in those topics.

For example.
Windows XP/Vista/7 proficiency.
Using Job 2 Computer Forensics Technician
Bullet 2.

Instead of
"Added workstation and servers to the domain and managed all accounts in Active Directory"

I would try
"Added Windows XP/Vista/7 workstations and Windows Server 2003/2008 servers to the domain and managed all accounts in Windows 200x Active Directory"

I would also recommend spelling out dates. Instead of 1/2006, do January 2006. 1/2006 looks lazy and only hiring managers are allowed to be lazy (which means, no time or thought process available to convert numbers to months).

I also dont know if its due to the privacy edits or if it actually is the case but you dont really need to re-list the company in the bullet points...

You have several bullet points where you say something along the lines of the 1st bullet point of the last job on your resume

[FONT=&quot]Resolved technical issues for ***Edited for Privacy*** customers via phone, email and remote assistance[/FONT]

You already specified what company you are working for. No need to reiterate, unless of course you were doing support for another company as part of your job at the company listed, in which case, its good to put it on there but you should check with your previous employer to ensure there were no privacy agreements between the 2 before doing so.

I also see some things that could help within your job bullet points that could use some tweaking. To that end Ill just say that reading your resume, it is very wordy. Try not to write a sentence when a word will do (extreme example)... Basically you need to balance bullet length with actual duties things such as who did your offsite backup tape storage wont matter to a hiring manager.

Also try not to write a paragraph when a sentence will do (again extreme example). You need to balance job responsibility length with expectations of the role. For example I would already expect a Technical Analyst to know how to add computers to a domain. Try to list your more advanced job functions, the simple stuff naturally follows that. I know it doesnt but the best example I can give would be your resume says something along the lines of "Deployed Windows Failover Clustering for SQL" I would automatically assume since you know how to build a cluster, you know how to use a cluster and do simple management tasks like failover cluster resources so you dont need to list that.

I could give you feedback on each job individually but I think I gave you enough to get a pretty good start. If you want some more advice Id definitely be happy to provide it but I think making the already advised changes will clean up your resume a great deal, highlighting your experiences and make it flow much nicer.

I'm working on my CV as well and that's really some valuable information so thanks a lot.

it_consultant

I agree with the 2 points previously stated. Axe the proficiencies and work them into the descriptions of what you did at each company you worked for. Put your BS and certs right up top, you want people to have it in their head that you have a degree AND your MS certs. As it stands now, people probably don't even get down to your degree before they "next" your resume. Resumes are like news articles, all the things you think are most important should go first.