Ehnde's Resume Thread

ehnde

Last night's nightmare about not being able to find a job when I graduate this May and consequently being evicted, leaving my family homeless inspired me to work on my resume some more

There is a little extra space at the bottom of the first page. I'll be adding Security+ and CCNA under the certifications section within the next couple of months (I hope).

I figured out I need $16/hour MINIMUM to make it, and I'm concerned I'm not worth that much as a new grad in my area (Western Kentucky.....Ft. Campbell/Hopkinsville, Bowling Green, Owensboro area...maybe Evansville, IN). No car payments, not much debt...just standards bills, food, shelter, and friggin child support.

I appreciate and welcome your feedback!

ehnde

I clicked upload, but my resume didn't make it up here, and I couldn't add it by editing my last post. Second attempt!

cyberguypr

I've been going through a lot of resumes lately for a couple of IT positions my company has open. Here's my take:
- Move certs closer to the top
- Evaluate using bullet points to list your core competencies or summary of skills right after the summary
- Show how you are different from the bunch by listing Key Accomplishments for every job
- When I look at resumes I want to know what OS, apps and tools the candidate has experience with. For example, you say "data backup and retrieval" but does that mean Windows Backup or NetBackup, ARCServ, Avamar?
- Although debatable, I rather see 'experience' before 'education'. I want to know what you've done and then find out the rest

ltgenspecific

cyberguypr wrote: »

- Although debatable, I rather see 'experience' before 'education'. I want to know what you've done and then find out the rest

Many great ways to do a resume aside, I agree with this whole heartedly. If you have relevant work experience, list it first. Education should be at the bottom of a resume or on the side panel if you've had a resume professionally built for you (which is always where "they" put it for you when you pay someone to do it, lol).

The exception is made for recent graduates. List it at the top if you want to brag about a degree / academic accomplishment due to lack of extensive work experience.

(And that's it for me... 3 comments on 3 resume threads... I should get back to work...)

Zaits

I'd recommend staying away from MS templates and create your own format if possible. This one has been seen 10000x and doesn't make your resume stand out from the rest. I also agree that the education should be swapped with experience especially if you don't have a degree. If you are going to use bullet points I recommend staying consistent and put bullet points with the rest of your job experience. I'd write more, but I'm sick and I'm going to sleep now... GL!

ehnde

Thank you all for your advice. It's a little bit of a relief that no one has come along and said "HOLY CRAP WHAT A BADLY WRITTEN RESUME!" I will make the adjustments you guys suggested and post a revision. It could take awhile to do it right, but well worth it.

darkerz

I skimmed over the resume. What I noticed most was; Low amount of certs coupled with generalist IT degree, but a lot of skills listed- I just saw names, nothing that got my interest. Sort of vague why its there. Great experience, seriously, but more key words about specific applications and technologies would be amazing rather then just "Virus Removal" if you get what im saying.

I don't want to be that "guy" but I guarantee if I wasn't able to discern your specialty or what you really... want to actually do or where you are.. or are specialized for in terms of work, then HR certainly won't.

ehnde

darkerz wrote: »

I skimmed over the resume. What I noticed most was; Low amount of certs coupled with generalist IT degree, but a lot of skills listed- I just saw names, nothing that got my interest. Sort of vague why its there. Great experience, seriously, but more key words about specific applications and technologies would be amazing rather then just "Virus Removal" if you get what im saying.

I don't want to be that "guy" but I guarantee if I wasn't able to discern your specialty or what you really... want to actually do or where you are.. or are specialized for in terms of work, then HR certainly won't.

Thank you, I'll be more specific about the use of Hiren's boot cd and anti-virus software...not sure how to phrase something like "mounting hard drives containing the windows operating system under linux to extract users files and safely scan for viruses". Have to give that some thought. I'll go skill-by-skill and try to exchange the skill listed with the specific utility or software involved.

In a sense, writing a decent 1 - 2 page resume is more difficult than writing a 20 page paper

Essendon

I'll chime in with my opinion.

* Get rid of the I in the Summary section. Keep it consistent throughout the resume. I'd reword your Summary with " Skilled engineer with MCTS and A+ certifications specializing in troubleshooting multiple vendor hardware and software configurations. Experienced in <insert whatever here>

* Move certs up or better still have just one section saying "Certs/Education". List the certs first and then the education. Keep it short. You dont seem entry level so cut the bits about any knowledge you developed and what your studies focused on. Keep that for the interview if that's brought up. IMO, expanding on the studies is a huge waste of white space.

* I cannot stress enough that a resume should be readable. BULLET POINTS are a must to make a resume readable. Yours is ok since the font is good and you havent written paragraphs, but still chuck in some bullet points and you'll be surprised how much better your resume will look.

* Get rid of that stupid skills section. I call it stupid because you might think that the interviewer will be like " O this guy's got a lot of skills, let's hire him". NO. It'll be more like " Ok you say you have these skills, let's ask you a few questions". And there are heaps and heaps of questions that can trip ya. Dont mean to be a d!ckhead, but that's how I look at the skills section. If I see a section saying skills and it's got AD/DNS/DHCP, the candidate is in for a grilling.

HTH!

N2IT

ehnde wrote: »

I clicked upload, but my resume didn't make it up here, and I couldn't add it by editing my last post. Second attempt!

I always like an objective.

I really like your resume I think it's laid out nicely and makes sense. But I would like to see an objective. The education is nice, but I want you to tell me what you want. I want to be a virtualization admin or whatever and here is why I would be good for your company.

I've been doing that a lot lately and they eat that up.

mikedisd2

Essendon wrote: »

Get rid of that stupid skills section. I call it stupid because you might think that the interviewer will be like " O this guy's got a lot of skills, let's hire him". NO. It'll be more like " Ok you say you have these skills, let's ask you a few questions". And there are heaps and heaps of questions that can trip ya. Dont mean to be a d!ckhead, but that's how I look at the skills section. If I see a section saying skills and it's got AD/DNS/DHCP, the candidate is in for a grilling.

Absolutely, that's why I don't have a Skills section on my resume; I don't want to be called out on anything in particular. Yes, I've worked with it and built infrastructure but I couldn't describe it like a poindexter.

The skills listed are pretty much what every sys admin ought to know anyway. Experience with these technologies can go in the work history.

Education looks a bit bloated to me; could be squashed to 6-10 lines. Never seen a description of a certificate/course before. I don't see why this resume couldn't be condensed to a single page.

Experience section lacks consistency. As Essendon said, go with bullet points for everything, no paragraphs. I see CSS, HTML, JavaScript, PHP, and XML is already listed so doesn't need to be repeated in a Skills section.

Personally I don't care for objectives but others do so it's up to you. Probably alot of conflicting info here Remember, things you want to boast about can also go in your cover letter.

ehnde

I can't tell you guys how many times I've read the comments in this thread. Did my best to logically implement all suggestions. Does this look better? Do I need to maybe make any additional changes? It feels cleaner, more professional.

A few explanations:

• CCNA listed as in progress. That's more of a placeholder for me. I'm taking the exam in a week. Two weeks tops.
• Is the education/certifications TOO brief? Or just right?
• I listed my web dev experience under "Additional Technology Experience" because I don't feel too comfortable having it listed as job experience. It's a company I've created...and to be completely honest I've made less than $1000 doing it. Yet at the same time I don't feel it should be completely disregarded. It's something of a side job.

Dammit now you guys have me stuck in bullets mode.

networker050184

Its laid out pretty much exactly like mine so I like the layout.

I'd work on the Summary a bit. It doesn't really sell your experience much. Its basically just a redundant list of your certifications.

For the CCNA I'd list it as "Currently pursuing the CCNA" or something like that rather than the parenthesis you have now.

Why do you have the Additional Technology Experience section? If its a job just put it under the Employment section.

I'd get rid of some of the white space and try to make it one page. If you can't then I wouldn't really worry about it though.

mikedisd2

This is looking a lot better now. Try to get the format consistent; spacing between sections are uneven, ie. single and double line spaces.

I edited your resume in Word and I can get this all onto one page easily with space to spare by removing the description lines under each company listed in the work experience section. But I had to remove one of the jobs. ABC Staffing, Technician III, 2010-Present isn't too impressive and should be replaced with your developer job. Web skills are much more valuable than changing toner cartridges.

ehnde

I agree the web developer experience does look more impressive, but it was/is a private endeavor that I've made very little money at. It almost feels like I'm faking it to list it as one of my jobs. I considered leaving it off completely.

mikedisd2

ehnde wrote: »

I agree the web developer experience does look more impressive, but it was/is a private endeavor that I've made very little money at. It almost feels like I'm faking it to list it as one of my jobs. I considered leaving it off completely.

If you feel that the dev work was a negligible amount of experience then don't include it but still list the skills in your skillset as they have alot of value.

In this case, maybe try beefing up the ABC Staffing, Technician III, 2010-Present listing. Instead of 'replaced toner cartridges', try something like 'maintained continuity of all office equipment'.

For the CCNA in progress, include a time frame, i.e., completion April 2011. As mentioned in other threads, including a certification on your resume but not actually holding it can get you blacklisted with some employers. At least show you have a due date of when it will be completed. On my resume I have a sub-heading of Certification Path Plan, with what I'm looking to achieve and when I plan to have it done. This separates clearly what I have and don't current'y have.

I would have all entries in the Education/certs section listed with bullet points and indented in line with the rest of the resume. Write out AAS in full. Forget the dates.

Attain ITIL Foundations v3. It's fairly quick to get and a great entry.