Resume Critique (or What Am I Doing Wrong?!)

ampersand

For the past two months, I've been applying to a myriad of enterprise IT positions and following up with recruiters, networking with friends, colleagues, and business partners, and anything else I can think of to get a new job. And I've gotten zero interviews. None, zip, zilch.

I was hoping to receive some feedback from my resume, specifically:
What can I improve?
Are there any keywords related to my experience I'm missing?
Once I receive the Microsoft certifications I've been studying for, where should the "certifications" header/content be located in my resume?
Can I include those Microsoft certifications as "in progress"?
...and anything else you can think of to answer.

Thank you! Any feedback you can provide is appreciated.

mattlee09

If they are looking for an MCDST and you have "MCDST in progress" and your resume gets sorted to the MCDST pile and picked up for a look, I'd be willing to bet they'd be more upset than anything else.

You should definitely mention it in an interview, but I wouldn't include it as that on your resume.

IMO the certifications section should be between your Summary and Technical Skills.

As far as critique, move your Education section to right below your Summary.

Sorry to hear about your lack of luck this far - All you can do is continue to improve your skills/marketability and let the rest fall into place. It'll happen for you soon enough, keep on trucking and networking/filling out those apps!

NetworkingStudent

ampersand wrote: »

For the past two months, I've been applying to a myriad of enterprise IT positions and following up with recruiters, networking with friends, colleagues, and business partners, and anything else I can think of to get a new job. And I've gotten zero interviews. None, zip, zilch.

I was hoping to receive some feedback from my resume, specifically:
What can I improve?
Are there any keywords related to my experience I'm missing?
Once I receive the Microsoft certifications I've been studying for, where should the "certifications" header/content be located in my resume?
Can I include those Microsoft certifications as "in progress"?
...and anything else you can think of to answer.

Thank you! Any feedback you can provide is appreciated.

• I’m just trying breaking into IT, but I have been editing my resume a lot to make it more marketable. I would say try to list your jobs and title experience. Also, you should list 3 or 4 bullet points for each job and mention briefly what you did , or do.

• Next I would have a section called CERTIFICATIONS or PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT and here you can list your certifications or professional organizations you belong to. You could list this under yourtechnical skills section.

• Any cert that is “in progress” you can mention it in your cover letter.

Good Luck, hope this helps

MickQ

Hi &

To be honest, at first glance, it's a mess.
First off, your summary is one very long sentence. Convert it to 3 bullet points. There's far too much information which is cluttered around itself. You need to simplify, be brief and succinct.
Don't be afraid of indenting lines and using bullet points. Just remember that it has to flow nicely and be easy on the eyes.

Eg.
Operating Systems: Windows (XP, Vista, 7), Mac OS (10.4 “Tiger”, 10.5 “Leopard”, 10.6 “Snow Leopard”)
Hardware: PCs (desktops, laptops, netbooks, tablets), printers, cellphones (Blackberry, Android, iOS), broadband cards (embedded, hotspot, USB), networking (routers, hubs/switches)
Software: Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook; Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, and Chrome; Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign
Utilities: Windows Powershell and Command Prompt, Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK)

Messy

Here:
Operating Systems: Windows XP to 7; Mac OS X.
Hardware: PCs, printers, cellphones (including Blackberry), networking (LAN and WAN access).
Software: Microsoft Office, Web broswers, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.
Utilities: CLI (including Powershell), Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK), ===Whatever other utils you've used===

Don't forget that you're targeting an employer and you've got to sound interesting and hit all the notes that let them know you're able to take care of their systems or at the very least, that you'll be able to with some training.

There's a lot more that could be included in the following sentence (not in your resume), but it still sums up a lot.
"Building, selling, installing and maintaining PCs, LANs, and phone systems."

If you want, PM me and I'll send you my resume to give you an idea of layout. You shouldn't need to though, as there are quite a few decent samples out there.

it_consultant

Your resume is not necessarily total crap, let me just give you an idea of what jumps out at me. It looks REALLY entry level, you list three years of experience but the resume has the feel of someone that has much less experience. I have a feeling that you really are that entry level and you are needing to get into corporate job in a help desk role. You should tune your resume for that purpose. Its hard to get that first IT job out of the gate so keep plugging away, I think your experience mirrors a lot of entry level IT people out there right now.

ehnde

Everyone prior to my post covered it. Repost with corrections so we can dissect it again. With work on your resume, you will get calls.

One thing to add: don't call yourself a PC technician. How about Information Technology Professional? Or Information Systems Analyst?