Resume Building/Help

Typhon66

Now that i am certified and such i want to take my old resume, that had stuff about me working as a landscaper, freight crew for a grocery store etc. And turn it into one that might get pulled to be hired for a help desk sort of thing.

Technically i have help desk-like experience, been "kind of" working for myself having people call and such with issues they are having, 9 times out of 10 they don't do routine maintenance on their PC, but that's a whole different story.

Anyway, so where would be a good place to start? I'll attach my old resume i used when looking for any minimum wage job i could get -_-.

How would i take this, and turn it into one that would

A) Display my CompTIA A+ certificate.
Explain my experience working as Tech support
C) Look good to employers

Resume take 2.pdf

Thanks for the help in advanced i really appreciate it. -Typhon

Typhon66

Alright so i fixed it up a bit, reworded some stuff and added in a section for my certifications, which as of now is only 1. How does this look so far? Rip it apart if need be i am not looking to be commended i am looking to get a job.

To be honest since, like i said, i want to find hopefully a help desk or other similar job to get some experience under my belt, i don't know if they non-IT jobs should even be ON the reusme. Although my work with the census bureau did teach me quite a bit about dealing with some very difficult people. And i did supervise employees with Company 2. Other than that i wouldn't imagine they would be much use. Should they even be included? If not how do i pad out the resume to make it longer than half a page?

Everyone

First part reads like an objective. You should avoid using objectives. The skills section you have reads more like a summary. A summary is what you should have at the top instead of that objective.

Usually I'd say ditch the skills section and try and work your skills into your experience section. However, I think you're trying to show skills that were not used at any of the jobs you've held, so maybe keep it, but work on it a little. Some of it should be moved to a summary, the rest could be tweaked a bit. Just be prepared to explain where you got those skills and how you think you'll be able to use them on a job.

Your paragraphs for each job don't need to be indented like that. You should have 1 empty line after each job to make it a little easier to read.

If you make those couple of changes, I think you'll have more than enough room to squeeze in a bullet or 2 of some accomplishments made at each job you have listed.

Typhon66

Alright so i dumped the objective entirely and turned it into a summary and revamped the skills a bit. The summary has, well, a general summary of my experience. The skills now lists specific things . As for the indentation i did that for visual effect originally but i think you are right i like it the other way better.

So i switched the job descriptions up a bit and reworded them. However. As for the accomplishments, how would i list them? Would it be as a bullet point under the job description? Also i don't know if i have enough room. So here is version 3. Which has all of that.

Version 4 i lowered the font size by 1 point and messed with the spacing a bit to give me a bit more room. Would version 4 be alright with accomplishments?

Oh, also i formatted it so that the phone/email and the job/date worked is in a table format with the borders removed.

I know the difference is slight but which version is better? With the reduced font of version 4 i should be able to put accomplishments for each job. But again, how do i list those?

Everyone

List the accomplishments as bullets underneath your responsibilities paragraphs.

You have an extra set of lines at the top that doesn't need to be there, and your name header is taking up quite a bit of space. If you run out of room trying to squeeze in accomplishments, you could shrink that top down a little.

Typhon66

Alright so i put in the accomplishments, a lowered the font on the top like you suggested. It was honestly a lot harder than i thought it would be to come up with accomplishments that weren't simply responsibilities but after looking up some stuff on a resume helper website thing i think i got it down.

How does it look now?

ptilsen

The formatting is generally good, but always list months on work experience. Other than that, I would be nitpicking to really talk about the formatting.

I would remove your address. It's a waste of space and serves no purpose. List certifications alongside education in a "qualifications" section, or something of that nature.

I also wouldn't list graduation dates, especially not for high school. In fact, I probably wouldn't even list high school, given a college degree. Certainly, with a 2008 graduation date it makes it hard to take the Company 2 job seriously.

Personally, I would take the summary out entirely. I certainly wouldn't says "Over ten years of experience...". Your resume shows two years of professional IT experience, you have a two-year degree, and an A+. It seems to me you'd be applying for entry-level jobs. Over ten years of experience isn't consistent with the what you're going for, regardless of how much truth there is to it.

Now since you did freelance work fixing computers and the like, you can list that as work experience. If you can fill enough space with "freelance" work, it can fill a big gap for you. Depending on how you get it in there, you definitely could think about taking Company 2 off.

I would actually expand the skills section, especially for the entry-level. From what I can tell, you only have basic computer hardware and software knowledge. If that perception is wrong, you have to fix it, because I don't think my interpretation of your resume is going to be unique. As it stands, I would hire you, but only for a very entry-level basic helpdesk/DST sort of job and not paying that well. Having some expanded skill descriptions might make me hire you for a slightly better position with a slightly better wage.

Typhon66

I actually have already as i have been working on it a bit, taken out the high school graduation date. But i am curious as to how to expand my skills.

Honestly i really know quite a bit but without listing 20 different specific things i can't really figure out how to explain it on the resume itself. How should i go about doing that?

ptilsen

Typhon66 wrote: »

Honestly i really know quite a bit but without listing 20 different specific things i can't really figure out how to explain it on the resume itself. How should i go about doing that?

If you can really get it into only 20 different things it shouldn't be too challenging to list them all. Bullet points and/or tables can be an effective method.