Take a crack at my resume please!

hiddenknight821

About time I decided to come here to ask you guys for help. I am going to attend a career workshop this weekend in Seattle that's going to help me improve my resume. Before I go there, I would also like to get second opinions here in advance since the workshop I am going to attend are really for computer science, software engineer, computer engineer, and electrical engineer folks. They probably don't understand the "IT" way of doing things and why I have certain certs and skill on my resume.

Before we do some critiques on my resume, first I would like to get some feedback on the format. I have two formats:

Format A (January 2012)
Format B (June 2012)

By the way, the only thing that's real on my resumes are the job description. The school and employers names are fake as well as their locations except for WGU. Once I get some feedback on the formatting, I'm gonna come back here with an updated resume, and that's when we can do some serious critiquing.

hiddenknight821 wrote: »

UPDATE: You can scroll down or click the little arrow above to my latest post.

taternuts666

I personally prefer Format A. I think it looks a little "cleaner". Just my opinion.

hiddenknight821

I always thought the Format A is too cluttered. I actually had to change the font size for the job description to 10pt, but some said it was an eye-sore. The margin was also also adjusted. I plan to remove the Objective statement if Format A is in favor to make rooms for another job missing but I will get to that later.

dave330i

Lots of white space in format B. Personally prefer format A.

I prefer the following layout:
-Objective
-Certs
-Skill
-Experience
-Education

You can drop honors to give yourself more room. You could also drop the skill section and incorporate them into your experience section to build it out.

hiddenknight821

@dave330i:The fact that you think I should keep my objective statement just piqued my interest. Can you elaborate why I should keep it? I will tell you why I think I should remove it. I recalled few members here who had their resumes critiqued, and they were told to take the objective statements out, because it's already implied that they wanted the position that they are applying for. We don't need to state the obvious. An objective statement can backfire if it doesn't fit with what the hiring manager has in mind. He would probably do me a "favor" and not hire me, because he didn't meet my expectation when in fact I wasn't being demanding. I thought objective statement was a place where I can say what I would like to do, but I don't mind anything at all, but I had the wrong idea.

dave330i

My bad. Went back and looked over my current resume. My current layout is:

-Summary
-Cert
-Clearance
-Education
-Experience

hiddenknight821

Haha, no problem. That's what I thought.

Qord

I like A better. B is good, it just doesn't take full advantage of the available real estate. Maybe if you tried to shift the left margin of the body text over it might look nicer and be more efficient.

Either way, I'd like to see your "skills" higher on the list.

hiddenknight821

Thanks for the inputs, Qord. I guess that concludes the poll on the formatting. I will get back to you guys once I fully update my resume.

USM_ITCboy

What I think you could do is integrate the "Honors/Activities" section into your "Education" depending on what you accomplished at what school. Also, your "Experience" reads the oldest to most recent. I would start with my most recent & work my way down. The 3rd thing is making your titles like "Objectives", "Education", etc. stand out a little more. Either from bolding, underlining, or something like that. Just my opinion. I also REALLY like how Format_A looks.

hiddenknight821

Here's the moment we have been waiting for. I decided to update the Format A resume, and so far it doesn't look very pretty. I need to be more verbose in some areas, and may need to remove/add some stuff. That's where you guys come in.

-Here is the updated resume
-Here is the previous version (Format A)

What I am looking for is an entry-level IT job. I hope to keep this resume as generic as possible as I am having a hard time to sell myself in one area with few short-term job experiences that may has nothing to do with what I wanted to do. I had wanted to work in networking (NOC), help desk support (preferably no phone calls), or entry-level security analyst apprentice-ship. Now I'm trying to shoot for a Linux admin role, but I can't see how I can get there without the required certifications to make myself marketable. I am currently working on my RHCSA, but I have a long way to go.


Changes I made to format A:

1. Removed Project+ from the Certification section: I can't even talk about what I crammed for WGU.

2. Removed Honors/Activities: I don't think it's necessary for me to list them anymore since I'm not a college noob, but if I'm wrong and you think it's noteworthy to list them, then let me know.

3. Added WGU Master: I listed it, hoping that it's clear that I'm a candidate in the program. Unless, if you think this may hurt me if I list it on my resume, then please say so.

4. Added CCNA Security (640-553):

5. Added a job: that I had as a consultant back in February which only lasted a month.

Questions I have for those critiquing:

1. In the Education section, I listed my master and my bachelor from WGU. Although, I am not officially done with my bachelor as I have to wait until the end of the term (12/31/12) despite the fact that I completed all the coursework. I also can't officially declare that I'm in the master program as I don't have any document to prove it. (Look in my signature). How do I list them on my degree?

2. Should I remove the Freelance PC Tech Support job? I will have whitespace, but I figured I can use that space maybe to expand more on the skill area or add the Honor/Activity section back to my resume.

3. Are my writing structures and word usages severely lacking? I am not comfortable with what I wrote, but I just think it's funny that I probably wouldn't hire me because of how mediocre I sounded.

4. Someone suggested I should add a summary section. Should I? I explained that I had a hard time selling myself.


As always, other feedback is welcome. Thank you for your time.

dave330i

It's better than first one posted.
1. I would drop the M.S. You're just starting your masters program.
2. Summary is important. It tells who you are very early. You can change it based on the jobs your applying.
3. You have mixture of present & past tense.
4. Under experience, it should be title first, so Jr. System Analyst (Summer Intern).
5. You still need more details per bullet point. For example list the tools you used to check the compliance of internal servers.
6. I have mixed feeling about the freelance work. It shows you've been keeping busy, but it doesn't match rest of your experience & its the first experience on your list.

hiddenknight821

Thanks dave330i. About that freelance job, I'm not a 1099 worker. I'm just doing this for friends and families. Judging by your responses, I think I should go ahead and remove that since it's irrelevant.

About the details per bullet point, I thought I shouldn't use more than 5 bullets per job. Beside, I have been at the jobs for 3 months or less, so I have a hard time to talk about a bunch of things. I actually pulled that sentence you read from the job description they gave me when I started. I couldn't remember the name of the tools since it was done only twice in 4 weeks. I was in training, but I do understand the concept. Honestly, I feel like I have no real experience yet since some of these jobs I had didn't give me enough task to actually reiterate my responsibilities off the top of my head. The job at the bottom is the only one that I know in and out. I felt like a gopher at the rest of the jobs I listed but I can't blame them since that's what internship is for.

By the way, your feedback is duly noted! I'm gonna add the summary, have someone proofread for grammar and tenses, and I just removed my master. Thanks again.

dave330i

Its not more bullet point, but more details per bullet point. Ideally, each bullet should include what you did & why you did it (about 2 full lines worth of detail).

Iristheangel

I'm going to disagree with Dave on 1 & 2. I have the M.S. program on my resume because I think showing that your committed to furthering your education is important. One thing I would recommend doing is removing is the city and state of the educational institutions. My opinion is that if they want to ask you where the school is in the interview, I'll volunteer it and explain that it was through a distanced learning program but it's better to avoid being dismissed right off the bat. If I'm in an interview, I'm able to explain and prove my technical knowledge as opposed to having my resume dismissed due to someone else's ignorance before I get the chance. As far as #2, I've taken the Summary off of my resume and it hasn't hurt me. It freed up a lot of space so I could fill it with my education, certifications, and experience but to each their own.

The past and present mixture is important. Be sure to put down where you were an intern or working as a contractor in parenthesis. As far as aesthetics, I would probably bold the headers (Education, Certifications, Experiences), drop the :'s, underline them and center them. I'd also move the technical skills to the middle of the resume between Certifications and Experience. That's just my recommendation though

Iristheangel

I'm bored this morning at work and trying to procrastinate studying so I apologize for the liberties I just took. I rewrote your resume under my format, changed some of the tense and wording, and rearranged it a little. It's still longer than one page but when you're posting your resume on Dice, Monster, Indeed, etc, that isn't as important since they're looking for you. The actual resume you might directly send to an employer or bring to an interview should be one page in length so I would recommend cutting out the technical skills portion and cleaning out some of the bullet points when that time comes. Anyways, this is just for ideas and I typed this out REALLY quickly so pardon if I messed anything up:
https://www.box.com/s/ad6dea5b449e3953d95e (PDF)
https://www.box.com/s/c4d9a052b8ca599ce78b (RTF so you can edit)

I noticed you had a lot of internship/contract work on your resume. If it gets brought up in an interview, I would place emphasis that you've been making a living by being self-employed, it's given you a great opportunity to make a lot of money and get exposure to a large amount of technology/issues, blah blah blah but your passion is working in an enterprise-scale environment doing (whatever you're applying for). Talk about how passionate you are about it and how your background has only served to make you a better employee for them to hire.

hiddenknight821

@Iris: Wow, Iris! I'm speechless. I dunno what to say other than thank you. Your suggestions are remarkable, and the fact that you edited my resume with your template just made me blush. I will definitely consider your template when I test the market. I had no idea Dice accepts two pages, but what you said makes so much sense now.

Although, I have to ask you this. Why should I remove the locations of the schools? I just realized one of the jobs I listed gave the location away, and I thought it wouldn't matter since they couldn't tell I physically attended those school. Sure, they can do a google search and find out anyways. Wouldn't some employers have a blacklist of school names they would automatically filter out? I definitely don't want to work for them. I'm not trying to be negative as I was being optimistic about the schools I attended by listing them on my resume. The first one was actually a B&M.

Iristheangel

Many of those job boards don't display the resume as 1 or 2 pages. They just display them on one continues page so if you got slightly longer than one page, you're fine. Please be sure to read the bullet points I put in. I reworded a lot of the redundant descriptions and tried to make it less "fluffy" sounding.

About the whole school location thing, once you get into an interview and can prove your skill, it doesn't matter. At that point, you're selling them on your personality and skills. Before you get to that point, your resume may exchange several hands including an HR manager, IT manager, and the actual engineer team that could have some input into whether you're hired or not. In my opinion, I wouldn't make it easy for one ignorant person in that process to discount my resume by easily showing that I completed my degree online. Yes, they can Google it and, if asked during the interview, I'm 100% honest about it, but at that point, I'm at the interview and I'm selling them on everything else I bring to the table. They can put a face, personality, and experience to the resume at that point. It's a lot harder for them to discount me out of ignorance when I'm running circles around them in the interview.

Anyways, that's my logic behind it. I haven't put my school city on my resume yet so maybe I would fare just as well if I did put it on. Who knows. I act with integrity but I also craft my resume to be flexible and give me the best chance at getting the job I want.

hiddenknight821

Okay. That makes sense. I guess I can ask some people for their opinions about this later this Friday. I cant' wait! Although, I'm a bit nervous about flying to Seattle again. I will get back to you guys on this next week to see what their opinions are. Thanks again.