Network Engineer Resume

joeblow1234

Hello,

I am a young networking engineer professional who graduated in 2008. I was wondering if I could get some feedback and guidance with my resume.

I removed all my personal information. I appreciate any insight pointers you could provide!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/o1i855xj665u772/Network-Engineer.pdf

For some reason the attach file did not work with my mac and the pdf, so I attached a dropbox link.

networker050184

I'd drop the big wall of words at the top and add a summary. If you have technologies you want to point out tell me what you did with them in your experience, not just list a a bunch of words that anyone can google up.

Do you have any other work experience besides what you listed? An internship and working at your school and now you are a senior engineer? Something just doesn't sit right with me about that.

joeblow1234

First some background:
I started as a network engineer in the Bank's training program (basically a leadership program tacked on to the role of network engineer). I was promoted to senior network engineer as a lead for my team Americas service delivery team 2 years ago. My new role, starting this fall, will be in the network engineering and architecture team. My past and present titles have all been supporting same company and have encompassed the same responsibilities.

I see exactly what you mean about progression. It does not help me to show it all as one position. Furthermore, Bank X outsourced the team to another firm. With this in mind, I am going to list the my progression as following:
-Network Engineer enrolled in the Bank's Leadership Training Program
-Senior Network Engineer outsourced to Company X
-Once I start my new role, Network Design & Architecture Engineer

On another note, I am going to look at highlighting uses of technologies in my work as opposed to mostly highlighting project and administrative responsibilities. Internally, the bank appreciates management of highly visible projects without regard to technologies utilized. I do want to keep the technologies and products somewhere on the resume as many of my recruiting (headhunters and corp HR) contacts stress the importance of the keywords so their tools can properly parse and capture my experience. For the few times I have submitted my resume out, I find that that section has helped to get me in the door. After that 90% of the interviewers just skim through your resume anyways. Hell I know I do when I interview someone. I am more of a salesman who can take up my experience in conversation.

Thanks for helping me shift my perspective! I knew I needed some feedback with the fact that my last resume I had anyone look at was for the internship at this bank.

Thanks again for the feedback! Updated resume to follow soon!

prtech

Just because he's a senior engineer now at that company doesn't mean he was hired as one.

joeblow1234

Exactly, I followed the consolidate positions within one company thought process. This is probably flawed for me because 1.) we were outsourced and still support Bank x. & 2.) I only have 4 years of professional experience.

How do you feel about the one page? I think I will have to separate it out to 2 pages with my next update.

Jackace

I am not at your level so my critique might not mean as much, but a list of protocols and hardware doesn't really tell me much. If I were hiring I would prefer to hear about projects/goals you have accomplished and how you accomplished them. This is where I would list protocols and hardware that was used if it is relevant.

On a side note you seem to have moved up fast. What kind of insight could you give someone that is 3 or so years behind you, but looking to move up? How do you get your foot in the door?

Iristheangel

If you had multiple position titles for the same company, I would recommend listing that. It'll make more sense to a potential employer so there isn't any confusion. Plus it looks a lot better if you show you started out as a network engineer and was promoted up. That actually looks better than staying in the same job title for four years straight. Not that there is anything wrong with that. It just looks BETTER to be promoted.

I always felt the "Summary" and "Technical Skills" portions of a resume are only necessary up until you have a certain amount of experience. Those sections are great at highlighting what you learned in classes or for more hits on HR word filters. After you have a decent amount of experience under your belt, you might as well scrap that portion and start adding more details about what you did under each position held. You can easily add your experience with routing protocols, WAN/LANs, and firewalls under the applicable experience.

Certifications and education should be together on your resume. A degree and certification both show that you have received some sort of education so grouping them apart isn't very logical. Since college education is usually considered more formal education, I would consider making that first on your resume. Then follow it by certifications and then experience.

joeblow1234

In response to Jackace:

I got my foot in the door though an internship as a server admin my junior/senior summer break. I can say that it is difficult to get your foot into a larger corporation. Many banks I applied to did not want anyone for the networking department with less than 5 years of professional experience in networking. The way I have seen people get their foot in the door at in the NYC area for the financial industry would be through short term contracting work. I know of many banks looking for short term work for everything from weekly server farm port churns to level one network support. To be honest, some of our best new hires have risen up to full time positions or longer term contracts through this method.

Once you get the foot in the door, first thing you should do is step up to the challenges your workplace provides. Being that the corporation I work at is so big, our roles are very siloed even within networking. Yet, I have not allowed that to pigeon hole me. My first team supported green zone LAN/WAN for branches, datacenters, and campuses but I have inserted myself into the entire regional network support from firewalls to proxies. When I first started I only had a CCNA with not much professional networking experience, and quite frankly large banks are slow to give write access to new hires. With that said, I took the initiative and I picked up a ton of group responsibilities for backend processes. Because I was willing to help with that people saw me as someone eager to learn and help not matter the task.

The combination of key departures and re-orgs within my department, along with my own eagerness to assist and learn, I have jumped in position and responsibilities quite substantially.

I always try to remember that for every time I reach out to someone for help on an issue or to learn some new tech, I should repay the gesture by helping the person with something even if it be tedious paperwork or process. If you cannot help with that you can at least pay it forward to someone else. Your reputation can only go up with that.

Basically all of my advice has nothing to do with technical expertise, because that comes easier with help from your peers. For interviews and yearly reviews just getting comfortable in one on one sessions selling yourself, your ability to work with others, and whatever tech you have utilized.

Jackace

joeblow1234 wrote: »

In response to Jackace:

I got my foot in the door though...

Thanks for the advice I appreciate it. I will definitely use your advice once I get my foot in the door somewhere. I'm still trying to get my foot in the door with a company that actually offers opportunity to advance. I have tried everything I can think of and I tried the advice given from others on this forum, but my current employer shot down everything. I offered to work for free, work nights, work weekends, etc, and they shot it all down. I have looked for a new job in my area, but there aren't many networking jobs in Idaho and the few that do show up they won't consider anyone that doesn't have experience already doing the job. After the first of the year I should be financially ready to move so I will be looking for places that can offer me that foot in the door. Your advice will come in handy then and I appreciate it.

networker050184

If you had multiple titles and worked up within the company to the senior level I'd definitely make that clear. That kind of upward movement will show a potential employer what kind of drive you have.

Overall I like the resume and wouldn't change much besides that.

joeblow1234

Well, I edited the resume, separated out the titles, and removed the technical section.

The hardware really does not matter on a resume. I think I covered everything from the technical section so it gets pulled into the HR databases.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qatcuu8rg2ujs7m/Network-Engineer-v2.pdf

I was able to keep it all under one page and at 10 font, so not too bad. I wish I could create better spacing in general for flow, but it just looks too short as 2 pages.

Thanks again for the feedback!

networker050184

I think it reads a lot better and show more career progression now. You might need to play with the formatting a bit to get it how you want it but I'd definitely be interested in this resume if it came across my desk.

VAHokie56

joeblow1234 wrote: »

My new role, starting this fall, will be in the network engineering and architecture team.

This sounds like fun and a promotion, if you don't mind me being nosy why are you tricking out the resume to leave?

joeblow1234

I am just doing some updating since the last time I had my resume critiqued was for I started with the bank. I really needed to go through this all before I add on my new responsibilities and blend the 3 roles together.

I am also doing this to help me when it comes time to talk compensation for the new role or if I decide to move on due to internal politics.