Critique my resume!

Hello everyone, I've been browsing these forums quite a bit over the passed few months and I've learned an abundance of useful information. I'm getting ready to graduate from tech school soon and I've been preparing my resume for a while now. I'm looking for some good feeedback on to whether or not it could use a few improvements, or it's ready to be put out in the world. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! I apologize for the formatting, it looks a little..off when copy and pasted to a forum. It looks cleaner in word.

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lantech

You might want to upload your resume isn't of copying and pasting it so people can actually see the format of it as well.

cyberguypr

Welcome to TE.

+1 on uploading/linking to a PDF or DOC. It is painful to read they way you posted it.

Azure Destiny

I apologize for the headache. I'm still trying to get used to the way these forums work. Hopefully this works a little better.
So the second try didn't work, image was way too small when uploaded to the forums. So i went for an altnerate route. When in doubt..screen cap it! Anyways, i had to break it up into 2 links. First link is the first portion of the resume, and the second is the rest. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v393/AzureDestiny/resumez.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v393/AzureDestiny/resumez2.png

resumez.jpg

f0rgiv3n

One quick thing that I might suggest (it's just a pet peeve of mine) is use uniformity in your tenses. If you're currently working at some place, be sure to use the present tense and if you did work at a place, use past tense all the way through your bullet points. It just makes it look a little more clean.

Azure Destiny

f0rgiv3n wrote: »

One quick thing that I might suggest (it's just a pet peeve of mine) is use uniformity in your tenses. If you're currently working at some place, be sure to use the present tense and if you did work at a place, use past tense all the way through your bullet points. It just makes it look a little more clean.

Ah, thanks. I thought I corrected all the past/present tense mistakes I had in my resume, but it seems I overlooked a few. I'll definitely modify them. It's also a peeve of mine as well. Thanks again for your response!

f0rgiv3n

No problem! I had another quick moment. Maybe it's just the template you're using but might I suggest drawing more attention to your titles instead of the company names? I see the company names stand out pretty well because they're bold and big. Maybe the title and company name need to be swapped? I'm just of the opinion that your past job titles are what people look for in your experiences. All suggestions, not telling you what to do, just thinking out loud

Azure Destiny

f0rgiv3n wrote: »

No problem! I had another quick moment. Maybe it's just the template you're using but might I suggest drawing more attention to your titles instead of the company names? I see the company names stand out pretty well because they're bold and big. Maybe the title and company name need to be swapped? I'm just of the opinion that your past job titles are what people look for in your experiences. All suggestions, not telling you what to do, just thinking out loud

That sounds like a good idea. Looks like I still have some work ahead of me. I was also wondering how I would go about listing past technical experience. I didn't work for anyone, it was just kind of something I did on the side for folks who lived near me. Think I should try listing it, or omit it? At first glance without showing I have prior years experience fixing computers, it looks like I'm completely new to it, and I don't want to come off like i have 0 experience in the field. Thanks for the advice, I'll utilize it.

networker050184

I'd leave off any informal experience. IMO a resume is to display your professional experience and qualifications. Helping friends and family isn't professional experience and shouldn't be added to a resume.

lantech

Couple of things.

Might want to leave out pursing CCNA. Maybe networker can comment more on that. Usually you only list certs you have.

Under computing ability:

You might want to take out the part after Linux. The mostly CLI experience part of it. I think that with Linux that might pretty much be a given.

Redo the networking part of it. You say you have hands on experience with all that stuff but that experience doesn't show up on your resume. People are going to be wondering how you got that experience. It's ok to say that you have an understanding of it but not that you have hands on experience with it if you don't have that in a professional setting.

I'd also remove the industries each company was in and their website information. If a interviewer wants to know that information for some reason they will ask. The only time I've brought up what industry a company I worked for was in was when it matched the industry experience they were looking for IE the financial industry.

Azure Destiny

lantech wrote: »

Couple of things.

Might want to leave out pursing CCNA. Maybe networker can comment more on that. Usually you only list certs you have.

Under computing ability:

You might want to take out the part after Linux. The mostly CLI experience part of it. I think that with Linux that might pretty much be a given.

Redo the networking part of it. You say you have hands on experience with all that stuff but that experience doesn't show up on your resume. People are going to be wondering how you got that experience. It's ok to say that you have an understanding of it but not that you have hands on experience with it if you don't have that in a professional setting.

I'd also remove the industries each company was in and their website information. If a interviewer wants to know that information for some reason they will ask. The only time I've brought up what industry a company I worked for was in was when it matched the industry experience they were looking for IE the financial industry.

Thanks for the advice. I'm still fairly new to writing resumes, so comments like this will definitely help me out. I've always been a little skeptical on the way my computing ability is listed. Re-reading it after your ideas makes me feel like I still have quite a bit to fix. If you have any other grounds that you think need to be covered before it's presentable, feel free to pick away at it. I'm not looking to necessarily make a "perfect" resume, because many people have different point of views on how they should be written, but I at least want to make it worthy enough to catch an employers attention.

NotHackingYou

If you are trying to get into a tech job I would put your education first. Reason being, your work experience doesn't seem to be in IT - But I can't see to well because only the thumbnail is visible with the machine I'm on.

Someone reading your resume wants to know how you can do the job. If they see only work experience in other industries, they might not make it to your education.