Yet another resume critique

mgates67

A quick background. I have been working with the same company for 24 years. For the most part, I have enjoyed my experiences with them and they have helped me grow in many ways. Unfortunately, things have gotten stale there lately. It is a small private company. My boss, the President and founder's daughter, is completely incompetent. My current role is mostly administrative (I hate it) and two years ago I was promised a more technical role. I'm still waiting and get only vague statements when I inquire about it. As much as I appreciate everything the did for me, I feel like it's time for me to move on.

To that end, I dusted off and updated my resume. Have at it!

Sanitized Resume.pdf

DoubleNNs

Wow. 24 years seems like a lot to me.

I can't really critique the content, as I haven't even started my It career yet; I'm still trying to work on my resume to get me my 1st position. Everything looks good to me - impressive actually. The summary of skills could probably use a little more fleshing out however. Maybe try to be a little bit more specific w/ your bullet points instead of just saying you're familiar w/ something. I've taken my Net+ and although I don't have any practical experience or even higher level knowledge, I could at least give definitions of everything on your lists. So, technically I am familiar w/ the concept so I could say I'm "knowledgable" or "familair" w/ them as well. But.. I'm obviously not at the same level as you. Being more specific would help set you apart from beginners like me.
But, what would I know? =/


I love the format. Very "clean," and simple and organized looking.

mgates67

24 years is a long time, probably most of the reason that I'm ready to move on.

I'm trying not to fall into the rut of using the same word over and over again, hence words like familiar. I'll look at that and see if I can do better.

Thank you for your kind words. I tried to find a format that was simple but visually appealing. I like what I ended up with too.

Anyone else?

paulgswanson

I'll pretty much say the same Double did. its very clean and refreshing. Only other thing i'd maybe consider change is the Font of the name. Other than that, impressive.

boredgamelad

Please tell me that Comic Sans is not actually used in your resume and is just there as a placeholder.

Honestly, with as much experience as you have, is a summary of skills even necessary? Right now it kinda reads like a laundry list of acronyms that most entry or mid-level IT people should know and doesn't really make you stand out. If you have experience with all that it should be clear from describing your job. 24 years in one place is a lot and you should be able to describe the projects you've worked on, the specific products you've used, etc. You describe being familiar with Cisco routers and switches but that doesn't really come through in your work history, but that might only be because you're non-specific. Personally, I would cut the skills section, or at least condense it. Spend the rest of your two pages really getting into the specifics of the technologies you've been doing for the last 24 years. It will be much more impressive than a skills summary section.

This particular example tells me little to nothing as to what you actually did:

"Conducted technical training classes instructing students on the proper methods and skills necessary for the installation, configuration, and troubleshooting of systems"

Systems? What systems? HVAC systems? Traffic systems? Star systems? Dewey Decimal system? I kid, but you get the idea.

Be specific. What systems have you trained people on? Are you an expert in that technology? Did you develop the course yourself? This advice goes for every line of your resume. I don't know if it's intentionally or unintentionally vague but if I were reading this I would really like to know exactly what you've worked on, how recently, etc. Getting more details down will help with all of that and also help avoid redundant language.