Your Resume help needed!

Dear all,

today opportunity knocked on my door and requested my CV in english (for a company based in California). While I have done this before I was never quite satisfied with the result. Having only worked in Germany my CV is pretty much just a translation of the german version.

I assume there is a lot I could improve:

- How do you go about times? Do you write your current tasks in present tense and former jobs in past tense?
- Should I even provide a picture, date of birth and martial status? (all common here)
- Should I translate my school education? If so, by word or by comparable education in the US?

I would be working for them in Europe so visa / work permit is not an issue.

Thank you very much for your help, I really appreciate it!

Lebenslauf_2013_EN_anon.pdf

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Comments

networker050184

I put everything past tense on mine.

Picture, date of birth, nationality or marital status are not norms on resumes here in the states. Neither are hobbies. Logos are debatable, but I'd lose them.

I'd just translate your education word for word. They are probably familiar with it if they hire European workers.

Good luck!

lordy

Thank you.

I ended up removing the logos, fixed two typos and send it on it's way. I hope to get feedback within the next ten days or so.

UnixGuy

- Name - Nationality: remove the birth date, birth place, BUT since you are not American, perhaps including the nationality is a good idea. I'm not sure, but if I'm applying to any job where I need a visa, I include my nationality. You don't have to, but definitely remove the birth date, marital status, and birth place.

- Work Experience: it's always a good idea to make it achievement based. For example, for the first role you can write something like this:
System administration of more than 500 business-critical Linux systems (Red Hat/Ubuntu), ensuring maximum up time.
Design and implementation of 10Gbit network cards solution that resulted in 90% increase of throughput.
Major migration to remote sites in Frankfurt and Amsterdam (why?: to implement a disaster recovery plan).
Automation of system administration tasks using Perl and Bash (why?) to simplify (what?) system monitoring.
Systems hardening through continuous patching of systems utilizing Spacewalk and Red Hat Network Satellite.
Working closely with the auditing team for SOX(what's this?)
Continuous documentation as per the business standards using internal wiki systems.

..
- Date: you can put it like this
July-2009 - Present

- Certifications: I don't explain the meaning of the certifications, I just list the names of the certs. Not sure if this is a good practice.
for RHCE, I put the RHCE ID in case they want to check. I don't feel it is necessary though.
For CCNA, I put the cert date because my cert expired. So I put it like this:
- Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) ( August/2007 - August/2010)

- Trainings : Make it "Training courses" (grammar correction). I also include the date and place of training.
I also don't include details about the training courses.

For example, I attended the Sun Mid-Range training this is how I put it:
- Sun SPARC Mid-Range Servers, Sun Microsystems, South Africa. October/2008. (5 days + exam).

PS: I included the word "SPARC" for possible management who are not aware of the architecture (i.e. when you say Sun high end, they might not know that SUN has only SPARC as high end).

- Languages: make the first letter capital and add German as well.
Languages:
German (Very fluent)
English (Very fluent)
French (very basic) (or remove it maybe?)

- Hobbies : I don't think this field is required, I don't include it