Please Critque my resume ( much appriciated)

flatman123

I've been told by some friends that my skills aren't necessarily preventing me from getting a job, but my resume is. I would really appreciate it if you can help.--Thank you in advanced

DCD

Not bad but I would move education up and change the summary into a paragraph instead of bullet points. On the second job the end date looks funny. You reposted it so a few changes the date looks fine now but your alignmenton your certifications is bad. Put certifications before licenses or delete the licenses part.

flatman123

I've taken your advise into consideration and have changed a few things. Please review my second draft.


I see where teh date looks weird ( the initial start of the year is incorrect. I will actually put in the full Date just to be clear. ( not yea updated in my second draft

flatman123

I see where teh date looks weird ( the initial start of the year is incorrect. I will actually put in the full Date just to be clear. ( not yea updated in my second draft

nicktornetta

I have been in the telecom industry for ~12 years and am currently a Senior Sales Engineer for a large national cable company. I have reviewed many resumes in my time, so I hope this information helps.

This isnt the worst resume I have ever seen, but I would definitely change a number of things.

I would consider this the most important thing: The descriptions are way too wordy and makes the resume much less fluid. I dont think you did this (i hope you didnt), but it looks like you just copy/pasted the company's written job description. Common mistake of technical folks is to **** as much information as possible, but when someone is reviewing tens or hundreds of resumes per day, they are not reading all of that. The purpose of job history is to provide a very brief description of the obvious parts of your job, then highlight your strong points. You have a wall of text for each job that talks about the obvious things you did and doesnt highlight anything. Make it crisp and embrace bullet points. Think of it like you are communicating to a C level executive.. you give them a huge paragraph and they will ignore it. "Summarize" into one sentence bullet points, and they will actually pay attention because it is much easier to read.

Insert something about social activities in here. If you actually have some social skills, it is important to call that out in some fashion, particularly with a Network Engineering resume. Many NOC techs dont have good social skills (borderline aspergers), so if you shine in that respect it will make a difference.

Your job history overlaps from MAP DIGITAL, GG GROUP and BICYCLES NYC. Fix that and eliminate gaps. Overlaps looks like you are fudging the numbers. Gaps look like unemployment or termination. if you left a job 10/11 and immediately started the next, dont put 11/11 for the next job, put 10/11.

You have included an incredible amount of technical qualifications, but are you able to talk to every single one? Like do you actually have an expert or working knowledge of Broadworks, or did you just use it in your SSCA training? When i see this, I ask people about these things to see if they really know what they are talking about.

Make the Left text alignment more consistent. The mixture of Left and Center alignment makes this look sloppy and annoying.

Your page header and numbering is not consistent. Do not devalue the importance of spelling and formatting. It looks bad when your resume is perceived as half assed.

There is no "objective", meaning your 2-3 sentence "mission statement". This is pretty important, as it is generally the first thing someone reads. This is also the part that you tailor to each job application.

There is a ton of duplicate information, for example, your summary, tech qualifications and job experience has a lot of the same information. For example, you talk about T1 in your summary and in your Transbeam job experience.

Please post another draft after you make some updates.

I have spent about 30 mins writing these comments, so i now have a vested interest in seeing your resume improve ;p If you want some help actually drafting up a new version, let me know.

Good luck!

flatman123

@ nicktornetta

Thanks for the reply!, MUCH! appreciate. I will definitely get started on the things you pointed out.

nicktornetta

another thing i forgot to add.. if you dont have a linkedin.com profile, you need one. put a link on your resume in the header, like by your email address or something.

also, make sure you fill out the linkedin profile as completely as possible. for one, you want something with some detail for the HR person that actually follows your linked in profile link.

secondly, complete linkedin profiles come up in searches more often, which means more recruiters will find you and thus ask if you are looking for work. i get a few of these a month, some people get a lot more.

flatman123

I've taken the things you pointed out into consideration and made the following changes (file attached)

However, i'm stuck on what to put down for the Summary ( objective)..i'm having a difficult time creating a short/strong "into", so i just removed like 2 sentences to shorten it up abit.

Let me know what you think.

flatman123

wait disregard..I made a mistake..I've attached the wrong file. standby

flatman123

here is the third draft:

flatman123

FYI--The dates are not fixed in the 3rd draft, but are now currently fixed

DCD

You don't need your full contact information on the second page.

webgeek

I would remove high school info off of your resume. No need for that.

flatman123

**to both comments above**--thanks much appreciated...now that I think about having my H.S. on my resume , doesn't really make sense..If my degrees are there, then its obvious I went through H.S....its just taking up space, i'll remove that now, thanks!..( i'll also remove the contact info on the sec page.

nicktornetta

How about this

Critique Resume-nicks draft.doc

dpjackal89

Lol what are the odds. I also graduated from city tech.

spiderjericho

I'm on a iPad but there is inconsistent punctuation. Some bullets end in a period, some don't. Also, there is some subjectivity in the summary. You also don't provide detail on your skills. I'll provide more feedback when I power up my laptop and can have multiple windows.

Edit: In the summary, I'd ditch the solid before background. Ditch the in-depth before formal training. Ditch the superior personal initiative. Also, what do you mean by network operations enhancement creativity and consistent performance success?

And maybe you could rejigger your technical skills into Network Equipment, OS, software, protocols and physical layer technologies. I'd also possibly quantify them.

I'd also reword some of the bullet items to make them more succinct, phrases with proper syntax.

What does this mean "Established network security system and associated protocols." It appears multiple times.

"Worked on full-time also providing 24/7 on-call support." Worked full-time; also providing 24/7 on-call support.

Many of your bullets have this stilted construction. Also in the education section, you can ditch the Dean's List in 2011.

I'm sure others can provide input on how to reduce some of the "fat" and increase the brevity.

nicktornetta

In the version i setup for him, i trimmed out a lot of the fat.. i htink most of it was obvious stuff.

I would recommend adjusting the Summary for the job you are applying for. For example, you arent going to tell Equinix that you are an excellent fry cook.