Resume critique/advice

I've been trying to put together a decent resume and I'm not totally happy with what I have so far so I thought I might ask for some advice from those who would offer it. There's junior administrator role opening near me and I think I would be a good fit for the job. My experience has really been limited to what I encounter on a day to day basis working for myself. I've been trying to work towards getting out of doing what I do and getting into administration, hence the degrees I've recently acquired.

Resume - Attachment not found.

Resume_edit_v1.doc

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Comments

paul78

You may want to expand on your professional experience part a bit more. It's a bit too generic and maybe you can try to tailor the experience to the jobs you are trying to get.

Also - the summary gave me the initial thought that you are a call-center support representative. But your professional experience probably meant you had more interesting IT roles.

Given that you have 20 years of work experience - you may want to move your Education and Certifications to the end of the resume. That's just my thought - others may disagree.

Reseven

Thanks for the tips paul78. I'm working on expanding the experience now.

Regarding the order of the sections -

Summary
Professional Experience
Technical Proficiencies
Education
Certification

Do you think this is more appropriate?

paul78

You have a bit of a tricky one because you recently got your degree. I personally would prefer to see an order like this:

Summary
Professional Experience
Technical Proficiencies
Certification
Education

But because I wonder if that will over-shadow your recent degree accomplishment.

Reseven

Ok, been working at it a bit. Added some things to my experience and moved the other sections around.

Attachment not found.

I can probably add more, it's just figuring out how to word it. I'm also one line away from going to the second page. Really trying to avoid that if I can. I'm already using a 10pt font for the bulk of the text.

Resume_edit_v2.doc

paul78

hmmm. I can't seem to open the attachment. Any chance you can post in PDF format.

Reseven

Hmmm... interesting. Ok, pdf it is.

Attachment not found.

Resume_edit_v2.pdf

paul78

Ok - a couple of thoughts...

1) A couple of things that struck me about your summary. I would suggest avoiding the focus on customer service and generic skills if you are seeking desktop administrator position. What about something like this instead:

Experienced IT professional with 20 years of experience capable of delivering a full range of technology services to end-users and small businesses.

2) I think you may want to perhaps just list the technical proficiencies instead. Maybe something like this:

Hardware: SOHO routers, printer setup, network connectivity troubleshooting, PC hardware diagnosis.

Software: Windows Operating Systems (XP, Vista, 7), Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, Various antivirus.

3) Your professional experience section is a bit repetitive. Try something like this instead:

Circuitry Man Computers, Independent Consultant January 1998 - Present
Responsible for all aspects of customer support life-cycle from consultative sales, requirements analysis, and execution of support. Provided both adhoc support to troubleshoot and remediate business impacting issues such as viruses and network/desktop issues and office setup services such as configuration of routers and workstation deployments. Added marketing value to customers through website creation services.

Note the difference in the tone of the description. It's more about selling your accomplishments instead of list a bullet list of what you can do. Hopefully, that makes sense.

My suggestion is a bit of a run-on sentence so you ought to re-word it a bit but hopefully you get the idea.

Perhaps others can chime in on this as well.

Reseven

Wow paul78, nice suggestions. I'll get started on it. I think you hit on exactly what was concerning me about the resume.
Thanks.

The actual job title is Desktop Support/Jr. Systems Administrator so that's why I was thinking some of the customer service experience was relative.

Reseven

Alright, spent some time re-writing the Professional Experience sections.

Attachment not found.

This definitely has a better feel to it.

Resume_edit_v3.pdf

paul78

Yes. Much better. The real test will be when you start to submit and see what hits you get. I think you may want to downplay the experience at the video stores. Also don't repeat the same phases if you can help it. If you can say stuff like "Generated x dollars in billable revenue per month" or something that relates to a specific accomplishment, that would be good.

Reseven

I went in and toned down the experience at the video stores. It does help focus the attention on the more relevant experience I have.

Thanks for your help, paul78. Now to test this thing out in the real world!

paul78

Best of luck to you in your job search!!!

Let us know how you make out. Good luck!!! With the economy picking up, I hope you find your next step in your career.