Critique my resume

busines4u

Hello everyone. I'm a daily reader on the forum and have gained a lot of out TE when studying for certification tests. I wanted to reach out to everyone to see if someone could offer me some advice to improve my resume that I send out when applying for jobs. To give some background I built my first computer when I was 15 years old. (now 26). I have a Bachelor's Degree in CIS: Cisco Networking, Associate's in CIS: Microsoft Networking and a minor in Business Management, but I have yet to be able to break into the Networking field where I am able to focus primarily on networking/systems administration. The jobs that I have landed involve a lot of help desk work (resetting passwords, backing up data, setting up new computers, hardware/software troubleshooting and some light network troubleshooting/server administration). Needless to say given the certifications I've worked hard to achieve I feel like i'm selling myself short and I need to fix this in order to land the next big job where I can truly be an administrator. I'm attaching my resume in hopes that the members here will be kind enough to critique my resume (don't worry about offending me, I can take it) and offer advice on what I need to change. Ideally I would like to get into a pure Cisco Networking job. I wouldn't even mind working with servers as I have a good bit of experience with them. What is killing me though is the very low level help desk support i'm doing.

I look forward to everyone's response.

busines4u

Must be good to go

cyberguypr

Just a few quick things I noticed.

- Objective doesn't serve any purpose. I would go with a professional summary that would let you highlight more of your expertise/qualifications
- I have never been a fan of the bullet fest as they lose all meaning. I line to present a paragraph with responsibilities and duties followed by a few bullets highlighting key, tangible accomplishments that resulted in added value to the employer.
- What is "Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Certified"? Aren't you an MCP? That is not mentioned anywhere and the automated evil robot looking for keywords will ding you. Same with CCNA; even though you spelled it out you should have those 4 letters there.
- Certs seem buried. Have you considered and Education/Certification section at the top?
- References: please remove that line. Also serves no purpose.

remember, you have to differentiate yourself from every other techie out there. This resume is too generic and doesn't dig into the specifics, which is what will get you noticed.

busines4u

Thank you very much for the feedback cyberguypr. I will definitely take your advice into consideration and revise my resume. I have not changed the format of it since college and what you recommended will certainly help make me stand out a bit more among other techies.

The MS Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Certified is the 83-640 exam that I passed some time ago. Since I do have that I would be considered a MCP or a MCTS Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuration. I was just unsure of how to put it on my resume so I went with what is currently there. Do you think it would be best to put MCP/MCTS somewhere on my resume in place of what I current have?

I agree that putting CCNA on my resume would be worthwhile. I wanted to spell it out just in case someone not so tech savvy would see it and say oh he is Cisco certified.

I was told before to move my certs to the top of the page so they would be noticed quicker. I've read/heard that employers only spend a short amount of time looking over a resume so it is best to keep the "juicy" stuff towards the top which I would move/consolidate into one section.

Thanks again for the feedback. I greatly appreciate it.

spiderjericho

I agree, **** the objective and replace it with a summary.

Here's a great résumé example:

http://www.techexams.net/forums/jobs-degrees/91333-resume-time.html

PTILSEN did a great job.

Some of the bullets don't clearly state the environment or what you did.

I'd also place summary, experience, education and certs.

CCNP R&S is the certification. So you might want to revise the bullet to reflect you passed the exam not obtained the certification.

Looks like you can discard the associate's degree. Bachelor trumps it. However, 2008 student of the year is a good accomplishment and a personal award.

And maybe you can break out the skills (if necessary, the experience sort of outline the skills you have by inference and assumption).

**** the reference section.

busines4u

Thanks for the feedback spider. I do not have the CCNP R&S certification completed yet. I only have SWITCH completed I still need to tackle ROUTE and TSHOOT which is why I worded it the way I did on my resume. I decided to through th AS degree on there because it was a focus on Microsoft Networking so I wanted to show my diversity but I think the certs should show that and as you mentioned removing it from my resume will not hurt me when applying to jobs.

Thanks again!