Critique this 25A's resume!

Hey TechExams,I am looking at transitioning into civilian employment possibly sooner than I expected, so I need to tune up my resume and start hitting the streets. I know that if I soak up some knowledge from the minds here at TE I'll have a much better shot at landing a job that will help provide for my new family, and honestly that's what has been worrying me more than anything else at this point.For background: I joined the army at 17 with no work experience to speak of and enlisted into a job that was basically useless for resume purposes (combat photography - lots of fun though). In 2010 I went to Officer Candidate School and commissioned into the Signal Corps, and I've had two assignments since then: a strategic job working as a company-level operations officer in charge of LAN/WAN sections and a tactical job as a deployed battalion S6, where I currently am. I never got to touch a lot of networking equipment, but I managed a lot of people with a lot of experience in my previous position and I'm getting to do a little bit myself in my current assignment, working with Active Directory and a little bit with servers and routers. I do have a degree, but it's not a technical one.I'm targeting a junior networking, system admin, or security analyst job, preferably with a contracting firm that will understand what I mean when I say "TACLANE" and "FDMA" and "S6 OIC". After a year or so I'd like to transfer fully into the private sector but I am not sure that I could land a decent job with as few hard technical skills as I currently have. Most of what I know about routing I learned through studying for CCNA, and I won't pretend to know any more by going for a CCNP. Rather, I'm studying for CASP to check that block and I've got CCNA Security and CCNA Voice textbooks to work on afterwards.I was planning on spending another year or two on the inside, working towards a CISSP, but with the information I received this morning I may need to be ready for a transition as soon as the end of this calendar year. Am I off base in hoping to get a decent contracting job with my current credentials? I know I won't match my current adjusted salary (about $70k counting base pay, housing and food allowances, health coverage, etc) but I would hope to be able to start in the low $40s depending on options and location.All that said - please tear into my resume! I know it needs a lot of work but I don't know where to start. Thanks in advance!

Bates Resume 20131221.pdf

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Comments

bull313

First of all, a huge THANK YOU for serving our country!

Your resume looks pretty good to me. Maybe bullet some of those points as opposed to the paragraph format.

lsud00d

Modify your main profile line to whatever job it is you're applying towards
You list certs under skills but I'm confused on if you actually have those certs or just skills partially reflected in those certs?? It's very murky. If you have earned the certs list them in a 'Certifications' section along with the month/year that you earned the cert
I'm a fan of education in it's own section. Also while your other schools are commendable I don't think it's necessary to list these when transferring to the civilian sector UNLESS you know specifically that someone is retired/former Army along the hiring chain and it's a direct effort to connect with them, even then it's a stretch
The 'positions' are better served in a section titled 'professional experience'
I agree that bullet points would function better here and reduce a lot of the white space
You do name some technologies (like Microsoft, BMC) that you worked with but the wording throughout the resume is still very military focused..I think elaborating more on what and how you worked with things would be more beneficial

DeezyFF

As a 25U in a infantry battalion who had 3 different SigO's in 3 years, you are the first battalion signal officer that I have seen that has so many certifications and actual knowledge of the signal corp. That means a lot to the soldiers like me when the person in charge understands all the work behind the scenes.

P.S. I wish you would of been my signal officer. Good luck in the private sector you will be fine.

cyberguypr

The blacked out things are fully readable. You may want to revise them. Also, What'sUp Gold, no space between What's and Up.

da_vato

You need to sterilize it more, there is way too many military terms regardless if you intend on going for a contracting gig or not. It doesn't matter much if the company is military friendly most of the time there are way more civilians in those companies than prior-service. Say things like "responsible for" instead of "led" and "military communications" instead of "tactical." "battalion, brigade, and division command teams"..... no go say something like "supported (technology) at the enterprise level."

Where are you looking at going to? Lately many people have been posting lots of jobs on here, we may be able to help point you to one.

On the formatting I am not a fan of the big open space on the left I would square it off and center your personal info at the top. Next I would suggest bulletizing your first paragraph as those are all strong statements and put your skills/education at the bottom since your experience is more important.

I am a former S6 NCOIC so your resume should look somewhat similar to mine (except that I obviously worked harder jk) if you want PM me and I can see about sending my resume and you can use what you like.

networker050184

The resume aside, are you sure you want to try to get a tech role? You are admittedly limited on that side, but as a former signal officer you have a great background to get into an IT role on the management side.

da_vato

I agree with Networker since you have leadership/management time you should consider looking for Mid-level jobs. You wont start at the top but you sound over qualified to start at the bottom. Since you're thinking about contracting you'll find that most of the big names are hiring all the time (Northrop, Lockheed, BAE, L3 and so on). Since you want a job as a DoD contractor you'll most likely want to go to a city where a military installation is at.

aftereffector

Thanks everyone for the great critiques! I revised the resume to Version 2.0, reformatting to add bullet points, taking out the military-specific stuff, and rewording quite a bit of the Professional Experience section. I'm also targeting it towards a NOC manager position thanks to networker050184 and da_vato's advice. How does this look?

I'm trying to stay with 1 page because I really only have 3 or 4 years of relevant experience (my time as a combat photographer is not really relevant to anything), so I had to reduce the font size to Arial 9. Is it still readable? Is there a significant preference for Times New Roman over Arial?

Bates Resume 20140204.pdf

da_vato

I would change Diplomas to Education and close the gap on your current assignment but other than that you are on the right track. Remember to tailor objectives based on the actual job you apply for.

Also what is your total work history? You mention 7 years right away but really only cover 3 and some change. I would list your length of service in a "work history" section if you had been in the army for 7+ years that shows that you can commit to the job and worth investing in.

Codyy

I like it, I don't think you'll have an issue getting a GS or private sector gig. And as the other guy stated, I'm a 25B NCO and it's nice to see SigO's who actually want to learn the technical side of things. I understand the role of an Officer and you're not exactly there to be the techy one(unless FA officer), but it shows you care enough to learn about what you'll be presenting to the boss on powerpoint!

thenjduke

You can also copy and paste the black out sections so you may want to fix that.