Resume Critique & Advice Please

srabiee

With some assistance from a gracious individual I was able to create a new resume from scratch. (Old resume was 4 years old and atrocious)

I've been at my current job for 4 years now and I'm looking to find employment elsewhere after I complete my BS degree in the next few months. This has been my first real IT job other than phone-based technical support, but I'm stuck in my current position with nowhere to move in the company, not to mention I'm severely underpaid.


If you guys would be so kind as to take a look at my new resume and let me know what you think, I'd greatly appreciate it. Any amount of criticism large or small will help me to polish this thing off and get it ready to be sent out.


Thanks!

srabiee

117 views and 0 replies.

Anyone?

zxbane

My personal recommendation is to put the Education/Certification section above the details of roles you have filled, but that is just the way I've done mine and might not actually be best practice.

srabiee

Thanks zxbane, I will take another look at it and see if that format looks any better in my case.

Anyone else care to look at this resume and share their thoughts and opinions? I greatly appreciate it.

Essendon

Check this out mate for a very good resume (and critique) > http://www.techexams.net/forums/jobs-degrees/91333-resume-time.html

You have some solid experience, flaunt it! Re-do your resume using the above as a template and your should end up looking great too. Re-post then and we'll then give some ideas.

srabiee

Essendon, I'm a little confused because I did use ptilsen's resume as a template. The main difference I see is that he includes paragraphs before his bullet points for each job that he lists, and I omitted the paragraphs and just included the bullet points. What specifically do you think I should elaborate on? Thanks.

srabiee

Anything anyone sees that can be added, improved upon, etc? I got the weekend to work on this thing, I'm just not getting very much feedback. Perhaps the resume is solid as is and shouldn't be altered any further? :

Essendon

Ok, I have some time now to put in a few lines. Hope I dont come across as too harsh!

- Boring. Dont you think it reads like the contents of a book? I'd prefer to see yours like ptilsen's with a brief 2-3 line synopsis of your daily work and then a few bullet points highlighting your projects/achievements.

- Club some of the bullet points together. On numerous occasions you could've had 1 one bullet with 2 sentences instead of 2 bullets with 1 sentence each. I reckon it add more meat to the bone. 2 sentences per bullet is aesthetically pleasing too, if you asked me. Besides you could save on some white space and probably add more to further enhance your chances of a call-back.

- The Professional Summary bit. Too long and too wordy. I'd rather have the number of years of experience and a quick 30,000 ft view of what you are about. You are a little light on experience, I mean 4 years aint a lot, so consider leaving the number of years out of the Summary. You dont want someone to go, O this guy's only being in the game for 4 years, not enough experience and then they just skim the rest of your resume. I mean I personally would still read the rest of your resume, but HR folks might be less considerate.

- What's the deal with the title of "Virtualization Administrator"? Is that your intended role (I can see you are already one) or is that all you want to do? Bit unsure about it.

- That big black line is an eye-sore. If you want to keep a line under your contact details, keep it thin or dont have it all. You want the resume to flow. Or like I said, have a thin one there.

- Remove the border too. Some recruiter once told me this - a border all around your resume indicates to me you are an introvert person, not open to ideas/change and in general not a friendly person. Bit harsh if you asked me, but she was right in a way. Why enclose something in a box when it shouldnt be?

- I'd seriously consider moving the certs up. You've got a healthy cert list, put in where you want it to get noticed. You've worked for them, put it in clear view, not languishing at the bottom. Consider clubbing certs and education together to save on white space. Dont space them out the way you have them currently. Just start with the highest certs and work your way done. So the MCITP: EA first in the first line, the MCSA in the next, then some of the MCTS's and then your VCA's. I'd completely remove the Comptia's, your way past entry-level - arent ya? I only list my VCAP's, the VCP, the EA, the MCTS:Hyper-v and my Master's and Bachelor's degrees in my list of certs and education. Recruiters love it the way I've listed them. Clear and succinct.

If you like the above critique, please post a revised version and I'll provide more feedback (if still needed, of course!). I'd love to see this resume in same format as ptilsen's and I'm sure it'd come out as a beauty since you have some decent experience on you.

Hope this helps!

srabiee

Thanks for the feedback. I'm going to take another look and see what I can do with this.

In my current position I am the helpdesk administrator, systems administrator, and virtualization administrator. I chose virtualization administrator because the other two titles sounded more generic and more common, and because a lot of my higher-level experience is working with VMware products. Having said that, what would you recommend that I do in this case? I thought "Helpdesk Administrator" kinda sucked and "Systems Administrator" was generic. I considered putting "System & Virtualization Administrator" or "System/Virtualization Administrator" or "Helpdesk/System/Virtualization Administrator". Thoughts?

I changed the black line at the top to a thinner line.

As far as experience, I have 4 years of experience working with Windows Server. All of my prior experience had been in ISP phone technical support and computer repair. Basically A+ level support and Windows desktop troubleshooting. That's why I didn't include more than 4 years in the summary, because the summary refers to Server, virtualization, and enterprise support. On one hand I don't want to sell my self short, but on the other hand I don't want anyone to get the impression that I have more than 4 years of enterprise-level experience, because I don't. Everything I know that is more advanced than A+ level and desktop support, I learned at my current job. That was my dilemma when writing the summary. Any ideas on how I can rewrite the summary to include more of my prior experience?

Essendon

I'd just go with Virtualization Administrator, but what's your official title? If/when a reference check happens, they may ask your employer of your title so you may want to go with your title is.

Dont stress about the summary too much, isnt too big a deal. Your current summary is decent enough, consider making the changes I suggested though. If I were you, I'd add the desktop support experience too. Surely you'd have touched a server in some way - I mean Outlook needs Exchange to work (in an enterprise, that is) and you know hand-helds like Blackberries need a BES server to talk to, right? So give it a "server(y)" spin, yeah?! I have a total of 8 years experience out of which 6.5 years is enterprise grade, but I list almost all of it (well, not the 1st IT job), get my drift? Again, your summary will be okay after incorporating all the changes I suggested.

advanex1

Essendon,

I'm curious what you see in ptilsens resume that this guy doesn't have? The format is slightly different, but there is a border on ptilsens and it's very wordy and boring as well.

I'm not arguing, I'm more looking for the difference you see between the two. Thank you

srabiee

Ok, so here's where things get a little tricky. I don't have an official title. My employer (a local IT services provider) signed a contract with a local business to provide them with a full-time on-site IT support person. I have been delegated by my employer to be that person. I have reported to that local business everyday for the past 3 years. I am paid through my employer, but I am permanently stationed at this local business. I am their helpdesk, systems, and virtualization administrator. For networking issues, they have a network engineer that handles Cisco issues. That's the only thing I don't do. I am solely in charge of the entire VMware virtualized infrastructure. I only interact with my employer maybe once every 3 to 6 months. If you asked my employer what my title is, they'd probably say something like "IT Tech" or "IT Admin." But like I said, we don't really have any interaction. Strange situation, I know.

Essendon

I really have no idea then, strange situation for sure! I'd go with Virtualization Administrator though if you arent sure of what it could be. IDK!

@advanex1 - I guess everyone's got their own idea of a good resume. Personally, I'd like to see a snapshot of what you do on day-to-day basis and then a good list of your significant achievements. A lot of people can administer AD or Exchange, but few can setup/administer federated forests and incorporate RMS or some other whizbang. To be able to highlight such work, I cant think of a better idea than having a small Projects Accomplished sub-section. Keep in mind, this kind of work is how a company makes money on top (projects/value-add work) of the base payment (everyday work).

While I agree that ptilsen's resume is bit wordy but the guy's done a lot of good work too. Again, if you've implemented Exchange 2010, and migrated users from say Lotus Notes, from the ground-up I'd like for the whole deal to be on the resume. Sure it becomes a little wordy, but once you have tons of experience it will become a little wordy. I'm struggling to keep mine from becoming wordy too. You want the prospective employer to know before the interview what you can bring to the table.

Having said all this, I'm open to a better idea of showing off your work. What's your take on this?

srabiee

Black bar at the top is now thinner.

Bullets have been consolidated for both jobs.

Summary has been rewritten to include more experience. Now reflects 6 years of progressive IT experience instead of 4. Reads quite differently than before.

What do you think so far?

Essendon

Getting better!

- Move education and certs up, right before the experience section.
- Did you not like the idea of a quick 2-3 line snapshot of daily activities followed by the projects/achievements? Give it a go perhaps, I reckon it'd come out even better.

srabiee

I tried moving education and certs above experience and didn't like it. The resume just didn't have the same flow. If I didn't have the experience of my current job I would definitely do it that way though. I like the format of the first page the way it is now.

I need to spend some more time with this tomorrow and figure out how to write the daily activity sections. I didn't have that before so it isn't something that I can quickly rewrite. Not sure what I should say in that section.