Yet ANOTHER Resume Review/Critique Thread

First, thank you to anyone who has a couple of minutes to review this posting and offer their opinions/advice. This site has been INVALUABLE in progressing my career and knowledge, so I appreciate any advice/insights that this group can provided in this subject.

Just to set the stage a little (I'm hoping that the resume paints a clear enough picture so that this information isn't STRICTLY necessary) I live and work in the North Atlanta Metro Area and I'm a test away from MCSE: Cloud. I want to transition to a role where I do more administration hence the resume. The MCSE test is scheduled for the middle of next month, but I want to get a temperature on the market in this area and post to a couple of openings internally to my current employer.

Thank you guys and girls again! HERE it is! Anonymized and ready for review!

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20170608 Anonymized.pdf

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nascar_paul

BUMP! C'Mon guys and gals! Let me know what you think!

yoba222

I'd drop the font so it fits on one page.

nascar_paul

yoba222 wrote: »

I'd drop the font so it fits on one page.

Noted. Alright folks. We'll go live with this one to some of the smaller sites and a couple of internal postings and see how things shake out!

Any other advice and/or observations are welcome. This is going to be a live fire exercise!

emek

1. Condense it down to 1 page.

2. I would remove the certification numbers, it clogs up that section. They can get this information off your linkedin, or you can provide them later if they want to verify. You also listed them for some certs, but not others.

3. Consider listing your most important certs at the top (Microsoft in your case), and lesser certs after (Comptia).

4. Generally speaking, experience should be listed after your personal summary. For you, it should go Summary-->Experience-->Certs--> Skills

5. Remove the word "Professional Development" from the section title for your certs. This is unnecessary.

6. Not sure if this is intentional, but since you are not listing the start and end months for each job, it looks like you had an 8 year gap from 2004-2012. Unless you worked their for 8 years, in which case you should list the months. If not, it goes without saying that you should explain that gap in your cover letter.

Good luck and hope this was helpful!

kaiju

Personal Summary: (You need to clean it up more)
Systems analyst with ten years experience providing application, connectivity, service, and infrastructure support seeking to transition to a systems administration role. Analytical problem solver with the ability to integrate analysis and support experience to diagnose technical issues that exceed business and customer requirements. Experienced at root cause analysis with strong history of client satisfaction.

Professional development:
Move the MCSA to the top, followed by MS and then MCP. Move the CompTia stuff to the bottom. Why? Because you want the Sys Admin certs to STAND OUT!

Experience:
You need to have a start and end date. Why? Because a good recruiter/interviewer will want clarity!
The first word for the bullets under Company 01 do not need an "S". Remove the "s" from supports, performs, and utilizes. Why? Because it seems like you copied and pasted a generic job description and then tried to add some "meat" to it.

nascar_paul

kaiju wrote: »

The first word for the bullets under Company 01 do not need an "S". Remove the "s" from supports, performs, and utilizes. Why? Because it seems like you copied and pasted a generic job description and then tried to add some "meat" to it.

This is the only place where I disagree. Past roles are past tense. Current role is present. Can I get a second opinion on that? I'm not married to the format, I'm just curious what others think.

kaiju wrote: »

Professional development:
Move the MCSA to the top, followed by MS and then MCP. Move the CompTia stuff to the bottom. Why? Because you want the Sys Admin certs to STAND OUT!

Great catch! Done!

kaiju wrote: »

Personal Summary: (You need to clean it up more)

I think that you're right there. Multiple revisions had made this area into a bit of a word soup. Done!

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20170608 Anonymized Version 02.pdf

ITSec14

Agree with Kaiju...get rid of S's.

I think you need to work on your format more. When I read it, it looks like any other resume. Make it pop more. It looks like you wrote it in 10 minutes.

nascar_paul

ITSec14 wrote: »

Agree with Kaiju...get rid of S's.

I think you need to work on your format more. When I read it, it looks like any other resume. Make it pop more. It looks like you wrote it in 10 minutes.

Ouch. But point taken. I was actually going for pretty standard and conservative to communicate stability and dependability, but I think that you're suggestion is valid. I can work on the resume so that it stands out as a little more unique and displays a little more of my individual personality. As a matter of fact, my plan is to eliminate the generic Skills section and replace it with some kind of forwarding information to an as yet unfinished online resume that I'm building.

In the meantime, I'll attempt to sharpen up and personalize what I have.

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ITSec14

nascar_paul wrote: »

Ouch. But point taken. I was actually going for pretty standard and conservative to communicate stability and dependability, but I think that you're suggestion is valid. I can work on the resume so that it stands out as a little more unique and displays a little more of my individual personality. As a matter of fact, my plan is to eliminate the generic Skills section and replace it with some kind of forwarding information to an as yet unfinished online resume that I'm building.

In the meantime, I'll attempt to sharpen up and personalize what I have.

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I think you are on the right track. I think it just needs some balance to the format. Use centering and soft, but conservative font. I tend to use italics or underlining to show some separation between jobs held. You also want to condense as much as you can. Most HR recruiters only look at your resume for maybe ~20 seconds or so.

Here's some suggestions:

- Make your career summary juicy. This is where you capture the readers attention.
- Don't repeat the same word over and over to describe your duties for each role. ex's...communicated, managed, etc...thesaurus' exist for a reason.
- Like I said, condense and keep it short and sweet
- If you can, demonstrate measurable successes on the job. Don't just summarize responsibilities.

You don't want to come across as "meh" to a recruiter or hiring manager. Be a rock star.

nascar_paul

emek wrote: »

1. Condense it down to 1 page.

Done.

emek wrote: »

2. I would remove the certification numbers, it clogs up that section.

Excellent suggestion. Done.

emek wrote: »

3. Consider listing your most important certs at the top (Microsoft in your case), and lesser certs after (Comptia).

Done.

emek wrote: »

Generally speaking, experience should be listed after your personal summary. For you, it should go Summary-->Experience-->Certs--> Skills

I'm dubious about the flow of the document that way, but I'm game to experiment. Done.

emek wrote: »

Remove the word "Professional Development" from the section title for your certs. This is unnecessary.

ANOTHER excellent catch! Done! Thanks again so much folks! I think that we're getting closer to this thing being attractive and interesting!

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20170608 Anonymized Version 04.pdf

kaiju

nascar_paul wrote: »

This is the only place where I disagree. Past roles are past tense. Current role is present. Can I get a second opinion on that? I'm not married to the format, I'm just curious what others think.

Great catch! Done!

I think that you're right there. Multiple revisions had made this area into a bit of a word soup. Done!

Attachment not found.

You are talking in the third person when you use "s". Drop the "s" and the sentences will be "first person".

nascar_paul

kaiju wrote: »

You are talking in the third person when you use "s". Drop the "s" and the sentences will be "first person".

Yikes! I'd never considered that! Well, I've made that change. Next, I'm going to work on getting some measurable accomplishment language in there and see if I can use that to put a little more of my "voice" into the document.

Thanks again for all of your suggestions and observations! This place is EXCELLENT for getting an experienced, knowledgeable second opinion!