Doctoring Resume

I was recently contacted by a recruiter who suggested changing my title from "IT Specialist" to "Network/System Administrator" to reflect more closely the items that I have listed on my resume.

Is it wrong to do this? I know that the job title IT Specialist is generic but in a sense I feel like it is at least misleading to inflate my resume like that.

What is the general feeling on situations like this?

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MrRyte

jmreicha wrote: »

I was recently contacted by a recruiter who suggested changing my title from "IT Specialist" to "Network/System Administrator" to reflect more closely the items that I have listed on my resume.

Is it wrong to do this? I know that the job title IT Specialist is generic but in a sense I feel like it is at least misleading to inflate my resume like that.

What is the general feeling on situations like this?

Well, what IT certs do you have?
How much experience do you have as a "Network/Systems Administrator"?

JamesFigueroa

It depends on what you did and your responsibilities. Titles arent a big deal in the IT real world but for recruiters, the titles are "hot words". It all boils down to what you did. For your company, your responsibilities labeled you as a IT specialist but for a different company, you would be viewed as a Net/sys admin. You would be shooting yourself in the foot if your main responsibilities as an IT specialist was answering phones and you put Net/Sys admin...

jmreicha

JamesFigueroa wrote: »

It depends on what you did and your responsibilities. Titles arent a big deal in the IT real world but for recruiters, the titles are "hot words". It all boils down to what you did. For your company, your responsibilities labeled you as a IT specialist but for a different company, you would be viewed as a Net/sys admin. You would be shooting yourself in the foot if your main responsibilities as an IT specialist was answering phones and you put Net/Sys admin...

I totally agree and that is where I am conflicted. I have done some pretty cool stuff but I don't consider myself to have the experience of a sys admin, I have 1 yr experience at my current job, about 4 years in IT. At most I would say I have jr. admin experience.

Here is what I have listed on my resume to give you a better idea.

IT Specialist

•Able to achieve 99.9% uptime for mission critical systems in a medium sized Windows based domain.
•Involvement in the implementation, maintenance and periodic testing of BackupExec backup policy.
•Installation of open source network monitoring tools (Zenoss, Syslog), improving network efficiency.
•Troubleshooting and maintenance of Exchange mail server issues company wide, improving productivity.
•Implement network wide security using Fortigate firewall and centrally managed Anti-Virus software.
•Able to re-engineer infrastructure to fully comply with previously failing PCI compliance guidelines.
•User configuration and management of ~100 users with Active Directory on Windows Server 2008 DC.
•Built multiple database driven websites with back-end user interfaces using Dreamweaver.

JamesFigueroa

Nice responsibilities man.

With that kind of job description, I wouldnt worry too much about changing your role on a resume. If you are still hesitant, I would do some job searches and see what job duties sys/net admin job postings advertise to get a feel about where you stack up. With 5 years total IT experiance and your responsibilities at this job, I think you should be ok. If you have any Certs, that will be the icing on the cake too...

jmreicha

MrRyte wrote: »

Well, what IT certs do you have?
How much experience do you have as a "Network/Systems Administrator"?

Unfortunately no certs. I have been thinking of getting some to strengthen my resume but would probably end up doing the self study route to get them until I can find an employer to pay for some training.