Need resume pointers with regard to objectives and non-professional experience.

Hey. (If too long, there's a TL;DR at the bottom in bold)

So if anyone takes a gander at my previous threads, Im a late 20s guy in the midst of a career change. I graduated from a business school a few years back with my BS, have had hard time finding decent work, and the jobs Ive had have really not worked for me. This caused me to reevaluate what I wanted to do with my life, and what I really had a passion for.

So I chose IT, as Ive always had a passion for tech. Only reason I didnt get tech education when I was younger was because I told myself "I dont wanna turn my hobbies into a job". But as I got older and wiser, I realized the age old saying "if you love what you do, you wont work a day in your life". So I did my research, decided to get my A+ so I could at least get my foot in the door, and started networking with people I already know, and tech people I didnt know yet.

Anyways, I passed the first A+ exam, and have the second one this coming week. Now Im editing my resume and wondering about what to alter. Currently I list simply my education, and job experience. I have no tech job experience, so Im wondering if I should put my personal experience down. Ive done custom builds for myself, friends, and family members since my mid teens, including hardware purchasing and installs of all internal PC components. Im good with software installs (OS, security programs, etc) and troubleshooting of both software and hardware (this includes remote desktop work and phone help when needed). And Ive used Windows XP and Windows 7 extensively through the years, as well as doing home networking configuration amongst multiple hosts (wiring, assigning static IPs, port forwarding, wifi setup...simple stuff).

I feel Im your average geeky person whos learned some things over the years from trial and error. And through my studying for my exams with the Mike Meyers All-In-One book, I learned even more stuff. So Im just trying to make sure my resume makes me as marketable as possible.

TL;DR - Seeing as I have no actual professional tech experience, do I want to use my personal experience as leverage? Also, do I want to include an objective, and what would you recommend an entry level candidate put down? Lastly, in what order would you place Certification and Education at the start of my resume?

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Comments

anhtran35

Personal experience? That usually doesn't fly. Once you get your A+ just start networking and apply for help desk jobs. Monster seems to have a good entry level IT Resume:

Entry-Level IT Resume Sample

jaycrewz

anhtran35 wrote: »

Personal experience? That usually doesn't fly. Once you get your A+ just start networking and apply for help desk jobs. Monster seems to have a good entry level IT Resume:

Entry-Level IT Resume Sample

Could I put my technical experiences and knowledge within an objective? Im scared that simply listing an A+ and a 4-year degree with no professional tech experience will leave my resume bland and uncompetitive.

I want to put across that I know things and feel confident in my skills. Not that Im some noob who just up and decided to switch into tech and just recently starting learning things. I want to get across that Ive been at this for over a decade...and I cannot do that without mentioning personal experience .

I guess Im just scared of not getting callbacks, as it was so hard for me to get any interviews when I first graduated college without internships backing me up. Not having experience is a killer. That template you linked has professional tech experience I dont have (nevermind the coding experience)

Russell77

Are you working now? Try to relate something you have done recently to where you are going. If you were in retail try for someone who needs help with point of sale. If you were call center point out customer service back ground. Keep as much relevance to the job advertised in the top third of your resume.

jaycrewz

Anyone else care to chime in.

snowchick7669

I would avoid using an objective (they usually just state the obvious) and instead use a professional summary. Have a look at a few of the resume threads on here as they have a lot of really good pointers for what doesn't work and what you should include. Your personal experience is potentially something you can bring up in an interview or mention under a skills section in your resume? It all depends on how you are going to structure your resume. The resume example below is one of the better ones I've seen on this forum and it was helpful when I was re-doing mine. Why not upload your resume on here and get some feedback?

Resume Time

jaycrewz

^Thats the thing, I dont have any tech experience that would make a professional summary useful to me. Plus the jobs Ive had havent been that great either. All I really have to stand on is my bachelors, the A+ cert, and my personal experiences with computer building and troubleshooting.

I think Ill give a skills section a shot, and paste a couple small portions of my resume here later. I dont wanna upload the whole thing though, as Ive made it a habit to keep my anonymity on various forums I use online.

What order do you think I should place Certs, Education, and Skills? Remember, I dont have many skills just yet. Just as much as youd expect any geek to have from building pcs since he was a teen. Essentially the only marketable skills I think I could put in that section is Windows operating systems, Microsoft Office suites, experience with typical security software (antivirus, firewalls, antimalware progs), and hardware installation and troubleshooting experience.

So I was thinking my order would go like:

Certification - right off the bat so they know right away I have at least my entry level A+

Education - I thought to put my bachelors second, because its from a business school...so while having a degree is good and nice to have, I didnt wanna lead with something not tech related

Skills - Put this 3rd because I dont have many industry skills yet

Job Experience - obvious at the end because of my lack of tech job experience.

Thoughts?