Please critique my resume!

bpenn · April 2015

Hello all,

I only have a few years in the IT world but I am trying to clean up my resume and apply for a new position. Any constructive advice is much appreciated.

Also, you may notice I put "Associate of (ISC)²" in my resume. I passed the CISSP but, legally, I cannot say that until I can get endorsed. I need another year for that...

CyberSecurity · April 2015

If you're going for a professional environment enterprise look:

Take out the corner graphic
List any Certification numbers you can so companies can verify
Spacing needs to be consistent throughout the document (between headers and text)
Don't bold anything and use all black text. (only bold the most important eye-catchers) For example don't bold your name since your name isn't more important than your experience. All is equally important. Only bold things like "SECURITY+ or Clearance"
Put certifications at the top.
Use past tense phrases such as "supported" instead of "supports"

PM me and you can email me your word doc of this and i'll fix it for you for you gratis.

srabiee · April 2015

On first glance, your template doesn't really resemble a resume in the traditional sense. I think you could really benefit from a competent, professional resume template. There's too much unused white space, especially on the right side of the page. The content also needs some major reworking.

The background section should be replaced with a competent professional summary. I will link you to a document regarding how to write a professional summary. Google is also a good resource on this. Save the "background" stuff for your cover letter.

Within the professional experience section, each job description should begin with a high-level overview of your daily duties and responsibilities, and then use bullets to highlight special achievements, projects, promotions, etc. I will link you to a resume that's a great example on how to format and write this properly. I would recommend expanding on your experience as much as possible, especially as it relates to the specific job that you are applying for.

This is an excellent resume guide with example resumes, a huge list of action verbs, sample summaries, etc:

http://www.filedropper.com/resumeguide

This thread contains a fantastic example of a properly formatted and written resume (ptilsen's resume):

Resume time

I recommend working on the formatting and writing the professional summary, then re-upload your revision for further input.

bpenn · April 2015

Thank you, srabiee.

I have attached a revised copy. I really attempted to comply with some of the guidelines you gave me. Please let me know if I am on the right track.

bpenn resume.doc

PS - I think I should probably remove the CISSP comment and just leave it "Associate" since I need another year to be endorsed. The only reason I want to include it is because of DoD jobs and their desire for the Associate or full endorsement.

srabiee · April 2015

I think at this point you may just want to get this down to a single page, as there's not much content on page 2. Try transferring your data to ptilsen's resume template and see if that doesn't get you down to a single page. You can shrink the margins a bit if need be. When I do a print preview of your current resume in Word 2013, the margins are horribly offset to the left.

Education and Certifications need to be grouped together on the page. Education first, then Certifications.

I recommend writing your entire experience section in the past tense for consistency. IMO it reads better that way.

Make sure each bullet point begins with an action verb. For example, the one that begins with "100%" should be modified. Same with the ones that begin with "Personally", "Swift", and "High".
Your name needs a much larger font at the top of your resume. You want to draw immediate attention to yourself, after all.

You may want to include the city and state of each job experience position, if applicable.

Try to get another revision uploaded (preferably in PDF format) and I will see about helping you with the content itself. The formatting stuff is always a PIA to get right, so I tend to focus on that first before doing proofreading.

Sorry, I don't know much about CISSP, so I can't give you much advice about that.

bpenn · April 2015

Ok,

I have edited it further and hope that I have made a significant improvement.

srabiee,

Did you advise me to combine the certs with the education? I didnt do that on this resume but if you think it is a good idea then I will edit it.

BPENN update 21 April 2015 Resume pdf version.pdf

srabiee · April 2015

Consider centering your name and contact info on the page. I think it would look more visually appealing that way.

You don't have to differentiate full time and part time experience in your professional summary, IMO. If you are claiming 7 years of experience, you want that to be reflected in your professional experience section, however. Hiring managers are going to be looking for that sort of thing.

Education should be listed above certifications.

I think the resume might look more aesthetically pleasing if you listed your sections in this order: Summary, Experience, Education, Certifications. Try it and see what you think.

Try using a slightly bigger font for your section titles. They blend into the resume a little too much.

Right-justify the dates for your job positions. They don't look right sitting in the middle of the page like this.

I think this resume is looking really good so far. I'm looking forward to seeing your next revision.

Please critique my resume!

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