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I’ve been told that my resume is too vague about my experience, yet I’ve also been told that if my resume is too detailed in my experience that no one would want to look at it. So I’m a bit torn and need a little direction on how to update and change my resume since my primary full time position ends at the end of next week and I go back to only working a few hours a week as a consultant. Need to find another position but all the IT recruiters say they can’t help me due to my resume. I tried to use visuals to explain my experience because it takes up 1/4 the space which may or may not work for people. Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.

JoshMcWilliams_ResumeExample.docx (40 KB)

@Adobe

4 Spice ups
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First thing that stands out is that while your resume looks good on paper, and in regular Word view, the default view for opening Word files from email and the like is reading view, and it looks terrible there. I’d recommend converting it to a PDF before sending it out.

Second, it isn’t clear where you did what. That may be throwing off recruiters. I’m also not sure about your dot system for your technology skill set.

Nit pick on this one, but you have two heading capitalized and two not.

I’d recommend making your achievements more specific, and tailoring your list to the type of job that you’re applying for. They may not care how good you were with negotiations if you’re applying for an IT Manager position. That is another thing, you don’t highlight any managerial experience other than your job title.

5 Spice ups
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This is a quite an unorthodox styling in your resume. That is both good and bad. Good because it can stand out, but bad because it would be hard to read for most who haven’t seen this style before. I second Sosipater about PDF. Always send out in PDF, it’s much more clean that way.

You’re welcome to take a look at my resume to see what has worked well for me.

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Did they tell you specifically what was wrong with your resume and why they couldn’t use it? It looks great to me aside from needing to be a PDF

1 Spice up
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I had actually converted it to a PDF and it made it like 580K which many of the sites like Monster and Dice won’t accept so I did just word to shrink it down. Good to know that it looks like junk via email viewer. Most of the jobs I have been applying for is IT Operations Manager and Asst IT Project Manager.

Any suggestions on how long is too long for me to fit more experience in?

1 Spice up
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Agreed; always send in PDF so (1) it can’t be modified as easily and (2) you can assume it will display properly and predictably on any device.

As for the presentation… I love it. My resume is similarly atypical, and that alone has landed me several interviews. If a prospective employer rejects my application based on my resume being “unorthodox” I take that as a strong indicator that it’s not a place in which I would like to work.

uhhhhh…:

rly.png

1 Spice up
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No they could only tell me that my experience was vague and they couldn’t determine what jobs I may have the experience for.

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I 100% agree with Jimmy and Sos. This needs to be on PDF to hold the desired formatting. I’m opening this on office 2007 and there look to be all sorts of issues and formatting that needs fixed.

  • Formatting and grammar mistakes seem to be an issue.
  • The dot system looks nice, but it’s not understandable. As in different skills have different dot versions. What does this even mean?
  • The layout looks nice, I would try and highlight product experience or possibly put it higher on the page. Keywords are usually scanned through the most and hitting these makes it easier for recruiters.
2 Spice ups
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Awesome resume.

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As already said, the formatting is funky (not displayed right). I always send out PDF versions of my resume to ensure the formatting is how I want it. Word is too unreliable for that (which seems odd).

The overall layout is definitely different. What turned me off on it was that your accomplishments were just kind of spattered in there together, no definition of where they took place. Did you negotiate cell contracts to save the company loads of money at all of the places you worked or just one?

A lot of places look for “buzzwords” (I hate that saying, even if it is true); you may consider putting a quick “technologies” section in there and just list out stuff like DHCP, DNS, Active Directory, GPOs, etc etc.Whatever skills you have or know something about. This will help you get through the initial “filtering” phase at some places that don’t even have a live person view your resume until it has had some sort of automated scan done to it.

3 Spice ups
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Is this any better? Slowly making a few changes as I read some comments.

JoshMcWilliams_ResumeExample.pdf (590 KB)

1 Spice up
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For each company you worked for, include a paragraph of the duties and responsibilities. Find out what the current “buzzwords” are for the jobs you seek. If you have a good relationship with a recruiter, they can help. Then use those buzzwords within the resume if you honestly have experience with them.

I think part of the problem is that some of your information is graphical, while it is an awesome looking resume I’m not sure how many recruiter database apps handle that very well, and won’t help in their searches for qualified candidates in their database.

You might think about creating a simplified version without the graphics for use with recruiters. That way it will have more hits when they do searches for particular skill sets.

Also be aware that recruiting firms like to wrap their information around your resume when sending to clients, which could interfere with custom formatting.

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Unfortunately that PDF is completely illegible. 90% of the fonts used did not convert to PDF gracefully. :frowning:

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In mine? Because I’m looking at it in Adobe Reader and it looks like it should.

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Random bolding on the achievements side looks weird and random. Are my eyes supposed to be attracted to those specific words?

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This is what it looks like for me…

Resume_Screen_Cap.JPG
Resume_Screen_Cap.JPG921×768 128 KB
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It seems like it went over fine on mine, mine viewed on adobe reader and it looks like everything is relative to your previous word doc.

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Looked fine when I viewed it as well.

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I suppose I’m on a hunt to figure out why my Adobe Reader is opening the file wrong then :stuck_out_tongue:

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Just for reference this is my original Resume and I was told that it was not of the caliber to even consider using for anything beyond an entry level position. That nothing stood out and it didn’t include any achievements that would make me seem like I had enough experience. Yet I was told that I had to fit everything onto a single page as most HR people will not look at a 2nd page.

JoshMcWilliams_ResumeEx.pdf (248 KB)