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Well, it has been four months and still looking for an IT job. I’ve had a few interviews but nothing has come of it. I think my biggest issue is I am 48 and asking for the high end of money on the salary side of things. I say it is negotiable but still not getting anything. I think I may need some interview work as that is one area I know I am lacking in seeing as I am an introvert. During the interviews, I am trying to focus on my experience and that I have seen a lot and can hit the ground running. I don’t have a lot of questions when they ask other than the typical what is it like day to day and what are the big challenges.

I have attached my resume if anyone wants to give me some ideas where I can improve. All help is appreciated.

Resume.pdf (68.2 KB)

9 Spice ups
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Hard to say without a play-by-play of your interviews. I think there’s a lot of shine that can be added to your resume, and definitely leave off the bit about references. Everyone knows they’re available, or producible on request.

I interviewed for a job last June and was passed over, and interviewed this June and took a big step forward. My approach was to try to and some research on the company and what they do, along with what I would expect my duties to be based on the listed job description. I’m incredibly picky about places I apply to, since it’s not worth wasting my time getting lowballed or going somewhere that has obvious red flags in the posting. I had very few questions that weren’t answered through the course of my recent two interviews and I view that as a facet of choosing the right kinds of company to apply to.

Be confident. Also own up to the things you don’t know. Lack of knowledge does not mean lack of ability, especially when a lot of the objects tend to be along the lines of cisco vs. HPE switches or Hyper-V vs. VMware. You know it’s all roughly the same on the inside, and use that to point out how your core baseline knowledge makes you so flexible.

I would suggest letting your experience play out through simply talking about yourself and what you’ve done. And do some research on current resume-writing techniques. What you posted is similar to what I used to do and it does absolutely nothing to actually sell you. Give some data. “Saved $5,000 on licensing by doing XXXX”, “Reduced support hours by 20% by implementing…” Shorten your summary and don’t make it about what you did. Make it about who you are as an IT professional. Literally the first line of my resume is (paraphrased)“No, I’ve never seen that before…so what?”

Soft skills matter. I’m extremely introverted, but I can turn it on when the phone rings with an issue. Take ownership, prove(or pretend) you understand the problem, and manage expectations on how the resolution is going to play out. IT is support. I’ve found that it really doesn’t matter how good you are at your job so long as you understand that the vast majority of users/bosses/etc just want to feel like they’re being taken care of and that you’re on top of things.

3 Spice ups
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I would add some more details in regards what you did exactly at your jobs. Provide a glimpse into certain projects, tasks etc that you completed and how that helped the business. Use some eye catching words instead of just “Provide” which you have listed a few times. Use past tense for the companies that you are no longer working for.

When it is your turn to ask the questions ask them things like: How long have you been here? What keeps you motivated in doing this job day to day?What are some upcoming projects you have coming up? How big is the team? How do you promote employee growth?

1 Spice up
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I don’t give a salary point for them to start. I know what I’m worth, but I let them talk money first. What their appetite of my skillset then we can talk money.

2 Spice ups
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If you feel that your interview skills are lacking check with your local commit colleges to see if they offer coaching. Mine did and it was definitely worth while. It was very short (like three days) and they finish with a mock interview where they film you and give you pointers afterwards.

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The resume is very light. You say you are 48, yet only have jobs back to 2012. If you have some military experience, that should be on there. Even your SpiceWorks profile says you have been in IT since 1996.

You need to find some local “networking” (as in connections) groups to get some help with your resume and your interview skills. Here is a good example: Southlake Focus Group

2 Spice ups
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Although you are clearly already getting to the interview stage, personally I would amend the resume to talk about what you achieved in your previous roles. I would use as many quantifiable numbers as possible. Did you reduce ticket response times? By how much? Did you get a high satisfaction rating from your colleagues for your support? Did you reduce network/server downtime? Give people something tangible so that they can understand what you could bring to a role. Also, as you’re only just spreading over to a second page, I’d try and get everything onto a single page even if it means cutting out a couple of lines from your job history - it’s much neater.

As for the interviews, asking good questions is critical. Don’t just ask about things that would affect your day-to-day working life. Ask the interviewers about themselves, such as why did they apply to work there and what keeps them there. There’s plenty of resources online with interesting questions to ask at interview. They can really help sell you.

Good luck with the job hunting!

1 Spice up
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Talk to IT recruiting firms. I’d probably still be looking if I did not go that route. Above responses are all good. Be willing to commute to a city if you are limiting yourself to local smaller towns.

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Agree with above comments about adding extra information to the list of jobs in the resume. Instances are: comment on how well you carried out the task; tell them about the improvements you made; tell them about the initiatives that you have taken; tell them about any cost savings you have made; etc. Whichever is applicable use it. Be succinct and if they want to pursue it they can ask questions at the interview.

Adjust your Resume to better match the advertisement. And write a covering letter that demonstrates your eagerness to get the job and work in their Company.

Interviews can be difficult. I believe that you need to research the Company as best you can. Make notes and don’t be afraid to refer to them during the interview since the interviewers have their notes - all participants should be prepared. Have a list of questions to ask and even if they have covered everything, refer to it and quickly go through it restating what you have learnt at the interview to answer the question. When in the interview you need to maintain eye contact with whoever has asked a question; interviewers like this and will not worry about you being an introvert. At the end of the interview, If they don’t say, ask them about what their timeline is for the recruitment and what happens next.

Best of luck

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The big thing that jumps out at me is that all three of the jobs you’ve listed are exactly the same, with the only differences being the natural evolution of OS versions. Otherwise, it looks like you just punch in and punch out, don’t really go outside of your assigned tasks, and that’s it. I don’t see any growth mindset here, which means that if I was a potential employer, I know I could rely on you to follow a script and be a robot, but I couldn’t rely on you to think yourself out of a jam or take lead on a major project with enough persistence, tenacity, or drive to see it through.

Just barely toeing the line of age discrimination, if you’re asking for top-end salary to essentially do what a lower-paid 24-year-old just getting started in IT could do, I’ll go for the kid who’s asking for way less money and has the same abilities, but would likely be more open to new ideas and passion for learning.

The MCP certs are out of date, and may add weight to the “lack of growth/lack of desire to grow” perspective.

1 Spice up
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Going to work on updating the resume with the suggestions. Thanks. I did get a call for a phone interview today so will have to do some crash courses on interviewing I the next day. I really appreciate the help and suggestions.

2 Spice ups
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Just wondering what happened with your previous company? Were you laid off?

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“Very light” is an understatement imho, and almost looks like you copied and pasted your duties from the first to the other two. I can tell you right now, drop the References section - that’s a given. I just PM’d you my LinkedIn profile info (which you can also find on my profile here) - toward the top is my resume so you can take a look at it and how I added in my mil experience.

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Good luck. There is no one right answer on how to go about this, but all of the suggestions sound right to me. Sometimes you need to tailor your resume according to the specifics of the company you are interviewing for. So you might need a few versions of your resume: one for heavy on servers, one for heavy on help desk, one for your router and switch experience and so on.

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Update: I was given a job offer today and accepted. Happened to get lucky and saw the notice for the position the last day it was opened. Had adjusted parts of the resume with the suggestions here but was still looking at more. Did a little research on interviewing and incorporated that.

Thanks for all the help and comments. It truly helped.

1 Spice up
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What did you do differently with your interviewing?