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Hi everyone. I am in the process of updating my resume and was hoping for some feedback from other IT pros. I am really struggling with word choice and phrasing. If anyone would be willing to take a look I would greatly appreciate it. I have attached my latest draft. Thanks!

ResumeCritique.pdf (195 KB)

12 Spice ups
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Way too much information and terrible layout. Most of the information supplied would be better suited to a cover letter.

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Consolidate the contractor job into one heading. Since your position didn’t change, but the company who cuts your checks did, it will reduce the amount of extraneous info. This is a resume, not a background check.

Speaking of extraneous info, shorten it up junior! Almost two pages long, half of them bullet points? I know you have a lot of ground to cover with it, but we don’t need to know every single little detail of every single little thing you did. Highlight your best shit, make it stand out and to the top, even if it’s not in chronological order.

Shorten up your career goals, it’s wordy and not to the point. It’s also not in complete sentences. Bullet points are supposed to be like that.

Your proficiencies, I would stick with the basics here. Hardware, end user software, middleware, and familiar protocols. Unless you are aiming towards a job where you manage the cloud while handling security and updating SQL.

Lastly, drop the GPA. It makes you sound like a douche. Move your certs down there to beef it up, but with close to 6 years of experience, there isn’t a need to highlight edujamacation. You have proven you have the chops by sheer ability to hold a job over this time.

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First, the layout. The headings and breaks are fine. The outer border needs to go. Those boxes underneath your name can also go and then you can enlarge your name - remember you are trying to get their attention, but not be gaudy about it.

If you are attempting to get a position based on experience, highlight that first. Likewise with the education.

As PSX said, put the education and certification together. Keeping the GPA is ok if you are looking at using your education as the merit in which to get a job. Otherwise, bring it up, if asked, during the interview or as part of a cover letter.

Cut the career profile down. Three sentences should be more than enough. If you find that you are using more than that, then maybe remove the whole section and put that in your cover letter.

Punctuate consistently. First thing to jump out at me “Windows 2000/XP/7/8 | Windows Server 2000/2003/2008/2012” If you want to list them, fine. If you want to summarize, you might go with something along the lines of Windows Desktop Operating Systems 2000 - Present and Windows Server Operating Systems 2000 - Present.

One thing that is very often overlooked by many applicants: verb tense. Your current position you are using everything in the past tense. You are currently still doing those things.

Another thing for you to consider - break up the career description stuff into two sections: Duties/Responsibilities and Accomplishments. You do want to highlight what you have done while also letting the reader know what you currently do. Plus it breaks up the bullet points, which are making me cross-eyed right now.

The contract position, sum it up in one sentence but mention that you were hired into your current position from that position. It is there just to show history.

Previous jobs, I normally keep to a list of about three to five bullets. Anything that you are doing now, remove that from the list. In previous jobs, it is also good to keep it mostly to accomplishments. Simply because the potential employer wants to know what you did for your employer. Some of that stuff, if it is duplicated between positions, you can save for the interview.

While two pages isn’t a big deal, it has to be good. I would do some chopping up.

Another piece of advice: Keep a copy of this resume. What you should do is cut and paste your accomplishments and responsibilities to resumes as you need them. Have a good generic resume out there to get attention, but apply for jobs with a specific resume in which you tailor to each application.

Just remember to organize your resumes accordingly so if you go to an interview, you can give them copies of the resume that you submitted.

TXOgre put up one some time in the last six months or so that was a very good format. You might want to see if you can find it. I liked it so much I’ve copied the format into mine and made some tweaks.

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Agree with most of the above. Shortening will help.

But,Great if the reader is a techie Jons with 180 servers have an IT department who have no Idea what half of the packages you talked about are. And it ahas to go theough HR before ti gets to a techie.

Also, not a single word that I saw (glancing over it) about how anything you did helped the business.

Example. Leveraged xxx package to identify security vulnerability in websites. How about Prevented hacking of company website protecting the reputation and confidential data of company using xxx package.

That way HR sees why you did it and the package name is still in there for the keyword searches.

Profile

What makes you different? How do you relate to the business side?

Solution focused IT systems administrator, expert in leading and contributing to projects designed to enhance system functionality and end-user productivity. Acknowledged for capacity to tackle challenging issues, analyze viable alternatives, and provide innovative solutions that reside well within financial and time frameworks

Collaborative IT Systems Administrator, Expert in working as a part of cross functional teams (Marketing, HR, Executive Suite, Warehouse) to match company business goals for the projects measured in functionality, ease of use and end user productivity. Acknowledged for leadership when needed, Loving a challenge, analysis and presentation of solutions meeting time and money constraints.

My point is the companies want someone who always has the business side in mind.

THAT will set you apart.

Just my opinion

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Thanks for all the feedback and advice. Resumes have always been a challenge for me. The layout and career profile are the result of a professional resume writing service which has been a rather disappointing experience I must say. The “proficiency” section disaster is all on me though as are most of the items in the job history. That being said, lets see if this can be salvaged.

I have made the following changes based on the feedback so far.

  1. Moved the MCSA cert to the bottom and dropped the GPA.

  2. Eliminated the boxes under my name and removed outer border.

  3. Consolidated Contractor job into current position.

I am reworking the proficiencies section (any more advice here?) and then I’ll tackle the job history. I will also try to hunt down the one TXOgre uploaded.

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I hope everyone reading this PDF is doing it in a secure viewer with scripting disabled.

I am sure our poster is most likely legit, but he appears to be new to the community and this is his only post to date

:slight_smile:

Good luck with the Job Hunting.

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FECK

read his NOW, altering passwords just in case, because you can NEVER be to paranoid :o(

my read is it too crowded, but basically following advice as given will sort that bit out, you are writing an INTRO, not a novel

and in UK, I have been informed that puting details into a box / bordered means it can’t be read by the scanning software they use here to pull the CV’s that have the keywords they are looking for

also keep font to Arial, as it’s a clean easy to read style, avoid Comic sans like the plague :o)

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Although I am in IT these days, my degree and passion still lie in graphic design. From a design standpoint, start by using tables (with invisible grid lines) so things line up throughout your document. Its cleaner and easier on the eyes.

More white space! This thing is so filled that its like reading a novel and nobody is going to take the time to do that. You said you removed the boarder but I would take a step further and most likely remove all the horizontal lines. If you’re going to use bullet points, use a simple circle or square, nothing “fancy.”

Agreed! Stay away from anything too decorative also. Papyrus is another that is over-used and awful.

Use simple font changes to break up the document. A typical font theme includes a sans serif font for headings and an easier-to-read serif font for the body; for example Arial and Times New Roman. Keep fonts consistent also! The “Career Profile” and “Technical Proficiencies” are in different cases. It looks like “Technical Proficiencies” might be a sub-heading but because they are both centered, it makes things confusing. Also IMHO, Technical Proficiencies should be a separate heading anyway. I don’t think “proficiencies” is proper grammar. Using bold, italics, and small caps in the same font are good options. Font size can also help define different sections but use sparingly. Headings can be about 2 to 4 points larger than the body depending on the font choices.

I usually employ simple headings that are left aligned and bold.
Employment History
Certifications & Skills
Education

I like to note “References are Available on Request”, if you are not going to include them on the resume. Usually I place this in the lower right-hand corner in an italic font, possibly in a smaller size.

As many others have said, make your resume to the point and simple. However, a resume is NOT enough and you need a killer cover letter to introduce yourself. The cover letter is the opportunity to really brag and tell a prospective employer how freaking awesome you are.

Think of your resume and cover letter as a recipe. Your cover letter functions as the detailed instructions and your resume is more simply a list of ingredients. Best of luck!

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Also one other thing that I like to include on a resume that has more than one page: a footer. With a minimum of my name and Page x of y. Just in case it gets separated.

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I will agree with most everything posted above. I did a write-up about resumes and posted it here: Resume & Cover Letter - Boring's World

Agreed! I like to put my name and phone number at the top of every page for the very same reason, with just the page number at the bottom.

A couple additional design tips I have read over the last few years:

  1. DO NOT use the page header and footer in Word for your name and contact information. Most of the scanning software ignores this section of Word docs. Format this information within the body of the page instead.
  2. Use a basic font that is appropriate for the company & industry. This will often be Arial or Helvetica. However, if you are applying to the New York Times then Times New Roman may be more appropriate.
  3. Don’t use any font size smaller than 10 points. It is likely someone reviewing the resume may not have the best eyes, so don’t make them pull out a magnifying glass to read 6 point text. Along the same lines, you shouldn’t use anything larger than 12 point text for the body (OK to use larger for headers, etc.) because it makes it look like you are trying to artificially fill up the page to make up for a lack of experience.
  4. Use standard, round bullets. It is very likely the resume is going to be scanned, and fancy bullets may cause problems with the scanner, the OCR software, or the search results.

Good luck!

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Thanks for all the input everyone!

After reading through all the suggestions, I am wondering if I should blow it up and start fresh. The main reason I used a professional resume writing service in the first place is because I hate dealing with layout and formatting, but that clearly backfired lol.

I am attaching my original that I sent in for the rewrite. It is rife with errors I’m sure, but would it be better to build off of this layout instead, or should I just start from scratch?

Also, should my MCSA cert be listed under a “skills” section or thrown in with education? I am getting a lot of mixed feedback on that.

ResumeCritique_OriginalFormat.docx (28.6 KB)

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There’s no set rule for this, so either way is acceptable. Realize that your resume might only get 5-10 seconds of review, so make it as easy to find information as possible. Putting your certs under skills might get them overlooked. I would place it where you expect them to easily find it. If an HR rep is reviewing your resume, it is likely they would expect to see it under education.

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Thank looks a lot better! Nicely done!

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GPA matters for your first job out of school and thats about it. Also with an AS. and not a BA/BS/BBA no one’s really going to care either way. I’d argue it doesn’t do anything other than explain why you were not working for 2 years.

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Parroting pretty much all that has already been said…If I were an HR rep or hiring manager I would not have read that resume and would have filed it away in the trash. Keep it to one page, generalize and keep it short. Save all those details for the face to face interview.