Resume Critique
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Like I said earlier... mentioning Hyper-V alone has 99% of the value. Adding that it was also a consolidation project adds a little value (but risks adding to much info that might undermine if someone was hoping you did it for HA or for just best practice reasons.) But these are two very different things... one is a tech so would normally be listed under skills. The other is a project and should go under experience. The two don't need to be associated as it's almost entirely unimportant that you consolidated with Hyper-V. That you know Hyper-V matters, that you know consolidation matters. but there is no need to tie them together.
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@scottalanmiller said in Resume Critique:
@jimmy9008 said in Resume Critique:
@scottalanmiller said in Resume Critique:
@jimmy9008 said in Resume Critique:
@scottalanmiller said in Resume Critique:
@jimmy9008 said in Resume Critique:
@scottalanmiller said in Resume Critique:
@jimmy9008 said in Resume Critique:
@scottalanmiller said in Resume Critique:
@jimmy9008 said in Resume Critique:
@scottalanmiller said in Resume Critique:
@jimmy9008 said in Resume Critique:
@scottalanmiller said in Resume Critique:
Normal people avoid all kinds of failures every moment, of every day. Imagine if you bought a Corvette and came home and your wife is furious because you spent $150K that you didn't have, on a car you didn't need. Now explain to her how dumb she is because you ACTUALLY saved $300K by not buying the $450K Ferrari that you also didn't need. Boy will she fill dumb once she realized how much success you had in not buying that Ferrari.
The success would have been on the wife's CV saying 'Saved 100k through purchase of a Ford'. In your example they both failed
How do we know that Hyper-V was not like the Corvette? Nowhere was the business process or success mentioned, only the avoidance of the Ferrari. We have no reason to think that Hyper-V was the right, or even a good choice, only that what other option was considered was worse.
But you've highlighted my point. The "success" is skipped here. We have the Ferrari and the Corvette only in the CV example, never the Ford. So you've caught my point, but I'm not sure you've applied it to the problem at hand.
The fact that the CV writer is saying it's a success and explaining why... Is why.
There is no explanantion and no foundation for calling it a success. Hence my assumption that it is a lie.
It must suck to assume everything is a lie. Pessimist?
Your approach is to just assume anything, no matter how illogical or unlikely, on a CV is the truth?
Until I meat them and question them, yes. That's the point of the face to face. To assume it's not the truth is just a bad place to be.
It's not when the statement is a fundamental lie. There is no foundation for a statement like $150K being saved under those conditions. There is no truthful statement to make in that manner because such a valuation cannto be made. So it is a known falsehood.
It can be said. If the director is about to sign off on the purchase but the Candidate stopped it and convincing them to change.. that can be said. Along with any savings etc. Who are you to say they lied?!
I'm the person evaluating their statement, in this situation, I am the sole person to determine the truth. Clearly the director can't understand the problem domain enough to know what savings vs. failure looks like, and the candidate had to work for that person and their perspective is coloured by their impression of intent from someone other than them.
Also, your statement is based on assumptions that dont' exist in the scenario.
Like I said a few times... Let's just disagree on the CV. I personally like to have the reason a word is listed. You I guess dont. So, that's it.
I didn't disagree with having a reason. I just said to put on facts, not opinion (and especialy not easily challenged opinion.)
Saying you saved money is not an opinion. It's a fact if they did it. Of course, you can never know it's true. But it can still be their fact.
And if true, is a great thing to brag about that you stopped that failure.
The whole point in meeting them is to them discuss this stuff.
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For example, I know RHEL and Windows. I am also experienced as a web admin. But I don't need to list which OS I have used in a web admin capacity. It's generally better to keep those things separate as they are different kinds of things.
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@jimmy9008 said in Resume Critique:
Saying you saved money is not an opinion. It's a fact if they did it.
I've proven it is opinion. There is no means of proving you saved money, it's literally impossible. There is no fact here whatsoever. I don't know how you can state this, because I showed concretely via logical example that it is not possible to determine the cost savings, at least without an accepted baseline of success against which to measure.
Even with a baseline that is accepted, cost savings is a soft concept and very relative. Without a baseline, it is provable to be a falsehood.
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@jimmy9008 said in Resume Critique:
The whole point in meeting them is to them discuss this stuff.
Right, so never put it on the CV where it could easily stop you from getting to have a discussion about the situation.
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In an interview, having a long conversation about how bad decisions were suggested and how you decided to do something else and talked them out of it, great. Talk about how they were going to spend $200K and you only spend $50K, great. But don't claim success or cost savings in a vacuum. Cost savings "versus decision X" is totally different than "cost savings", for example.
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For example... I was tempted to spend $200K, but I only spend $50K and got a system that was even better. Maybe I could have saved more, but I didn't feel like looking into it any more. That's a decent discussion to have. At some point you've got to make the judgement call to move forward, even if the answer isn't ideal. Talk about decision making capabilities, talk about your understanding of the decision making process. Those are the things that matter. If you try to state absolute value of decisions, someone is going to tear it apart. It implies unlimited knowledge that cannot exist.
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Going back to the software development example that I gave... I had a long meeting with the team talking about what they were planning to do. I kept asking them for their reasoning behind decisions and then asked why those same reasons were not applied universally to all decisions. We went round and round on this. Eventually they asked me what answer I was looking for. I was shocked. I had to explain that I wasn't looking for an answer, I was asking them to take a rational approach to decision making and be aware of when they were deciding based on stated criteria, or applying criteria after the fact to justify emotional answers.
Likewise, in the interview, you want to show that you can get to good answers, not claim that you once had a good answer. That you "did something good" once at a previous job is of no value to an employer in the future. But that you knew how to get to a good solution is something that you can repeat for a new employer. Does that make sense?
It's like "I picked Office 365 and it was the right choice" is worthless because for all we know you threw a dart at a dartboard. But if you show logic as to why you chose O365 and with different conditions would choose different things, you can show how you can bring value to other employers by making good decisions for them in the future.
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@black3dynamite said in Resume Critique:
What happened to staying on topic?
Actually, I welcome this for my thread. Reading others' opinions helps me achieve some clarity about what I think.
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@eddiejennings said in Resume Critique:
@black3dynamite said in Resume Critique:
What happened to staying on topic?
Actually, I welcome this for my thread. Reading others' opinions helps me achieve some clarity about what I think.
Lots of insight on this one.
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Any more lively discussion on this thread and it will make the all time most popular threads list!
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holy shit this thread blew up.
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@scottalanmiller said in Resume Critique:
What a hiring manager or new company cares about:
- That you know technical things or have skills and experience (e.g. I can do this thing.)
- That you make good decisions and have good understanding (e.g. I think well about things.)
So a resume should only contain the above, and nothing more, nothing less?
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@Dashrender
It's all a part of my grand plan to be mentioned on a ML review video
On another note, home DNS server is now functional, so back to editing and job searching.
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If this is in relation to your new company startup, I would venture to think your personality and communication is critical. Use applicable discourse conventions to explain how you can add value to a particular business. While this also is true for an employee/employer relationship, as an outside IT business consultant, communication of issues and opportunities to improve profitability of a business are paramount.
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@tim_g said in Resume Critique:
@scottalanmiller said in Resume Critique:
What a hiring manager or new company cares about:
- That you know technical things or have skills and experience (e.g. I can do this thing.)
- That you make good decisions and have good understanding (e.g. I think well about things.)
So a resume should only contain the above, and nothing more, nothing less?
Other than basic contact info, yes. You don't want to leave off applicable skills and experience, and anything else is filler. Things like certs and education may or may not fit into this category, depending on if they are applicable to showing skills or experience.
The goal of a CV is to show value to a future or potential employer. Skills and experience are what show that.
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I have created another iteration.
First, I removed the borders from the table. I'll work the formatting some more, as without the lines it seems awkward.
For my current position, I decided to reword a few points to make the focus be on the skills. I've pondered whether or not it would be beneficial to mention some cost savings, but the more I consider it, much of the cost savings comes from remedying poor past decisions or re-examining something that's been left on autopilot.
I removed the line about IT inventory. Further consideration makes it seem like it's as much of a selling point as saying "I manage DHCP on our network." Doing so, along with the other rewording, allowed for room to mention my home lab.
I think at this stage of my career, especially wanting to dive into the [unfamiliar] territory of Linux administration, mentioning the home lab shows some initiative -- even if it's simple and small. I could mention some of the stuff I did with my Cisco switches during CCNA training; however, methinks that would be unwise for a couple of reasons: 1. I have old equipment and likely what I learned about IOS is likely dated by now. 2. It doesn't seem relevant for looking for position in systems administration.
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This resume still leaves me with a lot of questions. What size is this company? Multi-locations, are you sole IT staff? What are your responsibilities? I would also like to see more information on what you are using group policy for, 'implementing group policy' just only tells me you have seen what a GPO looks like.
Also, all your skills should come back into play in your projects. Your skills list tells me what you have used, but your projects shows me how much experience you have with them.
I'm also not a big fan of the home lab section. If you run your home network like a business using these technologies day to day, that I'm interested in. If you followed a walkthrough and installed something, I don't care. Show me that your home lab is actually doing something.
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@flaxking said in Resume Critique:
This resume still leaves me with a lot of questions. What size is this company? Multi-locations, are you sole IT staff? What are your responsibilities? I would also like to see more information on what you are using group policy for, 'implementing group policy' just only tells me you have seen what a GPO looks like.
Also, all your skills should come back into play in your projects. Your skills list tells me what you have used, but your projects shows me how much experience you have with them.
This sounds like questions for the interview, not to be put in a novel in an attempt to get an interview. I don't think the person hiring has the time to read through all that when sifting through resume after resume.
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@flaxking said in Resume Critique:
I'm also not a big fan of the home lab section. If you run your home network like a business using these technologies day to day, that I'm interested in. If you followed a walkthrough and installed something, I don't care. Show me that your home lab is actually doing something.
Home lab shows experience, interest, and willingness to learn... among other things. I'd rather hire someone who does this stuff in his free time to learn and gain experience than someone who doesn't have it at all.
The home lab isn't meant to run your home network. It's meant for learning, gaining experience, and fun. And if someone is running their home network like a business, more to them!
