Resume Feedback
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Your IT certs are WAY more important than your technical training. Flip the order there.
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Your GS experience is long ago and adds only eight months total onto your timeline, drop it. If you are concerned about dropping it completely and you have space after other changes you could consider condensing it to like one line. I hate having resume gaps and so have some 40+ jobs condensed into a two sentence description on mine so that they exist, but don't take up space. They are just described in general, no details or even names.
Don't include the references bit, that's assumed and just filler that you don't want.
You CAN handle the GS/BB thing by adding a line elsewhere that says "IT Professional since 2005" and let people ask if they want to know more. You don't want to highlight that it was BB, nor do you want to highlight that it was August. You have been in IT long enough that you can just use the year for this and let people forget that it might have been in the later half of the year. We are talking about 11 vs. 11.5 years of experience. It's time to be rounding to the year.
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The addition of achievements feels weird. You have a bulleted list of achievements without a title. Then you switch to check marks and list more achievements. I can't tell what the two lists are supposed to show but I'm pretty sure that it's weird and that there should just be one list. Having it split in two is confusing and distracting. There is too many changes in bullets, fonts and styles in too little space. And I don't know what it is supposed to convey.
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Good feedback, Scott. We were thinking the same thing in a few areas.
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@scottalanmiller said in Resume Feedback:
This section is fine but takes up way too much of the space overall as a percentage. I would consider condensing it to two columns so that it takes up half the space on the page. This isn't significant and should not be as prominently highlighted as it is.
How would you condense this section?
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Personally, I don't like the Summary of Qualifications bit. I've seen hundreds of resumes and they all have this bit and they all essentially say EXACTLY the same thing, to the point where I just ignore it. It's just words. It feels like a cut and pasted collection of cliches.
Like where you write "a commitment to providing outstanding customer service and forging, positive, supportive work relationships"
It's not like an employer is going to say "Oh, sorry, you're not suitable for this post because we're looking for someone to provide poor customer service with a focus on dysfunctional work relationships.On the hand, all resumes have it, so maybe it's necessary!
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@IRJ said in Resume Feedback:
@scottalanmiller said in Resume Feedback:
This section is fine but takes up way too much of the space overall as a percentage. I would consider condensing it to two columns so that it takes up half the space on the page. This isn't significant and should not be as prominently highlighted as it is.
How would you condense this section?
I was only thinking that you break it into two columns rather than one. So condensing vertically but not removing words. So the bullets are side by side. I might remove the contact hours, I'm not even sure what that means and it takes up a lot of space. If you need them, put it once and abbreviate to 300 CH after that.
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@Carnival-Boy said in Resume Feedback:
On the hand, all resumes have it, so maybe it's necessary!
Mine does not. I always leave that stuff out.
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The formatting is screwing up anytime I try to move anything around. I might have to redesign this from scratch.
P.S. Is it more professional to include your resume as a DOCX or PDF? The majority of people seem to use DOCX, but I feel like a PDF is better since nearly anyone can read them.
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@IRJ said in Resume Feedback:
The formatting is screwing up anytime I try to move anything around. I might have to redesign this from scratch.
P.S. Is it more professional to include your resume as a DOCX or PDF? The majority of people seem to use DOCX, but I feel like a PDF is better since nearly anyone can read them.
PDF. It doesn't require any special software and is a recognized format.
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@IRJ said in Resume Feedback:
The formatting is screwing up anytime I try to move anything around. I might have to redesign this from scratch.
P.S. Is it more professional to include your resume as a DOCX or PDF? The majority of people seem to use DOCX, but I feel like a PDF is better since nearly anyone can read them.
I use PDF
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I am down to a page and a half now.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-Zj7y7G1-C_V25JUmNYamRwcHM
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@IRJ Awesome.
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@scottalanmiller said in Resume Feedback:
@IRJ Awesome.
I almost got rid of Geek Squad and shortened up the cert section, but it's gonna be 2 pages no matter what so I decided to keep it. I might edit some other things tomorrow.
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Take out GS and do the double column trick with the certs and you might be down to one page.
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And don't forget to take out the References line.
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It's looking good. I'd space it out a bit and increase the size of the margins rather than shrinking it to one page as I'm finding it a little crowded. It's a great resume that deserves two pages
I'd also list certifications in reverse chronological order. You got an MCSA in Office365 in 2014 which is awesome, but the first thing I read is that you got a MOS in Word 2000 which is, well, less awesome. Put the best stuff first.
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@Carnival-Boy said in Resume Feedback:
It's looking good. I'd space it out a bit and increase the size of the margins rather than shrinking it to one page as I'm finding it a little crowded. It's a great resume that deserves two pages
I'd also list certifications in reverse chronological order. You got an MCSA in Office365 in 2014 which is awesome, but the first thing I read is that you got a MOS in Word 2000 which is, well, less awesome. Put the best stuff first.
Good idea @Carnival-Boy
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@Carnival-Boy said in Resume Feedback:
It's looking good. I'd space it out a bit and increase the size of the margins rather than shrinking it to one page as I'm finding it a little crowded. It's a great resume that deserves two pages
If you have to go over one page, definitely work to keep the text tight but do as CB says and spread it out. Make it as short as possible, then expand to fill pages with good white spacing.
