Resume: What can I improve?

[X-Istence]

Hey guys,

I am updating my resume, and I need you guys to take a look at it, and let me know what I need to add/remove. Please do not tell me that it looks like ****e in IE 6/7 because I don't care. IE 6/7 can suck my left nut. Final version will be PDF anyway, so all that matters is what it renders like in Safari.

http://xistence.osnn.net/Resume.html

Bert JW Regeer

 

[kcnychief]

It sucks in IE7

Kidding, looks just fine

Only thing I would comment on is that for jobs you no longer have, you should put things in the past tense. Example - "Keeping servers alive" should be "Kept servers alive". Also, I'm not sure that's a good statement - you sort of need to "dumb it down" a little and be less technical and more generic. Something like "Keep WHM/cPanel up-to-date " would probably be better as "Kept Customer Interfaced software up to date" (if that's what it is lol).

You have to remember that in most cases, Technical people are not the first to loook at your resume. You want to have all your skills up top which you do, but make it so any individual from any walk of life can look at and be impressed by your resume.

 

[Perris Calderon]

Bert, I think you should add more personality, take the same joy in writing your resume as you do exploring tech solutions...for example, I took some liberty, hope you don't mind, this is off the top of my head, no edits, but you can see what I'm talking about...get comfortable with what you are saying and tell it like it's a story, your life and you are living the story, this is a simple edit of your opening profile;

I"m am proud to say I am a technology geek, someone who celebrates even the oldest hardware and keeping that hardware up to date and running like new.

When not engaged within school activity I learned to operate and maintain servers with a host of operating systems and I've always felt compelled to apply that knowledge toward helping others when they encounter issues. Because of that spirit I've been chosen administrator and moderator with several well known tech support sites such as microsoft endorsed osnn and etc, etc, etc

I've Always been inspired by technology and that inspiration drives me to help others if I can and this ethic helps me to improve my own knowledge as well as the people that I might help. This has been so satisfying I've made it a point to apply that ethic even into the time that would otherwise be set aside from work and education

you can use any of that, I'm sure you can improve everything about it, edit it, whatever, but thepoint is make your resume your accomplishments and your personality and make it your own...use a thesaurus when you are trying to find just the right word to express what you want to put on to paper...wordweb is a pretty good free dictionary with thesaurus I keep running in my tray if you don't have a thesaurus on your box...for instance I used wordweb to come up with "celebrates" to replace "hang on to"...I know my writing isn't your personality it's mine but I put it up here to give you an example of resumes I like to read when I'm head hunting

good luck

 

[X-Istence]

Kcnychief: The companies I am applying to are all smaller companies where the IT department head is the one to first read my resume. I will try to dumb some of it down.

As for the past tense. The guy at UAT suggested I keep it all in the same tense. Will send him an email and ask his suggestions on it.

Perris: That is a very good point, I will look into revising the profile section of my resume. I appreciate the input!

 

[fitz]

you could just keep things as "keep servers/services running" as that is the job description more than the job activity.

The only thing I would mention is that you need to move beyond just a list of jobs and the things you did on that job and move to describe a more quantitative valuation of your worth and a more concrete descriptor of the activities you performed on the job. Reference actual projects and what impact they had on the job/company.

For example, instead of "Shell scripts to maintain users/passwords for virtual users system" you could rephrase to say something along the lines of "Developed shells script to maintain user accounts and passwords for the virtual users system and reduced administrative user maintenance related activities by 40%" or "reduced down time of osnn site by xx percent over 2 years".. (I wouldn't mention the .. umm.. database being lost issues of the base )

edit: it may be harder to quantify your job activities as you done more freelance work.. but with a list of jobs as long as you have, as a hiring manager (or even as someone that has looked over resumes to forward on to hiring managers), I would want to see some evidence of how well you did your job more than just what you did on the job.

edit2:

Also, I'm not sure that's a good statement - you sort of need to "dumb it down" a little and be less technical and more generic. Something like "Keep WHM/cPanel up-to-date " would probably be better as "Kept Customer Interfaced software up to date" (if that's what it is lol).

You have to remember that in most cases, Technical people are not the first to loook at your resume. You want to have all your skills up top which you do, but make it so any individual from any walk of life can look at and be impressed by your resume.

Actually, I sort of agree and disagree on this point. In a world where HR Recruiters are inundated with resumes from online job banks, a lot of what gets filtered first can be the generic resumes because they don't contain "keywords" that the HR recruiters that don't know how to interpret a technical resume often use. Meaning, just saying "kept customer interface software up-to-date" when a job posting is looking specifically for cPanel will get your resume filtered out and never passed on.

Now, you could list all that info up at the "skills" section at the top, but you don't want that section to get out of hand because you end up looking like a tool and a tad unbelievable if you list every keyword there (ie: you look like someone desperate for a job that lists a bunch of keywords in his skills in the hope of getting noticed.)

Furthermore, in the dealings that I've had with HR folk that pass resumes along, I've seen them look over resumes that had the key skill listed in the skill section, but because they never listed them as how they used them in the job history, the resume got passed over. In some interviews I have had with companies when I looked for a job, I've had some interviewers ask me about skills I listed at the top but not in any of my jobs.

 

[Sazar]

I would probably refrain from referring to yourself as a technology geek buddy. Perhaps spend some time with your profile and clean it up for readability and professionalism.

You also don't need the italicized "extra" information because it yields absolutely nothing to the document.

I like your nationality and international heritage as an asset but less description about it will also help.

 

[omg its nlm]

I would not list your skills like that. I would want to know what you done with C++ or what not.

Here is an example of what I did. (have not updated mine in like a year or so but gives you an idea)

[FONT=&quot]Web Applications - [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Advanced skills in web application development and support. Maintain the Intranet for Treasure Island Resort & Casino. Support web applications and troubleshooting. Have experience in IIS, SharePoint configuration and PHP.

[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]Database - [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Experience in making and maintaining databases. Knowledge in SQL and familiarization in running SQL queries. Understanding of maintaining SQL databases and the daily tasks that are included. Interacting Crystal Reports with databases. Use my programming skills to incorporate data into databases.

[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]Operating Systems - [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Proficient in Windows operating systems, with a strong knowledge in Windows XP and Server 2003. Familiar with Linux and UNIX based operating systems.[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]Hardware - [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Hands on experience in hardware installation and analyzing problems with PCs and printers. Have knowledge in network hardware.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Web Applications - [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Advanced skills in web application development and support. Maintain the Intranet for Treasure Island Resort & Casino. Support web applications and troubleshooting. Have experience in IIS, SharePoint configuration and PHP.

[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]Database - [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Experience in making and maintaining databases. Knowledge in SQL and familiarization in running SQL queries. Understanding of maintaining SQL databases and the daily tasks that are included. Interacting Crystal Reports with databases. Use my programming skills to incorporate data into databases.

[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]Operating Systems - [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Proficient in Windows operating systems, with a strong knowledge in Windows XP and Server 2003. Familiar with Linux and UNIX based operating systems.[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]Hardware - [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Hands on experience in hardware installation and analyzing problems with PCs and printers. Have knowledge in network hardware.[/FONT]

 

[omg its nlm]

I would also put your education up top. Sometimes you would want experience last but I think in your cause I would put it up top.

 

[Jewelzz]

Your profile should reference business not your personal life. And as Sazar already said, take out the tech geek comment. Take it all out and start over, no head of a company will give 2 sh!ts about your personal life

 

[Geffy]

I would not list your skills like that. I would want to know what you done with C++ or what not.

I have mine listed in a similar fashion ranked from highest to lowest. My employer really liked that method as he could see at a glance what I could bring to the company. An HR person reading miles and miles of text, the odd table jumps out and sticks in your mind more.

 

[Sazar]

Yep, you HAVE to be professional on your resume if you are seeking a professional job. This isn't the forums or IRC where we can **** around

A lot of people are going to go for the same position and you want to stand over and above them in the way you present yourself. Resumes make a pretty big first impression.

 

[omg its nlm]

I have mine listed in a similar fashion ranked from highest to lowest. My employer really liked that method as he could see at a glance what I could bring to the company. An HR person reading miles and miles of text, the odd table jumps out and sticks in your mind more.

Yeah I guess it would, I guess it really matters what you are applying for and who it is being sent to.

 

[dreamliner77]

Bullet points suck for job descriptions. If you spent more than 4 weeks doing any job, you should be able to write more than a few bullet points about it.

I'm a professional IT recruiter and write/re-write resumes everyday. I can show you some good examples the next time I log into my work pc.

Also, refrain from using pdf. Keep your resume as a .doc. Most companies use some sort of applicant tracking system and many (most) of these can't import pdf's.

 

[Jewelzz]

I can show you some good examples the next time I log into my work pc.

I'd like to see those

 

[dreamliner77]

It's going to be a few days; I'm heading to NC tomorrow - Wed.

 

[Geffy]

Bullet points suck for job descriptions. If you spent more than 4 weeks doing any job, you should be able to write more than a few bullet points about it.

About a specific job I agree with you there, but skill sets I think are sometimes best conveyed using bullets (esp if you are a hitman)

Also, refrain from using pdf. Keep your resume as a .doc. Most companies use some sort of applicant tracking system and many (most) of these can't import pdf's.

Not sure I would necessarily agree with this. PDF will be more portable for viewing, if you have a more up to date version of Office they may not be able to read your resume. Quite a lot of machines these days come with MS Works which can't write .doc files which would also exclude you from this.
Also under most legislation a company cannot discriminate against you for your choice in software

X if you are applying to a company which can't handle PDFs you are probably better off elsewhere

 

[dreamliner77]

It has to do with the software used for parsing the info from the resume for inclusion in the applicant tracking database. Most softwares can't open the pdf's to get the data.

 

[j79zlr]

Yep, I used to send out my resume via email when I was looking for a job, I figured PDF would be ideal since I know the formatting wouldn't change. Almost everyone I sent a resume in PDF format asked me to send it in DOC format, and most online sites wont even accept a PDF.

 

[X-Istence]

I don't own MS Office. Will never own it either. I don't use .doc for anything. You guys might be speaking from general experience. If a company can't accept PDF, then they lose out. I'd rather work at a different company that has working software that can parse the PDF standard, since it has been the same since it's inception (almost), .doc is changing so radically between different versions, it makes no sense to go with that.

Fitz: Your how well comment is something I will have to keep in mind, it is however hard to judge how well I did something. Was it what the customer wanted? Yes, then I did a job well done. That is really what it came down to.

Sazar: Some companies are also looking to see that one has some sort of hobby or outside life. To see that they are not getting some dead person who spends all his time working. I'll re-work it a bit to make it sounds a bit like what Perris had, but I will keep it personal. In the sense that, I love to learn and thus would be a good asset since even outside of the work place to strive to learn new things

omg its nlm: I was planning to do something along those lines as well, however I will be keeping the table with skills as it currently is since from a few people I have talked to, it catches your attention. I've had one recruiter who found an older version of my resume (http://0x58.com/BertJWRegeer/Resume-files/Resume.pdf) online call me today to ask me what I had done, with regards to programming (in Python, which BTW was not listed), and he told me he very much liked the fact that I made it so easy to look over the skills, that he remembered my resume out of the others he had looked at because of the table format.

As for my education, I am keeping that at the bottom. I want the prior work I have done to speak for itself, besides, I am not anywhere near done with my college degree, so it is not much to show off. It means nothing, YET.

Dreamliner77: You and my job hunter at the university need to get together and fight this out. He told me to remove what I had (a description of what I did) and told me to drop bullets in. I am going to stick with bullets for now, but will look at possibly explaining better certain tasks.

Geffy: Yeah, I agree, if a company can't handle PDF, they lose out.

 

[Geffy]

Dreamliner77: You and my job hunter at the university need to get together and fight this out. He told me to remove what I had (a description of what I did) and told me to drop bullets in. I am going to stick with bullets for now, but will look at possibly explaining better certain tasks.

A method you could use for this kind of thing is a table/bullet list of skills, then contingent on space (they usually say no more than 2 pages) list your achievements at each job and relate these back to your skills list.

Instead of .doc, if they don't like PDF of course they may well be able to handle .rtf files