Resume Feedback
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I'm in the process of re-working my resume as I haven't touched it nearly 3 years, and I'd appreciate some criticism. I know the actual format is a bit rough, I do plan on cleaning it up with better font choice, addressing the formatting issues with the table, and overall giving it a better balance and appeal. However, I'd like your thoughts on the current structure and presentation of information aside from those obvious faults (clunky table, font choice).
Are there technologies/experience that I have or probably have that I'm leaving out? Some things that I shouldn't have on here? Glaring omissions?
Thanks!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9uxfC380LxKLXBIeTAzRTZXRUk/view?usp=sharing
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I'll author subsequent versions in Microsoft Office. I threw this one together using Libre Writer and the formatting is WAY out of whack after uploading it to Google Drive. Extra bullets and odd spacing galore...
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PDF often works best.
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@scottalanmiller said in Resume Feedback:
PDF often works best.
Whenever I submit a resume to a potential employer I do always put it in PDF format unless otherwise specified. I've also been thinking of designing a web-based resume using Bootstrap. Do you think that would be worthwhile?
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@aaronstuder said in Resume Feedback:
@RamblingBiped said:
Do you think that would be worthwhile?
I do.
Nice idea. Heard once that a media designer put his resume around a stone and threw it through the (closed) window of the CEO's office. Just a few words and contact info on it: "Will rock your business" or something like that. Sadly, he didn't get the job and had to pay for the window
I'm asking myself about your idea. Sure, always nice from a presentational point of view, but what's the message? "I'm your new admin and can do some JS, HTML and CSS"? For a web "dev", I would expect something fancy. Not so from an admin.
On the other hand, that would mean I need to put my own resume in an encrypted binary stream
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I would completely drop the recruiter job you worked for only one month. It really isn't sysadmin related, and any job that is only worked for a month isn't worthwhile putting on a resume anyway.
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Drop the System Administration Title , on the top, under your contact info. Also bring your certs up to the top. While it is pretty stupid, many jobs require a certain certification before they will be considered. So it is helpful to put your certs towards the top. Your certs tell the story of your skills right off the bat. I can see you know hardware, networking, security, and project management. That is a big plus.
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I would also get rid of the whole proficient, basic proficiency, and some exposure areas. If I was hiring for a System Admin position that managed a virtual environment with Hyper-V, just seeing some exposure on a resume would not excite me. Even though you are obviously proficient enough to learn hyper-v and manage it if you needed to do so.
Since you have worked with Hyper-V I would just list it under Virtualization Technologies and get rid of the 3 separate categories.
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If you wanted to leave the proficiency tiers with programming that would work, but remember alot of positions may call for Powershell experience when it is mostly just editing scripts or googling already made scripts. So when an employer sees some exposure that sounds kind of bad even though you are capable of editing scripts and copy, pasting, and editing from google. Bosses that hire don't always understand the background magic.
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I would go from this :
Engineering Firm – Here, Kentuckiana 12/2013 – present
Systems Administrator
• Supported 30+ Engineers on numerous Linux distributions and numerous versions of Microsoft Windows.
• Implemented a new Microsoft Windows Domain
• Managed two KVMÂQEMU Hypervisors and all associated workloads
• Implemented a Nagios network monitoring solution.
• Migrated a locally hosted public website and new ecommerce site to an AWSÂEC2 instance to provide
greater reliability and availability.
• Provisioned a DockerÂbased implementation of Discourse to host the company's new product support forums
on an AWSÂEC2 instance.
• Designed and configured entire infrastructure for new office including, but not limited to, purchasing and
installing new switch infrastructure, wiring and terminating endpoints, moving existing infrastructure into
new racks, and sourcing/purchasing all necessary hardware and equipment.
• Migrated old PBX system from an older outdated Asterisk server configured to work with the previous PRI
provider, to a newer FreePBX system with a SIP provider, resulting in annual savings of approximately 90%
($5,520 annual cost reduced to ~$600 annually).
• Wrote software in BASH used to automate the process of imaging SD cards used in proprietary hardware.
The program was used to replace the previous software that was no longer supported and did not work with
newer high capacity SD cards.
To this:
Engineering Firm – Here, Kentuckiana 12/2013 – present
Systems Administrator
• Supported Linux and Windows Workstations ( 30 isn't that impressive on paper. You might move workstation support towards the bottom since you are looking for System Admin positions)
• Implemented, Configured, Secured, and Administered a Windows 2012 domain (This wording comes directly from Microsoft cert tests and it sounds fancy).
• Managed two KVMÂQEMU Hypervisors and all associated workloads
• Implemented a Nagios network monitoring solution and improved network security, speed, and admin efficiency (gotta love buzz words)
• Migrated a locally hosted public website and new ecommerce site to an AWSÂEC2 instance to provide
greater reliability and availability.
• Provisioned a DockerÂbased implementation of Discourse to host the company's new product support forums
on an AWSÂEC2 instance.
• Designed and configured entire infrastructure for new office including, but not limited to, purchasing and
installing new switch infrastructure, wiring and terminating endpoints, moving existing infrastructure into
new racks, and sourcing/purchasing all necessary hardware and equipment.
• Migrated old PBX system from an older outdated Asterisk server configured to work with the previous PRI
provider, to a newer FreePBX system with a SIP provider, resulting in annual savings of approximately 90%
($5,520 annual cost reduced to ~$600 annually).
• Wrote software in BASH used to automate the process of imaging SD cards used in proprietary hardware.
The program was used to replace the previous software that was no longer supported and did not work with
newer high capacity SD cards.
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I normally try to keep each job to 3 to 5 bullet points.
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@RamblingBiped said in Resume Feedback:
@scottalanmiller said in Resume Feedback:
PDF often works best.
Whenever I submit a resume to a potential employer I do always put it in PDF format unless otherwise specified. I've also been thinking of designing a web-based resume using Bootstrap. Do you think that would be worthwhile?
I'm sure it is valuable for someone, but I've never dealt with any employer who works with that process. SO can't say how valuable it would be. Marginally, I would guess.
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@RamblingBiped said in Resume Feedback:
@scottalanmiller said in Resume Feedback:
PDF often works best.
Whenever I submit a resume to a potential employer I do always put it in PDF format unless otherwise specified.
I meant for sharing with us
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I'd cut this entire section. You don't have a title outside of a job, putting one in is weird and will limit your availability to other jobs. No need for an address. Put your market if you want (mine has says "Available Globally, US Citizen" for a decade without any locality info, and email and phone is okay. But don't make it too specific, only include was is useful. Technical qualifications is included in your history, no need to repeat.
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Shorten this. This is way too long for what it says. And change the order. You want to highlight the Sec+ and the Net+ while downplaying the Pro+ and the A+. Make this a two column list and put these side by side with the Sec+ in the top left and hte Net+ below it and the A+ in the bottom right.
Collapse that Education to like two lines at most and no bullet point for a single item. More like this...
Richland Community College, IL. 2011
AS Computer Science, High Academic HonorsIt's a resume, less is more.
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This table is just enormous. I'm with @IRJ that you need to remove the tiering and make this a tight, small list.
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I think that with some good effort you are reasonably looking at being able to condense this to a single page. between removing the top, and cutting the space used for the top table and the bottom list in half, it's only a matter of reducing the large, sprawling bullet points from the job histories.
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Thanks for the feedback everyone. I'm going to look at making revisions when I get home later this evening. At that point I'll try to get an updated PDF posted for further critique.
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See if you can get down to a single page. It's a big effort, but often well worth it. It forces you to squeeze out any extra stuff. Extra words, lines, whatever. Distil, distil, distil.
