Resume Update
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Very small tweak, but I never, ever include things like ", Inc." in company names. It's very easy to get wrong, it often changes, and it's hard to be consistent.
As an example, you've worked for both Niagara Technology Group, Inc. and NTG, LLC but probably didn't know that there was a name change in there. It's not "wrong" to include that stuff, and it's part of the legal name, so I get the desire to include it, but it's mostly an artefact of incorporation filing paperwork and generally not relevant to this sort of thing.
If it was a bigger company like Microsoft, Apple, Google, or IBM do you feel that you'd also be tempted to track down their filing name? Probably not.
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@scottalanmiller said in Resume Update:
Put yourself in the shoes of someone else reading this... they cannot glean anything from this. So why is it there?
I'd ask about the title change, and would be expecting an explanation likely describing a promotion.
System Administrator II (September 2019 – Present)
System Administrator I(February 2018 – September 2019)I still don't like this. These are still not your role, they are clearly meaningless titles. They have no purpose as they have no meaning. So they are filler. The only acceptable thing here would be "system administrator" if that's the job you did. Having a number after it means absolutely, 100% nothing. Listing two lines with two numbers also means nothing. It doesn't even tell us if you were promoted, demoted, or just a title change.
I'll see about rewording. The tl;dr of what occurred was there was a vacancy, and I was promoted into the position. The differences between my current position and the former are more money, adding Exchange to my plate (the biggest change), more involved with Sharepoint administration, less involved with SCCM, and more involved with providing some support / mentoring to new Systems team members.
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@scottalanmiller said in Resume Update:
Rebuilt System Center Configuration Manager testing environment
I would not list this. Remember, don't list mundane or trivial things. Not only does it come across as filler, but it implies that you perceive this as important and trivializes other parts of your resume.
I would argue this project with neither mundane or trivial, but I get your point.
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@scottalanmiller said in Resume Update:
Personally I'd remove all dates from the degrees. And I'd reorder them. Trust me, your Masters degree is WAY more important than your Associates. But you are highlighting your Associates as if that's what you want people to see - and they will because they are trained that people put their best foot forward and the rest is filler. We know you have a BS because that's part of getting the Masters (but it's fine to show), but so we don't look for it. And you can generally get an AS en route to your BS, so we generally ignore that, too. Putting the AS first makes us easily overlook that you have way, way more education than that.
Ye ole habit of having stuff listed in reverse-chronological order. I am curious though, would you read having the degrees listed as Masters, Bachelors, Associates without dates as "Here's an IT pro who has an Associates in Networking, then went on to get two music degrees. Why would they do that?"
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@scottalanmiller said in Resume Update:
Very small tweak, but I never, ever include things like ", Inc." in company names. It's very easy to get wrong, it often changes, and it's hard to be consistent.
As an example, you've worked for both Niagara Technology Group, Inc. and NTG, LLC but probably didn't know that there was a name change in there. It's not "wrong" to include that stuff, and it's part of the legal name, so I get the desire to include it, but it's mostly an artefact of incorporation filing paperwork and generally not relevant to this sort of thing.
If it was a bigger company like Microsoft, Apple, Google, or IBM do you feel that you'd also be tempted to track down their filing name? Probably not.
I like this idea. I've always included it to be as accurate as possible to the company name. This makes me wonder if I should just list PruittHealth rather than PruittHealth Connect. Unless you were to dig into the Georgia Secretary of State's site, you wouldn't find any evidence (other than probably calling PruittHealth corporate number and talking to someone in HR) that PruittHealth Connect exists.
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@EddieJennings said in Resume Update:
@scottalanmiller said in Resume Update:
Very small tweak, but I never, ever include things like ", Inc." in company names. It's very easy to get wrong, it often changes, and it's hard to be consistent.
As an example, you've worked for both Niagara Technology Group, Inc. and NTG, LLC but probably didn't know that there was a name change in there. It's not "wrong" to include that stuff, and it's part of the legal name, so I get the desire to include it, but it's mostly an artefact of incorporation filing paperwork and generally not relevant to this sort of thing.
If it was a bigger company like Microsoft, Apple, Google, or IBM do you feel that you'd also be tempted to track down their filing name? Probably not.
I like this idea. I've always included it to be as accurate as possible to the company name. This makes me wonder if I should just list PruittHealth rather than PruittHealth Connect. Unless you were to dig into the Georgia Secretary of State's site, you wouldn't find any evidence (other than probably calling PruittHealth corporate number and talking to someone in HR) that PruittHealth Connect exists.
Yes, I tried that, in fact, and could find nothing. I would indeed drop "Connect" unless it's not actually owned by PruittHealth, which seems impossible.
The same thing for our staff. NTG is the parent company and everyone lists themselves as working here, even if they work for a subsidiary, as long as NTG is the parent that owns that subsidiary. That's common and people expect it. Incorporation is complicated and often opaque and doesn't show what is the practical reality.
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@EddieJennings said in Resume Update:
@scottalanmiller said in Resume Update:
Personally I'd remove all dates from the degrees. And I'd reorder them. Trust me, your Masters degree is WAY more important than your Associates. But you are highlighting your Associates as if that's what you want people to see - and they will because they are trained that people put their best foot forward and the rest is filler. We know you have a BS because that's part of getting the Masters (but it's fine to show), but so we don't look for it. And you can generally get an AS en route to your BS, so we generally ignore that, too. Putting the AS first makes us easily overlook that you have way, way more education than that.
Ye ole habit of having stuff listed in reverse-chronological order. I am curious though, would you read having the degrees listed as Masters, Bachelors, Associates without dates as "Here's an IT pro who has an Associates in Networking, then went on to get two music degrees. Why would they do that?"
I might, but what difference does it make? That makes it look better, actually. Going back for a vastly lower degree is odd and while there is nothing wrong with it, I wouldn't want to point it out. What you want employers to see is "Masters Degree" and even "in education!" because that's the kind of skills that are useful from a degree program. So that looks great. An AS in Networking is.... well I might even be tempted to remove it (and to be fair, I even removed my BS in IT).
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@EddieJennings said in Resume Update:
@scottalanmiller said in Resume Update:
Rebuilt System Center Configuration Manager testing environment
I would not list this. Remember, don't list mundane or trivial things. Not only does it come across as filler, but it implies that you perceive this as important and trivializes other parts of your resume.
I would argue this project with neither mundane or trivial, but I get your point.
Either it's trivial, or your description is wrong. Nothing in "testing" has the pressures of production, and it's the pressure, not the effort, that makes it matter.
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@EddieJennings said in Resume Update:
I'd ask about the title change, and would be expecting an explanation likely describing a promotion.
You wouldn't, no one ever does. Because it's all meaningless internal politics and has nothing to do with your role or job.
And putting gibberish in the hopes of someone prompting you for info that you "meant to put on but got wrong" is a bad outcome.
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@EddieJennings said in Resume Update:
I'll see about rewording. The tl;dr of what occurred was there was a vacancy, and I was promoted into the position. The differences between my current position and the former are more money, adding Exchange to my plate (the biggest change), more involved with Sharepoint administration, less involved with SCCM, and more involved with providing some support / mentoring to new Systems team members.
Normal duties. None of that warrants mentioning that you were promoted within the same job. If one job was "Desktop Tech" and then you become "Datacenter Manager", okay, show them separately because you moved jobs but kept the company.
In your example, promotion means nothing. You didn't change jobs, you didn't even change descriptions. You are putting two meaningless titles. More money and more responsibility is assumed in any job over time. Simply put the correct information (System Admin), and describe the most important parts of the job.
Two things to never let happen on your resume...
- Never put a title that doesn't exactly match the description of your role.
- Never put fluff or gibberish hoping that it creates intrigue and that someone prompts you to fill in what should have been clear on the resume without them asking.
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@scottalanmiller said in Resume Update:
and it's the pressure, not the effort, that makes it matter.
I can see that perspective. Eventually :trade_mark: this will be done in production as well.
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@scottalanmiller said in Resume Update:
@EddieJennings said in Resume Update:
I'd ask about the title change, and would be expecting an explanation likely describing a promotion.
You wouldn't, no one ever does. Because it's all meaningless internal politics and has nothing to do with your role or job.
I have because when I see it I'm curious, but on the whole, I agree about it being meaningless. When I'm on a panel interviewing folks I'm far more interested in if they know what their talking about concerning
$subjectMatter. -
@EddieJennings said in Resume Update:
@scottalanmiller said in Resume Update:
@EddieJennings said in Resume Update:
I'd ask about the title change, and would be expecting an explanation likely describing a promotion.
You wouldn't, no one ever does. Because it's all meaningless internal politics and has nothing to do with your role or job.
I have because when I see it I'm curious, but on the whole, I agree about it being meaningless. When I'm on a panel interviewing folks I'm far more interested in if they know what their talking about concerning
$subjectMatter.More importantly is how it comes across - like stating something that obviously requires someone to ask the follow up. It feels like "drama". Like obviously it was put there to elicit and eye roll and "ok... what did you mean by this".
Like when my kids say something that makes no sense and wait for you to ask what they mean.
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@EddieJennings said in Resume Update:
@scottalanmiller said in Resume Update:
and it's the pressure, not the effort, that makes it matter.
I can see that perspective. Eventually :trade_mark: this will be done in production as well.
Right, and then it becomes a resume line item
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Working on the next draft right now. Something I'm currently considering are listing expired certs.
On one hand an expired cert is still an earned cert, and the skills learned may still be useful for whatever position you seek. On the other hand if the expired cert doesn't have any direct relevance to the position you seek (example, I have my CCNA and Network+ on the resume, but I'm targeting positions within systems administration), ought it take space on a resume.
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@EddieJennings said in Resume Update:
Something I'm currently considering are listing expired certs.
If you are listing any certs, list them. Don't consider if something is or isn't expired AT ALL. It's a ridiculous concept that means nothing to an employer.
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@EddieJennings said in Resume Update:
On one hand an expired cert is still an earned cert
That's really the only hand here.
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@EddieJennings said in Resume Update:
On the other hand if the expired cert doesn't have any direct relevance to the position you seek (example, I have my CCNA and Network+ on the resume, but I'm targeting positions within systems administration), ought it take space on a resume.
That's not really a good way to look at it. While those aren't system admin roles, they are full of general IT knowledge that system admins need to know. You list three college degrees that don't even begin to show the range of relevance as the Network+. Why show the degrees, but not the Net+? If you showed the Net+ but not the degrees, that would make way more sense.
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@scottalanmiller said in Resume Update:
@EddieJennings said in Resume Update:
On the other hand if the expired cert doesn't have any direct relevance to the position you seek (example, I have my CCNA and Network+ on the resume, but I'm targeting positions within systems administration), ought it take space on a resume.
That's not really a good way to look at it. While those aren't system admin roles, they are full of general IT knowledge that system admins need to know. You list three college degrees that don't even begin to show the range of relevance as the Network+. Why show the degrees, but not the Net+? If you showed the Net+ but not the degrees, that would make way more sense.
True. Upon further thinking the other hand really isn't a valid hand.
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If you are worried about expiration of a cert, don't. No one presents their certs as current, and no one cares if they are.
You earned a Net+, put the date that you earned it. Really, it's keeping it current that's the less impressive. Yours expired because you moved on, you aren't a newbie anymore. Someone who keeps updating an old, low level cert implies that they've not moved on. In IT, you want those certs to expire because you should be on to the next level or next topic. Onward and upward, not treading water.
With over 150 certs, imagine the time and cost I'd put in to purely recertifying things I already know and have proven over and over again, just to keep up the ones that I already earned rather than learning new things or, you know, just working!
The expiring cert concept makes no sense and effectively just flags a certification authority as seeing themselves as irrelevant.
