Resume Critique
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After reading critiques from the past and getting to know some folks in the community, I've learned that I can trust folks' opinions to either provide good guidance or at least point me in the right direction; thus, I'd like your opinions on a recent re-write of my resume.
Edit:
Version 1
Version 2
Version 3
Version 4It took a while to just express stuff on paper (normal for me as a writer), and I look forward to what it becomes with my own edits and your folks' suggestions.
Background
I changed careers from public school teaching (middle school band director for eight years) to IT four years ago; thus, this is my first resume solely based on IT, rather than being a "career changer's resume." One major thing with which I've struggled is determining what skills to and not to list, as I don't want to give the impression I'm a master of X, yet at the same time, I'm not completely clueless. I imagine a reader of the resume will see only a few years of IT employment and make the assumption that I cannot possibly have the same level of skill as a 10 year veteran.Explanations
I also struggled with the "Freelance IT Professional" section. Over two Thanksgiving holidays, I aided a friend of mine with some network work for the Town of Appalachia government. I, myself, was not hired by the town. In the scheme of things, the work wasn't significant; however, I'm operating on the premise of being able to show some experience is probably better than no experience.End Goal
As my ML profile indicates, I want to know (and do) all t3h thingz; however, the reality is there simply aren't enough years in a lifetime to learn everything I'd like to learn. Over my first four years in IT (the last year really being awakened to what "real" IT is), I've determined that doing pure 100% networking isn't what I want to do (despite my training from technical school and couple of certs), neither is 100% help desk / end-user support. I'm wanting to move in the direction of systems administration within a Linux environment.At least in the Atlanta area, it seems unlikely for me to land some kind of junior Linux administration position from which to grow; however, I do need to take into account that most job postings are fake. Ideally, I can land such a position, but if not, then my next position would be one with more system administration and less help desk responsibilities, while I continue learning Linux skills on my own.
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I liked it.
Just something quick that immediately stood out:
I didn't like seeing the "from scratch" in there. "Implemented Windows Server 2012 domain" says it all. It may be just a nitpick, but thought I'd mention it.
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I thought you labbed KVM and Xen (oh, and Fedora), and therefore have some useable skills with those?
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@tim_g said in Resume Critique:
I thought you labbed KVM and Xen (oh, and Fedora), and therefore have some useable skills with those?
Just KVM, and I've just made a few VMs rather than practiced "administrative" tasks. If someone sat me down and said, you're in charge of our managing all virtualization and we use KVM. . . go!. There would be much Googling ahead of me. Since I don't feel like a have a solid working knowledge of it (yet), I omit it from the skill list.
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"Created IT documentation wiki using
Dokiwiki"
It should beDokuWiki. -
@eddiejennings One thing @scottalanmiller said in response to my resume was to build myself up FOR my resume. I had a specific interest in Linux and as such worked on Ansible, Graylog, a Jumpbox, Samba AD, Mattermost, Active Directory built entirely in Linux, etc. www.udemy.com is a GREAT resource that @IRJ recommended to me. I am currently in the process of learning Ansible, Puppet, and Salt.
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In your final - loos the boarder around the skills - nearly all resumes are digitally scanned and coded for key word searches. Boarders screw it up and you may get lost on a good position.
Any formal education - should also be listed. This isn't being negative - just not knowing your past... do you have any other experience? if possible - can you go back more than five years?
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@gjacobse said in Resume Critique:
In your final - loos the boarder around the skills - nearly all resumes are digitally scanned and coded for key word searches. Boarders screw it up and you may get lost on a good position.
Any formal education - should also be listed. This isn't being negative - just not knowing your past... do you have any other experience? if possible - can you go back more than five years?
For IT, 4 years is it. I do hold an Associate’s degree from a technical college. From my past career (8 years of teaching experience) I hold a Master of Music Education degree. Methinks my teaching experience and music degrees wouldn’t be relevant though.
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@eddiejennings said in Resume Critique:
@gjacobse said in Resume Critique:
In your final - loos the boarder around the skills - nearly all resumes are digitally scanned and coded for key word searches. Boarders screw it up and you may get lost on a good position.
Any formal education - should also be listed. This isn't being negative - just not knowing your past... do you have any other experience? if possible - can you go back more than five years?
For IT, 4 years is it. I do hold an Associate’s degree from a technical college. From my past career (8 years of teaching experience) I hold a Master of Music Education degree. Methinks my teaching experience and music degrees wouldn’t be relevant though.
Actually they do - shows organizational skills, and critical thinking.
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@wirestyle22 said in Resume Critique:
@eddiejennings One thing @scottalanmiller said in response to my resume was to build myself up FOR my resume. I had a specific interest in Linux and as such worked on Ansible, Graylog, a Jumpbox, Samba AD, Mattermost, Active Directory built entirely in Linux, etc. www.udemy.com is a GREAT resource that @IRJ recommended to me. I am currently in the process of learning Ansible, Puppet, and Salt.
Wait - didn't you leave IT?
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I personally don't like the large name at the top. Though, that's just my own opinion.
For Windows, add 2008 & 2008 R2; lets face is - if you know 2016, 2012 & 2012 R2, you will be absolutely fine with 2008 R2 & 2008.
Reduced telecommunication costs by 50%, from what to what?
That 2012 domain, did it include new server hardware? What did you use, Hyper-V? vSAN? Failover Cluster? Stick those project details in. The new domain and servers have improved what? Add metrics of some sort (new domain, servers, lines etc, took us from a 99.98% service availability to 99.995% availability securing x additional y per year in z...
Maintained software compliance... cool. But did you also do things like find ways to spend less on software? Add that in...
You used spice works for ticketing, but what about network/infrastructure monitoring?
'I setup PRTG Monitor to track system availability, errors/logs/ updates etc... improving overall performance of abc...I've always liked to see at the top of a CV a couple of lines on hat you want next. Aka, 'I am actively looking for my next challenge focusing on virtualisation and storage.' It tells me where you want to go straight away...
What about things you are currently learning? Powershell? VMWare? Studying another cert? Get it on the CV... it will be flagged and you get in the pile to check.
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Have you setup WSUS for updates? Using GPO to roll out the policy to the clients? Get that on.
Why did you move to 2012 domain? Ware the systems before that out of MS support and insecure? So you... actually improved security as the systems etc are now being updated and patched? Hmmm, perhaps. Perhaps not. Say why you went to 2012...
Any automation? Or what about backu management/testing of restores. Did you setup DR? Get that on?
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@tim_g said in Resume Critique:
I liked it.
Just something quick that immediately stood out:
I didn't like seeing the "from scratch" in there. "Implemented Windows Server 2012 domain" says it all. It may be just a nitpick, but thought I'd mention it.
I would agree, when possible, less is more.
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Change "Freelance IT Professional" into "Consultant" or something like that.
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Dokuwiki is mispelled.
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@gjacobse said in Resume Critique:
In your final - loos the boarder around the skills - nearly all resumes are digitally scanned and coded for key word searches. Boarders screw it up and you may get lost on a good position.
Any formal education - should also be listed. This isn't being negative - just not knowing your past... do you have any other experience? if possible - can you go back more than five years?
reallllyyyyy.... good to know, i have borders all over my resume.....
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Good point by @gjacobse about education. The resume is short and you want to at least fill a single page. Dropping degrees would not make sense here. At times, maybe, I know that @scottalanmiller does that. But on a one page resume, having some educational background information is probably quite valuable.
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@scottalanmiller said in Resume Critique:
Change "Freelance IT Professional" into "Consultant" or something like that.
I think Freelance implies he wasn't incorporated or LLC or anything like that. Personally liable. Consultant implies that he was.
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@tim_g How does "consultant" imply incorporation?
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because "freelance" doesn't.
