Resume Critique
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Going to jump on the bandwagon here. If you get a few minutes could you review my resume as well?
The first section is currently a work in progress and that's just the outline of responsibilities that I currently have with a few projects. I'm going to work on updating that as I go.
Any criticism is welcome.
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Would adding a skills section make a lot of sense? Or should I just leave that out and let my experience and job descriptions handle that?
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What kind of positions are you looking at applying for?
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@kelly said in Resume Critique:
What kind of positions are you looking at applying for?
Infrastructure or System Administration roles.
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@coliver said in Resume Critique:
Would adding a skills section make a lot of sense? Or should I just leave that out and let my experience and job descriptions handle that?
Honestly, I've gone back and forth on this for years when interviewing people. It started out that I wanted to know what you did, where you were at. Also, a section with what you're doing in your home lab is a huge thumbs up with me. It shows you value continued education, and pushing the limits "out of production". As in, you can learn whatever your heart's desire.
Anymore, I don't care what you did at a certain job. I care about your collective knowledge. So a skills section is your aggregate knowledge. Your job section is what your title was, name of employer, and dates of employment (I don't prefer salary while there). Why don't I care about salary? Because what you made there, is not going to increase or decrease your value to me. I've interviewed people who have made a ton of money, and were nearly useless to me (Active Directory site-to-site "experts" who didn't even understand the concept of site link bridges or what a bridge head server was... but they got paid 30% over fair market value... I digress).
There is a single reason why I would want to know what you did at your last job, and that's to qualify your experience in more recent months/years. I might see in your skills section "ooo you know that tech? Awesome! We use that every day! Oh... that was 10 years ago. Nevermind then." I typically go through the skills, look at your last employer, and ask what all skill wise applies recently.
Another reason why I like a skills section is it is easier reading in an aggregate form. I don't care about employers a long time ago, where you did things you can barely remember how to do anymore. Also, it adds far more irrelevant content and less enjoyable to read (typically this comes in paragraph format, which is a negative). A skills section and talking about what you did at your employer, typically comes into a cirriculum vitae, not a resume. But I rarely get any CVs unless I ask for them (only ever asked once for a specific position).
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@coliver said in Resume Critique:
@kelly said in Resume Critique:
What kind of positions are you looking at applying for?
Infrastructure or System Administration roles.
Why limit yourself with just a sysadmin role? Are you only interested in systems? I would go with business infrastructure all the way if you want to be the most valuable.
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That is a ton of words on multiple pages. You'll want to get this down to a brief overview. 1 page is acceptable with a resume. Multiple pages is for a CV.
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@bbigford said in Resume Critique:
That is a ton of words on multiple pages. You'll want to get this down to a brief overview. 1 page is acceptable with a resume. Multiple pages is for a CV. You also mix and match numbers... "tier 1" "thirty Meraki switches".
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@bbigford said in Resume Critique:
@coliver said in Resume Critique:
@kelly said in Resume Critique:
What kind of positions are you looking at applying for?
Infrastructure or System Administration roles.
Why limit yourself with just a sysadmin role? Are you only interested in systems? I would go with business infrastructure all the way if you want to be the most valuable.
I delve into Networking some times but I don't really enjoy that side of the house. Infrastructure (Hypervisor level and up) is generally where I spend most of my time. It's also where I spend most of my hobby time, but that's become pretty scarce these last few months.
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@coliver said in Resume Critique:
@bbigford said in Resume Critique:
@coliver said in Resume Critique:
@kelly said in Resume Critique:
What kind of positions are you looking at applying for?
Infrastructure or System Administration roles.
Why limit yourself with just a sysadmin role? Are you only interested in systems? I would go with business infrastructure all the way if you want to be the most valuable.
I delve into Networking some times but I don't really enjoy that side of the house. Infrastructure (Hypervisor level and up) is generally where I spend most of my time. It's also where I spend most of my hobby time, but that's become pretty scarce these last few months.
Network engineers work on networking devices, systems engineers work on systems, infrastructure engineers work on both. If you really do like to work on mostly systems, I would focus more on being a systems engineer. If you're indifferent on networking, it'll maintain your higher value. But if you strongly dislike it, then it's a complete waste of your happiness.
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Similar to my input on both @aaronstuder and @NerdyDad's resumes, you don't sell yourself very well. It is a better resume than others overall, but it makes for dry reading. Some of that is unavoidable, but you can flesh out your items more. Why did you do the things you did? Managing ADFS is an interesting thing to do, but why does it matter if I haven't ever used it? When you list out the tasks your perform, particularly non project tasks it is difficult to understand your skills unless I know the technology you're referring to. Taking ADFS as an example, you could change that one to something like, Managed Active Directory Federated Service to deliver dynamic, multi-site single sign in order to provide resilient user authentication.
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@kelly Yes, that section is still a work in progress, it's the current job so still trying to figure out how best to highlight the projects and responsibilities. That's a good suggestion and I'll work on incorporating that in that section.
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@coliver said in Resume Critique:
@kelly Yes, that section is still a work in progress, it's the current job so still trying to figure out how best to highlight the projects and responsibilities. That's a good suggestion and I'll work on incorporating that in that section.
Just because you don't like something, doesn't mean you shouldn't put it on your resume. I would include everything. When talking about projects, say what you did not what you participated on. When in an interview, you can talk about what you did but more importantly you get to talk about what you're most interested in. The resume isn't really about what interests you, it's about what you know. Character and interests get displayed in an interview.
