Topic awaiting preservation: Jobsearch, Week 8: Desperation sets in...

We find our weary traveller nearing the end of his saved up finances and still in need of employment. In desperation, he turns to the Asylum.

Okay, so that somewhat literary runup leads me to this:

I realize this hasn't been done before, but if at all possible I was wondering if any of you would take a quick look at my resume for any problems or anything amiss.

I've edited it so many times it's not even funny anymore.

C + C would be greatly appreciated.

asylum_resume.rtf 64kb rtf file



~edit~ Typo
~edit2~ I've run it through Norton AV CE but feel free to use the AV program of your choice

(Edited by silence on 09-29-2004 22:51)

Impressive sounding skillset and list of prior duties/achievements, but where is the documentation of prior employment(dates & companies)?

If I were a potential employer I would like to know how, when, and where you gained this eight years of experience, especially considering that your degree was completed in 2002.

Don't worry, you're not the first one having some troubles with his resume, nor asking for a review on the Asylum.
I don't know if it's common in Australia, but 5 pages seems way too long to me. Try to sumarize your role in your previous jobs. The name of your previous employees and job title should rather speak for itself, and if a company is interrested and/or want to know a bit more about your skills they will contact you and eventually ask for an appointement.

Regarding the presentation, IMHO, you should :

• get rid of the borders
• bolden the name of the companies and schools your worked in, and skip a line after them.
• put the dates in the left column to gain some space and make them "pop"
• replace SILENCE by your real name and firstname in the header
• place the REFERENCE block before the EXPERIENCE one, to state quickly your previous employees.

Most of the resumes I've seen so far are 1 or 2 page long. Beyond that limit it's painful to read and it's hard, if not impossible in the timeframe assigned to resume gathering for the person in charge of the recruitement, to have a good overview of your skills and experience.

Hope that helps.

Is this the actual resume you send out? When I open it up in MS Word 2004 it takes up one line over 4 pages! I can't imagine a potential employeer actually reading your resume.

A resume should be a brief listing of what you've done previously. In pointing out your responsibilities @ both Homeland Security & Blue Sky Communications you go on for almost THREE pages. I think you would find better results if you shorted your resume to only include recent jobs (the last three usually suffice) w/ a very brief description of what you did, education, and then necessary skills. If you choose to, you can include a URL to a complete resume at the very bottom of your printed resume.

You should also consider formating your resume a little nicer. Its well organized and contains a lot of information but the idea is to catch the eye of a potential employeer - not put them to sleep. Offhand, I know Microsoft's website has a few good templates for resumes. Theres also a lot of good resources on the web that have great tips on how to write a great resume. You might even consider stopping by your local library and picking up a book on the subject.

Good luck on the job hunt though.

http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/syws/resume/resume.html

Best advice is keep it short (1-2 pages - maybe put your references on another), and always put your best characteristics (for the job) at the top, it's not like your future employer has time to read every single resume all the way through.

Hey folks, thanks for all the help.

poi: names have been changed to protect the innocent Although, I realize that was probably unneccessary now. Still, it's always good to be a little paranoid on the internet. You never know what bots are watching.

I have made several changes after reading your comments.

I also had a very good interview today with Robert Walters Consulting, and the interviewer was very helpful. He actually took the time to go over my resume with me on things I should change and they along with everyone's comments on readability.

As far as length is concerned, it was originally no more than 2 pages, however, I received feedback from several employers and consulting agencies to flesh it out since I had to cite specifics in order to bolster the fact that I have no industry certifications (MCSE, CCNA). However, I have removed any information not totally relevant.

I've managed to cut it down to a slim and trim 4 pages.

I removed all the long-winded paragraphs and separated different items that were clumped together. I also placed the most relevant information on the first page to improve the readability.

Then again, the more I look at it the more I can see that there is a definite need to shorten it further.

One small thing though: I have a rather unpronounceable(sp?) name and I was wondering if I should include a short form in parentheses.

Example: Robert "Bob" Smith
In my case: Aloiamoa "Alo" Anesi

Silence,

Being an IT recruiter for the last 5 years you might consider this.

Firstly ^ a few good points, I hope this also helps.

From my point of view it doesn't matter how long a CV is, as long as it is under 5-6 pages, but with only a couple of years *commercial* experience 2 maybe 3 pages at a push is a max. The formatting needs attention. Oh and I only read the first half page and I was bored, so I stopped reading it.

Another good point made and instantly comes over is that you state you have over 8 years experience, unless you worked full time whilst at Uni then you can't really include this as commercial experience, but you can count it as technology exposure.


SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

I would turn this into a skills matrix, i.e. list all the technologies for which you have experience, as a recruiter I like to see the amount of experience next to each technology as I scan many cv's and do not get much further than the first two jobs and skills on most cv's.

i.e.

Windows NT/2000/2003 servers 8 Years
Windows 98/NT/2000/XP workstations 8 years
Novell 4.0/5.0 Server 7 years
Cisco routers/IOS (config/setup/admin) 5 years
Blah blah blag

EXPERIENCE

Bloated with lots of unnecessary info and you won't have anything to talk about in an interview! The idea of a cv is to create interest and make someone want to talk to you.

i.e.

"
Contracted to design, implement, administer and troubleshoot LAN/WAN for Emergency Operations Command centre. This centre to be used as a central command point for any natural disasters or terrorist incidents and required close connections with emergency services departments and personnel (medical, fire, police, etc.)

Designed and implemented network infrastructure for Emergency Operations Command centre. This included physical infrastructure, network topology framework, network traffic optimisation, LAN/WAN routing, IP scheme for internal and external IP addresses, DHCP considerations, DNS considerations, Active Directory schema
"

I would change to

Contracted to design, implement, administer Network infrastructure for Emergency Operations Command center including network topology framework, network traffic optimisation, LAN/WAN routing, IP scheme for internal and external IP addresses, DHCP considerations, DNS considerations, Active Directory schema.

10 lines of waffle, now 3 - I could word this better if I thought about it but I can?t be bothered, you'll get the message tho.

REFERENCES

Remove, replace with upon request. References are a recruiter?s best friend and used extensively for business development. Then at least a recruiter has to phone you to get the info they want!

There is more, but that should keep you busy for a while. Just remember to try and look at this from a client?s perspective and ask yourself how you could phrase this to create interest. The market is competitive, you need to stand out.

I hope this helps.


Ben

as you may have guessed by now, i'm not one who would have any trouble with your name but yeah, shortening it might help with those who are vowel-challenged .. hehe ...

very impressive list of skills. i don't know what half of them refer to, but i do come across a lot of CVs in my work and four pages is definitely too long. CVs i enjoy reading are more creatively laid out (magazine style, even 3-paneled brochure-type) with only brief summaries of work experience and credentials. you can bring along all the details in a briefcase, if you like, when you get the appointment, which, as others have mentioned, is the point behind the eye-catching exercise.

i have actually read through a lot of 'job search' advice material that suggest you should shove this and that lot of information into a CV to impress, but i think that practice is seriously outdated these days. less is more, i guess..

all the best with the job search ... and whatever you do, don't come to NZ! if the job market is that bad over there, you'd arrive here and be on the dole in a week hehe ...

--------------
"...cause it's a war between evil and it's a war between good ..."

I was lookin gfor work in Australia last year, and I found some good tips are (as most have already said)...

Keep it short, you've got a lot to talk about, but somebody's got to read it, 2-3 pages max.

Companies and dates are important make them show, highlight key points, don't worry too much about full sentences as long as notation makes sense.

Try starting off your CV with a small paragraph about who you are and want to be proffessionally, list these in order of importance..

e.g.

* Interfrace Developer: Creating and managing websites through all phases of developement.
* Website Designer: invloved in evolving initial concept of website designs
* Database Developer: Administrator and developer for server side databases

That sort of thing, it instantly highlights the important qualities that you have to offer, then you can go into depth with your experience.

One final point, I wouldn't put your references on your CV, firstly you can save space by removing them, and second you only need to give them to people when you finally get the job, if someone wants them real bad then you can send them seperatley.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,

Al.

How do I improve my CV/resume?

I don't have a lot to add, but from personal experience, I know that no HR person wants to read more than a page or page and a half at most. Keep initial resume submissions short and sweet.

I list all my skills at the top of mine, under my objective. No sentences, just a comma separated list, phrasing when necessary. A lot of my skils were job responsibilities in various positions, but are applicable in many places.

Then I list my previous positions held, with a super-brief comment about the responsibilities, most of this is summed up in my skills portion... But I do include the name of my supervisor and a telephone number for the company. Personal references are always upon request.

These days, I think my res takes up about a page and a half. Just enough info to get their interest and get a phone call...

Good luck - job hunting is a big pain in the a**, I hope you find something soon!