YACritiqueResumeT

[kag]

I have two versions of my resume. The first one is my original resume, but I didn't like the way my techincal skills are displayed at the top of the second page, so I tried something new after seeing another thread.

Which one do you like best? Do you have any suggestion that I could use to improve the look?
I don't like using Arial but most of the other fonts are too big and my resume spans on a third page.

And last but not least, although I think my english is very good, my first language is french so maybe there are typos (I don't think so) and maybe some stuff could be rephrased better (this I would think so).

Anyway thanks for taking two mins to look at my resumes.

EDIT: links removed, improved resume linked in post below

 

[dionx]

what i would have done...

- list address first, telephone 2nd, then email last
- why do you have 2 gpas listed? i would have at least mentioned what they are referring to whether its major gpa or general
- i wouldnt list high school education. if you graduated college, it overrules anything you did in high school
- the format for the time you have under work experience should have the months abbreviated whether its number or 3 letter designation such as JAN, FEB, MAR, APR. if you didnt have so many jobs in one year, i would have just listed the years worked.
- try to list what you did at your work places as goals rather than tasks you did
- you spelled license wrong
- the font seems kinda in your face bold, but boring. times new roman seems more pleasing and not so boring even though its the default of Word

maybe its just me, but i dont really feel impressed by it, which you need in order for HR to give it a 2nd look.

 

[kag]

Okay, I'm writing this down. I didn't list two GPAs, I have 3.29 on 4.3. The reason I did this was because some places score the GPA on 4.0 and some on 4.3.

 

[kag]

OK, so how is this one?
I can't stand being inside during a beautiful day like today... so I'll change the "goals instead of tasks" tonight.

Revised resume

 

[dionx]

the font alone made a big significant difference. just keep working on it and you'll have one suited for you which you like and potential employers like

 

[Spydermag68]

Nice resume style. The two things that I would change would be adding a summary at the top stating what king of career you are looking for to the top of the first page and to move the Technical Skills section just below that. Anyone reading a resume only looks at it for about 30 seconds and this information is your hook to get them to continue reading.

 

[kag]

Thanks Spydermag68. I've seen this on other people's resumes, but I'm not sure if I need it or not. When coupled with the technical skills, it would really catch the attention though, you are right.

But this leads to a "problem". I just want a job in the IT field, whether it's a programming job, networking, or pretty much anything else than technical support. I would have to have a summary for each type of job I'm applying for. Oh well.. I already have to do some cheanges on my cover letter each time I send out a resume anyway. Or maybe I could find a way to properly phrase what's on my mind and it would apply to different fields in the IT field.

 

[Spydermag68]

Then have two or three resumes. A combination of matching cover letters and resumes will reinforce each other. It is easier to hit the target if you take a second to aim.

 

[Ness]

First off... as a recent gradute, change it until it fits on one page.

Unless they are trying to be impressed (they won't be with new graduates) You often won't get more than a page of attention.

Second... "References: Available upon request." Think about this one. If they asked for references, would you honestly say no? Is it worth putting in just to state the obvious? No, it isn't. Remove the part about references. Due to the legalities about references, people don't check up on them much anymore, anyway.

- Spell out "New Brunwick". It is lazy not to.
- One would expect that the Univeristy of Moncton would be in Moncton. You can take out the information stating its location. You really only have to state the location of a place if is not local at all. As in, you worked at a place over 50-70 miles away.
-Thesaurus. Big time. "Fixed broken computers" sounds boring. I can fix broken computers. 99% of the people here can fix broken computers. Say something more exciting. If it really isn't much more than just that, don't list your duties at all. That is perfectly acceptable. Also consider what your comments about your jobs has in the business place. My guess is that most companies won't have cybercamps, so I don't think you should mention that on a resume. It may be good to mention in an interview, though.
-No sentences. None at all. Your description for your experience as a student is way too long. "Developed chat server using C++ for Linux, counterpart Windows version using Visual Basic"
A resume is a summary of your skills. They don't want to read a story. You can give them the finer details in an interview. If you tell them too much about something, you might not even GET an interview.

-For software, say MS Office (as MS office from one version to the next is practically indentical to the average user), Adobe Photoshop, (Most companies use the latest version of photoshop, or the previous release, so listing older versions is not too necessary unless there are big changes.) (same for PaintShoPro, MS Access, I believe is part of MS Office... so it's kinda redundant to have it.


-Your experience sections need some major rennovations. Do this: Put all specific JOB experience, as in, a company paying you money to do these jobs, then any interships/co-ops (specifically listed as such), then any projects, person endevors, etc.

THEN list all of your skills. Like I said, you usually don't get much more than a one page look, if you get that far. It is better to see what you have done before they see what you claim to know. Experience speaks louder than claiming knowledge of a program. Back in high school I said I knew how to use Excel because I could make a spreadsheet with formulas. Now I know a hell of a lot more, but there is no difference in what it says on my resume.

This is going to sound crazy, but put your education AFTER this. (If you don't trust me here, that's fine. leave it up top and you should be fine.) But think about how they are reading it... they look and see first "Oh... he's a recent graduate. ANOTHER ONE OF THESE. " Then they sking through the rest and make assumptions based on the fact that you just got out of school. BUT, They could read about all of your experience, and be surprised to learn that a mere college graduate has already acheived so much. Like I said, experience speaks loudest of all.

(More, coming, but I'm gonna make a seperate post so I don't lose this one somehow.)

 

[Ness]

As far as additional information goes... Is a driver's license a big deal around your area? I would tend to think that if you show up to an interview without your mom, it's safe to assume that you either drive yourself, or can get yourself there with no problem.

First off, is NB one of the more French-influenced sections of Canada, or are you looking for overseas jobs? If you live in an English speaking section (or french for this matter) you don't put that on a resume. I would hope that you know your native language. If it is really a toss up as to which one is the more popular language, leave them, but either way make sure you say you are fluent in the languages, as in "Fluent in both English and French". How much Spanish do you really know? If it isn't really much, consider removing it. I would say that in order to have it on a resume, you should at least speak it at a high-school level.

If it is referring to the idea of being able to do on-site work and driving yourself from place to place, then I would leave that to be asked. It's a very job-specific requirement, and it looks tacky if it isn't necessary for the job you are submitting it to, so leave it off your resume.

Where is your objective? You need one of those right below your name. A human resources worker won't know what the heck you want if you don't tell them. Are you wanting an internship? Are you wanting to work in the mail room? You can't just hope that they see your resume and will figure out on their own where they want you.


The section you have about your school in "Additional Experience"... should go with your school. You want to group like subjects. If someone wants to ask what kinds of things you did for your school, they should only have to look in one place.

When you say CCNA, remove the abbreviation. When you abbrivate something, and then list what is means afterwords, it gives the impression that it will come up many times later on. You use it once. There is no reason to tell what the abbreviation is because you have no reason to use the abbreviation. (as I said before, don't abbreviate. It is lazy. Unless the meaning is universally known, such as programming languages. Everyone in the computer field knows what HTML stands for, or at least what it IS, so it is safe to abbreviate that. Not everyone may know that Cisco certification.)

About your phone number... you list it as home, but you don't list any other numbers... so that means it should just be "phone". 😉

 

[Ness]

Originally posted by: kag
Thanks Spydermag68. I've seen this on other people's resumes, but I'm not sure if I need it or not. When coupled with the technical skills, it would really catch the attention though, you are right.

But this leads to a "problem". I just want a job in the IT field, whether it's a programming job, networking, or pretty much anything else than technical support. I would have to have a summary for each type of job I'm applying for. Oh well.. I already have to do some cheanges on my cover letter each time I send out a resume anyway. Or maybe I could find a way to properly phrase what's on my mind and it would apply to different fields in the IT field.

If this is the case, your objective should be "To obtain a position in the Information Technologies field in order to grow my skills and experience" or something to that effect.

 

[kag]

Wow, thank you so much!!!

I'm very grateful that you actually took the time to read my resume like you did and write all this down.

EDIT: ok, I re-read everything a few times and I have a couple more questions now.

1. I removed the driver's license from the "Additionnal informations" section, but now "I'm fluent both in english and in french" is alone down there. Is there a way I could add it up with my personal information at the very top or something? Also, I don't really understand what you're trying to say in your paragraph about french/english.

Just so you can understand my situation, I live in the french portion of New Brunswick (NB is the only official bilingual province in Canada). So a lot more french people speak english than english people who speak french. This means that when you apply for a job in a french business, they kind of expect that you know english, but when you apply for an english job, french is a bonus. The french version of my resume will mostly be sent to businesses in Quebec, which is officially french. A lot of people there don't speak english and all, and in those who do, a lot of them aren't that great to tell the truth. So being fluent in english in a Quebec business is a big plus for me (I hope).

2. Why isn't it okay to list my "professional experiences" chronologically?

3. The reason why I wrote about the cybercamps is to show that I have very good social skills, that I'm not a typical geek (well I am, but no in every way 😉).

I don't think it's possible to squeeze it on one page. Even if I remove the second and the fifth jobs (the more boring ones), and if I remove the blank lines between my tech skills, it still doesn't fit on one page... and that's before I add an "objective" section.




I uploaded a new version of my resume with some of the changes you suggested, in case you view this thread while I'm in bed. I'll do the rest tomorrow.

 

[Ness]

1) Okay, about the language thing, that was what I was asking, really. I think it looks alright down there by itself, though. If you think it doesn't quite look right, you could probably think up some other qualification you have. Maybe an award you have won that doesn't quite belong anywhere else, or if you were a member of some organization that is worth mentioning. I know I had a short run as a CS Major and we were encouraged to join.. I think it was the IEEE or something, mostly for the purpose of putting it on a resume. Or maybe your certifications from Brain Bench could go down there. It's up to you, obviously.

2) I wasn't saying not to list things chronologically, I'm just saying to either a) Make seperate sections for each type of experience or b) list that things were either co-ops or internships if they were (recomended).

3) Fair enough. If you want to keep it on there, then if you ever go to an interview remember this: Make tell them that you found it to be a very good experience in learning to train people. After all, if you can train a group of hyper 8-12 year olds to do some pretty impressive things with computers, you could train anyone. 😉 Companies like people that can train other people, and do a good job at it. A LOT. It means less time (and thus less money) they have to spend on training new hires, etc.


Like I said on the pages thing, it's okay if you absolutely can't get it on one page, but if you can't you want to make sure that the information that you REALLY want them to see gets closer to the top.

There are a few grammatical errors that I'll help you fix once we have everything else worked out 🙂

Also, another tip for you, Add a little bit of design to it if you can and print it on a heavier paper when you send it to people. Don't use tacky clip-art or anything, but people looking at resumes tend to remeber only the first and last ones the most. You always need something to stand out.


Good luck on the job hunting!


edit: One nit-picky thing I've noticed real quick, your resume looks nice and uniformed. That is very good! But it looks like the lines under "Education" and "Additional Information" aren't as heavy as the rest. It might just be the way the PDF was made though. 😉

 

[badmouse]

Back in the day, I used to hire a lot of tech people, so I've seen thousands of resumes and thrown most of them into the don't-bother pile. Here's some of my thoughts (I'd dump yours):

Put your professional experience at the top (after the objective), since that's what I would consider the most important. You may be a recent grad, but the employer doesn't care about that nearly as much as they care about your work experience. You're applying for a job, not further uni. education. Get your priorities straight. I wouldn't have bothered reading the rest of the resume, and just thrown yours aside.

What is the deal with the "additional experience" stuff? If it's professional, then put it with the main group of stuff. If it's not, then get rid of it. Since you list yourself as co-owner and programmer, then it sure as heck sounds like professional. Add that stuff to the other portion and get rid of that. You don't want to make the resume-reader wonder about anything. 😀

Frankly, you don't have enough work exoerience to have a two-page resume. However, it's not the end of the world if you have it nicely laid out & formatted, as you do. You can easily make this a one-page resume by putting things together on one line - email address with the rest of address, Univ. of M. BS in CS (if you're applying for an IT position they surely know what a BS/CS is), and I personally hate people who put in GPA's - the only thing that matters is that you followed the rules and got the degree. Whatever you do, don't highlight it. Since it's new, go ahead and leave it in, but don't put it on a separate line.

Put the word student, programmer, technician on the same line as the name of the employer. And regarding that word "student", if you developed a chat server as a class project, leave it off; if it was an actual project that people ended up using, then don't say student, say "developer" or some other business term. "student" implies class work, and I HATE that - since you got the degree, obviously you did the class work (or you have amazing bullsh*t skills, which would make you management material).

Your list of tech skills is suspicious, considering that you were a student. Are you professionally proficient in those languages? If so, it should correlate to some type of job on the "profes. experience" part. Any idiot can list a bunch of tech acronyms. If you want to be taken seriously, list what you have actually accomplished in these languages. Otherwise it's just filler. Nothing wrong with filler, but . . .

The spacing in the tech skills section is different from the spacing on the first page; consistency is key.

"greeted and assisted clients both on the phone and in the computer room" is one of the lamest statements I've ever seen. Duh. In that kind of job, I sure hope so. Leave it out - the other three are Very Strong - especially the one about winning the award.

Anyway, these are solely my own opinions, and take what I say for what it's worth. I've been out of the hiring biz for about 2 years, and things may have changed - seriously. Good luck.

 

[kag]

Thank you so much badmouse. Constructive criticism is always great. As long as you add arguments to your points, it's perfectly fine with me. I don't take it personnal because I know I couldn't have done more in university.

As for the suspicious tech skills, I think I can be productive with any skills I added in there. I'm not trying to say that I'm the l33t h4x0rz in each of them, but I surely know my way around. Either I learned them in university or I learned them by myself. I only added the skills that I believe I can bring something to a business.

For example, we learned JSP in class but I didn't understand a thing, mostly because I never had a Java class... so I didn't put it on the resume because I know damn well that I didn't understand much. Also, I was offered a network admin job last week but I kind of declined because, like I said to the employer, technically I know to set a network and to do the proper security, but I never had the chance to practice my knowledge, so I'm not comfortable to accept that job because there wouldn't be any other net admin with me over there, in case something goes wrong. She just replied that she admired my honesty and she would keep my name in case they have something else for me.


Anyway I removed the lame line you stated, and I put the profesionnal experienc at the top like you (and others) said. Haven't exported it to .pdf yet though.

 

[kag]

Hey, I have another problem!!! But a good one this time.

There's a new job opening at the local campus of the Université de Moncton (where I got my degree) and I've worked there twice for summer jobs. Well I worked there 3 times, but twice with computers. But those two jobs, they were the two "least impressive" jobs on my resume (one was helping students in the computer lab, and the other one was fixing computers all summer long -- adding cd-roms, installing windows... you get the idea) so I had removed them from my resume to put more focus on the better ones.

So should I put those two jobs back on my resume????

 

[GoodToGo]

You can easily take that resume, compress it to one page and make it look MUCH better than what you have. Two page resumes are usually for very experienced people or for higher education people and not for bachlelor's degree. I am graduate student and work with masters and phd people and even they dont have 2 page resumes. I would post a copy of mine but I am a Mechanical Engineer and dont know how applicable that would be to you. But for sure I can tell you that two pages aint going to look good. Also your additional information, while good, is very short. Either add more stuff or combine it with another section.

 

[kag]

I did some changes to my resume to reduce it to one page. I first thought it wasn't possible, but after playing around with formatting and rephrasing some stuff, I was able to do it.

Here it is. Is it better like this? Not too crammed?

But now there's a small problem, I don't know where to place that I can work both in french and english. Maybe in the Objective section?

 

[RagingBITCH]

Damn Canadians 😉

But seriously - I don't think it's really worth it to say that you're fluent in both except if the area where you work has a lot of ads for bilingual IT technicians.

 

[rh71]

maybe you can capitalize on CF... there's not that many CF programmers out there because it's not a promising careerpath anymore... yet there are still many apps deployed in CF that need attention... that'll get you a start in IT...

 

[kag]

Originally posted by: RagingBITCH
Damn Canadians 😉

But seriously - I don't think it's really worth it to say that you're fluent in both except if the area where you work has a lot of ads for bilingual IT technicians.

Hehhehe. Thanks for giving your advice, but it's vital that it's on my CV because as I said in a post above, I plan to go work in Quebec, and it's a big big bonus to be bilingual over there. Even here in New Brunswick, not all french people speak english.

Since NB is 33% french and Quebec pretty much almost only french, I also want to specify that I'm french when I apply for english jobs.

 

[kalster]

i just had a quick look

I say change the objective

"position in Information technology" part

its too generic, considering you have a B.S in computer science come up with something
more specific

say Software Designer and Developer in the field of (if you have an inciination for a particular
sector, say Telecom or mm Web Development) and what not


just saying IT undermines your education I feel

 

[kag]

Originally posted by: rh71
maybe you can capitalize on CF... there's not that many CF programmers out there because it's not a promising careerpath anymore... yet there are still many apps deployed in CF that need attention... that'll get you a start in IT...

I'd love to get a job coding CF... but I don't have any professionnal experience using it. I only had one class of CF but I picked it up a lot quicker than most of the other students because I've been playing with PHP for so long.

But the employers don't come to me... I go to them, so focusing on CF won't attract them even more if they don't state CF in the job posting... I dunno?