Resume Update
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@EddieJennings said in Resume Update:
This was another piece with which I struggled, and I think I just needed to get this on paper so I can see it, think it through, and re-write into something better. I agree this ought to be listed as a "Side Project" kind of thing. In addition, I can make mention of the lab, which would seem to be less odd.
The few times I make purchases for the lab, I expense that to the LLC, since the function of the lab is to improve my skills to use in the projects I do as the LLC (and to better me as an IT Professional) -- this point though, is likely worthy of a thread all of its own.Yes. Having a lab is a huge deal and a great idea to have on your resume. You likely want to talk about it even more. But just not as if it was a job. It's a personal growth lab, which is perfect, it just has to be presented as such.
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@EddieJennings said in Resume Update:
@scottalanmiller said in Resume Update:
@Pete-S said in Resume Update:
I think you should skip versions completely. It's just too much detail and if you have been doing it long enough it looks ridiculous.
For example, experience with Windows 2.03, 3.0, 3.1, WFW 3.11, NT3.1, 95, NT3.5, 98, NT4, Me, 2000, XP, 2003, 2008, 7, 2012, 8, 2016, 10, 2019. Probably missed a few.
I think that I agree with this. The only reason that I hesitate is because someone with all Windows since NT4 has a much bigger scope than someone who has only seen 2019.
That's one reason why I like something along the lines of "Windows Server 2003 - 2019" or perhaps "Windows Server 2003 - Current."
You could also put years. 10+ years experience Windows Server.
It's more common to find "years of experience" than have use version X in job ads.
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@Pete-S said in Resume Update:
You could also put years. 10+ years experience Windows Server.
It's more common to find "years of experience" than have use version X in job ads.
I'm in a situation where I don't have 10+ years of experience with Windows Server, but I've had to support 2003 to current.
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Here is draft 2. For this draft there are still a few things that I know needs some editing.
First are my "Skills used" line. In both of my IT positions, especially the latter, I've had the opportunity to touch several technologies. My goal is to show this variety, yet balance the annoyance of reading a long list of things. Another thing that seems odd is listing something like "Windows Server" as a skill. Windows Server is a product, so the skill would be what you do with the product (deploy, configure, troubleshoot) -- perhaps I'm discovering my answer as I type this
Looks like a third draft will be coming soon.Second is my current company. Several months ago (perhaps a year ago), On High created PruittHealth Connect, Inc., which from what I understand contains basically all of what was IT within PruittHealth. So technically during my span of two and a half years, I've worked for two distinct companies.
The question becomes how to articulate this on the resume. I chose listing it as is because my paychecks come from PruittHealth Connect; however, its not possible for me to have worked for my entire time with PruittHealth Connect, since it didn't exist when I started with Pruitt Health.
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@EddieJennings said in Resume Update:
Here is draft 2. For this draft there are still a few things that I know needs some editing.
First are my "Skills used" line. In both of my IT positions, especially the latter, I've had the opportunity to touch several technologies. My goal is to show this variety, yet balance the annoyance of reading a long list of things. Another thing that seems odd is listing something like "Windows Server" as a skill. Windows Server is a product, so the skill would be what you do with the product (deploy, configure, troubleshoot) -- perhaps I'm discovering my answer as I type this
Looks like a third draft will be coming soon.Second is my current company. Several months ago (perhaps a year ago), On High created PruittHealth Connect, Inc., which from what I understand contains basically all of what was IT within PruittHealth. So technically during my span of two and a half years, I've worked for two distinct companies.
The question becomes how to articulate this on the resume. I chose listing it as is because my paychecks come from PruittHealth Connect; however, its not possible for me to have worked for my entire time with PruittHealth Connect, since it didn't exist when I started with Pruitt Health.
This revision looks a lot better. IMHO skip the month thing. Who cares what month you got what certificate or graduated. Same with your work experience. Who cares if you started i January or June? Just write the year. Quick glance shows you have 7 years of work experience in IT. Does it really matter if it turns out that it is actually 7.3 years or perhaps only 6.6 years?
Same thing with the company. Keep it like it is.
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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.
Put yourself in the shoes of someone else reading this... they cannot glean anything from this. So why is it there?
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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.
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@EddieJennings It's ntg.co not ntg.com
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@scottalanmiller said in Resume Update:
@EddieJennings It's ntg.co not ntg.com
Yep. Missed an auto-correct.
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@Pete-S said in Resume Update:
This revision looks a lot better. IMHO skip the month thing.
Overall yeah, way better. I generally agree about the month thing, but I like when it shows that there is or isn't an employment gap. But that's not a big deal with how few leaps are here. But I'd definitely remove it for anything else.
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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.
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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.
