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It's nice reading posts here with people in similar situations knowing I'm not alone, so maybe explaining my story will help. Backstory I'm 31, live in Northeast Pennsylvania, and recently lost my help desk job I was at for four years. Before that, I worked at a warehouse job doing manual labor for a three-year stint before going to college for my Associates Degree and then doing the same warehouse work on a separate shift for another year before being disgusted to the point of walking out. Before that, I worked a few years doing minimum wage retail jobs at a few places. My Associates degree is in Music Recording Technology since I got bit with the "Money isn't everything! I want to have a job that's FUN!" bug when registering for college. It being my "dream" job is a good reason too. I adore music and would eventually like to play on stage in a band and be around more live/studio recording sessions to learn more things and have enough money to one day have my own recording equipment to tinker with. I'm also slowly learning my way around the guitar and want to take vocal lessons eventually. Good grades were never an issue. My college has four honors societies and I'm a member of all of them and graduated with a 3.9 GPA. Graduated in the top 10% in high school with a similar GPA as well. As you can most likely discern, there are no lucrative jobs in the music industry out of college. I was left twisting in the wind after graduation since I figured I would at least get my foot in the door somewhere and move up as I got more and more experience. So, in order to fund my "Plan A", I've fallen to my "Plan B": Computer work (hence the four years at a help desk). I'm naturally an introvert, but the reason I stayed so long at that help desk position was because it was easy. The company I worked at takes calls from pharmaceutical employees for tech support and is broken up into different desks. I went from one dealing with several different companies to one of these accounts breaking off onto their own independent "wing" of the help desk company after a successful job interview and being in the good graces of the Help Desk Manager for that particular account. From then on, I worked night shift (which I don't mind since I've always been a night owl) and took anywhere from 3-6 easy calls over the course of 8 hours and got to surf the web, watch videos, etc. In hindsight, I should have studied for certifications more and watched Youtube videos less, but I grew apathetic due to a combination of this company hardly ever giving raises or chances for promotion, me being complacent, no other jobs I've applied for getting back to me, and them just being unprofessional in general. Present Day So that's the past, and now for the present: This aforementioned company is blocking my ability to temporarily get unemployment benefits for "willful misconduct" (which is complete bullshit; have an appeal hearing on Tuesday), my savings are gone, I'm barely keeping my head above water by paying my bills with my mom's SSI (which makes me feel like a scumbag; feeling like I'm being a burden on someone is one of the worst feelings in the world), my SUV from 2001 needs repairs on it and gets 13mpg on a good day (at least it's paid off and is phenomenal in the snow), and my fiancee is 2 months pregnant and we have been trying to move out of the 4-room apartment she's lived in for over 10 years and I'm freaking out because I can't help her financially at all and want some financial stability in our lives before our child is born. My ideal computer job would be a desk job (I can't stand for a long period of time anymore due to being born with a club foot and have increasingly bad arthritis pain in it as I get older) where I do "behind-the-scenes" work and flex my existing IT skills and learn new ones too. A local Lowe's distribution center had a "night planner" job I applied for due to a recommendation from someone who already works there that was basically an computer job tracking inventory with minimal supervision. According to him, I killed it at the job interview I eventually got, but they had to give the job to someone else who already worked there because of a special circumstance. This was devastating as I was perfectly qualified for that job. It would have been perfect. I'm on LinkedIn, Indeed, Monster, and Careerbuilder in addition to having a headhunter from a staffing company try to find me a job after explaining all of this to him. I keep trying to follow-up with him, but don't get anywhere. I've applied for pretty much any IT job within 20 miles of me (plus an IT job at Amazon that's 40 miles away, which will kill me in gas, but I don't have any options left), but my phone isn't ringing. My resume is here (took out my personal info from the header) https://www.dropbox.com/s/6pbgzb8fqgyp5l6/Updated%20Resume.doc?dl=0. I have also moved my objective information to a cover letter I made here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7u7ldqkd0kky6yb/Cover%20Letter.doc?dl=0 Am I doing something wrong? Should I be searching for a very specific computer position I keep missing on my searches? Sorry if I rambled too much but I really don't have anyone to talk to seriously about this stuff, am pretty discouraged, and get my thoughts down on "paper" much better. Thank you for anyone whom has read this and can help at all. EDIT: I've spruced up the body of my resume based on the feedback I've received so far and replaced the Dropbox link. Let me know if that's any better or not and what the best way would be to re-format the Objective and Skills sections to say: "Yo, I'm pretty good at this computer stuff since I've been messing around with them forever. Give me an IT job where I can use these skills, learn new skills, not want to pull my hair out every 5 minutes, and eventually move up and make enough money to be a provider and take care of myself finanically." Charles Martel fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Sep 8, 2015 |
# ¿ Sep 6, 2015 06:53 |
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# ¿ May 12, 2024 09:48 |
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Yeah, good point. I'll rephrase that right away and try swapping the work experience and education around.
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# ¿ Sep 6, 2015 17:55 |
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moana posted:Maybe this is moot in the digital age, but I always roll my eyes at 2-page resumes with such little substance. I mean, come on, you have seven lines devoted to HIGH SCHOOL. You list every single loving windows operating system. Stop filling up your resume with useless junk. Focus on the important stuff. And by important stuff, I mean whatever is in the job description of the job posting you're applying to. Delete that vague objective, bullet point your actual achievements. Here's an example of what I mean, using a chunk of my old resume: Thank you very, very much for all of this. Awesome feedback. As you can tell, I never had a way for someone to show me how to "formally" create a resume or portfolio. Just to make sure I understand what you're saying, I changed my help desk job summary from this: Old Resume Description posted:Helping my team of co-workers assist various end-users including office personnel, scientists, and pharmaceutical sales representatives with computer-based and iPhone / iPad technical issues over the phone and via inbound e-mails. I utilize various software programs such as Apropos and Syntellect to keep track of my incoming calls, Siebel Horizon and ServiceNow to document my call issues and customer’s tickets, and also use on-site client machines to access network accounts via Active Directory as well as initiate remote sessions via Bomgar for advanced software, printer, and VPN issues. I have also earned training certifications here for Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Microsoft Office 2010. To this: New Job Description posted:• Assisted thousands of end-users in the pharmaceutical field with a professional ticketing system. What do you think? Should I get rid of the whole "Skills" section on the right side or just reduce it? I want to drive home that I have been tinkering with and configuring computers since the Windows 3.1 days, so what would be the best way to do that?
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# ¿ Sep 6, 2015 19:44 |
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Zanthia posted:It's not moot. I will not hire a person who submits a 2-page PDF for an intro-level job; it demonstrates that they can't prioritize and present information clearly. So in November 2005, I gave a two-weeks notice to Gamestop since I was sick and tired of making $6/hour and of retail in general and went to doing warehouse work for $9/hour instead. I bettered myself in that time by shedding almost 100 pounds and reading self-help materials to try and become a more functional person and to better take care of myself (grew up in a dysfunctional family and without a father; it's a long story). In May of 2008, the owner of the fitness center I was going to set me up with a job bussing tables at a new restaurant. I gave a two weeks notice to the warehouse job and went back to working with the public, but the restaurant closed down after only a couple of months. Luckily, I was able to collect unemployment before starting college in the Fall and the benefits kept my head above water temporarily. I worked part time at the Eddie Bauer Outlet, eventually left that to focus on my internship at a friend's recording studio that didn't pan out (the owner did everything himself and prefers things done his way and wasn't looking to hire any help), and eventually went back to the same warehouse job after not being able to find any work after college, which never stops being depressing no matter how many times I say it or type it out. By 2011, they were putting the screws to me to the point of me just walking out once day, which is something I never saw myself doing. I figured it would be easier to say I just worked there for almost six years than to explain all of that. And with the "Skills" section...in other words, I should keep it, reinforce it with what is popular, and delete all the miscellaneous stuff, correct?
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# ¿ Sep 6, 2015 21:26 |
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Canine Blues Arooo posted:I've only ever hired for Sys Admin positions, not desktop positions, but if I saw a resume that listed stuff like, 'Creating New Files Paths' and 'Fixing Registry Errors' and 'Configuring Shortcuts', I'd toss that resume immediately. The top item on your resume is 'Senior Help Desk Technician'. The impression I get from someone who has 4 years at that position but still lists 'nothing skills' like 'Printer Setup' makes me immediately assume incompetence and I'd not give you the time of day. That's a bit harsh, but understandable. I'm trying to show all of the small areas I'm familiar with. I'm getting the impression I should just axe that whole sidebar altogether. moana posted:I think it looks better, and I also think you should probably post to SH/SC in that job thread to see if they have any helpful critiques. I'm not a tech person so I don't know what would be best to highlight or how in that regard. Thanks! I'll make a post there shortly. And yeah, I've brought that weight loss up in the last few job interviews and interviewers seems impressed by it.
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# ¿ Sep 7, 2015 01:21 |
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Saeku posted:Yeah. I've never hired for tech jobs but this is a very bad resume resume. It's too long AND the content doesn't sell you. Everyone else's advice is spot-on. Most of your competitors have similar experience/skillsets to you, and everyone is going to say that they're amazing. The way that you stand above the rest is by having accomplishments that others don't, making a good case as to how your history makes you well-suited to the job, and appearing reasonable and professional (=not too cocky, not too naive.) Thank you for your constructive criticism. I've modified my linked resume by nixing the Skills and Activites & Awards sections (made a small note of the honors societies in my college education section since I am proud of that accomplishment and believe it shows of my resolve). I also removed the Objective Summary completely and will place that in a cover letter which I will place a link to in the OP and here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7u7ldqkd0kky6yb/Cover%20Letter.doc?dl=0 Let me know what you think. Also, could you elaborate on the position descriptions being "too verbose"? I agree that bringing my resume down to one page would be best, but how do I go about doing that while bringing out the best experiences I've had in each job. I swear I'm not being dense, but I don't exactly know how to do that.
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# ¿ Sep 8, 2015 04:43 |
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I've fixed the margins on my resume, showed where my name and contact information would go in the header, rewrote a few things here and there, and it's now down to more concise page-and-a-half. I need further help on what to re-word, what to combine with what, and what to get rid of completely to get it down to a single page. If I delete anything, I feel it is taking away from describing all of my strengths.
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# ¿ Sep 8, 2015 20:30 |
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Ok, if I nix the entire Retail Associate and High School sections, everything falls nicely on one page. I'm guessing it's assumed that I graduated high school if I graduated with honors from college? If I get rid of the Retail Associate section, does my help desk experience hold it's own as far as showing off my customer service experience? More opinions, please. I just want to be absolutely sure my resume shines enough to get my foot in the door and I'm not making any more dumb mistakes. Is it a good rule for resumes to always be one clean page? Edit: High School section is gone. What about my Cover Letter? Is it too wordy? Thank you to everyone who has replied so far. You guys are awesome. Charles Martel fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Sep 8, 2015 |
# ¿ Sep 8, 2015 22:28 |
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I got rid of the whole Retail Sales section, so my resume is now one page. How does that and my cover letter look now as someone looking for further IT work?
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# ¿ Sep 9, 2015 22:29 |
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slap me silly posted:The cover letter sounds like a third grader wrote it. The cover letter should describe (1) How your experience is a good fit for the position and (2) How the position is interesting to you. Nobody cares if you are "working on" some certs so take that out. If a third grader had some of those words in his vocabulary and had 20+ years of computer experience, I would be impressed. But seriously, I hashed together a new paragraph that I hope sounds better. Is it still too wordy or is it too short? I'm having trouble here since I can only make "did some odd-jobs in a warehouse" and "did your average help desk grunt work" sound so glamorous.
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# ¿ Sep 10, 2015 02:50 |
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slap me silly posted:This version works better for me, specifically because you have got rid of "dream" and toned down the other vague crap. You also put the specific intersection of your skills and their needs right in the first sentence, nice. Good advice and I made some of those changes. I'll have to think of an example to put with the "learning new skills" that doesn't drag on for too long. Should I mention customer support in the cover letter even if I want to go for the higher tiers of IT work that don't involve customer support? I'm not keen on doing help desk/customer service work for another 4 years, but I'm sure employers value people that can work with and understand people even if a job in question doesn't have me answering phone calls.
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# ¿ Sep 10, 2015 21:14 |
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MAKE NO BABBYS posted:Get thee to asks manager.org and follow her resume/cover letter writing advice. Seriously. Go where now?
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# ¿ Sep 12, 2015 22:31 |
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Cool, I'll give it a look. Couldn't make out what site you were talking about.
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# ¿ Sep 13, 2015 00:33 |
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# ¿ May 12, 2024 09:48 |
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MrKatharsis posted:Will you have your CCENT soon? Knocking out a cert during your "downtime" would look really good. Probably not. I can't afford hundreds of dollars for a lab kit or a test voucher right now. I should have gotten it when I was working but got a bit discouraged when I couldn't find any network engineering jobs around here.
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# ¿ Sep 13, 2015 16:59 |