Writing a good CV
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All good points thanks, will start building something over the next day or two.
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@Kelly said in Writing a good CV:
Posting a snippet here for the sake of the thread's value:
Old:
- Reduced organizational IT operating costs by moving from costly closed source software to internally supported Linux based open source platforms and software
- Transitioned key IT systems from ad-hoc, as-needed to standardized, centrally managed, and strategy focused; achieving improved uptime, customer service, and reducing overall costs
New:
System Transformation – Mapped existing, fragmented IT systems and benchmarked against industry standards. Redesigned and deployed a centrally managed solution that improved uptime by 20%, reduced support tickets and customer complaints, and increased our ability to effectively predict and manage costs while utilizing existing infrastructure.If I'm reading your resume, I'm not sure if this tells me anything that useful. I guess it depends on how big of a company you worked for. It's like politics, of course you will say anything you implement was the best thing ever. I could take from this that you have experience with ways to measure uptime, but apparently that's not the case?
@IRJ 's advice is pure gold. I'm going to go update my resume now. Setting an overview and a context to read the rest of the resume can only have benefits.
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@flaxking said in Writing a good CV:
@Kelly said in Writing a good CV:
Posting a snippet here for the sake of the thread's value:
Old:
- Reduced organizational IT operating costs by moving from costly closed source software to internally supported Linux based open source platforms and software
- Transitioned key IT systems from ad-hoc, as-needed to standardized, centrally managed, and strategy focused; achieving improved uptime, customer service, and reducing overall costs
New:
System Transformation – Mapped existing, fragmented IT systems and benchmarked against industry standards. Redesigned and deployed a centrally managed solution that improved uptime by 20%, reduced support tickets and customer complaints, and increased our ability to effectively predict and manage costs while utilizing existing infrastructure.If I'm reading your resume, I'm not sure if this tells me anything that useful. I guess it depends on how big of a company you worked for. It's like politics, of course you will say anything you implement was the best thing ever. I could take from this that you have experience with ways to measure uptime, but apparently that's not the case?
That is not how that reads to me at all.
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How do you judge if a resume is successful or not? I really have no idea. As an employer, I was only really interested in who a person worked for, for how long, and what their job title was. Stuff about, for example, "system transformation", like Kelly's example, just went straight through me - it meant nothing to me. But for other employers, that stuff might be gold and just what they're looking for.
The other issue is that your resume normally has to go through at least two people - firstly, an employment agent, and then the employer. So who do you target, as they are two very different audiences? An agent will probably spend 20 seconds reading your resume, looking for keywords, whilst an employer might spend ten minutes, especially if they're interviewing you.
I do like to hear about hobbies, especially interesting ones. I think you can tell a lot about a person by his hobbies. But it's de rigueur to leave these off these days, sadly. Probably for the best.
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@Kelly said in Writing a good CV:
System Transformation – Mapped existing, fragmented IT systems and benchmarked against industry standards. Redesigned and deployed a centrally managed solution that improved uptime by 20%, reduced support tickets and customer complaints, and increased our ability to effectively predict and manage costs while utilizing existing infrastructure.
Too many meaningless buzz words. The 20% sounds nice, but like @Carnival-Boy pointed out there is no way to confirm. What benchmarks did you use? Even if my company is working against NIST standards, I would still like to hear if you implemented against ISO standards. They are very similar in the way they are handled. But I have no way of knowing if you were bench marked against a major standard or something more minor like CIS or HIPAA. That stuff matters because they are different levels of compliance.
What centrally managed solution? How did you reduce costs?
It is very vanilla and vague. Not a single point is clear to me.
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@Carnival-Boy said in Writing a good CV:
How do you judge if a resume is successful or not? I really have no idea. As an employer, I was only really interested in who a person worked for, for how long, and what their job title was. Stuff about, for example, "system transformation", like Kelly's example, just went straight through me - it meant nothing to me. But for other employers, that stuff might be gold and just what they're looking for.
Same here, that stuff looks like filler to me. I can't quantify it, so I ignore it.
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And you all are not my intended audience. Many of the comments appear to be coming from a peer level of evaluation. Most likely I won't be able to talk to peers until in person or maybe during a phone interview. The problem is that a CV has to pass between 2 and 3 layers before it would hit a person who would care about the things you're mentioning, depending on the position applied for. (This resume was aimed at management/project management, so that affects how it is written and who the intended audience is.) The first stage in many companies requires you to make through an applicant tracking system that is generally keyword based. This requires many buzzwords. The second level is often HR. They are also very keyword based. The next level is usually a hiring manager/team. If you're not hiring into a an IT team under an IT leader it needs to be oriented towards the decision maker. If they are not in IT they don't care what tools I used. They want to see that I improved the systems at a previous employer in a way they can quantify and wrap their heads around. By the time I get to the people who would want those questions answered it is frequently face-to-face where they can ask those questions and I can give them clear, thorough answers that I can't in a resume format.
The question was asked above, how do you judge the success of a resume. It is difficult. However, after doing the rewrite that included the section I excerpted I immediately had 4 follow-up contacts with 2 leading to interviews. Significantly higher than before. Perhaps my original resume was so much garbage and the second is mediocre. I don't know, but I have been more successful in my search utilising the newer one. If any of you are interested in getting the two to look at for your own benefit feel free to pm me.
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I've been looking at this again and looking for a good layout/template.
So google I went.
What are you views on having a Skill rating on your CV?
e.g.
My view is how do you rate your own skills. But I don't like the look.
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@hobbit666 said in Writing a good CV:
I've been looking at this again and looking for a good layout/template.
So google I went.
What are you views on having a Skill rating on your CV?
e.g.
My view is how do you rate your own skills. But I don't like the look.
Extremely ridiculous if you ask me. A huge part of a resume is marketing yourself, and in IT if I have touched it before (even if I haven't) then I am fairly confident I can complete a task assigned to me on that subject. That being said, I dont put everything on my resume.
For example, I wouldn't put that I am an HTML coder because it isn't something I feel is relevant or something I want to do. So essentially I am setting that skill at 0 which is fine. But if it's about my core duties and I list it on my resume. I rank myself at pretty much 100 or able to accomplish any task.
Nobody in IT seriously expects you to know everything, but if it is highlighted in your resume, you should be highly skilled in that task. Enough where you feel confident to tackle it in the day to day.
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@hobbit666 said in Writing a good CV:
I've been looking at this again and looking for a good layout/template.
So google I went.
What are you views on having a Skill rating on your CV?
e.g.
Also wtf does a bar line graph mean to me or a circle pie graph. Do I say wow this guy is betwen 70-90% in Strategy. Seriously wtf does that mean? The whole rating yourself on a graph or bar is so ridiculous when you just think about it how irrelevant it really is.
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@IRJ My thought as well just wanted to check lol
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@Kelly said in Writing a good CV:
Most likely I won't be able to talk to peers until in person or maybe during a phone interview.
In any good company, you only ever talk to peers. If there is a non-peer filtering you out prior to seeing someone that understands your resume, then you aren't dealing with a company that takes itself, or the IT department, seriously as a business in the slightest way. From a one man shop to the Fortune 10, good companies never let anyone filter out that isn't a peer or mentor to the position in question.
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@IRJ said in Writing a good CV:
@hobbit666 said in Writing a good CV:
I've been looking at this again and looking for a good layout/template.
So google I went.
What are you views on having a Skill rating on your CV?
e.g.
Also wtf does a bar line graph mean to me or a circle pie graph. Do I say wow this guy is betwen 70-90% in Strategy. Seriously wtf does that mean? The whole rating yourself on a graph or bar is so ridiculous when you just think about it how irrelevant it really is.
I agree, if i see this I think the CV is just... filler.
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@ElvinNelson said in Writing a good CV:
It is more than enough to simply do it according to the already existing available samples and bring it to the form necessary specifically for your specific specialty. The above are also fine.
Sure, IF the form is any good. 99% are not. People who do "CV help" are never people who know or are in the industry. The CV assistance career path is one for failed English students desperate for work that no one can evaluate, there's no money in it. So if you get resources from anywhere except peers you are almost guaranteed to have something that's not very good, from a context of someone whose never done it before.
