Remove those partner accreditations they are worthless af. Everyone with the slightest knowledge wont value them at all since they are achievable with a few clicks
Like others have said your experience is the impressive bit! Put that front and center.
Maybe hit some more of those buzz words people search for to get you through whatever automated resume reader they use.
I always rework each resume for each job as well. Have a solid base resume that I tweak based on the particular position I’m applying for at that time.
I wouldn't include a photo on a C.V. unless it's like modelling. People will search you on LinkedIn and see you there once they've looked at your C.V. but it shouldn't make a difference. Adding a photo can be deemed unprofessional.
Do not listen to this. We had to bin resumes with pictures at my big corporate job. It had to do with biases. I believe this was standard practice for HRs in large corporate offices. I might be wrong but places where it's okay won't ding you for not having a photo and places where it isn't will, so better to be on the safe side.
No photo. Our legal counsel at a prior job told us that in order to prevent bias and discrimination lawsuits we can't accept applicants with photos on their resume. We even included a warning on the upload page that resumes with a photo will not be considered and will immediately have their application closed out upon recognition.
Agree with others, leave off hobbies, i always discuss them when interviewing candidates, but never look at a resume because of them. In your experience section you list a lot of good experience, but try to list both "why" along with what.
I.e something like "setup terraform automation for dozens of Linux based VMs in order to support a rolling blue green deployment in our production environment."
With all the certificates, I'd expect you to be able to know "how" to do lot of stuff. What i as a hiring manager am more interested in is if you understand "why" and can speak to the use cases and decisions that went into your experience. Obviously, you should go into the weeds on the resume, but try to mix in a little context along with your experience.
There isn't a universal consensus on what a resume looks like, but I think a lot of screen realestate is being spent on that header and the skills. I'd drop the little bars under the skills and then put them between profile and education, and see if you can shrink the header.
I like that you out education and certs first, I may steal that lol
Use Ai to write your resume. Get rid of the top section that’s green with the photo. Get rid of the side column. The skills section how you wrote it is redundant and as a person who has recruited for IT roles all I do is laugh at people who have this because it’s meaningless giberish.
Just list your skills in a table.
Taylor your resume for the role using AI so you don’t waste your time re writing.
Your most recent roles should have more expanded points on how you meet the current jobs requirements etc.
When in comes to Ai co pilot or Gemini can be used to expand out your points.
This looks like a middle schooler made it.
Also I don’t know how you can be a senior Linux admin and write BASH in all caps, literally nobody writes it like that.
For an effective resume, the bullet points should tell what you did and what the impact was.
"Optimized CI/CD pipelines" is a great example.
Ok. How? After the optimizations, what improved? Lower error rates, faster delivery? To what degree was the impact.
As a Principal Engineer who regularly interviews potential candidates, there's a zero percent chance I would move this resume forward. It gives descriptions of things you were responsible for, but not what impact you made that would separate you from other candidates.
Also the people who said get rid of the hobbies are right. You can bring that up in conversation, it's "filler" being ON a resume.
You dont need to have a skills “level” for the listed skills.
List experience first.
And you dont need a hobbies section.
You dont need to be hyper specific with some of the stuff. For example if you did Postgres database administration. You dont have to list knowing how to drop and create tables? I would safely assume you can.
Try to frame the details your experience in terms of projects/goals/company endeavours.
Some of the experience details can moved to skills.
Out of curiosity why education before certs? Unless they are going for a management position, isn’t certs valued above a degree? That has been my experience at least.
lol not to anybody who actually knows what they are doing. Bachelors in CS doesn’t even compete with a recent cert in the discipline I’m hiring for. I can’t believe so many people on here care about education.
People are people and you need to hire for potential more than for current knowledge (generally speaking).
Someone who can study for a cert, more often than not with exam dumps, might be able to get going faster "right now".
Think about it 3 software generations down the line. Some Windows AD cert tells me nothing about their ability to stick to a topic for longer periods of time. A Bachelor or Master takes three to five years of sticking to a topic and gives certain guarantees that people know "how to learn".
That's the reason why.
I've interviewed so many cert holders that knew nothing outside of the cert questions or even how to approach learning new topics, at this point they're more of a red flag than a university education.
I hire engineers all the time , I’ve read countless resumes. I give zero fucks about education. I care about experience and certifications. I only care if they went to UGA then they are guaranteed an interview.
Interesting. Certainly not the way I have been told or shown, as my degrees are never mentioned, but my certs always are, as well as experience. Glad to see there is a lot of companies that value the degree though!
Certs never replace a degree, however if the place doesn’t have a hard degree requirement they can help. There are places that will have hard requirements you must have degree X if you want a job/promotion. I hit this wall myself with 15 years experience as a Principal Architect, I went back to school to get my BS and MBA and have doubled my money.
Interesting. Both my AAS and BSci are in IT, as well as both my minors, but never once have they been discussed or seemed to be mentioned in any interview or position. It is always my experience and certs that get all the talk. And any guidance I have ever been given has always placed those above a degree as a degree shows long term dedication, but typically out of date information when it comes to tech.
They only make sense to mention if you are trying to get hired by a music or food media company, like a website that posts music or restaurant reviews and you would be writing those reviews.
I don't see the relevance of having them on a resume unless they're applicable to the job. Do you do anything with Linux at all in your spare time? Put that. Otherwise, leave it off.
As a technical manager who does a lot of recruitment, I like to see a short something on the CV that shows the potential employee has a life outside of work.
This isn't taking up space something else could be, so I'd leave it in.
Hobbies/having a life outside of work is something to find out in an interview, not on the resume. If someone can't do that (not saying you can't), they shouldn't be conducting interviews.
My opinion: The Hobbies section is 100% taking unnecessary space. That whole left column should be removed, its causing massive wasted space on the second page, and those bars are pointless.
My company has a policy of giving a quick phone screen to anyone interesting-looking. This way we have engineers with no relevant qualifications, but who turn out to be excellent engineers. If a CV focused only on what someone knows/has done professionally, then it often shows off a lot less potential.
I read these hobbies and see someone who isn't capable of working in a team as all your hobbies are solitary. Nothing wrong with that but there's more downside than upside in how this will be interpreted. Plus it's wasting page space.
Yeah, me too, but I still put relevant hobbies specific to the job on my resume. Why even ask us if you have all the answers, my dude? Just take what you have and use it, come back and tell us how it goes.
soft skills are interpersonal skills that are hard to quantify via things like education or certifications, and are often hard to teach. things like leadership, empathy, humor, adroitness, diligence, etc.
chess, cooking, and podcasts are popular, common hobbies, but they ain't soft skills.
aside from the fact that what you do outside of the office ain't a boss' business, they're too generic, really, and there are too many ways to segue into risky topics or get caught in discussions that won't help you, e.g. discussions about music or podcasts and it turns out you love bands or podcasters that imply certain things or don't jive well with the interviewer's views.
Critical thinking should be indirectly conveyed in your Profile/Summary or your work history. Honestly, try and fit as many soft skills into your summary as you can.
Health consciousness doesn't likely matter if youre not applying to a health or nutrition or fitness company. Besides, if you saw my cooking, all it says is I find meat abhorrent and put chilis in literally everything. If you are applying to one of these companies, convey your passion for health in your cover letter or summary.
And what does music say? "I'm just like everyone else." Come on. Everyone likes music. And podcasts in particular is probably dangerous territory in today's political climate.
Chess. Eh, sure. But it can also suggest a combative nature. That you're looking for gambits and seeing others as adversaries, not part of your team.
You're being health conscious contributes nothing to the quality of your work.
Music indicating creativity may be try, but only conceived of by others at your skill level. Sure, couldn't hurt, but you have to also understand that not everyone puts the same value on these things that you do.
But them there if you want. Maybe it would help. I can tell you that personally I ignore those things.
Unless your hobbies are career related, I don't care what they are (I interview people, btw. I'm not just some rando on the internet passing judgement. I mean, I am some rando on the internet passing judgement, but at least I actually do interview people so I can tell you what catches my eye on resumes).
But I give you an A+ on the format. You'd be surprised how often resumes are comprised of information just vomited on the page. When a candidate can clear and concisely convey the details of their skills and experience, they're far more likely to get an interview.
I would definitely take off your school dates this makes it easy for someone to know your age (~35). Might be a disgruntled person who thinks you have to be 45 to be a senior anything. I would also take off the associates the BS in Physics makes the associates unnecessary.
I would consolidate your bullet points. You can use claude to help with this. I read somewhere that you should have something like 5 for your current job and 3 for previous jobs. Order your bullets by importance it's likely that the first human eyes will only skim your resume. If you are applying to specific jobs, read the listing and pull out a few buzz words to add to the bullet points. Or ask claude to do it lol
Genuinely asking, if you brush up your resume, why do you remove the ways to contact you?
Or is that prohibited by some rule in this sub?
Also: You're barking up the wrong tree, join a few HR ad recruiting eine and post there. You'll get feedback that's more valid to open the door. For the tech interviews a resume is useless anyway.
Move education down to the end. Lose the side thing. I didn’t even notice that they were graphs. Contrary to what people said, while experience is important you need to focus on why it’s important. Experience is important because it tells people what you know. As in your actual skills. Your skills section says nothing yet your job history section is filled with tons of info about what you know. Why are you making the reader read a chronological list of your job history just to be able to know what you’re skilled at? Keep the job history but copy all of the stuff there into a skills section that should be at the very beginning of your resume. That’s what people want to see right away: what do you actually know or are familiar with. Only after will they look at the rest of the resume.
It's going to be annoying but at the bottom of the CV list a load of your skills and technology areas in bullet point form so a keyword scanner can identify and pick them out of your CV.
Unless you're like so sexy you think it'll help your chances of getting hired, like the kinda man to turn a straight kinda gay, I'd remove the selfie. It's just not needed on an app and kinda off putting to me that someone would consider it relevant enough to include.
I think it's expected in some other countries. Not here.
That said, I could imagine there are statistics that show it helps. If you're doing it based on info like that, then sure, keep it. I'm just sharing my personal thoughts on the matter, no stats.
I just included it because it was part of the resume template, and wanted to come off as more personal/memorable. I don't feel strongly about keeping or removing it.
One thing to consider is that some places throw resumes out with pictures to avoid any initial discrimination. Doesn't have to make sense, but there are places with such rules.
Not sure how much weight this carries, but these recruiters seem to hate headshots in resumes.
Also, headshots are not common in the US, so someone may think you are from EU. Again, nothing wrong with that, but in numbers game, you want the best chances and give less reason for someone to decide they don't want to follow up.
No headshots here in the UK. I'd imagine they're pointless in the EU too because anti-discrimination laws basically say you can't reject candidates based on anything you can see about them from a photo - age, gender, skin colour, hairstyle, whether or not they wear glasses etc etc.
Get rid of that header make it like an APA essay cover page, stack it then get into summary, Skills,Experience, and then lastly education/certs.
If you have high level certs or a clearance add it to header
First Last Name
GCIH | Security+ | Network+ | CC
Top Secret SCI w/ CI Poly
EmailGoesHere@gmail.com | (###) ###-####| URL hyperlink (shortened) | (Desired or current work location)
You should NEVER advertise your clearance online. First thing we get told in the UK when applying for one and I can't imagine the US is any different. At best say "capable of attaining xyz clearance"
Tragic waste of page space on the left. Make it one page and use the space.
I never understood grading yourself on skills - this is totally arbitrary and doesn't actually convey anything other than you don't back yourself on certain skill sets
Try to keep your resume to one page and tailor it to specific jobs that you're applying for. Lose all the unnecessary cutesy formatting - keep it simple. Don't waste space on things that aren't focused on the task of getting you the interview.
Use ai to review the job post and extract the skills and experience they are looking for, then make sure that you include your relevant skills and experience. The more of these you match on the higher your chances of getting past the computer and hr recruiter and in front of the hiring manager.
Include descriptive language to explain what the impact or importance was. Answer the question "so what" with each bullet point or statement you make.
What do you do better than anyone else in your career? Don't be afraid to self promote your skills.
Please don't take this approach if you get an interview
People who don't know you want to know why you will be a benefit to their organisation "Lol, don't know. I'm too good to keep track" won't get you a job
If you automated a deployment process that happened manually 100 times a week. And the manual process took 15 minutes, that's 1500 minutes (25 hours) a week. And the automated process almost never breaks, and reduced the time any human might need to spend on that process to 15 minutes, once a week. You could say something like:
Automated X process via Ansible and Bash increasing efficiency and decreasing costs by 95%
Just be able to explain how you came up with that number in an interview.
I hope you don’t take this the wrong way. Your resume is bad. Shockingly so tbh. Your profile section needs a rewrite. “Decade’s experience of working in IT”. Grammatically that’s bad. The line needs to be reworked. “10 years of experience improving IT processes” or anything else fits better than what you have. Remove hobbies, remove the skill section on the left. You shouldn’t tell me what you’re under skilled in. You can expand upon this in interviews.
None of your experience tells me how you actually improved things. Optimized CICD pipelines? What does that even mean? You should be writing bullet points relating to your experience on how you saved dev time, or saved the company money, or how you refactored things to improve processes.
Personally, I would move certs to the very end. Your experience and what you’ve done should be front and center. Mostly because I don’t care about certs, I care more about what you’ve done and the impact it has had for you, your team, and the company.
I have 10 years of experience, and to me, this reads like a junior/mid-level resume.
I see you took it the wrong way. Maybe not junior, but mid for sure. The above are all generic talking points that really have no meaning or impact. Deployed container to aks using helm? So you created a values file and debugged it to made sure it ran? Okay, guess you don’t actually want the constructive criticism.
You may not be or feel that you are a junior/mid-level, but your resume reads like it. Update it to include the impact and why it mattered. Either include an impactful resume point or don’t include it. You are a Linux engineer doing the job - the above talking points. Your resume shouldn’t include those - I already know you’re doing that.
Personal view - I'm sick of seeing faces and skills ratings on peoples resumes. I think "Scripting and Automation" should be lowercase
On page 1, I'm not seeing a huge amount of stuff that screams senior to me to be honest but that could be subjective. I don't think terraformed is a word. Hobbies are irrelvant to me
I don't think you need to call out that you use pg_dump/pg_restore if you are doing PostgreSQL admin, it feels like a given?
For me, there's a lack of tech being mentioned. This might not matter depending on the role(s) you're applying for. You configured systems and applications? You're just what we're looking for! When can you start?
I personally wouldn't progress you to the next stage if I received this
All due respect, but this person gives you a cv that states experience with most well known and used storage solutions, automated server deployments using the most used IAC tools, automated software deployments using the most used IAC tools, linux administration tasks, from creatin to patching, rbac things, cloud things, the list goes on.
All this across multiple orginizations and years. And your comment is "i dont see anything that screams senior" to me? What screams senior to you then? Genuine question.
I agree that parts of his cv need a makeover but this part of your comment made me raise a brow.
For me, there's nothing that says they have experience above "I saw that" in any of what's mentioned
I don't know what "I terraformed" means. Did they apply some TF that someone else wrote? Did they write their own TF per design spec and get it applied? Did they create the design spec, create the TF, then get it applied? Yes, some of this would come out in a conversation with them. But what about anything they have in their resume is going to prompt me to have that conversation?
Everything they have mentioned is superfuicial
You're right, the list does go on. But there's no detail to any of it. Early stage career resumes tend to list a lot of stuff but provide no detail. Changed some tapes? You're a backup environment manager. Given someone rights to access a file share? You're a storage admin. Typed' kubectl apply'? You're a k8s expert
As a hiring manager I wouldn't look at page 2 of this, never mind want to have a conversation with them. If I've 150 of these to review for 1 role I need to hire for, I need a way to trim that list down. The lack of detail makes this one very easy to put in to the 'No' pile
That particular job description is very vague. 90% of what I was doing was break/fix, and Root Cause Analysis. There wasn't really a specific tech stack I was working with, or anything like that.
Those 'progress bars' are meaningless - 3 out of 5 whats? 60% as good as who? I found better traction on that aspect switching to 'proficient', 'learning' etc. rather than an arbitrary percentage which makes comparison to others near impossible.
I do tech interviews and I'd interview you with that resume like that, so it's enough to get a foot in the door. I really like the skills out of 5 on the left, nice way to deliver that concisely.
If you are "decades of experience" I'd be anticipating the blurb to indicate both what you bring to the table but also what role you are looking for. The CV feels quite DevOps focused so don't worry too hard about putting something like "looking for a DevOps based position with a company looking to expand their terraform estate" or some such.
Otherwise expect to get roles in desktop support.
Hobbies can be right right at the bottom on the second page.
You're a tech, not a social worker.
Given you listed Linux system admin and python as your strongest skills id be grilling you in that to see how strong I think you really are (compared to how strong you think you are).
With decades of experience I'd expect your answers to be nuanced and to be backed up with good reasons and/or experiences to why you believe that.
Remove the skills sidebar and just have a bullet points section near the top. Not only will the sidebar likely mean your CV is auto-rejected by CV scanner programs but the scales are meaningless. All it does is demonstrate that you may not understand how to analyse present data in an appropriate format.
As someone that does interviews, I can say I'd rather see your experience before your education and certificates. Education and certificates are only important in the beginning of your career to help you get your foot in the door. Experience is what matters.
I like to see verification numbers / links next to certifications. Makes it easy to validate, as a lot of people lie about certs.
Also if the smiley replace is replacing your picture, I wouldn’t. Don’t introduce an unnecessary bias into your resume. Let it get to the hiring manager first.
Personally, i don use profile picture. It leads the recruitment team to create a imaginary profile of you which can ends in prejudice in some cases. never had anyone complaining about it.
Also, remove the skill level graph in the left side. It's arbitray and and doesn't make sense. The people that will see your resumee will be two types : Human resources, which they don't understand the technology/skill anyway, and they will eyeball your skill level depend how they interpret that chart. And the Engineer team, which they will ignore and just perform you tests to verify everything.
Instead change it to a more simple level : Basic / Intermediate / Advanced. Is easier to read, will avoid second thoughts or suppositions. when they ask you why you consider it your skill level that way, you can talk about your expertise or lack off, in each one. Which will make you look about a transparent person. it's NOT BAD to recognize you have flaws or you're not an expert in every skill.
Then the rest is fine, resumee needs to be simple and easy to read, the only difference i would make is the order of the things presented. i'd go by :
1. Presentation / Profile
2. Professional Experience
3. edication & certifications ( unless you are applying locally to the city you lived your whole life, no one knows the university you graduated and probably won't care since you really has a good professional background)
4. hobbies ( Hobbies can be related to your work area or not, it gives an idea that you are developing and have interest as well in other things, and you are proactive )
Left bar exceedingly wide, and waste a huge amount of space in page 2, which makes it look ugly. I would move the stuff on that bar to the bottom of the CV, ie: remove bar. And remove hobbies altogether.
Professional experience comes first (after profile if I chose to keep the profile section, which I am not sure).
Plug your shit in ChatGPT to get an idea of what to say better.
Write things you have accomplished and not like how much do I have experience in XYZ.
Remove hobbies and put an objective. No need for color in my opinion.
Get the content right, so everything should be worded grammatically correct and look good.
Skills bar chart is cliche. HM won’t care that one is 3 and one is 4. Just list skills. Header is too big. Experience before certs. Shorter profile. Remove hobbies. No headshots. More impact. Made IaC using terraform: to do what? What was the impact?
when reading your cv, hiring managers won’t care what you look like (they’ll find out at interview time and removing the photo leaves more space for your experience), and won’t care about your soft skills or hobbies (interview again will take care of that).
your cv will appear shorter by getting rid of that wasted space on the left, use succinct job descriptions for each role and a list of relevant technologies used in each.
i’d lose the education section: your career appears to be longer and more relevant than your college and uni exploits, merge em as line items in your cert / accred section, more space saved
You often have about 10 seconds to get someones attention. Take a read over it and see where you get in 10 seconds. The answer is no where, i'm reading garbage after 10 seconds that yells to me this guy has nothing interesting to offer us.
Get rid of profile, get rid of the skills side bar, let them figure out what your skill level is per what they require, not what you think you are. Never tell them why they shouldn't hire you, only why they should hire you.
Move Education and certificates after your experience.
I also like to add into what you've done the actual results of those actions. If you installed something, how did it help the business, help customers, help employees, help security, or maybe helped scalability.
As a hiring manager - lose the photo. At best it’s irrelevant or get stripped out by recruiter. Otherwise it’s just something to get bias introduced into screening.
2-column resumes are out, they mess with the auto-parsing. Maybe LLMs handle that a little better but I wouldn't risk a job app on it.
Apropos of the other column, ditch the bars, replace them with "fluent in: linux, ansible, $SKILL", "familar with..." etc. No one cares about hobbies unless their directly relevant. if you're running a Drone Racing team sure add that, but "listening to podcasts" and "music" just seems a space filler.
Your overview doesn't tell me what you are or what you do. It says IT professional of 10 years, but... you're a DevOps person, right? Cuz that's what I'm getting out of that. "DevOps professional with 10 years in the Industry, and a background in Linux, Networking, and Automation with Python" tells me exactly what you are about, and avoids the buzzwords.
cut down your experience. you told me about all of the shit you did but didn't tell me how many users, systems, scripts, or containers you were herding. 200 users and 30 VMs, or 2000 users and 400 containers, etc.
you mentioned one line -- 3 words -- about mentoring jr admins, but multiple lines about crap I don't care about, like migration RHEL versions. this is important for a senior, or manager, and i want know know a little more, even if it was just you did their onboarding for 3 weeks.
many of those bulletpoints could be compressed. for example "created documentation and SOPs and bla bla bla bla" like of course they're for other people to follow. 3 words about leading jr admins but 2 lines to say "Responsible for developing SOPs and MOPs, and ensuring thorough documentation"
why are Defense Contractors and Crappy startup at the same time? mistake? double dipping? most of the bulletpoints for both aren't really telling me anything useful. those could be streamlined or dropped.
Your resume is decent. (I probably wouldn't put bash in all caps, but that's a minor thing.)
Like you called out in your follow up post, it's the frequent job changes that grab my attention.
I get pulled into interviews and hiring decisions now and then. If I see candidates that have a new job every one or two years, like clockwork, then I specifically don't interview them. Because odds are high that they will stick around long enough to get trained and then jump to the next employer. Complete waste of my / our time.
So my only advice is: if there's any way you could stay on at an employer for a longer time (subjective, but to me that's 5+ years) then your resume would be a lot more attractive.
If I see candidates that have a new job every one or two years, like clockwork, then I specifically don't interview them. Because odds are high that they will stick around long enough to get trained and then jump to the next employer. Complete waste of my / our time.
Every job has tribal knowledge, but are you specifically hiring for positions in which you train the new hire on how to do their job? That sounds like entry level. the intermediate and expert stages in IT, especially engineering, the new hire should already know how to do that stuff. All they need to pick up is the institutional knowledge.
Without diving into too much detail, there is a good amount of domain knowledge needed to be effective. What's more, I've found that we need to supplement knowledge gaps in new hires. (I've never interviewed or hired entry level. It's a large, senior team.)
Feel free to disagree with my take, and help OP with better advice. If your opinion is that a new job every six to eighteen months ad infinitum is not a big deal when potential employers are reviewing his resume, then ok.
Feel free to disagree with my take, and help OP with better advice.
Not trying to say your opinion isn't valid. I was genuinely curious as to what exactly you meant. We're almost certainly in two entirely different domains/disciplines (I'm a Retail Systems Engineer with a speciality in SCCM).
But that may be were we differ. If I'm interviewing someone and they can't tell me that they troubleshoot Application installation issue by reviewing AppDiscovery, AppIntent and AppEnforce logs, they're not getting an offer. I'm not going to teach them how to use SCCM on the job. They need to know that coming into the job.
I've worked in public sector orgs since 1998. (Shortest tenure was 5 years.) Given my niche, there may be tunnel vision on my part.
In reading the various other replies to OP, I'm less sure that my advice to him about is relevant in 2024. It's possible I'm too old school and in too specific a career path.
In any case, hopefully he can glean actionable info from the thread and land a new gig.
I've worked in public sector orgs since 1998. (Shortest tenure was 5 years.) Given my niche, there may be tunnel vision on my part.
Possibly (I can't really say), but I wonder if we're not talking some sort of (what I would call) institutional knowledge. Could just be that we're referring to the same thing. For example, I work for a fuel and convenience store retailer, and the "fuel world" is rather unique, so I don't fault a candidate for not having been in the industry before. That's the kind of things they can learn on the job.
In reading the various other replies to OP, I'm less sure that my advice to him is relevant in 2024. It's possible I'm too old school and in too specific a career path.
I think it's still relevant. It may not be exactly how things are done in the private sector (I never worked in the public sector, but know people that have, and it's pretty unique. I mean, I did serve in the military for a bit, so I've seen the kind of unique equipment and infrastructure one can encounter. Even electrical connectors have a specific standard that must be met). It's just that I'd personally call that "institutional" or "tribal" knowledge.
Pretty decent resume. I would get rid of the skill level thingies. Just stating that you know that stuff is enough. Nobody is expected to know everything anyways. Furthermore, try to narrow down your careerpath and get certifications in that area of expertise. Certs get a bad rep on reddit (mostly because people are either too lazy or stupid to get them) but they do work on getting past recruiters, hiring managers and ATS systems and you always learn a thing or two from the structured learning courses.
Remove the header and picture. Put the links right below your contact data.
No need to have a brief description. Leave that for LinkedIn.
Experience first, from newest to oldest. Maybe the effort to no more than 3 bullets, just the most relevant and leave the details for interview. Also make sure you describe what outcomes your actions had, not just list down responsibilities.
Hobbies are not relevant. You’re not a junior that needs to fill space in the sheet, are you?
Never, by no circumstances (unless you’re an academic with no industry experience and want to stay like that), more than 1 single page.
I’d leave aside also the bar levels.
Don’t upload the resume in pdf bots have it hard to extract data. Always .doc format.
I'd remove the skills section as this should be apparent from your Profile and Professional Experience sections. It also feels like an unprofessional video game character loadout and is also hard for people to formally grade themselves properly (see Dunning–Kruger effect).
I take some of that back. I think a skills section is fine, but don't give yourself a rating. It should show what level of skill you are with that technology/function with words that you could back up and explain in an interview.
Instead of saying "Kubernetes 3/5", say "Deploying and patching Kubernetes containers and underlying nodes" or whatever you've done with K8s in the past. I'm not a K8s guy so that quote terminology might be incorrect, but hopefully you get the gist.
Get rid of the graphs. Are you saying you know everything there is to know about Linux admin and 60% of git? It's unclear and loses all meaning, at least in my opinion. It's the sort of thing that causes me to pass on a CV.
You've also got at least one typo - tecnology. Take your time to proof read.
A good exercise to do is to ask someone to read it and tell you the highlights of what they can pick out quickly. Do they relay the things you feel are important? Your keyskills, your strong points, etc. if not, look at why and how you can highlight them.
I realise my last paragraph is basically what you're doing here - I should have clarified and said, do it with someone in front of you. I've always found realtime feedback useful.
I know my job history will hurt me. I job hopped a lot while I was stuck in Contractor Hell. I was (and still am) dealing with physical and mental health issues.
I'm just dipping my toe back into the job market, mostly to see how bad things really are. But also, I am extremely burnt out at my current job. The culture is not good, high turnover has been a problem, and a lot of people finger pointing and talking behind people's backs. Clueless management.
I'm just looking for something less stressful. I'd even be willing to take a pay cut (currently make just over $100k).
Due to health issues, I can only accept remote work (chronic joint pain, mobility difficulty).
Don't worry too much about that. I mean, it matters, yes, but not as much as you'd think. You do have two jobs on there that overlap. If that's not a typo, I'd specifically call that out (I actually have overlap like that in my resume and I specifically call it out as not a typo), and that, along with the step up in job title with every position, pretty much nullifies the negative connotations of those short work histories.
What it looks like is that you were a contractor, you came in to fulfill a unique project requirement as a contractor, you accomplished that project requirement and then your contractor company moved you on to the next contract. The fact that each subsequent contract actually required more knowledge and experience (as evidenced by the increase in job title/description) is actually a good thing. It says that your contractor company slowly ramped up the difficulty of the contracts they gave you to see what you could handle, and you were able to handle everything they threw at you.
How about you use an ATS friendly template? Head over to r/EngineeringResumes wiki and read that. 2 page resumes are a no go honestly. Take a look at their recommended latex template and you will find out.
LankyXSenty@reddit
Remove those partner accreditations they are worthless af. Everyone with the slightest knowledge wont value them at all since they are achievable with a few clicks
natedogg1271@reddit
Like others have said your experience is the impressive bit! Put that front and center.
Maybe hit some more of those buzz words people search for to get you through whatever automated resume reader they use.
I always rework each resume for each job as well. Have a solid base resume that I tweak based on the particular position I’m applying for at that time.
EduRJBR@reddit
Personally I would put my photo instead of a smiling face, but that's just me.
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
I do, on my real resume :)
JWK3@reddit
I wouldn't include a photo on a C.V. unless it's like modelling. People will search you on LinkedIn and see you there once they've looked at your C.V. but it shouldn't make a difference. Adding a photo can be deemed unprofessional.
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
Makes sense. I was just trying to come off as Personable.
d00ber@reddit
I'm an older generation, I wouldn't like turn your resume down cause of a photo but I'd definitely internally think, "that's a little weird".
chzaplx@reddit
I'll jump on the "lose the photo" bandwagon as well. It's not necessary and can introduce bias.
graysky311@reddit
If your're thinking about putting your photo on there, just know that can disqualify you immediately. Like they will throw out your resume.
jpat161@reddit
Do not listen to this. We had to bin resumes with pictures at my big corporate job. It had to do with biases. I believe this was standard practice for HRs in large corporate offices. I might be wrong but places where it's okay won't ding you for not having a photo and places where it isn't will, so better to be on the safe side.
sunshine-x@reddit
Yup - lose the picture, no one cares what you look like and it only serves to introduce bias.
Jdornigan@reddit
No photo. Our legal counsel at a prior job told us that in order to prevent bias and discrimination lawsuits we can't accept applicants with photos on their resume. We even included a warning on the upload page that resumes with a photo will not be considered and will immediately have their application closed out upon recognition.
sirgrimlythemad@reddit
Agree with others, leave off hobbies, i always discuss them when interviewing candidates, but never look at a resume because of them. In your experience section you list a lot of good experience, but try to list both "why" along with what.
I.e something like "setup terraform automation for dozens of Linux based VMs in order to support a rolling blue green deployment in our production environment."
With all the certificates, I'd expect you to be able to know "how" to do lot of stuff. What i as a hiring manager am more interested in is if you understand "why" and can speak to the use cases and decisions that went into your experience. Obviously, you should go into the weeds on the resume, but try to mix in a little context along with your experience.
coolsheep769@reddit
There isn't a universal consensus on what a resume looks like, but I think a lot of screen realestate is being spent on that header and the skills. I'd drop the little bars under the skills and then put them between profile and education, and see if you can shrink the header.
I like that you out education and certs first, I may steal that lol
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
It's funny because people were telling me to put education and certs at the bottom. It truly is based all on vibes
coolsheep769@reddit
Yeah I can't find consistency with it either
tmwagner77@reddit
Personally, the fact you jump jobs after a year or two constantly is a big red flag. Personally.
CarefulAd9005@reddit
Not an expert by any means, but you list as a linux admin despite it being 4yrs since your job title has included linux. Is that a mistake?
I literally just realized i stumbled into this sub by the way.
Either-Simple-898@reddit
Use Ai to write your resume. Get rid of the top section that’s green with the photo. Get rid of the side column. The skills section how you wrote it is redundant and as a person who has recruited for IT roles all I do is laugh at people who have this because it’s meaningless giberish.
Just list your skills in a table.
Taylor your resume for the role using AI so you don’t waste your time re writing.
Your most recent roles should have more expanded points on how you meet the current jobs requirements etc.
When in comes to Ai co pilot or Gemini can be used to expand out your points.
Good luck!
picturemeImperfect@reddit
This will probably not pass any ATS systems....unless this is your in-person resume.
Great-Ad-1975@reddit
Lose the top 4"
RaspingHaddock@reddit
I would give my left nut to be able to write "new donk city" on my resume
ThinkMarket7640@reddit
This looks like a middle schooler made it. Also I don’t know how you can be a senior Linux admin and write BASH in all caps, literally nobody writes it like that.
August_XXVIII@reddit
I think people here are being very generous.
For an effective resume, the bullet points should tell what you did and what the impact was.
"Optimized CI/CD pipelines" is a great example.
Ok. How? After the optimizations, what improved? Lower error rates, faster delivery? To what degree was the impact.
As a Principal Engineer who regularly interviews potential candidates, there's a zero percent chance I would move this resume forward. It gives descriptions of things you were responsible for, but not what impact you made that would separate you from other candidates.
Also the people who said get rid of the hobbies are right. You can bring that up in conversation, it's "filler" being ON a resume.
YuryBPH@reddit
Yep, it should be split - responsibilities and achievements
sysadminmakesmecry@reddit
do people still post photos on their CVs, wut?
Ritikgohate@reddit
I think I saw you somewhere before
SkullDude94@reddit
You dont need to have a skills “level” for the listed skills.
List experience first.
And you dont need a hobbies section.
You dont need to be hyper specific with some of the stuff. For example if you did Postgres database administration. You dont have to list knowing how to drop and create tables? I would safely assume you can.
Try to frame the details your experience in terms of projects/goals/company endeavours.
Some of the experience details can moved to skills.
EmptyRedData@reddit
Don't list hobbies. Minimize the header and try and cram the profile where the massive header is.
Experience matters most. Put that front and center. Then put education and then certs.
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
Will do. Thanks
studiosupport@reddit
You could use an URL shortener for your credentials and list them on the side.
ayenonymouse@reddit
Don't do this. As a security person this would give me bad vibes.
rubbercement67@reddit
Third this
changework@reddit
I know the recruiter clicks everything😈
Glazastik@reddit
You can selfhost them though ;)
PurpleCableNetworker@reddit
Sec person here - I too second this.
cheeseybacon11@reddit
What's wrong with a good old fashioned hyperlink like for their LinkedIn?
studiosupport@reddit
I was just thinking an URL shortener would help save on character space.
modernknight87@reddit
Out of curiosity why education before certs? Unless they are going for a management position, isn’t certs valued above a degree? That has been my experience at least.
serverhorror@reddit
No, certs are for HR only.
Education and experience are for getting shit done.
godawgs1997@reddit
lol not to anybody who actually knows what they are doing. Bachelors in CS doesn’t even compete with a recent cert in the discipline I’m hiring for. I can’t believe so many people on here care about education.
serverhorror@reddit
People are people and you need to hire for potential more than for current knowledge (generally speaking).
Someone who can study for a cert, more often than not with exam dumps, might be able to get going faster "right now".
Think about it 3 software generations down the line. Some Windows AD cert tells me nothing about their ability to stick to a topic for longer periods of time. A Bachelor or Master takes three to five years of sticking to a topic and gives certain guarantees that people know "how to learn".
That's the reason why.
I've interviewed so many cert holders that knew nothing outside of the cert questions or even how to approach learning new topics, at this point they're more of a red flag than a university education.
EmptyRedData@reddit
Education is more impressive 99% of the time. Very few times is a cert more valuable than even a bachelor's degree.
godawgs1997@reddit
I hire engineers all the time , I’ve read countless resumes. I give zero fucks about education. I care about experience and certifications. I only care if they went to UGA then they are guaranteed an interview.
modernknight87@reddit
Interesting. Certainly not the way I have been told or shown, as my degrees are never mentioned, but my certs always are, as well as experience. Glad to see there is a lot of companies that value the degree though!
Reasonable_Town7579@reddit
Certs never replace a degree, however if the place doesn’t have a hard degree requirement they can help. There are places that will have hard requirements you must have degree X if you want a job/promotion. I hit this wall myself with 15 years experience as a Principal Architect, I went back to school to get my BS and MBA and have doubled my money.
modernknight87@reddit
Interesting. Both my AAS and BSci are in IT, as well as both my minors, but never once have they been discussed or seemed to be mentioned in any interview or position. It is always my experience and certs that get all the talk. And any guidance I have ever been given has always placed those above a degree as a degree shows long term dedication, but typically out of date information when it comes to tech.
Reasonable_Town7579@reddit
It’s usually the HR filter for the degrees. If you get past that nobody probably cares.
modernknight87@reddit
That would make more sense.
St3llarski@reddit
Did you stop getting certs for a couple years?
apathyzeal@reddit
I'm sure the hobbies section will get you hired, especially with ones as unique as "cooking" and "music".
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
Sarcasm detected.
Okay, but seriously, what do you recommend? Those are my hobbies.
cheeseybacon11@reddit
If those are your hobbies then those are your hobbies.
You missed your shoe size though. And favorite vegetable.
Jdornigan@reddit
They only make sense to mention if you are trying to get hired by a music or food media company, like a website that posts music or restaurant reviews and you would be writing those reviews.
apathyzeal@reddit
I don't see the relevance of having them on a resume unless they're applicable to the job. Do you do anything with Linux at all in your spare time? Put that. Otherwise, leave it off.
ktundu@reddit
As a technical manager who does a lot of recruitment, I like to see a short something on the CV that shows the potential employee has a life outside of work.
This isn't taking up space something else could be, so I'd leave it in.
apathyzeal@reddit
I dunno, Ive never known anyone involved in a hiring process who cared.
Krigen89@reddit
My last interviewer went out of his way to mention he thought it was interesting I do taekwondo 🤷♂️
I wouldn't use half a page on a resume for hobbies, but 2-3 lines can help as conversation starters
OakenCotillion@reddit
Hobbies/having a life outside of work is something to find out in an interview, not on the resume. If someone can't do that (not saying you can't), they shouldn't be conducting interviews.
My opinion: The Hobbies section is 100% taking unnecessary space. That whole left column should be removed, its causing massive wasted space on the second page, and those bars are pointless.
ktundu@reddit
I agree, the bars are worse than useless. 'you mean you're worse at git than python?'
Vuiz@reddit
Imho that stuff should be sniffed out during interview. CV is there to show if the person is qualified or not.
ktundu@reddit
The job of the CV is to get an interview.
My company has a policy of giving a quick phone screen to anyone interesting-looking. This way we have engineers with no relevant qualifications, but who turn out to be excellent engineers. If a CV focused only on what someone knows/has done professionally, then it often shows off a lot less potential.
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
They show off soft skills
* Chess requires critical thinking
* Cooking shows Health Conscientiousness
Not everything needs to be strictly technical skills
Ok_Raspberry5383@reddit
I read these hobbies and see someone who isn't capable of working in a team as all your hobbies are solitary. Nothing wrong with that but there's more downside than upside in how this will be interpreted. Plus it's wasting page space.
doneski@reddit
Home labs are what we were hoping to see
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
I get it, but I like to have a life outside of work.
chzaplx@reddit
So does every single other person. These don't differentiate you as a candidate.
doneski@reddit
Yeah, me too, but I still put relevant hobbies specific to the job on my resume. Why even ask us if you have all the answers, my dude? Just take what you have and use it, come back and tell us how it goes.
psmgx@reddit
soft skills are interpersonal skills that are hard to quantify via things like education or certifications, and are often hard to teach. things like leadership, empathy, humor, adroitness, diligence, etc.
chess, cooking, and podcasts are popular, common hobbies, but they ain't soft skills.
aside from the fact that what you do outside of the office ain't a boss' business, they're too generic, really, and there are too many ways to segue into risky topics or get caught in discussions that won't help you, e.g. discussions about music or podcasts and it turns out you love bands or podcasters that imply certain things or don't jive well with the interviewer's views.
apathyzeal@reddit
Critical thinking should be indirectly conveyed in your Profile/Summary or your work history. Honestly, try and fit as many soft skills into your summary as you can.
Health consciousness doesn't likely matter if youre not applying to a health or nutrition or fitness company. Besides, if you saw my cooking, all it says is I find meat abhorrent and put chilis in literally everything. If you are applying to one of these companies, convey your passion for health in your cover letter or summary.
And what does music say? "I'm just like everyone else." Come on. Everyone likes music. And podcasts in particular is probably dangerous territory in today's political climate.
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
I actually have a minor in music and played in a band, but I get what you are saying. Maybe I will remove them
apathyzeal@reddit
Up to you. I probably shouldnt give career advice but I can't see a potential employer reacting or interpreting things how you see them.
apathyzeal@reddit
Nobody will interpret just "music" as "Oh I bet he has a degree in it."
Besides, and again, if it's not relevant to the job don't put it. Nobody cares I play the accordion and I've never put it on a resume.
occamsrzor@reddit
Chess. Eh, sure. But it can also suggest a combative nature. That you're looking for gambits and seeing others as adversaries, not part of your team.
You're being health conscious contributes nothing to the quality of your work.
Music indicating creativity may be try, but only conceived of by others at your skill level. Sure, couldn't hurt, but you have to also understand that not everyone puts the same value on these things that you do.
But them there if you want. Maybe it would help. I can tell you that personally I ignore those things.
alpha417@reddit
You're hoping people interpret things your way. I would not seriously consider a resume like this.
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
fair enough
masterz13@reddit
Hobbies aren't related to an HR person deciding to put your resume into the interview pile. I'd also ditch the color, smiley face, etc
tavaryn_t@reddit
I think the smiley face is probably just a placeholder to avoid posting his real picture on Reddit, lol.
RGTATWORK@reddit
A discussion of hobbies is better left for interviews if they ask.
occamsrzor@reddit
Unless your hobbies are career related, I don't care what they are (I interview people, btw. I'm not just some rando on the internet passing judgement. I mean, I am some rando on the internet passing judgement, but at least I actually do interview people so I can tell you what catches my eye on resumes).
But I give you an A+ on the format. You'd be surprised how often resumes are comprised of information just vomited on the page. When a candidate can clear and concisely convey the details of their skills and experience, they're far more likely to get an interview.
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
Thank you. I will probably remove the hobbies
Fearless-Card3197@reddit
get hobbies + picture off there ASAP, make that header smaller.
make a small section called skills that just lists your skills, none of that graph crap.
Then you should be alright.
CrawWurm107@reddit
Why do I know you play chess and cook before I know what you do at your current job?
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
I don't know, why did you look at that first?
CrawWurm107@reddit
In American English, we read left to right, top to bottom. If you did not know that, now you do.
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
Tell that to the person that made the template
bingedeleter@reddit
Bro, you can’t ask for critique and then be super defensive!
These people are literally trying to help you and you are being a dick.
Don’t be a dick.
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
cry
IveAlreadyWon@reddit
Did you want help or not? If they noticed it first then it means it’s noticeable. It’s also completely irrelevant
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
They could have just said that
raj609@reddit
Senior Linux admin and first thing to read on your cv says “microsoft certified …”
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
yeah, Azure
violahonker@reddit
Remove the picture - many places cannot hire if there is a picture on a CV due to bias. It’s useless to have there anyways
jl_fred@reddit
I would definitely take off your school dates this makes it easy for someone to know your age (~35). Might be a disgruntled person who thinks you have to be 45 to be a senior anything. I would also take off the associates the BS in Physics makes the associates unnecessary.
jl_fred@reddit
I would consolidate your bullet points. You can use claude to help with this. I read somewhere that you should have something like 5 for your current job and 3 for previous jobs. Order your bullets by importance it's likely that the first human eyes will only skim your resume. If you are applying to specific jobs, read the listing and pull out a few buzz words to add to the bullet points. Or ask claude to do it lol
settopvoxxit@reddit
I don't see the point of listing your Associates degree. You got a bachelor's AND have almost a decade of experience after
Philux@reddit
From 2015 - 2019 either don’t list it or put accomplishments
Philux@reddit
You will have to explain the gap of work from 2020-2021
Philux@reddit
Never put dates on your education just put that you have the degree and what it was
Philux@reddit
List some of the larger projects and specifically what you did or were able to accomplish.
rubbercement67@reddit
Smiley face is wild
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
:)
serverhorror@reddit
Genuinely asking, if you brush up your resume, why do you remove the ways to contact you?
Or is that prohibited by some rule in this sub?
Also: You're barking up the wrong tree, join a few HR ad recruiting eine and post there. You'll get feedback that's more valid to open the door. For the tech interviews a resume is useless anyway.
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
I don't want people on this sub to have my contact info.
That is great advice, I'll post it on recruiter subs as well. Thanks.
BeerJunky@reddit
It’s too bad we filled a role we had on our Linux team, you’d probably be solid for what they were looking for.
PuzzleheadedCat8444@reddit
That smiley face is very intrusive
junkyalleycat@reddit
Formatting is awkward, having the second page entirely right justified to account for skills on first looks unbalanced.
Wise-Activity1312@reddit
You spelled your degree wrong for one.
"Bachelor" not "Bachelor's"
"Bachelor's" (with an apostrophe) is only used when saying Bachelor's degree.
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
Damn autocorrect. I typed this out on my phone
I-baLL@reddit
Move education down to the end. Lose the side thing. I didn’t even notice that they were graphs. Contrary to what people said, while experience is important you need to focus on why it’s important. Experience is important because it tells people what you know. As in your actual skills. Your skills section says nothing yet your job history section is filled with tons of info about what you know. Why are you making the reader read a chronological list of your job history just to be able to know what you’re skilled at? Keep the job history but copy all of the stuff there into a skills section that should be at the very beginning of your resume. That’s what people want to see right away: what do you actually know or are familiar with. Only after will they look at the rest of the resume.
woodmisterd@reddit
Take off “small” on the startup
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
I removed the company names to keep it anonymous
collinsl02@reddit
It's going to be annoying but at the bottom of the CV list a load of your skills and technology areas in bullet point form so a keyword scanner can identify and pick them out of your CV.
MengerianMango@reddit
Unless you're like so sexy you think it'll help your chances of getting hired, like the kinda man to turn a straight kinda gay, I'd remove the selfie. It's just not needed on an app and kinda off putting to me that someone would consider it relevant enough to include.
I think it's expected in some other countries. Not here.
That said, I could imagine there are statistics that show it helps. If you're doing it based on info like that, then sure, keep it. I'm just sharing my personal thoughts on the matter, no stats.
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
I just included it because it was part of the resume template, and wanted to come off as more personal/memorable. I don't feel strongly about keeping or removing it.
Maximum59@reddit
One thing to consider is that some places throw resumes out with pictures to avoid any initial discrimination. Doesn't have to make sense, but there are places with such rules.
Not sure how much weight this carries, but these recruiters seem to hate headshots in resumes.
https://www.reddit.com/r/recruiting/comments/xpiqqi/how_do_you_feel_about_applicants_putting_their/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Also, headshots are not common in the US, so someone may think you are from EU. Again, nothing wrong with that, but in numbers game, you want the best chances and give less reason for someone to decide they don't want to follow up.
collinsl02@reddit
No headshots here in the UK. I'd imagine they're pointless in the EU too because anti-discrimination laws basically say you can't reject candidates based on anything you can see about them from a photo - age, gender, skin colour, hairstyle, whether or not they wear glasses etc etc.
MengerianMango@reddit
I feel ya bro. Hard to make choices one way or another and just going w a template def makes things easier
Minimum_Contract9203@reddit
Remove hobbies,
Get rid of that header make it like an APA essay cover page, stack it then get into summary, Skills,Experience, and then lastly education/certs.
If you have high level certs or a clearance add it to header
First Last Name GCIH | Security+ | Network+ | CC Top Secret SCI w/ CI Poly EmailGoesHere@gmail.com | (###) ###-####| URL hyperlink (shortened) | (Desired or current work location)
collinsl02@reddit
You should NEVER advertise your clearance online. First thing we get told in the UK when applying for one and I can't imagine the US is any different. At best say "capable of attaining xyz clearance"
Ok_Raspberry5383@reddit
Tragic waste of page space on the left. Make it one page and use the space.
I never understood grading yourself on skills - this is totally arbitrary and doesn't actually convey anything other than you don't back yourself on certain skill sets
cyb3r4k@reddit
Try to keep your resume to one page and tailor it to specific jobs that you're applying for. Lose all the unnecessary cutesy formatting - keep it simple. Don't waste space on things that aren't focused on the task of getting you the interview.
Use ai to review the job post and extract the skills and experience they are looking for, then make sure that you include your relevant skills and experience. The more of these you match on the higher your chances of getting past the computer and hr recruiter and in front of the hiring manager.
Include descriptive language to explain what the impact or importance was. Answer the question "so what" with each bullet point or statement you make.
What do you do better than anyone else in your career? Don't be afraid to self promote your skills.
NomadicWorldCitizen@reddit
List the achievements emphasizing the impact they had on the organization.
Example: “Optimized CI/CD pipeline which improved deployment time by 45% and reduced cost by 23%”
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
I don't know the exact percentages of stuff like that. I never kept track of that kind of information, too busy fixing shit.
tmtl@reddit
Please don't take this approach if you get an interview
People who don't know you want to know why you will be a benefit to their organisation "Lol, don't know. I'm too good to keep track" won't get you a job
NomadicWorldCitizen@reddit
In some companies it’s actually the difference between a good and a bad work evaluation.
It’s basically marketing for leadership to know the impact you had without them having to do the work.
I had an IT director many years ago who introduced this as “if you don’t measure it, how do you know you need to improve it?”
tilhow2reddit@reddit
If you automated a deployment process that happened manually 100 times a week. And the manual process took 15 minutes, that's 1500 minutes (25 hours) a week. And the automated process almost never breaks, and reduced the time any human might need to spend on that process to 15 minutes, once a week. You could say something like:
Automated X process via Ansible and Bash increasing efficiency and decreasing costs by 95%
Just be able to explain how you came up with that number in an interview.
WeebyMcWeebFace@reddit
Spoiler alert: no one knows, it’s all made up
JohnPeppercorn@reddit
I hope you don’t take this the wrong way. Your resume is bad. Shockingly so tbh. Your profile section needs a rewrite. “Decade’s experience of working in IT”. Grammatically that’s bad. The line needs to be reworked. “10 years of experience improving IT processes” or anything else fits better than what you have. Remove hobbies, remove the skill section on the left. You shouldn’t tell me what you’re under skilled in. You can expand upon this in interviews.
None of your experience tells me how you actually improved things. Optimized CICD pipelines? What does that even mean? You should be writing bullet points relating to your experience on how you saved dev time, or saved the company money, or how you refactored things to improve processes.
Personally, I would move certs to the very end. Your experience and what you’ve done should be front and center. Mostly because I don’t care about certs, I care more about what you’ve done and the impact it has had for you, your team, and the company.
I have 10 years of experience, and to me, this reads like a junior/mid-level resume.
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
You had me until the end there. You see a lot of Junior Admins with resumes like this? Come on.
tmtl@reddit
It really does read as an early stage career resume though. You don't have to like that, but it's true
Listing technologies without any detail about them, that reads as though you don't have any detail about them to share
You either want feedback or you don't
JohnPeppercorn@reddit
I see you took it the wrong way. Maybe not junior, but mid for sure. The above are all generic talking points that really have no meaning or impact. Deployed container to aks using helm? So you created a values file and debugged it to made sure it ran? Okay, guess you don’t actually want the constructive criticism.
You may not be or feel that you are a junior/mid-level, but your resume reads like it. Update it to include the impact and why it mattered. Either include an impactful resume point or don’t include it. You are a Linux engineer doing the job - the above talking points. Your resume shouldn’t include those - I already know you’re doing that.
tmtl@reddit
Personal view - I'm sick of seeing faces and skills ratings on peoples resumes. I think "Scripting and Automation" should be lowercase
On page 1, I'm not seeing a huge amount of stuff that screams senior to me to be honest but that could be subjective. I don't think terraformed is a word. Hobbies are irrelvant to me
I don't think you need to call out that you use pg_dump/pg_restore if you are doing PostgreSQL admin, it feels like a given?
For me, there's a lack of tech being mentioned. This might not matter depending on the role(s) you're applying for. You configured systems and applications? You're just what we're looking for! When can you start?
I personally wouldn't progress you to the next stage if I received this
Sancroth_2621@reddit
All due respect, but this person gives you a cv that states experience with most well known and used storage solutions, automated server deployments using the most used IAC tools, automated software deployments using the most used IAC tools, linux administration tasks, from creatin to patching, rbac things, cloud things, the list goes on.
All this across multiple orginizations and years. And your comment is "i dont see anything that screams senior" to me? What screams senior to you then? Genuine question.
I agree that parts of his cv need a makeover but this part of your comment made me raise a brow.
tmtl@reddit
For me, there's nothing that says they have experience above "I saw that" in any of what's mentioned
I don't know what "I terraformed" means. Did they apply some TF that someone else wrote? Did they write their own TF per design spec and get it applied? Did they create the design spec, create the TF, then get it applied? Yes, some of this would come out in a conversation with them. But what about anything they have in their resume is going to prompt me to have that conversation?
Everything they have mentioned is superfuicial
You're right, the list does go on. But there's no detail to any of it. Early stage career resumes tend to list a lot of stuff but provide no detail. Changed some tapes? You're a backup environment manager. Given someone rights to access a file share? You're a storage admin. Typed' kubectl apply'? You're a k8s expert
As a hiring manager I wouldn't look at page 2 of this, never mind want to have a conversation with them. If I've 150 of these to review for 1 role I need to hire for, I need a way to trim that list down. The lack of detail makes this one very easy to put in to the 'No' pile
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
>You configured systems and applications?
That particular job description is very vague. 90% of what I was doing was break/fix, and Root Cause Analysis. There wasn't really a specific tech stack I was working with, or anything like that.
Your feedback is noted.
tmtl@reddit
Cool, love it when people configure systems and applications none-specifically
fuckmywetsocks@reddit
Those 'progress bars' are meaningless - 3 out of 5 whats? 60% as good as who? I found better traction on that aspect switching to 'proficient', 'learning' etc. rather than an arbitrary percentage which makes comparison to others near impossible.
promptgrammer@reddit
Dude maxed out his linux skill tree, nothing will phase him.
deleriux0@reddit
I do tech interviews and I'd interview you with that resume like that, so it's enough to get a foot in the door. I really like the skills out of 5 on the left, nice way to deliver that concisely.
If you are "decades of experience" I'd be anticipating the blurb to indicate both what you bring to the table but also what role you are looking for. The CV feels quite DevOps focused so don't worry too hard about putting something like "looking for a DevOps based position with a company looking to expand their terraform estate" or some such.
Otherwise expect to get roles in desktop support.
Hobbies can be right right at the bottom on the second page. You're a tech, not a social worker.
Given you listed Linux system admin and python as your strongest skills id be grilling you in that to see how strong I think you really are (compared to how strong you think you are).
With decades of experience I'd expect your answers to be nuanced and to be backed up with good reasons and/or experiences to why you believe that.
Most
xRolox@reddit
Live_Air2518@reddit
Remove the skills sidebar and just have a bullet points section near the top. Not only will the sidebar likely mean your CV is auto-rejected by CV scanner programs but the scales are meaningless. All it does is demonstrate that you may not understand how to analyse present data in an appropriate format.
occamsrzor@reddit
As someone that does interviews, I can say I'd rather see your experience before your education and certificates. Education and certificates are only important in the beginning of your career to help you get your foot in the door. Experience is what matters.
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
Makes sense. I can move those to the bottom. Thanks
sunshine-x@reddit
Education and certs are meaningless, like he said. Focus on telling the reader what you delivered, what value you bring.
sunshine-x@reddit
So many short stints - that’ll be a red flag. Be prepared to explain that if you get an interview.
darthfiber@reddit
I like to see verification numbers / links next to certifications. Makes it easy to validate, as a lot of people lie about certs.
Also if the smiley replace is replacing your picture, I wouldn’t. Don’t introduce an unnecessary bias into your resume. Let it get to the hiring manager first.
jerwong@reddit
He has his credly posted. I think that would provide validation for all of them and also free up space for other things.
zhivago@reddit
In your experience you say what you did, but nothing about the impact.
Formus@reddit
Personally, i don use profile picture. It leads the recruitment team to create a imaginary profile of you which can ends in prejudice in some cases. never had anyone complaining about it.
Also, remove the skill level graph in the left side. It's arbitray and and doesn't make sense. The people that will see your resumee will be two types : Human resources, which they don't understand the technology/skill anyway, and they will eyeball your skill level depend how they interpret that chart. And the Engineer team, which they will ignore and just perform you tests to verify everything.
Instead change it to a more simple level : Basic / Intermediate / Advanced. Is easier to read, will avoid second thoughts or suppositions. when they ask you why you consider it your skill level that way, you can talk about your expertise or lack off, in each one. Which will make you look about a transparent person. it's NOT BAD to recognize you have flaws or you're not an expert in every skill.
Then the rest is fine, resumee needs to be simple and easy to read, the only difference i would make is the order of the things presented. i'd go by :
1. Presentation / Profile
2. Professional Experience
3. edication & certifications ( unless you are applying locally to the city you lived your whole life, no one knows the university you graduated and probably won't care since you really has a good professional background)
4. hobbies ( Hobbies can be related to your work area or not, it gives an idea that you are developing and have interest as well in other things, and you are proactive )
ooorez@reddit
please do not put a picture, you're applying for an IT job, not some acting/modeling job. super cringe and instant rejection from a lot of companies
mrwynd@reddit
IT manager here. Put your education at the bottom, experience at the top.
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
Thanks chief
n00lp00dle@reddit
dont put your face on it - its just another reason to get rejected
maybe others will disagree but i dont think you need the profile section. imo this is what cover letters are for
if you are applying for "senior" roles do you really need to put your education first? shouldnt experience be more important now?
skills are binary. you either have them or dont. let the interviewer work out what level they think you are.
that hobbies section is doing you no favours.
just do away with that left hand column and get everything to fit on the one page.
Equivalent_Form_9717@reddit
“Terraformed …” these sound like JIRA tickets and tasks, not achievements.
edthesmokebeard@reddit
The smiley face is retarded.
josetalking@reddit
Header too big. Remove picture.
Left bar exceedingly wide, and waste a huge amount of space in page 2, which makes it look ugly. I would move the stuff on that bar to the bottom of the CV, ie: remove bar. And remove hobbies altogether.
Professional experience comes first (after profile if I chose to keep the profile section, which I am not sure).
DreamlessMojo@reddit
Plug your shit in ChatGPT to get an idea of what to say better. Write things you have accomplished and not like how much do I have experience in XYZ. Remove hobbies and put an objective. No need for color in my opinion.
Smipims@reddit
Skills bar chart is cliche. HM won’t care that one is 3 and one is 4. Just list skills. Header is too big. Experience before certs. Shorter profile. Remove hobbies. No headshots. More impact. Made IaC using terraform: to do what? What was the impact?
evilneuro@reddit
when reading your cv, hiring managers won’t care what you look like (they’ll find out at interview time and removing the photo leaves more space for your experience), and won’t care about your soft skills or hobbies (interview again will take care of that).
your cv will appear shorter by getting rid of that wasted space on the left, use succinct job descriptions for each role and a list of relevant technologies used in each.
i’d lose the education section: your career appears to be longer and more relevant than your college and uni exploits, merge em as line items in your cert / accred section, more space saved
Jeremykral@reddit
Here are my recommendations and criticisms
Otherwise, nice resume. I’ll definitely be taking some inspiration from yours for my resume
Ok_Proposal_7390@reddit
ATS doesn’t care about what you look like or your hobbies unless chess is a required part of the job and it’s scanning for that keyword
pkennedy@reddit
You often have about 10 seconds to get someones attention. Take a read over it and see where you get in 10 seconds. The answer is no where, i'm reading garbage after 10 seconds that yells to me this guy has nothing interesting to offer us.
Get rid of profile, get rid of the skills side bar, let them figure out what your skill level is per what they require, not what you think you are. Never tell them why they shouldn't hire you, only why they should hire you.
Move Education and certificates after your experience.
I also like to add into what you've done the actual results of those actions. If you installed something, how did it help the business, help customers, help employees, help security, or maybe helped scalability.
Cherveny2@reddit
get rid of the green.
also for Linux administration, list what distros you have the most experience with.
amarao_san@reddit
Network is missing.
Temik@reddit
As a hiring manager - lose the photo. At best it’s irrelevant or get stripped out by recruiter. Otherwise it’s just something to get bias introduced into screening.
psmgx@reddit
2-column resumes are out, they mess with the auto-parsing. Maybe LLMs handle that a little better but I wouldn't risk a job app on it.
Apropos of the other column, ditch the bars, replace them with "fluent in: linux, ansible, $SKILL", "familar with..." etc. No one cares about hobbies unless their directly relevant. if you're running a Drone Racing team sure add that, but "listening to podcasts" and "music" just seems a space filler.
Your overview doesn't tell me what you are or what you do. It says IT professional of 10 years, but... you're a DevOps person, right? Cuz that's what I'm getting out of that. "DevOps professional with 10 years in the Industry, and a background in Linux, Networking, and Automation with Python" tells me exactly what you are about, and avoids the buzzwords.
cut down your experience. you told me about all of the shit you did but didn't tell me how many users, systems, scripts, or containers you were herding. 200 users and 30 VMs, or 2000 users and 400 containers, etc.
you mentioned one line -- 3 words -- about mentoring jr admins, but multiple lines about crap I don't care about, like migration RHEL versions. this is important for a senior, or manager, and i want know know a little more, even if it was just you did their onboarding for 3 weeks.
many of those bulletpoints could be compressed. for example "created documentation and SOPs and bla bla bla bla" like of course they're for other people to follow. 3 words about leading jr admins but 2 lines to say "Responsible for developing SOPs and MOPs, and ensuring thorough documentation"
why are Defense Contractors and Crappy startup at the same time? mistake? double dipping? most of the bulletpoints for both aren't really telling me anything useful. those could be streamlined or dropped.
bwdezend@reddit
Lead with what you have been able to do and what impact those things have had. Skills, hobbies, education at the end.
Braydon64@reddit
Kinda like the template. Where did you find it?
jilinlii@reddit
Your resume is decent. (I probably wouldn't put bash in all caps, but that's a minor thing.)
Like you called out in your follow up post, it's the frequent job changes that grab my attention.
I get pulled into interviews and hiring decisions now and then. If I see candidates that have a new job every one or two years, like clockwork, then I specifically don't interview them. Because odds are high that they will stick around long enough to get trained and then jump to the next employer. Complete waste of my / our time.
So my only advice is: if there's any way you could stay on at an employer for a longer time (subjective, but to me that's 5+ years) then your resume would be a lot more attractive.
Just my opinion. Take it with a grain of salt.
occamsrzor@reddit
Every job has tribal knowledge, but are you specifically hiring for positions in which you train the new hire on how to do their job? That sounds like entry level. the intermediate and expert stages in IT, especially engineering, the new hire should already know how to do that stuff. All they need to pick up is the institutional knowledge.
jilinlii@reddit
Without diving into too much detail, there is a good amount of domain knowledge needed to be effective. What's more, I've found that we need to supplement knowledge gaps in new hires. (I've never interviewed or hired entry level. It's a large, senior team.)
Feel free to disagree with my take, and help OP with better advice. If your opinion is that a new job every six to eighteen months ad infinitum is not a big deal when potential employers are reviewing his resume, then ok.
occamsrzor@reddit
Not trying to say your opinion isn't valid. I was genuinely curious as to what exactly you meant. We're almost certainly in two entirely different domains/disciplines (I'm a Retail Systems Engineer with a speciality in SCCM).
But that may be were we differ. If I'm interviewing someone and they can't tell me that they troubleshoot Application installation issue by reviewing AppDiscovery, AppIntent and AppEnforce logs, they're not getting an offer. I'm not going to teach them how to use SCCM on the job. They need to know that coming into the job.
jilinlii@reddit
I've worked in public sector orgs since 1998. (Shortest tenure was 5 years.) Given my niche, there may be tunnel vision on my part.
In reading the various other replies to OP, I'm less sure that my advice to him about is relevant in 2024. It's possible I'm too old school and in too specific a career path.
In any case, hopefully he can glean actionable info from the thread and land a new gig.
occamsrzor@reddit
Possibly (I can't really say), but I wonder if we're not talking some sort of (what I would call) institutional knowledge. Could just be that we're referring to the same thing. For example, I work for a fuel and convenience store retailer, and the "fuel world" is rather unique, so I don't fault a candidate for not having been in the industry before. That's the kind of things they can learn on the job.
I think it's still relevant. It may not be exactly how things are done in the private sector (I never worked in the public sector, but know people that have, and it's pretty unique. I mean, I did serve in the military for a bit, so I've seen the kind of unique equipment and infrastructure one can encounter. Even electrical connectors have a specific standard that must be met). It's just that I'd personally call that "institutional" or "tribal" knowledge.
project2501c@reddit
Does that mean that your workplace gives good raises, above inflation each year?
jilinlii@reddit
Public sector, and there's no way they have kept up with cumulative inflation since 2019.
I tried to make it clear I was sharing my personal opinion with OP and to take it with a grain of salt.
Sounds like you have different, better advice for him. So help him out.
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
That's totally fair. I'm trying to stay at my current place as long as I can. Thanks for the advice
slick_james@reddit
When did this become a resume help subreddit? Honestly it’s shit too. Fuck you OP
WriterCommercial6485@reddit
No need to be such a jerk
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
Love you too ;)
swift_nature@reddit
Pretty decent resume. I would get rid of the skill level thingies. Just stating that you know that stuff is enough. Nobody is expected to know everything anyways. Furthermore, try to narrow down your careerpath and get certifications in that area of expertise. Certs get a bad rep on reddit (mostly because people are either too lazy or stupid to get them) but they do work on getting past recruiters, hiring managers and ATS systems and you always learn a thing or two from the structured learning courses.
uptimefordays@reddit
I’d move education and certs below work experience.
hlt32@reddit
Nuke the crap on the left, shrink the crap on the top, and reorder it to profile, professional experience, education, then certifications.
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
Yup, this is what I'm going to do
Cevion@reddit
Fix run-on sentence in your profile.
BitsConspirator@reddit
Remove the header and picture. Put the links right below your contact data.
No need to have a brief description. Leave that for LinkedIn.
Experience first, from newest to oldest. Maybe the effort to no more than 3 bullets, just the most relevant and leave the details for interview. Also make sure you describe what outcomes your actions had, not just list down responsibilities.
Hobbies are not relevant. You’re not a junior that needs to fill space in the sheet, are you?
Never, by no circumstances (unless you’re an academic with no industry experience and want to stay like that), more than 1 single page.
I’d leave aside also the bar levels.
Don’t upload the resume in pdf bots have it hard to extract data. Always .doc format.
JWK3@reddit
I'd remove the skills section as this should be apparent from your Profile and Professional Experience sections. It also feels like an unprofessional video game character loadout and is also hard for people to formally grade themselves properly (see Dunning–Kruger effect).
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
haha I can totally see that. I'll make sure to make it less Video Game like
JWK3@reddit
I take some of that back. I think a skills section is fine, but don't give yourself a rating. It should show what level of skill you are with that technology/function with words that you could back up and explain in an interview.
Instead of saying "Kubernetes 3/5", say "Deploying and patching Kubernetes containers and underlying nodes" or whatever you've done with K8s in the past. I'm not a K8s guy so that quote terminology might be incorrect, but hopefully you get the gist.
meddig0@reddit
Get rid of the graphs. Are you saying you know everything there is to know about Linux admin and 60% of git? It's unclear and loses all meaning, at least in my opinion. It's the sort of thing that causes me to pass on a CV.
You've also got at least one typo - tecnology. Take your time to proof read.
A good exercise to do is to ask someone to read it and tell you the highlights of what they can pick out quickly. Do they relay the things you feel are important? Your keyskills, your strong points, etc. if not, look at why and how you can highlight them.
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
I agree, the graphs are stupid, I'm going to get rid of them.
Thanks for your feedback
meddig0@reddit
I realise my last paragraph is basically what you're doing here - I should have clarified and said, do it with someone in front of you. I've always found realtime feedback useful.
But good luck with your endeavours!
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
I know my job history will hurt me. I job hopped a lot while I was stuck in Contractor Hell. I was (and still am) dealing with physical and mental health issues.
I'm just dipping my toe back into the job market, mostly to see how bad things really are. But also, I am extremely burnt out at my current job. The culture is not good, high turnover has been a problem, and a lot of people finger pointing and talking behind people's backs. Clueless management.
I'm just looking for something less stressful. I'd even be willing to take a pay cut (currently make just over $100k).
Due to health issues, I can only accept remote work (chronic joint pain, mobility difficulty).
occamsrzor@reddit
Don't worry too much about that. I mean, it matters, yes, but not as much as you'd think. You do have two jobs on there that overlap. If that's not a typo, I'd specifically call that out (I actually have overlap like that in my resume and I specifically call it out as not a typo), and that, along with the step up in job title with every position, pretty much nullifies the negative connotations of those short work histories.
What it looks like is that you were a contractor, you came in to fulfill a unique project requirement as a contractor, you accomplished that project requirement and then your contractor company moved you on to the next contract. The fact that each subsequent contract actually required more knowledge and experience (as evidenced by the increase in job title/description) is actually a good thing. It says that your contractor company slowly ramped up the difficulty of the contracts they gave you to see what you could handle, and you were able to handle everything they threw at you.
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
The overlapping jobs is a typo, I'll make sure to fix that.
Thank you for your feedback. Much appreciated
overwhelmed_nomad@reddit
It shouldn't do, if they ask just tell them the contract finished.
runic_man@reddit
How about you use an ATS friendly template? Head over to r/EngineeringResumes wiki and read that. 2 page resumes are a no go honestly. Take a look at their recommended latex template and you will find out.
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
Thanks, I'll check it out
BombTheDodongos@reddit
You’re using reactive resume aren’t you?
Ill_Dragonfly2422@reddit (OP)
I'm using resume.io
alpha417@reddit
Needlessly wordy and underqualifed