General Resume

Submitted by grfnpt on Wed, 02/04/2009 - 15:10

This resume at first glance

JFlitt's picture
Submitted by JFlitt on Fri, 02/06/2009 - 16:38.

This resume at first glance seems to have a decent amount of white space and textual data. Upon further examination I have identified some possible issues that you may want to take a look at.

There are some definite alignment issues throughout this resume. Starting at the top, the “Present Address” text is higher than the other contact information headers. This is followed by the actual address itself being out of alignment with the other address on this page. It would seem to me that you may want to increase the text size of your name at the top just to make it stand out better. I don’t find your EDUCATION section to be very reader friendly. This EDUCATION section would be easier to read if it was aligned correctly. The dates regarding your work experience seem to have some spacing issues and are a bit misaligned.

There are a few wording issues, within the skills area of your resume. In your first line it seems that the “and” is improperly placed. This first line also starts with “Proficiency” and then the second sentence begins with “Proficient”. I also found myself wondering, what is a class on “Operating Systems” this just seems a bit obscure.

The objective statement is based on things that you are looking for to better yourself. As it is mentioned in the instructor’s blog #2, “Be careful also to not talk about what you want.” This objective statement could be reworded to make it seem as if you want to really benefit the company rather than yourself.

Thanks!
JFlitt

www.JFlitt.com

Comments

Submitted by estefano on Fri, 02/06/2009 - 23:46.

Overall, I think you have great things to say, but your resume does not do you justice. Here are some comments to help you fix it:

Your education section looks especially long, perhaps to use up enough space to extend your resume to a full page. I think it would be better to use more space by describing your work experience instead.

Do you participate in any extracurricular events? Companies are interested in candidates that show participation in organizations. This could indicate teamwork, social skills, and passions.

DO NOT say you are proficient with office products such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. If you are applying for a computer science job, it is assumed you know basic things like this. “Visual Studios” is a very weird expression – there is only one visual studio (yes, with multiple versions, but it’s still one product). Plus, Visual Studio is much more relevant to the employer than MS Word. You don’t have to list every version of Windows, just say “Windows”. They’re all the same anyways. You mention that you have experience working in teams of programmers. This is great, but be more specific. Perhaps you assume that the employer will look at your work experience section, but then they have to search for it.

Use periods at the end of your sentence fragments. Use consistent indentation for job descriptions (look at your dates). Why does your text for the Delphi job wrap to such a short width? Are you trying to use up more space again?

Your work experience with DLL’s is very vague (it’s DLL not dll since it’s an acronym). A DLL is basically just another name for code. What did these DLL’s do? What specifically did you implement?

You list two permanent addresses. Is that a mistake, do you actually have to addresses? I they are two permanent addresses, pick one of the two because the employer will be very confused. If one is your campus address, please label it as such. I suggest to just use a single address because most companies don’t care what both of your addresses are, they just want to know where to send you documents.

Also, your section with the addresses, is misaligned vertically. That makes it look unprofessional and a resume is suppose to best demonstrate your document writing ability. Also, an employer might take this mistake as a lack of interest in the company because it looks like you just put it together in a rush.