Please critique my resume

Ok I don't have time to revise it in complete detail but here are a few things that came to mind spontaniously (Overall its good, but Im going to only stress some problems because thats waht needs changing):
1.) I cannot make out where you live (maybe just the state if USA).
2.) Your age is nowhere to be find (best: Date of Birth)
3.) Where did you finish high school and when. If your average was good what was it.
4.) When did you start university and take out the expected date you will be finished because 2009 just doesnt sound too good as a first impression (depends a bit on when you started).
5.) Having a volunteer work trip to nicaragua and dom. rep. is great but IMHO I wouldnt have have the sentence stress that it was with the church but rather take that space and describe the content of the tri[p briefly.
6.) Unless you are looking for a job in the gaming area take out 'online computer gaming' or at least dont put it as the first point.

-CProgrammer

You have the greatest sense of humor mate :

Quote:

HOBBIES AND INTERESTS : Getting involved with my church VOLUNTEER WORK : # Two foreign mission trips with my church to Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic # Several local mission trips to West Virginia

Then when i click on "Media" and "Pictures" the first pic if see is this one.

That cracked me up [smile]

Well here is my critique if it matters any:

"Seeking a part-time position in the field of website building and design and simple programming jobs." is not proper English.

It should read "Seeking a part-time position in the field of website building, design, and simple programming." someone correct me if I am wrong.


Get rid of hunting under hobbies. You dont want to make your resume controversial. While I am about as pro second amendment as you can get, I do not like hunting.


"Overall, I enjoy helping people. For my past jobs, I have encountered and dealt with new situations. In a coding environment, learning new things is not an obstacle for me." is not proper English.

It should read something like "Overall, I enjoy helping people. For my past jobs I have encountered and dealt with new situations-- In a coding environment-- learning new things is not an obstacle for me." someone correct me if I am wrong.


Other then that it looks ok to me, but I have never written a resume in my life so I am not an expert or anything.

PS: I am basing my critique on American English, not British English.

[Edited by - JTWatters on November 22, 2005 3:55:55 PM]

The sections Hobbies and Interests, Volunteer and Overall should not be in the resume. Put that information in your cover letter if you feel it is pertinent to the job you are applying for. Otherwise, looks good. Also, in the U.S. it is not advisable to put your age (or date of birth as mentioned above), sex, race or religious affiliation. This is not to protect you, but to protect the people you want to hire you. Most employers won't touch a resume with any of that info on it for fear of some sort of discrimination law suit coming back to haunt them. Better just to stick with your education and work experience; that is what is going to get you the interview. Yes, this cuts your resume in half. Yes, this is ok and expected for someone with not too much experience. You might also expand on your job duties and responsibilities:

Quote:

SOUTHEASTERN COMPUTERS Employer: Julius Lynn Pilkington, (704) 241-1377 Jobs: Computer repair

What does "Computer repair" entail? Did you work independently or under supervision? Did you train other people to do this job? etc

Quote:

January 2001 - Present FREELANCE Jobs: Software and hardware troubleshooting and repair, Website building and design

Again, expand on this. What websites did you build. Did you do it alone or with a team? You don't have to go into gorey detail. A few bullet points would be nice to sort of punctuate your responsibilities and skills.

You have an unhealthy obsession with kittens.

I agree with the above posts (except birthday - that is not necessary).

Hobbies, volunteer work and outside activities don't really belong in a resume for potential work.

I do agree that you need to expand on your work experiences:
what have you done?
what are you currently doing?
what particular skills did you learn or are learning?

employers want to know what you did, not just where you worked and who you worked for.

also, you need to put more references down. IMO although he is your boss, I wouldn't recommend putting your family member as the first reference. Of course he is going to be biased (as all the others should be as well but this one is obvious). Do you have people for whom you've done freelance work? Also, hate to say it, but your pastor may not be the best reference for a technical resume either (unless you've done some work for him).

You need to show people what skills you have and then back it up by giving references who can attest to those skills and your work habits.

Get rid of the "(programs that interface with other applications by using the OS API)" following the "application interface programs". If there are any questions about what this means, it'll be brought up in an interview. Or, if it's significant enough, mention it on your cover letter with regards to how it has related to your experience to date.

In addition to my previous post...

You should have a section labeled something like "Academic Projects" where you list projects that you've worked on that demonstrate your abilities. Or "Extracuricular Projects" if this is stuff you've done outside of school.

Okay, one last post...lol...

You have a section labeled "OVERALL", then the first word in the sentence of this section is "Overall". There's no need to mention it in the sentence if it's the name of the section! It's just an extra word that will detract from your resume in the end.

I agree that birthday is entirely unnecessary, and only sets a person up for age discrimination.

I would also recommend not using the term "simple programming", which sounds like you're not confident with your own abilities. Instead, if you say "small programming tasks" or something of the sort you are instead saying that you, while not ready to take on a full-scale MS Word killer, you are confident in yourself enough to do whatever small programs are given to you.

I will warn you that there is alot of room for unfair discrimination on your resume, mostly because of the focus on church activities (and to a lesser extent the moral ambiguity of hunting). The people who would discriminate because of these things, though, may not be worth working for anyway. Just remember that even if the boss would want to hire you, the hiring manager may discriminate based on this window into your personal life.

It all really depends on who is doing the hiring. Some people like to feel as if they made a personal connection through the resume, but that is only if you share the same interests. Others want it to be strictly business. Just something to be aware of.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned this...

HTML is not a programming language!

Wow this thread has woken my interest even more now. Im based in germany where it is desirable to include ones age in my experience. Now its interesting to hear everybody here seems to think its a bad idea in the USA.
I understnad the law suit problem. The reason I emphasisez age here is that if im hiring somebody with this resume, for all I know he may be 30 and not finished with his first degree. Now that would get me somewhat sceptical. How does one deal with this in the states?

-CProgrammer

Quote:

Original post by Ra I'm surprised nobody mentioned this... HTML is not a programming language!

Right, but the alternative would be to add a "markup languages" section including only HTML. Most resumes that I have seen group HTML into the programming section just because it's clearer than the alternatives.

Quote:

Original post by CProgrammer Wow this thread has woken my interest even more now. Im based in germany where it is desirable to include ones age in my experience. Now its interesting to hear everybody here seems to think its a bad idea in the USA. I understnad the law suit problem. The reason I emphasisez age here is that if im hiring somebody with this resume, for all I know he may be 30 and not finished with his first degree. Now that would get me somewhat sceptical. How does one deal with this in the states? -CProgrammer

Age doesn't matter, experience does. Your resume should show experience, not necessarily age. The very rare occasion when this philosophy fails, the person is usually weeded out during the phone interview.

Quote:

Original post by MonkeyInBlack You have the greatest sense of humor mate : Quote: HOBBIES AND INTERESTS : Getting involved with my church VOLUNTEER WORK : # Two foreign mission trips with my church to Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic # Several local mission trips to West Virginia Then when i click on "Media" and "Pictures" the first pic if see is this one. That cracked me up [smile]

The picture is for the "International Church of Firefox", for those who did not see that picture.

Quote:

In my past jobs, I have encountered and dealt with new situations. In a coding environment, learning new things is not an obstacle for me.

You tell me this, but I don't believe you. How about something like this:

Quote:

At (some company), I learned to use (language X) and contributed to a release within 3 weeks.

In other words, show me, don't just tell me what your good traits are. Everyone says, "I'm great." Fewer people can say, "I wrote a patent application for program functionality of my own design" or "In an unfamiliar programming environment, I was project lead within one year."



~BenDilts( void );

Quote:

...ridding computers from viruses and spyware...

You rid a computer of a virus, not from a virus.

Alright. Thanks for all of your help as it was very helpful. I decided to leav e in the volunteer work section because I got mixed responses from other people that I asked to look at my resume. I might remove it later on though as it doesn't really pertain to the technical field.

One question though, since I don't have any work experience at all when it comes to coding, should I add an "Extracurricular" section that explains all of the personal computer projects that I have worked on? The only thing holding me back is that personal projects aren't really like doing work for a company at all.

Quote:

Original post by tHiSiSbOb Quote: ...ridding computers from viruses and spyware... You rid a computer of a virus, not from a virus.

Oops, fixed that. I had one statement that said "of viruses" and the other "from viruses".