Who wants to critique my resume

[RickGiguere]

OK I'm going out on a limb and posting my resueme.

I'm basically on my second career, and pro/e is it, I've been working with it for about three years, and think I'm pretty good.

........But some of these companies I apply too don't think I'm so great, and I get turned down a lot.

So what do you think....... is it, good - bad - stupid - acceptable - great.

I don't know a whole lot how the corporate world works, and what they are looking for.

I put my

professional experence

pro/e experience

life expereince

hobbies.

I hope the file uploads, you'll need MS Office 2007 to view it

Thanx

[RickGiguere]

Last weak I was in negotiations for a pro/e position, they came back and told me I didn't have enough experience.

(edit)

Thanx for the tips, private e-mail's, I have it reformatted.

[RichardJ]

Before going into private consulting I managed a technical group. I read a lot of resumes. I threw a lot in the trash too. Here are some universal tips:

1) No typos. I found two without even trying: "training(CADquest)" and "Lonestar Racing ,responsibilities"

2) No glaring grammatical errors. You have a several of these too. Did you use the spelling and grammar checkers in Word?

3) No broken hyperlinks. You have several.

4) No obviously bad formatting. Such as headers that are orphaned on the end of a page and separated from the section they are supposed to head (Education, Software/IT)

A lot of people look for errors in resumes, because a resume with errors says a lot (and it's not good). You can get away with one, maybe two, but if there's a lot then either you have some skills that really set you apart from the rest of the applicants or your resume is in the trash.

5) Don't start the resume with an introductory sentence that

a) Is irrelevant to the job you are applying for

b) Might imply you don't really want this job, and have other goals

c) Might threaten the position of the person you are sending the resume to

Yours does all three. If you are applying for a position as a Pro/E designer don't start out touting your skills as a manager! Apart from the grammatical errors (e.g. "improve", not "improving"), it is also too much marketing/business speak. There is no such thing as 100% customer satisfaction, so don't make claims about achieving (or even wishing to achieve) it.

6) Don't ever pad your resume with irrelevent material. It is amazing how many people pad resumes.

Nobody will care if you were a member of ASME while you were a student umpteen years ago. Putting that in there just raises the question of why you are not a member now.

7) Don't send it in format they might not be able to read. As you said in the first post, "You'll need MS Office 2007 to view it". So why put it in docx format? Suppose I don't have Office 2007? (Actually I don't, but there are other ways to read a docx file). Print it to a pdf.

I would also recommend separating your portfolio from the resume itself. And for the third example, have you really got FEA experience? I ask because right in the image it says "Roger TooGoods Pro/E tutorial files". That would be a big flag for me to quiz you about FEA if you ever got as far as an interview. You should also remove number 7 under "Advanced Level User". Some managers might think it's a good thing, but there are plenty that might wonder how much of your working day will be spent "networking with peers". Don't open that can of worms.

[pwyndham]

This probably is not really the proper location for this type of discussion, but since it is here I will give my 2cents.

Some things I might suggest are:

• Take the 3 off of Pro/Engineer Wildfire - don't put that limit on there first off. If they want to know specifically what version/s you have used they can ask you.
  
• Try to quantify how many hours you have used Pro/E or how many parts/assemblies and drawings you have created. Employers want to have a better way of understanding what you did. If you just say designed parts, that could be 2.
  
• Take off the link to CADQuest. Maybe the company has had bad experience with a particular training medium. They can ask that if they need more information. Just say it was Pro/E training.
  
• You should give the company name first then the job title, dates and description. If you had multiple positions with the same company you can indent them under the same heading. Employers would like to have an idea if you are going to stick around.
  
• I would say give the name of your company and not say Sole Proprieter. Again you want the employer to think you are going to stick around and not run off to start your own business again when the housing market picks up.
  
• Tell them what College you went to.
  
• Consider making your portfolio a document seperate from your resume.
  
• In Word when you hover over the link it tells you to control click it. The statement to do this seems redundant to me.
  
• The links in the sample work section did not work for me in Word 2007.
  
• You did not have your phone number at the top of the resume.
  

If you disaggree with me on some of the points, that is fine. Everyone has different preferences on resumes. And, I definitely am not an expert on the subject.

If you want I could attach my resume so you could have it as an example.

[RickGiguere]

Made the changes you suggested, I appreciate it, comparing this new resume to the one I had two months ago, it's day and night diference for the better.

I don't know why the links don't work, some do some don't. I'll try to get that figured out, the links work until I attach the doc and upload, then they seem to quit working??

Recruiters seem to make a snap judgment of what they see on your resume, on whether or not you will be considered or thrown in the trash can.

Rick

[RichardJ]

Typo: "Mechanical Designer,responsibilities". There is no way that could get past a spell checker. So if you can't be bothered to spell check your resume what does that say about the quality of the work I might expect to get from you?

Sorry if that sounds a little harsh. I made it sound harsh because I'm trying to make a point about why potential employers look for such mistakes in resumes. It's the same if someone turns up for interview in jeans and a tee shirt. Even if that's probably what they would wear to work if they got the job, turning up for interview like that makes the potential employer wonder how much you really care. First impressions last.

[RickGiguere]

All very good suggestions, I appreciate them all.

Rick

[IRstuff]

>> It's still in DOCX format...

>> "result focused" probably should be "results oriented" ???

>> The entire "Professional Background" chunk appears to be all motherhood, but tells the reader nothing about what kind of job you're looking for. Most people expect to see an "Job Objective" or a "Desired Position" section here. Even then, you need to avoid the cliches and motherhood and be more specific about who you are and what you want to do for your employer to be.

>> The formatting in your experience section is munged, but that might be because I had to convert it to read it Both Honeywell chunks came out bulletized.

>> Why is Wildfire lowercase? PTC doesn't do that: http://www.ptc.com/solutions/small-medium-business/index.htm Good thing you got rid of the version number, since the current version is 5.0

>> Overall, a very bland experience section. I mean,"designing aftermarket components" could mean you designed a bracket, or you designed a 50,000 rpm turbocharger. I can't tell which from what's there.

>> Are those REALLY advanced user skills in that section?

>> Again, delete the business with PlanetPTC, particularly since it's a bit of a dorky name

>> Delete "Hobbies" section --> irrelevant to your work experience

>> Why is your Phoenix College "degree" at the end, and not with your education section? What kind of degree is it? If it's not good neough to put on your resume, it shouldn't be included.

>> You devote more than a page to your pictures, but they could have been copped from some random source, for all I know. I'm a bit split on this sort of thing as it's not something people I interview would have, but unless you're including the actual design file, what is it trying to show, and is it really doing that?

>> Your links are broken because you're linking something on your own computer, and not something on the web. Again, how would anyone know for sure that it really is your work?

>> Having these pictures without any narrative seems pointless to me. What is the significance of these particular drawings? Is it a horse, or a "gear train mechanism?" At the very minimum, your headings should explain why you placed they there, and why I might care. Why should I care? Are these drawings so special that they automatically prove that your work is above par?

>> You've got a 2 1/2 page resume for what appears to be less than 3 yrs of relevant experience. I've seen PhD resumes with 20 yrs of experience on 2 pages or less, and that's with a listing of publications and professional society memberships.

[RickGiguere]

I made as many changes as I could per all of your suggestions.

thanx

Rick

I have an extra page I can't get rid of.....suggestions?

[pwyndham]

The blank page is there because of a line at the very top that you can get rid of with a backspace. Just click anywhere on the page and it will blink in the upper left hand corner.

[RickGiguere]

Ahh, thank you, I couldn't figure what was causing that.

Again, thanx for everyones help

Rick

[pwyndham]

I uploaded a copy of my resume to my profile. You might think about completing your profile on here so more people can get to know you.

Good luck in your job search.

I agree with all of Richard's comments. Like I said I was not an expert so I missed mentioning that stuff.