Resume question

Well I would not list the proficiency level. That will be done by the recruiter. Also they will ask you to fill that out on a form. You will find yourself getting tired of telling them that the proficiency is listed on the resume. I would list the skills, the projects, the API is good.

Hi,

Thank you for responding. Would you mind emphasizing what you mean by "the projects?" I'm not sure what you mean.

I've currently got a list of my skills that I split up into three categories: Programming Languages, Software Applications, and Application Programming Interfaces.
That is good. The more you can show this crisp info on your resume , the better. Most resume fishing software or people will look for keywords. Those are critical.

1) In my resume, should I even specify the APIs I'm familiar with? A few articles I've read online state that mentioning APIs you're familiar with (STL, TinyXML, OpenGL, DirectX, etc) is not recommended because it is basically "filler" text to just make your resume look longer and in general represents lack of experience or redundancy.
Correct. Don't mention the APIs, rather the technologies or broader set ( e.g. Winsock, ATL, MFC, WMI, WinHTTP ). The APIs are for interviews where you may be asked to mention some of the APIs you used to test your familiarity with them.

2) I was considering (instead of just a bulleted list) putting my skills into a table with 'years of experience' and 'proficiency'. Proficiency would be a rank 1-10 representing how familiar with the item I am. For example, rank of 1 would represent little or no experience and 10 would represent an expert level of experience with little or no reference materials required. There's situations where my years of experience may be low on a specific item but my expertise with it is close to 8 or 9 (This is especially true for skills I've picked up quickly).That is fine. But I know monster has an option in itself to provide that kind of information. So, duplicating the same on a resume may be redundant.

My suggestions:

check out different websites for tips on writing better resumes. You will find things that you overlooked.
Provide a summary of your experiences.
Provide an objective/goal.
If you are emailing the resume directly to a specific company ( as opposed to posting your resume online for companies to find it ), and if you have an opportunity to attach a cover letter, do it. Read up on tips to writing cover letter. Gist is, cover letter should never repeat what resume says. It should be your marketing statement. It should be highly tuned to that particular company and how the company would benefit from your experiences.
Finding job in itself is a job. So, do take it very seriously.
Expect periods of silence/ no responses. These are all too common. Patience pays.
As much as possible, try to see if there is a direct HR contact when you apply. Use this email to follow-up after a week or so of sending in your resume.

Good luck.

I have attached my resume in PDF format if someone wouldn't mind looking over it. The more people that I get suggestions from the better off I'll be. Thanks again for everyone's help.

EDIT:

Attachment removed. Newly updated version added a few posts down

I looked over your resume and here are my thoughts:

You can probably format the Programming Languages, Software apps, and app interfaces slightly differently, such as:

Related Abilities:
Programming Languages: C++/Xml/Python/LUA/etc.
Software Applications: Visual Studio/DOxygen/Visual Assist/etc.
Source Control: Cvs/SVN/Tortoise/etc.
Programming Interfaces: STL/MFC/WTL/etc.
Other fantastic skills: xxxxxxxxxxxx

This would give you more room to expand the Responsibilities section

I personally would like to see more technical abilitites listed in the Responsibilities section.

For example (and I'm not trying to be critical, just trying to offer input):
Involvement in a project named True Crime NYC for PC that successfully shipped.

This doesn't tell me anything about what YOU did. Expand these bullet points and include some technical items (perhaps as indented bullet points)

For example:


Involvement in a project named True Crime NYC for PC that successfully shipped.
Built the xyz interface in ATL which did this and that.
Saved xxx in man hours by implementing (some new software model ) or got the team to use some new technology.

Of course, only expand these items with truthful bullet points.

Remember, these are talking points points so you will be asked about them (at least if I interviewed you, I would ask about them - not everyone is the same).

Overall I see your responsibility bullet points as promo's to what you shipped. Perhaps this is common in a game oriented resume, but personally I would prefer to see what your contribution to the product was. Btw, another way to format this is to have a responsibilites section and a technology section for each entry.

Anyway, that's my $.02 worth. Good luck.

Very valuable information. I will most definitely consider these points. I really appreciate you taking the time to assist me. Thank you.

Related Abilities:
Programming Languages: C++/Xml/Python/LUA/etc.
Software Applications: Visual Studio/DOxygen/Visual Assist/etc.
Source Control: Cvs/SVN/Tortoise/etc.
Programming Interfaces: STL/MFC/WTL/etc.
Other fantastic skills: xxxxxxxxxxxx

By this do you mean to not use bulleted lists (In other words, use almost exact form as above in your quote)?

By this do you mean to not use bulleted lists (In other words, use almost exact form as above in your quote)?You can do it either way and the way you have it is certainly fine.

I suggested what I did to conserve space and allow more room for the following sections.

The sad truth is that many folks just start listing many of the types of items (C/C++/STL/ATL/MFC/CBS/ABC/COM/C#/WCF/...) without having experience to back them. This kind of thing my get someone in the door to an interview, but not past the interview.

This is why I suggested to expand on the responsibilites section (by many adding a 'technologies used' section). This would give you a chance to outline what your contribution was with regard to the technology used.

For example (the names have been changed to protect the not so innocent):

[b]Symbionic Enterprises, Redmond, WA 05/03 to 03/06
Software Development Lead Products Team

Led a 6 person development team
Managed task prioritization and scheduling
Architected legacy-ASP website to .Net 2.0 C# rewrite

Defined security, validation, and localization subsystems
Defined UI Common Controls subsystem
Defined Middle tier layer using CSLA (Component Scalable Logical Architecture)
Designed and implemented localization framework ( implemented C# resources classes and SQL database )

Designed and Implemented Internal Publishing tool

Reduced tasks taking 4 man days/wk to minutes
Implemented with C#, Win forms, serialization, message queuing, and Windows services

Developed C# Multithreaded Synchronization Class Library
Developed C# Globalization Class Library using SQL as the datastore
There are many ways to approach the layout of your resume, do the best job you can right now, go interview and revise it/change the layout as needed.

List your associate degree separately, under an "Educational Background" section, and include the institution where you earned it.

Wow, nice job.

A couple of small suggestions:

1) Rename 'Object Oriented C++' to 'C++' (after all, C++ is object oriented already)
2) Remove the phrase 'two years of' from the summary of qualifications statement. (as someone else has said, don't advertise that you have two years of experience, let the recruiter figure that out)
3) Attempt to get the resume to fit on one page. While a two page resume isn't wrong, you are so close to one page now you may as well fit it on one page. You should be able to do this easily by making the left margin smaller, putting the address, cel number, and email on one line and increasing the width where the text wraps in the Responsibilites section.

If you need more space, consider removing the blurb for Method Solutions (i.e. Method Solutions is a ... Method Solutions is contracted by... ). I personally don't think this adds anything to your resume. Remember this is about you, not about how great Method Solutions is.

All in all, much better.

Wow, nice job.
Thanks; I couldn't have done it without everyone's help!

1) Rename 'Object Oriented C++' to 'C++' (after all, C++ is object oriented already)
True, C++ was *intended* to be used in an object-oriented fashion, however some programmers use C++ without even using an object oriented approach. This approach, in my opinion, produces terrible code. I was simply trying to emphasize that I use C++ in an object oriented fashion (as one would expect). However I have removed it since for the most part is is redundant.

2) Remove the phrase 'two years of' from the summary of qualifications statement. (as someone else has said, don't advertise that you have two years of experience, let the recruiter figure that out)
Good point. I didn't think about this. I suppose it would be okay to mention your years in the industry if it was, say, 10 years or more? I would think this would be impressive, but perhaps not? Two years, however, is far from impressive lol.

3) Attempt to get the resume to fit on one page. While a two page resume isn't wrong, you are so close to one page now you may as well fit it on one page. You should be able to do this easily by making the left margin smaller, putting the address, cel number, and email on one line and increasing the width where the text wraps in the Responsibilites section.
Every resume I've seen has split up contact information (at the top) on separate lines. It seems a bit odd to smash it all on one line. Could you give an example of what this would look like (formatting and all)?

If you need more space, consider removing the blurb for Method Solutions (i.e. Method Solutions is a ... Method Solutions is contracted by... ). I personally don't think this adds anything to your resume. Remember this is about you, not about how great Method Solutions is.
Good point also. I was attempting to express that I somewhat enjoyed the time I worked there, but I can see it being interpreted in this way. I've simplified the description of the company a bit, I might post an updated version later and you could see that it is much better if you want.

Thanks for all of your continued support, it's very helpful.

My comment about moving the address, phone, and email onto one line is just to allow more room to get it all on one page. You probably had enough after removing the company blurb.

Still having all on one line can work too (see the attached screenshot).

I've looked on job boards both as an employee and an employer. I see lots of adds that have been uploaded in .doc format, and the OCR'd (Optical Character Recognition) to turn them into machine readable text format, so they can be scanned.

Bullets never turn out right, and I've seen all types. Just indent sections for clarity.

Well I'll definitely be sending my resume in PDF format to preserve the exact machine-independent look I want.

Couldn't open it from the link provided. You could always zip it up and attach it.

Couldn't open it from the link provided. You could always zip it up and attach it.

I actually tried that, PDFs are apparently already compressed. It was still over 100KB. I'll have to think of some other alternatives. Sorry about the mess.

If I look at that resume one more time, I might have to hire you. :)

Seriously, I'm sure it looks fine. Go out and nail that interview. :wave:

I increased the size of a PDF upload to 204800. That should help ;)

Brad!

Thanks a ton. I've attached the PDF now :)

Here's the top section, OCR'd courtesy of OneNote 2007.

See what I mean? Arrgh!

I see what you mean. However I feel like my resume will be ugly and plain without the bullet points. In all of the situations I've been in, no one has messed with the format of my resume. I either get emails from job seekers through monster.com which forward my resume to the real employers. In other cases, I email companies directly with my resume.