i hav no qualifications,& little experience could you pls look over my CV?

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Hi cert forums,

I am currently working on my MCDST along with comptia a+ and n+. Alot to take in but im working hard on them. especially the comptia's before the end of the year.

I am looking to get my first 'real' job in IT with no qualifications and very little work history experience. my career has taken me from labouring,carpentry, and every crap job out there but not office or retail or IT work.

I have taught myself everything I no, apart from GCSE IT. Computers has always been my hobby, and people I know would say im good with them and very technical. I should be working in the industry as it makes me happy.

Could you guys check out my current cv , and be honest. I would like some feedback because I'm not getting any reply s from jobserve or planet recruit. (i assume its because everyone else applying for Entry level jobs have the relevant qualifications and experience)

what can i do certforums to boost my chances to at least get a callback. anything I can do to my CV? I no my experience is zilch, and i dont have qualifications. shall I try and volunteer?? How can I express I do have customer service skills and appeal to a potential employer?

any and all advice is sooo welcomed right now as im miffed. but its making me focus more on my study.

cheers,
scouse.

 

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I am no expert in CV or hiring stuff but these are my first impressions:

1) The email / name is no appropriate (i don't know if that was just put in for display purposes) - it should be something like [email protected]

2) You don't need so much blurb. Also get rid of the caps everywhere!! You should keep I am interested in building a career + mention that you worked doing i.t. work in this section.

3) Inprogress - nobody cares. Has your exam been booked? Put an exam date. Realistically you would be working on one at a time?

4) What were you recognised for and when, where?

5) I would put your I.T. experiance nearer the top with concrete examples of what you skills are. There are books out there 1000 pages long just about TCP / IP. What do you know about it? No point just listing Network Security? What have you done in network security. Its to general.

6) Perhaps you could even wittle it down to one page. Easy to read with the most important stuff on it.

 

Hiya Scouse

Lots of errors you could fix in there. Plenty of errors involving grammar from the quick skim I performed. There are peeps much better though at this than me so hopefully they can give you better feedback.

You say things like "sorting and delivering are my main responsibilities" when you no longer work for this particular company or do this job any more. Did not really like the first section in full caps either.

Where you say "eradicate virus", it sounds like a command. Maybe you could put something like "virus and spyware removal" instead?

As I said, I noticed quite a few errors in each section that you should be able to sort out if you go through it slowly. I would also suggest taking it to a few people you know and have them pick at it as well as us online.

I tend to start with a personal statement and then highlight my skills and experience, I then do the education qualifications bit and then do the last couple of jobs and what they involved keeping it short and to the point. Lastly I list my references.

I do not like your skills being right at the bottom, shift it up up up!

On the job websites it pays to fill in all of the sections on your online profile even though they are boring. I think it just helps them find you. Also remember to put your cv on there as searchable by recruiters and apply for things even if you may be missing the odd skill required as I find recruiters love buzzwords and half the time they are requiring a MCSE for 1st line! If you don't have all of the skills required then let them do the sorting, apply anyway you may get lucky.

 

thank you Jiser & dalsoth. I am now working on a revised version. I have de-capped my opening statement. I just thought it would stand out being in caps.
Jiser, im finding it difficult to keep my CV below 2 pages if I start trying to explain every bullet point.
an example if i were to explain my "skills" such as troubleshooting would read something like:

Whilst working with ***** I had to solve various customers queires with their computer systems. Be it a hardware fault requiring an upgrade, or a windows software conflict. I had to figure out their issues,sometimes with very little information to go on. The magority of the work was in-house, but occationally I had to solve issues over the telephone.
& i do agree, it is too general. I can take apart a computer and build one from scratch, build a network,only on a basic level tho. I thought bullet pointing things I have worked on and familiar with it would look good on my cv?

dalsoth
Thank you for finding grammar errors!

so you think insead of bullet pointing the "skills" section I should take it apart and explain each one more clearly?

 

I bullet pointed my skills with a line next to each. If they want me to go into details about past situations where I have used these skills then they can invite me to interview and I will gladly elaborate.

example:

• Experience of setting up and maintaining TCP/IP networks.
• Many years experience of troubleshooting and resolving computer and network problems.


I have found that these agencies who vet you first will be looking for words such AD, DHCP etc.. I make sure that I mention all this stuff on the bullet pointed one liners highlighting my skills. I also found that many employers did not actually see my real CV, they were given amended versions or none at all by the agencies.

 

loveing the advice, will update shortly !!!

 

a lot of what I would say has already been said. but perhaps a couple more.

This whole "keep your cv to one page (or two)" is bollocks. Ignore it, it becomes impossible as your experience grows. They key fact of the message, which has become distorted over time by people who clearly dont have a clue, is to keep it short. Employers dont want an essay, they want a condensed document of experience, and be able to see the salient points at a glance. That doesn't equal "Two pages or less". Doing so will just mean you miss vital information.

I've said it before, and it appears that I'll say it on every cv thread. I hate personal pronouns anywhere except the profile section (and even then I would look at ways of losing it).

Lose the borders. It looks ugly, and will certainly be ripped out by agencies anyway, so why bother?

Lose the references section. its unnecessary - employers expect that to be the case.

Verbal and oral are the same thing.

You have three certs marked as "in progress". You know what this says to me? Flighty! You cannot conceivably be studying for three exams, and hope to make decent progress in any. You should pick one and obtain it, then focus on the others. This goes in general, but also should be the case on the CV.

And? For anything you specify as an "achievement" consider this very question being asked by an interviewer. If you cant provide the answer, dont include it. Equally, try to make it so they dont have to even ask it. So you met or exceeded performance goals, so what? No-one knows what those goals are. they could have been "turn up on time", "make the tea" for all we know. It says nothing of any substance.

This is grammatically incorrect, and reads as disjointed.

I also agree that job responsibilities should be past tense for all but the current role.

 

Hi certforums,
I have tried again and revamped my CV. Done away with the boarders,CAPSLOCK,and haven't used pronouns. How does it read now?

Im still not happy with it, does it just look like a load of bullsh** bullet points with no real evidence backed up by experience?
I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

I really do appreciate the time and effort you guys are making. I do value your input.

 

Your work history is totally out of order, that needs to be sorted. Either most recent first (preferred) or last, and all other in order.

sounds like a come-on.

I would also include months on your job histories (March 2009 - April 2010)

 

lol good point mm I put the I.T job first because it was most relevant. I will change the ordering then, chronological.

I'm finding it difficult to word curtain sentences without using pronouns or sounding like a hooker..

 

agreed, lose "whatever it takes" unless your morals are that loose obviously....

This line reads very oddly to me.... does that mean you've got experience configuring local user accounts in XP and 7? or has something just gone a bit wonky?

 

Just think about how a responsibility would be listed in a job advert. Thats the kind of tone you are going for. If you have the jobspec available theres no reason you cant crib that for a starter.

 

m yeah that does sound odd. I was trying to say how I have created and modified user accounts, privileges, what group to put the users in for appropriate permissions within XP.
this is a random job advert I just found advertising for 1st line support.

1st Line Support Engineer; Weybridge Area Surrey; required to join a leading well established UK FTSE listed company and provide first line telephone support to user across a range of user applications, Microsoft Win Server AD/Active Directory, etc with occasional field duties. You will have a good basic exposure to IT Support as an active member of a help desk or first line support team environments. Good communication skills, telephone manner, general PC knowledge, call and support ticket logging, basic Win Server AD ( Account creation/PW reset), TCP IP, MS Office, Win XP, good organisation and troubleshooting skills. Excellent role with a leader in UK business, large user base and multi sites, great exposure and skill builing environment to develop in.

 

Keeping the content clear and concise is the way to go, but stressing that a CV should "only be 2 pages" leads people to producing ****e cv's without relevant information on them. Give someone a tangible limit and they will invariably omit information that might be relevant (or reduce the font size until it all fits, which is just as bad). Teach them to recognise, and condense relevant information, and their CV's will be all the richer for it.

My CV is three pages, simply because it needs to be. I certainly dont suffer because of it. If its relevant to have 3, then it should be 3. If it really needs to be 4 or 5, then it should be. The key is to identify if that really should be the case and, how to address is when it isnt.

 

Absolutely. I currently fit 21 years of work experience on two pages (covering *10* employers)... and the only reason I need a second page is for my sprawling certification list.

How do I do it? I list my skills separately from my employment. So for each employer, I've boiled down my position into one or two sentences. They don't need to know what specific packages I've worked on in my last job... they just need to know "Provided complete network solutions, installation, support and training" or "Managed projects and developed content for computer-based IT certification exam training software". What I can do is covered in my skills. And if they need details... that's what the interview is for.

If you feel you simply HAVE to have 3 pages, or 5 pages, or 9 pages of info so you can convey every detail of what you've accomplished, that's all well and good... but realize that you've got approximately 15 seconds of my attention before I put you in the Keep or Cut stack, and I ain't readin' through paragraphs of job info.

Just my opinion, from the guy at the other end of the interview table.

 

so the consensus is, for my entry level applications, to keep my CV short and snappy? so to keep the interviewer's attention and make it into the "keep" stack of the piles!!!

how is my CV reading to you BosonMichael, Sparky, Fergal1982? is it looking better from the first draft? you guys obviously have oodles of experience and im keen to hear your thoughts...ta