Liz Campanelli ⋅ East Brunswick, NJ Johnson & Johnson ⋅ 25 years experience

Dear Alex,

Many thanks for all your service and Happy New Year! I will be happy to rework that résumé for you if that would help. I have a strong corporate background and I work with Veterans and transitioning military on résumés all the time. I will focus a cleaner objective with your skills and experience laid out in a format that is conducive to the specific applicant tracking systems that companies now use. Let me know your thoughts.

Regards,
Liz Campanelli

Anna Jacobs ⋅ Cupertino, CA Waddell & Reed ⋅ 17 years experience

Hi Alex
I found your resume to be very good. It is clean and attractive

As far as content is concerned, I agree with some of the suggestions; such as, expanding the objective and including your current education. However, i disagree with removing the skills, education, awards, volunteer and references sections. These help to create an image of you more so than an autobiography; in my opinion.

Graphically, I think if you simply adjusted the line spacing in your skills section and removed your street address then the Experience section might all fit on the first page. However with the expansion of the Objective (i liked the suggestion of "to utilize my four years of military and supervisory service to help a company with its technical needs) you might need to add columns to the Skills & Abilities.

Sharon Parker ⋅ Roanoke, TX IBM ⋅ 25 years experience

Hi, Alex, thank you for your service.

In January when you begin working on your degree, you might consider asking your professors which companies they would recommend you contact to discuss possible internships in the network infrastructure realm. If they are teaching in this field, you can bet they know some folks with this expertise. Also, if there are adjunct professors, they often hold full-time jobs and might have several contacts in this area. Good luck!

Alex Lee ⋅ Lafayette, IN U.S. Marine Corps, Sergeant ⋅ 4 years served

Thanks to everyone for your help. Rewriting it, will post again.

Thomas Kunich ⋅ San Leandro, CA U.S. Air Force, Airman ⋅ 6 years served

It looked pretty good to me. I would look at some of the other suggestions here but to tell you the truth if you put a resume in to 2 dozen different companies you would get 2 dozen different demands for information besides what you've listed. Or even more irritating, without ever talking to you they want you to fill out forms that contain your entire life history and could easily be used to steal your identity. I've been in electronics for so long that my resume was hitting 12 pages long and I was told to shorten it up. So I shortened it to 3 pages. As a person new to the civilian employment scene you sound serious about working and I would urge you to take night classes in engineering rather than IT in general. The pay is better and will be around for the rest of your life. They are very likely to automate IT.

Emanuel Carpenter ⋅ Alpharetta, GA SDR Master Class ⋅ 20 years experience

Hey Alex - You've created a good template for starters. Now you just need to hone in on a few things.

It appears that you've combined a skills resume and a chronological resume. I've been out of the military long enough to not fully understand what you did in the Marines and what type of job you're looking for. As a recruiter or a hiring manager, I would be asking if you fixed radios and how that translates into a civilian job. Most of all, what kind of job do you want today?

Just a few pointers here: 1. Delete the address. You only need the city and state. 2. Delete the LinkedIn link. It's too long and makes the resume look clunky. 3. Change the objective or delete it altogether. How about something like "to utilize my four years of military and supervisory service to help a company with its technical needs." 4. Delete the Skills and Abilities section. 5. Narrow down your experience to the top four bullet points. 6. Delete "OLA Meters, Lafayette, IN" at the bottom of Page 1. 7. Change your education to the current program you're in and mention your projected graduation date and degree or certificate you will obtain. Delete everything else in the Education section. If you're in college, a high school diploma is assumed. If you were in the military, military training is assumed. 8. Delete the Volunteered section. 9. Delete the References section.

Based on your four years of military experience, there is no way you should have a two-page resume. If you've seen a job posting for a job you believe you are qualified to do, feel free to lift those exact required skills and replace the bullet points on your current resume. If you're looking for more than one type of job, it is okay to have more than one type of resume. Would an internship be an option? What about relocating or commuting to Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, or Champaign? How about a job that is completely different from what you did in the military? Just a few things to consider.

Please feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn, and I will gladly connect you to some career resources I know can help you. My profile is www.linkedin.com/in/ercarpenter.

Merry Vickers ⋅ Richardson, TX Dallas Police Department - City of Dallas prior to starting with Raytheon 2017 ⋅ 18 years experience

Thank you for your service.

Give your resume a format change and lead with a summary that outlines your skills and qualifications. Share generalities from past positions to translate how it will be beneficial in new roles, like skills, duties, projects or management. Use clear civilian language to describe your career objectives, but highlight key wording from job descriptions and any accomplishments you have achieved. Keep the verbiage in present tense and have others read through it for feedback. If you can pursue any volunteer opportunities, contract jobs, certifications or even CEU (Continuing Education Units) courses will show how interested you are and make recruiters take notice.

Large companies have numerous professional development opportunities of all kinds, like Raytheon. Look at all the positions offered, not just specific jobs and you will be amazed at the possibilities. Once you find any position, take advantage of in-house professional development and training programs which always shows management that you are willing to do and learn more.

Kindest regards,
Merry Vickers

Jacinda Chan ⋅ Sacramento, CA TruthOut ⋅ 5 years experience

1. Put the job title you are applying to in the objective.

2. Put your current education you are currently going for along with the course titles you have taken and are currently taking. This shows you know some fundamentals about IT.

3. Elaborate on the new information technology you helped implement.

The whole point of a resume is to give concrete facts about your knowledge and skills for why you would be a good candidate for a job. It is good to tweak your resume for each job. Also, if the application requires a cover letter, that is just as important. If you need help with that, message me.

Drew Schildwächter ⋅ Wilmington, NC Salesforce ⋅ 8 years experience

I think you should use the stuff that applies for your résumé. I only put the Foreign Advisor Course on mine when I was applying for consulting jobs because I thought it added to the general flavor of consulting.

Remember your résumé is all about catching someone's attention or piquing their interest in speaking with you. So make your choices about what to include with that in mind. "What makes me seem like I fit here" or "what will make the hiring authority want to talk to me?"

Alex Lee ⋅ Lafayette, IN U.S. Marine Corps, Sergeant ⋅ 4 years served

Do I have too much military in the resume, like awards, field radio operator course and professional military education?

Drew Schildwächter ⋅ Wilmington, NC Salesforce ⋅ 8 years experience

Alex: your objective is pretty vague. I would ditch it and instead write a short, powerful summary of who are.

Unless you want to work for Harris, your radio skills might not matter a whole lot on their own. Still, you have leadership, discipline, and technical aptitude. Three things that should be pretty attractive for any entry-level IT job.

A concise, powerful summary and some tuned up bullet points (powerful, active verbs with concrete outcomes) will go a long way to conveying the value you can bring to an organization. If you're in school and looking for entry-level job then you don't really need to sell what you know, as much as your potential to be a productive and motivated employee. You have that in spades, just write it out.

Good luck!

Neil Serafin ⋅ Easthampton, MA Telecommunications ⋅ 40 years experience

Instead of Radio Wave Fundamentals....Broadband RF, Basic AC/DC Circuits....suggest you look at Cell Phone Companies.....Part Time....5G IT will be big for next 30 years. Good luck.

Sriram Iyer ⋅ Menlo Park, CA Trantor, Inc. ⋅ 29 years experience

Thank you for your service Alex. Once you revise your resume as per John's advice, please send me a copy. I have some contacts in Carmel, IN that I can introduce you to. they could be helpful in providing one-on-one guidance and maybe even an entry level opportunity in the area.

Alex Lee ⋅ Lafayette, IN U.S. Marine Corps, Sergeant ⋅ 4 years served

I'll start trying to relate my skills better to an IT help desk because that's what I'm going for right now. What do you think about the layout of the resume?

John Green ⋅ Cary, NC Information Technology ⋅ 40 years experience

Your resume needs to document market-demanded skills. Unfortunately, there is not many requirements for RF engineers in the IT field. What this means is, you need to acquire skills people are looking to hire.

Such as Cyber-security engineer.

http://www.umuc.edu/academic-programs/cyber-security/index.cfm

Having a resume document that details skills the market is not looking for is not going to help you.