Topic: Yet Another resume thread

[incognito]

Hey, I am currently polishing my resume (copied Canucks' layout). I would like your guys' opinion, if i should change some of the wording etc. I feel it may be a bit too crowded. You guys let me know.

[KnuckleBuckett]

Looks very nice.

I personally don't really dig the personal skills section.  Never been into the flowery "what you are supposed to say" stuff.  I look for something a little more meaty.

I might remove all but the last line renaming the header something like Special Skills.  Having multiple languages is often an exceptional positive!

Maybe...

Special Skills

Proven group coordination and leadersip abilities
Strong communication skills both written and oral. English and Spanish

Just a suggestion.  Looks to me as if you have a successful resume either way!

G'luck!

Knuck

[salvelinus]

I'm guessing this is a resume for European firms? So maybe there could be some different expectations for a resume, don't know.
1. Order of priorities is wrong. Education should come first, and who cares about your high school (unless it has a super reputation for your field).
2. Work Experience next.
There are no specifics here. Spell out what you did - "Developed and implemented point of sale merchandise tracking".
For example:

Responsible for overseeing the development cycle of projects and
successfully deploying them in production in a J2EE environment

What the heck does that mean? What projects? What exactly did you do?
3.Personal skills
Who cares? Bilingualism is good, though. That's a big plus.
4. Computer skills
Need to pare this down. Instead of claiming you know 2 dozen languages, emphasize your familiarity with and ability to work with existing systems. You can tailor a resume for a specific employer, say one who wants web experience - if you can do it.

Look at the company and the job. Do you have what they want, & vice versa? Don't undersell yourself, but don't oversell yourself (by too much - a bit is good).

[charlie]

First, there is often an objective section as the first line of the resume. I'm ambivalent as to how helpful that is, but if you are using this resume for job fairs it might be appropriate.

Another idea to consider, that I like and have used myself, is a summary section at the top (under the objective if you have one). When I look at your resume I don't know what is important about you at a quick glance. With no objective and no summary I have to basically read the whole thing (a whole page omg! ). Your summary would be 3-4 lines like your Personal skills section. It might say something like:

• Experience developing and deploying web applications.
• Strong web programming skills including (1-3 of the most popular/difficult/important languages/technologies from your big list).
  
• Most important/accurate 1-3 personal skills in a nicely crafted sentence.

I actually don't mind the Personal Skills section, since it does tell me about the person. For example, on my own resume I would never put hard-working under such a section, but I would put good attention to detail or strong logic/problem solving skills. From the Personal Skills section of your current resume I might deduce that you are somewhat the opposite (definitely not a bad thing ). If you include a summary, you might not need a personal skills section, since you can add a line (or maybe two) into the summary that encompasses the important points.

For the bachelor degree, I might put the expected data of graduation instead of 2003-Present and the semester, unless that is the standard way of doing things where you are. Something like "Expected June 2007".

Finally, the comments under the High School in Education seem like work experience. Maybe just make that section smaller (one line each) and add the high school work experience to the work experience section. Either that or remove the high school work experience completely and add more detail for the more recent work experience you have.

Overall I'd say it is good. The only thing that I really think needs to be done is something to be added to the top so the first thing that you read is not a long list of Programming skills. After that just consider some of the ideas presented to see what sounds good to you.

Good luck!