Critique my resume!

[MarauderIIC]

It's gonna be printed on white linen paper. Here's the .doc version
avansc suggested customizing it per company for all the companies I'll give the resume to at the career fair, since I know who's gonna be there.

[Arce]

Very, very nice. I've never made or had to review one, so I'm not too sure what exactly to improve upon. But I do like how concise and organized it is.

Also, I like how you chaged '11' to

Microsoft Visual Studio, programming since childhood.

sounds alot better I think.

Also, do you want to cut back on shorthand, or no?

Skilled: C/C++, ASP.NET w/ C#, MySQL, HTML, JavaScript

I'd personlly leave it, but up to you. Pointing it out incase it was uninentional. ;p

Also, what's this for? Some kind of fair? Excuse me if you mentioned it somewhere, I've had a bad case of "oh shit my monitor just caught on fire"..

[MarauderIIC]

Career fair

[trufun202]

It's gonna be printed on white linen paper. Here's the .doc version
avansc suggested customizing it per company for all the companies I'll give the resume to at the career fair, since I know who's gonna be there.

I think this is perfect, and definitely add a references page.

Personally, I'm not really sure about customizing your resume for each company. You could run the risk of being completely wrong or making false assumptions about the company - plus if they pass it on to others, it might be too one-sided and not have the same impact.

That's just my .02 tho...either way, it looks great.

Good luck sir.

[dandymcgee]

Not everyone (like my cheapass) can open .docx files.

Oh come on trufun surely you know about this: http://www.openoffice.org/

Looking good Marauder. I wish you the best of luck.

[trufun202]

Not everyone (like my cheapass) can open .docx files.

Oh come on trufun surely you know about this: http://www.openoffice.org/

Looking good Marauder. I wish you the best of luck.

Yeah, of course I know about Open Office, but most business people don't...

[dandymcgee]

Yeah, of course I know about Open Office, but most business people don't...

Well, they should. It's all the power of Microsoft Office and more.. but it's free. Can't go wrong with free.

[deryni21]

Yeah, of course I know about Open Office, but most business people don't...

Well, they should. It's all the power of Microsoft Office and more.. but it's free. Can't go wrong with free.

very much agreed

[aamesxdavid]

Yeah, of course I know about Open Office, but most business people don't...

Well, they should. It's all the power of Microsoft Office and more.. but it's free. Can't go wrong with free.

Actually, I had a reality office send me an Open Office-specific document about renting an apartment, and the converter to Microsoft Word didn't even work, so I couldn't open it here. That, I think is stupid. Proprietary text file types = fail.

Anyway, I guess it really depends on what you're looking to do, but you can certainly thin it out a bit. A resume shouldn't contain all of the information relevant to the job, just the most relevant information. Someone should be able to skim through it in a few seconds and get an idea of your experience. Things like specific course's grades and professors clutter a resume, giving an overly detailed example for the amount of space it's taking up.

Another important rule: Never, ever ever ever ever ever repeat anything (see what I did there?). This is particularly the case with your summary. I personally have never used one; I think between a resume and a cover letter, there's no need. But if they want to know your GPA, etc., they know where to find it - in the "Education" section. Regardless of how impressive it is, you only need to show it once.

Basically, you need to think of your resume as a piece of land - if a shack takes up as much space as a mansion, which would you rather have there? Sure you could load it with dozens of houses, but chances are you'll want some breathing room in there. Blank space can be your friend. Don't worry about packing it with all the info you can; there's really only so much they need to know.

As a final note, you want your resume to be as specific to you as possible. Most of these companies see hundreds of resumes a week, you have but seconds to make them think you're better than everyone else, so efficiency is key here. The chances that at least a handful of other people got an A in whatever class, or worked at Domino's, etc.: pretty likely. Give the absolute most basic education/work info, then add in the most important personal experience that is unique to you (while leaving enough space that there's more white than black on the page), and you're well set up to impress in a flash.

Sorry, I went and got long-winded again. Resumes and cover letters are something I feel very strongly about. I'm not trying to be overly-critical, so I apologize if it came off that way. In any case, good luck with your search.

[eatcomics]

Looks pretty good to me but what do I know I'm fourteen... You have had a lot of experience it seems though.... Keep it up

[eatcomics]

Looks pretty good to me but what do I know I'm fourteen... You have had a lot of experience it seems though.... Keep it up

[MarauderIIC]

Most of my professors have directly worked with local companies, hence the name-dropping. Also career fair went well, I have a couple interviews (DoD and an Indiana-based company) slated for tomorrow, thanks. I think the chance to talk with the employers while handing them my resume helped vs some of the things that david mentioned. Thanks for the critiques; I'll make some more changes in the future too :)