Jim wrote regarding 'Re: [SLE] Networking question' on Tue, Aug 24 at 11:27:
Matt T. Duval wrote:
If you spent half the time looking for a job as you do on this list you might find one. Also your resume is sadly in need of repair. You list 4 job positions in your opening statement. Does the word desperate come to mind? Especially when 1 of the 4 is "...or other appropriate position..." You also say "...delivered multimillion dollar projects..." and then list as your first skill "PC setup."
As I said, I welcome all suggestions. My resume has gone through numerous mutations since I've been looking. The latest one was worked over pretty good by a recruiter that got me an interview at J&J in NJ. They loved it, as have a few other companies. I don't like it myself, but it appears to appeal to corporate types, who like PC setup. I'm astonished at the positive comments I've gotten on my resume.
I'll toss in here that, while I read all resumes submitted for jobs that we advertise, I know some who throw them out if they're more than a couple of pages long (you get 3 pages - 1 cover letter and maybe 2 resume) or if the resume doesn't look like the "standard" resume (brief summary of education, work experience, and skills). Personally, I like having the "short story" version, as it helps me more easily filter out who is a good potential for an interviwe v/s who isn't. I'm much more likely to pick someone who's "almost" there with a story than someone who makes me guess with their resume. Yours is darned long, though. Trim it down. I'd be bored by the third page and skip the rest. :) Just MHO, of course.
I spend time here because I spend a lot of time pushing my Linux skills, disputable as they may be. I keep trying to push myself into new technologies (to me anyway) so I can list them as skills. Quite honestly, I've learned an enormous amount on this list and even get to return the favor by helping others sometimes. It's not easy picking up skills in relative isolation; the internet is a wonderful tool. This seems like a better use of free time than lots of other things I could think of.
And this is why I'm posting to the list. Developing skills on your own time is far and away the best way to learn. I learned a lot of technologies by being my own sysadmni at home, running a full blown web server, sendmail (which is now postfix), LDAP server, NIS before that, etc. All sorts of overkill that I didn't really need as a home user, but that I wanted to learn about. Guess who got a good job before finishing his degree? Hint - it's not the person who read some books and never spent time actually using technology... It's the person who went to user group meetings and just listened. All of that stuff that went over my head at first wasn't lost - it was put away on the list of "things that I don't know yet". IMHO, there's quite a lot to be gained from more completely knowing what you don't know. If you don't know what you could know, then you'll probably never know as much as you could know. --Danny, rambling...