AboutKathleen MacNaughton Expertise As an experienced healthcare recruiter and manager, as well as owner of one of the most popular resume help websites on the Web, I can answer questions about how to write a resume and/or cover letter, job interview tips, and other general job hunting and career topics.
Experience As a health care senior executive, I recruited hundreds of staff for a home care agency, both professional and non-professional. I also own a successful website about writing resumes and related job hunting topics that has more than 100,000 unique visitors a month. I am a freelance writer specializing in the areas of resumes, cover letters, and job interviews.
Education/Credentials BS degree in Nursing from Syracuse University
23 credits completed towards a Masters in Nursing Administration at Villanova University
Numerous seminars and conferences dealing with recruitment, resumes, job interviews
I was hoping you are willing to assist a fellow "expert" (i help out in the technology section - cheers!) Anyhow, I am trying to build an effective resume, one that highlights both my technical skills as well as my leadership prowess.
Can you review my resume (please forgive the formatting, text version looks like crud) and let me know what you would change, if anything?
I have made several attempts to reduce the size to one page, but I cannot seem to becuase of the sheer volume of info I feel I need to provide. Currently, it is two pages in a Word formatted document, with good spacing and easy to read fonts. Thoughts on that as well?
My Name
Phone: ###-###-####
Web: www.linkedin.com/in/myname
Email: email@address.com
OBJECTIVE
----------------------
Certified professional seeks management role within a financially strong and stable organization; Targeting an organization that values their employee’s development by offering learning and growth opportunities; Ready and waiting to utilize 9 years of experience to positively impact an organizations bottom-line.
SUMMARY OF RECENT ACCOMPLISHMENTS
--------------------------------------
- Developed a single “switch” mechanism to failover the entire datacenter to a DR site during an emergency.
- Deployed first virtual environment to consolidate hardware, expand scalability and reduce associated costs by over 50%.
- Implemented a new Service Desk to streamline problem, asset and change management and improve customer satisfaction.
- Successfully negotiated over $25,000 in concessions from three different vendors after they failed to meet expectations, including $6,500 towards a single $15,500 invoice, saving the organization over 40% on the procured item.
- In first year (working part-time), generated new accounts that increased profits by over 15%.
- Designed and marketed programs that account for over 10% of expected yearly income.
- And much, MUCH MORE!!! (See Professional Experience section)
CURRENT AREAS OF FOCUS
--------------------------------------
- Project Planning and Management
- I/T Service Desk and Support Team Management
- Disaster Recovery, High Availability and Data Backups
- Virtualization and Consolidation: VMware’s Infrastructure
3 (ESX Server) and Workstation 6; Microsoft’s Virtual Server R2
- Software Administration: Microsoft Windows server
(NT/2000/2003); Microsoft Windows clients
(NT/2000/XP/Vista); Microsoft Active Directory and Group
Policy; Microsoft Exchange server (2000/2003);
Microsoft Office (2000/2002/2003) including
Access database design in SQL server environments
- Storage Management: SAN, Fiber channel, ISCSI, etc.
- Hardware Administration: Servers, PCs, Printers, etc.
- Network Administration (wired and wireless): Switches,
Routers, Firewalls, Access Points, IPS, Ethernet, 802.11a/b/g wireless, Bluetooth, etc.
- Security Administration: VPN, IPS, data encryption, biometrics, policies, auditing
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
----------------------
DATES: 2000 – Present
TITLE: Sr. Systems Administrator
COMPANY: IPC (ipcrx.com)
-Business Management: Handled vendor account analysis, budgeting, price negotiation, bill keeping, payments, etc.; Recruited and directed support personnel in the design, deployment and management of technology; Designed organization's Disaster Recovery and High Availability strategy
-Career Advancement: First 5 years - IT Specialist-->Network and Systems Administrator-->Sr. Systems Administrator
-Network Management: Within first week, doubled speed, reliability and QOS by correctly configuring switch architecture; Expanded network infrastructure by incorporating 802.11 a/b/g wireless, gigabit elements
-Organizational Skills: Established and maintained software licensing compliance, hardware maintenance agreements, purchasing records, trouble tickets, contracts, asset tracking, etc
-Project Management: Introduced first virtual environment (VMware and Microsoft) saving over 50% on infrastructure costs; Upgraded Microsoft Windows NT domain/servers --> 2003; Microsoft Exchange 5.5 --> 2003;
Windows NT clients --> Vista; Microsoft Office 98 --> 2007; and MORE!;
-Security Planning: Deployed VPNs, IPS, data encryption, biometrics, policies, auditing, etc; Formalized corporate policies for email, security, auditing, network usage, etc
-Service Desk: Implemented Altiris help desk suite to streamline problem, asset and change management; Improved end user satisfaction by providing single-point-of-contact, newsletters, issue tracking, etc.
-Systems Management: Created High Availability options using VMware V-Motion, SANs, fault tolerance, etc; Improved administration via automated patch distribution, scripting, Group Policies, etc; Lowered spam by 95% using real-time spam black lists, white lists, filters, policies, etc.
DATES: 2001 – Present
TITLE: Part-Time Technology Service Director
COMPANY: RUWIRED (ruwired.biz)
-Business Management: In first year, generated new accounts that increased profits by 15%; Recruited and directed support personnel in the design, deployment and management of technology
-Charity Work: Provided free consulting, installation and troubleshooting for Tri-State Christian School; Donated DR implementation plans to Western Technical College for their I/T curriculum
-Consulting: Designed, implemented and managed
small-to-mid-sized Microsoft Windows networks; Provided troubleshooting and project planning for a wide variety of I/T projects
-Marketing: Developed marketing strategies, brochures, business cards, promotional materials, etc
-Project Management: Provided project planning and management for customers’ IT infrastructure modifications
Dates: 2006 – Present
Title: Part-Time Technical Author
Company: Multiple online organizations (primarily TechTarget.com and AllExperts.com)
-Site Expert: Answer technical questions posed by TechTarget.com 's and AllExperts.com’s members
-Technical Writer: Author of technical articles / tips (One article generated over 10K hits in one month)
-Nominated 10 times for “expert of the month” within the first month
OTHER NOTABLE EXPERIENCE
----------------------
- Dates: July 1999 - April 2000
Title: Network Support Specialist
Company: Royle Printing (royle.com)
Royle Communications is a graphics design and printing company based in Sun Prairie, WI.
- Dates: January 1999 - July 1999
Title: Associate Support Engineer
Company: Sitel (sitel.com)
SITEL Communications is an agency in Madison, WI that provides Customer Relations Management (CRM) services.
Answer Hi Tim,
Nice to meet you, fellow expert! I wouldn't worry about reducing your resume to 1 page. 1 to 2 pages is perfectly acceptable. Going beyond 2 pages can be problematic, although I can see that within a few years, you might need to do that to outline all of your accomplishments. :-)
I think you've done a great job of quantifying achievements. That can be really powerful on a resume and so much more impactful than just listing job duties.
A couple of editorial suggestions:
-- I'd list your technical writing first, as that is your most recent experience, then the ruwired.biz job. A resume should go last to first, and even though all of those jobs are still ongoing, they should be listed in reverse order of when they started.
-- I'd leave out the "And MORE!" phrases in the 2 places where you used it. Instead, I'd use the cover letter to say something like, "The enclosed resume only brushes the surface of my achievements, skills, and job responsibilities. I can provide many more examples and information at the time of the interview." That will enable you to shorten your resume a bit perhaps, but also will build curiosity and is basically asking for an interview and giving them a reason to do so.
One final note... there's a lot of info here and lots of achievements, which is great and speaks to your skill level. My only caution would be to guard against coming off arrogant or bragging. Just be sure that everything you put on your resume is absolutely factual and that it and your cover letter exude confidence and capability, but not cockiness. Sometimes a fine line, but an important one. As I read it now, I DO feel you've achieved that delicate balance, but I just wanted to put that suggestion out there for future reference. :-)
In summary, if I were a recruiter, I'd snap you up in a second!
