I've been taking a couple day break since completing the first Network Acadamy course, and both ICND traning videos to start the process of developing a Resume that fits within the scope of employment I'm after. It's tough creating a resume when you don't have any real work experience. In fact I don't think I've ever designed or created a resume, so this is a new experience for me. As a Salesman your resume is yourself, which to me is the best resume, but not enough for this business.

I spent a little time today creating a dynamic list of different objectives and skill sets I feel I could contribute to future employers and categorized them into 3 areas. General, Networking, and Security. For the past couple years I've been deeply interested in Network Security so I want to represent my desire to somewhat be involved with general employee based policy training and education.

My wife and I have conflicting ideas oh the my opening objective statement. She's a teacher, and former customer service worker so she feel's I need to put in more feel good, hire me, move up the latter, hard worker content. But I seem to think that because I have no actual work experience I need to objectively portray my desires and goal's in a more content based manner. Which leads me to asking you guys, what do you think? When applying for jobs with no practical work experience how do you accurately depict your skills and separate yourself from the rest as the right candidate?

what is your email? I can send you my resume since I was in a similar situation when I received my CCNA no networking work experience

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"I will prepare and some day my chance will come." - Abraham Lincoln
http://danielhertzberg.wordpress.com - I blog about networks!

vitocorleoner at gmail

send me yours, i'll tell you how bad it sucks and reply with mine

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http://blog.alwaysthenetwork.com

sent. scottjsee at gmail

In December of 2008 my last employer closed and i was unemployed for over 8 months looking for work. I spent tons of time going over my resume and fine-tuning it. I think the single best reference I found online that made a huge difference was the below link. There is a total of 10 post and #4 goes over each section of a resume and how to address them.

No it is not geared towards IT or tech resumes but it helped me correct a ton of mistakes in my resume.

http://www.squawkfox.com/2008/12/18/ana ... er-resume/

hope it helps

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http://blog.movingonesandzeros.net/

jeez, you must be a networking rockstar.

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"I will prepare and some day my chance will come." - Abraham Lincoln
http://danielhertzberg.wordpress.com - I blog about networks!

duh

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http://blog.alwaysthenetwork.com

Great link, I'll look at it more when I'm sober!

The format, style, font, etc of your resume is sometimes almost as important as the content. Whatever you do, don't use one of the MS Office resume templates. If you'd like, I kept some sample resumes of how they should be done from college, I could send them on to you.

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A flute with no holes is not a flute. And, a doughnut with no hole is a Danish.

Yeah, that would be great. Mine sucks..

heheh!! just for shit write it drunk and then review in a week or better yet post so we can all get a in on the fun!!

In between my CCNP tests i did multiple labs pretty wasted and never got them fully working. then the next day or a couple days later i would take another look at them and see some of the weirdest shit in the configs. It was actually quite amusing!!


Back to the resume though...

I have about 4 different resumes and cover letters built up, each focused on different areas of my experience. My experience sections are also broken down into categories based on areas of technology (ex Windows, Linux, Security, Networking etc...) so that i can add/remove and order them based on each job i apply for. I always keep my resume shorter than 2 pages with my main focus on my experience and just brief overviews with accomplishments in the job history.

Remember those looking through the resumes for a job post usually only spend a minute or less per resume for initial interviews. So you need to make your resume stand out and give them the most information as quickly as possible. Just my two cents.

hope this helps

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http://blog.movingonesandzeros.net/

Right.. I'm on board with that. But my main focal question is how do you make a resume stand out without actual work experience for a networking job?. It feel's like I'm trying to build a sandcastle with all sand an no water. I know the content, but don't have anything to back it up, and the last thing I'm going to do is lie on the Resume and fabricate experience.

At the resume's I've looked at everyone lists their valued achievements at the very top. CCIE, CCNP, 10 years routing/switching experience, masters degree, etc. The type of eye-catching skills an employer is after that will get you put in the maybe list. I know skills and experience all comes with time, but what's killing me is trying to put together a dynamic resume that makes me stand out along side others who have work experience so I can get hired and begin. I've tried writing an Objective statement, but it's cheesy. I've created experience category bullets and listed 3 of my strongest qualities in each. But there is nothing I can do about where I've previously worked unless I want to go after something that has direct negotiations. But, whatever.. I'm going to go read the rest of my ICND1 book now. That's more important.

I have this as my objective statement, first thing on my resume after my name:



Laugh if you like. I'm gainfully employed by an employer who's currently paying for me to get a CCIE.

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blog.brokennetwork.ca

Mine's more like an Objective Paragraph, I'm going to shorten it and make it more direct and to the point. The more I read it, the more I hate it..



Edit:

Better? Worse? or, just stop because you're embarrassing yourself...

I'd make it a little bit shorter. I'm bored in the middle

Amongst a good resume, connections are what is going to help a lot too, if not even more.

Given I did not have many job changes yet, but for my current job I did not even have to write an application. I just had to call my former boss and got the interview cause I knew the right people. Did not have any cert so far, "only" a diploma in IT and 5 years of experience. The interview then is where you really have to proof yourself

Get yourself a linkedin profile, join groups, participate within the groups, get connections and so on. Integrate your blogposts here into linkedin so your connections see what you're doing. That should help too.

Building your own professional network can help you

regards

Michel

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http://ccie20728.wordpress.com/

so no practical work experience in the field ? have you ever touched a router ? switch ? then you have network experience. ever connected a server to the network ? more network experience. ever touched a PC ? then you have hardware experience, configuration experience, software...

need to get imaginative, find any excuse for experience and expound on that.

Yeah, I see your point.

I have the exact opposite problem...last time I sat down to update my resume I ended up with like 6 pages since most of mine is just experience

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The best part about telling UDP jokes is I don't really care if you get them or not.

haha I like it

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The best part about telling UDP jokes is I don't really care if you get them or not.