I just re-worked my resume (see other thread on job searching) and I got all stumbled while trying to get a consistent voice.
I felt the need to say “I did this” a couple times versus my old-style “did this” or “this got done”. The latter are more passive, I guess, but they’re what I’m used to. I went back a re-did all the resume changing all the passive stuff to first person but it feels funny to me. Unprofessional?
So, what’s better and is there a “Plan C” I haven’t considered?
[Quote=New Method]
I consolidated and migrated nearly 1400 filesystems served by 7 Network Appliance filers into one Isilon file server. This required cross-department coordination as downtime and alteration of every client system was necessary. Since my skills include the operating system, the systems administration teams weren’t required.
[/quote]
No need to use the word I. Start with the verb. Your original examples are fine. Your name and address are all over the thing. They know you are talking about yourself
Quimby nailed it. Bullet points that omit the subject are your friend. Both your new and old methods are active. It’s harder to write a passive voice bullet anyway since if you omit the leading noun you’ve omitted the object.
With surprise, I find myself being the dissenting voice.
I get a lot of resumes and they mostly have the style where the personal pronouns are missing. When I read your examples, I thought, yes, that’s right.
But when I read the example with the personal pronoun, I noticed that I read it with more attention to what you were saying. I also think that this style lets you put in more personalized info, such as you did at the end there.
If you go with the latter, I think that you might need to put in a few introductory phrases so that everything doesn’t start with “I.” Such as, “In this newly created position, I…” or somesuch.
Yeah, the “end there” is where I started to get into trouble. I wanted to flesh out the bullet point some and I start saying “I”. Getting into actual subject-verb-predicate sentence made the rest of the resume look, well… different.
However, it’s as you suggest in your other note, now its “I did…”, “I did…”, “I did…” it that’s awkward, too.
