OK, so while I am waiting to hear back from the graduate school I applied to, I figure I have to update my resume and make it all shiney and new in case I don’t get in and have to look for a job.
So here it is in its current form. Obviously, the parts in quotes are what I omitted in the interest of keeping my personal info personal.
What’s good, what’s bad? What should be gotten rid of?
I would love to help you out here, but your link’s a dud (at least for me).
Are you sure it’s a dud, or does it just look like a dud? It should bring up a page at Bigupload.com, and about halfway down the page, you’ll see a link for “resume2.doc”, amid all the ads. Clicking on that should download it. If that doesn’t work, or you get a page not found error, let me know and I’ll try another file hosting service.
The link works – but I’m not gonna download your resume onto my machine, and it wouldn’t open otherwise.
I see what you’re saying about the link. But I echo what twikster said.
Would you be willing to upload the doc to a free website that allows you to just link to the site itself rather than to a site that makes you download the document? I did this myself with geocities when I was job hunting. Having all the info there for prospective companies to see was a big hit for them. Even though the site was rather rudimentary, it showed that I was willing to go the extra mile. It had my resume, letters of recommendation, sample lesson plans (I’m a teacher), etc. So long as you don’t exceed a certain bandwidth limitation, the site is free with any yahoo email account.
Sorry, mate, but no way am I going to download a .doc file. Save it as .html.
I’m gonna be pretty harsh here.
First off, unless I’m seeing this wrong, you need to do some formatting. The first and most important test every resume must pass is the first glance. 90% of resumes never make it past that first look and get filed away in to obscurity (or worse yet, the round file). Your resume looks like a big mass of text that does not invite the reader to delve further. You need to entice the reader, in the first few seconds, to read further. You absolutely can’t present the reader with a big indigestible block of text.
Your objective should change with each job you apply for. Stay away from cliches- everyone wants a rewarding career with room for growth at a fast paced company. Instead, figure out what you really want. Employers want to avoid people who’s only aspiration is “I want a job any job”. They want some hint in to how this job fits in to your bigger career plans, and why this job in specific is the right job for you. This is also a good place to assure them that you are not going to go running off in three months to a different job.
And this, really, is the key to any resume. Companies don’t want to think about how they can fit you in. They need you tell them directly why they need you. You are a product just as much as a new computer is, and just like a computer salesman has to convince a company why this particular computer will allow them to make more money, you also have to tell them why you in particular can help them. They aren’t going to puzzle over your experience, etc. to figure out how they could use you. They want you to tell them exactly how you will make their office better.
In your experience, you need numbers and accomplishments. Anything without some hard numbers is going to look like padding. How many machines did you inspect? How many beds was the hospital? How much asbestos was removed? And most importantly, what did you do besides just doing the job. What did you do that made the office a better, more profitable place when you left than when you came in? “Oversaw removal of 1,000 cubic meters of asbestos with no safety violations” is something. “Analyzed 500 air samples and produced 5 page reports following EPA guidelines which were submitted and accepted by the state department” is something. “developed new air test procedures that increased efficiency by 20%, leading the project being completed one month ahead of schedule” is something. Give them a clear picture of the job, even if it wasn’t all that spectacular.
With your resume being so small, I’d put a GPA if it isn’t terrible. They really don’t have much here to judge you by.
I’d leave out to term “Positions of importance” because it sounds pretty pompous. Say “memberships” or something. I’d treat the positions like jobs and give a brief statement of what your work with them entailed- right now your “new member educator” position to me sounds like you were responsible for hazing freshmen, which hopefully isn’t the case. Also, put some circulation numbers on the newspaper so they know it’s not just a zine you put together and gave to a few friends.
Throw out the interests and hobbies all together- they waste valuable space and make you look like a kid, not a professional. At my job we laugh at all the interests listed on resumes for the interns, but for the salaried positions we just throw out resumes with interests on them. For technical “geeky” positions, a list of interests makes the boss wonder if she’s gonna have to listen to you drone on and on about your model train collection and worry that your interests are a sign of not being good at human relations.
This looks to be pretty much just a text dump into Word - does your normal resume have more formatting? That could solve some of the issues involving the “hard on the eyes” commentary.
One thing that I found helpful to have on my resume was a bulleted list of “Key Accomplishments” for each position held (see here for my list of key accomplishments as an example). This allows them to skip over the wordy descriptions of what you do and get to the meat of what you’re trying to say: Here is what I’ve done for other people and what I managed to do in that job, it hints at what I can do for you and you should hire me because I kick so much ass.
Also, instead of an Objective, I opted for a bulleted list of tasks and fields I feel I am proficient at (see here for a generic screenshot of my list). Depending on what task was more important for a given potential job, I would switch around the list to put the most relevant tasks on the top. As I was sending out my resume, I started to realize that everything I was writing for my Objective was a load of generic bull anyway, so I replaced it with something that was more informational and useful. I think it paid off (I got a job). But then again, I also blanketed most of the free world with resumes so maybe it didn’t work.
Just some ideas.
OK, for those not wanting to download a .doc file (do doc files even have the capability to transmit bad stuff?) here is a website I made for it.
It’s a good thing OpenOffice allows saving as an HTML file. That file also has the changes that have been recomended so far. The formatting still doesn’t look perfect, but again, that’s due to the issue of stuff getting mixed up when saving in OpenOffice to an HTML file.
Now, on to the comments of those brave few who opened the sketchy looking (though perfectly safe) doc file:
even sven:
As far as the formatting goes, it showed up fine on my PC, but then, I saved it in OpenOffice as a MS Word document and I did get a message saying some formatting options may not show up. Since I have no office XP, I can’t see what those were, but clearly since they didn’t show up correctly for you, they wouldn’t for a propsective employer either. So I’m going ot have to figure out a way around that, and I don’t know what it is.
OK, I can change my objective to be job specific, but man, I am goin to have to be good about doing that with every job. Even worse than some generic objective is one for the wrong company!
As for work specifics, I can add some, at least for my last job. I can list the full inventory count and number of beds. As far as my lab experience…there aren’t really any hard numbers. In all honestly, 50% of my job was counting cells in pictures the grad students took, 40% was preparing the equipment (autoclaving, cutting glass slides,) and 10% was just random other stuff. I don’t think I can list anything for the asbestos job. I think the best I can do is just mention that on each jobsite I would have taken at least 25 air samples, but is that even relevent? I have no fucking clue how much asbestos I oversaw removed. I couldn’t even begin to pull out a BS number.
GPA? Not a chance in Hell is that going on there. I had a 2.7…if you round up. And I was hesitant to put the new member educatior because, yeah, for someone who was never in a greek organization, they don’t know what that would entail at all. And as far as the interests go, again, it was one of those things I was unsure of. Some resume help places say to out them on, because it makes you seem more “human”, and others say they are just worthless space. Consider them gone!
interface2x:
I mentioned the formatting issue earlier in this post, so go to the html link I provided to see what it should look like.
Like I sort of said with even sven’s suggestions, I don’t have a lot of hard numbers of key accomplishments. I’ll do my best, but there’s not much there. As far as just listing my core skills or something…I have none. At least, not really any major ones that deserve to be listed.
Anyway, the one I linked to in this post is updated, so everyone else can read that and be as harsh as you need to be.
I leave objectives out of my resume. As a former hiring manager I never read them and it just didn’t add to the hiring process.
OK, here goes:
OK so far 
This should be in your covering letter, not on your CV.
Good but could do with tightening up:
Inspected and maintained 1,200 patient care devices.
That you documented everything is a given. Unless your predecessor did not, in which case:
Designed and developed documentation for same.
Worked with graduate and doctoral students studying bio-fluids…
Were you marking their papers? No. The quality of your work cut their study time by X%.
Did you do it or did someone else? Either
Took air samples during asbestos removal in accordance with OSHA and NYSDOL regulations.
Or
Supervised the taking of air samples etc
So did you supervise them? If so, say so. Or were you doing Health & Safety checks?
You also learned about the regulations for handling and removing hazardous materials, didn’t you?
If you got a good GPA, put it in. Your degree is recent enough that the GPA is relevant.
Elements of the course of particular interest to me were…
Memberships?! If you’re a member of a professional organisation, that counts; Eagle Scout doesn’t. Change the title to something more relevant.
If you were the editor, you would know how to spell: it’s contributors. I’m not sure that the circulation is relevant.
Edited X, 2002-3. Responsible for publishing magazine on a bi-weekly schedule. Ensured articles were submitted to schedule.
Did you learn anything?
This might cause some resentment. Was this restricted to the campus, the state, or national?
Waffle. What were your duties? What did you learn?
Got any certifications in these? Did you take any course?
Good luck!
Just one general comment – I prefer present-tense verbs over past-tense verbs wherever possible. I think there’s a subliminal effect of past-tense verbs – makes you sound like your glory days are all behind you.
I’d change “Graduating in May 2004” to
Alma Mater, city, state
BS Biomedical Engineering, May 2004
As suggested, lose the memberships entirely, since they’re irrelevant. And drop the “Was responsible for” bit. You want to use “action words” like repaired, calibrated, etc. Perhaps you might list the devices you maintained? And were these mechanical or electronic repairs?
The software skills seemed weak to me, since almost everyone knows Windows and Office today.
OK, here’s the most recent version.
I have pretty much already resigned myself to not getting a job, and knowing that I’m forever screwed. I’m 80% sure I won’t get into grad school, so then what? Not good enough undergrad for grad school, not a good enough resume to get a job, since they all want 2-3 years experience or a master’s degree.
Can you be more specific as to what equipment you maintained while working at the hospital?
I would put your education first since it’s relatively recent and the employer can confirm it right away. I would disagree somewhat with other posters in that you can elaborate a lot more on your work experience. Are there things you did that you took for granted but are valuable experiences? Or tailor this content toward the job you are applying for.
Forget personal hobbies, memberships, etc. It gets too personal and distracts from the professional focus of a resume.
IMHO.
Not really, seeing as it was every piece of non-lab and non-medical imaging piece of equipment in there. For those not familiar with the world of medical devices, that includes:
Infusion pumps
BP monitors
SpO2 monitors
Defibrillators
Thermometers
Oxygen concentrators
Electro surgical units
Harmonic scalples
Endoscopy camera controllers and light sources
EKGs
Ventilators
Etc…
I’m gonna be the superficial person and say that it’s one of the ugliest layouts I’ve ever seen. And Courier New? Ew.
I’m not in a position to be hiring anyone (I’m doing the interview thing for a job now, actually), but I wouldn’t really give more than a cursory glance at your resume. Decent design is important to me.
Sorry. 
Well, perhaps you can better describe the types of repairs you did on this equipment, or the types of skills that were necessary. This job experience is the meatiest section of your resume, and yet you provide more detail on your software skills. And as for the research work, surely you can provide more detail. You want your skills to jump off the page, so the prospective employer can see how they would be useful.
It’s too general. You can’t rely on them to ask more specifics if they need them. They need to know those specifics up front.
Rather than a list of job duties you need to have a list of job accomplishments. Or in other words what your duties have accomplished. Instead of “maintained and repaired such-and-such equipment” it should say “maintained and repaired such-and-such equipment on a timely basis to ensure staff could maintain desired levels of productivity with minimal down time”. It shows that what you did had a positive or desired outcome.
You need to tailor it to each job you apply for. If they list job duties and requirements in their job description in a bullet point format, you need to address each of these points with a counterpoint of your own. Get a blank sheet of paper and divide it down the middle. On the left put point by point what they are looking for from their job posting. On the right put what you have done to match that point.
If they want someone with skill X, you have demonstrated experience with skill X.
If they need someone to do task Y, you have done similar task Y.
Take these counterpoints you have created and make sure they are addressed somewhere in your resume.
