A Little Resume Help

So I've recently had to go through and re-vamp my resume, as I haven't had much luck with the one I was using. To be honest with you, it's always been something of a block to proofread my own resume. I don't know why it is; I can proofread anything else without a problem, but I ALWAYS miss things in my resume. It drives me crazy

Anyway, I wanted to post a link here and see if anyone could catch anything I may have missed, and also see if anyone had any suggestions.

http://www.geocities.com/dougcollins02/collins_doug_resume.pdf

I've changed all my contact info (I just don't want it floating around out there) but the rest is all accurate.

So... any thoughts, anyone?

***EDIT*** Posted in text below, in case anyone is having problems with the .pdf file.

Doug Collins
105 Trapper Trail
512-718-9436
Bastrop, Texas 78602
dougcollins02@yahoo.com

Journalism Professional

PROFILE

Prolific author of hundreds of articles covering numerous prep, college and professional sports
Video coverage of numerous prep and professional football games
Extensive work experience in multimedia journalism

Work Experience

2004-2008
Football Colorado, Denver, Colo.
PHOTOJOURNALIST/PRODUCTION

Shot video of more than one hundred high school football games
Provided high-quality editing of more than fifty episodes of show under extreme deadline pressure

2004-2005
The Denver Broncos Football Club, Englewood, Colo.
DENVERBRONCOS.COM WEB CONTENT PRODUCER/PHOTOJOURNALIST
Wrote fifteen bylined feature articles for team’s Gameday magazine and website
Provided video footage and editing of all 21 Broncos games, used on DenverBroncos.com and the NFL Network
Produced and shot live interviews of players and coaches for the NFL network
Created more than 200 content pieces (bylined and non-bylined) for DenverBroncos.com
Maintained all portions of team website

2003-2006
The Denver Daily News, Denver, Colo.
SPORTS REPORTER/WRITER
Provided beat coverage of all games and practices in the Colorado Crush’s (AFL) first two seasons, providing game coverage under extreme deadline pressure and weekly feature stories
Wrote weekly sports wrap-ups of all sports happenings at three major Denver-area universities

2003-2004
Maverick Sports Television, Denver, Colo.
BRONCOS ANALYST
Provided online coverage and television analysis of Denver Broncos games and news

2002-2008
Colorado Community Newspapers, Denver, Colo.
SPORTS REPORTER/WRITER
Wrote more than 200 bylined articles, including game stories, features, weekly wrap-ups and season previews of all Denver-area prep sports

Education

The Metropolitan State College of Denver, Denver, Colo.
Extensive training in the areas of journalism, mass communication and political science. Took courses in writing for newspapers and magazines, editing, layout and design, radio broadcast, sports marketing and representation, and political science.

Technical Skills

Video production, website production, website management, print production, Quark Express, Microsoft Office (2003 and 2007), Adobe Premier, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, Paint Shop Pro, HTML, Java, FTP, audio production.

 

Wrong place. Jobs thread is for specific jobs only.

 

Tell them that you got plenty of life experience coaching Michael Jordan on two different teams. </cheap joke>

Keeping in mind that I'm just a 24-year-old kid, I only saw a couple things that I'd consider changing:

- Some of the computer skills seem redundant. i.e. Website management, production and FTP skills all go hand-in-hand, and aren't the three Adobe programs now bundled into something called Adobe suite?

- I would get rid of the "journalism professional" between your first head and your profile spot. The profile makes the "journalism professional" thing unnecessary.

- Some minor formatting stuff. For your phone number, why don't you use the conventional numbering? (xxx) xxx-xxxx. Also, at one point you use fifteen instead of 15.

 

And "one hundred" and "fifty." If it's 10 or more, it's in digits. Consult an AP Stylebook for exceptions. Also, it's a Web site in AP style still, I believe, though my shop's stylebooks are from 2006.

-- I'd reconsider the use of "extreme" and "prolific." It's a little over the top. In fact, I'd say reconsider most adjectives in a resume. Let your work speak for itself.

-- "Content pieces" seems redundant.

-- What was your degree at Metro State? (If you received one; if not, you played it well.)

Hope this helps.

 

Hey Mod and Hank (who is by far one of the best Simpsons characters ever)-- sorry for posting in the wrong place; this is my first post on these wonderful forums, and wasn't really sure where to post, so thanks for the help!

sgreenwell-- When I worked for the Broncos, I got a lot of ribbing form the staff about not being able to win a championship with Michael Jordan on my team. A lot of people around started calling me "Coach" as sort of a joke, which you can imagine made for some pretty awkward moments, as I worked around all the coaches at team headquarters quite a bit.

Thanks for the suggestions, though. Those are definitely some good insights, and the sort of thing I miss when I'm hitting up my resume. I've made some changes based on what you said, so I really do appreciate it!

jlee-- This is exactly the sort of thing I pick up well on my actual writing, but for some reason miss when I'm doing my resume. Thanks as well! I've made some big changes, and I appreciate the help.

 

Oh, and by the way jlee, I don't have a degree. I'm about 30 credit hours short; I had to leave school to pay the bills for my family when my parents house was foreclosed on a few years ago, so I do my best to focus on my work experience and what training I received in college.

And sgreenwell, I'm only a 25-year old kid, so I understand where you're coming from

To answer a couple of your questions about my computer experience, though, I split up a few things in there because not everyone I've come across is familiar with exactly what products are in Adobe CS3 (the suite of Adobe products that all come together) and there are a couple that I don't have experience with.

Also, I list web content management and and web site production as separate skills as they are two unique skills that are different in their scope. Still, I never thought about combining them... anyone else have any thoughts?

 

General question for others out here. What does everyone use to list their skills?

Computer skills? Technical Skills, Multimedia skills? Which sounds better?

 

Technical skill. And be as specific as practical -- it can be helpful to know what you were doing in Photoshop, as opposed to simply saying that you've used it.

 

FileNotFound-- could you give me an example?

 

TECHNICAL SKILLS
"Photoshop — dodge/burn to make photos ready for publication; clipping paths, multi-layered photo illustrations." (This shows me that you've used Photoshop as both a photo-toning tool and to create artwork, two very different functions of the same software.)

"WordPress — Content entry for blogs; site design and maintenance." (This tells me that you not only logged in to WordPress to type a blog entry, which just about anybody can do, but that you've also used its back end to modify a site, which requires a bit of skill.)

Don't go into great detail, but give an example or two that you can expand upon in an interview.

 

FNF,

That's some good advice that I should probably incorporate in my resume. Btw, what does dodge/burn mean? Is it one of those journalism phrases I should already know?

 

Dodge and burn is lightening and darkening a photo or portions of a photo. Dodge means lighten and burn darken.