Halve the number of skills at the bottom and merge them with the summary section. Simplify them to as few words as possible "Willing to work outdoors and on any shift" can simply be "outdoor work". whoever is reviewing the resume needs to get the gist of your skills in just seconds. The work experience section is where more time can be spent reading. Remove redundant points and things that are often asked during applications "Able to lift heavy objects" and "physically fit" are essentially the same thing, and heavy lifting prerequisites are often asked when applying. Same thing for the driver's license.

looking it over, I'd simplify your skills to the following:

• Heavy equipment/machinery operation
• Outdoor work
• Task oriented
• Customer service
• Inventory and stocking protocols
• Sales
• Time Management
• Attention to detail

I'd also consider adding bullet points to the work experience section as well. This can make the resume look less wordy and more focused even if you haven't removed any information.

"Responsible for preparing and mixing drug formulations, weighing and processing raw materials according to standard operating procedures, operating and maintaining laboratory equipment, documenting procedures, and ensuring that all work complies with current Good Manufacturing Practices and regulatory standards."

Becomes:

• Responsible for preparing, weighing, and mixing drug formulations and ensuring that work done was in accordance with company standard operating procedures and regulatory standards.
• Operated and maintained laboratory equipment.

[removed]

it needs work.

every recruiter/HM has different preferences so take mine suggestions with a grain of salt.

i don't like the job summary at all.

'authorized to work...' doesn't belong in the summary.

if you are going to freely offer the info i would get a little more specific ie US Citizen or Perm Resident and put that info under your name at the top of the page.

i prefer more specific details and numbers in a resume you have a sales job with no real info.

skills section- i want some of these detail in the job descriptions.

I have no meaningful advice. Sorry.

Your resume looks like mine in terms of terminology and whatnot. This is seriously a shitty time to be in the "in-between" experience wise. You have to prove that you know what youre working with but theres SO MUCH of it that you dont even know what to do with it.

I work in QA. Being a pest control technician is a minor role in my position. How the hell are we supposed to get this across on 1 or 2 pages?

What i highly suggest is breaking this up into bullet points. Youd have to eliminate a lot of text though. Figure out what responsibilities had a larger impact. Quantify your result (somehow. I dont know how anyone does this without having access to sensitive information.)

Try to figure out a less wordy way of displaying the information. Maybe doing skills down one side and making the descriptions only go half way across the page.

A resume should be easy to skim this feels like i have to fully read it.

That's an awful resume

Not sure what you are looking gor, but i have a friend in the IUPAT District Council 21 in NJ and they are recruiting alot of people for the union. You might have to take a financial step back but they have a good career plan. When I see good resumes that don't get picked at my job I have been steering them to this place. They have a office in Union, NJ. Don't know how bad of a drive that is for you though.

Just a few trivial things that stick out to me.. dates are not aligned under work experience You use both ‘-‘ and ‘to’ between dates. Pest control tech is written like you still work there (present tense). I read your summary and I have absolutely no idea what you mean by novel career path.

I’d be tempted to bullet point your duties at your job. Help them stand out more.

When focusing on niche skillsets, broaden it with more expected key words for example you talk about mixing chemicals etc, try to thread in words like “compliance” and “audit”. Complies can be missed.

I’d look at focusing on the positive impact or skillset that each responsibility demonstrates and front load that for each of your bullets.

Your pest control technician section is present tense and it should be past tense.

Sales associate and various vendors statement is closing the door on a lot of sales roles as they’ll be looking for similar items and client relationships or product knowledge

A bit left field but perhaps log the industries you’re experienced in up top to show the employer the wide scope of your experience (based on how open your CV is).

Sorry this is my third comment.

If your spouse is on a high income, could you study? I would look into project management in construction courses. You’d be surprised the types of roles in construction. You’d be surprised at the amount of adult learners on those courses.

A US construction project management degree, often a Bachelor of Science in Construction Management (BSCM) or similar, prepares you for leadership roles by blending business acumen, technical skills, and safety knowledge to oversee projects from start to finish, leading to careers as a Construction Manager, Project Engineer, or Coordinator, with high demand and good earning potential.

Random thread I found with opinions on construction management degrees https://www.reddit.com/r/ConstructionManagers/s/KaaUV50sg4

Or do you have a universally recognised or nationally accepted health and safety qualification where you are? You could train in that. Transferable skills and a transferable job.

for the bots as well as hiring managers, be shorter and more specific in your descriptions. mention measurable accomplishments. also, make sure you run what you write through grammarly, or a similar app. There are loads of grammar mistakes and broken sentences in that resume. doesn't give a good first impression. as far as how you beat the resume algorithms when applying, you have to adjust your resume for different types of positions. there are certain keywords that the bots are looking for when filtering through initial application piles. what those keywords are may vary from position to position, but a safe bet is many of them will be in the job listing itself.

Go over to /r/jobs discord and join the #reume-advice channel.

Any volunteer work you can add? Any clubs or such you were in for school?

DOJ must have redacted this one

I'd personally bullet point alot of your duties, and try to emphasize accomplishments in your roles rather than what the role entailed. For example, in your sales associate role if you closed xx amount of sales or increased sales by a percentage i'd list that instead of just saying "demonstrated product knowledge to increase sales" that doesnt really tell me anything.

Some easy fixes here:

Summary: Skip what you have here. A few bullets about what you’ve accomplished can be great if it’s specific to the job/industry you’re applying for. Otherwise leave it out. This should highlight top relevant work experience.

Work experience: Divide these into bullets before applying to any more jobs. People are sorting through a lot of applications and they won’t like walls of text. 2-5 bullets for each job that is relevant to what job you’re applying for.

Education: Take off when you graduated.

Skills: Remove things like friendly disposition, physically fit, great work ethic, etc. Most of this can be apparent in an interview or the lines of your resume. Stick to hard skills that you have that are in the job description. If they want someone with labeling experience for example and you have it, then put that down.

Harder fix:

It sounds like you would do well with some career exploration. What interests you? What in past roles has energized you vs. drained you? I think you’re ripe for a good reflection on potential paths.

Your resume read very “operations” to me. So that’s a potential fit. If you’re looking for ideas, pop open ChatGPT and tell it what roles you’ve had, what you liked or disliked in each job, and then perhaps add some career tests like the MBTI or enneagram.

Got a fair amount of work ahead of you but you can do it!

Physically fit, Physically fit

Physically Physically Physically

Paraphrase your skill list, and maybe write down years of experience in those skills as well.

i will agree with some of these other comments that the more you shorten and concise your resume, the more views it’ll get. i noticed when i took out all unnecessary information, i started getting more call backs. it’s not perfect, but it has improved my chances.

Tbh condense the Wawa

Some of the skills listed aren't really skills. They're just starting that you ate willing to do certain things. Skills are things you actually have experience in that is actually related to a job like type 60 wpm or certified forklift operator, knowledge of hand tools, etc.

Some excellent advice here. You can upload your resume along with the best advice on streamlining the resume, upload to ChatGPT ask for 3 variations. Look them over, choose one, and adjust the language to feel like your voice. Maybe do it more than once. Try again with a job description. ChatGpT is not a silver bullet but it can help. Just use the free account and save all the responses because the free version doesn’t save your work or results. Hope this helps.

Get a job at Costco. You start part time at $20 an hour but if you work hard don’t be tardy and be reliable you can be a supervisor in a year to a year in a half making 34 an hour.

Summary: I'm actually okay with you saying authorized to work for any US (not requiring sponsorship). That said, I'd only state that if your work history suggests you're a non-citizen or education is from another country. If you have a foreign name, change the first name to American/white name. Typically the summary is good for career changes and rarely used. You really only need Education and Work Experience at minimum.

Work Experience: write out bullets not a bunch of sentences to form a paragraph. That's how a resume is written. Let's assume you've written the experience in bullet format rather than a paragraph - the bullets are written like a job description (telling me what you did). A resume showcases you meet the minimum qualifications. HERE is how you write a good bullet. Tl;dr?

1) what did you do

2) how did you do it (tools, resources)

3) impact/result

3-5 bullets per role.

Education: don't put years on your grad dates unless it's < 5 years to mitigate age bias; remove the HS diploma and keep the college graduation stuff

Skills: I'd scrap it completely. Why? It's better to show how you applied these skills (in your bullets) instead of making a list. What do you think would be more impactful? Telling someone how you're proficient in Microsoft Office or telling them you used Excel to do X, Y, Z, and presented them to management and advise them on blah blah blah? The latter IMO.

Your resume should be job title specific. So if you're applying for formulation technicians (for example), your resume should be tailored to that job title. Look up 10-15 of the job title you want and then see what the common keywords / qualifications are asked and make sure you reference them in your bullets.

Apply early - first 100. Ideally first 50 applicants.

I don't agree with some of the commenter's advice. My $0.02 is based on what worked for me (and others I've advised) to get screenings w/ relative ease cold applying to remote senior accounting roles when I was laid off a while back.

Can you travel?

Shouldn't you have been making $35-$40/hr as a pest control tech after 8 years?

Were you trained and licensed to apply all classes of pesticide?

Redo the whole thing, also lie to make your resume more cohesive for the role you're applying for. You need to get targeted.

Is it a "you" problem? are companies actually hiring?

Only advice is to delete some of the generic talking points at the bottom then make the blobs of text that describe what you did at each job into bullet points.

Ask ChatGPT to reformat it and make it more concise