Resume Length
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Does anyone have advice on the "successful" length of a resume - one page or two? The reason I ask is that my brother-in-law (who is an Accountant/CPA) was submitting a "two-pager" with limited success. He cut it to one-page and his phone is ringing off the hook. The point being it appears the "screeners" were losing interest after the first page.
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Does anyone have advice on the "successful" length of a resume - one page or two? The reason I ask is that my brother-in-law (who is an Accountant/CPA) was submitting a "two-pager" with limited success. He cut it to one-page and his phone is ringing off the hook. The point being it appears the "screeners" were losing interest after the first page.
What I've heard is that a resume should generally be one page, though up to two pages seems pretty widely accepted. I think the key is to put the important information on that first page. You want the employer to see something right from the start that peaks their interest and keeps them reading. In the US, a CV tends to be much longer...I've seen CV's at 10+ pages. But, generally, CV's would only be used after an initial resume had been looked at. If a two-pager wasn't working for him, then either he was putting the "goodies" at the end, or he wasn't being concise enough.
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Does anyone have advice on the "successful" length of a resume - one page or two? The reason I ask is that my brother-in-law (who is an Accountant/CPA) was submitting a "two-pager" with limited success. He cut it to one-page and his phone is ringing off the hook. The point being it appears the "screeners" were losing interest after the first page.
Like a woman's skirt - short enough to be interesting, long enough to cover the subject...
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow
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Like a woman's skirt - short enough to be interesting, long enough to cover the subject...
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow
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Like a woman's skirt - short enough to be interesting, long enough to cover the subject...
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow
Your mind is in the gutter, that's a certainty, but I agree with the sentiment :)
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Your mind is in the gutter, that's a certainty, but I agree with the sentiment :)
Yes, well thankfully I have company in the gutter!
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow
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Yes, well thankfully I have company in the gutter!
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow
I can't remember who said it originally but it seems to me that "You might be in the gutter, but you are looking up at the stars." Incidentally star is not a euphemism. :)
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
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Does anyone have advice on the "successful" length of a resume - one page or two? The reason I ask is that my brother-in-law (who is an Accountant/CPA) was submitting a "two-pager" with limited success. He cut it to one-page and his phone is ringing off the hook. The point being it appears the "screeners" were losing interest after the first page.
It depends...if you have 25 years of diversified experience, then a two pager is perfectly acceptable. If you are right out of college and you submit a two pager, then you are probably better suited to write fiction.
Gary Kirkham Forever Forgiven and Alive in the Spirit It's against my relationship to have a religion. Me blog, You read
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Like a woman's skirt - short enough to be interesting, long enough to cover the subject...
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow
LOL. Damn, I needed a good laugh today, and that was it. :-D
:..::. Douglas H. Troy ::..
Bad Astronomy |VCF|wxWidgets|WTL -
I can't remember who said it originally but it seems to me that "You might be in the gutter, but you are looking up at the stars." Incidentally star is not a euphemism. :)
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
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It depends...if you have 25 years of diversified experience, then a two pager is perfectly acceptable. If you are right out of college and you submit a two pager, then you are probably better suited to write fiction.
Gary Kirkham Forever Forgiven and Alive in the Spirit It's against my relationship to have a religion. Me blog, You read
Gary Kirkham wrote:
It depends...
Which is what I always thought and have submitted. Now I'm beginning to wonder, given the current economic climate and number of applicants, does one submit a one-page "teaser" resume then once you get in front of the hiring manager - present the "full-deal" resume.
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Like a woman's skirt - short enough to be interesting, long enough to cover the subject...
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow
:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
I know the language. I've read a book. - _Madmatt
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Steve Martin: "I believe a woman should be put up on a pedestal. Just high enough so you can see up her skirt!"
:) Or,in the case of a Mother-in-Law, just high enough for you to be able to kiss her ass.
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
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What I've heard is that a resume should generally be one page, though up to two pages seems pretty widely accepted. I think the key is to put the important information on that first page. You want the employer to see something right from the start that peaks their interest and keeps them reading. In the US, a CV tends to be much longer...I've seen CV's at 10+ pages. But, generally, CV's would only be used after an initial resume had been looked at. If a two-pager wasn't working for him, then either he was putting the "goodies" at the end, or he wasn't being concise enough.
When I hire people this is what happens: 1- any resume longer than 1 page -> trash bin. 2- any remaining resumes with spelling/grammar errors -> trash bin. A resume is not a static document and it's not a CV. It should be tuned for the job application in question. I don't want to read about your complete work history, just what's relevant to the job applied for. If I'm interested you'll get a job interview and a request for a CV. Bring your CV to the interview and be prepared to discuss it. The purpose of a resume is to convince someone to interview you. The purpose of an interview is to convince someone to hire you. Also, you should use the same wording in your resume that is in the job posting. In this day and age many big companies simply have HR monkeys (or computers) scan through the resume looking for the key words.
-Sean ---- Fire Nuts
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Your mind is in the gutter, that's a certainty, but I agree with the sentiment :)
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Gary Kirkham wrote:
It depends...
Which is what I always thought and have submitted. Now I'm beginning to wonder, given the current economic climate and number of applicants, does one submit a one-page "teaser" resume then once you get in front of the hiring manager - present the "full-deal" resume.
Don Burton wrote:
given the current economic climate and number of applicants, does one submit a one-page "teaser" resume then once you get in front of the hiring manager - present the "full-deal" resume.
A resume is the teaser. A lot of people incorrectly think that a resume gets you a job. It doesn't; the whole point of a resume is to get you to the interview stage. Put too much info. and you wind up giving the hiring people unnecessary information that can (and will) be used to rule you out for the job. Give 'em just enough to go "hmm, this one looks promising - we'll need to find out more." Definitely bring more ammo. to the interview, but keep the resume short and intriguing. Cheers, Drew.
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Does anyone have advice on the "successful" length of a resume - one page or two? The reason I ask is that my brother-in-law (who is an Accountant/CPA) was submitting a "two-pager" with limited success. He cut it to one-page and his phone is ringing off the hook. The point being it appears the "screeners" were losing interest after the first page.
2 pages maximum; the further you are from school, the less school you need to put in. List jobs and projects with 1, 2 sentences description for each; leave out the long useless list of known languages and technologies. And please LEAVE OUT hobbies and all that junk. unless you won a really IMPORTANT prize in something, we don't care. skip the "bling" page layout. M.
Watched code never compiles.
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Does anyone have advice on the "successful" length of a resume - one page or two? The reason I ask is that my brother-in-law (who is an Accountant/CPA) was submitting a "two-pager" with limited success. He cut it to one-page and his phone is ringing off the hook. The point being it appears the "screeners" were losing interest after the first page.
For engineers, the key is to have the most pertinent information up front. The first half of the first page should list years of experience and KEY skills. After that, use the pages you need to list your experience. If that takes three pages, so be it. People hiring engineers are generally looking for specific skills and the more evidence they have of that, the better. They're also looking for familiar, such as companies they also worked for. I've debated trimming my resume down to two pages, but my first job usually elicits some comments (Apple II game programming using 6502 Assembly) and I don't want to remove my work period at Novell on since just about everyone where I live has worked there or knows someone who has. Still I'm trying to think of a creative way to do some major edits. For the record, unless I'm deliberately interviewing a newbie, I'll chuck one page resumes. I also ignore cover letters and an "Objective" line since both are usually just bullshit filler. Again, the single biggest mistake I've seen over the years is not listing[, or making clear] the [key] languages and technologies you know [and use]. (I work only on Windows and only for "Windows Houses"; it's annoying to interview someone who hates Microsoft so much he/she won't use any of their tools or even Windows! Sorry, but if you want to write Windows apps, I insist you understand Windows fairly well [and if I wrote Mac apps, I'd insist you knew the Mac fairly well]. On top of that, if you don't use Visual Studio and know how to use it well, I don't want to hire you.)
modified on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 6:40 PM
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2 pages maximum; the further you are from school, the less school you need to put in. List jobs and projects with 1, 2 sentences description for each; leave out the long useless list of known languages and technologies. And please LEAVE OUT hobbies and all that junk. unless you won a really IMPORTANT prize in something, we don't care. skip the "bling" page layout. M.
Watched code never compiles.
Maximilien wrote:
leave out the long useless list of known languages and technologies.
But put in some list right at the top. It's annoying to get a resume and find that the person hasn't listed a programming language or platform anywhere on it. Yes, I've seen that.
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:) Or,in the case of a Mother-in-Law, just high enough for you to be able to kiss her ass.
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
Aaaah, I had to jab myself in the eye with a pen to get the image out of my mind! (I haven't seen my mother-in-law in at least five years and its still not long enough.)
