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Resume Length

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  • J Jim Crafton

    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

    M Offline
    M Offline
    martin_hughes
    wrote on last edited by
    #5

    Your mind is in the gutter, that's a certainty, but I agree with the sentiment :)

    Books written by CP members

    J P 2 Replies Last reply
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    • M martin_hughes

      Your mind is in the gutter, that's a certainty, but I agree with the sentiment :)

      Books written by CP members

      J Offline
      J Offline
      Jim Crafton
      wrote on last edited by
      #6

      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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      • J Jim Crafton

        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

        H Offline
        H Offline
        Henry Minute
        wrote on last edited by
        #7

        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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        • D Don Burton

          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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          G Offline
          Gary Kirkham
          wrote on last edited by
          #8

          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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          • J Jim Crafton

            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

            D Offline
            D Offline
            Douglas Troy
            wrote on last edited by
            #9

            LOL. Damn, I needed a good laugh today, and that was it. :-D


            :..::. Douglas H. Troy ::..
            Bad Astronomy |VCF|wxWidgets|WTL

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            • H Henry Minute

              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.”

              J Offline
              J Offline
              Joe Simes
              wrote on last edited by
              #10

              Steve Martin: "I believe a woman should be put up on a pedestal. Just high enough so you can see up her skirt!"

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              • G Gary Kirkham

                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

                D Offline
                D Offline
                Don Burton
                wrote on last edited by
                #11

                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.

                L 1 Reply Last reply
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                • J Jim Crafton

                  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

                  N Offline
                  N Offline
                  Not Active
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #12

                  :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:


                  I know the language. I've read a book. - _Madmatt

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                  • J Joe Simes

                    Steve Martin: "I believe a woman should be put up on a pedestal. Just high enough so you can see up her skirt!"

                    H Offline
                    H Offline
                    Henry Minute
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #13

                    :) 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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                    • W William Winner

                      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.

                      S Offline
                      S Offline
                      Sean Cundiff
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #14

                      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

                      J F 2 Replies Last reply
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                      • M martin_hughes

                        Your mind is in the gutter, that's a certainty, but I agree with the sentiment :)

                        Books written by CP members

                        P Offline
                        P Offline
                        peterchen
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #15

                        Gutter? Better minds than skirts.

                        Agh! Reality! My Archnemesis![^]
                        | FoldWithUs! | sighist | µLaunch - program launcher for server core and hyper-v server.

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                        • D Don Burton

                          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.

                          L Offline
                          L Offline
                          Lost User
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #16

                          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.

                          1 Reply Last reply
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                          • D Don Burton

                            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.

                            M Offline
                            M Offline
                            Maximilien
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #17

                            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.

                            J 1 Reply Last reply
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                            • D Don Burton

                              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.

                              J Offline
                              J Offline
                              Joe Woodbury
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #18

                              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

                              A M 2 Replies Last reply
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                              • M Maximilien

                                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.

                                J Offline
                                J Offline
                                Joe Woodbury
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #19

                                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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                                • H Henry Minute

                                  :) 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.”

                                  J Offline
                                  J Offline
                                  Joe Woodbury
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #20

                                  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.)

                                  A 1 Reply Last reply
                                  0
                                  • J Joe Woodbury

                                    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

                                    A Offline
                                    A Offline
                                    AspDotNetDev
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #21

                                    Joe Woodbury wrote:

                                    I'll chuck one page resumes

                                    Joe Woodbury wrote:

                                    the single biggest mistake I've seen over the years is not listing the languages and technologies you know

                                    Interesting that you posted the exact opposite of what a previous person posted. Guess it's a crap shoot. Perhaps this would be a good opportunity for a CP survey (not that I think those are very accurate or representative).

                                    [Forum Guidelines]

                                    J 1 Reply Last reply
                                    0
                                    • S Sean Cundiff

                                      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

                                      J Offline
                                      J Offline
                                      Joe Woodbury
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #22

                                      Interesting, I toss one page resumes. If you don't have enough experience to fill more than once page, I'm not interested. Then again, in the US the resume and CV are one and the same.

                                      A S L 3 Replies Last reply
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                                      • A AspDotNetDev

                                        Joe Woodbury wrote:

                                        I'll chuck one page resumes

                                        Joe Woodbury wrote:

                                        the single biggest mistake I've seen over the years is not listing the languages and technologies you know

                                        Interesting that you posted the exact opposite of what a previous person posted. Guess it's a crap shoot. Perhaps this would be a good opportunity for a CP survey (not that I think those are very accurate or representative).

                                        [Forum Guidelines]

                                        J Offline
                                        J Offline
                                        Joe Woodbury
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #23

                                        I should modified the line as to be a list of KEY languages and technologies; as in the ones you commonly use, not every stinking one you know. On the other hand, I do like seeing Assembly language, even if you don't use it any more.

                                        1 Reply Last reply
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                                        • J Joe Woodbury

                                          Interesting, I toss one page resumes. If you don't have enough experience to fill more than once page, I'm not interested. Then again, in the US the resume and CV are one and the same.

                                          A Offline
                                          A Offline
                                          AspDotNetDev
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #24

                                          Joe Woodbury wrote:

                                          in the US the resume and CV are one and the same

                                          Indeed. It's sort of a mix as far as I've seen (I've only ever been on the getting hired side though). You put some of your work history to show you've seen some real action, a short intro to state the basics as they relate to the position you are applying for (e.g., years of experience and desired platform), a skill list (so they can match your skills with their needs), and accomplishments for each job (so they can see you haven't been lazing about at your jobs). The structure of that can vary depending on how much experience one has. But I do think one page is enough to demonstrate your usefulness and I've always thought more pages would be information overload for somebody who has to look at hundreds of resumes.

                                          [Forum Guidelines]

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