How long should your resume be (10~ yrs of exp)?

[Golgatha]

They need to stop with the "everything is online" thing. People can't even get through security to talk to a real person. If you find someone on linkedin they refer you to their online application process. This is a terrible way to find an applicant unless you're hiring a robot. It amazes me that people hire sales people in this way. The solution is to stop limiting everything. The online application process is fine but they should still allow people to show some initiative and get in the front door (or back door).

Trying to go in the back door without permission is just asking for trouble.

 

[AreaCode707]

some of that should come from the interview process

This. I work with both EMEA and APAC all the time and even there the resumes that make it through screening processes to the interview process are the ones that display the best relevant qualifications for the job. Filtering somebody out because of personal non-job-related criteria is a serious legal problem when it comes to hiring practices (and in Germany multiply that problem by 50.)

Culture/team fit comes from interview processes. Getting through screening is about qualifications.

 

[sunzt]

Proper layout for a resume

Published Work
(Optional) If you actually have relevant published work you *might* consider including it. Better yet, make a list available on request.

Can i just include the titles of my published work and the conference/event with "copies available on request"? Or is it just better to say you have published work available upon request. Or maybe a brief description of what my published works are?

Format and word this however you will; don't use MS Word content control boxes because half the applicant tracking systems out there can't properly scan and read them. Submit in MS Word or PDF format but make sure if you use PDF that it's a text-searchable PDF.

I use tables for my experience headers in Word. The table includes company, title, date, position, yrs worked. Should i not make them tables?

 

[Fingolfin269]

I don't have time to read through 3-page resumes. Unless I read those while eating lunch instead of reading here. So I've actually gotten to where I actually like it when people do the skill set summary at the beginning because I can then decide if I even want to continue reading. Someone handed me a resume that was 2 pages full front/back the other day and I just decided it wasn't worth spending the time to read through it. Could have been the most amazing candidate ever but now I'll never know.

 

[AreaCode707]

They need to stop with the "everything is online" thing. People can't even get through security to talk to a real person. If you find someone on linkedin they refer you to their online application process. This is a terrible way to find an applicant unless you're hiring a robot. It amazes me that people hire sales people in this way. The solution is to stop limiting everything. The online application process is fine but they should still allow people to show some initiative and get in the front door (or back door).

Send me a suggestion on how to solve the problem of applicants not talking to a real person factoring in 100,000 applicants and 20 recruiters (where unscreened applicants going directly to the hiring manager is not an option.)

That's the additional factor that is part of that problem that has to be addressed. If you've got ideas on this let me know.

There's a compliance/tracking issue as well in many countries but that can be solved for much more easily than the supply/demand problem.

 

[Cattlegod]

As someone who recruits heavily, I don't like anything over a page. When I have a stack of 200 resumes to go through, I spend 15-20 seconds on each one. If I have to flip pages, that eats into valuable time and I typically just throw them immediately in the reject pile.

 

[AreaCode707]

Can i just include the titles of my published work and the conference/event with "copies available on request"? Or is it just better to say you have published work available upon request. Or maybe a brief description of what my published works are?

There really is no hard and fast rule; do what appeals to you most and what helps tell your story the best. Most roles don't require lists of published works as part of the basic qualifications so I'd make the list available as a supplement, but if you're applying for a writer job this becomes a lot more relevant as part of the main body of the resume.

I use tables for my experience headers in Word. The table includes company, title, date, position, yrs worked. Should i not make them tables?

Some of the older ATS tools take your uploaded resume and dump it into a plain text box for display in the tool. Copy your final resume (whether MS Word or PDF) and paste it into Notepad and see how it looks. In some systems, that's what the recruiter/hiring manager may see. Format it so that it looks at least halfway decent under those circumstances.

 

[Gunbuster]

Protip: Tailor your resume to the job you are applying for. It's not one and done. Research the opportunity and modify your resume to suit.

 

[SP33Demon]

I've found it depends on your position and demand for that position. If you have a niche skillset (especially technical), then make it as long as you want since the hiring manager isn't going to have as many resumes to go through.

If your job is a dime a dozen, then you better keep it to one page because the screening process will require a hiring manager to go through a shitload of resumes.

Summary examples:
A human resources analyst (dime a dozen) - 1 page
Big Data developer (rare and #1 in demand on Dice survey) - as long as you want.

Be honest with yourself about not only your skillset, but the competition you will have for any given job you are applying for.

.02

 

[PenguinPower]

As someone who recruits heavily, I don't like anything over a page. When I have a stack of 200 resumes to go through, I spend 15-20 seconds on each one. If I have to flip pages, that eats into valuable time and I typically just throw them immediately in the reject pile.

You recruit heavily and look through a lot of paper apps?

 

[sunzt]

Some of the older ATS tools take your uploaded resume and dump it into a plain text box for display in the tool. Copy your final resume (whether MS Word or PDF) and paste it into Notepad and see how it looks. In some systems, that's what the recruiter/hiring manager may see. Format it so that it looks at least halfway decent under those circumstances.

Yeah i noticed that plain text conversion too sometimes. Thanks!

 

[Cattlegod]

You recruit heavily and look through a lot of paper apps?

I print them out

 

[PenguinPower]

I print them out

Doesn't that take longer than flipping the page?

 

[Jeffg010]

I'll say this if you do 2 pages your first page better stand out because no one going to look at the second page if it does not spark any interest.

Think about this, there are some jobs out there that will get 500 people sending their resume. Lets say the computer system knocks it down to 200 resumes. So now it is up to the hiring manager to weed them out. If he was to take 1 min per resume he is looking at 3 and half hours of just looking at resumes. Guess what he is not going to do that he going to do 10 seconds. So Ya 2 pages is not going to get you the interview.

Now 2 pages will help in an interview because he has more to talk about with you and it will help get the job.

Also I would tailor the resume to what ever job you are going after. For example I do desktop support but if I was to go for a job that was coding I'd make sure I listed things related to coding such as batch files, software packages, and my schooling that I took for coding such as VB, cobol, databases, ect. If I was to go for a project management job I'd list all the project I helped implanted or was a part of such as check processing system, bank branches conversions, and windows OS up grades ect. My resume is only a template that I use to tailor to the job I would be going after.

 

[Drako]

In Europe people want a section on what you do in your spare time. They want someone who they share interests with and are not just about work. Simple things like the Thursday afternoon interdepartmental soccer games make a difference. You need depth to your persona to get in the door.

This is completely irrelevant and useless information, and should not be used in the hiring process.

 

[Scarpozzi]

I typically cover my education in the 2-3 lines that sums up the degrees. I cover the last 3 positions I held...since I don't move around much, that goes back a ways. They usually only care about the past 5-10 years.

I used to rewrite resumes for IT friends and cut many 2-5 page resumes down to 1-2 pages. I'm still a believer in a 2 page resume, though it's possible to summarize to 1 page if you don't give a quick list of skills and systems supported.

 

[randomrogue]

This is completely irrelevant and useless information, and should not be used in the hiring process.

If I'm hiring a sales person and choosing between 2 candidates who have roughly the same experience but one is interesting and the other "reads books, plays computer games, and is really into LARP" you better believe I'm going to hire the interesting one. I do agree though that in our American culture we don't put a very large emphasis on your personal attributes. It's mostly business.

 

[sunzt]

This is completely irrelevant and useless information, and should not be used in the hiring process.

You'd be surprised how a common activity can help.

When I interviewed with a lady for an internship i listed Taekwondo in my activities section (which i only did for 3-4 months for a 1 credit extracurricular class) and the interviewer saw that and asked me about it. She then said that she loves TKD and has been doing it for a while so we were talking back and forth about it and had a great conversation about that and sports.....

It definitely helped be stand out in her mind as friendly, active, and a good communicator. I ultimately got the position and i think TKD had a lot to do with it.

 

[Ns1]

This is completely irrelevant and useless information, and should not be used in the hiring process.

Had 2 lines of activities on my resume and they both turned out to be conversation starters, so I'll also disagree here.

Activity shows you are not a soulless automatron.

 

[BoberFett]

Please get rid of the objective. That's a useless statement that takes up valuable space. No recruiter want to hear about how you "want to utilize my in depth experience to benefit the company," or how you "want to improve your skills while excelling in a upwardly mobile position and adding value to the organization.

Use a "Professional Summary" and show how you will be valuable to the business.

I dropped the Objective once I wasn't a noob out of high school. However in it's place I now have a Summary. Just a sentence or two that summarizes me professionally. I've found that works well.

 

[DrunkenSano]

I'm surprised nobody reads the entire resume. How do they pick who to interview?

Some companies have an automatic keyword filter that eliminates resumes.

Then a HR employee filter that eliminates more resumes.

Then a hiring manager that will read the resumes that get through, and chooses who to interview.

Interview is much later in the review process. You have to get past the first layer of review and most resumes don't even make it past that point because they either lack key words in their resume or have key warning signals in their resume that gets it canned after 10-15 seconds.

 

[Cattlegod]

Doesn't that take longer than flipping the page?

not for me. i can read print much faster on paper than on screen. additionally if i have a 200-250 page PDF, there is no easy way to sort them.