This came up last night at Hackers and Founders Meetup that iamelgringo hosts.
How long should your résumé be? I've always believed that one page was the de facto length limit though last night there was largely a consensus that multi-page résumés were perfectly acceptable and even better than single-page résumés. The rational was largely that 1) short résumés are, well, short and you have to cut information that could otherwise land you an interview and 2) everything is thrown into a database and searched so length doesn't matter.
Sample size was small last night (approximately 6 of us discussing it) so I wanted to hear the rest of the HN community's thoughts on résumé length.
I'm interested in hearing from job seekers and employers alike.
People in general spend about 30 seconds looking at your resume. One page or not, it has to be skimmable. Use bullet points and bold to bring out the important stuff. Use lots of white space.
Lots of detail doesn't impress me. Your place for that is in the cover letter where you write about the one or two things most relevant from your background that are specifically appropriate to the open position.
I think one page is a good goal to have, even if you don't make it; it forces you to trim and focus on the important stuff.
The best application I saw in a recent round of hiring was in four parts:
- Short cover letter in e-mail.
- Longer cover letter signed and scanned as PDF.
- 1 page concise CV.
- 4 page detailed employment history.
HR handed out the right bits to the right people and everyone was happy with the level of detail they got.
All the worst CVs I saw came from agencies - not for content, just for layout. They can start off with a perfectly sane PDF and reformat it in to some god forsaken docx with broken layout and graphics, while adding spelling mistakes and removing qualifications. It's downright infuriating - any time in future I have to apply via an agency I will try and send a copy of my CV through directly as well.
I do hiring these days (I haven't used a resume since the 90s), and this is excellent advice.
All of these points are great ways to show your attention to details.
I'm sure you used to be able to get away without cover letters, but today there will be many more applicants than jobs; and I honestly won't even look at a resume without a cover letter now.
Of course, it's much better to do something so that you don't need a resume any more; then you don't have to do the song and dance. Network well, write a blog or release some code; all are great ways to get known.
What do you look for in a cover letter? I'm not too lazy to make one I've just never understood the purpose. I think you might be able to provide some insight for me.
Well, before all else, I'm a software guy; not an HR person, so you will want to take this with a grain of salt.
That being said, it doesn't have to be some kind of formal thing; the best cover letters I've read just let me know that someone has actually read and comprehends our requirements and their cover letter should tell me a few things that sets them apart from the other torrent of resumes that I'll see.
In other words, it's obvious that you're applying for this position, and not just every position you see. Just like an employee wants to think that an employer has hand selected them to work there, instead of just saying "you'll do"; an employer likes to think that the person actually cares about what they do and where they work.
The best cover letter, imho, shows a personal touch to the application, and covers a short list of requirements listed in the job listing, and why you're the perfect candidate for the position.
"Your job listing mentioned that you need a team leader for a new application to run on mobile phones. I've led three teams in mobile application development, and all projects launched on time."
I have a 10meg PDF resume (4 pages with lots of pictures, hyperlinks, and partial nudity). It has gotten positive responses about 60% of the time, but they are generally very positive. Having a resume that doesn't please everybody, and stands out from the pack, is valuable. Even the 40% who didn't like it will remember it.
One of the Booz & Co. partners I recently talked to said he has two piles of resumes: 1 page and 2+ pages. He reviews the 1 page resumes for good candidates and puts the longer resumes in the garbage without looking at them. A resume's purpose is to get you an interview- not describe your life's story.
Been doing a few interviews lately. Here's my take:
The following things values are logarithmic or exponential (depending on the case), not linear:
1) Page count -- One page isn't a hard limit anymore. Your resume has to go through keyword systems and spends most of its HR/recruitment life as a .doc file. The computer doesn't care and you're not getting graded on making it an appropriate length.
2) The value of the words on each page -- Make your first page count. I try pretty hard to read the first page or so but start to lose interest as things progress. If the resume reads like a monotonous diary of your activity over the last two decades, nobody's going to be able to tell which words they should read and important stuff will be glossed over.
3) The age of the experience -- If you did something really excellent more than five years ago, definitely include it, but you should allocate more space to more recent experiences. If you have three bullets each from your last three jobs and eighteen bullets from the fourth most recent, you're going to look like you have no career inertia or that you're just looking to park. If you have ten years of experience you can skip the details of what your college jobs were -- if they're in field include enough information to show how your career arc builds, but recruiters won't care about individual accomplishments.
4) Accomplishments, not tasks -- Your most recent job or two should show a few tasks but an overwhelming bias toward things that you actually did. A list of tasks you were charged with just shows what you didn't like doing enough to continue doing it. The balance should shift as the experience ages -- maybe 20/80% tasks/accomplishments in the first job, 10/90% over the next few, but blending back to 50/50% or even lower as the experience ages. Again, the older or extra-field ones should be especially short.
Personally I try to walk the walk on these points, and I also maintain a couple different versions of my resume. The version that I put into the job sites has a "products used" section near each job to pander to lazy recruiters who put "solaris" into the search box when they need a UNIX system administrator. I generally do not prefer to use these resumes after making contact with the recruiters, because no human cares what versions of SQL server I touched at a job five years ago.
Paper resumes are fading. Most employers now read them on a screen, either through an online job service, LinkedIn, or an email attachment.
As someone who is in the process of hiring two people, I think the on-screen equivalent of one page is too short. I can handle scrolling down for another page or two, but any more than that makes me suspect that it's a data dump, and will require extra effort to glean the important points. Often I receive resumes in batches (20 at a time, delivered by email), so opening a bunch of excessively long resumes would start to drag on my time.
My CV is 214 lines long, and each line is up to 78 ASCII characters. (Before anyone asks, yes, my CV is nicely formatted with clear sections and bullet points within each section.)
What I found as a resume presenter is that the readers, many times technical folk, (at least once you get through the gatekeepers) always want detail. Lots of detail. Except when they don't.
So I gave up on one page resumes. Instead, page one has a bullet list of benefits I bring to the job that nobody else does -- sales points. The rest of the pages list jobs, technologies, and roles. Being somebody who gets around a lot, this section runs on for several pages.
I haven't heard any complaints. Usually the wordy part of the resume generates enough keywords to hit on database searches, which is step 1. The bullet list scores the initial interview which is step 2. The initial interview is just a technical "smoke test" and an attitude/availability check, then we're on to the tech interview, which is step three. During the tech interview, it's usually technologies and industries, with me quoting from the wordy part of my resume as the reviewer pages along.
I haven't been in the market for many years (it's all word of mouth after a while), but this format, along with the right experiences, put me in the top few slots at most places I competed.
As both someone who has been hired, and someone who has hired, I have no problem with resumes that are 1+ pages, provided there is relevant content. Nobody else I know would expect everything to be on a single page.
This is especially true in IT, where I want you to explain the projects you worked on, your role, and the eventual outcome. That means a paragraph in written form, and two or three of those take space.
This all being said, I'm not going to read any novels. Let me scan your history easily, but then get details if need be.
Mine is plaintext, and probably 1-2 pages when printed. Anything that doesn't make the cut for the first page or so goes in the cover letter, or is already somewhere on my blog or in Google, so I don't sweat it.
I actually used the layout of a UNIX 'man' page for a while, which got lots of chuckles, but no offers, so now it's just simple Markdown-like text.
He included "References available upon request". That's a waste of space (either more content, or more whitespace), because it's assumed you'll produce references when requested.
A general rule that I've read is that two (maybe three page) resumes are OK but the most important information MUST be on the first page.
In essence, if I were to take a multi-page resume and the last pages were ripped off/somehow went missing, the first page would still be strong enough to make the applicant's case.
one page, with major points extremely visible (larger, bold, etc). well-designed and easy on the eyes. and you should modify your resume to each specific job you apply for.
why? two reasons (this is information i've obtained from HR personnel that i personally know, it isn't simply heresay):
most resumes go through non-technical HR people. they aren't involved in the department doing the hiring -- they're just there to screen the resumes. if a resume _appears_ irrelevent, they will trash it. if they have to read it in full to effectively screen it, they will trash it. some HR reps will trash multi-page resumes just in principle. the point is, they will spend less than 30 seconds per resume and any obstacles to that time limit will get your resume screened out.
second, you don't want to tell your whole story in novel form on your resume. your resume is your hook and you want to reel in employers to get you on the phone or in person. that is where you get to talk to them in detail about what you do, what you've done, and get to impress them.
How long should it be? The premise of the question is flawed -- nobody is going to shoot you if you don't submit a one-page resume. There's no law against it.
But if a resume is little more than a marketing tool, then brevity is your friend. One page is better than four, even if your career can fill ten.
(One notable exception: if you're in academics, long CVs are considered better than short. Academia is not the real world.)
I had lots of interest with a 2 page resume but found restricting myself to 1 page forced me to hit the high notes and focus on what message I want to send.
I found this necessary when an employer put me through a 5 hour interview for a web developer position. I thought I was applying for a research position but someone saw web experience in my ancient history and lined up the interviewers to steer things that way. Granted I was offered the research position later, still... the interview would have benefited by skipping the web stuff.
Also there is something to be said for making them want more.
Mine's two pages and seems to be generating interest at the places I've sent it to.
My sister does recruiting for ConocoPhillips (admittedly, a very different industry) and also ran a resume-writing workshop when she was in grad school. She was adamant about not going over 2 pages. The reason is that your resume will likely be printed out, handed to other people in the department, thumbed through, and taken to your interview. If it's on 1 or 2 pages, it'll fit on one sheet (single or double sided), but if it's on 3 or more, you need a stapler, and that's really inconvenient for people whose daily responsibilities don't include shuffling paper (i.e. anyone in scientific or engineering departments that'll actually be making the hiring decision).
When I looked over resumes at my last employer, I had the same opinion: 1 or 2 pages is fine because we've got an industrial-strength printer that can do double-sided printing, any more than that's a pain.
This thread is yet another proof that the current recruitment process (in any and all companies) is flawed (and yes, mine have been rejected before).
The reason is it is 'still' a personal taste process. No matter what you do, how you sell, what you write, how you think, it's still up to the personal taste of some person whether to give a green light or not. That taste is subject to then need, experience, skill-level, mood, coffee, <anything u like to add> of the decision-making person.
It's not that I'm bitter, it's that, being a person who's passionate about what he does (as many others here), I 'know' it can be better.
Resumes are the first wrong step in the process. Why do we still rely on them? Because other alternatives aren't as easy/available.
Note: wrong step does not always mean wrong outcome.
If you're applying for a specific position, a one page resume highlighting your specific skills and past projects pertaining to the job is a good idea. The time to elaborate on a past project or experience that is not directly relevant is the interview.
Remember how your resume is going to be treated (at least at a larger company). It is first going to go through a screener (a recruiter or even a keyword search), then it will go to someone technical on a team.
Always remember that the main point is to get the interview, that's it.
Also, please please proof read your resumes. I actually had a QA engineer with a spelling error on his resume.
I've been the technical reviewer on a lot of hires and found Rand's process fairly similar to mine. I think it's good that he views the document as having 2 purposes: the first being to get through all the recruiters/HR to get it into the tech reviewer's hands, the second being grabbing the reviewer's attention enough that you get an interview.
I can say that in my experience interviewing potential candidates, everyone I worked with generally hated lengthy resumes, but I was the only one who cared enough to dock people for them.
It's not that important, but ultimately, a concise resume reflects on your communication skills. Being able to summarize the most relevant information is an important skill, even in the software industry.
I have hired more forty people--a mix of employees and contractors--as a manager in technology companies. One page and a cover letter/section (perhaps 100 lines total) is the most that will get read before a hiring manager decides to give you a call.
Or not.
Tailor your experience to the position you are applying for in a cover letter/section and in what you highlight in the resume. It's a sales pitch not an autobiography that should be designed to get a phone screen or an invite to an interview.
I would focus on getting it into the hiring manager's hands with an endorsement from someone they trust.
One interesting idea is to format your resume as a mind map[1]. You're likely to get either very positive or very negative responses, but I'd be curious to know if anyone's tried it.
I have submitted a 2 page CV with a 1 page personalized cover letter in the past. I have signed reference letters as well, which are handy to bring to an interview. That being said, with all of the jobs that I've received offers for, the employer knew who I was and had a good idea of my background before ever receiving my CV.
The number of pages will depend on your experience. If you are just out of school one page is fine. I have almost 20 years (ouch!) so it is hard to make it fit in three pages.
The goal of a resume / cover letter are to land an interview. It's not an autobiography.
I can say from personal experience that one does not completely read hundreds of resumes. When I was hiring I would get just as much info from a short resume as I would from a long resume. The key difference is that with a shorter more focused resume you have more control over what I actually take away from your resume.
So for that reason I use a one page resume that's tightly focused on what I want to do, not everything I've ever been capable of doing.
But I don't want my resume in some HR or recruiter database, either. A long resume make work better if you prefer the shotgun approach to finding work...
In general, 1 page is still the norm, for several reasons, not the least of which when you print it out (for any reason) you don't have to staple or keep multiple pages together.
Secondly, there is very little reason that your resume (not the totality of your experience) can't fit on one page if you tailor it specifically for the position you are applying for. In fact, the best candidates are the ones that are most prepared because they thought critically about the position, its requirements, "good to haves" and any related experience that pertains being able to contribute in that role and thus customized their resume specifically for that position.
So, net effect is you should tailor your resume specifically and customized for every single position you apply for, anywhere.
It depends on a lot of factors like duration and type of experience. I would say that people are moving toward a don't cut out important details school of thought. One approach I have seen and enjoyed is compiling a common single page resume and then having a second/third page as deeper explanations of past positions.
