Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Resumes...

Is there any real truth to the rumor that a 2 page resume is ideal?

I have over 25 years in the tech writing business. I've had a number of different jobs. I've done a lot of good stuff. It's so hard to cram all that into two pages.

At the request of my outplacement counselor, I just downsized my resume from 3 pages to 2. I'm not sure I like it. I had to cut out a lot of good things that I did. And crammed things together which makes me feel the document is less readable.

Most of the feedback that I get from others, including interviewers, is that the resume is very good. I've never heard that the length was a problem. Then again, since one doesn't get feedback from the people who don't call with an interview, who knows...maybe the length IS a problem.

It's really so subjective. During interviews, I've been surprised at what catches someone's eye. Sometimes it's a company name, or a technology, or a task. Sometimes it's something that I worked on a long time ago, and yet, I still get questions about it.

I'm interested in hearing what the outplacement counselor says about my latest resume attempt. I'm not sure I'll actually use it...I like my current resume, but it was an interesting exercise to see if I could reduce the resume down to 2 pages.

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