

Giant Résumés Fail to Impress Employers - petethomas
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304851104579360721244708190

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GuiA
This reminded me of a debate I've had with some friends for a while.

My current resume (LaTeX 4 life) is 2 pages. It's fairly detailed, and I feel
like it gives a good overview of who I am. It has lists of my work experiences
(with key achievements and technologies used), education (with specializations
and details about my undergrad/graduate thesises), talks, open source
projects, volunteering activities - the whole deal.

Then one day a friend of mine joked that in the tech industry, where
everything must use emojis and communicate in <140 chars, a 1 page resume is
the way to go. I made a 1 page resume (without sacrificing legibility or using
0pt margins), and it's grown on me. It's concise, to the point, no BS- and I
feel like it still gives a good window in who I am and what I do (and like to
do).

But some friends have said that a one page concise resume came across as
ballsy and too confident.

Any HNers have insights on this? Or is it one of those things into which one
should put the least amount of thought possible?

~~~
rm999
Just a note, this article isn't about the length of a paper resume, it's about
students using online portfolios to store information on projects, verified
transcripts, etc. Basically, a more thorough replacement for a resume.

But regarding your question, I think two pages is perfectly fine in the tech
world, if you have enough to say. By the time you're ten years into a career
I'd be surprised if you don't want more than a page to talk about what you
know and what you've done. I think the aesthetic gains from a one page resume
aren't worth the risk of omitting something that's important to a potential
employer. It's the four page resumes that annoy me.

~~~
ScottBurson
I'm 34 years into my career and I still maintain a one-page résumé.

I think keeping it to one page shows respect for a reader's time. Instead of
dumping everything I can think of onto the page and letting them pick through
it for what's important, I do that work for them. In many cases I've
customized the résumé to some extent for the employer.

I've never had anyone tell me it was too short.

~~~
rm999
>I think keeping it to one page shows respect for a reader's time

A well-laid out resume does this _for_ the reader. Basically, the reader
should be able to get a high-level idea of the applicant by quickly reading
the top of each section/subsection, and then dig deeper into whatever they
feel is relevant by moving deeper into the "tree".

Anecdotally, when I interview senior level people (data scientists, but this
would apply to software engineers too), more than half the resumes are two
pages. It's not abnormal and by no means a deal-killer. The last guy I
interviewed had seven jobs and three degrees crammed into a single page - I
had to waste 25% of the interview just asking him what he did at each job
because his resume didn't tell me (except a title and a really terse summary).
This only hurt him because I had less time to build a case to hire him.

------
al2o3cr
Better title: "Lazy HR assclowns admit they're still using checklists of
buzzwords instead of actually reading things"

~~~
lmkg
Equivalently, "time-constrained professionals apply 90-10 rule to increase
throughput by discarding time-consuming edge cases."

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Spooky23
When I hire people, I get like 60+ resumes for 1 position. So I create a bozo
pile, good pile and awesome pile.

Usually we have a couple of people involved. We look for consensus and let
people veto folks they feel strongly about. The goal is to talk to about 10
people. Interview 3-5.

Long resume doesn't really factor in. The really long ones are usually bozo-
ed, because they are insane. The fact that you were a summer lifeguard in 1992
is fascinating, but really weird to be telling people in 2014.

You should be telling a story with a resume. A 2-3 page resume can tell a good
one.

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mbesto
I always remind people:

CV/Résumés get you interviews.

Interviews get you jobs.

Focus specifically on those things and you'll get a job.

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rch
I refined a version of mine with the Hemingway app. The result seems alright,
but I've yet to test it out.

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flibertgibit
Why is this news? This has been common wisdom for ages. The only difference is
that, before, there was no web.

Keep it 2-3 pages tops and just in PDF, unless you're a designer or site dev.
And provide your github if you're a dev doing JS or Ruby.

Did I miss anything? I have no idea what Java, etc. devs and IT geeks need to
have anymore.

