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This is a very confrontational and adverserial style of interviewing and hiring. I get the impression that author is looking for reasons to make the candidate

This is a very confrontational and adverserial style of interviewing and hiring. I get the impression that author is looking for reasons to make the candidate a 'no hire' rather than using those silly questions such as 'tell me a time when....' as a starting to point to open a two way conversation. My tip is to approach interviews with a positive mind WANTING the candidate to succeed and display their strengths rather than wanting them to fail. You should hire based on positives, not on lack of negatives! This post really demonstrates how broken interviewing is. These are TERRIBLE and yet still WIDELY USED filters with a high chance of introducing false negatives in the hiring process. Two examples: 1. The multi year career plans he hints at in a number of places. I personally would be more interested in a candidate with a passion and genuine interest in the job on offer, rather than someone using it as a stepping stone on their ten year plan to get to something tangentially related. I personally don't know what I'll be doing in ten weeks let alone ten years, but a developer it'll probably an interesting and challenging variation of what I'm doing now rather than being somewhere in management. 2. The long CV example is one example of a commonly used signal that tells you precisely nothing about the quality of the candidate. It is a completely arbitrary rule that is no way correlated with their skills or personality. After an initial filter, would it really be so bad spending 5 or so minutes considering and comparing the candidates on offer if that improved your outcomes by even a small percent? Sigh....

astral303 15y ago
Long CV definitely tells me something about the quality of the candidate. If I am interviewing someone fresh out of school, I can forgive a rambling resume. However, for an experienced person, I am looking for some ability to present information concisely. It's like a design skill: can you present a focused view of the most relevant information? If you think that more than two pages of information is required to advertise yourself for a job, then you are quite likely lacking that skill. I still think that a one-page limit is where it's at. Don't put down obvious bullet points. If you were a Windows system admin, don't waste a line on writing that you administered an active directory server. Of course you did that as a Windows sysadmin. No, tell me what you did that made you different than a run-of-the-mill person doing the same job.
- cunac 15y ago
  One page resume might work for people with not so much experience but it is very hard to put 25+ years of work in one page except obvious "I solve your problems for money" :-). Just plain listing all places of work with dates can be 20+ lines How much insight can you get from 1995-1996 Company X , Senior Consultant , project Y ??
  - JohnnyBrown 15y ago
    Include only the 3 or 4 most relevant jobs/items. This way you have all the space you need to explain what you got out of them
    - Natsu 15y ago
      This. My Aunt was a career counselor for the past several decades. She won't let me use a resume longer than one page. You don't need to list ever job you've had since your first part-time job flipping burgers during high school. Just try to figure out what they care about and list that prominently. If they want to know more, they'll ask about it. That said, make sure you summarize things in a way that doesn't make it appear that there are large gaps in your resume, though you may still have problems if your most relevant experience was ten jobs ago. For a tech job, you want to focus on things like what tools you've used, what problems you've solved and any awards or achievements that you can brag about. If you really feel that you can't leave anything out, put a note on there with a link to an online copy of your CV which, unlike a resume, is supposed to list everything. Then watch how many hits it gets to see how little people care.
  - cchurch 15y ago
    As someone who reads a lot of resumes, I regularly see two types of resumes: 1) Those that are roughly 1-2 pages per 10 years of experience with care taken to emphasize relevant and recent experience. Skills and knowledge that I actually care about are placed such that I cannot help but notice them on a first glance. Thought is clearly present in this resume. 2) Those that are roughly 13-21 pages (I have one on my desk that is 17 pages for work experience dating to an internship in 1996). Each job is discussed in mind numbing detail without ever giving me any of the details that I may actually care about. Each job includes an "environment" section that lists every tool that was in the building while that project was going on. Spelling and grammar issues are present. Any skills section will be overloaded with undefined in-house tools and frighteningly basic items (such as a senior developer/architect who lists 11 years of experience with FTP and EMAIL). When you see an interviewer complaining about resumes that are too long and waste time, understand that they're complaining about the latter. I can easily accept minor issues. It is a huge warning sign when their resume makes me wonder if it is their judgement or motivation that is seriously lacking.

astral303 15y ago

Long CV definitely tells me something about the quality of the candidate. If I am interviewing someone fresh out of school, I can forgive a rambling resume. However, for an experienced person, I am looking for some ability to present information concisely. It's like a design skill: can you present a focused view of the most relevant information? If you think that more than two pages of information is required to advertise yourself for a job, then you are quite likely lacking that skill. I still think that a one-page limit is where it's at. Don't put down obvious bullet points. If you were a Windows system admin, don't waste a line on writing that you administered an active directory server. Of course you did that as a Windows sysadmin. No, tell me what you did that made you different than a run-of-the-mill person doing the same job.

cunac 15y ago
One page resume might work for people with not so much experience but it is very hard to put 25+ years of work in one page except obvious "I solve your problems for money" :-). Just plain listing all places of work with dates can be 20+ lines How much insight can you get from 1995-1996 Company X , Senior Consultant , project Y ??
- JohnnyBrown 15y ago
  Include only the 3 or 4 most relevant jobs/items. This way you have all the space you need to explain what you got out of them
  - Natsu 15y ago
    This. My Aunt was a career counselor for the past several decades. She won't let me use a resume longer than one page. You don't need to list ever job you've had since your first part-time job flipping burgers during high school. Just try to figure out what they care about and list that prominently. If they want to know more, they'll ask about it. That said, make sure you summarize things in a way that doesn't make it appear that there are large gaps in your resume, though you may still have problems if your most relevant experience was ten jobs ago. For a tech job, you want to focus on things like what tools you've used, what problems you've solved and any awards or achievements that you can brag about. If you really feel that you can't leave anything out, put a note on there with a link to an online copy of your CV which, unlike a resume, is supposed to list everything. Then watch how many hits it gets to see how little people care.
- cchurch 15y ago
  As someone who reads a lot of resumes, I regularly see two types of resumes: 1) Those that are roughly 1-2 pages per 10 years of experience with care taken to emphasize relevant and recent experience. Skills and knowledge that I actually care about are placed such that I cannot help but notice them on a first glance. Thought is clearly present in this resume. 2) Those that are roughly 13-21 pages (I have one on my desk that is 17 pages for work experience dating to an internship in 1996). Each job is discussed in mind numbing detail without ever giving me any of the details that I may actually care about. Each job includes an "environment" section that lists every tool that was in the building while that project was going on. Spelling and grammar issues are present. Any skills section will be overloaded with undefined in-house tools and frighteningly basic items (such as a senior developer/architect who lists 11 years of experience with FTP and EMAIL). When you see an interviewer complaining about resumes that are too long and waste time, understand that they're complaining about the latter. I can easily accept minor issues. It is a huge warning sign when their resume makes me wonder if it is their judgement or motivation that is seriously lacking.