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The fact is that every open req especially for remote positions get hundreds of resumes within the first hour, who is going to read that? An 8 page resume goes

The fact is that every open req especially for remote positions get hundreds of resumes within the first hour, who is going to read that? An 8 page resume goes straight to the trash. Part of a job of a “senior” is good communication skills and knowing your audience. An eight page resume shows laziness since they didn’t take the time to make it shorter and no one is going to listen to or read anything 8 pages especially as a manager who just wants to know what is going on a high level. I ask the tell me about yourself question partially to assess their communication skills and getting to the point. Do you think people who are conducting an interview loop at large companies are going to go through an 8 page resume? Yes I’ve been on both sides of a BigTech interview loop and have gone through the interview training process there. Even at smaller companies when building a team and I’ve had 80% of the say so about who gets hired, I still needed evidence to take the CxO/director and couldn’t go by “gut feel”. And when dealing with customers (I work in consulting now) or “the business” you have to have a strategy to deal with interdepartmental conflicts, different stakeholders have different priorities, some people don’t want to change etc. I’m not talking about a conflict with another coworker arguing about which design pattern to use.

rramadass 2y ago
You have missed the point of the long CV. It is not that the recipient has to read everything. As mentioned, the first couple of pages is the resume. However the details are there to provide more info. as needed. Contrary to what you think i have had very good response to such a layout. Often times they see a company/project/technology there (even if old) which rings a bell with them and which they are then eager to discuss. That is the point; Give them all the info. in which you are strong so that they can make a better informed decision. The same is what i look for when i am the interviewer; a few bullet points on a 2-page resume which basically tell me nothing is useless. Incidentally, Jeff Bezos does something similar with his 6-page memo (plus annexes) for meetings; Same idea different domain; More details help better decision-making. "Gut Feel" is absolutely needed to give your input on Team Fit, Conflict Management and similar other intangible Human factors. Some companies are doing Myers-Briggs etc. but i give them lower weightage (because they can be gamed by practice) over subjective feelings. A report on a interviewee should include objective assessments (knowledge, experience etc. and your inferences based on them) and subjective assessments (temperament, maturity etc.)
- scarface_74 2y ago
  I worked at AWS for three years (Professional Services). Using Amazon as an example of a good corporate culture and how companies should behave is not the argument you think it is. But I see a few scenarios. You have a strong network and the resume is a formality. In that case it’s easy enough to tailor your resume for the job. I don’t need to put that I wrote FORTRAN and C on VAX and Stratus mainframes in the mid 90s. There is no need for an 8 page resume. The year before last I had two offers for strategic positions based on my network. The second case you are targeting a company where you know you have a competitive advantage, again in that case, you only need to have a resume that focuses on what gives you a competitive advantage. In my case, now I focus on strategic cloud consulting positions that focus on app development. In that case, I only need to focus on my job at a startup in 2018, talk in broad strokes about my time at AWS (working there automatically gets call backs by the way), and when the day comes, when I leave my current job as a “staff architect”. The worse case is if you are spamming your resume far and wide and you are looking for any generic job. I look at an 8 page resume and then I have to take the time to see what is this person trying to communicate - it goes in the trash and I move on. I have hundreds of other resumes that I can get through quickly. Of course if the company is reaching out to me, it’s even easier to tailor my resume for the job requirements. I have my “career document” to pull from either way that is as long as needed. But even then I’m not going back even to the low level work I did in 2012 for Windows CE devices.
  - rramadass 2y ago
    I am not talking about general Amazon corporate culture so your caveat makes no sense. I am talking about the practice of one specific technique which leads to better decision-making and which has also been validated by other people adopting it. Here is Jeff's own words - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYb5pBVBXEg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYb5pBVBXEg I consider 2-page resumes no better than a powerpoint presentation (i.e. almost useless) and furthermore when i see people tailor it to what they think i should know i consider it maybe trying to hide something. This is because by omitting companies they take away a vector for me to check references and more. Note that this is different from highlighting relevant experience/knowledge. Your scenarios are nothing new from what you have already mentioned earlier; And spamming is not what i am talking about. That is a policy decision made by each person based on his circumstances. You and most folks are simply parroting current practices in HR/Recruiting which are broken and need to be rethought from the ground up. To repeat once more, all details matter at some level in recruiting. As they say "measure twice and cut once" and "slow is smooth and smooth is fast".

rramadass 2y ago

You have missed the point of the long CV. It is not that the recipient has to read everything. As mentioned, the first couple of pages is the resume. However the details are there to provide more info. as needed. Contrary to what you think i have had very good response to such a layout. Often times they see a company/project/technology there (even if old) which rings a bell with them and which they are then eager to discuss. That is the point; Give them all the info. in which you are strong so that they can make a better informed decision. The same is what i look for when i am the interviewer; a few bullet points on a 2-page resume which basically tell me nothing is useless. Incidentally, Jeff Bezos does something similar with his 6-page memo (plus annexes) for meetings; Same idea different domain; More details help better decision-making. "Gut Feel" is absolutely needed to give your input on Team Fit, Conflict Management and similar other intangible Human factors. Some companies are doing Myers-Briggs etc. but i give them lower weightage (because they can be gamed by practice) over subjective feelings. A report on a interviewee should include objective assessments (knowledge, experience etc. and your inferences based on them) and subjective assessments (temperament, maturity etc.)

scarface_74 2y ago
I worked at AWS for three years (Professional Services). Using Amazon as an example of a good corporate culture and how companies should behave is not the argument you think it is. But I see a few scenarios. You have a strong network and the resume is a formality. In that case it’s easy enough to tailor your resume for the job. I don’t need to put that I wrote FORTRAN and C on VAX and Stratus mainframes in the mid 90s. There is no need for an 8 page resume. The year before last I had two offers for strategic positions based on my network. The second case you are targeting a company where you know you have a competitive advantage, again in that case, you only need to have a resume that focuses on what gives you a competitive advantage. In my case, now I focus on strategic cloud consulting positions that focus on app development. In that case, I only need to focus on my job at a startup in 2018, talk in broad strokes about my time at AWS (working there automatically gets call backs by the way), and when the day comes, when I leave my current job as a “staff architect”. The worse case is if you are spamming your resume far and wide and you are looking for any generic job. I look at an 8 page resume and then I have to take the time to see what is this person trying to communicate - it goes in the trash and I move on. I have hundreds of other resumes that I can get through quickly. Of course if the company is reaching out to me, it’s even easier to tailor my resume for the job requirements. I have my “career document” to pull from either way that is as long as needed. But even then I’m not going back even to the low level work I did in 2012 for Windows CE devices.
- rramadass 2y ago
  I am not talking about general Amazon corporate culture so your caveat makes no sense. I am talking about the practice of one specific technique which leads to better decision-making and which has also been validated by other people adopting it. Here is Jeff's own words - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYb5pBVBXEg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYb5pBVBXEg I consider 2-page resumes no better than a powerpoint presentation (i.e. almost useless) and furthermore when i see people tailor it to what they think i should know i consider it maybe trying to hide something. This is because by omitting companies they take away a vector for me to check references and more. Note that this is different from highlighting relevant experience/knowledge. Your scenarios are nothing new from what you have already mentioned earlier; And spamming is not what i am talking about. That is a policy decision made by each person based on his circumstances. You and most folks are simply parroting current practices in HR/Recruiting which are broken and need to be rethought from the ground up. To repeat once more, all details matter at some level in recruiting. As they say "measure twice and cut once" and "slow is smooth and smooth is fast".