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Author here. I'm perfectly willing to give something a fair judgment, and although I didn't include this in the article, I'm actually scheduled to speak with t

by fecak 13y ago

Author here. I'm perfectly willing to give something a fair judgment, and although I didn't include this in the article, I'm actually scheduled to speak with the person with the 23 bullet summary and 4 sentences on Google. The problem is that although I'm still willing to give a fair judgment, the candidate's inability to distill what is important from trivia will give me a negative impression. You're assuming that there is relative content in those additional pages, which there isn't. I can write "I am qualified for the job" 500 times on a sheet of paper, but if I require someone to read the last 499 I've done them a disservice. Regarding CVs vs a brief resume format, I think the industry will be better off because the use of CVs seems to negatively impact mostly foreign workers who are accustomed to using that format. I still read as much as necessary in order to evaluate a candidate, but I assure you that many hiring managers and recruiters do not. I agree that surpassing the HR hiring process is much more effective, and I even advocate that method specifically in an entire section of my ebook. The two audiences is a real issue as you mention, and having ATS systems scanning resumes is another issue and third audience for the resume to cater to.

makmanalp 13y ago
Hey. Thanks for the thoughtful response! Sorry if that was a bit abrasive, but it's a hot topic for me, and I really think it matters. I totally agree with you in that you shouldn't ever be wasting space. It's disrespectful if you're really not providing anything better in 3 pages that you could have in 1. I'm just frustrated at the immediate dismissal of having more than one page (and I don't mean to single you out, it's everyone). The goal should be to convey information as densely as possible (i.e. high signal to noise) while also taking care to convey relevant information. If it goes over a page even then, that's fine.
- fecak 13y ago
  Not abrasive - seemed like a fair comment to me. When you read enough resumes, you'll notice these problems of redundancy and spacing issues. Seeing a document that is long just gives that immediate negative impression that is sometimes hard to overcome, just as you might get if you were reviewing code that seems verbose - it doesn't mean that the code is always horrible, but you can probably determine that some of it is at least unnecessary to perform the task at hand. I don't immediately dismiss any resumes, but some do. I rarely get one page resumes, but when I do it tends to be a strong candidate - I'd be lying if I didn't notice a correlation between interview success and resume length, at least for candidates of similar career levels. As I said, resume length just seems to create an immediate negative. 1 or 2 pages doesn't create that feeling, and even 3 can be tolerated. You'd probably be astonished at how many 5 page resumes I get from people with 2 or 3 years of overall industry experience.
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by fecak 13y ago

makmanalp 13y ago

Hey. Thanks for the thoughtful response! Sorry if that was a bit abrasive, but it's a hot topic for me, and I really think it matters. I totally agree with you in that you shouldn't ever be wasting space. It's disrespectful if you're really not providing anything better in 3 pages that you could have in 1. I'm just frustrated at the immediate dismissal of having more than one page (and I don't mean to single you out, it's everyone). The goal should be to convey information as densely as possible (i.e. high signal to noise) while also taking care to convey relevant information. If it goes over a page even then, that's fine.

fecak 13y ago
Not abrasive - seemed like a fair comment to me. When you read enough resumes, you'll notice these problems of redundancy and spacing issues. Seeing a document that is long just gives that immediate negative impression that is sometimes hard to overcome, just as you might get if you were reviewing code that seems verbose - it doesn't mean that the code is always horrible, but you can probably determine that some of it is at least unnecessary to perform the task at hand. I don't immediately dismiss any resumes, but some do. I rarely get one page resumes, but when I do it tends to be a strong candidate - I'd be lying if I didn't notice a correlation between interview success and resume length, at least for candidates of similar career levels. As I said, resume length just seems to create an immediate negative. 1 or 2 pages doesn't create that feeling, and even 3 can be tolerated. You'd probably be astonished at how many 5 page resumes I get from people with 2 or 3 years of overall industry experience.

deleted 13y ago

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