With Fred Coon
20 Pet Peeves Recruiters Have About Resumes
Courtesy of Mike Worthington, ResumeDoctor.com
# 7 – Long Resumes
A resume should never be more than 2 pages. James Cox, Managing Director at MES Search Company in Smyrna, Georgia told us, “I hate long resumes, meaning any resume over 2 pages long. If a candidate cannot adequately communicate the information in 2 pages or less, there is a problem. Situations that usually contribute to long resumes are too many jobs; a career that is not focused, an inability to be concise, written communication problems, or something similar. All of which make for an ‘UNPLACEABLE’ candidate.”
No matter how tempting it is to go into detail about the first job you had 25 years ago, don’t! Instead, let your resume showcase your most recent accomplishments. Recruiters (for the most part) are only reviewing the last 5-8 years of your career, 10 tops. A recruiter is not gauging whether you are a viable candidate for that CFO position at a $200M manufacturing firm based on your first accounts payable position out of school 25 years ago.
If you are a recent graduate with limited professional work experience, your resume should be only one page. If you are from academia, but are seeking a position in industry, do not include every publication or journal paper you have ever presented. My record as a recruiter was a 62-page resume/CV (it got a few laughs here in the office and then went right in the trash). Yes, the general rule in academia is “publish or perish,” but recruiters do not care nor understand your paper on “Rab proteins in sphingolipid storage disease cell types.” They want to see how your experience can directly fit into the industry and the position that they are trying to fill. You can opt to list a few RELEVANT papers at the end of your resume, but it is suggested that you prepare an addendum, which can be presented in the interview stage.
Remember, a resume is simply just a marketing piece, it must be short, concise and hit the “hot buttons” of the employer.
Recruiter Tip: For employment beyond 10 years ago, create a “Previous Employment” section. You can quickly list your older assignments by simply including title, company and dates. However, if you are applying to a position where a much older assignment is relevant and this experience is not covered by a more recent position, you can opt to elaborate further. You can also opt to include a quick bullet or two about this experience in your general summary so that the reader can see immediately this experience.
Recruiter’s likes and dislikes in a resume were surveyed nation-wide by Mike Worthington of ResumeDoctor.com. FACE to FACE will publish all twenty pet peeves in this column over the next months.
ResumeDoctor.com is a service provided by Personnel Department Inc. PDI is Vermont’s largest independently owned staffing agency. They have been locally owned and operated for over 14 years. They have been featured in many publications, TV news programs, and radio broadcasts. You may contact them at: http://www.resumedoctor.com.