Press Release
Job Seeker’s Tip: Resume Writing Tips
Monday, January 25, 2010
Reading dozens of resumes every day, recruiting professionals and hiring managers are sure to pick up on some of the categories that career seekers tend to fall into.
The Blow-Hard: This candidate has been employed professionally since 2002, has had two jobs over that span yet still feels the need to write a four page resume complete with high-school work experience, inspirational quotes and an annotated bibliography. An overly lengthy resume is not only boring to read, but it can cast an unfavorable impression on the candidate as a show-off who can not concisely communicate their skill set. If your career spans less than a decade, you will be best off keeping the resume to one page. After the ten-year mark, feel free to stretch to two, but a three page resume should be reserved for VP Level individuals and up.
The Myspace Resume: This candidate has tried to inject a bit of personality into his or her resume adding a personal statement, a list of hobbies, favorite football teams and a family tree. While employers certainly look for candidates with strong personalities, these bits of information should be saved for the interview itself. It is seldom that a hiring manager will set an interview with an otherwise marginal candidate just because they share their love for scrapbooking or the Green Bay Packers. Unless you have pursued one of these hobbies at a professional level, please keep the resume “strictly business”.
The Man of Mystery: This candidate is dedicated to his career, and serious about this opportunity, just please, don’t ask any follow-up questions. Candidates often spend too much time covering their tracks, and not enough time explaining any skeletons that may be in their career closet. A resume that lists; University of Pittsburgh – 1989-1993 may cause the hiring manager to assume that the candidate received his or her degree. However a probing question often reveals that the candidate is ten or twenty credits shy of graduating. Rather than spending time concocting schemes to hide certain aspects, instead prepare yourself to tell the story of why certain career potholes occurred, what you learned, and how you grew professionally from the experience.