Thoughts on resumes… continued!

your point on the writing skills is right on. all right, let me give it a whirl and do a one pager for myself and see what i can come up with.

I wholeheartedly agreee that it should only be one page. Your resume isn’t a life history – it’s your brief opportunity to lure an HR manager into an interview. Leave them with a good picture of yourself, showing that you have the necessary skills for the job, but also leave them wanting more.

I personally have a 2 page master resume that I tailor to each position I apply for. I’ve had such a wide range of experiences that I feel some are more relevant to each candidate. Plus at the bottom I have the address for my full resume on my LinkenIn profile and a note that my portfolio is available upon request.

When I was an HR professional, there were times when I would recruit to fill some fairly senior positions in my organization.
The resumes that saw little or no light in my considerable pile were the ones that resembled novels…pages and pages of information that I’m sure were filled with good and useful content but far more than was necessary to get my attention at that particular moment in time.

The resumes that generally made the “short pile” were the ones that were one to one & a half pages long, with an interesting cover letter outlining the applicants interest in the job and reasons for wanting to be considered.

Having said that, I agree with Danielle, that having a master resume is very very useful.
To me, a master resume contains all the information about not only a person’s work history but also about his/her accomplishments, travels, learnings and experiences. It takes some time to pull all of that together but in the end you have a master document from which you can pull information pertinent to any job you’re applying for without having to re-create a document from scratch every time.

With the master resume as a guide, I think it is possible to make a one to one & a half page resume interesting by connecting your content to what you see as the primary purpose of the job to which you are applying.

To me, the first goal of a resume and covering letter is to get an interview. Once that is accomplished then the rest of your information, experiences and accomplishments can be called upon to strengthen your candidacy.

After listening to multiple professionals at PRSSA meetings, on Twitter, and through posts such as this, I agree with the one page. I have seen my fellow students resumes and although they are impressive, they are lengthy and wordy. Yes, they have accomplished some great things, but I believe many of us applying for internships feel we need to stack our resumes with every little thing we have done in order to get noticed. But instead, we need to realize that we should be putting just the important accomplishments that have helped us to become better future professionals in our field.

I also love the points made about how jobs and internships want team players who are not “prima donnas.” This is valid because I see those people everyday looking for jobs and internships while at college. They feel even though professionals want one page, their resume is so good they deserve two.

As a Public Relations major, I understand the importance of writing skills and am currently re-vamping my resume. Every word must be carefully selected to get the point across without taking three or four lines. I have already removed some of my experiences to make room for those that have benefited me more than others.