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I know I'll get plenty of flack for this from people who have a contrary
opinion, but resumes should be kept to two pages or less. Employers who get
flooded with hundreds of resumes are going to look unkindly at fat resumes
that make that stack grow even taller. If yours is longer than that (six
pages -- YIKES!!), then you haven't done enough self-editing. A resume is a
summary of your experience, not a complete documentation of your entire
career in minute detail. It's to get you in the door, not to get you the
job. After you're in the door, use the interview (and any leave-behinds) to
provide additional levels of detail about your experience.
IMHO, if you have a contrary opinion, you might be a little out of touch
with what most employers want in a resume. Just Google "resume writing" and
see what the experts have to say on the subject.
As an aside, there is no excuse for any of us, as writers/editors, to have
even a single typo on our resumes. My boss ix-nayed a candidate for a tech
writer position just yesterday because her resume contained more than a
couple of typos.
p.s. I guess clicking Send will reveal to me whether or not my posting
privileges have been reinstated after my scandalous job posting last
week....
-----Original Message-----
From: John Posada [mailto:jposada01 -at- yahoo -dot- com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2004 12:22 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Cc: STC Lone Writer SIG
Subject: Re: Updating Resume?
I say let the content of the resume reflect your expertise...not have your
expertise conform to what can fit on an arbitrary measurement...the space of
two pages.
If you need four pages to properly describe what your strengths are, so be
it...and maybe sometime in the future, you'll have done enoughy to fill six
pages...like me.
> How does one go about updating a resume after one has started
> contracting after a long career as a full time employee without having
> the resume turn into resume Godzilla and be about 4 plus pages long? I
> don't plan on going back to full time (at least while I am in grad
> school)and I anticipate I will be working many short term jobs over
> the next 2-3 years. Should one include contractor experience in the
> original resume or should I start another new resume that is devoted
> exclusively to contracting?
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