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RE: Having fun with your resume - good idea/bad idea
Subject:RE: Having fun with your resume - good idea/bad idea From:lemay -at- lauralemay -dot- com To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Wed, 5 Sep 2012 10:54:26 -0700
I screen tech writer resumes for my group at a Very Large Internet
Company. I have a few points, only some of which are related to the topic
at hand:
+ We use an internal system for tracking candidates and resumes. I only
see resumes and not cover letters or email greetings. The resumes are
stripped of all formatting; all I see is machine-generated text. (some
PDFs reduce to text better than others.)
+ I see resumes of all lengths but almost never look past the first
handful of jobs on any resume. IMHO it is far better to be more detailed
about what you did at your current job than try to squish 20 years of
experience into two pages.
+ It is totally miraculous to get any resume that is well-structured,
clearly written, and does not contain significant grammar or typographical
errors. Like 1 in 100. Nothing has made me despair for our profession
more than screening resumes.
+ About 30% of the time we get our resumes directly as automated output
from LinkedIn profiles. The moment I realized this was happening I
rewrote my linkedin profile to duplicate the text on my resume. And if
you're not on linkedin, you are missing out on work.
+ I google every potential candidate. If you are a difficult blowhard on
the internet, I won't approve you. no matter how good a tech writer you
are. Yes, I know that many people can have the same name, and I only make
this judgement if I can be sure the difficult blowhard is you. On the
other hand, I approve of a sense of humor if you demonstrate it on the
Internet, but I am not interested in seeing your sense of humor in your
resume. On the third hand I have no opinion at all about your drunk naked
facebook photos, but I will judge you poorly for not knowing how to set
your privacy settings.
Takeaways: the traditional resume is dead. We all live on the internet.
Please get a friend to read and edit your resume.
Instead of, "a senior tech writer should have an understanding of how to
communicate effectively in a very concise way", wouldn't you want to say, "a
senior tech writer should understand how to communicate effectively and
concisely." In any case, I am sure you wouldn't want your sentence (and
idea) reduced to, "a writer should understand how to communicate"; which is
really no different from, "a writer should write". For the sake of
concision, would you mind if I redacted and revised your original sentence
to "a writer should write"?
I understand the two page expectation, and while I respect it for the
reality that it is, I also think it is absurd--and apart from giving
pragmatic advice, it is the last thing a professional writer should be
promoting. Like "any other story" (or a mathematics formula), a resume needs
to be as long as it needs to be (and no longer). I've worked in several
different industries (telephony, ERP, ILM, elections, and biotech), and I've
held each job for a significant period of time. Consequently, while I
mention only what is unique and significant to each job, my resume is
nevertheless five pages. I have never had a problem finding excellent jobs
with variations of this resume.
While I think "keep it to two pages" is probably good advice in general, I
don't agree that a senior tech writer should be able to squeeze, say, five
pages of genuinely meaningful and pertinent information into two pages. A
senior tech writer who can communicate effectively and concisely should
understand that over-redacting a document does a disservice to the reader.
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+lporrello=illumina -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+lporrello=illumina -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of Lynne Wright
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2012 8:56 AM
To: Milan Davidović; Green, Duane
Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: Having fun with your resume - good idea/bad idea
He shouldn't HAVE to specify those things... its common knowledge that you
should try to keep resumes to 2 pages maximum and only stick to the most
recent/relevant/significant past jobs; and as Duane pointed out, a senior
tech writer should have an understanding of how to communicate effectively
in a very concise way.
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+lynne -dot- wright=tiburoninc -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+lynne -dot- wright=tiburoninc -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of Milan Davidovic
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2012 11:50 AM
To: Green, Duane
Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Having fun with your resume - good idea/bad idea
On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 11:15 AM, Green, Duane <Duane -dot- Green -at- e-hps -dot- com> wrote:
I received several resumes that were 8-10 pages long, and included every
contact writing assignment they'd worked at for the last 20+ years.
When writing the job posting, had you considered specifying length and/or
time range of the resume?
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