msmemory_archive | The modern resume

You, of course, know my area of expertise. It matches your husbands. :-)

I prefer that experience be listed along with some notion of what wonderful things that YOU GOT DONE at each job. I am always suspicious of "we implemented" or whatever. If the noun ain't singular, you got 'splainin to do.

You might want to peruse how your name comes up in Google, and on professional sites like Linked In, and do some cleaning up.

Ick. I made that sound like I checked those things and there is a problem. No. Just a suggestion.

See below response.

I did Google myself, and know I need to post the new resume, since the old version is the one that comes up. Other than that, things seem to be in order; there are links to me in a number of kinds of site, but genuine. If you have found something you think damaging - which I didn't see any of - please let me know privately.

I prefer that experience be listed along with some notion of what wonderful things that YOU GOT DONE at each job. I am always suspicious of "we implemented" or whatever. If the noun ain't singular, you got 'splainin to do.

I dunno. I used to share this opinion, but I'm biasing away from it now. The fact is, too many well-run software projects are deeply collaborative to be able to *honestly* say "I" to all of one's work.

In particular, for most of what I spent the last year on, everybody was in everybody else's pockets, pretty much by design. There were some areas that I *led*, but damned near nothing that didn't have other hands all over it. That's a feature, in my book, so I'm sympathetic to it...

It is my current bias.

In my previous job, we interviewed a lot of candidates who used the term "we", to take credit for work that they didn't do. If you pressed them for details of their particular contribution - they had none.

I appreciate and understand collaboration, and I make good use of it myself. Yet, somehow, I can still say "I co-designed X, wrote half of Y, did Z for the team".

True, but that can get awfully wordy for a resume. And for a junior engineer, in particular, separating the contributions can be tough without running into eye-glazing verbiage (which will cost different points with some people).

Anyway, matter of taste. I don't rule "we" out as a resume item, but it's the kind of thing that I will probe into early in the interview process -- maybe as early as the phone screen, certainly in the first interview. If they can't defend their contribution, they go poing at that point...

A point of clarification on things I did not check.

Cell phone if it is in fact the way to reach you, or one of the best ways.
Volunteer work if it is germane to your skills and can be explained in a way that makes it mesh with other examples of those skills on your resume.

I can't remember the last time I saw a one-page resume except on really fresh-out-of-college folks.

I only have two post-college jobs (because I tend to stick around the same place for a while. 7+ years at the last one), so I still try to keep it down to one page. Having had input on a fair amount of hiring interviews in that time, I know that most of the time more than one page wasn't any more effective than a single page, and in some cases less. After two pages, we were definitely glossing over things.

I've been involved here with interviewing for legal assistants, paralegals, and attorneys. Our folks definitely seem to go on a "less is more" philosophy. They like one page resumes, don't care about objectives, volunteer work, professional associations (other than obviously, the bar), or any of that stuff. They want to see what the candidates have done, and be able to interpret how they'll fit into what we want them to do. They want to see solid work at reputable firms, in areas that show they'll be able to do our kind of work. The rest is just dross for some very, very busy people to wade through.

What others have said, plus:
a) I would only expect a list of software skills for a technical position, not an administrative or executive one.

b) How do you cope if there are other people out there with the same name? Me, I've given up on pre-empting or second-guessing, and let them figure it out (or not). (And here I thought my first name was fairly rare, but apparently I share it with a cousin of the famous Band of Brothers, among others.)

You need a physical address, an email address, and a phone number which either reaches you or a voicemail box or answering machine which is private to you. You don't need to specify it as cell or landline or voicemail-only, but you do need to check it at least twice a day.

If you have membership in appropriate professional associations, you should list them.

Any job that shows something useful about your career progression goes on. If you had a paying job which isn't useful (McD's) leave it off. If you had a volunteer job that was useful (librarian internship) it can stay.

"References available upon request" is a waste of space -- of course you have references, and of course you aren't putting them here.

Skills lists should cover both software and formal methods that might not be obvious.

I'd only put the volunteer experience & nonprofessional stuff on if I either needed to demonstrate what I was doing when I was out of work or if I was trying to get into a field that I didn't have paying work history for.

I think "working phone number, working email address, and working post address" are sufficient. I would not give out my cell phone number on a resume unless I was completely out of work, or self-employed.

Once you have significant experience after college, any minor jobs fall off the back. However, any temp work that is relevant, or any temp positions that explain a gap in the years you have worked, should be included.

Most librarian/information analyst resumes I have seen include a "skills list" of the databases or cataloging programs they're familiar with.

More to come. :-)

On objectives: even though a lot of people recommend that you have one on your resume, to my mind it falls more properly into the category of things you discuss in a cover letter.

Agreed. I think most people assume your underlying objective is to get the job, so it's better to work in any other objectives into the cover letter. You can better explain your impetus and your motivators in a cover letter, and leave more room in the resume to explain your qualifications and competencies.

This is of immediate interest to me as well, since I haven't submitted a resume in a decade, and since it's been something of a frippery in my field for most of my career, which has mostly been "pharmacist at independent mom-and-pop drugstore". That's always been pretty much a handshake, "I like the cut of your jib, son" kind of arrangement.

I'll mention something here (for both of your benefit) that I learned long ago, and which I stick to.

Don't have "a resume". Have a resume-construction kit, and fine tune the daylights out of it for any job you apply for. The more you can tune, the better.

Also: for jobs for which one can expect more than 100 applicants - no one is going to read more than half a page of your resume. Make that half page COUNT - use it to buy yourself a closer reading. So, if my most recent work experience is not as on point as 2 jobs back, I place something about that job experience in the first half of the first page.

Resumes are two things - they are subjected to key word automated analysis, and they are a plea for attention.

I keep my resume regularly up-to-date and have had a colleague of mine, who teaches classes on resume writing, give it a couple of once-overs in which she was pretty impressed by the format and layout (which was nonetheless tweaked based on her coupld of suggestions). I'd be happy to send you a word or PdF copy of mine to use as a template, if you desired.

I'd be interested in comparing, even though I just changed jobs..

No problem Chad. Which address should I send it to?

Any address you have should be operational, but if you want to be sure, this username at google mail will work fine.

I would like to see it, since you say you're willing. Thanks.

General comment: if and only if it's relevant. Volunteer work related to your career yes; volunteer work just to show that you're a good, well-rounded person no. Web site if it's part of your professional image, not if not.

It's been a long time since I've seen a one-page resume. That certainly shouldn't be a restriction for someone with as much experience as you have. (Caveat: I don't know the norms of your field.)

When I was briefly un-employed, I had to take "unemployment counseling" in order to get the checks. She kept advising me to pare my resume and cover letters down to one page each. I responded "You don't work with Computer Professionals very much, do you?" "No, how did you know?" "The one page resume line was a dead giveaway!"
-- Dagonell

If any of the things I consider optional directly relate to the work you're applying for, and convey a sense professionalism, then they would be appropriate. If you you really want/need to go to two pages, I'd put the meaty stuff on page one and the optional/older stuff on page two. Either way, my personal feeling is that if it doesn't relate directly to the work you're apply for, it doesn't belong on the resume. If that means there's a huge gap in the timeline, then I would divide my resume into "Relevant Experience" and "Other Experience" -- or find a way to spin the "other" stuff so that it's relevant. That's my take on resumes, at least.

The modern resume

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