Re: Resume length and history
On 04/09/2013 11:49 AM, Kenny Lussier wrote: Hi All, Not specifically Linux-related, but I was wondering what other people are seeing/doing with resumes these days. I have seen everything from a 2-page resume for someone with 20 years of experience to a 15-page resume for someone with 2 jobs over 3 years (it looked like the output of cat ~/.bash_history). How far back should a resume go? How long should it be before you stop reading it? I'm seeing absolutely no consistency in resumes, and the ones that come from recruiters seem to be the worst formats. Basically, I have 3 resumes. 1. Short form 1 page summary. 2. Standard. 2 pages. Recent history detailed, old history referenced only. 3. Full Resume. I still have older or not relevant jobs referenced. HR and high level hiring managers are only interested in the top third of the first page. However, I have had a hiring manager go back to high school. He even wanted the dates of my military service. Mostly as a contractor, I may give the long form to the headhunters. Another thing they do is if you list a skill, they want to see where you used it. The way I section my resume is the top half of page 1 lists my skills and highlights my experience. The rest is history. I always tailor the resume to the job. Buzz words are very important to HR people, and some hiring managers. For instance, Linux is important, but some HR people specify things like RHEL. A friend of mine who is very competent missed out on a job because he did not have workstation Unix experience. And lastly to keep it brief, do not lie. I know a case where a guy claimed to have designed a circuit board. Unfortunately for him, the guy who actually designed that board was the interviewer. The first thing the hiring manager asked him was whose name was on the blue print. -- Jerry Feldman g...@blu.org Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id:3BC1EB90 PGP Key fingerprint: 49E2 C52A FC5A A31F 8D66 C0AF 7CEA 30FC 3BC1 EB90 ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Resume length and history
I just landed a temp-to-perm job at a pretty awesome company with a 3-page resume that goes back to my first computer job in 1999. My resume is heavy on job experience because I only have an AS degree and the jobs I was looking for were Bachelors or equivalent level. If you want to take a peek, it's online over at http://brianchabot.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/bchabot.pdf Brian On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 11:49 AM, Kenny Lussier kluss...@gmail.com wrote: Hi All, Not specifically Linux-related, but I was wondering what other people are seeing/doing with resumes these days. I have seen everything from a 2-page resume for someone with 20 years of experience to a 15-page resume for someone with 2 jobs over 3 years (it looked like the output of cat ~/.bash_history). How far back should a resume go? How long should it be before you stop reading it? I'm seeing absolutely no consistency in resumes, and the ones that come from recruiters seem to be the worst formats. C-Ya, Kenny ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Resume length and history
I'm nearly sixty and have had a bunch of jobs over the decades, not all of them IT and not all of them Linux. So I tailor the resume to the specific position and keep it to two pages, max. I then expand on whatever in a cover letter and interview, if I get one. I've seen other peoples' resumes and it is as you describe; no consistency and everything from cryptic geek-speak acronyms to web-based sound-and-video productions to eight pages of small print listing the person's detailed life history. I have also help to edit/fix resumes for people and had them down to nice, concise, informative two-page deals and then they insisted I hadn't included enough info and gone back to their four- and six-page horrors and never got called for an interview thereafter, becauseyesthe screening HR drones tossed them instantly. It is also worth noting that the last stat I saw on this indicated that there is a roughly four-percent retention and examination of resumes in general. The rest, 96%, are tossed. In my half-century of experience, jobs are gotten by getting via hook or crook to the hiring manager and showing them how you can help them/make their job easier. Period. Regards from northwestern Vermont, under the F-16s On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 11:49 AM, Kenny Lussier kluss...@gmail.com wrote: Hi All, Not specifically Linux-related, but I was wondering what other people are seeing/doing with resumes these days. I have seen everything from a 2-page resume for someone with 20 years of experience to a 15-page resume for someone with 2 jobs over 3 years (it looked like the output of cat ~/.bash_history). How far back should a resume go? How long should it be before you stop reading it? I'm seeing absolutely no consistency in resumes, and the ones that come from recruiters seem to be the worst formats. C-Ya, Kenny ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Resume length and history
I signed up for the website called The Ladders, and paid for the membership that gave me a resume critique. I found that to be very helpful and I seemed to get more interest out of it than I did my old, one page resume. I remember some of the comments, things like: - You have over 12 years experience, your schooling should no longer be the first thing on your resume. - You should start with a summary about yourself, followed by skill set - list all of your employment with bullet lists (handy because I love bullet lists) about what you did, things you accomplished - list facts, like 'developed an integration handoff plan that cut integration time by 40%' or 'cut development costs by designing for reuse, saving the company $12 million.' - end with your education now I was told that my education should be last, because it was the oldest thing on there, I don't know if you'd want to list things like a timeline, say if you just finished a masters or whatever. Pretty much exactly what Brian just sent. I've also had good luck with Linkedin On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 11:49 AM, Kenny Lussier kluss...@gmail.com wrote: Hi All, Not specifically Linux-related, but I was wondering what other people are seeing/doing with resumes these days. I have seen everything from a 2-page resume for someone with 20 years of experience to a 15-page resume for someone with 2 jobs over 3 years (it looked like the output of cat ~/.bash_history). How far back should a resume go? How long should it be before you stop reading it? I'm seeing absolutely no consistency in resumes, and the ones that come from recruiters seem to be the worst formats. C-Ya, Kenny ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ -- Richard Kolb II ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Resume length and history
On the reviewing/receiving end, I generally find that unless it's a recent grad, one page is insufficient for a technical resume, two is about right, and a third page is generally only useful if the first two were pretty good. On the other end, I figure that's exactly what I'll write. Two pages of meat, one page of e.g. nonprofessional experience that might be germane (I have technical hobbies). Trying to write a one-page resume is unbearable. Again on the receiving end, if a resume from a recruiter looks like hell but has a few interesting items, I'll sometimes email the prospect and ask for a copy of their resume that has not been ruined by recruiters. To any engineering recruiters on the list: Don't screw up your guys' resumes unless you are SURE you know what you're doing. It gets in the way more often than not, in my experience. I don't want to hear YOUR voice or get things in the format you think is important, I want to know what the ENGINEER thinks is important, in their voice, because that's what I'll be working with. Second/third putting education last unless you just graduated. Mine is last except for a one-liner indicating I've had a Secret clearance before, in case it's germane, and a standard references-on-request tag. * Drew Van Zandt Cam # US2010035593 (M:Liam Hopkins R: Bastian Rotgeld) Domain Coordinator, MA-003-D. Masquerade aVST * On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 12:06 PM, David Hardy belovedbold...@gmail.comwrote: I'm nearly sixty and have had a bunch of jobs over the decades, not all of them IT and not all of them Linux. So I tailor the resume to the specific position and keep it to two pages, max. I then expand on whatever in a cover letter and interview, if I get one. I've seen other peoples' resumes and it is as you describe; no consistency and everything from cryptic geek-speak acronyms to web-based sound-and-video productions to eight pages of small print listing the person's detailed life history. I have also help to edit/fix resumes for people and had them down to nice, concise, informative two-page deals and then they insisted I hadn't included enough info and gone back to their four- and six-page horrors and never got called for an interview thereafter, becauseyesthe screening HR drones tossed them instantly. It is also worth noting that the last stat I saw on this indicated that there is a roughly four-percent retention and examination of resumes in general. The rest, 96%, are tossed. In my half-century of experience, jobs are gotten by getting via hook or crook to the hiring manager and showing them how you can help them/make their job easier. Period. Regards from northwestern Vermont, under the F-16s On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 11:49 AM, Kenny Lussier kluss...@gmail.com wrote: Hi All, Not specifically Linux-related, but I was wondering what other people are seeing/doing with resumes these days. I have seen everything from a 2-page resume for someone with 20 years of experience to a 15-page resume for someone with 2 jobs over 3 years (it looked like the output of cat ~/.bash_history). How far back should a resume go? How long should it be before you stop reading it? I'm seeing absolutely no consistency in resumes, and the ones that come from recruiters seem to be the worst formats. C-Ya, Kenny ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Resume length and history
1st know your audience. Is it going through a keyword scanner? Is a friend bringing it in? Even if it has to go through the scanner? I'll have a keyword section at the end nowadays. I've heard of someone being passed over by the scanner for lack of unix even though they had linux. They had a friend asking HR where it was. As someone who has done interviews, I don't care about the font, what kind of paper, etc. I might get a fax of it from the recruiter. I'll never see the original paper its on. When I say I below, I mean The person reviewing your resume or interviewing you. It's not personal. I *do* care about how it is written. If it doesn't sum things up concisely, I'm less interested. You should be able to express your accomplishments appropriately. If you are not clear on your resume (where you've had time to work) I know you're not going to be clear when you have less time. Maybe there's something on your resume that might make me overlook that, but why take the chance? I might have gotten your resume from HR or my manager 10 minutes before I go in to see you. Or worse, be reading it as I walk in. How many interviewers hire the wrong one as a result? Do you want to work for someplace like this? This was very common in the dotcom era I found. I once turned down a 4th interview saying I had gotten another job. They begged me to come in because they had just fired the person I would replace. I politely did an interview, but they didn't notify the interviewers that I needed to be convinced to stay. On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 12:15 PM, Drew Van Zandt drew.vanza...@gmail.comwrote: On the reviewing/receiving end, I generally find that unless it's a recent grad, one page is insufficient for a technical resume, two is about right, and a third page is generally only useful if the first two were pretty good. On the other end, I figure that's exactly what I'll write. Two pages of meat, one page of e.g. nonprofessional experience that might be germane (I have technical hobbies). Trying to write a one-page resume is unbearable. Again on the receiving end, if a resume from a recruiter looks like hell but has a few interesting items, I'll sometimes email the prospect and ask for a copy of their resume that has not been ruined by recruiters. To any engineering recruiters on the list: Don't screw up your guys' resumes unless you are SURE you know what you're doing. It gets in the way more often than not, in my experience. I don't want to hear YOUR voice or get things in the format you think is important, I want to know what the ENGINEER thinks is important, in their voice, because that's what I'll be working with. Second/third putting education last unless you just graduated. Mine is last except for a one-liner indicating I've had a Secret clearance before, in case it's germane, and a standard references-on-request tag. * Drew Van Zandt Cam # US2010035593 (M:Liam Hopkins R: Bastian Rotgeld) Domain Coordinator, MA-003-D. Masquerade aVST * On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 12:06 PM, David Hardy belovedbold...@gmail.comwrote: I'm nearly sixty and have had a bunch of jobs over the decades, not all of them IT and not all of them Linux. So I tailor the resume to the specific position and keep it to two pages, max. I then expand on whatever in a cover letter and interview, if I get one. I've seen other peoples' resumes and it is as you describe; no consistency and everything from cryptic geek-speak acronyms to web-based sound-and-video productions to eight pages of small print listing the person's detailed life history. I have also help to edit/fix resumes for people and had them down to nice, concise, informative two-page deals and then they insisted I hadn't included enough info and gone back to their four- and six-page horrors and never got called for an interview thereafter, becauseyesthe screening HR drones tossed them instantly. It is also worth noting that the last stat I saw on this indicated that there is a roughly four-percent retention and examination of resumes in general. The rest, 96%, are tossed. In my half-century of experience, jobs are gotten by getting via hook or crook to the hiring manager and showing them how you can help them/make their job easier. Period. Regards from northwestern Vermont, under the F-16s On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 11:49 AM, Kenny Lussier kluss...@gmail.comwrote: Hi All, Not specifically Linux-related, but I was wondering what other people are seeing/doing with resumes these days. I have seen everything from a 2-page resume for someone with 20 years of experience to a 15-page resume for someone with 2 jobs over 3 years (it looked like the output of cat ~/.bash_history). How far back should a resume go? How long should it be before you stop reading it? I'm seeing absolutely no consistency in resumes, and the ones that come from recruiters seem to be the worst formats. C-Ya, Kenny
Re: Resume length and history
There has been some good advise posted here already, but I will just add that I have landed my last 2 jobs with nothing more than a LinkedIn profile. My current one was a cold submission electronic submission to a company where I knew no one. I had an offer about a week after sending the email. When the fit is right, it is right, and a good resume will get you in the door. That said, it was surely an outlier. I fully support the idea that it is usually more about finding some way to make a personal connection, especially if the fit is not glaringly obvious, but you had better have something decent to submit into their system to back up your charm. I stopped bothering to keep a separate resume up to date many years ago. You can export LinkedIn to PDF which is what I use when asked to submit something electronically when requested. For my current job (interviewed almost 2 years ago) I don't think I even bothered to bring paper copies to the interview. When I was on the flip side of things, I always wished people would stop doing that, but I'm sure there are still stall-warts out there who will check to see if you are prepared by asking for a copy of your resume. Frankly, I don't want to work for those folks if I have other options. These days, I'd just bust out my android. My last job was with one of the top recruiting firms in the world. We had the leading technical offering for recruiters to find candidates. When I started there, resume-handling was mostly electronic and shifted heavily toward it over the years. Now, it is nearly all electronic. Even most small businesses do candidate sourcing on the web. For tech jobs, it is almost exclusively electronic. I only say all this because the 2 page limit is not terribly relevant in a well formatted and easily searched (visually that is) electronic document, especially for IT folks. I just keep all the work history in there. Well, everything relevant to any job I might want in the future. =) I dropped my high school jobs a while back, but I've been paid to do computer stuff since college and, for example, I think it still impresses employers to see that I worked a help desk on the largest trading floor in New England between my Freshman and Sophomore years. You have to decide for your self if each bit of work experience is necessary, but be wary of putting time holes in your work history as well. If you have more than 2 pages worth of work history, rely on the job title line to indicate to your potential employer if the position is relevant to them. Again, formatting is key and good luck beating the experts at LinkedIn on that. Similarly, don't bother with irrelevant padding to fill some artificial minimum of this paper stuff that is still around, but don't be afraid to say who you are either. The text in your resume is an example of your written communication skills, so if you are job hunting, you should review it every day looking for mistakes and improvements in getting to the point and clarity. Take this email as an excellent counter example. ;-) I think the cover letter (or submission email in modern terms) is where to do your customizing. Highlight a few keys things that are most relevant to the job in question. If they like those bits, they will likely read the rest and probably want to talk to you. ___ Alan Johnson a...@datdec.com Date Format PSA http://xkcd.com/1179/ On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 11:49 AM, Kenny Lussier kluss...@gmail.com wrote: Hi All, Not specifically Linux-related, but I was wondering what other people are seeing/doing with resumes these days. I have seen everything from a 2-page resume for someone with 20 years of experience to a 15-page resume for someone with 2 jobs over 3 years (it looked like the output of cat ~/.bash_history). How far back should a resume go? How long should it be before you stop reading it? I'm seeing absolutely no consistency in resumes, and the ones that come from recruiters seem to be the worst formats. C-Ya, Kenny ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Resume length and history
Kenny: Having been forced back into the job market back in October of last year, I was afforded training by my last company in the most recent resume trends. Longer is not necessarily better, and the standard these days is anywhere from 1-3 pages, depending on the job and amount of experience that your needing to convey. They typically want to see the last 10 years of job experience, if possible. When adding a job, you should be creating each point in the job's experience as what is referred to as a CAR statement ( http://www.careerealism.com/executive-resume-good-car/). Doing this takes a bit longer, but it is definitely worth it. If you are having to redo your resume, I quite possibly still have the resume writing guide that was provided to me. If you wanted to borrow it, I could bring it in to work and hand it to Paul for you, just hit me up off list and I would be happy to let you borrow it. Regards, Jeff On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 5:29 PM, Alan Johnson a...@datdec.com wrote: There has been some good advise posted here already, but I will just add that I have landed my last 2 jobs with nothing more than a LinkedIn profile. My current one was a cold submission electronic submission to a company where I knew no one. I had an offer about a week after sending the email. When the fit is right, it is right, and a good resume will get you in the door. That said, it was surely an outlier. I fully support the idea that it is usually more about finding some way to make a personal connection, especially if the fit is not glaringly obvious, but you had better have something decent to submit into their system to back up your charm. I stopped bothering to keep a separate resume up to date many years ago. You can export LinkedIn to PDF which is what I use when asked to submit something electronically when requested. For my current job (interviewed almost 2 years ago) I don't think I even bothered to bring paper copies to the interview. When I was on the flip side of things, I always wished people would stop doing that, but I'm sure there are still stall-warts out there who will check to see if you are prepared by asking for a copy of your resume. Frankly, I don't want to work for those folks if I have other options. These days, I'd just bust out my android. My last job was with one of the top recruiting firms in the world. We had the leading technical offering for recruiters to find candidates. When I started there, resume-handling was mostly electronic and shifted heavily toward it over the years. Now, it is nearly all electronic. Even most small businesses do candidate sourcing on the web. For tech jobs, it is almost exclusively electronic. I only say all this because the 2 page limit is not terribly relevant in a well formatted and easily searched (visually that is) electronic document, especially for IT folks. I just keep all the work history in there. Well, everything relevant to any job I might want in the future. =) I dropped my high school jobs a while back, but I've been paid to do computer stuff since college and, for example, I think it still impresses employers to see that I worked a help desk on the largest trading floor in New England between my Freshman and Sophomore years. You have to decide for your self if each bit of work experience is necessary, but be wary of putting time holes in your work history as well. If you have more than 2 pages worth of work history, rely on the job title line to indicate to your potential employer if the position is relevant to them. Again, formatting is key and good luck beating the experts at LinkedIn on that. Similarly, don't bother with irrelevant padding to fill some artificial minimum of this paper stuff that is still around, but don't be afraid to say who you are either. The text in your resume is an example of your written communication skills, so if you are job hunting, you should review it every day looking for mistakes and improvements in getting to the point and clarity. Take this email as an excellent counter example. ;-) I think the cover letter (or submission email in modern terms) is where to do your customizing. Highlight a few keys things that are most relevant to the job in question. If they like those bits, they will likely read the rest and probably want to talk to you. ___ Alan Johnson a...@datdec.com Date Format PSA http://xkcd.com/1179/ On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 11:49 AM, Kenny Lussier kluss...@gmail.com wrote: Hi All, Not specifically Linux-related, but I was wondering what other people are seeing/doing with resumes these days. I have seen everything from a 2-page resume for someone with 20 years of experience to a 15-page resume for someone with 2 jobs over 3 years (it looked like the output of cat ~/.bash_history). How far back should a resume go? How long should it be before you stop reading it? I'm seeing absolutely no
Re: Resume length and history
When Alliant (mini-supercomputer company) folded in 1992, I came up with a two page resume that covered my whole career, but then wrote one page addenda tailored to the company and job I was interviewing for. Having worked on everything from PDP-10s and the ARPAnet to dot matrix printers to starting a company for an Apple ][ music sight reading teaching program, recruiters had trouble getting an answer to What are you best at? let alone What are you looking for? The two parts worked very well. In previous job searches, I often received thank yous when I gave interviewers my resume, especially after what I saw recruiters do to improve it. One useful tidbit - don't provide full answers in the resume, leave gaps to be filled at the interview as they can lead to productive discussions. -- r...@wermenh.comhttp://WermeNH.com/ ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
