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How you answer that question may help the employer to determine your
ability to defend your own work, or to properly assess the value of outside
feedback. I don't think employers deliberately manipulate
candidates, but guessing the "why" behind their questions falls
under audience analysis, our area of expertise.
At the beginning of one interview cycle, the HR scout who asked for my
resume said it looked quite sparse at only two pages. On the other hand,
the department manager appreciated my brevity, and complained about tech
writer resumes being eight pages long. "I thought tech writers were
supposed to be the experts at condensing information?"
Another recruiter who found me on LinkedIn said that my resume didn't have
the same depth as my LinkedIn profile and asked me to rewrite my resume. I
explained that my resume is a statement of where I am heading, and the
LinkedIn provides a history of everything I've done. While I wont turn
away passive work from people who find my LinkedIn profile, my active
search has a slightly different focus.
So your existing communications with the company will provide the most
insight into how you should respond in this instance.
Cheers,
-Tony
On Wednesday, December 31, 2014, Chris Morton <salt -dot- morton -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
>
>
> So.... I have my own ideas as to how to proceed, but was wondering how you
> would answer this question:
>
> I spent a fair amount of time reviewing your work posted on LinkedIn. I
> see a lot of resumes and resume styles and one thing was really bothering
> me regarding your resume. I found its style to be very traditional and the
> formatting more difficult to follow than other resumes I have reviewed.
> Considering your expertise is in Technical Writing, I was wondering why you
> wouldnât approach your resume in a much more flashy visual style such as
> your LinkedIn webpage. Can you comment?
>
>
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