Re: Resume length

[Claudia Allen <Claudia -at- CPC -dot- ORG>]

Based on interviews with employers (I wrote this one for a book), two pages
is a maximum for a resume for an experienced person unless you happen to be
an academic and then it seems to be okay (and even expected) to run on for
pages and pages of books and articles published. The recruiters I talked to
said that they give the cover letter a long look to see if it's worth
looking at the resume and then the resume gets 30 seconds. In the cover
letter they want to see coherence--can this person communicate?--and they
want to see why this person thinks that he/she will fit the job. Not a
rewrite of the resume in paragraph form. If your resume is oh-so-long you
might want to lop off your earliest years in the job market (at the least
leave out those years you spent as a lifeguard or clerking at the department
store or any job that isn't related to your current job search) or tighten
up your accomplishments in each job. Employers like accomplishments to be
bulleted--it makes the resume easier to read. And unlike paper
resumes--maybe you know this already--if you know your resume is going into
a data base, use brand names and jargon that will pull it up in a key word
search. Three pages? Four pages? The recruiters I talked to said with the
volume of applicants these days, they don't have time to read past the
second page and if the good stuff isn't on those pages, they file that baby.

Claudia Allen
CPC