Re: Resume Length (2 pages ok?)

Subject: Re: Resume Length (2 pages ok?)
From: "Nina L. Panzica" <panin -at- MINDSPRING -dot- COM>
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 19:44:58 -0500

> I was always told as a rule of thumb, to try to keep my resume to one
> page.....at all costs.

...

> So, what's your opinion on a multiple page resume? Tacky, or
> necessary?

Hi Di,

I'm a tech writer, not a hirer, but I have a workaround for this dilema:
make the font smaller! <g> (Seriously! I've actually had to do this. I also
decrease the white space everywhere I can without taking away too much.
There are ways to do this that still keep the thing looking spacious.)

If you're an experienced contractor who's had lots of clients it's really
hard to keep your resume down one or two pages, because you've worked at so
many places, and each contract needs to be described. Even if you only
write a sentence or two about each job (and you can't treat some of your
most important assignments that lightly ), the space disappears rapidly.

I have another space-saving compromise I use. I've managed to keep the text
narrative on my resume to under two pages, but I do this by sticking all my
software-tool knowledge into a table on _another_ two pages. So it looks as
though I have a two-part resume: a two-page narrative part, and a two-page
software tool appendix. Getting the tools out of the narrative part of my
resume gave me more room to write up my contracts in, and it also gave me a
chance to impress employers with my table-making ability!

Over the last four or five years that I've been using a four-pager, the
response to this multi-page monster from employers and agencies has been
unanimously positive. People are always saying how impressed they are by it
and by the experience it represents. Unfortunately, my rates also intend to
impress them, so much so that they run as fast as they can in the opposite
direction. ;)

I was told by an agency person who used to hire consultants in England that
in the UK, the longer your resume, the better. Can anyone confirm or deny
this?

Nina P.
____________________________________________________________________________
____

Nina Panzica
Masterpiece Media
(404) 237-7889
Can't reach me at the above number? Try my pager: 404-596-7889
panin -at- mindspring -dot- com
http://www.mindspring.com/~panin/

Links to other Technical Writers:
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