Thursday, June 12, 2008

What Makes a Gōōd Résūmé?

I've heard many opinions from recruiters and employers about my Resume:
1. Recruiters want as many details as possible so they can search keywords and can present relevant experience;
2. Employers/technical types want the same as recruiters as they can understand a candidate's background and serves as material to sound the candidate's experience and skills in certain areas in the interview(s);
3. Employers/suit or MBA types want two-page Resumes that gives them a rough idea of what you can do.

It is up to you to to find a balance. I find that keeping a short and a full version helps.

A good Resume must have on the first page:
0. your NAME;
1. your contact information;
2. [for a Jr. person: education and GPA];
3. a short list of your previous jobs;
4. a list of your skills and how many years you spent using them;
5. title and duration at the most recent job and some details;

Past positions must be presented newer-first.

Never include information like SSN (US), SIN (Canada), age, marital status, ethnicity. They are not allowed to ask for that and there is no need-to-know.

-ulianov

Mar 2 update: I deleted the old post and re-posted as there are too many irrelevant hits from Google on the title. I also mangled the title to use some Unicode transliteration to cut down on these hits.