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RE: Having fun with your resume - good idea/bad idea
Subject:RE: Having fun with your resume - good idea/bad idea From:Kat Kuvinka <katkuvinka -at- hotmail -dot- com> To:<lynne -dot- wright -at- tiburoninc -dot- com>, <milan -dot- lists -at- gmail -dot- com>, <richard -dot- combs -at- polycom -dot- com> Date:Wed, 5 Sep 2012 13:34:41 -0400
I say this every time a conversation like this comes up: I have seen people get interviews with totally crappy, wrong and long resumes. If a small company does not have a tech writer, or a mediocre writer, the hiring manager might not "know" what the "standard" is, nor might they know the difference between good and bad writing. Of course, you might not want to work at such a place. OTOH, you could teach them a thing or two.
I have rejected technical writer resumes based on large red flags only to have a manager tell me, no, we are gonna talk to this person. Why? Well, maybe she worked with him before. Or she has worked at a company whose business is similar to ours. Or they like his alma mater. Or, he heard that people who know FrameMaker are really smart. Sometimes they turn out okay.
That being said, after 25 years and a bazillion jobs I still manage to keep my resume to two pages...
> In terms of standards re: page maximums, the importance of brevity, etc., check any on-line resource on how to prepare a professional resume and you'll see 1-2 max. IS the standard. Any good HR person would also agree. If you are a freelancer and need/want to mention a wide range of past employers, you can summarize them in a list, without going into details that go on into multiple pages.
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> I will allow that in some other cases/professions... like if you're applying for head of the UN or to run a hospital's department of surgery, then a more extensive list of qualifications may be appropriate.
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> But again... for a TECH WRITING job, its annoying overkill.
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> I have to presume that you've never been involved in the hiring process/never been faced with a huge stack of applications that you need to get through quickly, because I believe you would think differently about the value of submitting great whacks of material.
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> I can tell pretty quickly by skimming the cover letter and quickly reviewing points on a 2-page cv, which applicants appear to know what they are doing (and who I would want to short list for an interview, backed with samples of their work), and those who clearly belong on the rejection pile. I have no desire or need to pore through a pile of detailed information that may, in fact, not be entirely credible anyway.
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> If I want more in-depth information, I'll ask for it in the interview.
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