tsgeek's picture Submitted by tsgeek on
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Career Management

The WSJ just published "Updating a Resume for 2011". While I agree with their approach regarding LinkedIn, they also appear to be propagating the assumption of "one resume to rule them all". I much prefer the MT approach of starting eith the full-scale career document, and then customizing the resume you submit to the specific position. Otherwise, I find the suggestions generally OK, but far too general.

Take a look for yourself. What do you think of their advice?

Dan

afmoffa's picture
Submitted by afmoffa on Friday June 10th, 2011 4:20 pm

I came away from the article with these bits of advice:

  1. You must have an on-line presence, such as a Web portfolio or a LinkedIn account, to supplement your resume. Agreed.
  2. The one-page resume is out. Use two or three pages. Um, that would be fine, except then WSJ suggests
  3. Put all the important details on the first page. So if we follow both #2 AND #3, we should send them a three page document, where the last two pages lack important details. What?
  4. Aesthetics matter. Agreed. I respectfully disagree with Manager Tools on this one. I even heard Mark's podcast annecdote about the graphic designer who set her resume in Times New Roman, used minimal white space, and got hired. I'm sure that happened, and I'm sure it's an outlier. I've voted "no" on candidates who used dumb quotes on their resume, and my Art Director backed me 100% on those calls. If they forget to curl their quotes on the most important document they'll ever design, why should I trust them to curl their quotes on a project I assign them?

Here's the thing, though, and I'm puzzled they missed it. Combine #1, 2, 3, and 4 and you get this:

Send a one-page, well-designed resume highlighting your most recent and/or most relevant skills and accomplishments, and link those skills and accomplishments to richer, more-detailed information on your Web portfolio or LinkedIn profile.

My one-page resume is a tasteful, bulletproof PDF file and, duh, it prints onto one sheet of paper. I have four bulleted accomplishments for my current and recent jobs. I have two bulleted accomplishments for jobs I did a few years back. My first jobs out of college are just one line apiece, and anyone who really wants more information about those jobs can click on the links and see four big bullet points about the stuff I did in 2001. The Web component allows me to have a brief, high-level resume that still provides plenty of data for people who care about details.