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BLUF: reassurance and success stories requested!

I slaved over my Career Management document and completely reworked my entire resume. I've gotten it to the MT style (well, within 95%; see other post "No appreciable 'value to employer'") and after two solid days of work on the document, I showed it to my husband.  His response included:

  • "I have never seen a document that I wanted to read less."
  • "It needs more white space."
  • "Bring in the margins more."
  • "It should be on two pages."
  • "If you really want one page, take about a third of the content out."

I need to start applying to jobs ASAP and I need to get my resume to recruiters to help assist me with the whole process.  I'm starting to freak out now. Please tell me all the wonderful results you've had from the MT-styled resume, great compliments you've gotten, etc. so I can continue with my job search with a tiny shred of confidence.

(My husband is 61 yrs old if that helps frame his comments any.)

I've also uploaded the PDF version as printed from Microsoft Word so I went with just the PDF version from Word:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_5XN9PxRxBKR09mclE1WVNOWFE/view?usp=sharing

(My scan is a little cattywompus - it was my third attempt at doing this in the past 10 mins.)

 

rgosden's picture
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What credentials does your husband bring to the table? Has he worked as a recruiter,  HR professional,  or other position responsible for hiring a lot of people?  His comment about 'reading' a resume would indicate otherwise.  A good resume is not designed to be read,  it is designed to be scanned and then disected if it passes the initial scan. It needs to allow the reviewer to build in his or her mind a compelling picture of a person who has the required skills and uses them effectively. The MT Resume format accomplishes all of those things. 

To my eye your resume looks great.  

katehorstman's picture
Admin Role Badge

Your resume looks great- and kudos for working so hard on it in such a short time frame!

It might help to listen to Resumes- The Headline, Not The Story (link below). The purpose of a resume is to get you an interview. For that reason, you only need the salient points.

Sometimes people balk at the format, but Mark and Mike have many, many years of experience. That experience tells us this is the way to go. Hiring is hard and one page resumes are the most effective. Second pages get thrown away. You worked really hard to get to one page, am I right? Don’t throw all that away for margins and white space. This is your career on paper.

I have always used the Manager Tools resume format and have found that people who read at lot of resumes LOVE it. Its crisp, effective (totally High D) and will get you in the door. Don’t panic- you're on the right track!

https://www.manager-tools.com/2014/07/resumes-headline-not-story

 

Best, 

Kate

williamelledgepe's picture
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A while back I drank the kool-aid - I changed the format, reduced to one page, and eliminated the fluff at the top.  The look of my resume was very similar to yours.  The recruiter for my position said, "great looking resume, too bad we will use the online version which loses all your formatting."  When I gave it to people who do lots of interviewing they all scanned it and while I was still standing there said, "you should be on the short list."  That was within 10-20 second of having given it to them.  They couldn't have read it all.  They may have read a few bullets.  In addition to maybe reading a little, they did see organizational skills through a document that was clean, crisp, to the point, and did not waste - these are important career skills and the MT resume provides a glimpse of yoru ability to do that.  One comment I received: "You fit more onto one page that most people fit in two."  Something I echoed in my interview, after handing out the pdf version to the panelists.  

By the way - I did get the job.  Two applications, one resume, two interviews, one offer, one acceptance.  Lots of work though - thank you to the Interview Series - help at every step.

Some specific comments on your resume though...

The last bullet needs to be fixed.  Your time from '08 to '11 does not have as many numbers quantified as I would like.  Your oldest position has the most space - try to provide more accomplisments in more recent positions, especially your current position, and eliminate some of the accomplishments from '02 to '03.  Your time from '08 to '09 has a promotion bullet that probably has more detail that would help you - esecially since that list of accompishments is not as strong.  Overall, it looks great.  

Jump in with both feet, because your resume will stand out, it will show accomplishments in a manner that makes a positive judgement, and it will get you resumes.

williamelledgepe's picture
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Last word in previous post should be "interviews."

SuzanneB's picture

Is your husband a recruiter, executive, or even someone who interviews people 5+ times a month?  If not, ignore it.  

The real test is whether it gets you interviews. If you start sending it out and get no interviews, make sure you are highliighting the right things. If you do that and still don't get interviews, consider changing it. But don't kill it before you try it.

 

Kevin1's picture

Probably fair to say that 90% of readers prefer an MT format while 10% don't (for various reasons).  Better to target the 90% market than hope for a hit with the 10%.

Doris_O's picture

At a glance your resume looks fine. It will be more effective than the majority of what is out there. Just be ready to talk more in detail (in an interview) about the accomplishments you've worked so hard to write concisely. And be prepared to continue to refine the resume as needed as you apply for positions. 

I used the MT format "as is" and got some very good job interviews. I used to be a graphic designer. Then I made some minor modification their layout to be more aesthetically pleasing and better reflect my design background. The result was that I had an average of one interview per week, every week from the beginning of October until the end of March. The majority of the positions (not in the design industry) were running departments 30-40 times the size of my previous position, at exponentially larger organizations. I attribute these interviews to the MT resume format. All were great positions, but ones that I really was not ready for. Oh and the other interviewees I was competing against: the majority held previous positions 3 levels above mine. It took a while to find the right job. The position I finally accepted* is "only" 10 times the size of my previous position and at a significantly larger organization.

The only changes I made to the MT resume format were to the typeface, font size, and a few small typographic details (nitpicky designer stuff). My most recent (15+ years) of employment experience and my education were still all on one page. I do include a second page only because I have over 25 years experience (if the first page isn't effective, no one will read the 2nd page). The margins were still very narrow, even more than MT recommends.

The one recommendation I would make is: You will want to make a PDF version of the resume. When you do keep in mind that the majority of the public will print out your resume without adjusting the print settings. This  means that Acrobat will automatically reduce the size of your page, making the font size smaller (harder to read) and the margins wider. 

 

*I'm so very overdue to send a thank you to Wendii and Mark. Need to take care of that this weekend.