All through your life people have probably told you to write a one page resume right?

Well they’re full of it, after my last round of resume submission I got a chance to talk to more than a few HR folks, recruiters and head hunters, and they wanted as much as possible, 4 pages was the average, 10 was the max, but they had seen much more for people with many years experience.

They want a short summary of you and your personality first, then a bulleted listing of skills to scan for key words, then work experience current first with job title(s), a short summary of your job there, then a bulleted list of APPLYING SKILLS, say what skills were used on what project, or during normal routines, such as…

ChickenPlucker Tech.

March 1, 2001 – March 1, 2007

Lead Developer

I plucked digital chickens, moving up from lineman to developer then to lead developer I supervised a staff of 30 pluckers on a plucking project.

* Redesigned plucking method to be more efficient, gained a system wide productuctivity increase of 10%.

* Researched and implemented new plucking gloves using tactile feedback, AJAX HUD updates and an IV coffee drip.

then finally add your education and hobbies/interests

Even if your fresh out of college and have little work experience, apply the same bulleted skill listing to your education instead, show what in school you applied your skills to, class projects count as much as intern and entry level work, its just not real world, and any head hunter who starts touting “there’s no real world experience on your resume” is just looking for easy sales, many HR people don’t care, as long as you show the willingness to A. learn, and B. try hard.

Good luck slackers.