I’m embarrassed to say my current CV is almost 6 pages long and I’m not sure of the best way to condense it.
Is it still true that a resume should be one page or two at most? How does one condense over 25 years of experience into two pages?
And the real question; Is a resume writing service worth it?
I wouldn’t bother. I’ve heard some horror stories about such services. And who knows more about your career than you?
There’s a lot of great advice at Allison’s blog askamanager.org. For example, unless you’re changing careers or have specific experience from long ago, only include detail on the last 10-ish years of experience. By all means list older job titles, but don’t bother with accomplishments or experience gained.
Nobody is going to plow thru six pages of you - keep it down to one side, preferably, or at most two. And concentrate on what you have been doing lately, nobody is going to be very interested in what happened 25 years ago.
This really depends on your field. I’m in academia and for someone decently into their career, a full CV could easily be that long.
Now, I’m rarely going to read it that in depth - and mostly, when I’m hiring I’m hearing early to early-mid career folks and it won’t be that long.
My answer to the how long should the resume be is “as long as it needs to be to demonstrate your skills for the position(s) you’re applying for and still fit within the norms of that particular field/profession”.
Six pages is insane. Anyone that needs six pages has a name that we’d all know anyway.
Yes, I would get a resume writing service. Don’t pay a fortune, you’re mainly paying for an editor right now.
I’ve heard that European and academic CVs are different. But if I see a 6 page long resume, some of those experiences need to be discovering cold fusion or curing cancer (not working on a cure for cancer, but an actual cure that you discovered and proved).
There are trends in resumes that vary by year, by sector, and by region and a good resume writing service is aware of those and can help edit and tailor your resume. They’re probably worth it. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of mediocre and bad resume writing services out there and it’s hard to tell which is which unless they’re simply completely incompetent.
A resume and a CV are two different things. Six pages for a CV is perfectly reasonable. A resume, however, is a summary of a CV (“resume” is literally “summary”). and should be two at most. Decide what’s most relevant to the job you’re seeking, and only include that.
My old company hooked us up with 3 free months of a job placement service that includes resume writing. I found them to be complete garbage.
First - They made all my “accomplishments” sound like “Drove cross functional teams to deliver strategically important enterprise value.” I straight up told them that they basically made my resume sound meaningless and that someone reading it can’t tell what, if anything, I actually did at any of my jobs.
Second - They say things like “don’t use industry jargon or buzzwords”. Um…unless you are applying for something in a totally different field, isn’t industry jargon and buzzwords the things someone is hiring you to do?
Third - They always go on about beating the “ATS (Applicant Tracking) Systems”. Problem is they don’t seem to have any idea what the ATS is actually scanning for (perhaps aside from the jargon and buzzwords they tell you not to use). I would assume it’s looking for certain skills, certifications, competing companies or schools. Maybe even your total experience and tenure at each job. I’d say go to Jobscan.com or TopResume.com for a free scan. But it’s just going to send you a bunch of canned responses that your resume looks like shit so you get desperate and pay for their service.
Fourth - No one (I assume) really gives a crap about the filler in your resume. What they care about is your job titles, companies and maybe where you went to college. If you’re technical, they also what to know what technology you know. It’s very simple. Companies want to hire someone predictable. They want to see you had the correct titles at the right companies at the right point in your career with the correct intervals between each change. Or if you are technical, that you have been doing technical shit.
And finally - there is no magic resume format that is going to land you that job. Your resume should be readable, concise (no more than 2 pages) and clearly articulate what you can and want to do. You’ll go crazy trying to make your resume perfect for each job just so a recruiter or hiring manager can spend 2 seconds looking at it.
What I would just do is just look online (I mean, if I didn’t have access to a free resume writing service).
There are plenty of examples of free resume templates. Just stay away from any that have too much graphics, crazy fonts, or non-standard formats.
Also have someone who works in your industry or even a recruiter give you feedback.
I’ve got some questions about the resume. How many jobs have you had in 25 years? Accomplishments and skills from 20 years ago are of little value now. Older jobs should get a line or two.
For more recent stuff, don’t write about your assignment, but shorten and write about some measurable impact you had.
Assuming your command of English is good (which it is) you can probably find advice for free. Why take advice from someone who can’t find a better job than working for a resume writing service?