IT Career Advice >> Browse Articles >> Launching a Tech Career
5 Signs Your Resumé is Passé
Tania Khadder
The workplace is not what it was five years ago. Neither is the job hunt.
The most successful candidates are those who are ready and willing to adapt to a changing landscape. But it doesn’t matter how ready you are for the modern workplace if your resumé’s straight out of 1994.
And sometimes, it’s the most minute details that make all the difference.
Does your resumé speak to the modern hiring manager? Or does it need a serious makeover?
Your resumé might be passé if…
#1: You’ve forced it to fit onto one page
You’ve reduced your font size to eight, eliminated margins altogether and left out key information about yourself, all to conform to that age-old “one page resumé” rule. Big mistake. After all, would a recent college grad really need the same amount of resumé real estate as someone who’s been in the workforce for 20 years? Of course not.
Don’t get me wrong: Your resumé should be concise. Recruiters are busy people – they don’t have time or the patience for long-winded career chronologies. But if your experience warrants two pages, by all means, don’t limit yourself to one.
#2: You list an objective
Of course you’re looking to gain more experience in the field/sector/type of company to which you’re applying. Your interest in the job implies that. Do you really need to say it at the very top of your resumé?
At this point in the selection process, hiring managers are far more interested in what you can do for them than what they can do for you.
If you want to explain why you’re applying for the job, say so in your cover letter. Resumé space is far too valuable to waste on information that is both redundant and inconsequential.
Guru42
2 months ago
16 comments
Best advice here is from this poster ... "It is definitely imperative to validate your resume against people in the IT field and HR to see what your resume style will yield. It changes from company to company as to what HR and the hiring managers look for so taylor your resume to the position."
I know many folks that would strongly disagree with the statement that an objective is redundant and inconsequential.
Reminds me of the old Yogi Berra line, "If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else."
Some "fill in the blanks" sites where you cut and paste a resume into a canned system require you to focus on what you want, (as in an objective.)
I just read the article by Tania Khadder elsewhere on this site on how not to waste time at work, and many of the same thoughts come to mind as I read this, who is the person writing it? What is their experience on the subject? Are they a professional writer? Or an HR professional speaking from that experience? How much IT hiring have they done personally?
iPerk --> Good link to the article on Monster --> From that article ...
This is what I am talking about --> "And an objective must get an employer’s attention quickly or it won’t get any attention at all, says a district manager for a wireless company"
timroj
2 months ago
4 comments
thanks,but the employer is looking not on what you can accomplished but on young and well-educated.....
hemant1978
2 months ago
2 comments
Good article, thnks
stasiatec
2 months ago
2 comments
This just shows what not to do when presenting a resume' to an employer & I really thank you
for the advice.
stasintec
princeyemi
2 months ago
2 comments
thank you bcos learning is just everyday solution why taking the steps of such learning into action.
lando786
2 months ago
10 comments
Great advice and I will be sure to follow in the future.
iPerk
2 months ago
76 comments
@Darltk - I'd agree that it seems like there's no "right" way to write a resume anymore. Just beware that the professional writer has their opinion too, and that could differ from what an employer is seeking.
Best of luck in your search. :)
iPerk
2 months ago
76 comments
Anyone see how InsideTech and Monster are joining forces? Maybe they should consolidate their opinions on the place of an objective in a resume...
http://career-advice.monster.com/resumes-cover-letters/resume-writi...
kenneth_golden
2 months ago
24 comments
It is definitely imperative to validate your resume against people in the IT field and HR to see what your resume style will yield. It changes from company to company as to what HR and the hiring managers look for so taylor your resume to the position. It should look like something they want to see produced at that level of responsibility. I am finishing my MBA and trying to craft an resume consummate with my experiences but less technical that I've ever done before so it is a stretch for me.
mercereaux
2 months ago
2 comments
as Darltk said, advice seems to differ from pro to pro. but i disagree with the writer on the PDF issue, for reasons already mentioned; i've received too many corrupted ones. most sites ask for text, doc or formats they're prepared for. if they say doc, i send a doc. i also have text versions so as to be scannable. i think iPerk has the right idea: be prepared in any format. t'will be good advice AFTER you get that job too...
Darltk
2 months ago
14 comments
Good Advice but the way a resume is wrtten seems to differ from pro to pro. Some say use the objective, some say don't, some say your resume should be 1-3 pages and some say it does not matter. I have 24 years of experience in IT and have not received a lot of hits so I need to change something. I am employed and have been with the same employer for 10 stagnant years. I was thinking about hiring a professional resume writer so that I can eliminate that as the issue.
netsec_ct
2 months ago
8 comments
They should have put banish the Objective and put in a Profile section. It should be a summary of your talents and accomplishments that will the catch the eye of the reader in less than 15-30 seconds (the average a person reviewing resumes initial spends reading a resume before deciding to put in the save or circular files).
intee
2 months ago
2 comments
Item 5 seems is as impactful as any of the bunch. If I'm reading it right, it's ok to have gaps in your resume. In the past, gaps were seen as red flags. Not so any more?
TheDevil
2 months ago
6 comments
What if your only 'achievement' at your job was to pay your bills on time? Some of us are/were peons in call centers where we performed tech support. What can we do then?
cheako
2 months ago
46 comments
Subject: Increase of un-usable PDF usage.
From: Mike Mestnik
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:00:15 +0200
Newsgroups: linux.debian.user
Over the past few mouths I've received more unusable PDFs then I've
ever received usable PDFs. Well maybe that's an exaggeration, but it
still doesn't excuse the large number of broken documents in this format
I've received.
I have asked senders to choose a better format, but they keep coming.
Many sites that have PDFs as part of there content do not seam to be
having this problem it's when I get PDFs send via email that there are
issues. I just got an email from NetApp with a PDF I can't read, so
the problem is starting to manifest itself in the form of missed
important communications.
Mostly I'd just like a forum to complain, but if some one has a
suggestion I'm willing to hear them out.
As this issue does effect Debian the issue is not specific to Debian.
There are several Debian packages that will help, but they are not
available every where and keeping these packages updated would be hard.
Perhaps I could use gs or something on a webserver, then at least I'd
only have to worried about keeping a single copy working. That still
doesn't solve the problem of PDS that simply can't be read by any
usual means.
Re: Increase of un-usable PDF usage.
Sam Kuper
Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:23:15 -0700
2008/6/27 Mike Mestnik <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
...
The trouble here seems to be, at least in part, that Adobe feels at liberty
to extend the PDF spec without caring about users with non-Adobe readers.
Adobe probably won't alter its approach unless it feels a significant
community backlash is brewing.
Another problem is that there is an increasing number of programs with PDF
output that are not strict about even some fairly well-established parts of
the spec. The developers of these programs probably test the output only in
Acrord32, if they test it at all. That's like declaring a web site
well-coded if it looks okay in IE.
I'm not sure what to do about either of these problems, except to suggest
greater community investment in cross-platform FLOSS PDF readers, writers,
validators and plug-ins.
Sam