This is one of my pet peeves. I can get REALLY aggravated about it. I don’t know who gives this advice, but whoever you are, you’re WRONG!
Is there a place for a one page executive summary? Yes. Is that followed by an in-depth resume? Yes. But unless you’re a recent grad with limited professional experience, or a 20 year, one-job, veteran in the same company (my niece is one of these) – you need at least 2 pages, and possibly up to 3. 4+ pages are getting a little long, but not out of the question.
I’m going to start with my usual caveat – my opinions are based on my experience, my candidates and clients and the industry I work in and the fact that I work with mid-to-senior level candidates. Most recruiters I can’t make an informed decision about your skills and expertise unless there’s enough information there for them to determine whether or not you’re a close fit for their position.
If you’re my average candidate, you have 5-15 years’ experience, you’ve had 3-10 jobs (especially if you’re a consultant), and you’ve worked on 10-100 projects in multiple technologies. How can you possibly condense that into anything intelligent in 1 page? And include your credentials and all the other essential information? The recruiters you work with, and their clients, need to see some of the details about your work, so they can ask you the right questions in an interview.
So how do you deal with this? Hopefully the recruiter you’re working with will help you if they have enough experience. If you’re not getting decent feedback, ask them directly what they are/aren’t seeing on your resume and how you can improve it to make it more appealing for their clients. As I’ve said in other posts, all recruiters need your resume to read in a specific style and with the information arranged in specific order, based on what their clients need. You can expect to have a couple of different versions depending on your areas of expertise and the emphasis needed of each position.
If your recruiters aren’t helping you, I can.
