Face to Face
With Fred Coon

April 13, 2004 - 20 Pet Peeves Recruiters Have About Resumes
Courtesy of Mike Worthington, ResumeDoctor.com

# 8 - Long Paragraphs

Recruiters want a resume's details to be short, concise and to the point. No recruiter has the time to read long paragraphs, which look like a narrative out of War and Peace. Mark King of MRI Atlanta made this statement, "In today's world, recruiters and hiring managers want/need bullets, quick access to information and experience, not drawn out sentences to describe job responsibilities."

ResumeDoctor historically has preached that a candidate only has 20 seconds to grab a recruiter's attention. However, in the process of interviewing the many hundreds of recruiters for this forum, it appears the consensus is more likely less than 10 seconds.

Make sure you quickly get to the "meat" of what you are trying to communicate about yourself. Your resume should be easy for the reader to "scan" your text for your skills and accomplishments. Consider using the following formatting techniques:

• Use blunt, paraphrased bullet-points
• Use appropriate amounts of "white space" to help guide your reader

Recruiter Tip: Think of a resume as "ad copy." Take a look at the Sunday circulars in the paper. Notice how the ad copy is easy to read and is spread out using key bullet-points to emphasize the criteria consumers are using to make a buying decision. For example, cubic feet of storage space, ice maker, water dispenser, color, side by side doors, price, etc. Understand that a resume is only to get you in the door. If you get a call on your resume, it has done its job!!

It is now up to you to "connect" with the person you are interviewing with.

Recruiter’s likes and dislikes in a resume were surveyed nation-wide by Mike Worthington of ResumeDoctor.com. FACE to FACE will publish all twenty pet peeves in this column over the next months.

ResumeDoctor.com is a service provided by Personnel Department Inc. PDI is Vermont’s largest independently owned staffing agency. They have been locally owned and operated for over 14 years. They have been featured in many publications, TV news programs, and radio broadcasts. You may contact them at: http://www.resumedoctor.com.

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About the Author: Fred Coon