Why does everyone want a 1 page resume?
November 28th, 2010
Target: New Job!
Guest Blogger: Dave Brewer
Why one page?
I have years of experience with several different employers and it takes 3 pages to fit all of my employment history into my resume. Aren’t employers interested in knowing my whole story? In reality, no they are not, at least not initially.
Employers’ receive sometimes thousands of resumes in response to one job posting and they just can not read each one. Larger employers use scanning software, where they scan all incoming resumes into a database. Then they do a key word search on the resume database to select the candidates that most closely meet their criteria. Employers in these cases don’t like dealing with more than one page. For smaller employers who don’t use scanning software HR only has a few seconds to review each resume and make a decision of yes possible candidate no doesn’t meet our criteria. This usually means 90% are sorted out and the 10% that were sorted in, get some further review and only a few are sent on for final consideration by the hiring manager. If you are selected for either a phone interview or an onsite interview, at that point you can supply them with your complete resume or an addendum which gives them more information.
Think of yourself as a Marketing Manager.
A Marketing Manager creates a 1 page tear sheet for his/her product. This tear sheet starts with the name of the product and a summary of exactly what this product will do for the customer. What problem or issue the customer may have that this product will resolve. Then it goes on to list all of the products features and specifications. This tear sheet is not an owners manual, but rather a sales tool to spark the customers interest and get the salesperson an appointment where they can go into detail with the customer the benefits and cost of the product and hopefully the opportunity of closing the sale.
As a Marketing Manager, you have only one product to sell (You). Your customer is the (Employer) who has a need, a problem or an issue to be resolved and needs to hire an expert to resolve that need. Your goal is to grab the employer’s attention, secure an appointment (Interview), to discuss in detail what you can do for the company and hopefully close the sale with a job offer.
Contents of your One Page Resume.
Therefore your 1 page tear sheet (Resume) starts with
- the Name of your product (your name)
- next an Objective which should match the title of what your customer (the Employer’s) need is.
- next a summary of what you have to offer the employer is relation to this position.
- next a list of features of your product ( a list of achievements that include; the issue or problem that needed to be resolved; the process you went though to resolve it and finally what was the result.
- next a list of specifications (skills) make sure your list includes all the keywords that are listed in the job description
- next a list of companies that have used your product (Employment History)
- and finally your Education
Remember, every job description is different, but a 1 page resume is simple to modify to look as if the job you are applying for is the only job for you and that you meet all or most of the customer’s requirements.
You only have one opportunity to make a good first impression!
Good Luck!
Categories: Job Hunting
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