College professor vs Me on resume length

Jason0352

I'm a senior in college and my professor and I are butting heads about my resume. He has some sweet IT hook ups with Bayer in Pittsburgh and I need him on board with me applying there. For some reason our college is so hung up on 1 page resumes, he is giving me alot of push back about mine. I think my resume is warranted in being 2 pages since I have some real experience and skills.

I would love to hear some input from you guys. .

EDIT:Oh before I forget, the layout I'm using came from a poster on this board so I take no credit for the layout.

EDIT2: Resume has been shortened.

thenjduke

I like the layout I use the same one I recommend like I was told get rid of the Skills section. Incorporate it into your expierence bullets.

eansdad

Did they say anything about using both sides?

earweed

Like thenjduke said get rid of the skills section. Focus less on all the military experience and **** the high school reference.
This would be better as a 1 page resume.
Also never send out a word document that has spelling errors. The red underlines automatically throw up a red flag.

Heero

From a glance, it looks like it could be slimmed down to fit 1 page without cutting too much. I have about the same amount of experience and i fit it all into one page. You can leave out the specifics on a lot of stuff, though if you are tailoring your resume to a position/organization it could be benificial to leave certain more specific things that fit.

ssampier

A couple of thoughts. I am not a resume expert either, since I have my own resume thread.

I am not big on the colors. I am a bit old school that I generally make my resumes black and white.

I think 2 pages are fine. I think you do have some great leaderships skills. I would tie it all together with a summary of qualifications. You can assume the recruiter will spend 20 seconds at most on your resume. If they read only the summary and glance at the rest, that's okay, too.

Like others said you can remove the "Greater Altoona Career and Technology Center 2001-2004" unless you earned a degree, certificate, or have some classes you want to list.

As for misspellings, you only missed one Accountanted. That should be "accounted". I would instead choose a resume power word.

In closing, thanks for serving our country.

Jason0352

I knew I would get sound advice from you guys. I shortened my resume and re-uploaded it to my original post. Spelling mistakes fixed and culled out alot of ambiguous bullet points.

Thanks alot guys!

Plantwiz

I'm a 1-page resume fan. Rarely does someone need more then 1 page. Remember, the general purpose is to 'win' an interview at this stage, not bore them to tears. You have about 10 seconds to capture the reader's heart, so make it 1-page.

Once you have the Interview, this is the time to discuss ALL the great things you can do and go into details on points on your resume...you may even find that bringing in an expanded resume to hand to the interview(s) at the beginning of your meeting works, even here, I've only used 1-page resumes at this point...most folks just don't care.

I know when I screen resume's, I rarely see any that exceed 2-pages that warrant a second look. It's usually just fluff and based on the experience of the candidate...shouldn't be on 2-pages.

I'd recommend following the advice of your professor. He/she likely knows something and if they are helping you land the interview...he/she may 'know' what the interviewer uses as screening requirements.


As far as your .doc

- Use 1 color (black)
- Should be easy to make 1 page and still be informative.
Recommend - Your current job - limit to the more advanced skills
Military - list rank or possibly just list service (this is great for talking points during the interview).
- Skills - can be dropped or thinned down significantly...as some can be merged into your job experience I suspect??
- Drop other skills - this is great for the Interview

You'll do well. People networking is a great way to land a job. So, take the advice of the person who is helping you get a foot-in-the-door.

Simple is best!

Plantwiz

You posted an update while I was typing.


I like your short version!!

clear your name off

BradleyHU

I think the reason why he's saying it should be 1 page, is because you dont have a lot of related experience. so in that sense, he is correct about limiting it to one page. also i think you can get rid of OTHER SKILLS as how those have no relation to the type of positions your going for. I would list any orgs that you're in that are related to your major(professional frat, ACM/NSBE/etc), your fraternity if your in one. And i would definitely have the resume in black font color. I understand using tables to "look nice" but i cant say i'ma fan of that table. if anything, i'd use a regular table, and just make the borders invisible.

rfult001

Try narrowing the margins, it will knock it down to one page and looks less crowded.

Paul Boz

Knock down the margins and consider using columns if you're pressed for space. For example, here's my resume. I get compliments on the style/format constantly and the last two employers to hire me expressed that it moved itself up the pile.