At Wynne Consulting we see hundreds of CV’s every day. The biggest mistake we see is people filling their CV’s with every single activity, skill or job they have ever had onto one page instead of focusing on creating a logical and compelling story of their career. Just recently I was reviewing a 12-page CV that started out with the following:
“My skills include marketing, social media, project management, accounting, tax law, employment law, financial management, sales strategy, 6 Sigma, operational effectiveness, ad operations and software sales. I’ve also published two novels and took a few months off to write a poetry book last spring.”
While it might seem tempting to list every skill you have ever acquired, there are actually a few profound disadvantages to this approach:
- Employers won’t remember anything if you try to focus on everything. If you list a long list of skills on your CV, an employer likely won’t recall any of them. It’s simply impossible to form a mental image if you present yourself as a lawyer, marketer and venture capitalist all in one. Which is it? Pick the one that is most important to you and emphasize it throughout your resume.
- Having a clear narrative is a huge advantage. I recently interviewed a candidate for a sales position. Within the first three minutes of the conversation he said, “I live and breathe sales. I love everything about selling.” He spent the next 15 minutes telling me about his different sales roles and why he had excelled at them. As a hiring manager, this really appealed to me — he had a neat narrative that made me believe that he’d excel at the sales job I was hiring for. I later learned that he’d actually done a lot of things other than sales in his life, but he hadn’t focused on those things initially. His resume was sparse and though he didn’t skip his other roles, they just weren’t emphasized. The moral of the story is this: Why do I need to know you’re a great tax accountant if I’m hiring a sales person? It dilutes your narrative and makes me nervous about the sincerity of your passion for sales.
- CV’s that exceed two pages are considered unprofessional. There is a lot of advice about resumes out there. If you’re applying for a job at a technology company or corporation, it’s very clear: employers really dislike long resumes. From Facebook to General Assembly down to tiny start-ups, not a single one of these companies would want you to submit a long resume. Being succinct is among the most important skills for a job applicant.
- If you want to impress an employer, it’s much better to show than tell. The most underused trick of the trade is simply to show the employer why you’re good instead of writing an endless CV. One candidate I worked with created a product management portfolio with wire frames and product ideas for each company he was truly interested in. Another candidate, who ultimately got hired, helped the VP of Business Development get a meeting at Stanford Hospital before she was even hired. Seeing someone do excellent work is worth 1000x more than seeing a 12-page resume claiming excellence with no proof.
- Finally, a lengthy or unfocused CV smells of desperation. Remember that guy you went on a date who couldn’t stop telling you how good he was at everything? You probably only went on one date with him. Being “good at everything” seems like a lie (even if it’s true!) and it’s unattractive. Don’t forget that landing a job is not that different from landing a date. You want to say just enough to get the hiring manager interested, but not so much that they become overwhelmed.
Before you apply for your next job ask yourself: who am I? Or rather, who am I in the context of this job application? Tailor your CV to tell a story that is so compelling that they’ll want to meet you to hear more.
As a recruiter myself, I’m guessing you wrote this article as an attempt to have candidates write shorter resumes so you don’t have to do so much reading and actually work for your finder’s fee.
In my experience, most recruiters are high school graduates with absolutely no experience in recruitment or the industries they are recruiting for, and thus a little reading to unfold the “essence” of a candidate may seem a bit challenging. In the millennial generation of attention deficit disorder and instant gratification, and lofty expectation not lockstep with reality and a little hard work. Sure, I understand.
As a recruiter over the past 20 years, I actually appreciate the CV’s that tell a story of their career progression, so that I can get an idea of where they came from and where they are going. Understanding the history is extremely important, as is seeing experiencing how candidates structure information and express and sell themselves through their writing.
Focus on quality and not quantity in your recruitment efforts which is the key to building a solid business and solid reputation for sustainable business in this industry.
Truth be told, recruiters and recruiting companies are a literal dime a dozen (tens of thousands int he UK alone) so focusing on quality placements and building relationships with both clients AND candidates is the key. Many recruiters treat the candidates as an expendable commodity, and with disrespect, failing to maintain the recruiters “bridge” between candidate and client effectively. It’s a delicate balancing act, and the recruiting purists do this, and do this well, but it takes time and patience.
Personally, when I see heavily condensed resumes/CV’s I can think of a trove of other attributes about the candidate that are none too appealing as well.
“While it might seem tempting to list every skill you have ever acquired, there are actually a few profound disadvantages to this approach”
Problem with this, most job descriptions by employers/agencies have a massive wish list of necessary skills, can you really blame people trying to sell themselves if they tick this box??
Shouldn’t the employer/agency whittle down their job description, as per the above “advice” given to potential employees too.
This article should be renamed:
“Why you need to remove half of the things on your CV right now, a subjective viewpoint”