So, how long should a resume/cv be?

[andywestken]

Mochops commented in a recent thread that he tries to keep his resume down to a single side. Now, I was taught to keep my cv down to two sides, but now use three as two is just not long enough.

I am aware that the US resume is quite different to the British cv, and am quite curious how the former work. After seeing some of them, they look far too terse (in isolation) for me to determine if someone is worth interviewing. Are they always sent with a covering letter?

I am also curious about other countries takes on cvs/resumes/???.

My own cv start with 6 bullet points calling out my key skills.

It then provides details of all my jobs since graduation, providing a breief description of the key projects I worked on, what skills I used, and what I specifically contributed to the project, Longer is spent on the last few jobs; hardly anything on my junior developer positions.

Then there is education and finally. briefly, mention of my hobbies.

I did ask one of my managers about the interests/hobbies section, wondering if it was pointless and I should drop it. But he said he liked to see that a candidate had interests other than programming; he just didn't expect much to be said about them. Of course, for graduates this can be a place to demonstrate transferable skills, but not for experienece developers.

In addition to my cv I also provide a skill matrix, which is just a table of skills, by category, with indicators of compency. This adds one more page to my almost three page cv.

My cv gets me interviews, so it can't be all that bad. But I'm looking to make it better.

Now, some people obviously have a rather different take on cvs/resumes: I have recently seen a number of cvs/resumes from the overly terse (to me) to those which go the other extreme:12+ pages of (also to me) "waffle".

So how about you?

Andy

[Cubbi]

A multi-page CV is what you prepare when applying for a research position. Professors like seeing all your publications, all your prior work, and most importantly, all senior people you worked with.
For the industry, at least here in the US, it's best to be terse. I'm guilty of interviewing people after reading only page 1 of their 2-5 page resume, and I'm probably not alone. Make it your goal to capture attention at the first glance, then get into detail on further pages. I don't think there's a real need to constrain yourself to one page (or even two). As for layout, most people want to know what you did at your last job, so reverse time order job history is probably the best, unless you got some killer skills outside a job (e.g. in open source)

what I specifically contributed to the project

That, in particular, is very important to show. What you did, not what you heard about.

[Gaminic]

It heavily depends on the company/position. I suggest looking around on their website for tips, or even mailing their HR/recruitment department.

A few years back, I applied for two Big4 consultancy firms (read: nearly-equal positions in nearly-equal companies). One said to limit yourself to one page ("just show what makes you different; the basics we will assume based on your degree"), while the other said to make it as long as necessary ("just tell us everything that could be relevant about your and your abilities. The more we know, the better we can appraise your cv").

[andywestken]

Thanks for the input.

My draft cv is currently 4 pages, but it does now include a summary of all my jobs on the front page (company, dates, and key skills), so all keys details are on one page. The job details following on the next two pages, and the skill matrix is on the last page.

As it stand. the front page is halfway to being a US-style resume. I don't think I could shrink everything down onto one page, but after browsing around about resumes, I gather that it's actually the first ten years that supposed to fit onto the first page. After that you're allowed onto the second page! So I will prob. try to convert my cv to a resume!

Andy