Resumes, multiple and chronological (was: Re: New TECHWR-L Poll Question)

Subject: Resumes, multiple and chronological (was: Re: New TECHWR-L Poll Question)
From: Berk/Devlin <armadill -at- earthlink -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 09:16:58 -0800

On Mon, 11 Dec 2000 22:58:07 +0000, Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com> wrote:

"Haas, Guy" wrote:
...
> I don't know about you, but I look for gaps in work history.
> How to explain that three-year gap?

Don't explain it. Instead:

a.) List jobs without mentioning years. ...

b.) Submit a resume organized by skills.

My reply:

In my nearly 20 years of consulting, both as a developer and a technical writer, I have held many, many jobs. Some were interesting. Some were not. Most of the companies I worked for were obscure at the time I worked for them; some no longer existed within hours after I left. Just a few have gone on to fame and glory.

I am very proud of the work I did at most places, but some of the work was not very challenging; undertaken just to get the bills paid. If I attempted to list the names and dates of all the consulting projects I've ever worked on, my resume would be at least 10 pages long and boring as anything.

For example, over the last three years, I've worked on 10 "interesting" projects. If I devote a paragraph to describing each, I'm up to about two pages.

However, I don't want to keep on doing exactly what I have already done. I want to do NEW things. So, I am reluctant to relinquish this much space on my resume to the past. I want my resume to reflect what I want to do going forward AND to show why I believe I am qualified to do the work in the job description I am responding to.

Which is why I routinely change the projects listed on my resume, and routinely have at least two versions targeted at different audiences. Although the subset of projects and skills listed varies, all projects listed are ones I've worked on and all skills listed are skills I possess. And, I do organize by skill set rather than chronology.

However, very lately, and perhaps this is because the NASDAQ is having a bad month, I'm getting feedback from screeners that they want to see names, dates and project descriptions in chronological order.

--Emily




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