| While every interviewer has different opinions on what should/should not be present, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not cargo culting, I'm complaining about receiving garbage. Extreme length is commonly a sign that the person is too lazy to ever prune or clean up things. And my complaint about excessive length is "if they cannot bother to revisit it, why should I?" I'm aware that every resume is not created from scratch just for me. Still, I should be able to create a guess as to who the person is, what they're looking for, and (generally) why they might be a good fit. If not, why am I reading their resume at all? What am I possibly getting out of it? While updating resumes usually means adding, that doesn't have to mean that a 1/2 page discussion on tweaking spreadsheets for a law office in 1992 will stand there until retirement. Do I really need to see that someone has experience with Visual Studio 2010, 2008, 2005, 2003, 2000? How about every version of every Office product that they have ever used? How about a skills section that lists 4 versions of MS DOS? Sure, there's a possibility we have a legacy system to update, but really, if you want to include that stuff, separate the (likely to be) relevant information so that I can find it easily without wading through crap like your Code Warrior Certification in 1995. I'm not your mother and I'm not going to do the equivalent of cleaning your room just to find out if you might be worth a phone call. |
And you shouldn't. But, what you say conflicts, in some way, with your stated goal:
> I should be able to create a guess as to who the person is, what they're looking for, and (generally) why they might be a good fit.
And guess what? That 15-page resume is looking for a place where a 15-page resume will fit in.
My point was that every person who has ever talked about the hiring process and how to put together a resume with the "I read resumes every day" credential is giving you advice on how to get the interview with them: nothing more.
With that in mind, why should I customize my resume for you? Rather, I should write a resume that represents me. If you don't like the resume, you won't interview with me. And that, hopefully, means I wouldn't fit in.
Listen, I've had interviews canceled on me because I play board games (at a company that promotes the fact that they have XBox 360s).
So, I'm not saying you are wrong. I'm just saying that your advice is, at least in my opinion, advice on what you look for. You have no need to defend what your criteria is, I wasn't attacking it. I apologize if you think I was.
In some ways, you should thank the 15-page resumes coming in. They make your decision much easier (I'd assume). If that person adjusted their resume merely to get the interview, are they really the type of person you want to hire?