I participate in a networking website, maybe you have heard of it…www.LinkedIn.com. It is a networking site like MySpace or FaceBook, but it is designed for business owners, entrepreneurs, and professionals. Your friends or connections can post questions or announcements asking for responses from the network. I received a question from a good friend who I have consulted for and worked with for many years. His question was about how employer’s view one page resumes versus multiple page resumes.

I have consulted for many companies that included hiring people for their company. I have also hired people for SurfYourName over the years as well. I published a blog entry some time ago about my experiences hiring a web designer for SurfYourName and how difficult the entire process became. Read it and let me know what you think ;-) I personally do not think there is a hard fast rule on how many pages your resume should be in length. I do think a resume should be pertinent to the company you are applying with.

When I was hiring web designers, I received resumes that were geared toward customer service, sales, retail, and half a dozen other professions. There were a few that actually sent a resume geared toward web design. I think this point is much more important then the overall length of the resume.

A resume doesn’t get you a job, it gets you an interview. A resume that catches my eye is one that shows a consistent and stable work history. One that shows work in the industry that is comparable or the same as the one the candidate is applying. No large gaps in employment is very important as well. It should be easy to read and should not include long paragraphs of information about what you did during the position, more short sentences and bullet points.

You can Google this topics and come up with thousands of so called experts on resume writing, but you should be talking to and listening to the people who actually hire people. They are the ones who shuffle through hundreds of resumes for one open position. Each and every person will be different in what they like in a resume, but staying on topic and making sure your resume is relevant is very important no matter who you talk to about this subject.

Below this blog entry is a place for you to leave comments about this subject. Please let me know what you think about the resume topic. Do you think a one pager or a two pager is better? Look forward to reading your comments and responses.

Erik Bledsoe, CEO
SurfYourName.com
Erik@SurfYourName.com