Resumes are part factual evidence and part information architecture. The purpose for you in this case with Microsoft is to somehow get past the recruitment side of things and into the hands of a blue badge (your future boss) who's probably going to have a mixed approach to reading resumes ... (ie to this day i have no idea how i got hired at Microsoft when i did - so take this as a former blue badger who read resumes often as just one guys opinion).
1. *Embrace the concept of more than one column*. Summary of expertise needs better spacing between paragraphs and you need to provide highlights. The objective here is to show bit of leg, but not give away the entire prize. Tease the person into wanting to get you into the interview to know more. Its a dangerous posture to take, but ultimately its always going to be a crap shoot. 2. *Don't be afraid to rip out the highlighter :)* ... inside Microsoft we had this problem around excess information..everyone is hitting you 24/7 with "must read"...you enjoy reading an email / document as much as a swift kick in the head. I found huge wins by just highlighting data points in anything i sent around ...as then its a case of "blah blah blah You need to focus on this blah blah blah" its not "traditional" when it comes to resume transactions but if you want someones attention....then grab it. 3. *Skills & Employment History. *You've told me upfront you have xyz technologies but levels? these days most resumes i have seen etc have "advanced, intermediate, specialist etc" type leveling. You're wanting to tell the person looking at the resume your strengths and weaknesses. We'll get to the testing of those levels later in the interview process, for now i'll take your word upfront .. Cite them once and move on. Don't re-list them again in the area's of where you worked, its redundant and honestly the person(s) reading the resume are unlikely to map the relevance. Pick 5 major project highlights and thats it, list the brands you worked for but given the visibility of most devs these days don't be afraid to put 1995 -2002 (Upon Request). in there somewhere. As its expected behavior in IT to have a resume thats quite long given the contract arrangements these days. Also tell us what you did not the problems they had..ie i couldn't find where you fit into GIS System you worked on.. sounds interesting, but what role did you play? that sort of thing. 25 words or less per item btw. 4. *Fonts*. Your all over the place with your text sizes. Keep a consistent flow, leverage MS Word Heading1, Heading2 etc. Don't make them to big either 12pt max with secondary text being around 10pt to give the reader balance. Use bold to sparingly more to highlight a new area of focus (ie like this email i guess). Allows readers to skim read if need be. 5. *References etc*. Upon Request. Firstly it removes the page count and secondly its a fishing expedition at times when hunting for jobs, so them having to ask you for who the references are shows they are interested...nothing like a "oh so you read it, good". Layering is the key imho. You're a product so you need to sell yourself as one and a good healthy resume feels like you are just doing that - about to make a great acquisition. You want the cover to be eye catching but when you turn it around basically you want a feature break down of what's inside...this is what you're about to buy. Take a slice from Apple's product marketing (as weird as this may sound) they give you just enough but not to much information. Layer in your message about who you are, what you can do, how often you do it and what you want to do next. An example would be start at 100+ words for a description of what you did at a role etc, then scale it back to 50, then back to 25... why 25? why not... :D Anyway, Good luck! :) and MCS is an interesting area to dwell in... bring thickskin and an open mind hehehe... --- Regards, Scott Barnes http://www.riagenic.com On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 9:46 AM, Heinrich Breedt <[email protected]>wrote: > I honestly would not know how to cut it down to 2 pages. > >
