The "War and Peace" of resumes

It’s a little hard to believe, but putting your resume online actually works — at least if you’re a programmer. I got a call from a recruiter yesterday, which led to an interview today.

The headhunter — I mean recruitment consultant — asked me if I could rewrite my paper resume, though. I kept it to the standard limit of two pages using a font size that doesn’t require you to use a microsocope to read it, but what these guys want is something more detailed. He e-mailed me a sample resume, which had a whopping seven full pages of twelve-point text.

“That’s the opposite of what most resume guides tell you to do,” I said to him in our phone conversation, “Most of them say that resumes over two pages get tossed in the trash.”

“That’s often the case,” he replied, “but d’you want to work for someone who won’t even take the time to find out about you before deciding whether to hire you?”

Of course not. I was just always under the impression that most employers and agencies used people’s resumes as a quick way of paring down the candidate list.

So right now, I’m scrambling to put together a detailed resume in the format they like. This should be an interesting interview; wish me luck.