I've got some stuff I want to add to my resume for a particular job, but I was already pushing the end of one full page with my 'standard' resume.

All of the stuff I have is good and relevant for this job, so I don't want to take anything out.

By changing section titles to 11 (bold) and points in the body down to 10.5 (not bold), I've got enough room.

I really don't want to go to two pages, because the second page would be very weak and light. That, and while I've got more experience than most new grads, it just doesn't justify two.

It seems pretty ok to me on a test print. Anyone think it's not a good idea?

6/18/2008 11:50:20 AM

go for it

6/18/2008 11:53:23 AM

4 point font

6/18/2008 11:53:43 AM

google says that min should be 10 and max font size should be no bigger than 12

6/18/2008 11:55:10 AM

As long as the body is 10 it's fine.

6/18/2008 11:55:42 AM

^^thats what i was thinking...between 10 and 12

6/18/2008 12:06:48 PM

Awesome, thanks.

6/18/2008 12:10:42 PM

8pt font is too small.

6/18/2008 12:59:53 PM

Quote :

" By changing section titles to 11 (bold) and points in the body down to 10.5 (not bold), I've got enough room."

sounds fine to me. in fact i think mine is 11 titles and 10 body (with pretty lean margins too)

6/18/2008 1:02:37 PM

Thanks for the previous help, hopefully this one won't get locked since I have more questions. Everything's past 90 days, there's no other resume threads in the lounge, and I don't need writing or tech help so the tech talk place doesn't work either. Please refer me to the CORRECT thread if this one doesn't suffice either, but for now I'll post here.

Is it appropriate to deliver resumes to companies that may not have openings? Also, if it is should I just leave my resume for the HR director or someone else?

8/21/2008 6:36:50 PM

I think 4 pt is an acceptable size.

8/21/2008 10:35:24 PM

min = 10

8/21/2008 10:36:33 PM

use Garamond font, it looks much nicer than Times New Roman or Arial

8/21/2008 10:44:38 PM

Palatino is pretty nice, too

8/21/2008 11:11:13 PM

Quote :

"sounds fine to me. in fact i think mine is 11 titles and 10 body (with pretty lean margins too)"

Yeah, if you just kind of treat it like a sort of poster you can come up with some creative, professional ways to lay out your resume that fiddles with the font sizes and keeps everything legible. My titles are the same size as my content, but I have the titles offset in a separate column off to the left and right-justified in bold, and I've got varying spacing (between 0.3-1.0 lines between each section depending on whether I"m dividing a heading, subheading, content for that subheading, whatever). I crammed everything on one page by playing with these margins. If you have a hard time fitting your stuff into the bullets, try laying it out differently. What I did, since bullets are a ridiculous waste of white space, was summarize the experience I gained into keywords (i.e. construction survey, post-tensioned concrete, construction correspondence, estimating, etc) and summarized the job itself up in a sentence that would explain why I'm mentioning that experience (i.e. At this job I learned all the important fundamentals of the construction process and helped set up everything for a $22 million parking deck job. I also learned how to bake cookies up somebody's ass while selling them insurance.). That format flows better and when you're reading it feels a lot better. It also leaves the keywords in an easy to access section so the HR people can just skim it real quick and decide whether or not to forward you on to the next person. Keeping the summarized experience out of the bullets and leaving it in a summary section (with 1-2 sentences) also gives your potential boss a quick insight into what you did and what you got from it. I found that the basic advice I was given in E101 (engineering 101 that is) for resume design wasn't a bad place to start, but it sure as hell wasn't going to be much help for getting me a real job after college (unless I had some amazing experience). K that's all I've got for now, let me know if you have any more questions.

8/21/2008 11:14:06 PM

If I ever saw a resume with bullets on it, it would be deleted/trashed immediately.

Same goes for clipart, colored paper, any stupid font, more than two text weights or sizes.

Quote :

"Is it appropriate to deliver resumes to companies that may not have openings? Also, if it is should I just leave my resume for the HR director or someone else?"

Sure, it's fine. Be sure to include a cover letter, otherwise it's just going to get trashed (and may anyway). You can leave it with anyone, but your best bet is to try and convince the receptionist to let you speak to someone. Even 2 minutes of face time and talking can get your foot in the door.

8/21/2008 11:49:19 PM

Quote :

"If I ever saw a resume with bullets on it, it would be deleted/trashed immediately."

so your argument is that bullet style is fine - just without the actual bullet? what's your reasoning on this?

8/22/2008 10:01:15 AM

haha, my resume had bullets and i got the first job i applied for and wanted with a highly competitive salary

8/22/2008 10:50:05 AM

Quote :

"If I ever saw a resume with bullets on it, it would be deleted/trashed immediately."

thats just freaking retarded.
bullets are very acceptable in any industry for any resume ... if you dont believe me then google it.


[Edited on August 22, 2008 at 10:55 AM. Reason : sdf]

8/22/2008 10:53:28 AM

first google hit on "bullets on resumes":

Quote :

"'Avoid These 10 Resume Mistakes' 6. Resume is not bulleted. Use a bulleted style to make your resume more reader-friendly. In the above-cited study by Career Masters Institute, use of bullets was the 2nd-highest ranked preference by employers, and density of type (paragraphs rather than bullet points) was ranked highly as a factor that would inspire employers to discard a resume. Use bullets consistently. Some job-seekers bullet most of their resume but don't bullet the Profile/Summary section, for example. Or they will list the overall scope and responsibilities for each job in an unbulleted section before beginning a bulleted section describing accomplishments. Given that the reader can't easily discern a rationale for why some material is bulleted and other material isn't, it's best to bullet consistently throughout the resume."

-http://www.quintcareers.com/resume_mistakes.html

a very quick glance seems google and co. are hip to bullets

8/22/2008 11:00:09 AM

^ i agree

the worst thing is when someone's resume looks like this. the worst thing is when someone's resume looks like this. the worst thing is when someone's resume looks like this. the worst thing is when someone's resume looks like this. the worst thing is when someone's resume looks like this. the worst thing is when someone's resume looks like this. the worst thing is when someone's resume looks like this. the worst thing is when someone's resume looks like this.

the worst thing is when someone's resume looks like this. the worst thing is when someone's resume looks like this. the worst thing is when someone's resume looks like this. the worst thing is when someone's resume looks like this.

the worst thing is when someone's resume looks like this. the worst thing is when someone's resume looks like this.

[Edited on August 22, 2008 at 11:26 AM. Reason : PS. HIRE ME]

8/22/2008 11:25:46 AM

i always include a picture of a lolcat in the bottom righthand corner of my resume

just as an icebreaker

8/22/2008 12:34:17 PM

It's all about how you lay it out. They suggest bullets because many people writing resumes don't know how to present info in a readable format without them. They'll put in a shitty titled paragraph or huge blocks of text with no whitespace and make it tedious to glean the least bit of useful info from the resume. If you are a little creative with a resume and keep it looking professional and keep the data presented in a logical format, you'll probably be fine. HR departments don't throw resumes out just because they don't all look cookie cutter with the same format you find on the first google result for "resume". They throw them out because once they pick it up it's multiple pages, a big horrid block of text, or they can't find the keywords they're looking for.

8/22/2008 11:07:00 PM

^We have a winner folks.

Bullets are for retards who have no sense of composition. I stand by my statement even more after seeing the replies.

Quote :

"bullets are very acceptable in any industry for any resume ... if you dont believe me then google it."

I can specifically think of a half dozen industries where a bulleted resume would be an afternoon laugh for the entire office.

8/25/2008 2:38:28 AM

damn, those offices must be filled with douchebags

an afternoon laugh..over bulleted resumes

8/25/2008 8:44:25 AM

^^

I'm pretty sure he wasn't saying that bulleted is the wrong way to go. I think his point was whatever or however you want to present your resume, it needs to be clear. That means if you don't like bullets, then be creative without them, and if you do, it will also emphasize the keywords and points you're trying to show.

Quote :

"I can specifically think of a half dozen industries where a bulleted resume would be an afternoon laugh for the entire office."

I'll bet most of your entire damn office has bulleted resumes

8/25/2008 9:04:46 AM

i just knew that noen would come in here to defend his stance b/c he is the most smartest person on the planet and he knows everything about everything.

Quote :

"Bullets are for retards who have no sense of composition. I stand by my statement even more after seeing the replies. "

what the fuck ever dude. get out of here with that mess. you are the only person on the entire interweb talking this junk.

Quote :

"I can specifically think of a half dozen industries where a bulleted resume would be an afternoon laugh for the entire office."

and my entire office is laughing at this post.

8/25/2008 9:15:20 AM

yea, I disagree with Noen on this... sort of.

he comes from the design school, so I don't expect anything less than his stance, and somewhat agree with him about bullets, design composition with a little creativity, etc etc...

what I disagree with is the fact that it would be thrown away. this is simply not true. maybe Noen would throw it away, and maybe people looking for graphic designers or industrial designers would throw it away. but this does NOT apply to all industries and to imply that your opinion applies to all industries is just arrogant.

it's a starting point, but the higher up you go, you'll realize there's more creative formats than bullets. there's font weight, font style, margin, kerning, tracking, leading, indentation, there's all SORTS of other more creative ways to handle text.

to the OP: minimum 10pt, maximum 14pt

I use 10/12/14 and that's it, and the only place i use 14 is my name, also depends on the font.

[Edited on August 25, 2008 at 11:57 AM. Reason : ,]

8/25/2008 11:56:36 AM

^Yeah I was just referring to design positions

I just like to ruffle feathers

Quote :

"I'll bet most of your entire damn office has bulleted resumes"

I'm sure 99% of my office does, but then 99% of my office doesn't do what I do either

Quote :

"what the fuck ever dude. get out of here with that mess. you are the only person on the entire interweb talking this junk."

The Digital Resume Format

Much of the time and cost savings gained by having applicants submit their resumes electronically is lost if your systems can’t read them and you have to pre-process them by hand. An effective e-resume is more than a simple transfer of text from an applicant’s old resumes into an e-mail message – and it’s well worth educating your prospective applicants about the best ways to create and submit them.

First, remember that you want a machine to read the resume and be able to interpret and retrieve it successfully. That means the message has to arrive in, or be converted to a plain text format. Also, search engines tend to stumble over graphics, fonts, bullets, indents and strange characters – so very simple and straightforward documents are best. Here are some formatting tips you can make your applicants aware of, to streamline your own workflow:

· Use only Helvetica, Arial, or Times Roman Fonts

· Use 10, 12, or 14 Point Size Fonts

· Make sure the entire document is left justified

· Set margins for approximately 65 characters

· Use spaces or dashes to emphasize text

· No bullets

· No graphics · No wing dings or special characters

8/26/2008 2:02:02 AM

I agree with the no bullets point for text-only submissions on the web.

8/26/2008 9:51:38 AM

Use OpenOffice and export it to PDF, then it is in a proper format to email if needed

8/26/2008 10:18:35 AM

I'm a big fan of 10pt Arial, with Bullets and Bold for job title/company etc. Also try and put technical stuff in your job description (keywords). That will help HR departments pick it up in their searches. Also avoid self inflated job titles. If you're a Industrial Designer (pretty much a glorified drafter, btw) don't call yourself a Sr. Account Executive Prototype Developer.

Typically in the body:
Job Title
Company, Location, Duration
Job description (in bullets)
will suffice


We keep a file of funny stuff we pull off resumes on our server. We've got a crap ton of them and it's 5 so I'm outa here. I recruit Civil/Mechanical/EE, but here's some stuff NOT to do, courtesy of our guys recruiting the slop pits:

Utilize my Skillz
(resume title)

To be the Best Professional Land Surveyor, father and husband that the LORD, GOD of Abraham, allows me to be.
(objective)

Hunting, Fishing, Harleys, CNC Programming, Slinging Chips
(interests)

Hard labor, rough on your body, it will ware u down. Up and down all day and mostly on your knees. Some days are really long about 18hrs long some times.
(job description)

8/26/2008 5:15:08 PM

Quote :

"If you're a Industrial Designer (pretty much a glorified drafter, btw)"

Um, what? Not even close.

8/26/2008 5:26:41 PM