<p>I have been thinking about some things pertaining to resumes. Up until recently, I had generally seen resumes packed with so much info about awards, work, education, etc with very little room to make the resume appealing. More so recently, I have seen some more creative/appealing resumes, though not many for engineering disciplines. Some examples are below:</p>
<p>To the engineers on here that do recruiting, do you prefer info-packed resumes? I understand that if you happen to look at a resume, having so much info will leave you with less questions, but do you think there could be a little more creativity done to help a resume capture your attention in the first place? Do you think the "Less is more" can be useful for resumes, just as it can be in presentations? And I wouldn't think having some questions is a problem, given you will interview the individual if you like them, anyways.</p>
<p>Any thoughts would be great. I feel like there could be a balance between word dense resumes and graphic dense resumes to help one have a better chance of getting an interview, but I am unsure.</p>
<p>For engineering positions, the traditional resume would be better. If I’m looking to hire for a position where presentation is very important, I’d definitely give bonus points to people with resumes who show off their skills in that arena.</p>
<p>To be fair, I don’t think he’s advocating using exactly those formats, just that they exist. Otherwise, I, too, disliked all 3. Generally speaking, though, adding flash doesn’t make you look any more competent at engineering. It DOES make you look more competent at graphic design, which is probably why this is more common in those types of fields.</p>
<p>I took a class my first semester at Iowa State called IE 101 which was a 1 credit course. We spent several weeks going over resumes and cover letters. </p>
<p>Based on the feedback that was given to me in that class, I have been improving my resume every semester.</p>
<p>I built my resume based on an internship resume template I found online, the only thing I got rid off was the “Profile” Section. Instead of having a paragraph talking about myself, I changed to a simple Objective line like:</p>
<p>Objective: Seeking an internship in Manufacturing where I can utilize my Lean Manufacturing and Optimization skills to improve operations ( I customize this line and change it slightly based on each position I apply)</p>
<p>It is important to have keywords all in bullets like the template and I can’t stress enough the importance of having a decent cover letter. I would say my cover letter was really what helped me get my first internship</p>
<p>Those links I posted are just examples of some flashier resumes to show what I was referring to. </p>
<p>But ken285’s and boneh3ad’s response were more what I was expecting to see by bringing this up. My question to boneh3ad is, what are your thoughts on using some infographics? These can be used to show competence as an engineer, like via a timeline of work, accomplishments, etc.</p>
<p>Also, thanks bschoolwiz for your comments and info.</p>
<p>Also, thanks da6onet. That was a good point to bring up.</p>
<p>To the others that just said why they didn’t like the examples I posted, it would be more useful to state what things they didn’t like about them. </p>
<p>I think infographics are useless. It just makes it take more time to find the relevant information when what engineers really want is efficiency.</p>
<p>I’m an engineering manager, and have hired many EE and CS majors, both new grads and experienced engineers. I HATE all of those example resumes. And if I received one, it would go straight to the trash - I wouldn’t bother to try to find the info I was looking for.</p>
<p>That said, I think some effort should be put into making a resume look attractive and well organized. Some variation of fonts for headers, use of white space, etc. is desirable. On the other extreme, I recently got a resume that looked like it was written in the 1980s, which gave a very negative impression that the job applicant hadn’t put much effort into updating his resume in decades, and made me wonder if he had kept his skill set up-to-date. It used the same size fixed width font throughout, and looked like it could have been done on a typewriter. </p>
<p>Regarding the less is more question, I guess I fall into the category of not preferring either extreme, but would lean towards include more info in the resume. As an engineering manager, I want to really understand what the candidate’s experience is. More detail is needed for more recent experience, and less detail for long ago or less relevant experience. For an experienced engineer, I would like to see more details about the current job, and less about the job you held 10 years ago, unless it is particularly relevant experience to the job you are hiring for. It is similar for a new grad. Please give me some details on the programming languages you know, an internship you had, or a major school project that you worked on, but I don’t need the details for your summer job bagging groceries. </p>
<p>It’s all about brevity, though. You want as much info as you can realistically pack in there, but if you used size 8 font and 0.5" margins to do it, you are going to look like someone who doesn’t understand what is and isn’t important. You want it to be information dense yet also very easily readable.</p>
<p>I will just go into what I didn’t like about the first one:</p>
<p>To me, it honestly looked more like a club promotion than a resume representing a would be professional. The information is really scattered because he is trying to organize it in a new way, but this way really takes away from building a background idea of the person… </p>
<p>For the typical chronological resume you can sort of see how the person developed as they progressed, the information builds on itself as your eyes move up the resume. With this new format I am breaking concentration constantly, shifting from one section to the next and then back again to try to pair accomplishments to his timeline and his career section…</p>
<p>also, I’m pretty sure the guy has a bottom lip mustache well into his 40’s…which would honestly explain a lot…</p>
<p>Only 2 of the links worked for me, but I didn’t really like them. However I am not a hiring manager. </p>
<p>There does seem to be a big emphasis these days on LinkedIn. (DS’s college takes headshot photos at the career fair, I think mostly for LinkedIn use). It seems to provide a simple format, yet with power to link out to example projects etc. Thoughts? </p>
<p>LinkedIn and traditional resumes are great in that everybody is familiar with the format and it does not take long for the recruiter to find the information they need.</p>
<p>LinkedIn is great. I added the link to my resume and hiring managers seem really to like that. In addition to all the resume info I have videos of project presentations, etc. This way they can get a sense of my ability to communicate… It’s like a soft meeting, where they can get a sense if I would click with their team before the actual face to face. </p>
<p>It helps me as well, as it allows me track who is actually looking at my resume, and is further interested.</p>
<p>DS has done MANY cool projects. I wish he’d done a better job tracking/archiving the various videos and links. He was immersed in the learning opportunity. That’s great for education, but if he were starting as a freshman now I’d know enough to remind him “stash that away for possible LinkedIn use”. </p>
<p>LinkedIn is kind of funny sometimes. I find that probably 80% of the people I don’t already know who are browsing my profile are recruiters from the oil and gas industry. The thing is, I’m an experimental aerodynamics person, so I don’t know how these people keep stumbling onto my profile from the oilfield. Oh well.</p>
<p>I remember hearing somewhere that the average resume gets about 10 seconds of review by the gatekeeper. The resumes above have too much going on IMO… keep it clean and concise.</p>
