<p>I once got an interview and subsequent job offer, which I didn’t end up taking, based on a resume plus a custom website I put together with pictures and discussions of products I’ve developed. The website took a long evening and cost nothing, since I put it on a domain that I already own; even if I’d paid for it, it would have cost $15 at most. If you can design a decent layout and type fast, I highly recommend this approach. It made a great impression.</p>
<p>I like that idea of a custom website. Even if it does not land the job, it will give the frustrated job hunter some new skills and a good distraction.</p>
<p>Wow everyone, thank you for your responses. </p>
<p>I have a lot of federal experience under my belt so when I graduate, I know for a fact that my resume won’t fit under one page. It is all related to my field, so it isn’t just random puffed-up accomplishments. I’m not graduating in 4 years on purpose just to get a lot of experience.</p>
<p>I went to a federal career workshop and was told that the one-page rule doesn’t apply anymore since federal jobs need to know everything. So it really does depend on your field, I suppose.</p>
<p>If you need more than one page for the resume, it seems like it becomes even more important to make sure it is easy to find the important information … to get the reader interested in reading the detail. Good luck!</p>
<p>I hired quite a few engineers when I was a manager (I’m semi-retired now). I never minded a resume longer than one page IF it was relevant. Hard for me to see that a new grad, even with some work experience, would be more than one page. Someone with 30 years experience, yes (and I definitely wanted to see it).</p>
<p>One thing that would really turn me off was for someone to list a whole lot of stuff that I didn’t think was much of an accomplishment in the grand scheme of things. So, if you are a new grad or only out of school a few years, be sure the listed items are really significant and not just trivial stuff. If you are not sure, ask someone more experienced to review your resume.</p>
<p>Another item that was a pet pieve of mine was calling out several items (like finite element programs) and calling yourself an expert in all of them. No one can be an “expert” with all those codes; at least what I would define as an expert. Something like that would make me question everything stated on that resume. </p>
<p>So be carefull if you are a new or recent grad and have a lot of items on your resume. Make sure they are all relevant and represent your true talents and knowledge.</p>
<p>One page is key. Also, Make sure your cover letter is concise and do NOT copy text from your cover letter into the body of an email when sending your resume and cover letter. I receive lots of resumes for internships (I don’t make the decisions, I just pass them along) but it’s laughable when a young person is saying basically the sam thing in their email as they have written in their cover letter. If you’re going to do this, it’s better not to include a cover letter at all since your email essentially IS the cover letter.</p>
<p>I talked to a recruiter yesterday about this. She wanted my resume for a position she’s trying to fill. My resume already was two full pages even without my current position, so I told her I would add my current position and edit the rest to keep it to two pages. She said don’t bother; it’s better to have a long resume than to risk deleting a detail that might be relevant to a given employer.</p>
<p>Again, this is for engineering.</p>
<p>I have a phone interview today that I secured with a two-and-a-half page resume.</p>