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Ask HN: How do you shorten your resume when you have a lot of things to put in?

1 pointsby throwawayadvsecalmost 2 years ago
I&#x27;m pretty young, so I guess I should keep my resume relatively short(1 page?)<p>But I&#x27;ve had 2 full time jobs, an internship, a dozen freelance gigs, 3 schools, maybe at least 5 interesting side-projects, I can&#x27;t possibly fit everything on one page<p>How do you decide what to keep?

7 comments

bradknowlesalmost 2 years ago
In your case, I would focus the attention on the previous jobs, only the last school, and with the side gigs and interesting projects below that shown as one-liners, or in a prose list separated by commas.<p>If you show too much stuff, or you don&#x27;t focus their attention on the most important things, you run the risk that they&#x27;re going to assume you job hop every few months and they&#x27;re unlikely to want to hire you. But I would expect most reasonable employers to understand the difference between side gigs and interesting projects you&#x27;ve worked on, versus actual jobs.<p>In my bio for my 30+ year career, I list a bunch of previous employers and companies I&#x27;ve consulted for, and some previous projects I&#x27;ve worked on. It&#x27;s pretty lengthy. But a bio is not a résumé. You may want to have both, but you need to be careful to separate them by function and focus.
Quinzelalmost 2 years ago
I would do something like this:<p>List most recent full time position<p>List second full time position<p>List freelance&#x2F;self-employed as a position, and maybe highlight your best accomplishments doing that, and more broadly the general skills of self-management etc, but I wouldn’t rattle off each position.<p>List educational achievements like just your degree and major.<p>And then, in terms of your side projects, maybe just highlight the ones that are most relevant to whatever job you’re applying for?<p>I tailor my own resume to each job I apply for, which means, sometimes I don’t include all my work experience, or all my educational experience. When I used to list all my qualifications, I often got feedback “you’re too overqualified” - so I stick to what is relevant to the role.
fatnoahalmost 2 years ago
Speaking as someone who reads a lot of resumes, my advice is to use space wisely, focus on what exactly you did (too many resumes talk about the team or company) and why you&#x27;re awesome, and (whenever possible) tailor your resume for each job to prioritize what matches the job description.<p>Also, while I understand the point of the one-pager, with the massive number of applications I see, a one-pager that&#x27;s light on relevant info is going to get passed over in favor of a longer resume that highlights germane skills ans experiences.
bellwetheralmost 2 years ago
Your resume is not a biography, it&#x27;s a sale pitch. Tailor multiple versions of it, one for each specific type of job you are applying for, and drop the things that won&#x27;t help you close the sale.
ksajalmost 2 years ago
Does McDonalds show every product they sell in their ads? Are their ads 45 minutes or 5 full pages long?<p>Nope, they only show you enough to let you know they have something you want, and they do it within the limits of a regular advertisement.<p>You need to do that, too. Keep your resume short. It&#x27;s not a CV or an autobiography. Keep only what you hope will sell you to that particular company, and don&#x27;t bore them to tears with so much detail they can&#x27;t get through it.
chiefalchemistalmost 2 years ago
You&#x27;re resume is not a biography. It&#x27;s not a memoir. It exists for one reason, to get interviews. Historic accuracy and completeness is generally out of scope.<p>To answer your question: Perhaps address skills, tool and on the job experience in one section, and a simple chronological list of engagements in another section.
DoreenMichelealmost 2 years ago
Editing it for formatting issues can help keep all or most of the meat and fit it on one page.