My beautiful niece asked that I revamp her resume. She is a college student with new work experience. The resume she sent me was 4 pages long! It took approximately 30 minutes to delete 75% of the excruciating details into a one page, clean and tidy resume.

I was previously employed with a financial institution as an operations manager. Part of my responsibilities was to hire for all positions. Hundreds of resumes were received for all posted jobs. They came in the form of novels, perfumed paper, decorated with ribbon and sparkles and colorful meta tags. Obviously some of these formats would have been appropriate for the “Slap a Panty Boutique”, not a loan officer position. Reference lists had disconnected telephone numbers or people who could hardly remember the applicant. These would have been better served for the amnesia clinic. Including graphics and photos did not interest me. They hindered the process. I was expecting professional, to the point, information. I was not looking for glamor shots or cute bears. If I was advertising childhood daycare positions, maybe the singing elephants would gather the correct attention.

Times are tough and jobs are at a premium. The best presentation will be short, to the point and professional. We would sort them by appearance and volume first. The pile would be cut down to the one or two page resume, on decent paper with neutral ink color – black, brown, navy. The rest were archived. We were looking for the resume that matched the personality of the position. If a resume is 5 pages long it communicated to us that the applicant could not concisely convey information in a concise manner. If I wanted a “talker”, I would hire my mother. Save the QPA and specific college class lists for university positions. They like that stuff. Save the “greeting customers with a smile” lines. We all want happy, optimistic, charismatic individuals. This info is conveyed at the interview. All crying and somber people will be offered the appropriate counseling. Also, urgently important, do not name drop or tell us who you are related to by extended marriage or cousin-hood. Quite frankly, that lets me know you will be arriving with an entourage of importance and are unable to stand on your on credentials. Remember, even Franco Harris writes down that he is a professional athlete, instead of “Super Bowl Hero, Immaculate Reception, Pittsburgh Steeler, knows Dan Rooney”.

Clean, concise, professional resumes will get attention. The content is what matters. Oh, yea, save the metallic dollar sign cutouts that fall out of envelopes, all over my office floor, for the men’s club.