Life Hidden In A CV

Reading a resume is a totally exhaustive activity. Each one is somebody's life compressed to just a page or two. How do you decompress that?

Insanely Compressed Life

I read dozens of CVs recently and I like it. I love seeing the work that goes into preparing them. I like the fact that almost each one is different. At the same time I find it really difficult. In a CV whole years get shortened to a sentence or few. Years spent in school, friendships and parties constitute a living person behind that document. Think about all the learning, successes, failures and emotions that go into those long periods of time.

Decompression

How do I decompress those pages into a picture of a person? I take it all in at the same time. Before reading the details I glance at the layout of the document. I notice the font used. I subconsciously register the email domain the candidate's using. It's all important clues as to how the person functions in the world. How they see it and where they're going.

Now imagine the amount of guessing that goes into that. If someone uses an obscure email provider like Yahoo, mean they're a laggard? Or are they against Google monetising their data through Gmail? Or is there still something else at play? If someone changes jobs quickly when all the rest of the resume looks super-cool, should you invite such a person for an interview? If there are strange changes of profession and areas of education does that mean the person is open minded or does it mean they're chaotic and they don't know what they want to do?

One thing you can do to make sure you're resume is understood the way you want is to give it to a few people who'll tell you their honest opinion on them.