Less Is More

Over at CareerHub, professional resume writer Louise Fletcher has a great post about the importance of brevity in a resume. She makes an excellent point:

Your resume is a marketing brochure not a product catalog. It has to say just enough to make the sale and not one word more.

This concept is more difficult for mid-career people to grasp than for those just starting out. Career seekers who are just starting out naturally have less information to grapple with. But for mid-career folks, leaving information out of a resume can be a scary idea. After all -- the thinking goes -- if you don't put it in your resume, how will a potential employer know everything you can do?

The answer is, they'll learn about you at the interview.

I think of the resume as a tool that provides enough information for a recruiter or hiring manager to want to schedule an interview to learn more about you. Keeping the resume brief gives you the opportunity to talk about the details of your experience during the interview, when you can connect your experience with the duties and description of the job you're applying for. That makes for a more effective interview -- which makes you a stronger candidate for the job.