On Resumes, Organization Comes First

What matters far more is how information is organized and laid out. In a word, sectionalize. An intentional and thoughtful layout can allow the crafty job seeker to leverage three, four, or sometimes even more pages to present a multidimensional summary of a professional career. But the longer the document, the better the sectionalization must be. In general, employers are seeking clues about a candidate’s mindset. Fair or otherwise, poorly laid out résumés cause employers to infer all kinds of unfavorable characteristics: sloppiness, laziness, inattention to detail — the list goes on and on. Those who think These traditional documents don’t matter as much in the era of LinkedIn profiles are sadly mistaken… They are the first key performance indicators of a candidate, from which employers whittle away the competition.