By request I am revisiting some of my older posts on the archaeology resume/CV and updating what new things I have gone. {Note- resume is a North American term for a 2 page summary of your experience while a CV is a list, many pages long, of all your experiences. While in the UK a CV is pretty much the same as a resume, 2 page summary. I am discussing resume(NA)/CV(UK)}
My first post looked at my attempt at a timeline resume/CV. Later, I also looked at some advice from Jennifer:
My own cv is fairly long (I think 13 pages), and I’ve struggled with chopping it down into a condensed resume through the years. I’ve been playing around with one interesting variation which really chops it down to the bone. As an example, many years of employment as a shovelbum at multiple firms might be listed as something along these lines:
1994-2007: Employed as an Archaeological Field Technician, Crew Chief and Field Supervisor at ABC Archaeology Company, Dirty Trowel Associates, Another STP, Inc., Where’s My Per Diem Co., Deep As Satan’s Hellhole Strata, Something in the Water Engineering, Mom and Pop Archaeology, Inc., and Hope I Get Paid On Time Assoc.
The argument could be made that in the short form resume no one cares how many months you worked at a particular company, and at a certain level of experience it’s not necessary to explain all of your skills (unless it’s something more technical or specialized). If you’ve worked for 10 years as a field tech, you should be expected to know how to use a compass, walk a transect and dig holes.
and a look at Chris Webster’s resume with graph (still one of my favorites). I have since done some work on my timeline resume/CV as the first version was way to cluttered and did not really work to well. First, I should say that with any archaeology resume/CV there are certain rules to follow:
- Put what matters first! In the UK if you are looking for a digger job the first think you want to put is a DRIVERS LICENSE. If you want to be a project manager in the Western United States than you want to put your PERMITS. Find out what is the most important aspect of a job and put that first.
- Somethings do not matter other than a checked box. For example, most jobs care that you have a degree but that is about it, a checked box. Do not put checked boxes first, put what gets you hired first BUT put the checked boxes in.
- Make it short! Most people do not/will not read beyond a page or two, sometimes not even that.
- Make sure your phone number/email is up to date.
- Tailor, Tailor, Tailor, Tailor. Put the most relevant information into a resume/CV and leave out the rest or put it at the end as a list.
- Which leads me to… you decide what is relevant. You tell a employer what a job means and what you did for it. I should say that not all jobs are the same. I was a field tech that also wrote up sections of the reports. Not common at most companies and so I should put that on a resume. A job title tells someone only so much about what you did, you need to tell them the rest.
- Make it easy to read- not fancy fonts, no clutter, etc.
- From Jim- put your highest degree. If you have a PhD it is safe to assume you went to high school, undergrad, etc. Save room and just put in one degree.
Taking all this into account here is my revised timeline resume/CV from my first post. This was for a job as a instructor (tutor in the UK) for a continuing education course (so tailored).
I have cut down my timeline to only the last 2-2 1/2 years. I put in all my jobs so it does not look like I have gaps in employment but I only highlight those jobs that matter e.g. teaching experience for this particular job. I also list all my other jobs, while not to0 relevant it shows that I have worked before in a variety of jobs and have lots of experience. I put in a website in case someone wants to look up what I did. Will they probably not but if I get an interview they might. I also have a second page with education etc. for all those checked boxes but that is not in a time line. It is plain old lists, don’t want to go to overboard with a timeline.
Does anyone have any questions? Does this work in your opinion? It would be great to have some feed back.
Doug's Archaeology 
Jim Finnigan
April 23, 2012
I can’t remember the statistic but it was something like the average recruiter spends 17 seconds reviewing a resume. So important stuff first. Drivers licence is good and in Canada, safety training helps, obviously your highest degree – if it is a graduate degree I will assume you have an undergraduate degree and went to high school and grade school, don’t make me read that. Summary of jobs and responsibilities – a good description of what you did carries a bit more weight than shear quantity. What responsibilities did you carry. And references, I will request them but if you have some stock references, great. You have 17 seconds, make em count. I am old fashion, I hate the graph, I have bounce around the page too much.
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
April 23, 2012
Thanks Jim. Good to find out what is wrong with something now rather than later. good point on degrees. I will edit that in.
Lumbergh
April 24, 2012
Jim and others who might be interested… that recent study about time spent reviewing resumes is here: http://blog.theladders.com/ux/you-only-get-6-seconds-of-fame-make-it-count/.
The Ladders is a swanky 100k+ job search site but I know from personal experience their findings are more broadly applicable. As a CRM division manager, I have to make difficult hiring decisions based on rushed review of hundreds of resumes/CVs. I know I take more than 6 seconds, but it’s probably not much more, maybe about 10-20 seconds on the first pass through the pile.
I’ve been discussing this with colleagues and we’re trying to boil down a list of the absolute most important things to include/consider. But of course the problem is that there’s a lot of disagreement about that. For instance, I disagree (partly) with Jim’s statement about degrees. I don’t ever want to see anything below college level, but I do appreciate seeing both undergrad and grad school stuff, especially for crew chief/project archaeologist level. Often times grad school concentrations are so concentrated (and not directly relevant to the day to day reality of fieldwork) that some texture from the undergrad level helps balance it out. I don’t think it’s a waste of 2 lines on a resume to show BA/BS, uni/college/location, major/minor, especially if you have an honors thesis/project to mention and thereby show writing skills.
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
April 24, 2012
Here is question for anyone. I know this is mainly focusing on your techs, crew chiefs, project managers? but what about higher up the food chain. Does anyone have any experience with mid-level and above hiring? Is it still 15 secs at that point?
Lumbergh
April 24, 2012
In my experience it does stretch out a bit the higher you go, due to both the higher stakes (more money/responsibility on the line) and the smaller applicant pool. For, say, a junior PI-PM job, in the past we have received 20 or so resumes and would take several minutes on each (versus 100+ for tech/crew chief/junior project archaeologist level).
I think this varies by field and may go in reverse for some… In some fields as you go higher up you get more and more resumes; for instance, in fields that are more represented on The Ladders (tech, finance, etc) they might be getting hundreds of resumes for some associate VP of finance or IT manager role and the majority of them are from people trying to punch above their weight (i.e. without the experience or qualifications for the job). So recruiters are more and more forced to filter out the dreamers and BSers very quickly. But the CRM world gets pretty small as you move up.
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
April 24, 2012
Thanks for the link Lumbergh. That eye test looks a lot more accurate then some other ones I have seen floating around regarding resumes.
Lumbergh
April 24, 2012
Doug–
I appreciate the experimentation you’re doing with the table/timeline resume above, but it’s visually confusing. The whole benefit of a timeline resume is that allows the eye to flow naturally through the stages of an applicant’s career, but the explanatory boxes break up that flow and render the whole thing moot. It ends up taking 5 of the 6 precious recruiting seconds just to process the structure!
I am an old fogey, I guess, and I tend to appreciate very clean, basic, concise, traditional one-or two-page resumes in classic fonts with no gimmicks, no decorative flourishes, no errors. I followed the link to Chris Webster’s resume and I have to say his pie chart of time spent in various roles is the only gimmick I’ve seen that added significant value. That is really an excellent visualization.
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
April 24, 2012
Thanks for the honesty Lumbergh. It seems to be the general consensuses so far. Yes, Chris’ is by far the best resume design, specific to archaeology, that I have seen.