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The Joel on Software Discussion Group (CLOSED)

I'm getting the resume in order to start looking for jobs. I graduated from college 2 years ago, and have had one longer gig and 2 shorter ones since then (the latter on a part-time/contract basis).

Here's the question: I had a number of IT-related jobs and internships as a student. Some of them  (like being a CS tutor) are probably not relevant anymore, but others (like an internship at an investment bank) could be. Am I still young enough to get away with listing college stuff on my resume, or is it time to axe it and include only post-graduation gigs?

My most recent is 3 pages and is more of a "curriculum vitae" than a "resume": it's a one-page summary that includes work-history, platform- and tool-specific experience, awards, and education, followed by two pages of my work experiences. The two pages of work experience include details of 7 positions over the last 25 years, the first of which (or last since it's reverse-chronological) is an internship (but I've reduced the details of that to a couple of sentences).

People who need to scan (filter) a lot of resumes want one page, and people who try to be careful about whom they hire want more information about you than one page. You can't please everyone, but the format that I mentioned above tries to accomodate both.

You're not experienced enough to drop anything from your resume yet.

When I look at resumes I'm looking for things to talk about as much as for specific skills.  I want to know about the breadth of experiences an applicant has had - more breadth makes people more valuable to me because they have more experiences to draw from and are probably more creative and frankly more interesting to be around.

A resume that has a limited number of experiences all in the same narrow vein is to me, deficient.

Leave the internships there.  They won't hurt and if I see your resume they'll help.

Yeah, 2 years is way too short.  Drop them after 7-10 years perhaps, depending on what experience you've accumulated since.

Why would you want to take them off? After a while make a seperate short section for internships. After about 5 years no one will care.

Right now they make you look good and pro-active. Every little bit helps.

The primary reason I was thinking about taking some off is to make the resume a single page. I know lots of folks don't care about that these days, but I've been told by the recruiter at one place I'm applying that they want one page. If I list my 3 post-college gigs plus the one most significant gig I had during college, that's enough (along with the other sections beside work experience) to fill the page. But I've got another 5 internships/jobs from college and one from high school -- those positions fill another two-thirds of a page.

Another reason is that there's a lot of overlap from those early jobs -- there's really nothing I did during any of the internships that I haven't done in more recent positions. But I suppose listing the internships still shows more time spent on certain kinds of work.

Thanks for the replies!

when your resume is longer than a page.

List accomplishments, you'll quickly find you have less than a page.

At this career stage things like those internships are important.  Tutoring can be a biggy in an era where team building and mentoring are popular buzzwords.

If you must save space, drop the oldest ones to one or two liners saying when/where/what.  "What" could simply be "CS tutoring."  Be prepared to elaborate verbally in an interview in case it comes up.

Probably group these together as "intering activities" or something, near education.  If any were significant or there is little else on your resume to date be more elaborate of course.

I also agree with "lemon" up there.  Do whatever you can to keep it to a page, but don't use microfonts or delete all of the whitespace.

This can be very hard, I know.

+1 on the "Five years" comment.

And in the software industry, we're so 'buzz-word' oriented that the single page resume is often not enough.  Two pages is acceptable.  This is for America, for Tech Jobs -- other countries, and especially academic environments, appreciate longer Resume/CV's.

Do not drop down to  when/where/what. Nobody cares.

List what you have accomplished, differetiate yourself from others.

Like any fairly ambitious person your age, you've got enough accomplishments, internships, gigs, volunteering, awards, etc. to fill at least two resume pages (reasonably typeset).  That's great.  So create that and keep it updated.  That's your mega-resume.  For each job, you have several bullet points listing all your tangible accomplishments and regular tasks you performed.

Them, for each individual job that you apply to, distill down a relevant one-page resume, with each item specifically selected for the job description and the research you've done on the company.  (You label your past gigs as "Selected Work Experience" so it's clear that this isn't all you've done.  "Additional work experience and references available on request" is the last line.)

Once you're distilling a new resume for each job application, you clearly see that sometimes you should include internships, and sometimes another experience earns that space on the page.  By the time you're 7-10 years out of college, you'll almost never find space for an internship on the one-pager.

If you're lacking space for a particular one-pager but want to convey your leadership skills, your experience in teaching could go in your "skills" section.

A few slightly off-topic tips:

1) You will get more and better job offers from acquaintances and friends-of-friends than from posted job ads.  Talk to the most connected tech people you know, even if they're just acquaintances, and ask them to keep their ears open for opportunities for you.  A personal introduction is a less brittle stepping stone than a resume.

2) Your mileage may vary, but the fact that I put "stand-up comedy" in my public speaking skills/experience line on my resume has piqued hirers' interest more than once.  If you have a non-creepy hobby where you've accomplished a lot, think about putting it in the Skills section.

How about my "Beer Baron" hobby?