Related Posts
More Posts
Enthusiast
Is this true ?
Additional Posts in Advertising
Anyone worked on Budweiser? What agency?
Rising Star
Rising Star
How’s BFG lookin these days?
Anyone on here worked with Edelman? Pros? Cons?
The clients love saying “ladder up.” Hate it
Pros and cons of working on an auto brand?
New to Fishbowl?
Download the Fishbowl app to
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
PM here. Our resumes tend to get bloated pretty quickly due to the rather nebulous nature of our jobs, especially if we don’t stay at one place for very long. Many (though certainly not all) agencies use their PM team as a catch-all for a multitude of tasks that likely should have been handled by someone else, especially at the more junior levels. As a jr PM, I often got saddled with proofreading, annotating submissions, client tech support...along with the endless list of tasks that were already in my job description.
OP, tell your friend to list out EVERYTHING they do, then start to bucket everything out into broader categories. That should help to pare down their resume substantially, while leaving plenty of talking points for the interview itself. A single page resume is appropriate at a more junior level, though I don’t agree that that should apply to everyone with fewer than 15 years of experience.
To the creatives doling our judgement here, please take a look at some PM job postings on LinkedIn—the description of duties is often laughably long.
Definitely keep it down to 1 page. Tell her it’s OK to leave out some details (esp if she’s new and has had some non-job related experience - I.e. a waitressing job). For me, when I’m hiring a project manager I’m looking for someone who can prioritize, because after all that’s the majority of a project manager job. If your resume is too long it shows me you can’t prioritize.
Definitely if she’s a junior. She should leave out details, that can be talked about during interviews. Rarely do people dissect and analyze resumes to the point that she sees it, they’re probably judging her more for going over a page. But that’s just me
I have a hard time accepting more than one page from anyone with less than 15 years experience. Part of the exercise of a resume is giving the reader an understanding of the critical job functions you performed. It is not to tell them every single one of the things you did
You gave her good advice, she should pare down. I do not like receiving 2 page resumes. I agree with the other comments.
No way a junior should have more than one page. I’ve been at it for 25 years and it’s still one.
Leave any of her duties or accomplishments out. I thought 1 page or bust was true across disciplines but I’d hate to give her bad advice
A JR PM should have one page, one sided. I'd wanna see types of work and yes, I do care to see accomplishments. Though I don't care about them if they don't relate to the work I'm interviewing for. (I don't care about your GPA, valedictorian, etc)
@VP, PD1 - My recommendation was around how to approach decluttering a resume in general, though I agree that resumes should be tailored to each job description. By categorizing responsibilities and tasks into slightly broader areas, OP’s friend may have an easier time fitting everything in (so long as they don’t over-correct and slash their resume down to a post-it note that says “helped the team & managed finances”).
@GD1 to that, would you then recommend tailoring resume according to the job description? I get that it’s nebulous but I’d assume every agency or job is looking for a “type”. I’ve customized most of my resumes and left out things that were irrelevant to the company, clients I was interviewing for, and expertise