In my previous experience as a recruiter, I once received a 23-page-long resume from an Engineer. Upon calling him and requesting a shorter version, I discovered he had been advised by previous recruiters to include all his experiences and skills to improve his chances of landing a job. However, I explained that my managers typically only delve into the summary and the most recent job details.
The reality is, that resumes aren’t read; they’re skimmed over. Recruiters look for keywords, locations, job titles, and the first few bullet points. But with AI, resumes are digested, analyzed, and can be summarized in seconds. As more AI Chatbots evolve, it seems that the zero-shot model can learn from textual descriptions with zero training. Therefore, when it comes to AI and analyzing resumes, possibly a multipage resume is beneficial for the learning model.
So, here’s the question now that AI is here and will be doing the recruiting (ahem) tedious recruiting tasks, does resume length even matter? And, does the length of a resume significantly impact a candidate’s chances? It appears that a shorter version might be more effective in catching the recruiter’s attention, but too short of a resume and AI platforms might exclude them from other qualified ones.
