One page, two page, three page or more?! How long should resumes be in reality? What questions should companies be asking potential employees?
In this episode I chat with Kray Blanding, who is a recruiter that was laid off in February of 2023. He's still searching for his next role. We talk about resume lengths and how interview questions can unintentionally introduce bias into the interviewing process. Don't forget to check out part 1 of this conversation, where we chat about AI and uploading resumes where there are 100 + applicants.
Connect with Kray on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/krayblanding/
Follow the podcast on Instagram: @rebootloadingpodcast
Interested in becoming a guest? Email me: rebootloading@gmail.com
Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to follow along and hear more engaging conversations.
One page, two page, three page or more?! How long should resumes be in reality? What questions should companies be asking potential employees?
In this episode I chat with Kray Blanding, who is a recruiter that was laid off in February of 2023. He's still searching for his next role. We talk about resume lengths and how interview questions can unintentionally introduce bias into the interviewing process. Don't forget to check out part 1 of this conversation, where we chat about AI and uploading resumes where there are 100 + applicants.
Connect with Kray on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/krayblanding/
Follow the podcast on Instagram: @rebootloadingpodcast
Interested in becoming a guest? Email me: rebootloading@gmail.com
Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to follow along and hear more engaging conversations.
00:09
Hi.
00:09
Welcome to the Reboot Loading Podcast. I'm your host, Stephanie. Hello everyone. Today's episode is a part two continuation from last week where I spoke with recruiter Cray Blanding. In this episode, we talk about resumes and the possibility of introducing bias within the interview process and so much more. I hope you enjoy and don't forget to check out our previous episode. I have worked with career coach, resume people,
00:39
And the million dollar question that comes up a lot of times is one page resumes versus multiple pages. Which do you prefer as a recruiter? For non-video viewers, I just long sigh, I roll. Oh my gosh. Which do you prefer as a recruiter? And does it really vary? Because the reason I'm asking is I feel like in tech, you have to provide a little bit more information. So it's almost impossible to get a one pager that actually gives good info.
01:09
One page resumes are useless. 30 page resumes are useless. Two page resumes, all page resumes are useless depending on how you use them. I hate this. Everyone dies or lives and dies on the resume. Your resume is an advertisement for you. If it is a long drawn out, in-depth detailed resume that tells me a lot about who you are. If it is a short one word resume for each job that
01:38
also tells me a lot about who you are. Take that for what it's worth. With that being said, let me try and give you a little bit more of a concrete answer. Okay. My opinion on resumes, and I've talked to a lot of recruiters and we all share the same opinion when it comes to resumes. I do not care the length. It could be within reason. Like I said, 30 page resume, I'm not reading the whole thing, no one is. But within reason, your first page...
02:04
should have probably around two years worth of job history on it. Give or take six months and depending on the number of jobs you've had. This is, there's no hard and fast rule. It should also have a list of all of your skills on it. It should have a general paragraph of what you're, what you do. You know, mine would be, I'm a senior technical recruiter specializing in customer, or sorry, in candidate experience. I've hired senior...
02:33
principal level developers, as well as junior developers. I have some marketing, IT support and project management recruitment experience as well, as well as some blue collar HVAC recruiting. That would be like my little quick little bold. Let me give you a glimpse at one paragraph. This is all I've done. And then again, like I said, about one to two years worth of history within that first page and a half. And here's why.
03:00
As a recruiter, I'm going to scroll your first page and maybe into the second. And if that first year and a half to two years is worth it, I will keep reading. Okay. And I will mostly finish your resume. So for example, if I'm hiring a senior software developer who needs to have eight years of experience working in Java, I am going to look at your, if you've got Java in the top of your resume. And again, this is where that Boolean searching matters.
03:26
where that AI Boolean searching, it's not AI, it's just a search. You can Boolean search in Google if you really want. Look up Google Boolean search and you can do it right now. They're going to just look for that. Right. Okay. Cool. Java. Sweet. This person has Java. Do they have eight years of experience and what was that eight years experience? So job length, title, company. Cool. This person was at four years at Amazon. They were a SD two. Cool. So on and so forth. And then they're just going to keep going down in their head. They're going to just add up the years.
03:56
type of experience. And then they'll read the rest of the resume if that all makes sense. Okay. Right? The number of pages of your resume does not matter. But if you cannot get the right information on two pages, that does matter. And by that, I mean, go more pages. You need to be able to get all of your information to the recruiter or to the hiring manager in a digestible way. Do what you have to do to get that done. Don't go overboard.
04:24
and don't go under board. My resume currently is two pages to give you an idea. And it's not because I'm holding fast to the two page resume. It's because I was able to get everything I needed to on two pages to present myself in a way that I'm comfortable with. If I needed to go three, I would have gone three. I appreciate you answering that because me personally, I have encountered where I feel like when I was applying with like a one pager, it felt off to me, but
04:46
I was like, hey, maybe let's try it. Let's throw it out there. And then I worked with a recruiter who was like, OK, do you have a longer one? Because this doesn't really have a lot. And then. Yeah. There's your information right there. Your recruiter is telling you, and this is where a good recruiter is going to give you some information. He told you what was wrong. I don't have enough. Your titles are right. But what did you do there? Because specifically, and again, I'm going to go back to software development, because that's what I know a lot of. But a senior software developer.
05:16
really only means time. All that means is the person has been in the role for a good enough time. And the reason is there is no uniform thing that a senior software developer does across all positions of all companies, right? In some companies, senior developer literally just means they're developer with at least five to six years of experience, and that's the only requirement. And other companies, that means
05:45
They are a developer with that time time requirement. It's almost always that time requirement, at least six years. Plus they are leading projects internally. Like they're a lead developer. They are owning a chunk of the product that they're developing. So like we're currently on zoom right now. Somebody would have owned the chat feature and there was a senior developer in charge of developing the chat feature and he had junior developers that he mentored and some companies.
06:09
That would be a senior developer and he would have to do the mentorship part. He would have to do this part. He would have to do that part and other companies, it's just a length of time that they'd have to be tenured basically. Right. And that's why it's really important that you have not just the title, but what you did. Right. Why were you a senior? Why were you a junior? Why were you a principal? And as long as you are getting that information into your resume, it's good enough. While we're on the traffic of resumes, if you don't mind.
06:37
The thing I hated as a, as a recruiter. And I know, oh my gosh, so many gurus talk about this. If your job is not a marketing job, if your job is not visual. And by that, I mean, your job isn't to be flashy visual person. Don't do flashy visual resumes. They don't work. They don't provide you any advantage at all. Remember when I talked about that parsing information, they don't get parsed properly, which means they aren't going to come up in searches.
07:06
If you're, it's not that less is more. I can't tell you how many hiring managers, when it comes to the recruiting process, say, just give me solid resumes and I'll go from there. This might be a little bit of an ADHD tangent, but it's the same with like the questions of when people ask, why do you want to work at this company? Who cares? So I'm getting, I'm getting a little hot here, but like, who cares? It doesn't matter 99% of the time. When people ask me, why do you want to work for that company? Cause it's a paycheck.
07:34
I can feed my family, especially right now with me actively looking, right? Right now, I just need to put food on the table so my kids don't starve. No, I'm not even worried either, but you get my point. Besides, whenever you're asking a very ambiguous question, like, why do you want to work here? That is the moment you're going to let bias slip into your decision-making process, because now I'm not looking for solid evidence, evidence-based hiring. I'm now going off of opinion.
08:03
because there are a myriad of reasons why somebody wants to work for company XYZ. Paycheck, they actually believe in the product. They had a family member who worked there who said it was really cool. Their best friend works there who likes working there. It's the job that's literally five minutes down the road. That's where the company headquarters are. So they have a super short commute. All of those are valid reasons to wanna work for a company.
08:28
and may or may not hold higher or lower strength in that individual person's meaning. If you get my point, right? Like somebody could say it's a 30 minute drive, but my best friend works there. I really want to work there. Someone could say it's a five minute drive. That's a cool bonus. And I'll put that in there, but man, like it's not the end of the world. If I don't get it. Right. But they've both mentioned the drive.
08:49
Like you don't know what that means. It's super ambiguous. There's no real concrete information in it. So you as the interviewer are going to look at that and go, yeah, my best friend works here too. Cool. We could be best friends. So sure. I'll say yes. Right. Or, you know, oh, wow. You really like our product. Glad that you like my product. I think you'd be a great person to work for this product. Honestly, probably not. Cause that means that they're already coming in thinking it's the greatest thing ever. You probably want someone who can go, I can make it better. You get my, like, again.
09:19
I hope my point is coming across here. Well, like, yeah, it's cool to know why someone wants to work for your company. It should not be a deciding factor. One bit. It shouldn't matter. My dad's a hiring manager and don't blast him on this too much, but he's, he's brought up that question too. And I'm like, it doesn't matter. And the better way to ask that question is what are you looking for in your next role? What are you looking for in your next company? Now you've created objectable information, right? I'm looking for growth.
09:46
Okay, cool. Does this job have a growth path? Great. Now you can provide that growth path. Right. So there are, I know what people are trying to do when they ask why do you want to work here? Because they're trying to find ways to again, say yes or no, and get the right people to work in the company. But you got to do it in a way that's either A, measurable, or B, doesn't let bias seep in randomly. And even then, what are you looking for in your next company can let bias seep in? Because someone can say, well, I'm looking for growth.
10:15
Well, this job doesn't have it, but it might be the cool product they want to work on regardless. I've done that. I've said yes to a company before that didn't have a humongously great growth path and when that's something I wanted because I liked the product and I liked the people. People's reasons for doing a job change literally weekly. Right? Have you ever worked for a company that you're like, oh, wow, I really don't want to go to work today. And then the next day you're like, oh, this project's so exciting. I appreciate your realness because I think...
10:44
you are saying things that a lot of people are thinking. And honestly, I don't think I ever looked at it in that perspective of when they're asking, like, why do you want to work here? I've been asked that multiple times. And I was actually thinking to myself, like, if somebody asked me that again, like, how do I answer that? I need a paycheck. There's no good answer. Like, I need, right now I need a paycheck, you know? But if you would ask me when I was...
11:11
employed previously and I may have been casually looking and I have a stream of income, it will change, right? My answer to that. I'm dancing over here because you're getting it. Yeah. It drives me bonkers because like I said, it changes daily. It changes depending on their mood. Literally, I talked to one company long ago and I wanted to work there because I wanted to get into the tech space. This was before I got back into the tech world. And then
11:39
I ended up getting a gig at Amazon at the time and I re-talked to them. They're like, oh, are you still looking for something? You still want to get in the tech world? I'm like, no, that's changed. But I still want to work there because I liked the company and I did a little bit more research. That's the other thing. I hate it when companies ask, what do you know about us? And as a recruiter, I do that, but I do it because I want to know what they know. So I don't just give them information they already have. And I always preface that and it's like, Hey, what do you know about my company? Totally. Okay. If you say nothing at all.
12:07
I can give you the information. I just don't want to overload you with information you already have, but it should never be a deciding factor in whether or not you move forward. If you know everything about a company, because guess what? 99% of the people look at your job and go, it's a job application, fill out, send, move on to the next one. Right. That 1% of people who are sitting there doing that special resume for that dream job, for that dream company. The problem with that is that it's so statistically.
12:37
insignificant, that they could be the best candidate you've ever had or the worst candidate you ever have. And it doesn't matter because it's outlier. You should not be making large-scale decision-making processes on that information. So when you are setting up your recruiting process, it should be set up in a mode that is repeatable with margin of error, obviously, but repeatable information. So you can bring in on average the best talent you can get.
13:06
I would rather hire five slightly above average candidates because we set up a really good process than four below average candidates and one rock star because we were asking stupid questions and we just happened to hit it right once. And the hardest thing to replace in companies, again, I'm going to get on my soapbox here, but the hardest thing to replace in companies is your innate company knowledge of how your company works. The person who built your...
13:34
humongously large tech stack who knows every in and out of it, who when it breaks can go and go, oh, I know what broke and doesn't have to spend 20 hours finding the one line of code, but because they know it well goes, I know exactly what broke, I bet it's this. And then they go find it and you've wasted all of 20 minutes. That's the person who you're going to regret losing. And you're going to end up losing those types of people when you do crazy, swingy hiring practices that aren't repeatable.
14:02
You need them to be around long enough to transfer that knowledge. And that only happens when people are invested in staying and you've given them the ability to grow it and you've done repeatable practices where that sets up. I think I kind of lost the train of thought there, but I, hopefully it makes some sort of sense. No, definitely. It starts at recruiting. It also depends on the type of interviewee you are because not everybody is. It's kind of going back to that when you're asking that question of, okay, why do you want to work here?
14:31
Some people can be great actors, actresses, they just have their canned response versus some people who are just no nonsense, you know, and they may appear to be more of a not as good of an interviewee, I guess. Yeah, no, you're right. There's some people, I've heard these people before, who are really freaking good at answering questions.
14:58
interview questions, right? They're clear books, cracking the interview code. Those are things that people can be really, really good at, but have nothing to do with the job, right? So when you get them on board, they can do it, right? And they just, they just can't do the job. And now you're ending up in this weird situation. It's because you're not asking in depth, detailed questions. I think one of the things that I really started getting on board with at the last company, both you and I worked at.
15:28
was we started doing the process of behavioral interviewing. And that was, tell me about a time that you did blank. And then they would go on and tell you about this in-depth project that they work on or lightly or whatever. And then you would pick on another piece and like, okay, cool. So your team made a decision. Tell me how were you, why you came to that decision at that point. And you start to dig down into that interview process and you can get deeper and deeper and more granular and granular as you ask you more follow-up, open-ended questions to get them talking.
15:58
And that can weed out the people you're talking about who can just give you, why do you want to work here? Let me give you this big flowery reason why everyone wants to work at your company. That doesn't mean anything. Get into the details, get them to start talking about themselves and what they were doing at their companies. That's going to give you more information. And then rather than asking them why you want to work here, tell them why they want to work here, go great. Now my company, you know why you want to work at my company? Because we let you take every Friday. You can leave at two o'clock if your work is done.
16:27
or we don't care what time you're actually working as long as your work gets done. Sure, if you wanna get off at two to go pick up your kid from school, to go play at the park, cause it's a sunny day, go for it. No one's gonna care as long as your work's done. That's the type of stuff that you wanna be doing. Don't ask them why they wanna work. They're errors. So often. I definitely appreciate your openness about it because I feel like a lot of people are hesitant, especially in this type of market. I think based on what you were saying before about
16:55
why you want to work here and then flipping it and saying, this is why you should want to work here. I think in this sort of market where it is more of an employer's market, well, a lot of times us as candidates are sitting there going and forgetting the fact that this is a two-way street. We're also interviewing the company. And yes, we may be out of work for a long period of time and just really looking for anything to fall in our lap at that point, but.
17:24
Really, if it's something that's going to compromise your values and your beliefs in your work ethic, like how do you navigate around that as far as making sure that the company is a right fit for you even though you just need a job? You lie. Don't tell anyone I said that. No.
17:47
Let me just preface this by saying all of the opinions on this podcast are opinions and not legal advice for anything. So yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, okay. I understand having values. It's going to sound a little contrary to everything I've said before. Okay. So just bear with me a little bit while I go through this. I understand having strong values. I have them, right? I've personally, I've purposely avoided politics having this conversation because it really doesn't matter, but it does affect stuff.
18:15
Right. And it does affect the job you want to go to. And I have talked to companies where I go, man, my politics just don't match with what you're spouting. They just don't. But I need a paycheck. And the best way to do it is just avoid the subject altogether. If they bring it up, either change the subject, give a very politically correct answer and move on. Right. You don't need to make it known. You as a candidate, and I think this is the thing people
18:44
are replaceable. I'm sorry to say it, it sucks, but remember when I said there's 100 applicants for that one job, they're replaceable. You do not matter in the grand scheme of things to that company. They're gonna tell you you do, and to that individual hiring manager, to that individual recruiter, you do matter. They care about you, but the company doesn't, because the company's job is to make money.
19:11
And if that means not hiring you or laying you off, they're going to do it. That is their job. They're beholden to their stakeholders, whether that be an individual, because they're privately owned, publicly owned, they're going through whatever process and have RCUs doesn't matter. They are observant to somebody. So when it comes to working with companies that have vastly different political views as you, there's going to be that line where you're like, I just can't cross that.
19:38
And then here's the other thing you got to remember when you're working for a large company or any company for that matter. The company's views are not yours. Even if they match, even if the company that you work for and your political, ideological views are one for one all across the board, one of you can change and that's okay. And I think we need to do a better job as a whole, as a society of realizing
20:05
that companies are not individuals and individuals who are working are not companies. It's like watching a movie, right? Like when you watch Captain America, you know Captain America's fake. You know it's not real. Sorry if you didn't know. I know, right? Spoiler alert. But like, you know it's not real. You know it's not there, but you can suspend your disbelief for an hour and a half and go, yeah, but it's fun. It's the same with the job.
20:30
Guess what? No company is doing 100% good things. That's just the matter of fact. That's just the way the world works. Okay. But I can separate that a little bit and go, but what I'm working on is really cool. I like what I'm working on. Some of the strongest and smartest people who are making the largest change are people working for large conglomerate companies. Think of the gal who blew the whistle on Google, right? With their discriminatory practices, right? She loved working at Google. She blew the whistle because she loved working at Google.
20:58
Right. And that's, I think the really important thing to remember is that you're, you're not your company, your company is not you. Your viewpoints are not the same. So I joke with the lying part, but you can just say, look, I can separate the difference. I do want to ask you two more things, just more on the personal side. Go for it. Um, I'll try not to soapbox. I know I want to know more about your beta testing for video. You're an avid gamer as well as you said you've flown a plane.
21:27
So I know about all this. Yeah, neither one is as exciting as it sounds, I promise you. They're kind of those fun, like two truths and a lie that I love to use because people are like, no way. And then I do. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. No. So my dad worked on original Xbox back when I don't know if you knew this, but Xbox was initially the code name of Xbox was Xbox. And then they just never came up with one and kept the code name as the real name. We had a dev kit that we would plug into our
21:57
uh, TV in our van. We had an 18 passenger van as a grown up. Uh, and we would do cross-country trips playing the, the developer Xbox, not even kidding. It was like a big silver box. That was huge. I think twice the size of the original Xbox. So yeah, I was beta testing a lot of those games. Like, uh, I don't know if you remember the game Fusion Frenzy on the Xbox. I beta tested that. I
22:27
little kid. Totally shouldn't have because I was like eight at the time, but you know, hey. Uh, yeah, I did that. Uh, the, the plane one is not nearly as exciting. I was doing, like I said, I'm an Eagle Scout. So I was doing the aviation merit badge and a family friend of ours was a pilot. And he had a, you know, tiny little prop plane. Tiny. It was like a five seater. We went up in there and he, uh, I was what? I think I was like 12 at the time, 12 or 13.
22:56
and we're flying, he goes, Hey Craig, put your hands on the wheel. So I put my hands on these, all right, put your foot on the pedals and I could barely reach them. And he goes, yeah, cool. And then he just looks over at me and just lets go of everything and goes, you're flying and just sat there. And I'm like, oh, and you know, little 12 year old me is like, I'm gonna crash the plane. My dad's in there, my brother's in there, I'm like, I'm gonna kill everybody. And he had me turn and it was a lot of fun. I know you think, you don't think that it sounds as exciting, but I've never flown a plane. I've never been in the front of a plane.
23:26
Well, I want to say thank you so much for coming on here and being real about your experiences as a recruiter, giving some great advice and kind of debunking a lot of the thoughts that us as candidates on the other side of the recruitment process are feeling right now. I really appreciate that. And I would just like to add, like, obviously, everything I've said is my opinion. Don't.
23:54
Don't say any company stands by anything I specifically said. But I would also say like even recruiters forget, like we're people, we're human. We make mistakes when reaching out to people. It happens all the time. Yes, we have. And I mentioned this before, we have like a list of recruiters we like. There are some that are better than others. Add me to that list, everybody.
24:16
I do have to say, I mean, just you being open and honest about your own experiences. I mean, you are out there still trying to look for work and doing what you obviously, I mean, I know you have a passion for recruiting. Just talk to you. You're very, very passionate about it. And I know that any company that gets you is just going to be super happy. They have to be open and honest with their processes.
24:42
but I will put your LinkedIn information in the show notes. If anyone would like to contact Cray and get in touch with him, talk about his experience. Yeah. I do, for what it's worth, I mean, I think you could start your own podcast. I don't know, I wouldn't know what to talk about. Hey, I mean, I would love to have you on again as well. Happy to. Open. Yeah, happy to. Filing up, maybe if it's after you've had
25:12
adventure that you go on with a new job. Hopefully that's sooner rather than later. But I mean, even then I'm happy to just come on and talk about anything. Whether it be recruiting, job hopping, whatnot. I can help. Or I can at least just talk and be an ear for people to chat with. Yeah, I think it's important to just be real about some things. And that was something that I wanted to bring with this podcast is just to bring the realness of our situation out into the open, talk about things that...
25:40
They're tough. It's tough to talk about it. But I wanted it to just be more real from real people. It's just, this is what it is. Thank you for having me. And I appreciate it as well. It's been a pleasure talking with you. Thank you. And we'll definitely have a follow-up conversation in the future. Talk about all the good things. Sounds good. I appreciate it, Stephanie. If you're interested in becoming a guest on my show.
26:05
All the information on how to contact me is available in the show notes would love to speak with other laid off individuals, mental health professionals, recruiters, business and career coaches, and resume writers. Also, if you're enjoying the content and would like a shout out in an upcoming episode, a link in how you can support this podcast is available in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening and until next time.