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How many pages of CV do you have?

former_member182421
Active Contributor
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Hi!

Not long time ago I rebuild my CV, the latest version  was a complete mess, too much information and a lot of repeated stuff, working in the development field for 8 years, how many times the ABAP or data dictionary words do you think will appear on the CV? yes, you guess right, once per project. I decided that will be better to keep my CV as short as possible (2 pages was my limit):

- Company/Role

- Brief description

- Achievements

But that seems too short, today I heard for second time this week my CV wasn't detailed enough and looks like the average is 4 pages, 4 PAGES?! It bores me only to thing what to write, contrary to Justin Bieber I still feel too young to write my memories.

To me, the CV must point your main skills, areas and the most important should be written pointing the role you want to perform, I was involved on FI implantation a long long long time ago, but please, don't call me for FI roles, I'm not a FI consultant.

I'll probably be wrong on the following thoughts, but I believe the recruiter world has become quite aggressive, they need to "sell" and quick, no time to waste on a formal interview, gathering information about the candidate and no time investment on learning about the role/world either. "HCM? what's that, let's call the CRM guy, at least its only a H for a C". 

Rant Mode ON

I really don't see the benefit of a CV which has all the detailed phases of the projects you have been involved, IMHO this only can be a source of mistakes to mismatch the client expectations, which probably won't be clear enough, to the control+f command.

Rant Mode OFF

What are you thoughts?

Cheers!

Luis

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Jelena
Active Contributor
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Just as others mentioned, it differs depending on what kind of job you are applying to. I think mine is 2.5 pages (will have to check, have not seen it in a while ), but I'm a "permie", so as TW mentioned, for me it's more of an "anchor" for the interview. Usually I make minor adjustments for every position to highlight the specific skills.

I would say though that a too detailed resume can have a negative effect as well. For example, once we've interviewed a consultant who (allegedly) had experience with SD and listed what seemed like every single item in SPRO: configured item category, configured order type, etc. I'm kidding you not, it was like 10 pages. But to any experienced SD person this would be very basic stuff (similarly ABAPers usually don't mention "wrote IF... THEN statements, also proficient in ELSE" as an achievement). Unsurprisingly, the interview didn't go very well.

Overall in the SAP world longer CV/resumes are not unusual, but I bet you're losing the majority of readers on page 4 unless your resume tells a great story.

17 REPLIES 17

Former Member
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Hello Luis,

Until a few years ago, I had quite a short CV. Only the companies listed, I worked for (which were not that many at that time), no projects. Then I went into freelancing and someone told me, that I should add my projects and some details as well. So I did that. Also name of the client and industry and country. I do this until now and so my private CV looks like my company CV (I moved away from freelancing again a few years ago), with all the projects, some details about each project (mostly "Web UI development in SAP CRM 7.0 EHP x with ABAP OO especially in the components X, Y, Z") and it is a little bit longer than 10 pages. Sometimes potential employers said, that it is a little bit long, but headhunters did not complain about it. Later I added a 5-10 line summary at the beginning of my CV. I have no general overview if I make things right or wrong.

Best regards,

Thomas

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Thanks for the feedback Thomas, maybe a "Quixote edition"  for recruiters is an option.

former_member182378
Active Contributor
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Luis,

My CV is 2 pages.

General part covers the key skills e.g. client facing, communication, SAP SD experience for x no. of years etc.

Detailed part has "key words" which help me or the interviewer to ask about in the interview.

I try to revise (edit) my CV based on the role I am applying for, but this revision is very minuscule...change the sequence of words...etc. etc.

In short: My CV gives me "an anchor" (a scope) for the content I am going to discuss in the interview.

TW

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Thanks for your feedback TW, We are on the same page here

In short: My CV gives me "an anchor" (a scope) for the content I am going to discuss in the interview.

I couldn't agree more on that, but IMHO this only works when both parts have enough background: "So you configured sales orders? Did you face scenarios with availability check?"

For what I observed lately, some recruiters try to dig further, "did you work on discounts? well, I been involved in Pricing conditions configuration, ah ok, please specify that you worked with discounts" another good one is "In which tasks did you work with ABAP OO?" if you start to clarify those points, your CV becomes "man of la Mancha style", so from an anchor becomes a net

Lakshmipathi
Active Contributor
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It does'nt matter how many pages you describe about you but it matters what and how you narrated.  You should list out all your key strengths in the first page itself ONLY in bullet point style; instead of long texts which many interviewer would not go through such long texts.  So in order the candidate to catch the attention of interviewer, the first page should list out the strengths of the candidate.

Having conducted lot of Technical rounds of interviews, I have seen profiles with 6 - 8 pages listing out the areas which candidate knows by trying to show that they handled all areas for which, they applied.  For example, if we take Sales or Procurement in SAP, which are vast modules, it is practically not possible for a candidate to expertise in all these areas.  So we could easily filter these profiles as not a genuine one.

G. Lakshmipathi

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Thanks for you feedback, G Lakshmipathi.

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Interesting point made by Lakshmipathi G!

vast modules, it is practically not possible for a candidate to expertise in all these areas.  So we could easily filter these profiles as not a genuine one.

Taking this point a step further, in interviews...it is OK to say that I haven't worked and don't know that much about a functionality.

Interviewees sometimes give weak responses, better will be to not say anything is the few functionalities you don't know.

TW

stephenjohannes
Active Contributor
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If it is a project resume then I would expect it be several pages.  However I really don't need to a project resume that shows you ran SE38 to write code or other things that are basic job functions.  I really hate wading through that garbage.

I woudl however expect to see your major accomplishments on the project, but please spare me the technical name names.  I really don't care what the name of a report/program was, but rather what it did that you built.  I also don't need a listing of every development object you created at the client.

Yes I have seen crazy stuff like that and if the contractor makes it to the interveiw stage, they usually fail my interview.  It's really weird how despite multi-page project resumes, many people don't understand basic concepts.

That being said my personal resume(I'm not a consultant) is about two pages max.

Take care,

Stephen

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Thanks for you comments Stephen, That's exactly what I thought when I decided to collapse my CV to two pages, do you really want to get trough 40 CV of 10 pages each one? nooooooo waaaaaaay. That's why I got so shocked when I heard 2 pages is too small...I believe size is not so important

Former Member
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2 pages plus project list with some selected projects...

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Thanks for your response Daniel, I didn't thought about a Project portfolio, good Idea. "here's my cv, do you have problems to sleep? here's my project portfolio" 

Colleen
Advisor
Advisor
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Hi Luis

Good discussion... I think it really comes down to what sort of job your are applying to. For me, as I contract, I'm trying to highlight my product knowledge and soft skills, and industries (specialize in security so I diversified in industries and components). My resume is a maximum of 5 pages.

It's pretty much page 1: Contact Details, Summary line of my skills, dot points of the SAP components and technology that I have experience in, and then another column of dot points with my non-tech skills (strategy, team leadership, support, project, etc)

The 4 pages cover the contracts/jobs I've held. It's usually 1/3 page per client where I describe the job, deliverables/outcomes and achievements for each. I most cases it's dot points after an introductory sentence.

As I contract, few employers read beyond page 1 if they know who I am. However, I provide the examples, etc so I pass the HR checks and they have sufficient evidence to justify why I was chosen over other candidates.

The challenge (as I mentioned at the beginning) is to target the resume. If I was to apply for a Government contract, I would have to follow their selection criteria process which would entail a completely different resume layout. I'm glad I don't job hunt much and have recruiters and industry people reach out to me directly. As I change job frequently, I don't find it too difficult to keep resume up to date.

Regards

Colleen

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Thanks for your feedback Colleen, I'm not in job hunt, but looks like my resume is not enough for the recruiters and industry people who reach me , for what I've learned here, I probably will change the format, I believe the combination which I like best is : resume (1-2 pages) + Project portfolio (4-5 pages) .

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Sadly that's the case. If the recruiters get 50 applications for 1 job then you need to meet their guidelines to get to the top of the pile. Unfortunately, someone who is brilliant as looking good on paper may get the job over you (even if they are a weapon of mass destruction on the system).

Jelena
Active Contributor
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Just as others mentioned, it differs depending on what kind of job you are applying to. I think mine is 2.5 pages (will have to check, have not seen it in a while ), but I'm a "permie", so as TW mentioned, for me it's more of an "anchor" for the interview. Usually I make minor adjustments for every position to highlight the specific skills.

I would say though that a too detailed resume can have a negative effect as well. For example, once we've interviewed a consultant who (allegedly) had experience with SD and listed what seemed like every single item in SPRO: configured item category, configured order type, etc. I'm kidding you not, it was like 10 pages. But to any experienced SD person this would be very basic stuff (similarly ABAPers usually don't mention "wrote IF... THEN statements, also proficient in ELSE" as an achievement). Unsurprisingly, the interview didn't go very well.

Overall in the SAP world longer CV/resumes are not unusual, but I bet you're losing the majority of readers on page 4 unless your resume tells a great story.

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Thanks for your feedback Jelena. One day I will try to write some sentence in a strategic place on page 4, something like: "Congratulations, you did it so far. you deserve a box of my premium cookies" and see what happens...

Marçal_Oliveras
Active Contributor
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When you have many years of experience and therefore many projects to list I would go for 2 CV's. The short one with the key information and the extended version with all the details for each project you participated.