I was invited to add a guest blog post this week because of an all too common situation I was just in. I had time scheduled with a candidate to discuss his background and to see if one of the open roles I recruit for might be a good fit. (Shameless plug – Product Managers, Product Planners & MarketersJ) I was looking forward to the conversation until the night before when, to my horror, he sent me his… Executive Bio. Before even opening the mail I knew this person would not be the right fit. 

 

Who is perpetuating the myth that you need a 5 paragraph bio or a full page cover letter?! I appreciate the effort that candidates go through to show their interest and outline their experiences but unless you truly are an Executive, i.e. Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Jerry Yang, you just need a well-written resume.  The message you might send with a lengthy bio is that you have trouble being concise. Even worse, most recruiters will only end up scanning the first paragraph or two anyways.  Here are the two things I look for in a resume: 1. What did you work on? 2. What tangible results did you produce? Really that’s it, plain and simple and can normally be covered in a bullet points.

 

I could go on and on, but in the spirit of concise communication I’ll end this post there.  Remember, we are actively hiring in Bing & MSN Product Management and Marketing so please send your concise resumes my way!