For years I’ve maintained—and it’s still true—that it’s a mistake to get hung up on perfecting your résumé or CV. Many scientists and engineers fuss over their CV details because networking at a conference or attending an informational interview isn’t within their comfort zone. So when they go on the job market, they find it easy to work over the fine details of their marketing documents: formatting, the order of information, and other such details.

I know it sounds old-fashioned in an age when you can be connected so many ways with the outside world via your keyboard — e-mail, chat, Skype, social media — but I still believe that most of the time you spend perched before a glowing monitor, alone in a darkened room, is wasted. Get out of that dark room and go shake some hands — that’s where the rubber hits the road.

The Résumé vs. the CV
When I write “résumé” in my columns, what I really mean — since we often deal with science jobs here — is what most people would call a CV. I used the term “résumé” because it’s most familiar to job seekers, and because many companies confuse the issue by writing “Send Résumé” in their ads even when they are not looking for a one-pager.

Sure, there are times when a one- or two-page résumé is appropriate even for scientists. For example, non-scientific positions — in sales, marketing, business development — even jobs in technical support or medical communications. But most readers will probably put together three or four pages of detail for their job search — and as long as it is succinct, and not littered with non-essential information, you’ll be fine.

As I’ve written before, the CV that most companies want for technical professionals is a sort of résumé/CV hybrid. It’s much more compact than the old-fashioned academic CV that your major professor showed you (which tends to list everything but the kitchen sink) but more thorough than a résumé (which is always short and designed to catch people’s attention).

Opinions vary — there are no fixed rules about these things — but I believe a good technical CV should be three or four pages long and list the most important facts about your scientific education, experience, and highlights of your career (including, for example, three to six representative scientific publications).

Forget the Perfect CV
Your goal with this document is to get past the initial review and arouse the interest of a hiring manager. So, of course, you’ll want to proofread it carefully and banish all misspelled words, subject-verb disagreements, and other obvious flaws.

But, here’s the clincher — you’ll never have the perfect document! A very good CV is better than a perfect one because it gets you out networking and seeking job leads within a few days. Striving for perfection? Forget it. You’ll be months looking at that Word file until just thinking about it makes you want to vomit.

Still, you probably want to do better than just OK. Your goal should be to produce a document that demonstrates knowledge, experience, and good judgment. Just like the choices you make about what to wear to your interview, the choices you make in putting together your CV (or résumé) communicate a lot about what kind of person you are.

Become the Problem Solver
I would advocate writing a document that shows you are a problem solver. As a hiring manager studies your résumé, you want thoughts like this to go through her (or his) mind: “Here is someone who knows his way around the field of blah-blah-blah. He knows what we need here and he might fit in well based on the experience I see reflected here.”

It doesn’t take much time to focus on problem solving — assuming you know what the problem is at the company you’re thinking of. You simply adjust the various experiences you’ve had to highlight those that are most important to the job at hand. The tough part is that sometimes you have to base your detail on only a handful of lines in an ad, or on a short description of the job by a friend or manager.

Because a good CV displays insight into a particular position and the needs of the employer, the fact that every employer and position is unique means that every CV you send out should also be unique. That’s why many job seekers have a dozen versions of their CV or résumé, each designed to attract a certain kind of reader.

In this issue’s column, I’d like to give you an idea of what your objective should be once you’ve decided to get past the “good enough” stage. Here are some of my favorite résumé and CV tips:

• A good-to-very-good CV shows insight into what a particular employer is looking for. Old-school resume advice tells you to start with an “Objective” statement. Wrong! The best CVs (and résumés) use a succinct “Qualified By” or “Summary” statement that focuses on your fit for the position instead of rambling on about your career goals. This is the section you customize for each targeted position.
• Your good judgment should be visible. Should you lead with education or your employment history? Most readers will lead with education — but not always. If you’re a microbiologist applying for a cell culture position, for example, and your primary training is in a different field, you’ll want to lead with your cell culture experience and put the education later on in the CV.
• A good CV anticipates the needs of the reader. Pull out every nugget of success you’ve had in the required field and make it visible. If you understand the opportunity — what you’ll be doing, what the company needs from you — then you can accurately highlight those aspects of your training and experience that are most relevant to the employer’s needs.
• Understands the concept of resume “real estate.” The first page — and especially the first half of the first page — is expensive, prime territory. Keep this in mind when deciding what to put below your name, phone, and e-mail address (which should never be somewhere other than the top of the document).
• While stressing your technical fit, don’t forget the “soft skills” that are critical for the position as well. Again, this requires insight into what it would take to be successful in the job. Don’t know? Ask questions. Perhaps you have a contact at the company, or mentors and networking contacts you can query. Once you’ve got a fix on the “soft skills” required for the job, highlight that relevant experience on your CV.

The CV: Important but Overemphasized
I’m assuming that you are a good fit for this job you are applying for; if you’re not, you’re wasting your time by faking it. There are a lot of smart hiring managers out there and nothing is more deflating to your ego than getting a phone interview and finding out just how bad it feels to be rejected. That’s why rule #1 is “don’t exaggerate” — you’ll be found out, for sure.

Another aspect of CVs and résumés that should be brought up is just how brief a look most of them get. I can tell you that a CV in a large stack of ad responses gets a glance that averages about 30 seconds. It’s an important half-minute: You may just snag a new opportunity if it’s written in a way that shows your value to the prospective employer.

But still, your CV or résumé is only one piece of the job search puzzle, and other elements — notably networking and interviewing skills — will have much more long-term value.

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David G. Jensen is Managing Director of Kincannon & Reed Executive Search (www.krsearch.com), a leading retained search firm in the biosciences. You can reach Dave at (928) 274-2266 or via [email protected].