Do you even need a resume?
And finally, under the category of "most thought provoking," is the notion of not creating a resume at all. There are a lot of reasons why this might be the option for you.
Myles H. Kitchen noted that the "biggest mistake is relying on a resume at all! Either, start your own business and never look back, or rely on your networking skills to get to the person you want to hire you and approach them directly with a proposal researched to address their needs. Going through traditional HR channels is just a waste of time and energy."
Similarly, Mac Johnson wrote to me and said, "In my experience, the CV is the least of, say, five different ways to sell your personal brand. It is vastly overrated as a sales tool and is often better at eliminating you than advancing you (zero shelf life, jammed with hackneyed keywords, etc.). When a resume screener sits down to a stack of a few hundred CVs to be culled, he or she is thinking: 1.) so what? 2.) make me care, and 3.) do it fast. The resume owner has probably 15 seconds to do that. And never, ever part with your CV until forced to at gunpoint."
Enough said.
Julie Roehm is senior vice president marketing and "chief storyteller" at SAP.
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