Bullet Points

[Fred Bloggs]

Mine is entirely bullet points, nothing else. I do not explain who my clients are because in my industry they're all blue chip international players. I need to cram so much onto 2 pages that I simply can't put anything but the essentials and even then each job is limited to about 5 lines maximum even when forgetting stuff before 1990 entirely. Soon, I'll have to omit stuff before 1995 I think.

[FiveTimes]

Looks like I'd better re-write me CV and include the bullets

[Fred Bloggs]

Looks like I'd better re-write me CV and include the bullets

I think you'll get a lot more info in there if you do.

[TykeMerc]

I think you'll get a lot more info in there if you do.

That's one of the main reasons I use bullets, clear, concise and no space wasted on complex prose. I can put in much more info and it's not an overwhelming wall of text.

[PRC1964]

• Bullet points are great
  • I use them all the time
    • I'd be lost without them
  • Sadly this site
• Only has three

[wobbegong]

• Bullet points are great
  • I use them all the time
    • I'd be lost without them
  • Sadly this site
• Only has three

Ooooh, nested bullet points!! Now that's just showing off.

[Fred Bloggs]

That's one of the main reasons I use bullets, clear, concise and no space wasted on complex prose. I can put in much more info and it's not an overwhelming wall of text.

Agreed. No long sentences to confuse the pimps

[NickFitz]

Definitely bullet points. When people have a stack of CVs to go through, they don't read, they skim. Bullet points and appropriate use of whitespace help guide the eye to the bits you need them to take in (and even better, help them easily get past the bits they don't feel are relevant to them right now).

It's much harder to see the salient points when skimming solid chunks of text - and as your next victim isn't going to work harder when there are fifty more (or even two more) CVs to get through, it probably won't see what you want it to see.

Furthermore, places that use keyword searches on CV databases might have comparatively unsophisticated algorithms for ranking results. As bullet points promote a terser, more succinct style, it may be more likely that relevant terms are seen as being related by such an algorithm, thereby increasing the chances of your CV bubbling to the top of the results. (I have no evidence for this, it's just conjecture on my part.)

Eyetracking research has shown that, when people are browsing the web looking for stuff (as opposed to reading a specific article they've found through browsing) they also skim read in quite specific patterns. Some suggestions in articles about effective ways to lay out web pages can therefore usefully be applied to CVs, given the similarity in reading processes. Here's one example - it's about landing pages on e-commerce sites, but much of what it says can be applied to CVs.

[EternalOptimist]

When dealing with techies - use armour piercing bullet points
If the target is management - use explosive bullet points
When dealing with HR - use High Calibre bullet points
For an SC role - use tracer bullet points
For agents - use the Dum Dum

[TriggerHippy]

I use bullet points as well. In addition, to prevent agents just fishing for leads from vaporware roles, I never mention the name of my current or prior ClientCo, just a few words to describe the sector they're in. For example:

Sept 2008 – Dec 2009 Senior Analyst/Programmer Large Financial Institution
(15 months, 4 renewals) Scotland

Then, I update this as needed when the need arises.