What Would Steve Jobs Say About Your Resume?

I’m reading the Steve Jobs biography at the moment and one of the most striking themes of the book is Jobs’ obsession with simplicity.

Throughout his career, he was obsessed with making computers as simple and easy-to-use as possible. He hated technology for technology’s sake and he hated complexity, and back in the early days of computing, this made him a bit of a renegade. Most engineers believed computer users needed to educate themselves so they could get the most out of the technology. Jobs believed that computers should be so simply and straightforward that anyone could use them without any special training. (He didn’t even want manuals included with his machines!)

When asked by one fan to autograph a keyboard, Jobs agreed but only if he could remove all the unnecessary keys. Taking out his car key, he began to remove the ‘F’ keys and the cursor keys, all of which he said were there at the insistence of engineers trying to copy the PC. Only when the keyboard was simplified to his satisfaction did he pull out a pen and actually sign it.

I think too many resumes are like that keyboard – crammed with unnecessary stuff that simply gets in the way. Instead of being a quick, concise and engaging marketing document, most resumes are detailed career histories packed with long,overused words and dense formatting. The result is that every job seeker looks and sounds the same … dull, conventional and unimpressive.

To understand the impact of simplifying your resume, take a look at this before and after resume from our website (click to enlarge):

Before

After

Can you see what a difference simplification makes? With a resume, less really is more.

To learn how to do this to your own resume, sign up for our free resume writing course. You’ll get great tips and strategies delivered right to your email inbox every day for 10 days and before you know it, you’ll have a resume that would make Steve jobs proud!