Eric writes:
I just read your site’s article Avoid These 10 Resume Mistakes and found it very helpful. However, I have a question about bullet points. Are we supposed to use them? When I was in college just three years ago, my technical-writing professor told us that they were a “substitute for good writing.” I think they are inelegant and clutter a resume, but you say not using them will hurt my chances. Did something change in the past few years?
The Career Doctor responds:
Bullet points have been around on resumes for quite awhile. I do not know a single professional resume writer who does not use them. At a recruiting conference I recently attended, recruiters affirmed that bullets make a resume reader-friendly. Employers spend no more than 2.5 to 20 seconds “reading” a resume on the first pass, and paragraph form slows that reading way down.
Was your technical writing professor talking about resumes? I can see his or her point for other documents, but not resumes.
