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Mark,

In your recommendation of Rites of Passage you said that Lucht recommends building resumes like you guys do. But when I read the book, Lucht tries to convince the reader to use the “Long Call” approach with their resumes consisting of multiple pages. He basis it on the idea that when your resume reaches a manager cold, if it is contained on only one page, you won’t be able to get the manager all the way from not knowing anything about you to calling you up. Instead with a long resume, if you do spark an interest in them they will read it all the way to the end and will have a better chance of them actually making the call. But if you don’t interest them they will toss your resume out regardless if it is one or many pages.

I definitely side with the Manager Tools approach of having as long of a resume as you need on file then refining it to one page for each specific hand off. It doesn’t seem like the longer resume that I described above still run parallel to what you recommend. Am I misinterpreting what Lucht is saying?

Thanks for your comments.

Josh

Mark's picture
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It's a good point, and one I get asked about a lot when I praise Lucht's book so often.

Lucht's advice is really intended for those with significant experience. By significant I mean both in length and in scope of operation. Really, for senior executives. Our recommendation works for EVERYONE - including senior execs.

I would bet that there aren't but 50 truly senior execs among our numbers here. I'm talking General Managers with responsibility for $500 million in sales, or division staffer reporting to a President or CEO of a Billion dollar firm. (And I know at least one who has a one page resume, because, as he says, "it's never the resume at this level." And he's right.

If you get to that level, we encourage you to use all that great data from the years of quarterly reviews that maybe ended up on the cutting floor of the one page resume effort.

Mark

jdg's picture

I see.

I picked up Rites because I just finished my MBA and I am in the process of making a big career change. Right now I am an engineer and hope to completely change companies and maybe even industries. It sounds like Rites might be more applicable in the future when I have a lot more experience under my belt and will be using recruiters. Would you agree?

So if Rites isn't the first book I should read what would you recommend? I just finished "Never Eat Alone" and "Getting things done" and I am thinking about starting 7 Habits based on your comment about it being good for college graduates.

Would you say that the best course of action would be to get my resume and interview skills as solid as I can (based on the podcasts and tools that you have already done) and use the books for skills that I will use once I do get into a new company?

Thanks
Josh