The non-all-important resume

As a student, I spent a lot of time working on my resume.  I met with several counselors for suggestions.  I reworded sentences endlessly.  After meeting with each advisor, I'd change paragraphs to bullet lists and back to paragraphs.  I bought special cotton paper.  I fussed over fonts and formatting.  I adjusted the size and justification of my name.  And looking back now, it was probably all a poor use of time. 

As with any document, before creating a resume, you need to identify two things:

1. What is your purpose?
2. Who is your audience?  

I can only speak for my own experience.  I spent two years as a university recruiter for a 3000-employee technical company and also served on the recruiting team for a small IT start-up. Let me tell you what wasn't important to my recruiting team... after the jump.