Relatedly I wonder how much a high effort canidate vs a low effort canidate actually works out in a screening process despite whatever prejudices they may hold one way or another.

It reminds me of the recession bad old days where some companies were making a policy of hiring only the already employed and got essentially an exasperated facepalm from congress asking if they /really/ will have to ban hiring discrimination against the unemployed.

Not having a cover letter that directly speaks to what I am looking for, instead having a generic blurb or no blurb at all. That's one example.

I think the biggest tell would be a resume that isn't tailored to the specific job.

How does one tailor a resume to a specific job without bending the truth? I don't have experience with the exact stack listed but I bet I could get up to speed within a week or two given the chance.

edit: And what does tailoring to a specific job mean? Should I change my job titles to match? Do I just copy a bunch of keywords from it into my descriptions? I've never worked that specific job that is why I am applying

Remove irrelevant positions and focus on projects that match the target.

Assumedly during your career you have done multiple small projects on one topic or another, highlight the ones that interest the employer and the ones you feel particularly proud of, don't mention the others.

An interesting point. But employers should start giving out instructions on what they want to see.

I had a few employers tell me that my resume of 5 pages was not long enough and others that complained about too much information.

So... This provide only relevant information is as valuable as keeping quiet.

When you advertise a position, do you inform what form the CV should be in?

The hiring process is de facto a completely subjective system of both sides hoping the other would screw up to make their decision easier, while playing mind games.

I interviewed at Bridgewater on site, their interview was awesome and clear. More companies should be that clear and forthcoming as Bridgewater Associates.

It's just you focus more on the parts that are relevant for the job.

Unless you're fresh out of school, you likely have more experience than what can fit on a CV. However most of it is at best tangentially relevant.

So you reduce/remove the parts that do not apply, and go into more details on the parts that apply.

Of course, if all the jobs you apply are pretty similar (say front end with React), then you won't change much between each CV.

Hello! I'm Chantal, a Junior Technical Recruiter from GitLab. Some other folks have provided great thoughts on this subject.

In general, I think you have to understand your audience. If you're applying for a job at a large company, or one that you know receives a ton of applications, you should find a way to stick out. Also, the recruiters likely won't have enough time to read through a 5 page resume. If you're applying to a smaller company, that long resume and cover letter might not be a bad idea. I asked my teammates to add tips about resume writing since I'm going to be helping out some bootcamp graduates soon. Maybe it will help: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/people-group/recruiting/-/issu...

If the position requirements describe certain things they want and you have done those things at certain jobs, basically say that you have done what they are asking for at those jobs. Things like "work on multitier web application" or other items that are not stack specific but that you have done. Include text closely matching those descriptions at jobs where you've done it.

If you don't have the experience I don't know how you'd craft it to be honest except for perhaps being descriptive in the cover letter about how you don't match everything but what you are able to offer and why you may be excited to work in the specific role at the company.

While you can definitely tailor your resume, it's as much about not applying for jobs you really aren't qualified for. When we tried to hire for a Postgresql role, we got tons of Excel and Access people that couldn't spell Postgresql. If the job is for an AWS expert, and you're a Rails developer whose AWS experience is using an S3 gem, don't apply.