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Comment by thom | Hacker News Reader

I know that lots of people who sell CV advice on the internet say this, I just find it such a bafflingly trivial piece of advice that it's strange to have strong feelings about it. Most CVs aren't written like this and I don't find myself marking them down for writing like a normal person. Maybe this is a US thing (although I have lots of US people's CVs to look at) but the idea that anyone would be shocked at seeing "I" in a CV is just nuts, and honestly, if someone filters on minutiae like that you wouldn't really want to work for them anyway.

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I've written for at least a thousand international clients, hundreds in the UK, and this doesn't seem to be a US thing based on the resumes/CVs I see.

I'm not saying people are filtering on seeing "I", but they would be surprised in the same way they would be by seeing third person "Thom is a CTO with..." on a CV.

I have no agenda here. I'm just telling you the facts from someone who has probably read far more resumes than most others. You don't need to accept my expertise. Again, run a google image search on resumes, tell me how many you see with the word 'I'.

You clearly don't value my experience. That's OK. I'm not some advocate for first person pronouns - it doesn't help me in any way that resumes are written in this manner. I'm just explaining to you that it's a fact.

But you're not, you're explaining that it's a commonly held opinion. I'm just intrigued what the basis for that opinion is other that 'oh, everyone says to do that'. Maybe you're not curious about literally the number one piece of advice you give in your job, but I would be.

A search on Google of the words "resume first person" (without quotes) will help, with the first 10 answers pretty much unanimously agreeing with my belief. I've explained why in other responses (mostly redundancy - "I did this, I did that" gets old.

This isn't the #1 piece of advice I give in my job. I'm a writer. I write the documents. I'm not telling them what to do.

I do offer review services, which are a small part of my business. If I get a resume with the word "I" for a review, I will tell them what I've told you.

You seem intent on belittling what I do, as if my job is to walk around telling people "don't use I".

You're the one that led with that! If I were a professional internet comment writer, I'd have told you how obnoxious that was, but alas, I am merely an amateur.

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