T writes in:
Omg, I made changes to my resume based on your resume advice and there’s already a huge improvement. Is it a bad idea to resend your resume to a company you just applied too? I know it’s probably a really stupid question but I know the one I have now is soooo much better.
I’m glad I could help. (If you need more help, you can always use my resume service.)
I’m of two minds on this. If they see you sent in two different resumes, they’ll probably throw both out. (Josh Olsen mentions this in his famous “I Will Not Read Your Fucking Script” piece in the Village Voice.)
Now, they’re receiving hundreds of resumes, so the odds aren’t necessarily high that they’ll notice you applied twice, unless one of two things happen– first, despite what you may think is an ugly resume, they may have actually selected yours from the pile. Second, if they use Gmail, your emails will become grouped together thanks to Google’s “conversation view.”
I say the first possibility is unlikely because you’re worried enough about your resume that you wrote me in the first place. You can avoid the second possibility by simply using a different subject line.
On the other hand, depending on how long ago this job was posted, they may not even see your second resume. As I’ve said several times, once the employer finds six or seven good candidates, they’ll stop looking at incoming resumes.
So, to sum up, here are the possible scenarios, if you send in a second resume–
- They forgot about your first resume, like the second, and call you in.
- They notice you sent two different resumes, deem you unprofessional for basically spamming them, and throw out both.
- They’ve already picked their interviewees, and your second resume goes straight in the trash bin.
- They throw out both of your resumes, because they hate you, and you smell.
My initial, gut instinct was to tell you to just move on. But the more I write about it, the more I think, well, it probably couldn’t hurt.
Good luck!
