I guess the post I was writing was the wrong post.
I was avoiding writing or even thinking about hurts I have inflicted and friendships that have ended, and I got to thinking about resum�s. Yes, indeedy. Because, well, there happens to be one sitting a few feet away from me. It isn’t mine – it belongs to a former intern of Will’s who also happens to be a friend of ours. I am theoretically going to try to get it into some other friends’ hands in the hopes of helping B find a job.
But first – HOW DO I TELL THIS INFERNAL MACHINE TO STOP ASKING IF I WANT TO STAY CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET? I already turned off the prompt (default every 30 minutes alert). Now it asks me every 15 AND I AM LOSING IT.
Anyway.
It seems that all recent college graduates got the same template for their resum� and used it. This is the second one I’ve looked at in recent months (graduates of entirely different colleges in different parts of the country) and they are totally identical. AND SO BORING. If I were hiring I’d toss them in the bin immediately. But I know these people and they are INSANELY TALENTED. So why isn’t that reflected here?
The first problem is obviously the medium. How the hell can you represent yourself in one to two pages of clipped sentences? Impossible, unless you are very very boring. Maybe a robot. Then you’d just have a list of specs and software.
My resum� is two pages long. I like it a great deal. When I was actively job-seeking, I didn’t get a LOT of responses to it – just from potential employers who were out-of-the-box types. Coincidentally, the only kind of people I could consider working for.
Most resum�s these days start with an Objective. This is a statement of what you are looking for/offering and is supposed to grab the attention of whoever is doing the hiring. I’d be curious for some perspective (Soups?) but I personally hate this. In order to be appealing these statements are reduced to a jumble of keywords deemed desirable by some Big Company jackass, such as ORGANIZED and MULTITASK and GO-GETTER, which actually tell nothing whatsoever about you because everyone writes that. The Objective is potentially useful in stating what sort of job you are seeking, as it could weed out people looking for something else. But isn’t that what a cover letter is for? It seems disingenuous to restate your cover letter in one or two sentences with zero personality.
Most resum�s these days are a single page. I know this is convenient for the people doing the hiring, but again, there is no chance of conveying an accurate portrait of yourself here. If you are fresh out of college and mostly listing internships, it makes sense, but I have two full pages of just experience on mine, and don’t particularly feel that it should be trimmed – so why should anyone else’s? AND mine is technically already trimmed, as I removed all retail, kitchen, and nanny experience, even though that technically is the bulk of it, timewise. (I do generally mention those jobs in my cover letter.) Can you imagine how long it would be if I listed everything?
Experience is pretty straight-forward – just a list of previous jobs, really – but I believe the focus has shifted. Where one used to write the company and title, etc., and list under it the tasks performed, now it seems to be desirable to list accomplishments. Boo. I think there should be a balance.
The oddest trend I’ve noticed is the Skills – it is now a list of skills and interests. Er? We are supposed to learn more about the robot because it likes to photograph flowers? This doesn’t belong on a resume. Does it?
Maybe I ought to start a consulting firm, fixing resum�s for people who don’t want cookie cutter jobs. The fear would be, of course, that my help would keep people from getting any job.
I’m sure there’s a way to fix up those resumes to make your very talented friends more marketable. I’d venture to suggest it to said friends…”hey, I know you are better than you look on paper; let’s fix that.”
Then there’s the weird spelling problems you’re having. Given that your spelling is generally impeccable, I find myself blaming your computer. I’ve also been a victim of halty-computer-didn’t-get-everything-I-typed-so-it-chopped-up-my-words disease.
Oh dear. Actually, it looks like the Blogger spellcheck is incompatible with the iBook. That or I am crazy. Equally likely!
My resume is four pages long. And that seems to be a short as it gets.
I currently have four versions of it depending on the job. But I hope this week to go see HR at the uni about how I could improve it.
It currently makes me want to scream.
Are the robots also actors? That one enjoys photographing flowers supposedly has a purpose in an acting r�sum�
what do we do to fix it?
my resume is pretty straight forward.
i want to put on it:
also makes excellent pie and cookies.
knits. swears like sailor.
I’ve been thinking about pulling the interests/achievements bit off my CV (currently at the end before the referees). Mainly because I’m no longer looking for kid jobs or summer jobs. A teensy part of me likes it being on there, but I know it needs to come off. I might keep the achievements as thos are things I accomplished via being in that job- things like the Exeter Corporate Games (which shows team work, pride in company, participation etc), and things like NaNo (working towards a goal, tight deadline, creative, as well as leadership (Municipal Liaison, Moderating).
I did get it checked in a CV workshop, just after I finished Uni, but I need to revamp it.
I actually need a version of it on this laptop, but it’s a Word doc on my old laptop and I don’t have Word on Sydney.
I would kill to see a one-page r�sum�. The ones I get from current college students are absolutely ridiculous at times. I once saw, and I am not kidding in the least, a 12 page r�sum�. In it, I learned that the student had been to Appleton, WI and could drive a manual transmission.
I cut out a lot of my past work experience, listing only the most recent jobs. At the end I said, “Further work history available upon request.” I mean, an employer doesn’t need to know that I worked at Arby’s at age seventeen.
Anyway. R�sum�s are dumb.
OSX has built-in system-wide spellcheck, you just have to turn it on. Type any word, select it, and then control-click, you’ll get a menu that includes “Spelling…” where you can turn on “Check As You Type”, which will be on forever until you turn it off. It is definitely compatible with Blogger, as it just told me the word “Blogger” is a typo.
You’re using dial-up? I think there’s a pref to turn off the “stay connected” thing- it’s just doing it so you don’t flush all your money into a phone line you’re not actually transmitting info on. I’ll have to check that out for you when I get home as I don’t have a modem in this computer. If you’re on a dedicated connection it shouldn’t be giving you alerts, so that would be weird.
This post has been removed by the author.
I deleted the last post because i didn’t paste the permalink to the thread, so the session might expire. Anyway, this is the right one-
I e-mailed this link to you about your “stay connected” prompt, but as a public service I’ll post it here too.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=291180
My Amazing Tips for Resumes
1. Never use a Word template. Start from scratch!
2. If you’re going over one page, put your skills assessment at the top of page 1.
3. Objective, schmobjective. If you’re looking for a specific kind of job, switching careers, or want to explain your interest – do it in a cover letter/email.
4. List relevant experience first, then list other experience, always with most recent experiences first – and be prepared to explain gaps in employment.
Four is enough for now. I could write about resumes for days.
In Autralia, the standard for a professional resume, not an academic CV, they’re different stories, but a professional resume is:
Job History – most recent going backwards, obviously growing less detailed the further back you get.
Education – again, from most recent degrees/courses etc working back.
Skills & interests last.
A good resume is considered to be 3 to 5 pages long. Any more than that, and you run the risk of people thinking you haven’t mastered the art of brevity, which is a most beloved skill in business, at least in the private sector.
Anything less than 3 pages, and you’re probably not looking at anyone with a great deal of experience.
Okay, so say you’re looking for an entry-level type role, should still really be about 2 pages.
The only place I saw 1 pagers was in retail, where there generally was no educational qualification, and a couple of gigs worth of job experience only.
The skills parts comes in where it may not be obvious, for example, from you job history, which software packages you’re comfortable with, also, if, say, like me, you’ve been in HR, but have, for strange reasons, also got a fair few marketing and events management skills.
I tend to leave my personal interests off a resume (noe of their damned beeswax, has nothing to do with the job), as well as my date of birth and marital status – as both of those are discriminatory questions in Australia and can not be asked for. Only once you get the job do you obviously have to let your employer know your date of birth.
My resume is currently fighting to stay within the 5 page margin. I will have to start doing some further trimming back of job history more than 8 years old.
I find the trend (that I have seen mainly with American and Indian resumes) to state an objective at the top of a resume a bit disingenious. Like you say, it’s a jumble of buzz words and catch phrases.
You’ve applied for a job with me, I know you’re interested. I’m going to now scan you work experience, your skills, and potentially your educational quals if these are a prerequisite for the job, and see from there if I can see a match in skills to the job duty statement. If there’s a match, I’ll bring you in for an interview. Then we’ll see if you can do what you say you can do, and we’ll see if you’re a fit for my expectations in terms of work ethic and attitude. Knowing that these are the easiest things to get wrong, but there are some clever questions you can ask.
The worst things I’ve seen lately have actually been graduating PhD student CV’s from North America. They all seem to be using those Word templates from 1997, and the formatting is all over the joint. Pick a font and stick to it, and damn, pick your heading sizes too. Generally it’s a good idea to work in Heading 1 16 pt, Heading 2 14 pt and text in 12 pt. Underlining is yesterday’s breakfast, no one does it anymore. Punctuation is minimal, so if you’re not sure how to use it consistently, especially when you “Dear Sir/Madam” me, choose to go without (I mean commas here only).
Align to your left margin and do not block align your text, it looks awful and does some weird jumpy things. Let the right margins wrap naturally.
Use bullet points, they’re there to lead the eye down the page.
Use Times Roman or Arial and keep away from the fancy, swirly, gothic fonts that are out there for your resume. Times Roman is easy to read for long tracts, like novels, as all serif fonts are. Sans serif fonts like Ariel are fine for shorter pieces like essays and, yes, resumes, though.
Artsy resumes are good when well done ie they look completely ‘produced’ (easy enough to do at home these days), not patchy, like you ran out of juice after a couple of cool ideas. Coffee and oil slick stains are always bin inducing.
And that is all.
You’re using AOL ain’t ya. Get rid of it, it’s bad and wrong.
Huh? I haven’t used AOL since I was 12 and had no say in the matter.
I was looking up Mindmapping last year, to explain to NaNoers how they could brainstorm their novel.
And I found an example of Mindmapping which surprised me- a CV.
Weird, certainly unique and eyecatching- but is it too different and liable to alienate your potential employer?
My CV’s two pages long: profile, work history (to a point), qualifications and a one-liner for interests. A consultant company helped me draw it up in the current format when I was on redeployment a few years back. One of my old bosses gave me a copy of his which was a one-pager, but I just can’t cut down like that…