Resume Woes....

[AFJuvat]

I'm weeding through a bunch of resumes, as my department is hiring two additional people.

I am, myself guilty of not writing clearly, or misusing punctuation on more than one occasion. However, when submitting a resume, this is the first impression your potential employer will get of you. It would be to your benefit to proofread,

My god, this is painful. Here are a few things I've noticed.

1. It is VERY hard to take you seriously if you are applying for a job through e-mail, and the resume comes from "findtherooster@email.com" Yes, that will get right through our corporate spam filter.

2. In a related note, I know what 420 means; you may want to leave that out of your email address.

3. I can appreciate that you are going to school and I am happy that you are getting a 3.5 GPA. However, listing all of the classes you've taken and the grade you received isn't really necessary.

4. When listing your computer software skills, be specific as to what versions. I'm sorry, unless you are in your late 30's or early 40's, you probably aren't really an expert on ALL version of Windows software. You graduated high school seven years ago, and college last year, I doubt you fall into the age group I'm talking about.

5. Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox are not software skills.

6. When listing your accomplishments, give me "what you did, and what was its impact". "Training employees" all by itself isn't really helpful.

7. When writing numbers, as in "I supervised seven people." It is customary to type out the written form of the number for any number ten, or less. "I supervised 2 people" just doesn't look right.

8. I've never seen "problem Solving" (sic) expressed as an "interest" before

9. They are called commas, periods, and spaces; and they desperately want to be your friends. There are very few legitimate uses for an ampersand on a resume. " X & X & X & X" when listing responsibilities is just painful to read.

10. Bullet statements start with a capital letter.

11. Don't start cover letters with a question. It makes you look like a bad infomercial.

12. Scented, pink parchment with a kitten watermark - just say no.

13. Nouns and verbs like to agree.

[widgeon13]

Sew, guess I'm not getting the job.

[legion]

Juvy, I'm not that old (28), and this stuff pisses me off. I completely rewrote more than one group paper in college because of this crap.

On a related note, I had a college roommate (art major) who made his resume look like a serial killer's letter. He didn't get any interviews.

[Aerkuld]

Thank your lucky stars that they're not written in text message shorthand.

[Bryans951]

I had to endure the same thing a few months ago and now I'm going to have to do it again. Just the thought of having to read all those resumes gives me a headache.

[ZOO]

My friend interviewed students for a part-time job in IT. Several candidates left their IPOD ear buds in for the interview . . .

[masraum]

Originally posted by ZOOMiata
My friend interviewed students for a part-time job in IT. Several candidates left their IPOD ear buds in for the interview . . .

It would have been a VERY short interview.

[legion]

Have any of you seen the opening scene to "Harold and Kumar Go To Whitecastle"?

[RickM]

QUOTE: "7. When writing numbers, as in "I supervised seven people." It is customary to type out the written form of the number for any number ten, or less. "I supervised 2 people" just doesn't look right."


No hard fast rule on this. Guidelines vary by the type of document and message you're trying to convey. Some will write out all numbers that require no more than two words (that still covers your style).
Also, if one is trying to maintain a tight format in a Resume they may take the chance and compromise some of the rules. The trick is to keep these cheats as innocuous as possible.

[RallyJon]

And how about length?

When you've made VP (for real, not at a bank) you can go beyond two pages.

Twenty-something kids with five page resumes. "And then I managed the installation of the latest patch." Reset passwords and ran backups are not two bullet points.

[jrdavid68]

One of my wife's older sons once edited an autoexec.bat file. He now puts down that he is an expert in DOS as well as Windows. Gotta love it.

[gprsh924]

just because you're hung like a moose doesn't mean you have to do porn.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

Originally posted by AFJuvat
I9. They are called commas, periods, and spaces; and they desperately want to be your friends.

Oh, the irony. -1 for improper use of a semicolon!

[RickM]

Originally posted by RallyJon
And how about length?

When you've made VP (for real, not at a bank) you can go beyond two pages.

Twenty-something kids with five page resumes. "And then I managed the installation of the latest patch." Reset passwords and ran backups are not two bullet points.

"When you've made VP (for real, not at a bank) you can go beyond two pages." Now that's pretty funny! lol

Personally I would never go more than two pages. An interview is designed to fill in the gaps.

[Hugh R]

I work for Disney, and we advertised for a Safety Professional. I got all kinds of resumes for every unqualified SOB under the sun, including three or four with "Head Shots" (Black and White 8"x10" glossies that they send out for acting gigs. Guess where those ones went.

[Groesbeck Hurricane]

I loved a guy we interviewed a few years ago. Professional resume', good clothes, clean cut, polite. He got some really good key phrases from somewhere and someone could write!!!

Didn't know diddly about squat! Oh, and five minutes into the six minute interview he stopped us to show us how he used one of our products. I would have preferred the pink kitty scented paper...

[mjohnson]

Originally posted by Hugh R
I work for Disney, and we advertised for a Safety Professional. I got all kinds of resumes for every unqualified SOB under the sun, including three or four with "Head Shots" (Black and White 8"x10" glossies that they send out for acting gigs. Guess where those ones went.

Kinda puts a question mark after the professional in "safety professional".

While recruiting at New Mexico Tech (I'm up the road in Los Alamos), I had a kid attach a head shot to his resume. He was 20 and looking for a chemical engineering internship.

I don't even remember how good a student he was...

Mike
'78 SC puking oil over the driveway

[Mr Beau]

Maybe he was European? It's common here to attach pictures, state your age, whether you're married or not, etc... It's not against the law and it's common to see job ads stating the age of the employee their looking for. I still find it odd after being here for 3 years.

[TyFenn]

Great post.

How do you guys feel about objective statements? For example, "OBJECTIVE: To find a ___, that utlizes______" and so on. Further, what would you recommend as a skeleton?

OBJECTIVE
EXPERIENCE
EDUCATION

or something like EDUCATION, EXPERIENCE and something else, such as skills?

Thanks.

[RickM]

Education can be quite important but it's spot is not at the beginning of a Resume unless you're fresh out of school.

I believe the format should be appropriate for your type of work, level of experience and other factors.

IMO, an "objectives" statement is effective as long as it is succinct and it speaks specifically to the opening you're after. Using the generic, broad stroke approach is a waste of valuable real estate.