Quote of the Day, 2007-06-20
Posted by
tgirsch
In response to SayUncle’s résumé nit-pick fest, we find this:
Screw you! How is that for an “Action” verb!
This is the most trite resume advice ever given. Come on, don’t make it a word puzzle, do you want to know what I did or are you just looking for more arbitrary crap to ding me for … seriously. On second thought no, if yours is that kind of company that would not hire a quality individual for lack of “Action Verbs” on their resume, I don’t think I would care to work for you. The problem is that the company might be great, they simply have a pedantic jerk reading resumes and that would be sad for everyone. But you go ahead, hire the candidate with all the “action verbs” just don’t call me to clean up the mess when you find out they are great at resumes and interviews, but can’t do the job.
Bwah!
To his credit, SayUncle linked to the smackdown.
UPDATE: Full disclosure: I should point out that I agree with much of what Uncle writes. In fact, by my count, I agree with ten of his sixteen nits. Especially this:
Learn the difference between ensure and insure.
Man, I hate it when people use the latter when they mean the former, and not just in a résumé-writing context.
Anyway, this particular thing just struck me funny, because “Action Verbs” is the very sort of corporate BS Uncle normally claims to despise.
I’m with Uncle on this one (other than the required spelling of resume). It’s not that a person won’t get hired due to a crappy resume - they won’t get the interview. A resume is marketing, pure and simple. You can do a good job marketing yourself or a shitty job. All else equal, the person with the better-crafted resume is going to get the interview. Why? If for no other reason than it is a minor demonstration of caring about the quality of your work product. A clean resume does not predict success, but a messy one does predict failure.
Comment 6/20/2007
Well, at least you spelled it right
Comment 6/20/2007
Good for this person (minus the constant “then” and “than” confusion).
Soliciting strangers to submit one-page summaries of their work history in pukishly euphemistic language is probably just the recipe needed to alienate a good percentage of our most intelligent members of society. And look how well it works!
All the fucking hoop jumping… it’s maddening.
Here’s a thought, how about telling me what you are willing to pay me BEFORE you ask me to invest several hours of my time in completing your forms, throwing on a blindfold and spinning around on a wiffle ball bat to pin the tail on an electronic format, and then shipping it off into a cyber-blackhole. You might get stuck paying some naive dip-shit fair market value for his/her skills, but you might improve your applicant pool too.
Seriously, who the fuck do you people think you are? Resume advice reads like a rapist’s diatribe about his tastes and fetishes. Be sure untie your bikini top when sunbathing because we like tanlines on the titties, but not across the back…
Did it ever occur to you pedantic, corporate-lackey douchebags that I do a little self-censoring in my employment search too? How about the fact that I purposely leave off the accents because if you are pretentious enough to give a shit about stuff like that, the garbage is the pile I’m hoping my resume lands in.
See, truly, I don’t give a shit, I do crazy things, because I know that if I get a call back, that’s the type of place I want to work for. Cover letters in Shakespearean iambic pentameter, Joyce-esque run-ons, cover letters as Onion articles. That’s what I do, write the best damned cover letters that are almost certainly destined for the trash can. Next time I’m job hunting, I might break-out the William S. Burroughs cut-up cover letter.
SayUncle, keep your eye out, baby. It could be addressed to you…
Comment 6/20/2007
Ted:
It’s not the fact that he’s particular about résumés; it’s the specific nits he chooses to pick. For the record, I agree with about half of them.
But the “action verb” thing is corporate BS at its finest, so that little rant tickled my funny bone. If it didn’t tickle yours, well, that’s why there’s variety out there.
Comment 6/20/2007
For the record, I am upfront about salary. I hire based on résumés and interviews. I don’t make people fill out any BS paperwork.
And the action verb thing is true. ‘managed’ sounds better than ‘responsible for’.
“who the fuck do you people think you are? ”
Uh, the people that decide if you can work for us. And the sane people who don’t compare those offering advice to rapists.
And I’m not a corporate lackey, I’m an equity firm lackey. Motto: We buy corporations, bitches!
Comment 6/20/2007
“because “Action Verbs” is the very sort of corporate BS Uncle normally claims to despise.”
I disagree. I think of action verb as more English language BS and not corporate BS. But his type of BS gets the point across more.
Comment 6/20/2007
Well, not every part of my rant was directed to you specifically. I guess throwing your name in at the end may have implied that.
But, that’s the thing, though. The attitude of “deciding whether you can work for us” is just the sort of self-delusional entitlement that puts so many off.
Let me tell you who WE are. We are the people who decide whether we want to make your company go. You are the machine, we are the fuel. We are people with skills, and some of us have enough self worth and esteem to feel offended when we are treated like a pool of video groupies hoping to be the one who Jay-Z is going to decide to bang after the shoot.
And, for the record, I wasn’t comparing you to offering advice to rapists. I was comparing you to rapitsts offering advice to potential victims. It’s a much more fitting metaphor.
Nice potential Entourage reference. Fittingly, you quote Ari. Maybe that’ll be another resume project. Where the name goes could read “I am Queens Boulevard.”
Comment 6/20/2007
I’m with Uncle on this.
And I would never hire this digglahhh person. Even if people like that manage to get a stealth resume (yes, I spell it that way — so don’t hire me) by me, that attitude comes out about two minutes into the interview and it’s over.
Not that I disagree so much with the sentiment. You just have to be able to sell yourself. And do the job without a lot of drama and bullshit. Workplace drama and bullshit are a manager’s worst nightmare.
Managers will put up with it if you are really exceptional. But people who write idiot resumes or come into a corporate interview with the “power to the people workers unite to control the means of production” chip on their shoulder usually aren’t.
And you have to wonder what they are doing sitting there in your corporate office in a suit if they really feel that way.
I wish it wasn’t that way. But it is what it is.
Comment 6/20/2007
No, you’re not. You make it go or we make you go. I mean, I set fire and pissed on all my copies of anything by marx so I could be wrong. But even his followers get it.
No, I am people too. And I am also replaceable, just like those I hire. And even if I’m gone, companies exist in perpetuity.
I’ve never seen entourage and I wasn’t quoting anyone.
Comment 6/20/2007
Resumes (See, I’m using the English word. Note that the French word doesn’t even mean the same thing.) are an astonishly awful way to determine qualifications, but they’re like spam: Their cost (to the employer) is so very small compared to an effective method that they’re well worth using. The obvious problem, which Dig quite recognizes, is that they have a huge cost to the applicant.
What he doesn’t take note of is their other horrible failing (which others have blithely commented on as if it’s not even a problem): Resumes demonstrate marketing of the applicant. Unless the applicant is actually trying to get a job marketing, this is by necessity a shitty way of demonstrating relevant qualifications. The only way in which it has any bearing on any other job, such as programming, is to demonstrate perseverance in the face of being given a job that you’re not qualified for. And no, perseverance at the wrong job is not a transferrable skill to perseverance at the right job. (I can spend ten hours removing arcane glitches from a 20,000-line program. I can’t spend three hours figuring out how to put “Was the only person in my company who understood how software works.” in language formal enough for a resume.)
Resumes are bullshit, and anyone who’s had to write one recently knows it. The problem is that they work tolerably well for the employer, and hey, when you’re looking for a job, why would you have the financial security to countervail the employer making you do their job?
Comment 6/20/2007
And while White and Struck does have some utility in writing resumes, for what that’s worth, it’s about as beneficial to real writing as a brick to the forehead. It won’t make anything better, but you might be a bit less worried about the final result.
Comment 6/20/2007
The funny part is not only do I have several different versions of my resume, but they all have the requisite “action verbs” and other inane BS that the resume fashionesta require. Why? Not because I put in one iota of time, not because I put in any personal effort, no my resume has all that crap because I paid someone else to do it.
Even if people like that manage to get a stealth resume (yes, I spell it that way — so don’t hire me) by me, that attitude comes out about two minutes into the interview and it’s over.
Thats where your hubris get6s the better of you. Frankly I’m a great interview, I’ll walk in the door, and charm the crap out of you. I am poised and practiced for anything you might want to throw at me. Think you can get me off balance with one of those stupid “star” interviews, not a chance. I’ll have you so baffled with the kind of bull shit that will take you weeks to unravel. In Short, I have been offered jobs that I an so unqualified for it hurts based on my personality alone (turned them down because I didn’t want to set my self up for failure or use the exact same skills to get some other chump fired instead of me).
I go on those interviews in oder to hone my skills to get the real interview I want but the bottom line is if you hire based on resumes and interviews you are sure of only one thing, that they have great resumes and are good interviewers. The idea that you have increased your chances for selecting a candidate that will have a higher chance of sucess is delusional at best. Problem is we all perceive charming people to be somehow more competent and it takes a much longer time to figure out they are a screw up, some times so long that the employers never even know they were played and wouldn’t admit it anyway because that calls into question their own compatents.
Comment 6/21/2007
The funny part is not only do I have several different versions of my resume, but they all have the requisite “action verbs” and other inane BS that the resume fashionesta require. Why? Not because I put in one iota of time, not because I put in any personal effort, no my resume has all that crap because I paid someone else to do it.
Even if people like that manage to get a stealth resume (yes, I spell it that way — so don’t hire me) by me, that attitude comes out about two minutes into the interview and it’s over.
Thats where your hubris get6s the better of you. Frankly I’m a great interview, I’ll walk in the door, and charm the crap out of you. I am poised and practiced for anything you might want to throw at me. Think you can get me off balance with one of those stupid “star” interviews, not a chance. I’ll have you so baffled with the kind of bull shit that will take you weeks to unravel. In Short, I have been offered jobs that I an so unqualified for it hurts based on my personality alone (turned them down because I didn’t want to set my self up for failure or use the exact same skills to get some other chump fired instead of me).
I go on those interviews in oder to hone my skills to get the real interview I want but the bottom line is if you hire based on resumes and interviews you are sure of only one thing, that they have great resumes and are good interviewers. The idea that you have increased your chances for selecting a candidate that will have a higher chance of success is delusional at best. Problem is we all perceive charming people to be somehow more competent and it takes a much longer time to figure out they are a screw up, some times so long that the employers never even know they were played and wouldn’t admit it anyway because that calls into question their own competence.
BTW thanks for the link and thanks to Mr. Uncle for the fun topic !!!
Comment 6/21/2007
Have read a fair amount here about the problems with using resumes as an initial screening technique. Have read zero about alternate approaches. All well and good to bitch about something, but how about offering an alternative?
Let’s say I am an employer seeking to fill an opening that requires a very specific skill set. This position is critical to the success of the company, so I want to draw from a nation-wide pool of potential candidates. I’d be interested in an approach not involving resumes that would allow me to screen potential candidates.
I don’t like the “human resources” approach to hiring. In other words, I don’t want some centralized department screening my candidates. I want the person to whom the new hire will report to be the one reading resumes and doing interviewing.
A few other specifics To Dan M, I have hired many software developers over the years, and one quality I have always looked for is meticulousness. If your resume referenced “White and Struck”, that would be a mark against you
To Rick Dement, charm is a critical component for certain positions, sales being a good example. It is unimportant for others. A skilled interviewer will not be swayed by charm if charm is not a relevant skill. That said, everyone is human, so what’s your point exactly? Hiring is not an exact science. I think we all agree on that.
To digg, it’s a two-way street. I agree with you that a company will be more successful if management treats employees with respect. And it will be more successful if the employees are invested in the company’s success. However, that does not change the fact that an employer needs to choose who to make an offer to. My approach has always been to do whatever I need to do to make the best (most informed) decision I am capable of making - and also do whatever I need to do to enable the candidates to make the best (most informed) decision they can make. It does me no good to hire someone only to have them decide they don’t want to work at my company after all. In other words, the fit has to be correct for both of us. I wouldn’t use resumes to hire pro athletes. And I would welcome creative resumes if I was filling a creative slot. But in most cases, all I need from a resume is a concise summary of skills and experience so I can determine which few of many have the best potential to fill the position. If the resume is filled with typos and I am hiring an artist, no big deal. If I am hiring a technical writer, big deal.
Comment 6/21/2007
An alternative?
How about listing a couple of issues important to that job, or field, and asking potential applicants to write an article about it?
How about, in addition to the resume, asking an applicant about his/her favorite books or movies?
Sure, this might be more time-consuming for the screener, but it certainly gives a more provocative glimpse of who the candidate is.
At the core of my point is that the resume does nothing to streamline the search and define who you want. When I deviate from the norm with my cover letter, I am defining myself (a little bit) for you. You are either going to say, “screw this guy.” Or you are going to say, “Holy shit, this is exactly the type of guy who would thrive here.” Either way, we are saving each other time.
But that’s not really the point, is it? The process is one of many in long chain of people covering their asses. It’s creating a huge pool, that can be divided quickly and easily into two piles. The search looks competitive, if the candidate fails, there’s a stronger defense because the process was based on some sort of (professed) objectivity.
The fact that resumes are bullshit is implicitly proven in any study you see about the work force and how people got their jobs.
Comment 6/21/2007
I would never hire this digglahhh person . . . that attitude comes out about two minutes into the interview and it’s over.
Managers will put up with it if you are really exceptional.
You realize that’s logically equivalent to: “I would never hire someone who’s really exceptional”? Which, I think, proves Digglahhh’s point: corporate conformism is designed to minimize the company’s responsibility to utilize insight and treat individuals as individuals, which not only comes at a huge cost to the actual people under the company thumb, but also ensures that the corporations only get the services of unexceptional conformists. Capitalism is as grey, stultifying, and dead as it appears to be because the people who run it deliberately and consciously avoid anything alive, original, or distinct. And they get exactly what they ask for.
That wouldn’t be so bad for people like Digglahhh, who can simply allow the drones and robots to identify themselves and then avoid them, but it’s hell on the ones trapped in the system, and it blankets the world with a landscape of commodified and stultified grey dead crap that no one can escape, whether they are part of that system or not.
In a world where using “action verbs” is considered a bold and dynamic personal statement, I can well imagine how terrifying a “really exceptional” person must be.
Comment 6/21/2007
How about listing a couple of issues important to that job, or field, and asking potential applicants to write an article about it?
Except that I know people who are brilliant at what they do, whether it’s customer service or computer programming or tending bar, but who can’t write worth a shit. How is giving them and even more complicated writing assignment going to be better than a traditional résumé?
How about, in addition to the resume, asking an applicant about his/her favorite books or movies?
This strikes me as an absolutely terrible idea! Just exactly what does a person’s taste in film in literature have to do with their ability to do a given job? And heaven help you if you read political books, and your potential hirers hold a different view. You’re interviewing for a job, not for BFF.
KTK:
Depends, I suppose. In some cases, the dynamic, imaginative type is exactly what a corporation doesn’t want, since that type is liable to quickly bore of any job they’re given, and move on anyway.
And while I have more than my fair share of problems with capitalism (and complain about them frequently), it still beats just about any other system I’ve ever encountered. (I personally prefer a solid mix of capitalism and socialism, with the two in constant tension, but that’s a long rant for another time…)
Comment 6/21/2007
“How about listing a couple of issues important to that job, or field, and asking potential applicants to write an article about it?”
OK, but what if the job has zero requirement for writing skills? Why skew the initial filter that way? If the job is for a writer, then I think it would be entirely appropriate for the resume to include a link to some writing the applicant has done.
If I am looking to hire a software developer, or a surgeon, or a carpenter, which movie preference or book preference should I value more in my initial screening? Obviously there is no answer to that question, so the info is meaningless. I prefer not to ask people to provide meaningless information.
A resume absolutely streamlines the process. If I am looking for someone with a specific skill set and experience - as a prerequisite to being a successful candidate - then the resume is the tool used to provide me that info. Once I have a pool of qualified people, then I use the interview to select the appropriate person. You are quibbling over the content of the resume, but not the concept. In other words what is appropriate to include in the written summary of yourself. I will grant you that based on the specifics of the opening in question, the content of an “appropriate” resume will vary.
You can deviate from the norm in your cover letter just to prove you can deviate from the norm, or you can deviate from the norm by writing a cover letter that makes you stand out in a way that is of potential benefit to me as an employer. I welcome the latter approach (when I changed careers I noted in my cover letter I would work without salary for three months to compensate for my lack of directly applicable experience - I got the job) but I think the former approach is just gimmicky. Like printing your resume on floral paper. Different, but who cares.
In some cases people might be covering their asses with their hiring process and decisions, but not in strong, successful companies. The ability to hire well is at the very top of the skill set for a good manager in a growth situation. The fact that you hold all employers in disdain does not alter that fact.
“The fact that resumes are bullshit is implicitly proven in any study you see about the work force and how people got their jobs.” Huh? Implicitly proven? Any study? Can you define what you mean by “implicitly proven”, and can you cite some studies?
My experience has shown that the highest probability of a successful hire is when a good person is able to recommend a former colleague or acquaintance for a position in the company, and I rely on that approach whenever possible. But many times it is not possible.
Comment 6/21/2007
KT wrote: “You realize that’s logically equivalent to: “I would never hire someone who’s really exceptional”?”
You might want to brush up on you logic skills. Where is the statement - or implication - that all really exceptional people do their work with drama and bullshit (whatever that means)? Without establishing that connection, your conclusion is unfounded.
Comment 6/21/2007
Ted,
Most people get jobs through personal connections. Uncle’s original post, or one linked to it, even states that most of the better employees of that particular company were not hired through the impersonal hiring process. That’s what I mean when I said “implicitly proven.” Other means are net better results.
All who complained about my alternative,
Obviously those ideas are set in stone. You could certainly argue that they are better interview questions. But the point holds, and the writing itself doesn’t have to be the focal point of the process. The idea is to discern whether the person has an understanding of the issues and dynamics relevant to the position. Resumes(especially one-pagers, when the average adult will make, what, six, career changes on average) aren’t suited for that.
The “books and movies” thing is an insight into how people think. If you are too biased to hire a candidate because who gives you a cogent and articulate argument as to why “Sideways” was a great movie, and you happen think that Paul Giamatti was an insufferable prick and you broke up with your college sweetheart because you caught her blowing a D-list actor, perhaps you are not really qualified to be making judgments that have an ramifications on the world outside your head.
I’m not saying that’s the perfect question, but the more we doubt these things, the less credit we give ourselves. The crux of the matter is that people feel confident basing their decisions on some things and not on others, and that grounds for decision are more easily defensible to one’s higher-ups. Whether these things are the best predictor of character or talent isn’t necessarily the primary concern.
Perhaps we just have different methods of measuring people. I can understand how somebody can not be confident in making a hiring decision on something more abstract. If I was in charge of putting together a work force, I’d place a pretty high value on these things. People with resumes that boast skills are a dime a dozen; I’m trying to differentiate between them in a manner that reflects the characters and environment of my organization.
And you guys do realize that a resume IS a writing assignment, right? And, one that is a lot tougher than an essay.
Comment 6/21/2007
“Obviously those ideas are set in stone.”
Should read “aren’t” set in stone.
Sorry.
Comment 6/21/2007
Comment 6/21/2007
Oh good grief. As long as you’ve made over the LL site, couldn’t you have given us at least a preview button? (And you don’t want to hear my rant about how broken the HTML grammar is…)
Comment 6/21/2007
To Rick Dement, charm is a critical component for certain positions, sales being a good example. It is unimportant for others.
Right but you can say the same thing about writing so… But charm, in my case, is simply a shorthand for a whole basket of skills that include the ability to convince you that I am much deeper in a technology then I really am. Or better yet that I have a peculiar grasp on how different technologies work together. Fact is that I am fairly broad in all kinds of technologies to the point where, for example, I can pick up how a particular router works even if I have never worked with that particular brand. There is very little you can ask me about that I can’t convince you I am an expert in during the course of an interview or even a series of interviews.
The bottom line is the resume and even the interview process is a crap shoot and the best you can do is eliminate the complete basket cases. Ounce you have don that your playing enie meenie minie moe from among those who came up with a good resume and interview well.
Also the point has been made that most of the time jobs are obtained thought networking where the resume is a bureaucratic afterthought. There are few times when you have to go though the “impersonal” process unless you are big company in boom times. Even that has it’s drawbacks but what are you going to do, life is a crap shoot, welcome to the jackpot economy!!!!
Comment 6/22/2007
Dan M, my inclusion of the
in my comment to you was to imply I was joking. notwithstanding the fact that you demonstrated a lack of meticulousness in your return comment (by blowing the closure tag). Again, I kid.
Rick DeMent, a resume is a writing exercise, yes, but my point is I prefer a resume that is stripped down. Just the facts. This levels the playing field as much as possible with respect to writing skills (assuming I am not hiring a writer - if I am, then the resume style is important).
Concerning the rest of your comment, all I can say is my personal experience in hiring is in direct conflict with your claim that all I can do is eliminate basket cases. My success rate varied depending on the position I was filling - very high success rate for developers (like 90%, and I define a successful hire as someone who becomes a meaningful contributor to the company and stays with us for ten or more years), good success for QA, customer support, tech doc, and IT, and not so good for sales people. I always believed that my inability to ferret out the best sales people was partly due to the fact that, by nature and profession, sale people are better than most at manipulating a conversation. Perhaps this is why sales hiring typically places such a heavy emphasis on past sales results. In any event I am sure you will continue to feel that you are getting screwed by the system, and I will continue to enjoy success identifying and hiring good people.
Comment 6/22/2007
Ted, you’ve missed the primary objection, or at least my primary one:
Resumes work. Exactly the same way spam does. It distributes a large cost to a lot of people, to the benefit of the small number of people (well, entities) who initiate the interaction. Resumes differ a bit from spam in scale (An employer hiring for 5 positions might only solicit 100 resumes, not 1,000,000, but I’m pretty sure that writing a resume is more than 10,000 times as hard as deleting a spam mail. If deleting an email takes 5 seconds, then you only have to spend 14hrs on the resume to just spend as much time, nevermind effort.), but the principle is the same: let the interests of others cause them to spend their effort, for free, getting you your results. Also, it’s quite a lot worse than spam in that the cost of not providing that free labor is a lot larger to a job applicant than that of not cleaning up spam.
Heck, it’s actually standard practice to pay for tools and the work of others to clean up spam. But it is not common to pay for one’s resume to be written. Heck, the people who most need help in making resumes match the work-unrelated demands of employers (Note that they demands are far from arbitrary.) are those who can least afford to do so. Resumes are a rigged system, and the reason you don’t see that as an employer is that you see the cost of false positives, while employees see the cost of false negatives.
Resumes work. At removing the basket cases and the other undesirables. They work for the employer. They do not work for the employee, and that’s especially galling because it’s the employee who does most of the work in the resume-application process.
Comment 6/22/2007
Dan M, yes, I missed your point. Here’s my counterpoint: lots of people spend north of $100,000 and 4 to 8 years to get a college education. In most cases, the primary reason for doing so is so that they can enhance their professional life. That’s work (and cost). Or maybe an illegal alien sells all they have, risks their life, and travels across the border to find employment in the US. That’s work (and cost). Or an athlete trains 15 years in the hope of landing a paying job in his/her sport. That’s work. Spending two hours writing a resume and another hour on a cover letter, plus 42 cents on a stamp (for the occasional non-electronic delivery) - that’s not work. Frankly, if an individual is prone to gripe about the amount of work required to write and submit a resume, then I’d rather they not respond to one of my solicitations. I’m looking for a stronger work ethic than that.
I like to hire dedicated people who figure out how to make things happen. For example, if local, deliver the resume in person and try to set yourself apart that way. If not local, follow up with a phone call and try to get to the hiring manager and let her/him know you sent in your resume and are looking forward to the opportunity to interview.
Also, keep in mind that small businesses employ more people in the US than large corporations. If you can’t handle the stress of writing a resume, look for a position in a small business. It is much easier to draw attention from a small company. But always remember that unless you are going to contribute more than 50% to the overall success of a company, you need them more than they need you. Accept that simple dynamic and make the most of it. Don’t expect them to make things easy for you.
Finally, not that it changes the situation, but understand it is hardly cost-free for a company to fill a position. Advertising the position will cost thousands of dollars. The time spent selecting a candidate will cost thousands more. Bringing in a new employee and getting them trained up will typically cost tens of thousands of dollars. I only mention this because your comment seemed to imply that companies somehow are offloading the cost of filling a position to the applicants. My point is they certainly incur costs as well. As they should.
(Sorry, I’m practicing my speeches for my teenage sons)
Comment 6/23/2007
Ted,
I recognize that I am (unfortunately) an anomaly in that I did not spend buckets of cash on a college education, and did not embark on my pursuit of “higher” education for the purpose of “enhancing my professional life.” While my education-for-education’s sake perspective is a little too fundamentalist to characterize most of the collegiate population, they are closer on certain levels than you may think.
Many students are pushed into college by their parents, and by a (subtle but manufactured) stigma against blue-collar work. Higher education is a sham, at this point. My undergrad, and grad degrees are barely worth the paper they are printed on. Because I never viewed them as a “means to an end” in the first place, it doesn’t matter to me (in that sense, that the “end” is a mirage).
Many students don’t understand the higher education application process, and their choices (encouraged by their parents) come down to price-point, brand-conscious consumerism. So, they graduate in debt, with a poor education, and have to whore themselves out to the highest bidder because they begin the game behind the eight-ball.
A large part of the process that begins with a college education and ends with a resume application is circumstantial. Going to school to “enhance your professional life” is delusion, unless you are going for a narrowly tailored, specified program. The irony is that people who go through programs to train themselves in traditional blue-collar skills, are the ones who are actually going to school to “enhance their professional lives.” Kids go to college to party and get laid, hoping not to flunk out along the ride.
Additionally, potential employees who are hip to the game understand that resume solicitation doesn’t even, necessarily, coincide with job availability. So, yes, two-hours is a big investment if you don’t if there is really even an open position and salary information is withheld, etc.
In Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Bait and Switch,” one of the pieces of advice that career consultants repeat, ad nauseum, is that the job seeker is supposed to treat the search itself as a job. That job is to sell yourself.
Can anybody give me a parallel, where you would be lauded by your company for spending two hours a pop to individually tailor solicitations to organizations you know may know little about, are unaware of how they may compensate you, and are not even aware if the target is even a potential consumer?
You know how that task is handled? Dan M, does, by a spambot, my mail-mergers and form letters. The resume model spits in the face of supposed corporate efficiency, and the employer would never voluntarily enter a similar dynamic in terms of effort/risk/reward, when its money and (wo)manpower was on the line. To argue otherwise is pure cognitive dissonance.
Comment 6/23/2007
Ted, I think you’re still missing the full implication of the claim that the cost is offloaded from the employer to the employee. Again, Dig gets it, but isn’t stressing the point I’m trying to make.
Each one employer offloads the cost of the job selection onto many potential applicants. One of these applicants gets a benefit from the cost they incur. The rest don’t. Moreover, as Dig points out, the applicants get very little information about their expected return, and they have almost no means of affecting that expected return, other than pandering to arcane criteria that generally have nothing to do with the jobs for which they are applying.
It’s spam, and the only reason it’s not prosecuted like spam is that it’s entrenched.
Also, you’re insane if you think most people spend only two hours on their resume.
Comment 6/24/2007