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Quoting Kat Nagel <mlists -at- masterworkconsulting -dot- com>:
> Other stuff, such as my love of cats, mystery novels, and singing
> Renaissance madrigals and motets, I might mention in answering an
> interview question, and twice I've mentioned a hobby in a cover
> letter (the madrigals in a cover letter to a hiring manager who is on
> the board of a local community chorus, and my cats to a recruiter
> whose package of info and forms came with cat hairs decorating
> several of the pages), but I never put them on my resume.
I include a single line of interests as a way to start conversations. It reads:
"Running; raising parrots; punk folk music, history, science fiction and 19th
century novels; Linux"
The interests are carefully chosen to suggest well-roundedness, and to intrigue.
It seems to work. About every second person who reads my resume comments on one
of these items, and I've landed contracts because of "running," "raising
parrots," "punk folk music" and "Linux."
I think that the reason it works is that people are most likely to hire people
whom they like or know. If they can discover something about you that makes you
human, instead of just another interviewee - better yet, if they can discover
that they share an interest with you - then your chances of being hired are
improved.
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