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Re: Having fun with your resume - good idea/bad idea
Subject:Re: Having fun with your resume - good idea/bad idea From:Tony Chung <tonyc -at- tonychung -dot- ca> To:TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>, Milan Davidović <milan -dot- lists -at- gmail -dot- com> Date:Thu, 6 Sep 2012 10:00:22 -0700
On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 9:21 AM, Milan Davidović <milan -dot- lists -at- gmail -dot- com>wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 12:13 PM, Tony Chung <tonyc -at- tonychung -dot- ca> wrote:
> > Lack of jobs, increased unemployment, shotgun approach to targeting
> resumes
> > by desperate people who can't afford the time to design a warm fuzzy
> > experience for every employer, as some of those resumes won't even be
> read.
>
> I might be missing something in your answer: based on the arguments
> presented, such resumes shouldn't even result in getting interviewed,
> much less hired. But the very length of such resumes ("I received
> several resumes that were 8-10 pages long, and included every contact
> writing assignment they'd worked at for the last 20+ years") suggests
> otherwise. How do you think that happens?
>
The excuse for a long resume due to lack of time to craft short one: Blaise
Pascal, or some other writer, attribution not clear.
The candidate assumes that their experience as shown on multiple pages will
wow the employer. I'm pretty impressed with the number of published works
many people on techwr-l list on their sites. By sending out the same resume
to several employers, the odds of one of them biting are good enough to
continue the practice. The candidate saves time and still gets a job. When
the candidate commits to the shotgun approach, it works to secure A JOB.
Any job.
Another possible reality (no data to verify this) is that an employer who
hires this level of experience probably won't pay the market rate for it.
The unwritten understanding is that the candidate is used to rejection and
will take just about anything.
So now my resume is on a QR Code. ;-)
-Tony
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