From: scott@asd.com (Scott Barman)
Subject: Re: Advice from a hiring manager on resumes
Followup-To: misc.jobs.misc
Keywords: Advice
Organization: American Software Development Corp., West Babylon, NY
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 19:30:18 GMT

The original was in misc.jobs.offered.  I am replying to misc.jobs.misc
since this is where it belongs.

In article <1992Nov19.212436.14561@netcom.com> afisher@netcom.com (Alan Fisher) writes:
>(I am not sure where else to post this.  My apologies if this is the
>wrong bboard.  Also, this advice is my opinion.  Other managers may
>look at it differently.)

A hiring manager who doesn't even understand what is going on here.
Just a small flame:  this is not a "bboard" but a newsgroup.  This and
the method of choosing which newsgroup to post something like this to is
outlined in various postings in news.announce.newusers.  As someone
whose been around since before the great renaming, this is just a pet
peeve that bothers me when someone tries to give advice in the wrong
place.

>I have seen hundreds of resumes in the past few months and can't believe how
>poor the resumes look like.  I am not talking about the qualifications of a
>person --- just the formatting and the amount of useless stuff on the resumes.
>Here are some very very simple things to do:

I just went through the resumes that I received for our last two job
offerings (about a year ago).  I have seen some problems, but I don't
think they are as Mr.  Fisher writes here.

>1.  Read your resume after you write it.  I can't believe how many incomplete
>sentences or spelling mistakes there are on the resumes.  If English is not
>your first language (like me), have somebody else proofread the resume.

First of all, if you read any of the "how to" resume writing books, they
explain that you should never write your experiences in the first person.
For the most part, I have no problems with it.  Maybe since English is
my first language and that I have a technical resume myself I understood
basically what was being said in the resumes.  What should be watched
are awkward sentences.  I found this problem more so with those who
English was not a first language.  Experiences stated clearly are always
best, no matter how they are written.

>2.  If you are sending your resume by e-mail, make sure each line of he resume
>does NOT exceed 80 characters.  I am not going to sit here  and reformat your 
>resume.

Agreed.  I think I discarded 20% of the resumes sent to me because I
could not put up with the formatting.  Also, if someone asks to send
ASCII resumes only, then the sender *should* strip out things like
emboldening and underlines with those long strings of backspaces.  This
can get annoying to the reader who may not want to print every email
resume s/he sees.

>The underlying theme of the following points is:
>	Don't state the obvious or the useless
>	
>3. 95 percent of resumes have the following objective:
>	I am looking for a CHALLENGING position in .....

I always ignored the OBJECTIVE because I know what it says: "Here is my
bullsh*t to show you that I am conscientious, go getter who you should
hire and pay big bucks for."  Many of those I have read I have chuckled
over.  This is a non-issue for me.

>4. 70% of resumes include hobbies and other outside interests.  Unless you are
>world class material in one or more sports or some other extra-curricular
>activity, this is a waste of space and waste of my time scanning through the
>resumes.

This is true, I couldn't give a rat's tail about what your outside
interests are.  My concern is weather or not you have the experiences
that may allow you to do the job for me.  As long as you are not doing
anything illegal that might affect you work performance (I once hired
someone who turn out to be a rapist!) I don't care if you like
underwater basket weaving!

>5. Every resume contains "References furnished on request".  Again a waste of
>space.  I assume references will be furnished if I ask for them.  
>Why state the obvious?

Stating the obvious is not the problem I have.  Too many times people
are not prepared to supply these names and numbers.  Why are people
applying for jobs if they do not have their references lined up?  Get
this together BEFORE you start to send out resumes so that when the
hiring manager asks, we do not here the proverbial, "um... ahh... I'll
have to get back to you."  IMHO, it makes you look bad.

>6. In the software resumes I look at, I always see the lines like the 
>following:
>
>Languages:  C, C++, BASIC, Pascal, Ada, Lisp, CommonLisp, SNOBOL, PL/I, COBOL, 
>ALGOL, Make, SED, YACC, LEX, blah, blah, blah
>
>Systems: IBM PC, Macintosh, IBM 360, HP 9000, VAX 8820/VMS V5.5-1,
>SUN Sparcstation/SunOS 4.1, SGI/IRIS Release 4.0.1 System V, 
>NeXTStation/Mach 2.1, IBM PC/MINIX 1.3, CP/M, Osborne,.....
>	
>I can't believe people write every language and system that they have ever
>touched and glanced at in the hopes that somebody somewhere might look at it
>and immediately pick up the phone and call them.  Either you are the Jack of
>all and master of none   or   you just couldn't stick to one thing long
>enough to be proficient in it.

This is the fault of headhunters everywhere.  In my first resumes I did
not do this but found that the headhunters do it all the time with the
information they get from talking with you.  I once asked a headhunter
to stop doing this and was told that this was their s.o.p. and if I
wanted the interviews to not argue about it.  So now it is part of mine.
Mr. Fisher suggest that you write your most proficient.  That has merrit
but I would like to see what you've done.  You should put your best
experiences first.  I do not want to see "SunOS" as the first items of
"Systems" if you've been programming an SGI or H-P for the last three
years.  Let's put it this way, if you list it, I will ask about it and
you better show you know something about it or I will go through the
other 500-or-so resumes and find someone else.

>Also, I assume that if you know one or two languages, and you are any good,
>you will be able to pick up anything new that comes along.

Not necessarily!  You want to talk about some mainframe-oriented resumes
I've seen?!

>The next two points are related to cover letters.  If there is a cover
>letter, I always read it first.  If I don't like the cover letter, I 
>don't even read the resume.

Gee... I read the resume before I read the cover letter.  I used to
attach the cover letter behind the resume and only refer to it if
necessary (which almost always is never).  Unless you have something to
say, ditch the cover letter. If I am hiring and I have to wade through
300-500 resumes, I want to see relevance, not the fluff that a cover
letter brings.  If your resume is solid and so is your experience, the
only time you really need a cover letter is if you are responding to an
ad with more than one job listing.  Oh, and I laugh at cover letters on
"colored" paper.  I knew the people submitting resumes with cover
letters on lavender and blue paper were trying to get noticed.  They
did, both were found in my folder marked "REJECT" (for reasons other
than the paper they used).

>10.  Leave lots of open space on your resume.  I'd rather see a one page
>resume than a two page one.  And I'd rather see a clean resume that touches
>on the highlights than a resume that does not have any space wasted and
>mentions every system and language that you ever heard of regardless of
>whether you even wrote a single line of code in it or not.

This person sounds like he's out of some stuck-up management school and
not in the real world of computing where the average has been to hold a
job 18 months-to-three years.  If you ask for a resume of a person whose
been doing this for ten years with four or five previous jobs, it is
almost impossible to get it all on one page unless that person uses a
smaller font.  As I get older my eyes are not what they use to be.  I do
not think to kindly of resumes typeset with smaller than 10 point font. 
As a concession to this, I don't mind two or three page resumes.  In
fact, I would rather see two-or-three page resumes that are solid since
these are the most experienced people.

In addition to the 10 point typesize, try to limited yourself to the
number of fonts you used to ONE basic font and use its corresponding
bold for headers (if that's what you want) and italics for whatever
needs to be italicized.  Some studies have shown that fonts with serifs
(if you do not know what a serif is, they are the little tails hanging
off the ends of letters) are better for the eyes.  After reading a pile
of resumes, I've found this to be so true.  Try to pick a clean font.  I
personally like the Times fonts, but as long as it is readable, I don't
care.

>Remember the goal of a resume is to get a phone interview.  The resume
>is not supposed to be your complete life history whether relevant or not to
>the position you are applying for.  It is supposed to stand out from the
>other resumes not bore the reader to death with useless information.

Gee... I thought a resume was supposed to give one's relavant professional
history so the hiring manager can see if you have the experiences
necessary to fit the job requirements?  I guess I need to trim all those
expereinces off of mine so it looks like everyone elses... NOT!  You are
asking for a page of fluff.  Give me some meat and potatoes and I will
consider if you fit my requirements, even if it takes two pages and you
don't submit a cover letter.

>---and again please don't forget to read your own resume.  You won't believe
>how many spelling miskates you made or incomplete sentences you

Spelling mistakes are inexcusable (although I've probably made plenty in
this posting).  For the rest, see above.
-- 
scott barman			| <This space intentionally left blank>
scott@asd.com			|
 (I can barely speak for myself, you expect me to speak for my employer??)