After years of resistance I finally broke down and updated all of my resumes to lead with the gold-standard boilerplate phrase "[such-and-such-tool] with a proven track record of results."
Not too long after that I read a Yahoo! feature by Liz Ryan a "25-year HR veteran" claiming that such phrases are now old-hat and will "kill" my resume. She went on to suggest that one might add a "human voice" to the resume.
Well god dammit. A twenty-five year "human resources" veteran, I assume, is part of the same crowd that has been telling us for years to bleed all the humanity out of our resumes, to load them up with strings of boilerplate phrases – dim, dry, cog-and-wheel, third-person sentence fragments that light up my MS Word document like a Christmas tree.
Ignore once. Ignore once. Ignore once.
Who are these HR professionals? Worse than marketing professionals. What a racket.
These are the same people that cannot help us find a good English word for resume, cannot help us know whether it should be spelled with one, two or no accented e's. English don't got no accents yo – the French can keep 'em. CV? Hell that's an acronym for a cryptic phrase in Latin – a dead language that the British ought to keep to themselves.
These are the same people who complained when Craigslist started charging to place job postings: "They want us to pay for the ads but then we get a ka-zillion unqualified applicants." Duh. It's called the internet. The World-Wide-Web. Was it really such a great idea to make it impossible for me to walk around the city with my twice-folded help-wanted classifieds circled in red, briefcase-and-resume, tie-and-jacket? No phone calls please. Apply online.
Now you've got the ease of automation drowning in a glut of unqualified applicants who happen to know a few handy keyboard shortcuts. Smooth.
Now I'm totally afraid to write my resume opener with complete sentences, in first person, as I would naturally choose to do if left to my own ingenuity. What if it's too personal? Can someone please tell me what I am supposed to do?
Yeah, the apply online stuff is awful. For the job I finally landed when I was looking, I broke all of the "rules" at the interview. I was late, it was the only one I didn't wear a suit, I leaned back in the chair instead of sitting upright. So, you never know what will set you apart. On the resume, I guess the way I would go is keep the actual resume impersonal, but the cover letter very human. Also, a trick I thought of was to use paper for your resume that is just a little bit bigger and stiffer then a normal sheet of paper, the HR person will find they will have to keep giving it special treatment when stacking it, shuffling it around, or filing it.
good grief.
just be yourself.
after all, who says the experts are REALLY experts, anyways?
don't let them paraylze you.
When was the last time I wrote my resume. Can't remember... maybe 6, 7 years ago.
Your resume... make it short, simple and basic. Do not introduce and explain yourself in every details, let them curious about you... and contact you to answer their curiosity.
Gosh, I read the same article this week.. I was so annoyed because I keep using expressions like "excellent oral and written communication skills" and that specifically was targeted. I think the key in your cover letter is to refer to your skills indirectly, not in a straightforward list.
For example, I revised my oral/written skill sentence to say "I'm a student at Baruch College seeking a BA in Literature, a field of study that develops extensive written and oral communication skills." To talk about what I know to do on the computer, I say "At my previous job, I filed, created business reports, updated records using Microsoft Excel and Word, and gleaned information about clients on Lexus Nexis." This may not look that good, and hey i'm no HR manager, but that's what i do.
Thanks all for coming by and offering your thoughts – you make my silly rant worth the writing of it.
@interstellarmachine - That's a great anecdote. Always good to remember there is no system.
@ehrinn_l - My point exactly. I think these people are just making stuff up.
@RestlessButterfly - I like your insights. Simple has always been my strategy.
@nyclegodesi24 - My understanding was that the cover letter was precisely the device to use for shining through a bit, and that the resume ought to be more like "just the facts," especially since resumes are supposedly being scanned by software that flags resumes for human review based on some algorithmic formula that looks for keywords, and also that the decision makers don't give hoot about my self-aggrandizing, arrogant tone. The article we read flies in the face of that, and makes me wonder, next, what shall I do with the cover letter then? Print it on sparkly paper or something?
@dirtbubble - yeah, i don't know man. these times are crazy. i just want to be a farmer now.
Comments (10)
Yeah, the apply online stuff is awful. For the job I finally landed when I was looking, I broke all of the "rules" at the interview. I was late, it was the only one I didn't wear a suit, I leaned back in the chair instead of sitting upright. So, you never know what will set you apart. On the resume, I guess the way I would go is keep the actual resume impersonal, but the cover letter very human. Also, a trick I thought of was to use paper for your resume that is just a little bit bigger and stiffer then a normal sheet of paper, the HR person will find they will have to keep giving it special treatment when stacking it, shuffling it around, or filing it.
good grief.
just be yourself.
after all, who says the experts are REALLY experts, anyways?
don't let them paraylze you.
When was the last time I wrote my resume. Can't remember... maybe 6, 7 years ago.
Your resume... make it short, simple and basic. Do not introduce and explain yourself in every details, let them curious about you... and contact you to answer their curiosity.
Gosh, I read the same article this week.. I was so annoyed because I keep using expressions like "excellent oral and written communication skills" and that specifically was targeted. I think the key in your cover letter is to refer to your skills indirectly, not in a straightforward list.
For example, I revised my oral/written skill sentence to say "I'm a student at Baruch College seeking a BA in Literature, a field of study that develops extensive written and oral communication skills." To talk about what I know to do on the computer, I say "At my previous job, I filed, created business reports, updated records using Microsoft Excel and Word, and gleaned information about clients on Lexus Nexis." This may not look that good, and hey i'm no HR manager, but that's what i do.
Thanks all for coming by and offering your thoughts – you make my silly rant worth the writing of it.
@interstellarmachine - That's a great anecdote. Always good to remember there is no system.
@ehrinn_l - My point exactly. I think these people are just making stuff up.
@RestlessButterfly - I like your insights. Simple has always been my strategy.
@nyclegodesi24 - My understanding was that the cover letter was precisely the device to use for shining through a bit, and that the resume ought to be more like "just the facts," especially since resumes are supposedly being scanned by software that flags resumes for human review based on some algorithmic formula that looks for keywords, and also that the decision makers don't give hoot about my self-aggrandizing, arrogant tone. The article we read flies in the face of that, and makes me wonder, next, what shall I do with the cover letter then? Print it on sparkly paper or something?
@dirtbubble - yeah, i don't know man. these times are crazy. i just want to be a farmer now.
you got that right.
@complicatedlight - Thanks for the rec!
i'm honored. thank you.