I found chapter 15, “Starting Your Career,” to be very interesting. At this point, I haven’t had much experience with job-searches. My job-searching has consisted of random applications in high school and distributing resumes at job fairs in college. After reading this chapter it seems that things won’t always be this easy. While I have had experience writing a resume, I hadn’t put much thought into tailoring my resume to suit each potential employer. This chapter helped me to realize that a job-search requires more than just a list of accomplishments on a piece of paper, and gave many tips that I will use in preparing my employment project. In the past, I expanded on all of my previous experience when writing a resume, regardless of it’s relevance to the job I was applying for. In the future, however, I will mention these things briefly, but mainly focus on the areas that would be useful in that particular field. I had also not given any thought to creating a professional portfolio in the past, but I now realize that it is something that would be good to start as soon as possible.
The resumes that I have previously written were somewhat directed toward certain jobs, but I never thought about the person who would be potentially reviewing the application. Most of the jobs I have applied for had one person in charge of hiring, which would have made it easy to gear the resume toward my primary audience. Now I realize that my future resumes, being sent to larger companies, will require attention to my gatekeeping audience as well as the primary audience. It will also be important to keep the ethical and political contexts of my potential employer in mind. One statement could mean the difference between an interview and having a resume thrown out with the rest of the stack.
One other thing that I found interesting was the fact that employers are turned off by resumes built off of templates. I am guilty of doing this, as I thought employers would prefer a typical layout that would make it easier for them to find the information they were most interested in. It makes sense now though, that employers looking at endless piles of resumes would be discouraged by seeing the same thing over and over again. This chapter helped me to realize that it takes that little bit of extra effort to get my resume past the first round so that it will actually be read by someone who has the potential to offer an interview.
Response
I feel the same way about the whole resume situation. I basically made a generalized resume following similar traits to the templates you can find in word. I never thought about any other people reading it beside the primary audience. Although like you said, I have never really given my resume to any big companies that screen them first. When I applied to my current summer job I just gave my resume to the operations manager directly and did not have to give it to any “gatekeeper” type person. I have also sent resumes to a few larger companies at a job far but did not know the information given in the reading to tailor it to satisfy each companies needs. In the future I will try to do a better job of doing this.
Bobby
Reply
Up until this year, my job hunting experience was much the same as yours. I just went to a few of the career fairs and handed out generalized resumes. That worked in getting me my first internship and once I had experience I was able to make a much better resume. Also I have started searching online for jobs and looking at Purdue's CCO. It was amazing the number of jobs I found, but since anyone with an internet access can apply for those jobs, it shows how important making a resume is. I liked the points you and the reading brought up about not using a straight template and how it will help your resume stand out in the crowd.
Patrick Griffin
pgriffin@purdue.edu