English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

After going over the readings one of my major beliefs about resumes was reaffirmed. That is the fact that nothing beats quantifiable data. This was most apparent in “A Glimpse and a Hook” in which the person looking over resumes described his process. When looking over a resume he says that he concentrates on job history, interests, and schooling and does not look at the professional objective, skills, and summary of qualifications. He also states that cover letters are useless. He (or she) wants the obvious truths about your life to get that quick picture of who you are. He focuses more on specific quantifiable data. This certainly reminds me of writing for awards in the air force and is a lot like cutting through the superfluous words. So it would seem to me that writing a resume for someone such as this depends most upon what you have actually done with your life up to that point. The factor that you actually control on your resume (how its made) is secondary.

The readings also made me think about what is the most important about how your resume is made. Before, I thought it was how you defined yourself and the style of writing in the resume. However, after reading “A Glimpse and a Hook," "Instructor Blog #2: Resumes," and “Skeptical Resume Reader Tells How He Really Thinks” I believe that the most important factor that the writer actually controls is the physical layout of the resume. Both reviewers state the absolute importance that a resume be easily able to be scanned. Some advice that I will try to keep with me is to revert the entire document back to normal, plain text with no alterations (bold, underline, etc.) then see if you can still easily differentiate the sections and pick out the important information that needs to be read. Surviving the scan seems to be one of the most important things about the resume and, luckily, it is an area where a good applicant can make a big impact.