Like many of the other responses, I too was a bit shocked by the amount of time that is spent on reviewing résumés. It’s a bit discouraging knowing that even after spending countless hours perfecting a résumé, it might only be looked at for forty seconds. None the less, résumés are not going away soon, so with this knowledge, it is imperative to create a résumé that earns it extra attention.
I felt that A Glimpse and a Hook and Douglas Richardson’s article, Skeptical Résumé Reader Tells How He Really Thinks, were the most blunt and in your face of the articles. At the same time, I felt that the content of these articles were more beneficial than the other articles. Early on in the reading, Douglas Richardson states, “Of the hundreds of résumés that cross my desk, I read—I mean really read—less than half”. My first thought was wow; this guy is reading less than half of the résumés that he receives. Then I felt some sympathy for him, I couldn’t imagine having to read through hundreds of résumés. While it is his job to read them, after reading thousands of them, I am sure he now recognizes patterns that characterize poor résumés. He then went on to discuss various techniques to help guarantee that your résumé is one of the ones he reads. One suggestion that I found very interesting was from A Glimpse and a Hook. This suggestion was to not include a cover letter. In the past, I feel that I have spent more time tailoring these cover letters for the respective companies, than I have on my actual résumé. I just hope that at least some of the companies that required these actually read them.
Hearing that your hard work is not going to get the amount of attention you’d like it to, is always hard. The only thing that we can do to help overcome this is to craft our résumés to help gain them extra attention. All in all, these articles provided a realistic look into recruiting methods, as well as various approaches to help increase the amount of attention a résumé receives.
Cover Letter
Having a cover letter I think is beneficial. I am sure cover letters are read by the HR personal, not necessarily all of them. Besides this is one HR representative’s opinion. This is a letter that is tailored and pointed directly at the company. I believe presenting a cover letter helps by showing an extra interest rather than just submitting a resume. Also, having a cover letter in detail explaining the benefits and experience that you have that isn’t portrayed on a resume. When it comes down to it, having a cover letter may be the key factor that awards you a job. The worst thing that can happen is that it’s thrown away.
Zebulon Rouse
Opinions
After reading the statement made by Douglas Richardson “Of the hundreds of résumés that cross my desk, I read—I mean really read—less than half” I too was a little shocked. Because of the amount that he has to sift through I am sure like you said that it becomes easy for him to recognize the poor résumés. This weeks reading response has done a good job of showing different viewpoints on resumes and has also shown that everyone has their own opinion. Being able to feed your reader what they are looking for takes an individual approach for each application.