While reading the articles on Resumes there seemed to be a lot of overlapping information and sometimes a lot of disagreements. My favorite article was "A Glimpse and a Hook". The section on the First Pass seemed to sum up the reality of how someone looks at resumes. My favorite part of the article was when the writer said, "Do I know you? Whether I do or not, I’m going to immediately Google you to see if I should. Oh, you have a web blog. Excellent.". After reviewing this quote I thought that it made a lot of sense because recently resume reviewers have been using the internet to find out about an applicant's past. There have been multiple articles in Purdue's Exponent about the dangers in having too much information on Facebook that may affect getting a job. The simplest thing as an internet search can be more powerful than an official background check.
Overall, all of the articles and the information in Chapter 8 of the Thomson Handbook give great information in editing a resume. The majority of things that differentiate in the readings are the formatting styles (Skills or Objective Section), the GPA minimum to put on a resume, and keywords for scanable resumes. In “A Glimpse and a Hook” the writer shares that the skills section of a resume should be omitted. After reading the other articles, it seems like each person’s resume should be different in some way. If a person has more volunteer experience or extracurricular activities the format of the resume can alter drastically. But when following the suggestions for making a resume, using a unique format might not be a good idea. In Douglas Richardson’s “Skeptical Resume Reader Tells How He Really Thinks”, he explains that writing with an extensive vocabulary will not make you stand out from others. Making a resume unique might always be the best idea. In summing up the readings, it seems like that there are a lot of Do’s and Don’ts to making a resume but they must be followed to get the “Dream Job”.
Playing to your strengths
I definitely agree that our readings give us some conflicting advice about preparing resumes, and some of it we'll just have to disregard. I think one important thing to take away from the readings is that it's probably a good idea to play to your strengths, whatever they might be. I think you want to select and arrange material to cast you in the best light, even if it goes against one of the recommendations from the readings. Ultimately, it seems like the worst thing is to get lost in the shuffle. What you want to do is stand out in a positive way. Of course, you have to be sensitive to what the job ad wants, hence doing your analysis and working in specific key words from the ad. However, you probably don't want to try and completely reinvent yourself each time. There must be areas where each of us is stronger and weaker. What you want to do then is give the reader what you think he or she wants, but try to create a narrative that plays to your strengths. Selecting and arranging material in the resume is one major way to do this, but the cover letter is also a great place to construct a strong narrative about what you would bring to this particular position.
background check
I also enjoyed the part about employee background checks via Google. Employers now have a very easy way to find a lot of information about their prospective employees. I know people that were applying to jobs , med school, or grad school and they completely deleted their Facebook profiles, leaving only their contact information. They knew that they were going to be searched and prepared for it. I think this is the smart thing to do, it’s hard enough writing a proper resume, we don’t need other things working against us. We wouldn’t want our future employer seeing incriminating photos of us now would we? I mean, look at Michael Phelps… zing!
More Privacy!
Oh Google, we would just use Yahoo! if it were not for you. It seems that the internet is a blessing and a curse. When applying for a job it can be a curse. With all of us being connected it seems we have less privacy than we once did. Some of us fail to realize that other people have access to our personal information via Facebook, Myspace, blogs, or any other source that lists your personal information. Many of us should, if you haven’t already, maximize your privacy settings. It can help you in the long run when you apply for jobs.
Jeff
I'm online?
So I know everyone warns about employers Googling your name to find dirt on you, but I have tried and come up empty every time. Maybe they are better at it than I am but this has always been the least of my concerns. I remember when I had a web page made for Engr 290, I couldn’t find that thing no matter how hard I tried. And trust me I tried because I could never remember the web address. For this reason I don’t think that a large majority of employers actually try to find most of us online. For those of us that haven’t had much internet exposure, it is largely a waste of their time.
Finding information on
Finding information on someone online really depends on which sites that info is on, and how smart you are about it. Much of the information on a facebook profile is unavailable to someone who is not your “friend”, but if some are unintelligent enough to accept a friend from their possible employer, and they don’t at least clean their profile. These unintelligent people don’t get any sympathy from me; if someone isn’t smart enough to clean up after themselves then they don’t deserve a position! Sites that are easily indexed by search engines, such as blogs and forums, are much more vulnerable to these infamous Google searches.
www.JFlitt.com
Tertiary Audiences
Jason,
You really capture the issue of teritary audiences here. Sites like Facebook are intended for the primary audience we call our friends and family. Some individuals fail to recognize, as you rightly point out, that are many tertiary audiences patroling the internet for such content.
Google? Really?
I remember coming across the article "A Glimpse and a Hook" and reading about recruiters searching for applicants’ names on Google. I find this hardly effective. On average how many people have concrete information on them through Google? In addition, how much of that information found can be useful? Facebook and other social networks offer security settings typically for predator abuse. I use mine for recruiters and may I suggest to everyone to eliminate the photo section of their Facebook account or untag the accumulated pictures of the last four or five years of college. My point is that a Google search seems impractical.