Rhetoric, Technology, Culture Spring 2011

Hey Kristen! What a great podcast – really interesting! I’m with you, job searching, resume sending, and cover letter writing is tough, and sometimes seems pointless. I feel, sometimes, that my C.V. never reaches anyone and simply gets lost in the shuffle.

Yet to argue with your point a little, I can’t think of another way for headhunters and job seekers to find candidates. I agree that a C.V. is limiting, but we can surely think that bosses are going to look at every applicant’s website. Even the applicants they like. I, of course, would love it if they did, but I don’t think that is realistic. It would seem to take too long. In many ways, I think that a C.V. gets right to the point: here is what I’ve done, my education, and my awards. A lot of companies – though I’m not speaking for the teaching field – simply look at GPA and work experience to see if they’re going to invite that applicant to an interview. The interview is where, it seems, it matters – where an administrator can ask specific questions, see who you are, and develop a relationship with you. How one gets to the interview is what I think your point is. While I agree that a C.V. tells little about who I am, I am not quite sure if there is another, quicker means.

I guess to argue against my point a bit, maybe we could develop website or blogs that – like a C.V. – get right to the point, but present our information and techniques in a manner that make us (who we are) stand out. Like a C.V., if a recruiter doesn’t like our website or blog in a matter of minutes, they can just move on to the next. That is a point to consider.

Yet my initial response is not to sound hopeless or that I haven’t thought this through; yet, when I think more and more about it (and I’ve puzzled over your podcast for sometime now), I can’t think of another means to replace the C.V.. In this time, a recruiter probably gets 400 plus candidates for every job. For simply the sake of time and labor, a C.V. seems to be the best alternative. Are C.V.’s not showing recruiters the real candidate and what he/she can perform? Of course. But, at the same time, you the candidate are not getting a full idea of the job that you are asking for by simply the job posting. In that sense, it seems that it’s a two way street.

With that, while I agree with you 100% that C.V.’s are limiting, they do on the large scale, however, present what I think is vital information for recruiters to see if you deserve the next step in the process. Thus, while I agree that we should always do things outside the C.V. – such as, networking, cold calling, website, blogs, articles, etc. – I can’t think of how recruiting would work without it.

Maybe that’s just me. Let me know what you think – I’m very interested.

Steve