English 420Y - Business Writing Online

This was definitely something new and I’m glad I got the opportunity to do an activity like this. Having gone through more than 30 resumes in less than 10 minutes, it gave me a better perspective of what employers endure when looking for a solid, qualified candidate. Now I can see why employers spend about 15 to 30 seconds on each resume, it is very time consuming.

Going through all these resumes at once was tough, at first I wasted a lot of time, but then in the middle I started skipping the ones that didn’t appear pleasant to the eye and also it was hard to find the information in the given time. After going through these resumes I am not amazed at the minor specifications that the employer looks for. It takes a lot of time and effort to go through those 300- 500 resumes that the companies get every year as applications for the available job.

Since I only had ten minutes to go over 34 resumes, I focused on the organization and objective of the resume. It wasn’t an easy job to go over in that short time. I could imagine employers going through numerous resumes by almost just flipping each page. I realized that it got to have something outstands than others to give strong impression. When I went over the resumes, I focused on first how well it was organized and I took more time to read ones that had a clear objective combing purpose and ability of the writer.

Looking at the resumes initially took me a lot of time. Now I can really understand how it feels to go through tons of them. I mean, to read through them carefully and to pick out the best one can be really painful. The first thing that I saw in the resume was the structure of the resume and the work experience. I mean if the resume looked too squished or difficult to read then I would skip the resume. I also saw the level of important and relevance of the material. If the above points seemed ok then I would go ahead and read the resume carefully.

This activity was very interesting to me because it helped me understand what employers many times do. We only had to go through about thirty five resumes so I can only imagine going through at least hundreds. It would take a large amount of time to go through and read every detail on the resume. When I was going through the resumes the first thing that I looked at was the organization of the resume. If I felt that it was difficult to read or a little hard to understand I usually just skipped over it. I then looked at the content of the page.

This is the resume extravaganza activity. Open the file below, and read through all the resumes in no more than 10 minutes. As you read, pay attention to where you are looking on the resumes and how you are evaluating them. Choose 5 people you would call for an interview at a hypothetical company. In a blog entry tagged with the "Resume extravaganza" tag, list those five (by page number) and discuss the activity. What aspects of the resumes stood out? Why did you choose the 5 you did? How will this activity inform your own resume revision?