JST/HNAR - Part Whatever: "I've lost count"

I think my initial attempts to sort of structure this into categories has long since fallen by the wayside, so until I figure out how to tag this thing, I'm not going to worry it. The lack of common sense I witness daily is too monolithic to slap a label onto (until, of course, I figure out the labels).

Anyway, today's resume tidbit, from candidate's "Work Experience" section (identifying details, obviously, altered to protect...well, actually, me. I could get fired for this stuff):

"Big Nameless University - August 2006
Research Assistant

Big Tech Company - January 2005
Job Offer

Another Tech Company - April 2000 - April 2001
Head Widget Counter"

So I was going to continue reading when in my head I heard that overused sound effect of needle scratching on record. (The record playing, incidentally, was "The Girl from Ipanema Goes to Greenland" but really that's neither here nor there.)

Let's back up a minute. This candidate lists a JOB OFFER under her WORK EXPERIENCE?

(And let me clarify: based on her recent position as Research Assistant, you might be thinking that this is some recent college grad just finishing her bachelor's and her enthusiasm to include a JOB OFFER under her WORK EXPERIENCE should be excused as we would excuse her sparkly nail polish and pen with fluffy maribou on the end. But no! This is a person who has been in the real-live work force with real-live professional positions for almost 15 years.)

And not only does she list a JOB OFFER under her WORK EXPERIENCE (which is, effectively, like saying someone grabbed your ass once so you are good in bed), she lists a JOB OFFER under her WORK EXPERIENCE (no, I'm not going to stop shouting it) in the midst of a FOUR YEAR GAP in professional experience.

Now, if she had just left the gap there alone (or maybe inserting some demure comment about taking time off for schooling or family or world travel or volunteer work or whatever), I wouldn't have thought twice about it. Well, I mean, I WOULD have thought twice, I am paid to think twice. But I would NOT have thought she was a loon.

But she included a JOB OFFER in her WORK EXPERIENCE (that's the last one) so now I just think she is a loon. DELETED.

Actual Unfortunate Names, Episode Two

The names off some recent resumes have me a little puzzled.

Q: Why would you name your child either Lucifer or Little?

My Only A: Because you didn't want to have a child and you resent him for existing?

I mean, for reals. Why would you do that? Apple and Moses Paltrow-Martin would hear these names and run and kiss their parents for not being THAT cruel.

Poor little Lucifer better learn how to fight - and quick.

And poor little Little...well, he needs to learn how to fight, too, but he also better hope against hope that he grows up to be 6 foot plus, 250 lbs of muscle and...um...well, otherwise not-so-little, if you know what I mean, wink wink nudge nudge. Or else I see a lifetime of reeeeaaaalllllly ugly break-ups in his future, as the future ex-girlfriends already have a head start on nasty parting comments.

Not so much an unfortunate name...

...but do you think a candidate with the first name "Wanwan" has to sit through endless meetings with a tight smile as people make terrible puns about "wan-wan solutions?"

Or is it just me that makes the terrible puns?

I'm deeply ashamed of myself, Reader, I'm sorry. I'll do better.

Are you [redacted] kidding me?

From a recent e-mail (emphasis added to highlight the gumption. The gumption!!!)

"Hello Ill-Suited,

I'm currently in the job market looking for a [redacted]related job. I've seen some posting on BigJobBoard for Big Nameless Corporation. Please assist in finding an opening position that fits my previous work experience. Attached is a copy of my resume."

Sure.

Right after I stop by to pick up your dry-cleaning. Do you need me to wipe your ass for you while I'm over?

(*Delicately mopping beads of righteous indignation from brow.*)

OK, let me explain something to you.

I appreciate how difficult it might be for you to keep it in your pants when you see a real live luscious e-mail address associated with a posting for a company you want to work for.

And I also appreciate you might not have the qualifications for the particular position posted but don't want to pass up the opportunity to use that lovely little e-mail address.

All right then, fine. But if you are going to send this kind of message, please try to remember what makes the world go 'round - namely:

What's in it for me?

Why should I assist you with finding a job? We've already established you're not going to help me fill the position that I DO have advertised.

Should I just assist you out of the goodness of my heart? Well, I DON'T HAVE ONE. Or, I do, but it's black and shrivelled, so scratch that as an option.

Maybe I have other, unadvertised positions that you might be a fit for? Or a counterpart who is looking for someone with your background?

OK then, SAY THAT. Maybe, Forrest Gumption, you are thinking, "Well, isn't that implied? I mean, isn't a candidate with any common sense really thinking that when he/she sends such a message?"

Yes. A candidate with any common sense WOULD be thinking that. The thrust of this entire blog, however, is that common sense is a quality is shockingly absent from many candidates. So at this point, if you do not actively demonstrate your common sense, a recruiter is most likely not going to assume you have it.

So SPELL OUT why on earth I should take the five minutes from my already over-scheduled workday to carefully read your resume and ponder which other positions you might be a fit for rather than just sending you to DO THE SAME DAMN THING on the company's website.

Another thought: howsabout telling me you have a colleague who IS a good fit for the job I have advertised and that you are going to alert them to this opportunity? Oh, and NOW can I help you find another position that might be good for you?

Well, NOW, I actually am feeling charitable. Helpful. Happy to review your resume and do you a solid as you just did for me.

HAPPY [REDACTED] MONDAY!!!

"Too good to pass up."

This is what a candidate's e-mail subject line told me he was.

Oh, reeeeaaaaallllly? (All my Contrary Mary hackles are fluffed.)

Look, kids, I know that when you got your MBA from www.MBAs-fer-U!.com, they told you about marketing yourself and yada yada yada.

But seriously. "Too good to pass up"? What are you, a zero percent interest rate on the last of the 'o6 models?

Well, you might be too good to pass up, but you are not too good for this.

Again: email? Still free.

So please for the love of all that is right and good in the world...during the job-seeking process DO NOT use your address containing the phrase "Meltz in Yo Mouth" with (wait for it) the number 69 stuck in there for good measure.

And, if you DID have the good sense to leave it off your resume...if I am in the process of phone screening you, and ask you for your e-mail address, JUST LIE. LIE and tell me you need to set one up and then go set up an innocuous sounding account on yahoo or hotmail or whatever and call me back. Please please please DO NOT start spelling out your e-mail address containing the phrase "Meltz in Yo Mouth" + 69 to me over the phone because I already took one shower today and now I need to go take another.

Skeeved! (*Shudder!*)

I'm a little envious...

...that I don't have any stories for you at quite this level of...well, sorry to be biting Gawker, but there's really no other words to describe this but douchebaggery.

So it is written; so it shall be done.

On Friday, I spoke thusly:

"This week TRULY put the 'ill' in ill-suited."

And so of course now I am actually truly ill.

Nevertheless, no rest for those who are paid hourly and don't get sick time, so still recruiting. But what little energy my tiny mitochondria are able to squeeze out is completely taken up by the simply completing my tasks, so I have nothing left over with which to reflect upon (and get irritated by) said tasks.

(Sweet fancy corn how many prepositions were in that paragraph? I can't count that high.)

Anyhoodle, in short: I am even more tedious and boring than ever.

So here's something more engaging. This is a) a pretty awesome little project and b) what, when I am functioning at capacity, I am normally fantasizing about when being/talking to the corporate drones.

Ten bucks says this is the office close-talker...

...and that he's always slinking into people's cubes to give unsolicited shoulder rubs.

From a cover letter (emphasis added for extra cringing power):

"My qualities I am sure would fit into any job description and will also help others to be motivated and bring a loving, positive atmoshere into any enveroment rather it be slow or fast paced."

And I'm just not even going to bother anymore with my whole spell-check/grammar-check campaign. I give up. You hear me? You've broken me, Candidate, you've broken my will to nitpick. I hope you're happy.

Then can I have your job?

Candidate's resume objective:

"My goal is to find a job in the work industry."

Does this mean she is currently employed in the NO-work industry? Like, the Rest Industry? Mattress-tester? Does such a job exist? Can I have it? I've been searching my whole life for a job OUTSIDE the work industry. Maybe she and I can work out a swap.

Then again, maybe she's been working at the same place as this candidate.

P.S. No joke: this candidate's e-mail address contains the phrase "Sleepy Head." Mattress tester might be for reals.

To close out the week...

...there are just a few things I have to get out of my system. Then I will take a scalding, blasting, "Silkwood"-esque shower and spend two days playing with fluffy kittens and chasing butterflies and mentally undressing Chris Noth and otherwise regaining some sense of actually being a flesh and blood human being after five straight days of being nearly bludgeoned to death with things like this:

"Viewed as a resource throughout the organization and across various sectors; serves as a consultative partner to client groups, integrates technical expertise/experience, business objectives and industry factors..."

Also, Fancy-Pants Business Folk, security actually will NOT escort you from the building if you successfully resist the urge to bulk up your resumes and/or job descriptions with the Dreaded Groups of Threes, i.e., phrases containing multiple versions of what is effectively the exact same concept:

"...improve productivity, increase efficiency and streamline efforts..."

"...as determined by program, project or assignment..."

"...applies knowledge, expertise and understanding..."

Are these people Charles Dickens? Is someone paying them by the word? Are they actually beat poets, adding all this extra language because in their head, there's a bongo rhthym that they are trying to match?

This week TRULY put the "ill" in ill-suited.

All right, people, that is IT, I am out of here for the weekend and if the circus comes through town, I might not make it back here Monday.

Holy crap.

"According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, after motor vehicle incidents, homicide is the leading cause of death in the workplace."

So I guess my short-tempered blog is really rather mild in response to workplace aggravation.

If I could give every job seeker only one piece of advice...

...it would be:

Don't do this.

I'm sorry and I take it all back.

I'm sorry, Entry-Level Candidate.

I didn't mean what I said and I want you back.

I want you back with your misspellings and your atrocious grammar and your questionable judgment.

Because those things, aggravating though they may be, do not make me want to get a fifty-pound bag of rice and run off alone into the Alaskan wilderness as does one day of reading professional-level resumes.

The acronyms. The dizzyingly complex job descriptions that do not seem to have any relation to real-world activity. The corporate-speak. The buzzwords. The sense that you are in "The Emperor's New Clothes" and what you have in front of you is not a page listing someone's professional history but rather a joke to see if you get that they are ACTUALLY SAYING NOTHING AT ALL.

The flashbacks to days-long meetings in stuffy conference rooms, watching someone READ VERBATIM EACH BULLET POINT off the projected PowerPoint presentation, talking about "implementing process improvements" and "change management" and in general taking three minutes to say what could have been said in one sentence, and, by extension, the "team" taking three days to make one simple decision. Which, because it was by committee, was generally the wrong one.

I think I prefer despairing over the educational system over despairing over the corporate system. Because the educational system is at least something I can vote on, I feel like I have a pretense of control.

But this other stuff...oh, Entry-Level Candidate, I didn't know how good I had it.

JST/HNAR - Part Five: "Only your mother cares..."

...that you won a certificate from Poetry.com.

...that you were a 4-H Champion - in 1978.

...that you were an extra on "Waterworld" in 1992 (and, actually, even your mother might be over that one).

So leave these kinds of things - all of which I have seen within the past week on actual resumes of actual adults looking for actual jobs - off your resume when you are applying for a totally unrelated job.

And, my professional opinion as a recruiter: we don't care about your hobbies, your interests or how many kids you have. Leave everything off your resume that doesn't pertain to your desired position.

The ONLY thing I would ever say would be okay to add (beside the usual legit stuff like employment, education, certifications, recent 4-H championships, etc.) is any volunteer work you did that pertains to your desired position. (Say, you are trying to break into a new career so you have done some unpaid work related to the field. Or you build the case for me that your 1978 4-H award is actually going to help you in this new job in 2006. THAT I might be interested to know about.)

The generic listing of totally unrealted hobbies/interest stuff with no link drawn to the position you are applying for, though? Sure lightening strikes every once in a while and you might happen to charm a hiring manager who is also into writing Bible verses on rice grains, but you might just be wasting the time of everyone else who isn't.

(And P.S. Can you just imagine how tedious the "Waterworld" extra must be at family gatherings?

"Did I tell you about the time Kevin Costner and I shared a fat-free muffin at the craft services table? It was cranberry."

And the rest of the family sighs and changes the subject. Again.)

JST/HNAR - Part Four: "Gloss"

(From the archives...)

While I appreciate this candidate's honesty...

"I didn't usually have much to do while I was at work...There were many times I was told to answer the phone so I would sit at a desk and wait for the phone to ring."

...I don't really anticipate I would ever be inspired to ring her phone after reading that on her resume.

"Sitting," waiting," and "not doing much" are generally never highly-sought-after skills in today's job market.

When your description of your job makes it seem like something a monkey could - quite literally - be trained to do, maybe an application of a slight gloss to your listing of job duties is in order.

You should never lie...but no matter how little there was to do in any position, certainly you can find more than the above to fill a two-sentence description.

Remember the old chestnuts...action verbs, showing how you took initiative, going above and beyond, blah blah blah. Yes, it's all a bunch of hooey, but that hooey is the currency of the job search, so start polishing it up.

Good news? Bad news?

So switching gears and recruiting for another level of position, professional as opposed to entry-level.

While I suspect this might be good news in the sense that I don't know how much more despairing over the state of the American educational system I could take...this might not be good news for the blog.

I know, I know, this makes the two people in the world who actually read this very sad.

Not, mind you, because I think people at the professional level are actually smarter. After all, it was always the executives and the vice presidents at First Nameless Corporation (where I lost my recruiting innocence) who would insist on saying "between you and I" (because, you know, only lower salary bands ever say the word "me" EVEN WHEN IT'S GRAMMATICALLY EFFING CORRECT) until I would collapse on the floor of the conference room clutching at my throbbing brain.

But they are, dagnabbit, generally more savvy during the job search, and less likely to include the more obviously-questionable tidbits like e-mail addresses that hint towards their bedroom proclivities or run on for pages in e-mails about all the details of their personal lives. In other words, less aggravating to me as a recruiter, but also, sadly, less useful to me as a blogger.

Who knows, though? If the week's events have taught us one thing, it's that shockingly poor judgment cuts across all socio-economic groups. Maybe I am sounding an alarm for no reason.

At the least, I stockpiled a few choice items and can always return to the Tips as those are a constant no matter what candidate population you are dealing with. Bear with me, Dear Reader(s) (all two of you...hi!!!*waving*), as we sort this out.

This is what happens when you recruit on MySpace.

You come across the phrase "I have a wide pallet when it comes to movies."

And you get so depressed about the state of the written language - which seems to be dying a quick but completely merciless and humilating death, a death those of us who care seem powerless to stop - that you take to your bed for the rest of the day.

Then again maybe I'm being melodramatic, and maybe he really meant that he's got a low, portable platform on which he keeps the wide variety of movies he enjoys.

It's time for another installment of "Email is free."

So save the one you've created containing the phrase "dom in training" for handing your resume over to the Dungeon Master at the Gothic Castle.

("Dom" = dominant partner in BDSM situation.)

But for your general resume seeking, say, an administrative position in the vanilla world? Use an e-mail that won't make the hiring manager half-distracted during the interview, listening to see if she can hear the latex squeaking underneath your business suit.

Someone has watched "Erin Brockovich" a few too many times.

Sum total of candidate's experience as listed on resume:

• Less than one year as cocktail waitress at [name redacted but take my word this time it's an actual titty bar and not just my filthy mind] Bar (where she is required to "enteract" [sic] with customers...is that what the kids are calling it these days?).
• Five months as a sales associate at a big box retailer (no double entendre intended).

What is her desired job title?

"Banking and finance attorney."

Now, I know that working at titty bars is a necessary evil - or not-so-evil, depending on your views - for many young women who are putting themselves through college. (Who could have anticipated this blog would have occasion to reference such establishments on a fairly regular basis?) So it's not to say that working at such a bar and a big box retailer are de facto clear signposts that one lacks the qualifications to make the leap to banking and finance attorney. However, there was a total lack of education listed on the resume, all of her experience was listed in one near-run-on sentence in one paragraph, she spelled "customer" "custumer" and used the phrase "Me and my co-worker helped them with their phones."

So let's just say I didn't get the feeling this is the resume of a Lifetime Television for Women story of the valedictorian who pasty-twirled her way through Stanford Law School.

Honey, by all means, dream big. Dream as big as your knockers!

That said, maybe there needs to be an interim step between cocktail waitress and banking/finance attorney. Like paralegal? Hell, like receptionist at the office NEXT to the law firm? How about some law school? And taking the bar?

These are just some ideas.

And, oh, yeah, spell-check.