Resume You May Not Work for Me

The Chief works in HR for a local company in the medical field in the same town I work in. Her office is close to mine in the not-so-friendly part of town. Her job consists of interviewing potential candidates. The Chief is basically the gatekeeper to the rest of the company. An applicant must get past her interview to be considered for nearly any position, other than executives. She works with head hunters (placement agencies) and posts jobs on various web sites.

At my company I have some discretion when hiring people within our department. I have seen some resumes, mainly good. Our HR department does a very good job of weeding out the unqualified people and poor resumes. I am sure they see a lot of them but I don't ever get to see them. No matter how many times I ask...

Since the Chief is the first line of defense for her company she gets to see a lot of resumes. Some of them are good. Some of them are not so good. There are a few very basic things that should be a given on every resume. Some of these are:

• All items are spelled correctly
• Resume is easy to read
• Relevant experience is listed in the work history

Some parts of a standard resume are pretty worthless in my opinion. First is the Objective. The objective is to get a job/career plain and simple. Any other BS in there is a waste of time for the reader. There may be exceptions to this rule of mine but they are rare. At a minimum the objective should be somewhat tailored to the specific job that is being applied for. At least that is what all the career advice web sites state. 

A few days ago the Chief gives me a resume to review. Here it is:

The names have been removed to protect the Chief. If this is your resume, I'm sorry. I'm going to make fun of it. You should use this as constructive criticism. 

First rule, correct spelling, not so good. 

I know "Budge" is technically spelled correctly but I think "Budget" is what this person is looking for. Perhaps at this company the Area Supervisor wears a lambskin fur as a sign of power and authority. It could work like this: Once you are promoted to a position of power there is a ceremony where a lamb is ritualistically slaughtered. The meat is used to feed the Evil Zarloc to keep him from punching holes in all the empty trash bags. The skin is then processed by a group of 17 blind monks into a workable fabric. This fabric is specially washed in the tears of a baby polar bear before being presented to the new Area Supervisor. I bet everything is true except for the monks, it is probably a local taxidermist...

The next rule is an Epic Fail in my opinion. The font chosen is not easy to read. On the contrary it makes me want to rub my eyes out rather they try to read the script/scribbles. I would toss out this resume as soon as it crossed my desk. Even if this person had a Ph.D in ExactlyWhatMyCompanyNeeds with 20 years of experience doing the same job. I would toss out this resume and never, ever call them. 

Next rule, relevant work experience. Fail. This person has been exclusively in the janitorial industry. I know hospitals and such need janitors but that is not the position this person applied for. 

Next let's take a look at education... 

High school... check.

College... some courses completed in 2001? Ok, I can handle that. This person did not make it through college. I know it is not for everyone. Life gets in the way sometimes. I don't have a problem with that. I think a college degree is not required for the entry level position this person is applying for, so... check.

Management completed? WTF is this? So management was completed. Is this the name of a class? Is this person saying that at a previous job he/she had an affair with his/her manager? Maybe this person did the entire management team. Maybe, but I don't think that is something to brag about. 

Strategies for success: obviously, this did not include "Resume Writing for Success"