Resume Drop!

It's that time of year again when eager youngsters are dropping their resumes into these anonymous black-holes (actually, I think most are posting their resumes online, but everyone knows these might as well be black-holes too). Then people like me get a mass of papers (or more likely a giant pdf file) to sort through and pick out who sucks and who doesn't. I might be a bit late in this because I assume most people have already dropped their resumes if I'm already receiving them, but perhaps it will help next time.

First hint, it's more about who sucks than who's good. Don't spell words incorrectly. Don't forget pieces of information (e-mail address, phone number, address, etc). Don't have shitty formatting of your resume. Don't have too much white-space. Don't have it be more than one page (unless you hold a PhD or you've worked for several years full-time--hell, I've seen lots of good PhD and experienced folks with great one-page resumes too).

Second hint, while experience is important, a few summers is going to mean nothing a year from now. Having an internship doesn't necessarily mean you are the most gifted in the crowd. It does, however, often mean that the person had the drive to land an internship last year. That drive matters. So even if you didn't have an internship, what did you do last summer? Did you do something that showed drive, determination and a passion for something? Or did you take the summer to be a beach-bum?

Third hint, don't close any doors. It doesn't matter whether you want to be in private wealth, trading, banking, a big firm or a small firm. It doesn't hurt to apply and act as if you really want the job. A lot of people will disagree with this because they would rather you not waste their time, but from your perspective it's every man (or woman) for himself. If you get a job you don't want, great. Now you have the option (and satisfaction) of turning them down. The worst situation to be in is the unemployed schmuck after graduation. You might as well be doing something and gaining some experience as you work toward that dream job (and having cash makes life a lot nicer too).

Good luck.