Sunday, October 28, 2007

Resume Pet Peeves

There are some really stupid things people put on resumes. I know some of the things I'll list here are sometime touted by career counselors. They're stupid. Here's the list:

1) Objectives. Your objective with your resume is to land the specific job for which the resume holder is hiring. Nothing else. Stop putting that touchy feely shit on your resume. It just makes it more generic. Technically your resume should be changed for each job you apply. That way it's customized for the role. Objectives are stupid. There is only one objective the recruiter cares about.

2) High school. Unless you went to some elite prep school, no one care what high school you went to or what you achieved in high school. Elite prep schools are those big shot ones in NYC and the boarding schools famous for churning out preppies (Phillips Andover Academy and Choate Rosemary Hall come to mind).

3) Hobbies. While hobbies make for great conversation fodder when I'm not interested in the candidate any more, they certainly won't get you hired. Maybe they'll get you a date (if you're female, hot and have a cool hobby). If you're looking for people to join you in your hobby, go post a personal on yahoo. If you're looking for a job, don't waste precious real estate.

4) 14 point font / white space. As mentioned above, the real estate on your resume is precious. It's probably confined to one page, maybe two. Don't waste it with huge font, superfluous white space (both on the margins and in between lines). It should look nice and legible, but it should not have lots of white space like the menu to a nice french restaurant.

5) Stupid mistakes. Don't be a moron. If you can't get a fucking resume right, why would I trust you with my money?

It also annoys me when the GPA isn't listed (probably means it was low). It also annoys me when relevant classwork is listed, but I don't mind that as much (it instantly gives me something to grill you on). Note that everything on your resume needs to be known cold. If I were your interviewer, I'd take specifics on your resume and delve deep into the details. If you can't explain it thoroughly then you're toast. "I forgot because it was a long time ago" is a lame idiot's excuse. I had a guy tell me he couldn't do some chemistry problem I gave him because it was over two years ago. It was a lot longer than that for me, bud, and I haven't touched chemistry since. To me that says you didn't learn it completely the first time. You're out.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

If I had a GDP I wouldn't need a resume.

Anonymous said...

See, this is exactly the kind of shit I find valuable about your blog. When my career counselor at Stanford told me to put my high school crap on my resume, I felt pretty damn sure nobody would ever care about any of that. Looks like I was right.

BTW, I've just arrived in NYC and will be calling/emailing you within the next couple days.

Anonymous said...

ok, so they say: "dont leave alot of empty white space but dont put irrelevant information on there either."
But the question is, how does a guy in university who has worked two jobs his whole life fill an 8.5 x 11 sized paper? Does'nt he have to put in something?

Also, you probably get resumes from students here at the schulich school of business and their GPA's are on a 9 point scale.How do u treat them?

Quant_Trader said...

I'll address the whitespace thing about college grads and my thoughts on that in a full post. I have some thoughts regarding that and how fair/unfair that may be.

As far as the candadian GPAs, we deal with them relative to each other. We also get resumes from places don't really have "GPAs." We try to be as fair as we can. When it comes down to it, the resume -> interview conversion can be a crap-shoot anyway (but I didn't tell you that).

Anonymous said...

Spell Choate correctly, damnit!
Also, like the other guy said, you probably meant GPA, not GDP.

Quant_Trader said...

Thanks. It tends to be rather early in the morning when I write these. Breakfast and blog.

Anonymous said...

actually listing one line of activities or hobbies is a GREAT idea. on my desk, we sorted out the interns who would be hired based on this (undergrad and grad). it is also an immediate conversation piece on the interview to find out about a person...since you sit next to them every day for 10-12 hours.

intern example:
50 resumes (Wharton, Georgetown, Chicago, Columbia, etc. al)...yawn. So what stands out? The guy who put french literature and abstract art as his hobby or the guy who enjoys backcountry skiing and golf?

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