SPUG: RE: Giving up on computer jobs & usefulness of placement fi rms

[North, Walter]

I think Rodney has a pretty good idea, one that could be useful
to all of us.

So, here I go.

As a person who is often asked for input on whether to hire someone
I too like a short and to the point resume.  One page is preferable,
two is fine.

Bad spelling is unacceptable as everyone has a spell checker, and
if they can't find time to run it on their resume then I would
be suspect of how they would trouble shoot problems on the job.

After all a resume is supposed to be one of the most carefully crafted
documents of your life and if you can't even run the spell checker on
it.......

Bad grammer is a fact of life in a one page resume, just as in
email.  As long as it isn't too bad. (how that for bad grammer).

Personally, I would have at least interviewed Boromir for having the 
hair to use something like that.

As a potential employee I have always tried to keep my resume
as short as possible.  In fact I have 2 of them, one is one page
or maybe slipping over into a 2nd page that I usually send out
and a longer one if the situation requires it.

Some employers seem to like to see your entire history of employment
from high school, or before, others only care about your last job 
or two.  Some only seem to care if you are currently employeed.

As for acronyms, the computer biz is one vast acronym and I do not
see how you can get out of using at least a few, especially if you 
have been around for a while.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rodney Doe [mailto:doer at microen.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2003 9:02 AM
> To: spug-list at mail.pm.org
> Subject: Re: SPUG: Giving up on computer jobs & usefulness of 
> placement
> fi rms
> 
> 
> Would it be useful to discuss those of us who provide input 
> into the hiring
> process have rejected candidates in the past?  What fatal 
> errors have we
> seen on résumés?  What went wrong with interviews?
> 
> I recall a particular perusal of a stack of applications, 
> when a company
> president and I encountered an application with a cover 
> letter signed with
> the pseudonym 'Boromir the Weird'.  The president saw the signature,
> chuckled, and promptly dropped the application into the recycle basket
> without even a glance at Boromir's esteemed qualifications.  
> While this is
> an extreme case, perhaps the generation of a list of fatal flaws and
> positive points might add some value.
> 
> I love to see:
> - A one page résumé.  This indicates to me that the person 
> can summarize
> details and think abstractly.
> 
> I hate to see:
> - Spelling errors.
> - Grammatical errors.
> - Five page résumés, crammed with acronyms and insignificant details.

> Rodney B. Doe, P.E.
> Senior Software Engineer
> Micro Encoder Inc.
> www.microen.com
> 
>
----------------------------------------------------- 
Walter North 406-444-2914 
Operating Systems Programmer 
State of Montana
wnorth at state.mt.us
-----------------------------------------------------