Casual
Casual "People Persons" Sell Their Wares Every year around this time, thousands of college seniors prepare their resum?s to send to prospective employers. Cramming a lifetime's worth of experience...
...As one applicant puts it in his cover note, "Along with this letter, I am obtaining as resum?s of myself...
...If you are interested in adding a bright, fresh, talented professional to your creative staff"- and, hey, who isn't?-"you will want to consider the enclosed resum?," advises one cover letter...
...Judith Gumbiner, director of Career Services at San Diego State University and a resum...
...Gumbiner seems impressed as she recalls the innovation...
...Still others have "facilitated...
...The first thing one notices about a stack of college resum?s is their startling sameness...
...If college resum?s seem as uniform as Model Ts, it's no accident-they're produced in much the same mechanized way...
...Tucker Carlson...
...Each seems to follow an identical format: At the top, beneath name and address, sits the "Career Objective," a pithy statement of intent, which is followed by the "Experience" category...
...Cramming a lifetime's worth of experience onto a page or two is apt to be unpleasant for anyone, and for students it is often especially anxiety-producing, a stark reminder that four years of beer and 19th-century feminist literature don't necessarily add up to credentials for a job...
...Another touts his accomplishments in "telephone answering, photocopying, and check cashing...
...A great number of resum...
...In one case, Gumbiner remembers, an enterprising student added his own personal touch, capitalizing the first letter of each verb on his resum...
...at least one turns out to be a "people person...
...writers claim to have abundant "interpersonal communications skills...
...Excuse me, Miss, where can I find the men's room...
...Another brags of being the "Risk Management Chair" at his fraternity...
...Applicants haven't simply "worked" at previous jobs, they've "pursued" or "utilized" or "coordinated" them...
...But what about employers...
...For the most part, the resum?s reveal only boilerplate exaggerations, usually thick language lamely designed to cover boring summer jobs with a patina of danger or excitement...
...What gives these resum...
...Writing resum?s, it turns out, is the easy part...
...To find out, I spent an afternoon leafing through a pile of resum?s and cover letters sent by undergraduates to businesses and think tanks in Washington...
...consultant since 1967, boasts that her school's career counseling office has "computer programs where students can input their data and [the resum?] comes out on a laser printer," complete with action verbs attached...
...A job in Washington, predicts a Penn State student, will "help me become more influential in the legislative process...
...One young scholar from California boasts of her high-school diploma, awarded "Magna Cum Laudi...
...For the answer, employers are advised to look under the heading "Skills...
...Humility- indeed, any sense of perspective- seems in short supply on many resum?s...
...bottoms out with the same wooden declaration: "References Available Upon Request...
...Reading them is the challenge...
...But they can be expected to make some up...
...in descending order until they spelled out a message in acrostic code: "MUST HIRE," it read...
...Experience" is the heart of the resum?, and as if to prove it, each line begins with an aggressive verb...
...An art-minded applicant includes a poem about date rape, while another lists her involvement with "Step Aerobics" as a qualification for the job...
...And no wonder: "It's a very humbling thought to think someone could summarize their life in one paragraph...
...In this space, one applicant lists "getting things done" and, cryptically, "people contact...
...Alas, even simple lying seems beyond the grasp of many college students...
...writers such confidence in their own abilities...
...One Georgetown University student, describing work as a sales clerk, touts his expertise in "8-line telephone management...
...It is true that college students can't be expected to have too many relevant or scintillating life experiences to add to their resum?s...
...As part of her waitressing job, writes one applicant, she "addressed questions concerning the restaurant...
...A Victoria Cross for valor, perhaps, or a year spent bathing lepers in Calcutta...
...That's for sure...
...An enterprising applicant should take the time to come up with some imaginative padding...
...Still, you've got to wonder...
...Yet another applicant decides to skip the small talk: "I know I am extremely qualified for this position," he writes, adding, "I firmly believe that the United States of America is one of the most influential country in the world...
...Some have even "scheduled" or "organized" or "developed...
...A college graduate with "superb interpersonal communication skills" probably can do a decent job opening mail in a senator's office or tending the fax machine in a think tank...
...We encourage students to be as creative as possible," she says...
...And, of course, every resum...
...If so, most undergraduates don't seem to realize it...
...What's the process like from their end...
Vol. 1 • May 1996 • No. 33
