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St. Cloud State University
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Commentary
No such thing as perfect resume
By Eric O'Link
Published:
Thursday, November 14, 2002
Eric O´Link -- Staff Essay
If one more person tells me what not to put on my resume, I think I’m going to scream.
One could break up the year into 200 “It’s that time of year again” Times of the Year, and if they did, right now would be the “Resumes Suck Time of the Year”.
Yes, resumes. Have you written a resume yet? Let’s hope so; if you want an internship for next summer, and you don’t have your resume ready to go, you’re pretty much screwed.
But the problem doesn’t end there. Even if you have a resume, it’s almost impossible to tell if you have it right. You may think it looks good, maybe even a smidgen professional.
It has all of those things a good resume is supposed to have: the Objective, the Summary, Education, Employment Experience and Awards and Achievements — even the references are squeezed in on the bottom. But is it really good?
You have to go to the Job Fair to find out. The Job Fair is full of Important People who are looking to hire bright, dedicated and outgoing college interns. “That could be me,” you think to yourself. “I definitely fit that description, and I’m nice besides!”
The great thing about Job Fairs for College Students run by Important People is that the Important People not only offer the College Students internship applications; they also give you free Resume Advice. It sounds like a great deal.
Do not be fooled. Resume Advice is both a blessing and a curse, a necessary evil of the gauntlet we students are forced to run as we look for internships or jobs.
Resume Advice coming from an Important Person sounds something like this, “Okay, I see, very nice ... oh, wait, this is a little confusing. I’m finding this a little hard to follow. And this Objective, you don’t need that, because I know what you’re applying for — your Cover Letter will say that. Same with the Summary; most of that information is already down here. And where are your Skills? Your skills are listed under the Summary. You should really change that ...”
“Oh,” you think to yourself. “I guess I didn’t get that quite right.” Suddenly the Important People seem more like Mean Important People.
And there are lots of them. By the time you leave the Job Fair, you feel depressed. Your name needs to be bigger, in a less fancy a font, the Mean Important People have told you. Change the position of your address. Get rid of your email address. Eliminate the Objective and Summary. Move the skills mentioned under the Summary to a new category called Skills. Rename Employment Experience; “Communication Experience” is all the rage now. That should go at the top. Skills goes below that, then Education, then Honors and Achievements (yes, the name of that changed, too). Finally, put your references on the back, the Mean Important People said.
That’s when you realize, if you haven’t already, that this is “Resumes Suck Time of Year.”
You take a breath, you pick of the pieces of your shattered ego and you work even harder at making your resume perfect.
Then you remember that the deadline for the internship that you want most is only five days away, so you scramble to write your cover letter and get your portfolio put together and you send it off just in time.
You’re proud of yourself. You stood up to some criticism and you are better for it. You feel confident, and ready to take on this internship and anything else that comes along.
The “Resumes Suck Time of the Year” is almost over.
But don’t worry.
The “Interview Panic Time of the Year” is just around the corner.
