Fixing the economy, one resume consult at a time
Posted at 10:55 am on Tuesday, March 24, 2009, in Think Piece, and tagged berkeley, life.
I spent several hours at the Berkeley campus for a career fair last week. I spoke to 80 or so students, mostly seniors and graduate students, but also a handful of sophomores and juniors (or what they referred to as their “third year;” so pretentious). I have had some experience with resume writing — having switched jobs several times — and my resumes have always earned me at least a request for an interview. This isn’t just a recent discovery. In college, my classmates asked me to pore over their personal ads (which is what a resume essentially is), and I probably should have charged for the service. The service needed a strict refund policy however, since very seldom do people actually want constructive feedback on their resume. All they want to hear is, “Looks great.”
With that background, let’s go through some of my favorite missteps from the resumes I received last week — what I have referred to around the office* as my “best-ofs…”
Uniqueness is a good thing, but it is not the only thing. Also, if you have a light resume (short background), do not use an extra small font and thin margins, and then painfully fill in the rest with fluff. One candidate included the following on her professional resume: babysitting. It wasn’t at the bottom, listed with interests, but it was followed by a lengthy description of the duties involved. Like I said, if your resume is light, use bigger text, and accentuate your studies: classes taken, clubs and activities. Unfortunately, her education component was listed at the very bottom, and made up only two lines.
Others included every interest they could think of: the ability “to checkmate with a single rook and king,” designing model airplanes, Rubik’s cube. I love quirkiness; it does get noticed. But stressing uniqueness — what is being instructed at colleges these days — is not the only answer. You do not need to be unique; you must be uniquely qualified. There is a difference. In a follow-up email I received this morning, a candidate added two items to her resume (that she had attached) from the one she handed me last week. A resume is always a work in progress, so this should not be frowned upon, and it wasn’t. To her list of interests, she added knitting and cheese. Great add.
No one cares what your SAT scores were. And worse, if your SAT scores were so great, why is your college GPA only average? (You should think about this before listing your SAT scores.) GRE scores also do not mean much — you got into grad school, now do the work. Speaking of GPA averages, three decimal places is too much. 3.704 vs. 3.70 vs. 3.7. Which one looks the best? Which one says that you are proud and that you also do not have a tendency to embellish?
Here is the nasty secret that no one wants to accept: your GPA doesn’t mean anything. I realize that it is difficult to not include your GPA on your resume when you’re in school — I did it too, and it is the only clear measurement that differentiates you from your classmates — but it should be done tactfully. Over time, however, where you went to school and what degree you earned are the only items that will be discussed. Relevant work experience will be much more important than college grades.
Schooling is not experience in itself. One candidate spent (presumably) four years in South Korea earning his Bachelor’s degree. Then he went to Berkeley and earned his Master’s degree. Then he went to Stanford and earned another Master’s degree. Then he returned to Berkeley and will be finishing his PhD after five years this May. Unfortunately, he is not hirable because he has no valuable experience that would match his salary requirements. PhD’s are dead-ends. Sorry.
The objective statement on a resume is tricky. It is often a throwaway sentence (and sometimes not even a sentence), but it is the first line on the resume, and it shouldn’t even be there in the first place. Your objective should be highlighted in a cover letter, the most important part of a four-piece package that you send to potential employers (the resume, a list of references, and a list of projects, if applicable, are the other three).
The cover letter should summarize — in words, sentence and paragraph form — your relevant experience and what you are looking for, why the company in question interests you, and why the company in question should be interested in you. The cover letter is the granddaddy. The resume just goes along for the ride.
One student wrote that his objective is to begin a career as an environmental engineer “to help mitigate humanity’s impact around the world.” That is not what environmental engineers do, and that is not what environmental engineering is all about. That may be the punch-line or advertising gimmick for the field, but the majority of environmental engineers work for the Chevrons and ExxonMobils and GEs of the world to help them get past the regulations that are inconveniently imposed by law. Environmental engineers skew findings and analyses — be it in an ethical manner — to assist their client’s (or company’s) needs and wants. It is not the other way around. This should be taught in college.
Long lists should be avoided. If you have a light resume, instead of listing odd-ball jobs in high school — and reiterating their importance — you should list coursework and class projects that are relevant. But this is not an open invite to list every class you have taken since freshman year, and you should especially not do this when you do have experience, and require two pages as a result of including such a list. Coming out of college, your resume should be limited to one page (and if you have published numerous papers while in college, and cannot fit them on one page, include that as a separate list of publications, along with the projects and references in the package).
Photos are unnecessary. One person included her photo in the upper-right corner. Maybe this is the future, I don’t know. Instead of the photo, maybe include a link to your LinkedIn or Facebook profile… Where is this going? On the subject of vanity, spelling (and punctuation) is important. One person misspelled “Berkeley.” Not good.
Language counts. I need to hear you, and I need to understand you. Many people are deservedly nervous when meeting a potential employer, and that is fine, but remember that you are always being graded. One candidate wrote on his resume that he is able to “write, read and speak with high fluency in Arabic.” Unfortunately, when I met him he couldn’t speak a lick of English. I would love to see this on a resume: “Although I’m Middle Eastern, I speak wonderful English. Call me and find out.” Now we’re getting somewhere.
This is not a xenophobic diatribe. Communication is key to a successful working environment. Engineers provide advice to clients. We tell them our opinions and findings, and steer their decisions. Clients need our thoughts and opinions to be documented in reports (so they can prove to regulators that their decisions make sense). These reports are mostly in English. There are companies that need factories of engineers — working away on computer models in cubicles, never to see the light of day or meet a client. Mine is not one of them.
* It is true; we scrutinize potential employee resumes.
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March 25th, 2009 at 11:30 am
very enlightening. Good stuff. I’ll keep in mind as i may need to in the near future!!!!
March 28th, 2009 at 9:39 am
duly noted. but can i keep knitting as a *skill*?