May 23, 2011
Bossy Is Coordinating The Development And Implementation Of Herself
Today Bossy is updating a resumé for a friend who shall remain nameless, and that friend is Bossy herself.
Bossy has tinkered with plenty of these things and has this to say: resumés are all about putting your best foot forward. Your lie-covered foot.
We’re not chatty: we have strong interpersonal skills. We didn’t look something over: we provided editing and proofreading support. We didn’t place phone calls: we identified and cultivated lateral relationships.
We tracked and established and fostered and managed and assessed and prepared and supervised and maintained and solicited and promoted and analyzed.
Also? One time Bossy listed, under the skills section, that she paid attention to detial.
Care to share a resumé story, or a job finding story, or a job losing story, or a story on this Monday morning?
The glaring lights, the brutal self-assessment, the attempts at camouflage and enhancement … the torture of writing your own resume is dreadfully similar to the torture of shopping for a bathing suit.
I was once in an interview for a writing/editing job and could see my resume in front of the interviewer. Reading upside down, I immediately spotted a typo. Totally lost my composure because I could NOT think about anything else. Did not get the job. Bad editor, bad!
As long as there’s streetlights, I’ll always have a job.
I was floored the first time someone asked me to submit a resume for a writing position. I was like “uhhhh… I write? Here’s some stuff I wrote?”
Resumes are worst than about pages and bio sections.
Dear Bossy. I’d be happy to edit for you. KM reads hundreds of resumes a day and is a master at corporate speak.
Funny stories- far too many.Most important tip – remove the suggestions in your resume template ie “type your address here”, or ” this would be a good place to list your skills”. Also, tended to evil mother in law is not the best explanation of a gap in employment dates.
I once had my cell phone ring during a job interview. I immediately turned it off and mumbled something about how this never happens. I still got the job. The job involved talking on the phone pretty much all day. Coincidence? Sure – except I don’t really care for talking on the phone. Probably more like karma coming to bite me in the ass.
Newest trend in resumes – calling gaps in employment “sabbaticals”! Hmm, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea.
I once wrote on my cover letter that I served as liason between the writing and editing departments. This was for an advertising copywriter job. I turned 20 shades of red when it was pointed out that liason was actually liaison. That second “i” is complete BS in the world of spelling but I’ve gotten it right ever since. Also? Got the job.
I have thrown away peoples’ resumes after seeing a typo, it’s just too competitive out there. Yep, definitely need to pay attention to those “detials”! LOL. My worse job hunting story is the designer coat dress of the 80s which had the horizontal button holes, damn buttons kept coming undone while walking through the secretarial pool of a legal firm. I was quite the contortionist trying to keep up with the lawyer dude and keep the dress on at the same time! Was so flustered by the time I got in there and got redressed that I totally forgot how to take shorthand. Yep, blew that interview big time.
Been in need of a significantly revised resume for three years now. Hatzez em with every bone in my body. Can’t use Gollum speak either. Although isn’t it fun to hear a soundtrack for an interview …tricksy HR demon, yesss Precioussss.
I’ve been loafing, seriously loafing, for almost three years. Fired from a job that didn’t work out, although worked a few more months in another department. Not used to being fired. Relocated to a old/new town with former friend with benefits, now spousal equivalent. I think he is still waiting for me to tell him it is time to get legal.
Old enough now that I will happily stare down anyone who questions the gap in employment
Probably can be dismissed with “I prefer honesty to bullshit myself, how about you?”
I throw away resumes with too much bs speak or that are too long…
I don’t have time to read through all the crap and don’t want to work with people who are afraid to be themselves….
In response to an ad my husband had placed in the LA Times when he was hiring computer programmers for his team he received a resume that started “Dear Box 1234,” a code assigned by the Times that appeared in their ads in place of the company name…oops…merge letter…oops! Obviously this technical giant did not get an interview…haha
In the same batch of responses he received a resume from the guy who was occasionally contracted to do computer support for the small school district where I was the budget manager. Talk about making grandiose claims about expertise and current professional position…this one took the cake!
We have told these stories for years as cautionery tales to those seeking positions.
I repeat, this happened in LA! It truly is a very small world.
Workaholic hates to sell herself–odd combo makes for loyalty to point of co-dependency.
is it ten-word tuesday here ?~!
I had come off a hard summer bender and landed a job as a proofreader for a medical journal. The workers all sat in cubes and spent each day checking through stacks of articles about patients who got everything except better. Anyone who’d worked there more than a year had already gone hypochondriac–imagining chest pains, lupus, kidney stones.
The Editors were a husband and wife team who had ascended from research. She was tall and had the look of a former Miss Cornflower. He was shorter, balding, and wore an array of green and red plaid jackets that resembled horse blankets.
Just before Christmas they called the entire staff into the conference room for a meeting. When we arrived, we found dozens of egg-shaped river stones of various sizes arranged on the boardroom table. We circled like kindergarteners, looking at them. Then Horse Blanket and his wife came in and told us they’d gathered these rocks on the shores of an island they owned somewhere in Wisconsin and asked us all to please step forward in turn and select one. There was the expected chatter, some of us clearly believing a game of sorts would follow. Perhaps that the color of each stone was coded to an envelope containing a cash bonus. Miss Cornflower then explained that these stones were our Christmas bonuses, our reward for a year’s hard work. She and Horse Blanket had spent all day polishing them and applying a coat of spray lacquer, thinking about us, she said, as they did so. There was even a little note, a form letter that began “Please accept this stone…” printed up for each of us.
We each stepped forward dutifully rubbed several of the rocks before selecting one and walking back to our cubes. Some fool even said thank you. My buddy Paul silently took his and set it on a stack of papers. It was a milky brown, and about the size of a fist. Looking down, he gave a weak smile and said, “See, it matches my shoes.” He was right. He was right about the chest pains too. A year later, after his memorial service, I went out to look for work.
Just remember to send your resume and cover letter on corresponding neon-colored paper, and fashion an envelope out of a cereal box, and write a special poem about why yo want the job, and you will be a shoe-in.
Oy typos in resumes…no non nyet! It will get thrown away! My resume is pretty easy but the interviewing process makes me sick to my stomach. I hate that part.
Good luck to you! Heh.
I recently helped my son with his–thank goodness he pointed out his name is not “Jabob,” but rather “Jacob.”
very timely, i’m doing the same thing! and all i can say is blech!
Olivia prefers to get her jobs by patronage – it’s all about who she knows or to whom she is related – and, on the island where she lives, Olivia knows/is related to, most people. The only time Olivia wrote a resume was when she already had the job and a resume was required for the files. Olivia has degrees up the wah-toozie but her job experience is patchy and eclectic – or, as Olivia’s brother likes to put it, “Olivia went straight from University into retirement.” Actually, Olivia went straight from university to university to university . . .
Embarrassing stories? Well, there was the one job for which I applied, aced the interview and was hired on the spot but which I somehow failed to realize would require me actually showing up to, you know, *work* — on a regular basis, at a specific time, wearing something resembling real clothes. Gah!
My last job interview was 8 years ago. It was a blast…until I saw two lines on the pregnancy test. But I’ve gotten a promotion 3 more times since then!
I got an entry-level job at a big-time publisher, and felt good about having accomplished it. A few years later, my boss told me he’d hired me for my laugh. And that he’d sit in his office and hear me laugh out in the hallway and never regretted his decision.
Weirdo.
@Charlie, your story needs to be submitted to the Sun’s Readers Write. Seriously mind boggling.
My husband once received a double DVD pack for a bonus. The movies? Phenomenon and When a Man Loves a Woman. The sticker hadn’t been removed from the cellophane either, so he knew that his super successful boss (it was a very small company) had spent $4.99/Great Low Price for Two Great Movies! to reward Gary for sometimes 80 hours a week of service. Yeah.
Had interview and bought new shoes. New shoes were so slippery on the bottom! Best friend had idea to put double sided tape on bottom of slippery shoes. Yay! Went to interview. Sat in chair and performed quite well. Got up and shoes stuck to cheap rug and since feet were IN shoes, could not move and became like one of those little plastic figurines that bob all around from one place without their feet moving. I bobbed and weaved until I fell over with the rug attached to my feet. Really fun!
We had a guy interview who said he had graduated from Michigan State in Ann Arbor. Michigan State is in Lansing, The University of Michigan is in Ann Arbor. We didn’t bother to tell him that we didn’t believe him because he got the city wrong.
Interviewed for a job as a camp counseler. They asked if I liked camping. I said no. Got the job anyway.
Interviewed with a very new agey HR lady. She asked me if I ever thought about killing my husband. I told her, “If I say yes I’m crazy & if I say no I’m lying.”
best interview ever: when (female) boss/interviewer told me she hadn’t had her breakfast or coffee yet, “And I am in a rotten mood.” Then asked me to “explain gaps in resume.” i did not flash her my stretch marks. beoyatch. no, didn’t get job. She told me before i left that i should make stuff up so it looked like I hadn’t taken any time off work to be with the babies. *She* took her baby to work! *She* put her in a playpen! omg.
I share (and heart) Bossy’s attention to detial.
As an HR person, I’ve seen more resumes than I care to count (numbers, detials and all).
Of course Bossy knows that the resume is a mere (but necessary) formality in the whole job search process– a ridiculous, superfluous, assanine-uous part that goes along with the networking and the rest of the stuff that’s as painful as talking on the phone, which we all know is more painful than gnawing off one’s own limb without novacaine. Or wine even.
Somehow or another, it all comes together to form a job offer, so keep at the resume, the networking, the limb-gnawing-off and the wine. But most of all, just keep being yourself.
Help……. needed… resume overhaul… losing my dream job is tough.. amidst…serious epic movie type scandal at my job… seriously… did they really put so many on paid leave….and never find just cause??? and was the board member really with the consulting lawyer and was she with him and please do you really work on the budget at his apartment all nigh was a good idea? what were they thinking… and me just working my little teacher knuckles off! Sad but true! no worries! I am multi-talented!!!
detail? I mean detial? I mean too fucking funny.
Someone came in with a resume that included a VERY LONG story about why she left her previous job. The SHORT version is that her boyfriend, who was also her babysitter, didn’t like the fact that she was working as an “exotic dancer”, so she had to quit.
You KNOW my (male) boss hired her! I told him to make sure she knew that the customers weren’t going to be shoving dollar bills down her pants!
Do not forget synergizing and fostering synergy and perhaps also making synergy connections on a synergetic level.
Eh, just tell ‘em the stories of your Harrison Ford. Obvs.
I can only hope Bossy wasn’t applying for a proofreading positoin.
To Sheryl W. on long resumes: I am interviweing a guy today who sent a 44 page resume. The first 7 pages are job experience and the 37 other pages are descriptions of all the projects he’s worked on. I’ve never seen a 44 page resume! Interviweing him ONLY because I have to meet the person who has the balls to submit 44 pages.
Best resumes are now 1 page, accompanied by a 1-2 paragraph narrative. So we can skip the resume and still see what you’ve done.
LOL at Cupcake Murphy!!!
“You should want me because I’m me!” Do you think that would sell?
This is good timing for me since I’m in the same position with resume’ and cover letter writing. I am not a writer nor do I enjoy having to sell myself. I’d rather everyone just know I’m wonderful.
At one of my previous (office) jobs, they told a girl that they hired her because she had been a bartender. They thought she would be fun at parties. Make sure to highlight that skill!
Dear Cupcake Murphy,
Everyone in my office enjoyed your story!
I once interviewed for a job I was trying to convince myself I wanted (because I so desperately needed a job, any job). I did fine all through the part of the interview that was relevant to the actual job, but then the interviewers started to warm up to me & tried to get all chatty & friendly with me & they asked me if I had any hobbies. To this day, I still have no idea what came over me, but for some reason, I just started lying my head off about how I devoted all my spare time to my ant farms. They kept asking me follow up questions, and I just kept lying, more & more wildly. It was an interview at a tax law firm. I was 25 years old. Thank goodness I didn’t get the job.
In college, I applied for a job at a dry cleaner’s and the owner made me take an IQ test. There were questions like, Bob and Mark both need to take a train, if Bob leaves at X and blah blah blah. I was hired, but I had already found another job.
After 18 months of unemployment, I was finally hired. I had sent thank-you notes by email to everyone in the firm I had interviewed with prior to the offer. (8 total)
3 months later a friend pointed that I had mis-spelled my last name in the automatic signature I had been using for 6 months. (instead of 2 M’s there were 3)
The first line of the resume (thank goodness not mine, but my dear friend’s) read: “Objective: To obtain a career in pubic policy.” She says she sent out hundreds of copies before catching her error.
I conducted my first job interview ever with a fever of 103. I must have said something really enlightening because I got the job!