Workin' for The Man

Get a job,
Sha na na na, sha na na na na
--The Silhouettes



Beginning this week, we will start to deal with the job search and what may be the two most important professional writing documents you'll produce: the resume and letter of application.  (Technically they would not be examples of professional writing if you're just beginning your career, because you're not a professional yet.  But the people who read these documents expect professional-level writing.) 

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of resumes and letters of application, however, we first need to think about what those documents are supposed to do and how they get used.  We also need to think about what potential employers are looking for candidates to be able to do.  The notion that all you need to do is fill in some blanks about work and school in chronological order (actually, reverse chronological order) is quaint, and certainly makes preparing these documents easy. Unfortunately, that method doesn't work very well. By following a "traditional" approach to putting together a resume, you'll likely run into these problems:

* Your resume and letter will look like and read like thousands of others. If the point is to make yourself stand out from other job candidates, how exactly are a boilerplate resume and letter going to do this?
* If you're a traditional-aged college student, your work experience has likely been fragmented, and for the most part likely has little or nothing to do with your chosen career. So while it's terrific that you worked hard waiting tables or trimming hedges or flipping burgers, none of that will have anything to do with what you foresee as your life's work. So what's the point of just listing that stuff on a resume?

The key is to rethink how you approach these documents, and you do that by rethinking the way you look for a job and the way you make decisions about what to include on the resume and what to include on the letter. This ain't your grandparents' (or even parents') job search any more.


Myth: Create a one-size-fits-all resume, make a ream of copies, then carpet-bomb potential employers with your resumes. This is like tossing chum into the ocean--hopefully something not-too-repulsive will rise and take the bait.

Reality: Target the job search. Carefully research the organizations for whom you would like to work, and limit yourself to about a dozen organizations. Revise and rework the resume for each company. Believe it or not, organizations typically don't just want warm bodies to fill positions--they want people who both want to work there and are prepared to work there.

• Need help with researching an organization?  Click here to go to a site that will walk you through the steps for finding out information about an organization.

Myth: Buy a newspaper, open the want ads, and start circling.

Reality: Current research indicates that finding a job through newspaper want ads is actually the least effective approach. The most effective? Networking. Other effective approaches are internships (which lead to networking opportunities) and cyber-searches (such as Monster.com). Basically you want to exploit several different methods, rather than restrict yourself to one--particularly if that one is the traditional newspaper ad.

• Click here to read an article on the effectiveness of networking

Myth: Fill as much space as you can in the resume, so that it looks like you've done lots of stuff. That might compensate for the possibility that the stuff you enter has little if anything to do with the job for which you're applying.

Reality: Emphasize skills and qualities you've developed as a consequence of the experience you've had. Match those skills and qualities to the skills and qualities needed to do the job for which you're applying. (That's why you research the company.) It's not so much what you've done, but how well you've done it, and what skills and qualities you needed to develop to do things well.