Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
1: Most decent jobs, will generate a lot of applications and resumes.
2: Every applicant is not going to get called in for an interview. Only maybe 5 out of 100 will be interviewed.
3: A resume that gets the attention of the HR/HM over the others submitted, will be the one that gets the interview.
4: The ones that are going to get the interview, are going to be the ones that grab the attention of the HR/HM person looking at the resumes. They will be the ones that are designed to shout, "I am the best applicant for this job". A plain vanilla resume such as the OP objects to, does not do the job, and will end up in the file not in the interview group. A lot of them should be thrown into the circular file (trash can) as that is all they are good for.
5: If you want an interview and the possibility of getting the job, you need to make a special resume for that particular job, pushing your strength to be the best applicant for that job.
6: The resume is not going to get you the job, as you are going to have to pass the interview with flying colors to get the job. The resume, is going to be on the other hand what gets you the interview. I keep seeing threads on CD that complain about how they cannot get an interview, even though they have the education and experience to handle the job. There is only one reason: A Bad Resume. And yes, if you send out a number or resumes and cannot get an interview there is only one reason. LOUSY RESUME. Your resume does not sell the HR/HM on you as even worth an interview.
That's why my next job (If I don't retire from where I am now) will be a fed job, who in their right mind wants to go through that kind of ruthless cut throat competition every couple of years. I am guessing this is part of the reason people have strokes and heart attacks. Going through this kind of traumatic cut throat experience once or twice in a life time is one thing, but doing it every couple of years (or even every 5 years) is not my idea of a good life.
Job hunting should be an Olympic sport since that's how applicants are treated these days.
That's why my next job (If I don't retire from where I am now) will be a fed job, who in their right mind wants to go through that kind of ruthless cut throat competition every couple of years. I am guessing this is part of the reason people have strokes and heart attacks. Going through this kind of traumatic cut throat experience once or twice in a life time is one thing, but doing it every couple of years (or even every 5 years) is not my idea of a good life.
Job hunting should be an Olympic sport since that's how applicants are treated these days.
Thats why I went directly to the Public Sector after I finish school.
The hiring process nowadays is so Un-Balanced.
Private sector is CRAP
1: Most decent jobs, will generate a lot of applications and resumes.
2: Every applicant is not going to get called in for an interview. Only maybe 5 out of 100 will be interviewed.
3: A resume that gets the attention of the HR/HM over the others submitted, will be the one that gets the interview.
4: The ones that are going to get the interview, are going to be the ones that grab the attention of the HR/HM person looking at the resumes. They will be the ones that are designed to shout, "I am the best applicant for this job". A plain vanilla resume such as the OP objects to, does not do the job, and will end up in the file not in the interview group. A lot of them should be thrown into the circular file (trash can) as that is all they are good for.
5: If you want an interview and the possibility of getting the job, you need to make a special resume for that particular job, pushing your strength to be the best applicant for that job.
6: The resume is not going to get you the job, as you are going to have to pass the interview with flying colors to get the job. The resume, is going to be on the other hand what gets you the interview. I keep seeing threads on CD that complain about how they cannot get an interview, even though they have the education and experience to handle the job. There is only one reason: A Bad Resume. And yes, if you send out a number or resumes and cannot get an interview there is only one reason. LOUSY RESUME. Your resume does not sell the HR/HM on you as even worth an interview.
Thank you for clarifying for me. You can verbalize it a lot better than I can.
Even for this summer's internship, I had to look through dozens of resumes to pick out 6 or so. And in the end, I could only recommend 3. And I was sorting through these resumes while running a $30 million dollar project.
The poster who was hostile and made the snide comment of me being paid to read resumes. He obviously doesn't understand that people who read resumes don't just only read resumes. We have other things to do as well, like overseeing currently running projects. And we don't have all the time in the world, either.
The resume is the very first window we have into what the candidate has to offer. Why in the world would people not want to make it catchy? At least I try to decipher messy resumes that I regularly get from students. I know some managers who tell me if they can't glance read it the first time, they're not interested. Now really, would you really want to put your subway job at the top of the resume and your qualifications as a young engineer at the bottom?
I'm six years out of college and all I've ever been asked since my first job, and not every job among those, is for a transcript to prove I graduated. GPA classes activities etc has never come up.
I can figure your GPA from the transcript.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MetroWord
That's not why I'm complaining. What you have done is oversimplify what I've said to make me look like an idiot.
Here is an example to convey what I mean. A moving car is a series of explosions. Does this sentence properly convey what a car does?
Do I sense that you've been butt hurt in the past?
Added by edit.
Oh yeah, if you don't want to take my advice, you are free to do so. And I am free to not give a messy resume any consideration.
While I recognize he did oversimplify, you did somewhat miss his point. Which is you need to give a resume the same diligence you would any other task. It's not just the applicant, but the consequences of a bad hire can be significant. It's worth taking the time to thoroughly read the resumes. We already get to many good ones screened out and bad ones passed through by HR to get by with a quick scan.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MetroWord
Just curious. What field do you work in?
In engineering, rarely will anyone ask you for your transcript. All of that had been previously verified when you took your EIT, PE, SE, etc.
You may be too focused on civil engineering. I've hired a lot of engineers and EIT/PE doesn't mean a thing to me. Not that I don't value the PE, but it doesn't add value for our engineers to have it. Instead I do look at transcripts (esp when considering a new grad) to see if they have any relevant coursework. You'd be surprised how many engineers have a course background fairly limited to conventional engineering coursework.
Which does bring me to your main point on their projects. While I look at that, I don't put as much store in it as you do. The reason is there aren't many schools/programs where an undergrad will even have an opportunity to participate substantially in something such as you describe (new beam technique I believe was mentioned) and few schools will have the equipment to do such a test. Certainly such a student would be exceptional but I don't want to penalize others who would be just as good but who never had the opportunity at their school. So I do want to see the jobs they held and how they did them (and contrary to another poster, it's not about paying dues in a menial job; it's to demonstrate various things like work ethic, ability to work with others, even the ability to show up on time).
I'm not trying to argue where in the resume things should go, but that I read the whole resume and make notes along it because I'm evaluating the whole person, not just the puffery parts.
Social conditioning, a lot of boomer employers want to make sure that everyone went through social initiation (worked some degrading job for low pay) no matter how much aptitude you have or what else you did.
If you did not work the low pay degrading job then its a black mark against you. I am an 11 year professional engineer from a top 10 school and still get flack for it. Just look at the show dirty jobs. I almost feel like I have to take a sabbatical to work at taco bell for 6 months so can have some friends lol.
Fortunatly the liquor store job counted BUT on more than one occasion they start asking ... but don't you have to be 21 to work there ... what did you do before that? Because the top 10 engineer of course did not count, I have to defend it with one summer of summer school and then they inquire about the missing summers like its not ok to just have fun volunteering between high school and college.
I am not sure how screwed I would have been had I not had that liquor store job, I was thinking the top tier engineering education would be respected as an alternative to degrading low pay work, how silly.
I commented on this elsewhere but didn't have the post. So to respond, no it's not about social conditioning. Nor is it about the "top 10 school." The engineering degree is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for getting in the interview group. Frankly the job history means more for that than the top 10 school. I don't need to hire Sheldon. I don't want to hire Sheldon. I want to hire a butt load of Wolowitzs and a few Leonards. Because I need people who can get things done.
I don't find any mistakes on that kind of resume. Whatever the sequence of work history there and references they are totally fine. Anyway, no matter how good your resumes are whenever you're in front of interviewer still your answers during interview matter. Forget about those doubts of yours when it comes to resume.
While I recognize he did oversimplify, you did somewhat miss his point. Which is you need to give a resume the same diligence you would any other task. It's not just the applicant, but the consequences of a bad hire can be significant. It's worth taking the time to thoroughly read the resumes. We already get to many good ones screened out and bad ones passed through by HR to get by with a quick scan.
You may be too focused on civil engineering. I've hired a lot of engineers and EIT/PE doesn't mean a thing to me. Not that I don't value the PE, but it doesn't add value for our engineers to have it. Instead I do look at transcripts (esp when considering a new grad) to see if they have any relevant coursework. You'd be surprised how many engineers have a course background fairly limited to conventional engineering coursework.
Which does bring me to your main point on their projects. While I look at that, I don't put as much store in it as you do. The reason is there aren't many schools/programs where an undergrad will even have an opportunity to participate substantially in something such as you describe (new beam technique I believe was mentioned) and few schools will have the equipment to do such a test. Certainly such a student would be exceptional but I don't want to penalize others who would be just as good but who never had the opportunity at their school. So I do want to see the jobs they held and how they did them (and contrary to another poster, it's not about paying dues in a menial job; it's to demonstrate various things like work ethic, ability to work with others, even the ability to show up on time).
I'm not trying to argue where in the resume things should go, but that I read the whole resume and make notes along it because I'm evaluating the whole person, not just the puffery parts.
But it is about the menial job part because I have been working as a degreed PE in chemical engineering for over 11 years and I still get crap about how I did not get a mcjob over a decade ago. Granted it no longer effects my professional life but there is ALOT of social pressure to have a mcjob and early in a new grads career its critical professionally. My liquor store job was from like 1 in the after noon till midnight so not exactly an 8am job, but man they ate that stuff up because it was menial ... until it dawned on some that you have to be 21 to work there then the questions started rolling in about the off time before that, no matter that I completed (or was in the process of completing) a degree from a top 10 school. Now days you better have that top 10 degree, the mcjob and hitch in the military and an olymic medal before you hit 25, if you are missing any one of those (the medal was sarcasm) but if you don't have it all then an employer will think meh maybe we will wait. We are getting more cut throat then ancient roman was. Its like you have to account for every waking min of your life with work or drudgery or volunteering, heaven forbid you take a summer to just sleep in and enjoy life, that gap will be exploited by judgmental hire managers who have way too much choice in a saturated market.
Employers want that degree but they want to make sure that you did not dodge the s**t show that is food service or service jobs in general. My liquor store job was actually fun because my family knew the owners and I was allowed to manage the entire store by myself all day so there was no s**t show but the grocery stores with the career cashiers and rich peoples snotty kids who were either shopping there or their parents knew they needed to check the menial job box, no thanks.
then everyone stands around and wonders why joining gangs and selling drugs suddenly looks so attractive ... its intellectual dishonesty at its finest.
If you don't care about the PE then how are you even a manager, maybe I just suck at life and getting a top teir degree and a PE is no big deal but to me doing those things was extremely non-trivial. Maybe I just suck a life or maybe you fell into a job your not qualified for. Both the EIT and PE are all day exams that have onerous barriers to entry, no its not a medical degree but it is surprisingly lacks respect. I have thought about getting a masters but it does not really result in significantly more pay or respect for its cost and time.
and maybe its just that engineers have sunk to only being a half step above a cashier. I am not sure what the deal is.
I commented on this elsewhere but didn't have the post. So to respond, no it's not about social conditioning. Nor is it about the "top 10 school." The engineering degree is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for getting in the interview group. Frankly the job history means more for that than the top 10 school. I don't need to hire Sheldon. I don't want to hire Sheldon. I want to hire a butt load of Wolowitzs and a few Leonards. Because I need people who can get things done.
Wolowitz went to MIT and nothing in the show eludes to any of them working a mcjob. So yes it is social conditioning. But your right top teir schools don't really get your foot in the door anymore. I don't know if it is resentment of those schools from people who fought their way into a manager roll who barely made it out of a state school but a top tier school is significantly harder to get into and graduate from than a state school (schools like MIT cal tech, etc).
Last time I checked some of the coolest stuff came out of MIT, actual stuff not just theory. But if your just building basic roads and need one guy with a stamp to satisfy a state requirement your hardly doing real engineering anyways. I have found that employers that say things like "we just need to get the job done" involves basically a construction company that has maybe a hand full of basic design builds that they are compelled to have an engineer for so yea for those places I can see that thought process.
some civil engineers will apply for and take those jobs because it puts them in their ideal location to live or near family etc. There is a sever lack of real engineering jobs in the USA once the tax codes were changed and R&D was basically gutted because the tax code no longer compelled reinvestment into R&D.
Now you basically have to be a nobeloriate to get into places like darpa or los Alamos. A new refinery has not been built since 1973 and when things need to replaced in nuke plants its a s**t show because the talent that actually built that stuff is likely in a grave yard by now and since the infrastructure already exists it does not raise the share holders stock points up to have someone in the know on that stuff so those skills just disappear.
We are going from the boom times of the WW2 generation, bell labs and the like to "you just need to work boy", get down there in them there ditch and get to WORK. What the hell happened. I get that organizations and even the govt have to eventually get stuff done but the engineering matters otherwise why even have programs for it. Companies want all the window dressing and then want it done yesterday because the board have yachts to buy and then they wonder why its getting REALLY hard to find competent people, because they don't want competence they want magic.
At least we have the proliferation of the desk top machining and tools becoming available for people to invent on their own and actually build proto types. So that's cool, but the jobs available to self finances such things are drying up by the day.
Different things works for different places. Some places want achievements/skills/activities on top while others want it on the bottom. Some places want a full, complete and detailed work history while others want the last few jobs. Some places want references while others don't care. Need I say more?
The damn thing is a page long from a fresh grad; exactly how much effort does it take to look at it no matter where anything is placed?
Objectives? Did not realize people still expect those. Here is the real life objective from everyone: I want a f***king job because I need money. I cannot believe some people are still impressed with all the BS.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
