Real Résumés

[Elkhound]

Originally Posted by Dutch Angua

I have listed my hobbies on my resume. Once during a job interview I was told I was not what they were looking for, as my hobbies (drawing, hiking, shooting) showed I wasn't a team player.

One wants one's colleagues to be collegial. I was once on a hiring committee, and we had it down to two candidates. In terms of background, skills, etc., both were excellent; the one who was marginally better on those qualities had, alas, a personality that would have rubbed everyone in the group the wrong way.

[Lainie]

Originally Posted by Simply Madeline

I think you were the victim of a UL. That's an old joke:

Could be. Or my mom's friend was joking, or got the idea from the old joke. I do know that's what she told her kids.

[Dutch Angua]

Originally Posted by Elkhound

One wants one's colleagues to be collegial. I was once on a hiring committee, and we had it down to two candidates. In terms of background, skills, etc., both were excellent; the one who was marginally better on those qualities had, alas, a personality that would have rubbed everyone in the group the wrong way.

Maybe, but I found it an unfair assumption that because I enjoy solitary hobbies, I'm not a team player in my work. I told them that too, and they seemed quite surprised that I would stand up for myself.
I am part of a team at work. That's why I'd like to relax by myself in my free time. The fact that they pretty much at the start of the interview told me I was antisocial judging from nothing but my hobbies rubbed me the wrong way.

I guess it worked out alright though, I couldn't work with somebody that would make rash assumptions.

(I wanted to post this in the first post but I was in a hurry)

[Lainie]

Passing on an applicant after an interview because you don't think their personality would be a good fit is, IMO, entirely different from assuming they won't be "collegial" without even meeting them, just because you read a list of solitary hobbies on their resume.

[Dutch Angua]

Originally Posted by Lainie

Passing on an applicant after an interview because you don't think their personality would be a good fit is, IMO, entirely different from assuming they won't be "collegial" without even meeting them, just because you read a list of solitary hobbies on their resume.

Exactly. At that point in the interview we had barely exchanged 2 sentences. What annoyed me as well is that, if they had already assumed from my hobbies that I wouldn't fit in the team, why did they have me drive over a significant distance in the first place?

But I derailed the thread now...

[ganzfeld]

Originally Posted by Mycroft

[...] one of whom listed unicycling skills when applying for a computer management job.

Unicyclist would definitely be a positive. YMMV (on one wheel).

[Skeptic]

Originally Posted by Lainie

A clever one (IMO): A friend's mother applied to be librarian at a Catholic school. The application asked for "Church preference?" My friend's mom, who was Jewish, responded "Red brick."

She got the job, and worked there for several decades, until she retired.

I helped a younger work colleague do up her resume. She'd been educated at a technical college, and put down her time there as being at "the Tech" using its local nicname.

[Dasla]

re the hobbies thing. When I started doing resumes back in the '90's most resumes templates included "hobbies" as a heading. I was told the same reason RealityChuck was told.

I relise I have missed a whole lot of post on this topic.

[Brad from Georgia]

Once I applied to teach in a special program and had to fill out a background questionnaire that included a line about whether or not I was a felon. I wrote "Never convicted" and though I got the gig, the program director made me fill out the form again. Though tempted to write "Wouldn't YOU like to know," instead I wrote "No."

Lucky they got so fussed about that one they didn't read my response to "Do you support the overthrow of the government?"

[Amigone201]

Originally Posted by Brad from Georgia

Lucky they got so fussed about that one they didn't read my response to "Do you support the overthrow of the government?"

New York has a series of questions like that on its attorney admission form. Most of then are "Have you ever been convicted of treason?" Or have you ever been a member of an organization that seeks to overthrow the government?"

So of course I went down the list, saying NO to each one. I guess I didn't read the last one carefully because it was "Will you swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States?" I put NO just like all the others.

Caused a bit of snickering around my office.

[Eoin]

I'm always a bit suspicious of the authenticity of these lists. Some of these might be simple typos. People sometimes get nervous when filling out a paper application and misspell a word they perfectly well know. Word processing cut-and-paste technology makes it easy to reword a sentence and overlook some error such as noun/pronoun or noun/verb agreement. ("An office clerk or sales assistant" becomes "an sales assistant or office clerk", a rewording that might not have been made on a typewriter written resume.)

A writer I met a few years ago told about a sentence he'd written in one of his novels that, either through elimination or addition of a character from the scene, contained a noun/verb agreement error. He discovered it when, signing autographs six months after the book had been published, a reader drew his attention to the ungrammatical quote on the the back cover. Not only had the author overlooked the error, so had at least three other people: the editor, the copy editor, and the person who did the cover layout. Sometimes these errors aren't because some people are stupid, they're because all people are human. We'd be stupid ourselves to disregard an otherwise well written piece over an error.

This isn't to say that these mistakes aren't often very funny. Sometimes it's the applications themselves and advice of career experts that lead to strange answers, especially since so many employers have come to expect the sort of aggrandizement that rankles the literate and favors the fabulist. Somebody has to slice the meat, take the reservations, guard the bank, or repair the plumbing, and while some people doing those jobs may be well read, sophisticated people, it shouldn't be a requirement. I don't so much care if the hardware store clerk thinks a "dowel rod" is a "doll rod" as much as whether I get sent to correct aisle or a dozen aisles over to bathroom fixtures where "towel rod" displays are.

[thorny locust]

Originally Posted by Eoin

Some of these might be simple typos. [ . . . ] a reader drew his attention to the ungrammatical quote on the the back cover.

-- what's the number of that rule that says any post about such an error must itself contain at least one example?

[Dasla]

Originally Posted by thorny locust

-- what's the number of that rule that says any post about such an error must itself contain at least one example?

No, Eoin was just testing us.

[Eoin]

Originally Posted by Dasla

No, Eoin was just testing us.

Ah! You've seen through my plan!
(I just knew that was going to happen.)

[BrianB]

Originally Posted by thorny locust

-- what's the number of that rule that says any post about such an error must itself contain at least one example?

Our name for it is tdn's law. I don't know how many other sites have used it but I have also seen it used on Usenet. The earliest reference I can find is from 2003.

Brian

[thorny locust]

BrianB, I am now trying not to get sidetracked into reading the rest of that old thread; which, judging from the bit that I saw on that page, had a serious discussion in there somewhere, but also had serious trainwreck potential.

Of course, if I understand correctly, the reason they're called trainwrecks is in part because it's hard to look away . . .

But thanks for the terminology!

[Mouse]

In all honesty, I wonder if resumes really have the power to change things one way or the other. But then again, my natural pessimism/cynicism just assumes that all this stuff about job interviews or collecting applications...secretly they've already decided who to hire, but law requires them to make of show like their genuinely looking for new recruits, so they do. And at the end of it, they hire the person they'd originally intended to hire.

All right, I thwack myself on my way out for being all depressed and misanthropic .

[Lainie]

Don't thwack yourself, just consider this: People are hired for jobs by people who've never met them before, all the time. Me, for example, in almost every job I've ever held, including the present one.

[Sue]

Mouse there is certainly some truth in what you posted. I've been in situations in the past where the hiring process was gone through from start to finish while all the time knowing the person we were hiring was a foregone conclusion. It sucks for all concerned. But as Lainie points out that's not the norm. My current job, for example, I got the old fashioned way. Saw an advert, sent in an application, went though the interview process and got the job. I didn't have an "in" and as far as I know they did have other qualified candidates. I got lucky.

[Bill]

Originally Posted by RealityChuck

The thinking behind that is perfectly logical: you want to include hobbies in your resume to give an idea that you have interests outside the office. It makes the resume more interesting and occasionally, you'll hit someone who shares the same interest. If I saw that on a resume, it'd go to the top of the pile.

I remember in the 1980s the old resume books telling us to include hobbies on a resume. Most experts today seem to advise against it.

But I've seen it work to advantage. One person who was hired by one of the small accounting firms had no relevant experience but the employer was impressed with his passion for leadership in youth sports.

Originally Posted by Dutch Angua

Maybe, but I found it an unfair assumption that because I enjoy solitary hobbies, I'm not a team player in my work. I told them that too, and they seemed quite surprised that I would stand up for myself.
I am part of a team at work. That's why I'd like to relax by myself in my free time. The fact that they pretty much at the start of the interview told me I was antisocial judging from nothing but my hobbies rubbed me the wrong way.

I guess it worked out alright though, I couldn't work with somebody that would make rash assumptions.

(I wanted to post this in the first post but I was in a hurry)

Agreed.

Reminds me of the person I went to business school with, with top academics and experience, who got job offers from five out of the then-six major CPA firms. Someone from the sixth firm told her that the firm likes to hire "fun people" and the only way they'd hire her is if she did something like bungee jumping.

And that's more important to somebody than top academics and experience. It's ridiculous.

Thanks.

Bill