Advice for job seekers (colorful language) | Hacker News Reader

Advice for job seekers (colorful language)

craigslist.org

27 pointshenning12 comments

For every frustrated HR peon who hates it when people send a link instead of a Word resume, there is another who hates it when people send a Word resume instead of a link. Of course, both will invariably come to the conclusion that people are stupid.

Attachments? Only stupid people don't know about viruses. No attachments? Only stupid people don't know about the MS Word-compatible software used by HR departments to sort through resumes. And so on and so forth, ad nauseum.

How about you take a long, hard look at yourself, Ms. HR and consider that one is by definition a "total raging bitch" when one refers to their fellow human beings as "whiney fucksicles".

I have to wonder if she specified the resume format and medium. If I ask for a resume as an RTF attachment, I'm not going to get mad at someone who sends a link. I'm just not going to look at it. That said, I've received some truly horrific resumes over the years.

Right, because we are all looking for jobs on this board.

Oh wait, startup capital is drying up. Carry on.

I'm in the midst of hiring a part-time bookkeeper. One ad on Craigslist resulted in over 200 responses.

I got a guy with his email address full name set to "Iwana Jumpu", at least three resumes in Comic Sans, and fully 25% of them the email body had no text...it was just an attachment of their resume (some did have a cover letter attached as well, though it was mostly a generic cover letter with no relation to the position or my ad). The people who went to the trouble to write an email, mention why they liked the sound of the position, and give a brief overview of their qualifications as they apply to this job are obviously the people I'm calling and considering for the position. Good spelling, reasonable grammar, sane use of fonts and colors, etc. also play a role.

This process has led me to start work on a similar rant for my personal blog. I understand the frustration, and I can only imagine what it's like for someone filling many positions, rather than just one.

Now now, don't you think Iwana Jumpu has enough problems already without being discriminated against in employment situations?

"I am not a total raging bitch." Well, maybe not "total"...

Haha at least it was entertaining. And while most of the write-up probably seems like common sense to HNers, this should be required reading for college students applying for jobs.

College recruiting - please God never again.

Brilliant! She seems to 'punctuate' like an English man and describes exactly what I do when culling resumes from the pile on the first pass.

"90% of everything is crap – music, movies, cars, people." - never guessed the last ingredient before

Maybe 90% of resumes are crap, but I believe everyone has some potential, even if their resume is crap. I certainly hope that's not how one views their friends, coworkers, employees, children, neighbors, etc.

Agree

I liked it, she pretty much describes her job and the common mistakes people do...

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