Caught My Eye: Resume Don'ts

As noted in an earlier post, some people think the resume is history because people use LinkedIn instead but I expressed reservations about that, as did a commenter.

If for no other reason than as a backup, people should still prepare their resumes (called CVs in Quebec).

I found a great summary of issues to avoid when doing so at:
http://www.businessinsider.com/worst-resume-blunders-2011-5#

For those not in the mood to click on the link, here is my paraphrasing of things not to do:

(Except for the tip on the color of paper not to use, most of these tips apply as much to online resumes and LinkedIn profiles as they do to printed resumes.)

1. Make copyediting errors (misspellings, grammatical errors, and misuse of punctuation (stay away from colons--they're a trap)). That said, errors inadvertently slip through, even among experts.  For example, I once heard an editing manager announce that she wouldn't hire anyone who made a single error in their resume.  I guess she wouldn't have hired herself--she inadvertently misspelled her own name.)
2. Include photos.  (A no-no.)
3. Print the resume on paper other than white, cream or very light gray.  The article says colored paper, but I saw a study once (so many years ago, I can't remember where), that found that hese three colors were acceptable (though one--and I can't remember which--was preferred to the others.  
4. Provide TMI--too much information.
5. Name references.  The people named might not be the right people to answers the prospective employers' questions.
6. Saying "references available upon request." (I've been guilty of this.)  Of course they are--so no need to say it.  
7. "Us[e] buzzwords like results-oriented, team-player, and motivated."  The expressions are so over-used, they're vapid.  Besides, who would say on their application that they're anything less than a good performer who gets along well with others? 
8. Name your hobbies.  That's individually pursued hobbies, unless they can provide insights into skills and abilities that are relevant to the job . For example, 'committed Gleek' doesn't really say much about one's skills and abilities, but 'competitive rower' indicates that the applicant must take initiative, practices regularly, and works with teams.  
9. Use long sentences and long paragraphs.  The article says they're a pain to read; but that assumes that hiring managers would even go to that inconvenience.  
10. "Us[e] an unprofessional e-mail address" like sweetiepie55@service.com 
11. Forget your name, address, phone number, and e-mail address.  If they can't reach you, they can't hire you.
12. "Address [the resume] to the wrong company."  That's like calling out someone else's name at an intimate moment.  Everyone likes to feel special.  

Caught My Eye: Can Harmony Hurt Team Performance?

In the academic course, Administration of Educational Technology Units, that I teach at Concordia and the Technical Communication Manager certificate program that I teach for the Society for Technical Communication, I include an exercise on hiring workers.

One of the scenarios in the exercise focuses on a situation in which a manager has the opportunity to bring a brash 25-year-old man into a harmonious department of primarily comprised of middle-aged women. In the scenario, most of the workers express concern that the young man won’t fit in but the person who would work most closely with the young man says that she’s comfortable working with him.

Most people respond that the manager should not hire him because the candidate could disrupt the harmony of the group.

But the point of the exercise is that the harmony might not be a “healthy” harmony, it could be group-think, because the managers of the department have tended to hire clones of the workers.

“Can Harmony Hurt Team Performance?” by Mark de Rond, Adrian Moorhouse, and Matt Rogan and recently posted on The Conversation blog of the Harvard Business Review online specifically explores this type of situation.

The authors suggest that harmony can hurt team performance when:

• “Competition is stifled for the sake of promoting interpsonal harmony,” adding that that competition does not disappear, it merely finds another outlet, usually in the form of office gossip.
• True “harmony is far more likely to be the consequence, and not the cause, of team performance.” Better than “harmony” is a situation in which workers feel they can safely say what they feel without hurting the overall dynamic of the team, an.
• “What can feel dysfunctional need not be dysfunctional,” suggesting that workers in the midst of a project might not be in the best position to assess the dynamics of the team working on it.

Check out the entire piece at:

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/06/can_harmony_hurt_team_performa.html?cm_sp=blog_flyout-_-cs-_-can_harmony_hurt_team_performa.

Caught My Eye: Hiring and LinkedIn

In his personal branding blog for Forbes magazine online, Dan Schwabel posits that LinkedIn will replace job boards like the Monster Board.

After all, LinkedIn already provides much of the same information about a candidate as a resume (or CV in Montreal).

Plus a new feature on LinkedIn lets applicants apply for jobs, thus opening their LinkedIn profile to prospective employers.

Although I'm no expert on recruiting, I'm not 100 percent sure about either prediction.

• As far as LinkedIn replacing job boards--I can see it providing stiff competition to general purpose job boards like the Monster Board and Workopolis. But as far as replacing special purpose job boards, like those of professional associations, I'm not as sure. Because such boards provide a screening function (for example, only people interested in training would look at the CSTD job board), they still serve a useful purpose.
• As far as the death of the resume goes, I'm not sure about that either. Although LinkedIn profiles provide a lot of information about people (and increasingly provide more), the resume has room for more information. In fact, the curriculum vitae (CV), which is a complete record of all activities and is not limited to 2 pages, may make a comeback precisely because it provides more detailed information.

What are your thoughts? I welcome your comments below.

Check out the original blog entry at: http://blogs.forbes.com/danschawbel/2011/06/01/linkedin-is-about-to-put-job-boards-and-resumes-out-of-business/

What? Money in Documentation?

A recent article in the business pages of the Montreal Gazette describes a successful local business that sells templates for standard business documents like policies, procedures, accounting reports, and legal documents.

Among the many issues making this application interesting is that the documents are created to work across companies, industries, and countries, and in many different languages. The challenge to designers is finding what’s common in all of that diversity.

This success story poses some challenges to professional communicators, however. The availability of templates like these could affect work opportunities for policies and procedures writers. Clip illustrations have had a huge impact on the opportunities available to illustrators, so it is likely that the availability of templates for standard operating documents has affected work opportunities for technical communicators.

Learn more about this success story at http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Documentation+made+easy/4825562/story.html.