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> In a sea of resumes, I'm looking to stand out. I think hobbies show you
> don't just do 9-5. You live your life and don't just sit in front of a TV
> each night. I want to stand out so chances are my hobbies will plant a seed
> in the memory of the interviewer. The interviewer then thinks of me more as
> a person than an applicant. The more they "know" you, the more likely they
> are to trust you on the rest of what your resume says (unless your hobby is
> an officer in the Society for Perpetual Liars or something like that).
This logic is similar to the logic that says you should print your resume on
pink paper so that yours will stand out.
When we were hiring (it seems so long ago!) we were primarily looking for people
who had a demonstrated ability to learn something and then describe it. How
much they knew about tools and applications depended on whether we were hiring
interns or more senior people. Applicants for internships could be forgiven for
less than professional looking resumes, but more experienced people should have
known better. And for the latter, listing personal data was (and to my mind
still is) irrelevant. Hobbies and other extras were things that usually turned
up in the interview but didn't belong on a resume of someone who was a true
professional.
Our approach as a service company has always been to focus on making sure that
the client knows we are spending our time doing their job as efficiently as we
can. To that end, demanding that the client knows we have hobbies and outside
interests is not just irrelevant, it's a negative. Therefore when we're hiring,
we look for people who show the ability to focus on getting the job done.
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