RE: Applying On-Line

["Dan Hall" <dhall -at- san-carlos -dot- rms -dot- slb -dot- com>]

I have to agree with Laura here.

If you've got enough time to sit around fiddling fonts (nod to AP) and
styles for your resume, you're wasting time in my book. That would be like
spending an hour formatting an HTML e-mail. Since resumes are intended for
_presentation_, rather than sustainability or uniformity, designing styles
for them seems like overkill.

My question: If you've got enough time to scrutinize resumes for styles (how
much time is spent on this?) do you really need another writer?

I too am surprised to find that there are folks out there checking resumes
for styles. Frankly, someone who's picking those nits isn't someone I'd be
interested in working with.

Dan

Dan Hall
Sr. Technical Writer
SchlumbergerSema RTEMS

-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-techwr-l-72045 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
[mailto:bounce-techwr-l-72045 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com]On Behalf Of Laura Lemay
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2002 1:26 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: Applying On-Line



Sharon said:
>When I get unsolicited resumes (no, we are not hiring, I have a crew and
>they are good), most of the time they are in Word. The first thing I do is
>see if the writer used Styles appropriately or at all. It is an example of
>how well the writer knows and uses Word, which tells me a lot about their
>work patterns and habits. I know if the writer understand structured
>documentation. This is important to us.

And then Dave added:
>I would not interview a technical writer who submitted a resume in Word
>format in which all paragraphs used the Normal style. It's that simple.
>If you want an interview and you choose to submit your resume in Word
>format, it'll have to be example of a *properly constructed* Word
>document.

Wow.

I've been a tech writer for a long time.  I've done book design, I've
done a lot of template work, and I've created a whole lot of style
sheets, mostly in frame but occasionally in Word that have been used by
dozens of writers over many years.

It never even occurred to me to create styles for a resume, other than
perhaps simple ones that got the job done.  A resume is an individual,
one or two-page, one-off document.  It doesn't need a lot of hardcore
template work.  Style sheets are for ongoing writer use within the tool
to conform to a specific look across multiple documents and document
sets.  Its a different task and a different use of the tool.

If in an interview someone asked me why I didn't use styles in my resume
I would be happy to give this explanation.  And I would be happy to give
them examples of my template work if template work was part of the
job description.  But to have styles in a resume as an initial weeding
criteria for resumes seems pretty arbitrary.

I suppose this comes down to the whole tool skills vs writing/tech skills
thing.  I'm a great writer with superb tech talent, I do have the tool
skills, but I didn't bother to use them in my resume.  If you're going to
weed me out purely on the basis of the style of my resume without looking
at the substance...well, OK, your loss.  My skills are probably better put
to use elsewhere.

Laura
Email Style Based on: Rant Next Style: coffee




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