Re: FW: Other handshakes?

["Eric J. Ray" <ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com>]

On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, Darren Barefoot wrote:

> Mr. Ray wrote...

Who?

> > That said, I can think of at least 5
> > perfectly acceptable reasons for submitting a resume in Word
> > formatted without styles or with a preponderance of Normal
> > style or otherwise oddly.
> >
>
> Let's hear your five reasons. It's been stated in this group that the
> use of styles represents a "best practice" for Microsoft Word. As an
> outed ResumeScrutinizer, I agree with this. However, I'm always ready to
> be convinced otherwise. DB.

1) Resume was written in Word, submitted to an
agency, and the agency took the liberty of
"helpfully" tweaking it. Not good practice, but
it happens, and the author/resume owner should
not be blamed. (Fool me once, shame on you;
fool me twice, shame on me.)

2-6) Resume was not written in Word, but was
converted to Word format to meet the letter of
the submission requirements. Specifically:
 2) Written in HTML/CSS and imported into Word, as
    posted yesterday.
 3) Written in high-level markup language (SGML,
    XML, TeX/LaTeX) and converted to Word through
    some process.
 4) Information chunks stored in a database and
    programmatically exported/imported to meet
    specific job posting requirements.
 5) Written/maintained in plain text (e.g., for
    email submission) and imported into Word with
    minimal format applied.
In my opinion, at least the first three, and
probably all four (depending on how the process
is conducted), indicate a level of information
reuse/technological sophistication that's easily
equivalent to using styles in Word.
 6) Written in StarOffice, ABIWord, KOffice,
    Applix, WordPerfect, Frame, or whatever, using
    appropriate mechanisms/tools, but the
    conversion filters hosed the styles. Depending
    on the product versions, filters, and number
    of filters needed to get to the right format,
    this is entirely possible.

7-8) Resume was converted/recovered/rescued and
converted to Word (or fixed) in justifiable haste
(getting a resume in for consideration _today_ is
justifiable in this economy, I think).
 7) Electronic format was lost (through any of a
    number of possible causes that are independent
    of irresponsible behavior on the part of the
    submitter) and a hardcopy was scanned, OCRed,
    and imported into Word.
 8) Electronic format was aged (e.g., WP 5.1) and
    imported into a different program or different
    version with poor results. Minimal cleanup and
    updates resulted in a document with good appearance
    but poor structure/styles.

Basically, resume scrutiny as a screening tool
assumes:
 1) Writing from scratch in Word.
 2) No extenuating circumstances.
There's a cliche about assuming...

I'll grant that a resume written from scratch in
Word should use styles etc., but there are a lot
of valid reasons that a resume in Word format
would not.

IMHO, as expressed in most job ads, Word
format sounds like a "so we can open it" file
format requirement--not a "so we can examine your
work" requirement. That's comparable to telling
someone to bring a driver's license to an
interview, then expecting that the presence
of a driver's license means that they
drove to the interview.

Eric



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