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In the Silicon Valley, resume automation has been around for a long
time. I remember automated resume processing in the early 1990s. Some
friends of mine actually went to work for Resumix!
Having been a hiring manager and interviewer as well as an interviewee,
I can say that automated resume scanning helps with the initial cut. In
that phase, nobody has the time to read all the resumes. I also think
that it separates style from content, which may or may not be a good
thing. But generally, I expect automation somewhere along the line.
Eventually, somebody will read your resume. If this doesn't happen in
the second phase, it will certainly happen if you get called in for an
interview. Might as well have one resume for everything! And, humans
look for buzzwords, too, you know!
Knowing someone in the company doesn't always help. The *best* results
I've had were with good recruiters. The recruiting business used to be
pretty good; now it has a lot of fly-by-night firms and people in it.
Still, a really good recruiter will connect you up with a good company,
if you're the right fit.
That's the rub. In the end, the issue with the hiring process is not
being hired when you *really need* a job. In that case, you no longer
care about fit; you care about a paycheck. I see no solution to that. In
my humble opinion, the Silicon Valley currently has a large excess of
people professing to be technical writers. I think this is because of
the dot.com boom and bust we went through. Many people jumped into the
tech writing profession in the good years, and landed on the street in
the bad years.
Many people have rebounded. They weren't always the most qualified, the
most experienced, or the best fit to the company. But then, hiring is
not always based on that. The ones who got hired had connections,
special skills, or just plain luck. The fact remains that as far as I
can tell, we have more qualified people than jobs. It's an unfortunate
situation, and I don't know the answer to it.
Joe Malin
Technical Writer
(408)625-1623
jmalin -at- tuvox -dot- com
www.tuvox.com
The views expressed in this document are those of the sender, and do not
necessarily reflect those of TuVox, Inc.
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+jmalin=tuvox -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+jmalin=tuvox -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf
Of Geoff Hart
Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2005 6:02 AM
To: TECHWR-L; Peter Neilson
Subject: The resume grinder?
Peter Neilson reports: <<Over the years I've used a resume format in MS
Word or in vanilla text that I thought looked pretty good. About eight
years ago I began to feel that HR departments at possible employers
weren't exactly reading it, but instead were stupidly scanning it for
buzzwords. So I raised that question with a recruiter... He said that
yes, they used that method to select which ones to read.>>
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