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Subject:Re: How do hiring companies view TW resumes? From:voxwoman <voxwoman -at- gmail -dot- com> To:Dan Goldstein <DGoldstein -at- riverainmedical -dot- com> Date:Tue, 16 Mar 2010 08:44:38 -0400
I have learned that if I have to put an "unusual" word in my resume (such as
"rheology" -- an industry in which I once worked), I would also put in some
words explaining what it meant, especially if the resume was going outside
that niche industry. It also demonstrates that I can explain technical
concepts to a lay audience (which is one of my selling points). I have also
found it helpful to put in explanatory blurbs about companies where I've
worked, since many of them no longer exist under that name or in that form
(from mergers, acquisitions, or more dire outcomes).
-Wendy
On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 8:33 AM, Dan Goldstein <
DGoldstein -at- riverainmedical -dot- com> wrote:
> We don't know how "emergy" was used in the thesis title, so it's hard to
> judge how "misaligned with reality" your interviewer really was. In some
> contexts, even a fellow tech writer might have assumed it was a typo.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Peter Neilson
> > Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 8:24 AM
> > To: TECHWR-L
> > Subject: How do hiring companies view TW resumes?
> >
> > My resume necessarily contains many arcane terms, some of
> > which are flagged by MS Word as spelling errors. (Y'all's
> > resumes have the same feature, of course.) Personally, I use
> > MS Word's spelling correction magno cum grano salis, but I've
> > just discovered, to my surprise, that some HR departments
> > might be judging the soundness of a writer's ability by MS
> > Word's count of misspellings in his resume.
> >
> > An agent at a placement firm asked me, "There seems to be a
> > spelling error here, the word 'emergy'. That should be
> > energy, right?" The word itself is cute, esoteric and
> > unfortunate, but it was indeed the subject of a thesis that I
> > helped a PhD candidate rewrite.
> >
> > I had a sinking feeling that my rejection for "perfect" job
> > matches, getting no interview where it was rather clear to me
> > that I was the most appropriate candidate, could be from my
> > inability to spell that word "correctly."
> >
> > The next version of my resume will omit it.
> >
> > Does anyone else have evidence that HR people might be so
> > misaligned with reality as to assume that they can spell
> > technical terms better than tech writers?
> >
>
>
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