Every year around this time, thousands of college seniors prepare their resumes to send to prospective employers. Cramming a lifetime’s worth of experience onto a page or two is apt to be unpleasant for anyone, and for students it is often especially anxietyproducing, a stark reminder that four years of beer and 19th-century feminist literature don’t necessarily add up to credentials for a job. But what about employers? What’s the process like from their end? To find out, I spent an afternoon leating through a pile of resumes and cover letters sent by undergraduates to businesses and think tanks in Washington. Writing resumfis, it turns out, is the easy part. Reading them is the challenge.
The first thing one notices about a stack of college resumes is their startling sameness. Each seems to follow an identical format: At the top, beneath name and address, sits the “Career Objective,” a pithy statement of intent, which is followed by the “Experience” category. “Experience” is the heart of the resume, and as if to prove it, each line begins with an aggressive verb. Applicants haven’t simply “worked” at previous jobs, they’ve “pursued” or “utilized” or “coordinated” them. Some have even “scheduled” or ” organized” or “developed.” Still others have “facilitated.” And, of course, every resumfi bottoms out with the same wooden declaration: “References Available Upon Request.”
If college resumes seem as uniform as Model Ts, it’s no accident — they’re produced in much the same mechanized way. Judith Gumbiner, director of Career Services at San Diego State University and a resume consultant since 1967, boasts that her school’s career counseling office has “computer programs where students can input their data and [the resume] comes out on a laser printer,” complete with action verbs attached. In one case, Gumbiner remembers, an enterprising student added his own personal touch, capitalizing the first letter of each verb on his resume in descending order until they spelled out a message in acrostic code: “MUST HIRE,” it read. Gumbiner seems impressed as she recalls the innovation. “We encourage students to be as creative as possible,” she says. And no wonder: “It’s a very humbling thought to think someone could summarize their life in one paragraph.”
If so, most undergraduates don’t seem to realize it. Humility — indeed, any sense of perspective — seems in short supply on many resumes. “If you are interested in adding a bright, fresh, talented professional to your creative staff” — and, hey, who isn’t? — “you will want to consider the enclosed resume,” advises one cover letter. A job in Washington, predicts a Penn State student, will “help me become more influential in the legislative process.” One young scholar from California boasts of her high-school diploma, awarded “Magna Cure Laudi.” Yet another applicant decides to skip the small talk: “I know I am extremely qualified for this position,” he writes, adding, “I firmly believe that the United States of America is one of the most influential country in the world.”
What gives these resume writers such confidence in their own abilities? For the answer, employers are advised to look under the heading “Skills.” In this space, one applicant lists “getting things done” and, cryptically, “people contact.” Another touts his accomplishments in “telephone answering, photocopying, and check cashing.” A great number of resume writers claim to have abundant “interpersonal communications skills”; at least one turns out to be a “people person.” An art-minded applicant includes a poem about date rape, while another lists her involvement with “Step Aerobics” as a qualification for the job.
It is true that college students can’t be expected to have too many relevant or scintillating life experiences to add to their resumes. But they can be expected to make some up. An enterprising applicant should take the time to come up with some imaginative padding. A Victoria Cross for valor, perhaps, or a year spent bathing lepers in Calcutta. Alas, even simple lying seems beyond the grasp of many college students.
For the most part, the resumes reveal only boilerplate exaggerations, usually thick language lamely designed to cover boring summer jobs with a patina of danger or excitement. One Georgetown University student, describing work as a sales clerk, touts his expertise in “8-line telephone management.” Another brags of being the “Risk Management Chair” at his fraternity. As part of her waitressing job, writes one applicant, she “addressed questions concerning the restaurant.” (“Excuse me, Miss, where can I find the men’s room?”)
A college graduate with “superb interpersonal communication skills” probably can do a decent job opening mail in a senator’s office or tending the fax machine in a think tank. Still, you’ve got to wonder. As one applicant puts it in his cover note, “Along with this letter, I am obtaining as resumes of myself.” That’s for sure.
TUCKER CARLSON
