Shooting oneself in the foot follow this blog post

posted by Steve Levy on May 5, 2008

Resumania lives!

We've all shaken our heads at some of the odd things people write in their resumes and cover letters. Here's a story of an addition to the junk folder that I just received today.

I'm working on building a national sales team for a customer - these hunters and gathers cannot be run-of-the-mill; they must have specific company experience and of course, must have a Rolodex to kill for (for all the guffawers out there, I am in 100% agreement with the spec and targets).

So today I received the following in an intro...

I have all your requirements and significant sales and sales managment leadership credentials, except \'extensive rolodex of IT decision makers\'.

Not sure what book this person read to guide their job search but did they ever unload the gun into their feet. If this were an isolated incident, I'd just laugh it off but it isn't. Whomever is guiding most job seekers these days - career services, experts, books, newspaper columns, etc. - really needs to be laid off. The quality of job seeker expertise is abysmal...

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•  Jeremy Langhans

  1 point 18 months ago

  this is why i only "post" via theladders at the moment ... something about candidates having to pay 400 bucks to subscribe to see my listings / send me their resume = keeps the cooks off my ceo jobs ;)

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•  Steve Levy

  1 point 18 months ago

  I think I wasn't clear enough and perhaps you believed I had given all the details for the position. The sad truth is that there are far too many experts out in jobseeker-land offering desensitized pablum; resume writers who can create the "perfect" resume for imperfect people; TPRs who prep when they should be poop.

  This is about the cook who responds to a CEO opening - the generic person who believes if they throw enough paper out there something will stick.

  So many hate the Simon Cowell's of the world when we should be thanking him. This issue is all about substance over style.

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•  Sondra Fuller

  1 point 18 months ago

  Steven, Try to see the humor. It could be worse. S/he could have added, "However, I have a short learning curve and know that I can solve this problem within weeks." Job seeker expertise was always limited but until the last few years, there were not as many equally unprepared sites/"experts" for them to go to... With best wishes, Sondra

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