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How to write a truly professional résumé.
Jun. 15th, 2010 01:03 amA résumé (en français for the document formerly known as 'Curriculum Vitae', or 'CV' as it was known in the lingua via vernacular ("street lingo") of ancient Rome) is a summary of the lack of creativity, dearth of inspiration, and totality of inexperience you've managed to garner in the hive-like arrangement of office blocks understood collectively as "the work force".
Every second résumé earmarked as recycling or landfill languishing in the in-trays of recruiters or human resources managers displays accurately how the author's skills, education and work experience match with a particular position's advertised requirements. A "truly professional résumé" is a document which catches the eye, delights the senses, and accurately displays how precisely zero requirements for anything are relevant when it comes to hiring you.
To write a truly professional résumé is to be noticed for who you truly are, and to own this identity completely. The advice in this guide will make reading your résumé almost as good as vicariously living your life. To incorrectly paraphrase Chuck Palahniuk; you are a beautiful and unique snowflake, all singing, all dancing. Your résumé's pained scream from the page, that's right, your existential pain itself will be a beacon of bright healing light to others. Clearly, you will make a name for yourself.
Begin with a name:
Using someone else's name is best, such as a friend or senile relative. A risqué pseudonym is acceptable if including a mobile number with the résumé.
Move on to an education:
A good education lays a foundation for a great life. Even great thinkers such as former United States president G. W. Bush ask if our children is learning. However, learning is only beneficial for children. Adults are better off being as incompetent as possible or society will completely collapse due to contraventions of occupational health and safety restrictions. Technically you shouldn't even be changing a light bulb, so beyond learning to breastfeed its a good idea to keep knowledge of how to almost anything secret from employers.
If you've ever wandered into a lecture hall, drunk, to sing the second part of Pink Floyd's "The Wall", definitely point out this high point of your academic experience. Be sure to include your emeritus professorship in the sensory examination and evaluation of fermentations, noting in particular any Special High-Intensity Training Exercises undertaken.
If you truly believe anything you have read and understood beyond kindergarten is important enough to mention, be sure to crowd this salient fact from the reader's eye with as many qualification irrelevancies as you can. Good 'padding' includes swimming and cardio-pulmonary resuscitation certificates with issue numbers, pathology test results, primary school report cards, secondary school excuse notes, certificate of immigration, citizenship certificate, certificate of deportation, birth certificate, or your grandmother's congratulatory tandem parachute jump certificate.
Remember, none of the qualifications you list need necessarily be yours. Collecting interesting trophies from other people shows your enthusiasm for the acquisition of knowledge. Besides, your psychiatrist isn't going to miss a diploma issued in 1974 when homosexuality was still classed as a mental disorder, and what the hell, that primitive pen ink their name is written in will probably lift right off with a liberal application of solvent followed by some spirit gum and elbow grease.
History of employment concepts:
Begin with your current state of employment and provide all relevant details. Then provide the next most recent work history and work backwards in stochastically oscillating fashion until you find yourself recounting how your parents used to give you five dollars for mowing the lawn, until once you did it badly enough they never asked again. If you are currently unemployed make something up, for instance "Chief of Wine Country, district of Bridge with all the Graffiti".
Make sure to mention how you are consistently promoted to unwanted positions of responsibility. If any previous employers have outstanding legal cases against you definitely mention this here, as it shows your willingness to continue sustainable relationships.
If you're late with alimony or child support payments put that down in this section as well, Since being married and having children are basically other full-time jobs society refuses to recognise at all, this is the time to let your employer know you're going to be showing up in yesterday's clothes, reeking of alcohol and puke--either because you're in this situation or merely because you sympathise with friends who are.
Mad skillz and inabilities:
A list of the things you're good at. Begin with broad headings such as "Communication" and "Teamwork" and list the basics, you have a good command of a language nobody else speaks, you like to be captain of your pirate vessel, act like its always your birthday, and don't accept blame. When you get down to the nitty gritty of your complete skill set you need others to understand you can use cutlery at a professional level and you know the difference between cross-hatching and hounds tooth patterning in competitive quilting.
A good idea at this point is to list a bunch of things you can't do, have no interest in, or likely will never have the time for even if you find the idea thrilling. Nobody is going to care enough to check anyway, and don't worry if someone surprises you on casual Friday when you wear brown trousers by suggesting you go for an impromptu base-jump from the 50th floor balcony. Not everyone who base jumps knows someone who's died base jumping, so with those odds you'll likely be fine faking any capacity you care to.
Since everyone is technically 'able' to binge drink irresponsibly before driving recklessly on public roads, those important life skills are not something employers care about unless you're applying for a professional driving position. In which case be sure to list here any arrests you have suffered (attach mugshots for extra credibility), outstanding cases and/or convictions recorded against you in traffic court.
Career objective (optional at best, depressing at worst):
Unless you're applying for a promotion in the armed services during a tour of duty, "spending more time on the couch" likely tops your list of objectives. Along with the vast majority of today's grey-suited Monday-to-Friday brigade, the crushing sense of ennui you experience being driven carrot-and-stick fashion to achieve pointless milestones by impossible deadlines set by sadistic imperialists self-styled after Stalin, Mussolini and Mao blinds you to any contentment you had even the possibility of a chance of experiencing from completing tasks.
The best and most enlivening option available in this bleak landscape of despair is to explain how the universe will cool, with any particles of matter left over from the sun's inevitable explosion eventually getting so far away from each other that all energy exchange becomes impossible, thus rendering the ultimate hope of all human endeavour utterly pointless. This shows you have given thought to what the future has in store for us all, yet for some vague, ill-conceived hope, you continue to strive in the wasteland of human existence. If you use that last thought verbatim, it also shows you've also considered the poetry of William Butler Yeats and Percy Bysshe Shelley, who (especially if you're applying for a technical position) are likely people the person reading your résumé hasn't even heard of (so at least you've achieved the unlikely objective of "become enculturated 19thC. British poetry snob").
The most usual fall-back option of dull people is to list their main career objective as "attending the nursing home of their choice", so be sure to indicate your propensity for risk-taking far outweighs the chances of your prospective employer having to pay any kind of retirement or redundancy benefits.
Disinterests:
Much like listing your skills and abilities, detailing your interests gives employers even more personal information about you for ease of internet searching, and more accurately shows areas of your life where you've made the wrong choices (commitment to a cause) or fallen in with a bad crowd (teamwork). If you're a member of the socialist alliance or Resistance, or any Marxist cult which avows the power of an "elitist class" of people who force your peers to work against their will or better judgement, definitely state your views here. Don't dilute your opinions with more information, just go ahead and tell it like it is.
If you've taken a break from reading to write down your important thoughts on this topic, spare a thought for Karl Marx himself, pushing words from the tip of his pen and onwards into the very future his ideas were set to create! Don't hamper the progress of your own ideals with any stark realities brought about in post-Communist societies by such joining of working classes with bourgeois/democratic forces called for by the implementation of certain Marxist ideas. Again, this is your chance to follow Karl's example and scriven your way to financial freedom and immortality, and is absolutely guaranteed to have no negative impact whatsoever on the rest of humanity if anyone else starts believing whatever you choose to impart--most especially if you're applying for any kind of writing position at a media firm.
If you spend as much time logged into any particular website [social networking (schadenfreude), digital data distribution (pornography), peer resource tracking (piracy) and so on] as you will doing work you are paid for, definitely put the address and your username down in this section. This will assure your prospective employer that you understand reciprocity to be a two-way street To outline a possible scenario of au fait Internet interaction with employers: you post that you're sleeping late, they write on your wall asking when you're coming in, you update your status with "searching regional maps for litigation services specialising in prosecuting privacy invasion cases", they email you stating you've exceeded your allowance of sick days, you post a reply on your wall that "someone's lost their sense of humour", they try to ring your mobile phone, you change your status to "AWOL BBQ!", then upload a presumably digitally-altered image of yourself swigging from a bottle of hard liquor while smoking something questionably prohibited and are thus free to arrive at work sometime after midday, self-esteem at an all-time high, job security completely intact and assured of future robustness.
Referees, fouls, penalties, and red flags:
Referees in résumés are not like the ones on the football field, although if you can get them, the cute little black and white outfits are a plus. Unfortunately friends or family are not good referees, since a referee will ideally be able to tell a prospective employer more about you in a two-minute phone conversation than you would reveal about yourself to a prospective lover over a candlelit dinner of Chateaubriand accompanied with glass after glass of Dom. Romane Conti 1997.
The truly ideal referee would never require you to ask their permission to be listed. Employers are always impressed with your organisational skill if your referees are surprised when they call, so be doubly sure to keep any referee listings secret from those people lucky enough for you to list. One of the best ways to sustain relationships is never to thank your undoubtedly surprised referees after you've successfully applied for a position, they'll simply be grateful for any opportunity to sing your praises to anyone who's taken a deep enough plunge into your résumé to extract their phone numbers.
Completion:
Before you've written your résumé, and after sending it, go through this checklist:
Proofread - Those spelling mistakes, typos and grammatical errors are a part of who you are. Would you change who you are just for a job? Don't change who you are just to fool your English teacher into thinking they did a good job either.
Tailor - Make sure everything you mention shows how incredibly unsuited you are for the job you're applying for. Nothing impresses employers more than a square peg valiantly trying to get into a round hole.
Presentation - Creating lovely documents is a joy. For the sheer thrill of it, make sure the resume is well laid out, easy to read and printed on clean, white paper in a standard font (Impact High Condensed, or Webdings) and at a useful size (don't be boring and use standard font sizes 10 or 12 throughout, as varying the sizing from 6 through to 36 while also randomising font weights, script, and line spacing will gain your résumé much attention in comparison to the résumés of any other applicants).
Detail - Make sure you've provided specific examples of every infinitesimal ineptitude you've ever amassed records of. Go into intense, crushingly detailed descriptions any lack of achievement you've ever made, and how you've failed to use skills you were either born with or happened to acquire by accident. For best effect end your résumé with a heavily weighted conclusion, such as how you failed to live up to the potential you showed as a child but now you are an adult you realise potential is worthless. For an atypical twist everyone can appreciate and enjoy; entirely word your résumé in rhyming couplets.
Above all, please enjoy writing your very own truly professional résumé, for it is one of the few things in your own life which is about you.
Every second résumé earmarked as recycling or landfill languishing in the in-trays of recruiters or human resources managers displays accurately how the author's skills, education and work experience match with a particular position's advertised requirements. A "truly professional résumé" is a document which catches the eye, delights the senses, and accurately displays how precisely zero requirements for anything are relevant when it comes to hiring you.
To write a truly professional résumé is to be noticed for who you truly are, and to own this identity completely. The advice in this guide will make reading your résumé almost as good as vicariously living your life. To incorrectly paraphrase Chuck Palahniuk; you are a beautiful and unique snowflake, all singing, all dancing. Your résumé's pained scream from the page, that's right, your existential pain itself will be a beacon of bright healing light to others. Clearly, you will make a name for yourself.
Begin with a name:
Using someone else's name is best, such as a friend or senile relative. A risqué pseudonym is acceptable if including a mobile number with the résumé.
Move on to an education:
A good education lays a foundation for a great life. Even great thinkers such as former United States president G. W. Bush ask if our children is learning. However, learning is only beneficial for children. Adults are better off being as incompetent as possible or society will completely collapse due to contraventions of occupational health and safety restrictions. Technically you shouldn't even be changing a light bulb, so beyond learning to breastfeed its a good idea to keep knowledge of how to almost anything secret from employers.
If you've ever wandered into a lecture hall, drunk, to sing the second part of Pink Floyd's "The Wall", definitely point out this high point of your academic experience. Be sure to include your emeritus professorship in the sensory examination and evaluation of fermentations, noting in particular any Special High-Intensity Training Exercises undertaken.
If you truly believe anything you have read and understood beyond kindergarten is important enough to mention, be sure to crowd this salient fact from the reader's eye with as many qualification irrelevancies as you can. Good 'padding' includes swimming and cardio-pulmonary resuscitation certificates with issue numbers, pathology test results, primary school report cards, secondary school excuse notes, certificate of immigration, citizenship certificate, certificate of deportation, birth certificate, or your grandmother's congratulatory tandem parachute jump certificate.
Remember, none of the qualifications you list need necessarily be yours. Collecting interesting trophies from other people shows your enthusiasm for the acquisition of knowledge. Besides, your psychiatrist isn't going to miss a diploma issued in 1974 when homosexuality was still classed as a mental disorder, and what the hell, that primitive pen ink their name is written in will probably lift right off with a liberal application of solvent followed by some spirit gum and elbow grease.
History of employment concepts:
Begin with your current state of employment and provide all relevant details. Then provide the next most recent work history and work backwards in stochastically oscillating fashion until you find yourself recounting how your parents used to give you five dollars for mowing the lawn, until once you did it badly enough they never asked again. If you are currently unemployed make something up, for instance "Chief of Wine Country, district of Bridge with all the Graffiti".
Make sure to mention how you are consistently promoted to unwanted positions of responsibility. If any previous employers have outstanding legal cases against you definitely mention this here, as it shows your willingness to continue sustainable relationships.
If you're late with alimony or child support payments put that down in this section as well, Since being married and having children are basically other full-time jobs society refuses to recognise at all, this is the time to let your employer know you're going to be showing up in yesterday's clothes, reeking of alcohol and puke--either because you're in this situation or merely because you sympathise with friends who are.
Mad skillz and inabilities:
A list of the things you're good at. Begin with broad headings such as "Communication" and "Teamwork" and list the basics, you have a good command of a language nobody else speaks, you like to be captain of your pirate vessel, act like its always your birthday, and don't accept blame. When you get down to the nitty gritty of your complete skill set you need others to understand you can use cutlery at a professional level and you know the difference between cross-hatching and hounds tooth patterning in competitive quilting.
A good idea at this point is to list a bunch of things you can't do, have no interest in, or likely will never have the time for even if you find the idea thrilling. Nobody is going to care enough to check anyway, and don't worry if someone surprises you on casual Friday when you wear brown trousers by suggesting you go for an impromptu base-jump from the 50th floor balcony. Not everyone who base jumps knows someone who's died base jumping, so with those odds you'll likely be fine faking any capacity you care to.
Since everyone is technically 'able' to binge drink irresponsibly before driving recklessly on public roads, those important life skills are not something employers care about unless you're applying for a professional driving position. In which case be sure to list here any arrests you have suffered (attach mugshots for extra credibility), outstanding cases and/or convictions recorded against you in traffic court.
Career objective (optional at best, depressing at worst):
Unless you're applying for a promotion in the armed services during a tour of duty, "spending more time on the couch" likely tops your list of objectives. Along with the vast majority of today's grey-suited Monday-to-Friday brigade, the crushing sense of ennui you experience being driven carrot-and-stick fashion to achieve pointless milestones by impossible deadlines set by sadistic imperialists self-styled after Stalin, Mussolini and Mao blinds you to any contentment you had even the possibility of a chance of experiencing from completing tasks.
The best and most enlivening option available in this bleak landscape of despair is to explain how the universe will cool, with any particles of matter left over from the sun's inevitable explosion eventually getting so far away from each other that all energy exchange becomes impossible, thus rendering the ultimate hope of all human endeavour utterly pointless. This shows you have given thought to what the future has in store for us all, yet for some vague, ill-conceived hope, you continue to strive in the wasteland of human existence. If you use that last thought verbatim, it also shows you've also considered the poetry of William Butler Yeats and Percy Bysshe Shelley, who (especially if you're applying for a technical position) are likely people the person reading your résumé hasn't even heard of (so at least you've achieved the unlikely objective of "become enculturated 19thC. British poetry snob").
The most usual fall-back option of dull people is to list their main career objective as "attending the nursing home of their choice", so be sure to indicate your propensity for risk-taking far outweighs the chances of your prospective employer having to pay any kind of retirement or redundancy benefits.
Disinterests:
Much like listing your skills and abilities, detailing your interests gives employers even more personal information about you for ease of internet searching, and more accurately shows areas of your life where you've made the wrong choices (commitment to a cause) or fallen in with a bad crowd (teamwork). If you're a member of the socialist alliance or Resistance, or any Marxist cult which avows the power of an "elitist class" of people who force your peers to work against their will or better judgement, definitely state your views here. Don't dilute your opinions with more information, just go ahead and tell it like it is.
If you've taken a break from reading to write down your important thoughts on this topic, spare a thought for Karl Marx himself, pushing words from the tip of his pen and onwards into the very future his ideas were set to create! Don't hamper the progress of your own ideals with any stark realities brought about in post-Communist societies by such joining of working classes with bourgeois/democratic forces called for by the implementation of certain Marxist ideas. Again, this is your chance to follow Karl's example and scriven your way to financial freedom and immortality, and is absolutely guaranteed to have no negative impact whatsoever on the rest of humanity if anyone else starts believing whatever you choose to impart--most especially if you're applying for any kind of writing position at a media firm.
If you spend as much time logged into any particular website [social networking (schadenfreude), digital data distribution (pornography), peer resource tracking (piracy) and so on] as you will doing work you are paid for, definitely put the address and your username down in this section. This will assure your prospective employer that you understand reciprocity to be a two-way street To outline a possible scenario of au fait Internet interaction with employers: you post that you're sleeping late, they write on your wall asking when you're coming in, you update your status with "searching regional maps for litigation services specialising in prosecuting privacy invasion cases", they email you stating you've exceeded your allowance of sick days, you post a reply on your wall that "someone's lost their sense of humour", they try to ring your mobile phone, you change your status to "AWOL BBQ!", then upload a presumably digitally-altered image of yourself swigging from a bottle of hard liquor while smoking something questionably prohibited and are thus free to arrive at work sometime after midday, self-esteem at an all-time high, job security completely intact and assured of future robustness.
Referees, fouls, penalties, and red flags:
Referees in résumés are not like the ones on the football field, although if you can get them, the cute little black and white outfits are a plus. Unfortunately friends or family are not good referees, since a referee will ideally be able to tell a prospective employer more about you in a two-minute phone conversation than you would reveal about yourself to a prospective lover over a candlelit dinner of Chateaubriand accompanied with glass after glass of Dom. Romane Conti 1997.
The truly ideal referee would never require you to ask their permission to be listed. Employers are always impressed with your organisational skill if your referees are surprised when they call, so be doubly sure to keep any referee listings secret from those people lucky enough for you to list. One of the best ways to sustain relationships is never to thank your undoubtedly surprised referees after you've successfully applied for a position, they'll simply be grateful for any opportunity to sing your praises to anyone who's taken a deep enough plunge into your résumé to extract their phone numbers.
Completion:
Before you've written your résumé, and after sending it, go through this checklist:
Proofread - Those spelling mistakes, typos and grammatical errors are a part of who you are. Would you change who you are just for a job? Don't change who you are just to fool your English teacher into thinking they did a good job either.
Tailor - Make sure everything you mention shows how incredibly unsuited you are for the job you're applying for. Nothing impresses employers more than a square peg valiantly trying to get into a round hole.
Presentation - Creating lovely documents is a joy. For the sheer thrill of it, make sure the resume is well laid out, easy to read and printed on clean, white paper in a standard font (Impact High Condensed, or Webdings) and at a useful size (don't be boring and use standard font sizes 10 or 12 throughout, as varying the sizing from 6 through to 36 while also randomising font weights, script, and line spacing will gain your résumé much attention in comparison to the résumés of any other applicants).
Detail - Make sure you've provided specific examples of every infinitesimal ineptitude you've ever amassed records of. Go into intense, crushingly detailed descriptions any lack of achievement you've ever made, and how you've failed to use skills you were either born with or happened to acquire by accident. For best effect end your résumé with a heavily weighted conclusion, such as how you failed to live up to the potential you showed as a child but now you are an adult you realise potential is worthless. For an atypical twist everyone can appreciate and enjoy; entirely word your résumé in rhyming couplets.
Above all, please enjoy writing your very own truly professional résumé, for it is one of the few things in your own life which is about you.
