Almostgotit.com

These are from actual resumes:

(from multiple sources: if you know original source, please comment!!)

“Personal: I’m married with 9 children. I don’t require prescription drugs.

“I am extremely loyal to my present firm, so please don’t let them know of my immediate availability.”

“Qualifications: I am a man filled with passion and integrity, and I can act on short notice. I’m a class act and do not come cheap.”

“I intentionally omitted my salary history. I’ve made money and lost money. I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. I prefer being rich.”

“Note: Please don’t misconstrue my 14 jobs as ‘job-hopping’. I have never quit a job.”

“Number of dependents: 40.”

“Marital Status: Often. Children: Various.”

“Here are my qualifications for you to overlook.”

“Responsibility makes me nervous.”

“They insisted that all employees get to work by 8:45 every morning. Couldn’t work under those conditions.”

“[left my last job because I] was met with a string of broken promises and lies, as well as cockroaches.”

“I was working for my mom until she decided to move.”

“The company made me a scapegoat - just like my three previous employers.”

“While I am open to the initial nature of an assignment, I am decidedly disposed that it be so oriented as to at least partially incorporate the experience enjoyed heretofore and that it be configured so as to ultimately lead to the application of more rarefied facets of financial management as the major sphere of responsibility.”

“I was proud to win the Gregg Typting Award.”

“Please call me after 5:30 because I am self-employed and my employer does not know I am looking for another job.”

“My goal is to be a meteorologist. But since I have no training in meteorology, I suppose I should try stock brokerage.”

“I procrastinate - especially when the task is unpleasant.”

“Minor allergies to house cats and Mongolian sheep.”

“Personal Interests:  Donating blood. 14 gallons so far.”

“Education: College, August 1880-May 1984.”

“Work Experience: Dealing with customers’ conflicts that arouse.”

“Develop and recommend an annual operating expense fudget.”

“I’m a rabid typist.”

“Instrumental in ruining entire operation for a Midwest chain operation.”

 ((When one might consider hiring a service..))

My little (almost) interview dilemma  continued today.  I guess one ought not to blog about such things until they’re resolved (lest one get dooced).  But suffice it to say that it’s probably not a good idea to get a phone call from one’s daughter’s elementary school right in the middle of a job interview, which of course one has to take due to one’s suspicions (which turn out to be correct) that one’s spouse has neglected to pick up said daughter from said school. 

Furthermore?  It’s also probably not done, in the best circles, to arrive at a job interview without a car, niavely assuming both (a) that said spouse will pick up said daughter and (b) that it will not rain torrentially. 

And finally, it is much preferred that one not end a job interview mid-stream by bumming a ride from one’s interviewers to go rescue one’s daughter.

——
Related Posts:
Confusion Cookies (the story continues)
Nope (the story concludes)
Hanging in, and blonder too (reflection)

So what do you do when you have a little (almost) career dilemma and need help?  You NETWORK, of course.  And I’m so glad that a certain, Certified Senior Professional in Human Resources was willing not only to answer my question but to refer to me as “a positive, contributing professional,” right there in her blog.  Goose bumps!  Cigar-worthy stuff, Yessir. (Swisher Sweets Perfecto, I think.) Thanks much, you Career Encourager, you!  I’ll keep you posted.

(I also quite like the pseudonym ”Emily”)

One of the fun things about blogging is finding all of the other people who are blogging about similar things, and commenting on what they write.  Sometimes they’ll then click through to your blog and do the same thing, and voila:  yet another kind of networking.  Good networking is the best way to get a job, by the way.  And we are always networking, whether or not we are doing it well or even consciously.  Relationships are everything. 

Let me say that again.  Relationships are everything. 

So, yesterday?  I commented on one of my favorites, the Career Encouragement Blog (it’s one of two I feature in the column at right) on the topic of informational interviews and how they relate to networking in general.  Which resulted, today, in a whole post based on my comment. 

Wow, which is all so meta! 

Dear Mr. HR Guy,

Thank you for your letter of April 17th.   This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large number of highly-qualified rejection letters.  With such a competitive field of candidates, it is simply impossible for me to accept all refusals, however.

Therefore, after careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me employment with your fine establishment.

Despite your company’s excellent qualifications and previous experience in rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet my needs at this time. Therefore I will initiate employment with your firm immediately following my dental appointment next Thursday. I look forward to seeing you then.

Sincerely,
Finally Got It

“Don’t burn bridges” is good advice.  So is “getting it off your chest.”  I wonder how one manages this balance in a no-longer-anonymous blog without getting in trouble?  (the applicable blogging term is “dooced”..)

That said, my own personal favorite interview “worsts”:

(1) Members of the interview committee arguing with each other, during my interview, about what they need and want, obviously never having agreed on what they want in the new hire.  It was like watching a really horrible ping-pong game…

(2) Having the computer crash during a timed writing test, with no one else around.  After wasting a few minutes trying to fix it, I wasted several more minutes wandering around the offices looking for someone else who could.  I then asked if having the computer crash was part of the test.  It wasn’t… but for making them laugh, I not only got more time, but was called back for another round of interviews. 

Amounting, alas, to naught…

(3) Being promised a job and then finding it had gone to someone else.  After two sets of interviews, for two separate jobs at The Institution That Shall Not be Named, each of two over-enthusiastic unit directors virtually offered me the job, though later (quite a bit later!) I found out the formal offer had gone to someone else.

Nor does this include

(4) The broken verbal promise of a full-time, salaried position  in yet another part of the same Institution, this time made to me by the Institute’s absolute top guy – which was rescinded 7 months later as “never having been,” but only after they’d also got 7 more months of virtually free labor out of me. (Moral:  ALWAYS get it in writing!!!!!!)