[austechwriter] Re: Resumes are a show case for a Tech Writer

  • From: "Donald Halley" <donald@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2003 10:49:52 +0930

I agree with Al, if a Tech Writer can't take the time to apply styles or =
think about how the end product is going to look, more often than not =
they are not worth considering. Not using styles in a CV is inexcusable =
for a Tech Writer. We always ask for an electronic application. =
Unfortunately, we always end up with 40 files called CV.doc.=20

Some examples we have had recently:

We get Word documents a that are US Letter
No styles in place so the pagination usually goes awry (obviously never =
heard of 'keep with next") and the heading is on one page and the body =
on the next.
Rather than reset a tab they put in 5 tabs to achieve white space
The use of obscure fonts.
Typos and spelling errors.
Not bothering to address the criteria spelt out in the ad.

Or are we supposed to overlook this, are Tech Writer's CVs like =
mechanic's cars and dentist's teeth?
If jobs are so scarce and you are unemployed, how hard can it be put in =
some effort to your CV?

Regards
Donald Halley
MAXEN Pty Ltd.


-----Original Message-----
From: AForge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:AForge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, 3 July 2003 9:02 AM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [austechwriter] Resumes are a show case for a Tech Writer


My company also advertised recently and I was a little baffled by the
standard of CVs. I would have expectedTech Writer CVs to be about the =
best
CVs out there.

Nope.

Common flaws included: poor and inconsistent sentence structure, poor
layout, no summary of skills, no addressing the job's specific
requirements, typos(!) inconsistent punctuation (hyphenation) and =
spelling.
For me, the most disappointing aspect was the poor layout and design =
that
made it hard to extract the critical information quickly, and betrayed a
lack of user focus. Although that said, it's the first time I've had to
peruse many CVs at once and I know I'll write a better CV myself having =
had
this experience.

Actually we were tolerant of some of the typo issues, because I know CVs
can be prepared in a rush for legitimate reasons. But probably only =
10-20%
off the CVs I saw even used Word styles properly. Most of them had two =
or
three styles and one hellavalotta manual formatting. (am I being overly
judgmental on this issue?)

For what it's worth, I think outside interests should be included
discreetly at the back of the CV. For me, if  I've read all the way to =
the
back of the CV, then I'm usually interested, and would like to get a =
sense
of who the applicant is, outside their professional domain.

Al Forge

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