Why do people suck at writing resumes?

Unfortunately, this is the new normal. Read some of the posts on this forum, and you'll see a sample of how the world has devolved.

This is an old thread but I’ll bite: a 1-page resume expectation for a technical position that warrants a PhD is ridiculous. If the OP had that “drilled into him” in school then the educational institution in question was a high school. While nothing excuses poorly written resumes, not much is to be said for HR people who don’t understand that a resume may need to contain more information than they can wrap their minds around.

Tech people suck at resumes. They frequently suck at interviewing, too. And the sky is blue.

Hyuuuge GH wrote:

Honestly, the point I'm getting at is that most HR people are incompetent boobs.

Tell me about it. I was looking to fill a position for a UX designer at my old company and our HR team came up empty and said that nobody was qualified. We had about 50 applicants.

I asked to see the resumes, all 50 of them, and handpicked the candidates myself based on the quality of their online portfolios.

Turns out HR was disqualifying applicants that didn’t meet ALL the criteria in the ATS and not even looking at the quality of the work done by the designers.

We spent 2 months trying to fill this job until I took matters into my own hands.

Don’t expect HR to bring you the best and brightest, because most of the time they are not willing to do to the legwork to find the best talent.

At the beginning of my career someone once told me HR people would inherit the earth after the cockroaches died out. Boy were they right.

Hired and fired thousands in my career.

I look first for their education; where, how long ago.

I look next to the very last part , which is interests and hobbies.

If they don’t list them, I don’t really know who they are.

If they do list them, we have something to talk about.

Half the people have below median intelligence. Since the distribution of intelligence in the workplace has a heavy high end tail (the low end tail does enter the workforce), in the working population the average intelligence is above the median intelligence, so more than half the working population has below average intelligence (if you can't figure all that out, that's ok, it's just that you are one of them).

All these same considerations apply to the subpopulation of the working population that is qualified for technical jobs. That subpopulation comes from the top half (maybe higher) of the full population. However a much larger subpopulation of people believes themselves qualified for such jobs, and applies for them anyway (this is also a consequence of having below average intelligence). Consequently most resumes are terrible.

Since HR people are not working in useful jobs, they almost always come from the part of the population that has below average intelligence.

Heeol anser rat hay va hua ich

Why people do suck at hiring?

1. They have unrealistic expectations

2. They want the perfectly written resume for exactly their job

Companies can't even exactly express what kind of person they want.

But expect that they want 35 years experience in a 25 year old body with 5 years knowledge of their outdated wired ass software.

And: they want to pay just above minimum wage.

Jean~Baptiste Lamarck II wrote:

asdfasdcsdfdasfasdfasdf wrote:

Because most people suck at writing in general.

The best part is that everyone thinks their writing is great and everyone else's sucks.

everyone is also a great driver and everyone else sucks.

Why people do suck at hiring? wrote:

Why people do suck at hiring?

1. They have unrealistic expectations

2. They want the perfectly written resume for exactly their job

Companies can't even exactly express what kind of person they want.

But expect that they want 35 years experience in a 25 year old body with 5 years knowledge of their outdated wired ass software.

100% truth, also the ability to work nights/weekends as needed.

This^

I've always said that most interviews could be over with in 10 minutes if everyone were just honest.

Employer: The job is 7AM-6PM, you get 1 hr for lunch, 2 weeks vacation. It pays $50K year. we have a 401k and 3 health insurance plans to chose from.

Potential Employee: Sounds fine, when do I start?/Sorry, not interested.

everyone moves on.

Why people do suck at hiring? wrote:

Why people do suck at hiring?

1. They have unrealistic expectations

2. They want the perfectly written resume for exactly their job

Companies can't even exactly express what kind of person they want.

But expect that they want 35 years experience in a 25 year old body with 5 years knowledge of their outdated wired ass software.

Or the old excuse... we can't find anyone to fill the position.

WRONG! It means the market place is speaking to you. You are not paying enough to attract the people with those skills or paying enough to attract people to work your very difficult job.

As an engineer I always had a problem with official letters, resumes and other writing. So I decided to order my resume here https://resume-chief.com/ and this works for me just fine.

Devil Dog wrote:

Frustrated interviewer wrote:

Why am I interviewing this guy?

You're not interviewing him. You're reading a resume. Why don't you have him come in and get a feel for the man? Look him in the eye, shake his hand, hear the confidence in his voice, and get a feel for the man.

That's how you do an interview. Reading resumes...you're just wasting your own time.

And is this a skilled position? If it is, see his skills in action, not how well he writes about his skills.

Why is 'confidence in the voice' and 'looking him in the eye' more relevant than basic writing skills? One shows that you are probably an extrovert, the other actually demonstrate a skill and attention to detail.

I would rather hire an engineer that pays attention to details than one with a firm handshake.

Why people do suck at hiring? wrote:

Why people do suck at hiring?

1. They have unrealistic expectations

2. They want the perfectly written resume for exactly their job

Companies can't even exactly express what kind of person they want.

But expect that they want 35 years experience in a 25 year old body with 5 years knowledge of their outdated wired ass software.

nice word salad

One page would be considered bizarre in my field

bro job wrote:

I would rather hire an engineer that pays attention to details than one with a firm handshake.

If the above was all the information I had, I would rather hire based on the handshake for a number of positions.