evaluating resumes

[cellio]

On a tech-writing mailing list people were talking about red flags in resumes (for tech-writing positions, I mean). Most people were talking about content issues, so I raised formatting.

Specifically: if you send me HTML (or a URL) I will inspect your source, and if you send me a Word document I may examine the structure of your document. (Word isn't a core tool at this job, so I don't care as much -- but I still care a little.) This is because I care not just about what you write but whether you have some basic tools-usage clues. For example, I've seen resumes that claimed HTML proficiency, but when I looked at the source I saw that it was Word's generic export (which is really really awful HTML). If you and I (and the hypothetical other members of my team) are going to be working on the same source files, that won't do. Similarly, I'd like to know if you're using headings or hand-modifying those paragraphs to be bold and a bigger font. Stuff like that.

Someone complained that I put too much emphasis on tools, but I don't think I do. I haven't set the bar especially high, and it's one of several factors I consider. But I consider poor use of tools on the resume or submitted writing samples to be in the same broad category as awkward writing and grammatical errors -- everyone makes those mistakes at times, but if you do it on something as important as your job application, how much will you do it once I hire you?

If I were interviewing a programmer who showed me a really snazzy demo, but the source code was a tangled unmaintainable mess, I wouldn't care too much that he'd written snazzy code, because he wrote code that no one else will be able to maintain (and that he probably won't be able to maintain in six months). Doc source is no different. Your content and your methods have to be good or there will be long-term pain. If there's going to be long-term pain, I'd like you to do it somewhere else. :-)

I'm not saying that I'm going to reject the otherwise-perfect applicant who uses a hard-coded "bold + font+2" or whatever, but it's not the otherwise-perfect applicants who have to worry anyway. It's the folks who aren't clearly better than the rest of the pack.

As an aside, I personally don't send Word source files any more unless that format is specifically requested. I send PDF instead. Different versions of Word render differently, and I've seen some pretty bad formatting that I'm pretty sure the sender didn't see on his end. I don't want that to happen to me.

Comments

[siderea]

Teehee. Back when I was a "word processing" temp and a resumé was something on nice bond paper, I did my resumé in LaTex. At the bottom it said, "This resumé typeset in LaTex X using emacs Y." I had the source code printed on the back. It was sooooo cool to hand an interviewer my resumé, burble about it a bit, and then say, "And, of course, the source code is on the back" taking gently from their hands and turning it over. The look of total awe on their face was usually priceless. :)

[steven.livejournal.com]

God bless Adobe Acrobat. It has allowed me to send Quark-created documents to everyone. And now that Quark can export directly to PDF, I'm giggling like a schoolgirl.

Okay, not quite like a schoolgirl, but you get the picture.

[zare-k.livejournal.com]

I think that's perfectly reasonable and would do the same if I were hiring someone. But then, some people think I'm weird because I still do HTML coding by hand.

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

Even though I haven't been in your exact situation, I know what you mean. I have fought a similar battle trying to get my employers to hire people with solid writing skills. When you make your money by printing a newspaper or monthly reports, you need people who will not turn out gibberish that sounds like it was badly translated into English after being translated into Swahili by someone whose native language was Chinese. It is possible, if you have good editors, to clean up prose like that. But editors do better (and work faster) if they have good source material to begin with.