Re: Resume citation for ex-companies

[Richard Lippincott <richard -dot- lippincott -at- ae -dot- ge -dot- com>]

Sorry about the delay in responding...I'm on digest, and didn't see this
until a short time ago.

Bonnie Granat said:

>It's not at all that they brand you anything, Richard. 

No need to be so formal, "Rick" is the name at the bottom of the message. I
can't control the one that goes out on the e-mail address.

>It's that they move on
>to resumes that don't have special circumstances.

Yep. Indeed some will. Some won't. (That was the point of my original post.)

Here's the thing: we can't totally eliminate that. Some managers will
eliminate you for exactly the reason we're discussing here. Others, as Bruce
Byfield (I think it was) experienced, will find another reason ("Well, yeah,
you've got a Linux background, but not on your most -recent- job."). We've
all heard (or lived through) the horror stories, the "Sorry, but..."
followed by something like:

* "You don't have experience with our tool."
* "You've been working with version X.0 of our tool, but we're using version
X.1."
* "You've been using the Mac version of our tool, but we're Windows based."
(Or the other way around.)
* "You're a hardware writer, we document software." (That was my personal
wall for quite a while.)
* "You're a software tech writer, we document hardware."
* "You're a software tech writer, we document [the next big thing]." (Many
of us may run into that wall in the future.)
* "Your leathers don't match." (I know of a case where that happened,
although not for a tech writing job.)

We can't control these. We know that jobs are tight right now, and that many
resumes are flowing in for the few jobs that are available. Managers will
weed through the stacks in whatever way that they choose. For all we know,
some are simply starting in the morning and picking alternate resumes...or
those with san serif fonts...or tossing them all up in the air, reviewing
the ones that land on the desk and trashing the rest...or something else
that really we can't control. 

>I'm a convert to listing the new company name and the old company name in
>parentheses. If that seems unwise to some, so be it. 

It doesn't seem at all unwise to me, in fact I've been doing it for years. A
company I worked for from 1984 through 1990 changed its name in a merger in
1992, and my resume listing gives the old and new names. (Ironically, it's
the same corporation I work for -today-...)

I think the smart thing to do is to be as accurate as possible. Just the
same as in our jobs. That's what you're saying also, right? I mean, who
would advocate carelessness or injecting intentional errors? 

But there are things that we can't control, and some of these are pure luck.
In 1995, I interviewed for a company...got the job, worked there for over
five years, was liked by my managers and co-workers, got some major awards
for instituting some changes and new procedures. But I'd only been there a
couple of months when one of the program leaders said "You're lucky that I
was out the day you interviewed. I would have immediately rejected you for
the job." Why? Because I had worked for a defense contractor, and he
abhorred defense contractors. (BTW, this wasn't offered as in "...and now I
see the error of my ways." It was offered as "...and if I ever have the
chance, I'll see that you're given the ax simply because you once worked for
a defense contractor." He never changed his opinion of me. Oh well, ya can't
please everybody. I hear he's been out of work for about 18 months now.) 

I got one of the best jobs I've ever held...maybe -the- best...because one
guy woke up with a touch of the flu on the morning of my interview. 

Hiring managers use weeding-out processes. We can't control what those
processes are. We can make our resumes as accurate and as informative as
possible, and of course we should.  

But once again, my original point was this: Some of the posts treat this as
though the appearance of an obsolete company name will cause a software-like
decision "If [company name] = invalid, then resume = rejected." Some
managers will do that. Others will say "I can't find any record of this
'FlyByNight Software' that your resume lists for 1998, but I'm impressed
with the overall skills and experience that you have." All you can really do
is try your best, and hope that it all works out.

--Rick Lippincott
  Lockheed Martin
  Saugus, MA




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