Using Resumes as a Writing Test

[Robert Plamondon <robert -at- PLAMONDON -dot- COM>]

Nancy Hoft writes:
>Judging someone's writing skills based on her or his resume seems
>a bit odd. I've written dozens of resumes for people as well as
>edited them. Add to this all of the resume writing services out there,
>and the outplacement firms, not to mention the dozens of books on resume
>writing that provide template resumes--I can't see how evaluating a resume
>helps you assess a writer's writing skills.

The last time I was hiring a writer, I went through what must have been
a couple of hundred resumes.  Most are written with a breathtaking
level of incompetence.  You would be amazed.

Unlike the "toaster test," which tests only one thing ("Does the
applicant understand what 'writing for engineers' means?"), the
"resume test" allows you to examine several negatives at once:

1. Generalized incompetence.  Does the resume have the stuff in it
   that it ought to have, more or less?  Is it written in a language
   that resembles English?  Many fail this test dismally.  I take
   such a result as an indication of a sort of amorphous cluelessness
   on the part of the applicant.  Such resumes are discarded
   instantly.

2. Genuine writing ability.
   * Does the resume read easily?  Resumes, like much technical
     writing, are straighjacketed by format, which good writers
     try to overcome.

   * Is it organized logically, or is it another "car crash" document,
     with bits and pieces, individually cohesive, scattered here and
     there?

   * Was the resume written with a sense of purpose and audience, or
     as a formality?  A good resume grabs the reader's attention,
     tells him things he wants to know, and leaves a good impression
     besides.  This is VERY DIFFICULT to do with a resume.  People
     who can do this have an unusual talent.

A competently written, organized, logical resume is by far the
exception, even from technical writers.  In fact, I'm convinced that
technical writers' resumes are no better, on average, than electrical
engineers' resumes, and may be worse than software engineers' resumes.
Shocking.

A good resume does not indicate a good writer, necessarily, though
I have ALWAYS ended up hiring the writers with the #1 resume in
my heap.  I come into the process using resumes only as a screen --
too many seasoned professionals freeze up when the writing becomes
autobiographical -- but, so far, the correlation has been much
stronger than I expected.

My experience with resume-writing services and agency-written resumes
is that their products never, ever have any fire in them, and are
usually off-base or incompetent.  No writer should allow their resume
to be written by someone else, because there are people like me
who will write you off on the basis of an overly generic resume.
We want documents that speak to the audience (us), not ones that
shuffle up to their marks and mumble their lines.

A cover letter is more free-form than a resume, and most people have
no idea how to use one to their benefit.  Since most people have no
particular objective in mind when they write a cover letter, they
fail to achieve it.  I'd disregard cover letters, to a large
degree, because I'm not very interested in how well a writer writes
when he doesn't have a purpose in mind.

        -- Robert