In a message dated Tue, 2 Nov 1999 10:13:55 AM Eastern Standard Time, "Nicholson, Claudia" <[log in to unmask]> writes:


> Pat:  I cannot imagine that any employer would simply pluck a resume off of
> any internet forum and offer a job to a candidate, sight unseen.  There are
> places in the U.S. were it is difficult to recruit
> candidates--out-of-the-way places that are not near major metropolitan
> areas.  Seems to me that a savvy institution might inform candidates of the
> available job after having perused their resume somewhere.

Major companies usually use some sort of "screening" software to evaluate resumes before any HR people actually get a look at them.  Nowadays, the trick isn't making your resume look really sharp, it's making it simple enough that it can be scanned into a computer and read electronically.  HR people don't look for unique qualifications, they look for "keywords".  If you get enough "hits" on your resume to match a certain job, a recruiter just might hire you on the spot without an interview if they are desperate enough or you had the right certificates behind your name.  (NOte this goes mainly for the tech/corporate world, not non-profits or the museum world.) For example, I mentioned I was a tech writer to a recruiter at a tech fair and he dragged me upstairs and made me fill out an application form after taking about a 2 second glance at my resume.

When I got tired of being rejected from museums, or interviews for jobs that didn't pay a living wage with my student loans, I had to completely redo my resume and fill it with the right keywords and reformat it in a simple RTF file which can be easily scanned or sent as an e-mail attachment.  Practically everything I learned about resume writing (use off-white, high-quality paper, make it look distinctive yet readable, use a unqiue format, etc.) was thrown out the window for this new, generic style.

I don't know of any museum that does this nor should we have to.  People can have widely different backgrounds and still be qualified for a museum job.  We don't have many  sets of keywords like "MCSE" "CNA" Oracle administrator, or C++ programmer.  We also have the luxury of having too many qualified people for too few positions.  (In most cases.)  That means our hiring practices are going to be sigificantly different than an industry which is scraping for qualified people.

Deb

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