Jumping through hoops

I felt good for a while today. Steve and I went cruising around town scouting out potential places to work, and I got a good lesson on breaking into the business world. Lessons on power suits, power colours, the importance of a nice business folio, the reason to avoid having white paper in that folio, and the fact that my resume is a piece of garbage.

I felt like I could get a job anywhere after a bit of resume tweaking, so I came home and looked up some resume tips on the internet.

Good mood: shattered.

From one site I checked: "To write an effective resume, you have to learn how to write powerful but subtle advertising copy."

If I could write powerful but subtle advertising copy, I'd be in advertising making a 6 figure salary, not looking for a low- to mid-level software job. Do employers really expect everybody looking for a job to be an expert copy writer? And if they don't, then why is this even a resume tip?

From another site: " Don't waste your money on special bond paper, matching envelopes, or any color deviances away from plain white. Your resume will be photocopied, faxed, and scanned numerous times, defeating any special paper efforts, assuming your original resume doesn't first end up in the circular file."

So in other words, don't get fancy because they're probably just going to throw out your resume. Good. Great. Grand. Wonderful.

There was another site with a section on "relabeling", where you take an old job title and make it sound more important than it was. Apparently it's "completely truthful", it's just more powerful. I wasn't a furniture mover, I was a transportation and storage professional working on a large military contract.

You know, that one actually does make sense.

Okay, on to cover letters. I've never been able to write a good cover letter. I consider this to be my one great failing in life. I can string together a good story about just about anything, but I can't write about myself. Well, this blog might prove otherwise, but I'm not always very complimentary to myself in this thing. I can't write about myself in a completely positive light. I don't have the ego for it.

One sample cover letter I read ended: "I will call your office on Monday to schedule an interview".

Who has the nerve to actually say that?

I think if I ever want to get a good job I'm going to have to develop an ego, artificially inflate my resume (it's not lying, it's more powerful), and make sure my power pen matches my power suit.