Resumes and Other Written Materials on a Job Search

Reading the the two articles by Graber and Dikel and Roehm, I thought that the information they mentioned was pretty self explanatory. On the contrary, many people make this very mistake and end up with terribly written representations of themselves. This "know it all" approach is also the same attitude that many people use when arranging and distributing their resumes. However, as these texts reveal, the best resume to use is one written specifically for the sought-after job: not a one size fits all resume.

I found Dikel and Roehm's article extremely helpful and insightful. For example, having used various methods to apply for jobs previously, I had a firm understanding on how each of the four resume types should be formatted. However, I neither understood how to get the margins "just right" so that the document looked nice in email format nor know the benefit and purpose of saving a resume as text only. Also, I always assumed that filling out the field-entry resume form on websites was the "best" way of getting my resume noticed. Now that I think about it, I actually avoided copying and pasting my resume into the field for fear of it reaching the hiring manager and looking awkward. Actually, I didn't think the fields made the resumes look badly until I was on an interview and two upper management officials had to fumble through 3-5 pages of resume jibberish. Even though the managers themselves brought it to the interview to ask me questions about it, I was so happy that I brought extra hard copies of my standard resume. After they realized the information was the same, they used the one-page copies I brought with me.