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Re: reenacting resume
"How would you suggest determining when a "hobby" is or is not relevant? Would you consider the type of reenacting and career field as factors that may create an exception? Within the reenacting/living history hobby there are those who organize events, facilitate seminars and educate the public. If done frequently enough and for an extended period of time, these people could develop and display skills useful in fields such as education, program development, recreation, museum administration or public relations. This has long been my perspective. If you disagree as an employee, could you share more of your reasoning?"
I'm gonna chip in.
First, I think Mr. Braun and I are talking about when you apply for a specific job, not when you simply sit back and come up with a generic resume.
You need to know enough about that specific job to determine what relevant experience is. Usually the advertisement pretty much tells you the basics of what they are looking for.
So your cover letter stresses that you have what they are looking for, and those things are front and center on your resume, which they then pick up after reading your cover letter. End of Chapter One. Hopefully what you put down will get you in the door. You only get through the door if you "fit," if you match the job requirements. So your first mission is simply to demonstrate that you are among those qualified for the job -- you include what make you fit through their screening system. So it is all qualification-related stuff. Pile it up as high as you want, just so it fits exactly what they said they wanted in their advertisement.
Once you have the interview, your mission changes, Chapter Two. You now need to demonstrate that you are superiorly qualified for the position over everyone else who got through the initial screening process, and you need to play it by ear, although that includes thinking through, ahead of time, what you might be asked and what experiences you might trot out in front of the interviewer as a result.
What got me one interview was a serious wheelbarrowload of relevant experience. What got me the managerial job, however, was pointing out that several years as president of a volunteer fire company led me to understand how to get people to do things based around the reasons we were all there, rather than by giving orders because I was boss. That hadn't been on my resume. That just seemed to be a good thing to say during the interview, based on the questions I was getting about how to motivate people. Had there been questions about speaking to the public, I very well might have mentioned living history stuff. Had the man hiring me been sitting in front of a .36 Navy colt mounted on the wall with 'Terry's Texas Rangers' carved in the plaque, well ... you get the picture.
Sitting on the other end of the seesaw, when I hire people, I can't begin to tell you how tiresome it gets when people list inappropriate experience and qualifications. This is going to sound quite harsh, but darn it, if you can't figure out how to avoid wasting my time sifting through all your burger flipping and perfume sales experience for a job as a reporter or copy editor, why should I think you can figure out how to be a reporter or copy editor? You haven't even figured out how to apply for a job, and that's easy compared to some of the stuff we expect a reporter to do.
So one point of what we're trying to get across here is that you (the generic you) need to think in terms of how to effectively market yourself, not in terms of trying to come up with the one-time, that's it, perfect resume.
Y'all are getting about 50 years, combined, of experience in this stuff. If Mr. Braun and I were to package this in a two-day seminar, we'd be able to charge a nice fee. :-)
Bill Watson
Ad hoc career counselor
"How would you suggest determining when a "hobby" is or is not relevant? Would you consider the type of reenacting and career field as factors that may create an exception? Within the reenacting/living history hobby there are those who organize events, facilitate seminars and educate the public. If done frequently enough and for an extended period of time, these people could develop and display skills useful in fields such as education, program development, recreation, museum administration or public relations. This has long been my perspective. If you disagree as an employee, could you share more of your reasoning?"
I'm gonna chip in.
First, I think Mr. Braun and I are talking about when you apply for a specific job, not when you simply sit back and come up with a generic resume.
You need to know enough about that specific job to determine what relevant experience is. Usually the advertisement pretty much tells you the basics of what they are looking for.
So your cover letter stresses that you have what they are looking for, and those things are front and center on your resume, which they then pick up after reading your cover letter. End of Chapter One. Hopefully what you put down will get you in the door. You only get through the door if you "fit," if you match the job requirements. So your first mission is simply to demonstrate that you are among those qualified for the job -- you include what make you fit through their screening system. So it is all qualification-related stuff. Pile it up as high as you want, just so it fits exactly what they said they wanted in their advertisement.
Once you have the interview, your mission changes, Chapter Two. You now need to demonstrate that you are superiorly qualified for the position over everyone else who got through the initial screening process, and you need to play it by ear, although that includes thinking through, ahead of time, what you might be asked and what experiences you might trot out in front of the interviewer as a result.
What got me one interview was a serious wheelbarrowload of relevant experience. What got me the managerial job, however, was pointing out that several years as president of a volunteer fire company led me to understand how to get people to do things based around the reasons we were all there, rather than by giving orders because I was boss. That hadn't been on my resume. That just seemed to be a good thing to say during the interview, based on the questions I was getting about how to motivate people. Had there been questions about speaking to the public, I very well might have mentioned living history stuff. Had the man hiring me been sitting in front of a .36 Navy colt mounted on the wall with 'Terry's Texas Rangers' carved in the plaque, well ... you get the picture.
Sitting on the other end of the seesaw, when I hire people, I can't begin to tell you how tiresome it gets when people list inappropriate experience and qualifications. This is going to sound quite harsh, but darn it, if you can't figure out how to avoid wasting my time sifting through all your burger flipping and perfume sales experience for a job as a reporter or copy editor, why should I think you can figure out how to be a reporter or copy editor? You haven't even figured out how to apply for a job, and that's easy compared to some of the stuff we expect a reporter to do.
So one point of what we're trying to get across here is that you (the generic you) need to think in terms of how to effectively market yourself, not in terms of trying to come up with the one-time, that's it, perfect resume.
Y'all are getting about 50 years, combined, of experience in this stuff. If Mr. Braun and I were to package this in a two-day seminar, we'd be able to charge a nice fee. :-)
Bill Watson
Ad hoc career counselor
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