I Wish I'd Said

Every now and then it happens that a course requires me to get up before the class and make something of a speech--during the past semester it happened no less than five times. And most of them went horribly wrong, because I have a habit of speaking too fast that gets exacerbated when I'm under pressure; and the combined gaze of thirty-plus pairs of eyes counts as pressure for me. Heck, more than five pairs of eyes on me and I get prickles running down my neck.

But one of the speeches I gave that I think could have certainly been done better was the one on Professional Communication--the group had been assigned to present on job searching and I had been tasked with the section on resumes. (The other speeches were very technical and so had much less potential for entertaining either myself or the audience.) In fact the idea for this post came to me on the way back from lunch just now--a stray thought set it off and I ruminated on it for the rest of the walk, and now I present:

A (Roughly) Four-Minute Talk on Resumes in Job Searching

*gets up*

"Thank you, [previous speaker], for your illuminating presentation on [topic]. Now, then, class, I will be occupying your attention for the next four minutes with the topic of resumes, which [our module instructor] has already said a great deal about; hence this will be a highly-condensed version of what we all already know.

"My presentation today has one overarching point, out of which I will draw some practical principles by which we may all abide and, hopefully, use to write very good resumes that will massively enhance what employability we have left in this... economic situation. So without further ado, I say."

*points at screen and clicks pointer*

*screen is entirely white, words appearing on screen in sync with the spoken words*

"We. Are. Robots.

"Allow me to repeat: we are robots. Not from our own perspectives, of course; I'm sure we're all well-developed human beings with wonderful backgrounds and hobbies and political interests. But nobody wants to hire human beings nowadays. What your interviewer thinks when they look at you is not what a nice young graduate this is, I wonder how I can get to know them better and help them? but well, they look promising. I wonder how much profit I can get out of them? Doesn't sound very flattering, does it--in fact it's the exact same thing I thought whenever I buy, say, a pencil.

"Which now brings me to the resume-writing proper. To even get to the interview, you have to have at least have sent in a resume or some document that somehow convinces them that you're worth the trouble of interviewing. Now, we have established that as far as the company is concerned, you're a machine--input money, output more money. What kind of resume does a robot write?

"Point one: A good robot gives their owner no trouble. Thus your resume should be pleasing to the eye, and make it easy for them to see the advantages of hiring you above all the other robots. Such advantages are things like modifications--have you, for example, been programmed to do a certain activity useful for the position?--or place of manufacture--we all, how lucky for us, have been processed in NTU, which is one of the more reputable places of manufacture--or other things like that. Equally, make it obvious that after hiring, you will continue to give no trouble--do you interface well with other robots? Do you often have errors? Do you clearly communicate when required, and in the appropriate languages? Will you be easily caused to follow relevant regulations?

"Furthermore, there are certain things that are expected of all robots. Spell-checking, for example, or neatness; exhibiting these qualities in the resume will convince the employer that you may be a useful asset to the company.

"Point two: Robots must be useful, and must continue to be useful. This is, again, reflected in the resume. We are all robots, programmed with a certain amount of certain kinds of knowledge. You must show that the programming is relevant to the position you wish to fill. You must also be prepared to continually update your programming and show that preparedness in the resume, or risk becoming obsolete within a few years, upon which you will be replaced with a new robot who can do better.

"In this, then, you may reflect a certain amount of customisation: while all of us have gone through processing here, we have all had slight alterations in the processing. Also, we have been differently preprogrammed even before coming here, and the various other modifications may give you some advantage in this, as they show how easily you may be reprogrammed, or they will show that certain programs already exist in you and so the company will only need to update instead of installing from scratch. Be sure to portray relevant advantages, or portray all advantages as relevant.

"Finally, robots must not act human. We do not expect our watches to develop a longing for other watches, or our calculators to decide that they want us to press them a little more gently. Equally, your prospective employer has no interest in your opinions, likes or dislikes, or any part of the rest of you that complicates the return-on-investment calculations--all they want to know is whether you will be able to correctly, completely, and reliably perform your task. That said, some amount of likes and dislikes should be mentioned, but only because your employer knows that a happy robot is a productive robot.

"I hope that this will help all of us write resumes that show how much better we are than all the other robots and thus manage to gain us employment in the company to which we apply to be owned by. Thank you."

*sits back down*

------

Not that my sentiments are strictly along that line; I do know that companies usually have a lot more than ROI on the mind when looking for employees. It's just that the whole idea of looking for employment seems to consist so much of "I'm better, hire me!" which makes it like a race more than anything else. Our parents and teachers all lied when they said education would get us good jobs; it's more that education makes us able to apply for a better kind of job.

One thing about robots, too--one can easily replace another, and they are mass-produced. Much like graduates these days.

(One suspects, of course, that leaving this floating around the Internet could seriously hurt one's chances of being employed by any company that checks one's Facebook or blog, or Googles one's name, as a routine part of the employment check. After all, cynicism isn't usually high on the list of Desired Attributes.)