Magic Pot of Jobs

Many thanks to Mark from The Long Cut for being our inaugural Pimp-ee. Mark is a Geographical Information System supervisor- essentially, he makes maps. Specifically, he supervises the people who make maps.

Mark mentioned in his email to me that, “One of my duties as supervisor is to fill open positions in my office and I can never get over just how bad some people’s résumés and cover letters are. I’d feel a lot better if I knew that my résumé wasn’t being laughed at by some HR department too.”

Let me put that one to rest, Mark. Your résumé is much better than many of the ones I see every day. The rest of you can download the sanitized PDF version to follow along with.

What’s good: Your format is clear, leaves plenty of room in the margins for an interviewer or evaluator to take notes, and contains no typos or grammatical errors.

What could be improved: Your experience text kind of runs all together, making it hard to pick out the individual items.

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Introducing the first of what I hope will be many new features here at Magic Pot of Jobs… Pimp My Resume.

I am shamelessy taking a page from Wil Shipley, who is in turn taking a page from MTV, but I hope Wil and MTV won’t mind.

So how does it work? You send me your résumé in Word, Rich Text, or plaintext format, along with some information about the kind of job you’re trying to land. I replace all information like previous employers, locations, and your name with generic info, and critique it. Publicly. Rewriting it as necessary. My commentary may be humorous or over-the-top, so develop a thick skin about it.

If it’s successful, and if I can actually whip myself into shape about maintaining this blog more often, it might be followed by the sequel podcast, Pimp My Interview.

UPDATE: This is what happens when I post when I’m tired- I forget to tell you where to send your resume. You can email that to pimp_me -!at!- magicpotofjobs.com.