The United Food and Commercial Workers union is picketing a Wal-Mart in Las Vegas. Well, actually, the union members aren’t picketing. The union is hiring non-union temps making $6/hour to stand around outside an air-conditioned Wal-Mart in the 104 degree heat, with no transportation to get anywhere else. Workers inside the picketed Wal-Mart make more money per hour than the picketing temps do.
I see.
Just a few pieces of advice that ought to go without saying, but apparently don’t (where do people learn to write resumes?):
Be sure that your name is spelled correctly, everywhere it appears on the resume.
Use the advanced features of Word to format your resume. Don’t use a bunch of tabs to align your text. First of all, if you tell me you’re an expert in Microsoft Office, you’d better believe I’m going to do “Show hidden characters” to see if you really are. Secondly, as a staffing agent, I have to strip out your contact information before submitting it to a client. And if your resume needs a little tweaking (just tweaking, wording improvements, no substantial changes), I’m going to do it. If you’ve used the electronic equivalent of paperclips and bubblegum to hold your resume formatting together, you’re very quickly going to irritate me.
Finally, don”t list your experience building a website for a community group you’re part of, and then tell me that its web address is http://www.MCORG@YAHOO.COM. I’m going to think you’re bullshitting me, because you probably are.
“So, I see that you’ve done some “end user and technical documentation.” Can you tell me about that?”
“Uh, what?”
“The documentation you did. What was it for?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I’m reading the sentence directly from your resume. It says you did ‘end user and technical documentation.’ What were you documenting?”
“Oh! Well, see, one day the network was down. So we had to log the calls by hand, on paper.”
*Tiff wishes for a wall to bang her head against*
—
“Well, the job description says you want a web developer who will also manage your network, and that’s a very rare sort of person. They’re very divergent skill sets.”
“I don’t want a web developer!”
“Your job description specifically says that 50% of the person’s time will be spent on web development, and 15% on database administration.”
“But I don’t want a web developer! I want a programmer!”
“A programmer who writes code for the web IS a web developer.”
“Oh.”
—
“This HTML Programmer you’re asking me for really sounds more like a Unix Systems Administrator.”
“We don’t need a Unix administrator. We need someone to do HTML and install and configure Solaris.”
“A person who can install and configure Solaris is called a Unix Systems Administrator. An HTML coder who designs websites will weep if you ask him to configure a Unix box.”
“Oh.”
—
I shouldn’t complain. It’s their ignorance that makes my job necessary. But yesterday I was biting my tongue a couple of times to keep from adding, “…so STOP ARGUING with me! You clearly don’t know what you’re talking about and I DO!”