5 Things You Shouldn't Send in With Your Resume

Recent events have prompted me to write this particular post. Here are 5 Things You Shouldn't Send in With Your Resume. As always, these are actual things I have seen as a recruiter.

1. Your Social Security Number.
2. Your Unemployment Insurance Enrollment Form, complete with your routing number, bank, and your bank account number.
3. Someone else's Unemployment Insurance Enrollment Form, complete with their routing number, bank, and bank account number.
4. Medical Records.
5. The statement: "I love anime therefore I spend a lot of time downloading anime from various sites".

Meetings

Why is it that we as humans feel we need to hold meetings? Is it learned? Maybe genetic, something evolution (which of course is a farce invented by the 1860's leftist media) instilled in us as necessary for the survival of our species? I mean, 500,000 years ago did Caveman Ug decide to gather his tribe together in some cave, stand up in front of them and say, "Thanks everyone for coming. As you know, we're going to push that big rock over tomorrow, so I thought we'd better meet and discuss in painstaking detail the simple process of how to push on a rock. First you--- Oh yeah, did you guys see Grok get gored at yesterday's mastodon hunt? That was crazy, right?" and then 6 hours later they hobble out of there and decide to go out for dinosaur ribs? How else can you explain this baffling tradition we have?

Don't get me wrong, some meetings are important, even necessary. I just think about 80% of them aren't. And of the ones that are, 90% are longer than they need to be.

I'll give an illustration. Every month my company has meetings to discuss the welfare of our agencies. A rep from each department is supposed to be there. I go as an HR rep. Here is a scan of my notes from one of those meetings:

I'm particularly pleased with my Cubs logo and the impromptu Homer Simpson's.

In fact, you'll notice 3/4 of my "notes" are devoted to doodles. This is because me and 13 other people at that meeting didn't have to be there. No input was asked, no action items were given, we just sat there like schmucks while the senior executive went over finances with one of the controllers, a conversation that could have happened over phone and without the moral support of a dozen other employees. The vast majority of our meetings go this way. And we're probably better run and more efficient than the average company.

And it's not just work. Church, community, pretty much ALL meetings seem to be fairly pointless. I've given it a lot of thought (there's nothing else to do during meetings) and I've come up with the following reasons why people love to have meetings:

• While public speaking is one of our greatest fears, we all secretly want everyone else to shut up and listen to how smart we are. Meetings provide a safe environment in which to do this.
• Talking and theorizing about what you should do is easier than actually doing it.
• (At work anyway) Holding a meeting regarding an important decision gives the illusion of unanimity, even if the opinions/suggestions of only a small fraction of those present are solicited.
• We've been conditioned to subconsciously feel no human endeavor is validated until there has been a meeting devoted to it.
• We love to tell others "Sorry, I can't make it, I have a meeting to get to." It makes us feel important.
• It's easier than working.

Let me know if I missed anything. Sorro does a great running diary of his company's weekly meetings. I love to read it because it shows me there are fellow sufferers out there.

In conclusion, I don't like meetings. I feel most of them can be done in about 15 minutes. If it goes longer than that you might as well have a BBQ or hold a formal debate, because that's what you're doing anyway.

I love candy corn

It's way better than normal corn. Just wanted to share that.

The Winner of 'Guess That Lyric'

Is Code-ster, who correctly guessed Apache (Jump on it) by Sugarhill Gang. In honor of his cheesy lyric guessing prowess, Code-ster gets the following video clip dedicated to him. You can watch it too though.




You also get this picture of Snow, everyone's favorite white Candadian rapper.

And for the Jones's, who came in second behind Code-ster, you get this screenshot from Kid Icarus.

Let it never be said Themickel don't know how to dish out the prizes.

Career Fair Burger

Hey. We're back from San Francisco. I'll get pictures up of that. Someday.

In the meantime, I just got back from another Career Fair. I don't feel like writing the usual long-winded recap, so I'll just give some statistics:

• Approximate number of times I used the phrase, "Great, shoot me over a resume and we'll take it from there": 95


• Favorite sight at the career fair: the brave girl meandering across the ballroom alone, refusing to make eye contact with anyone while unashamedly singing out loud Ace of Base's I Saw the Sign.
• Percentage of students I talked to who were Accounting majors: 86%
  
• Inanimate object that brought the most entertainment over the 8 hours we were there: a gray, rubber pad placed over some extension cords in the walkway in front of our table to prevent people from tripping, which ended up tripping at least 30 people itself.
  
• How funny it is, on a scale of 1-10, to see someone trip over that rubber mat while you're standing at the table: 5.
  
• How funny it is, on a scale of 1-10, to see someone trip over that rubber mat out of the corner of your eye while you're in the middle of a serious career conversation with a student: 10.
  
• Favorite moment of the career fair: hucking a piece of salt-water taffy at my co-worker's groin while he was on his cell phone, then laughing hysterically as he doubled over in pain. Yes, I am the first contact most people have with our company.
  
• Most interesting SWAG giveaway: Nature's Skin and their "Free Brow Waxing".
  
• Best SWAG giveaway: Portable music players with headphones from some accounting firm.
  
• Worst SWAG giveaway: Nature's Skin and their "Free Brow Waxing".
  
• Most disturbing image: The tough, manly marine in full camo getting Nature's Skin's free brow waxing.
  
• Most awkward moment: Explaining a position to a candidate who has graduated and is gainfully employed by the university we were at and just as his supervisor walks up he says the words:
  "Yeah, I'd definitely be interested in looking into that". Wow. This rated pretty high on Awkward Things to Say Just As Someone Walks Up scale, just above "Hey, you know Doug? Well I just peed on his car" and just below "You know Doug? I just killed his cat."
• And of course, Number of times I shook my head incredulously after talking to a particularly clueless student, then realized I was just as bad when I was one (only worse, as I never actually made it to a Career Fair): 6

In San Fran

Hey. I'm in San Francisco until Sunday. Me no write until then. Peace out.

You say tomater, I say tomatermorts

Ok, pretend you've never met the following individuals, you are about to call them, and you need to pronounce their names right. Ready, go:


Tonie

Sonae

Lakecia

Sotheavy

Genoveva

Chyr

These are some names I've had come through recently on resumes. Thanks to telemarketing the vast majority of Americans are immediately suspicious of any caller who doesn't know how to pronounce their name and are liable to hang-up/chew you out if you get it wrong, so when I call to set up an interview I have to be careful (though it is fun to hear the reaction of someone who has just chewed you out when you tell them you're an employer calling about their resume.)

And playing the last-name-interchange gambit (i.e. calling Adriexxahnnah Johnson's number and asking for 'Ms. Johnson' rather than 'Adriexxahnnah') is usually no good, as 1)you still sound like a telemarketer, and 2) you are likely to get the gender wrong (I just had interviews with a Cheyenne and a Kelcey, both of whom were men.)

I usually just resort to the mumbled name approximation, which hasn't failed me yet: 'Hi, is Pa(mumble over hard part)rigahah there?'

There you go. Another installment of Adventures in HR.