What on earth are colleges teaching?

R

ruidosomike

100+ Posts
So we are hiring for several college-educated positions and the staff keeps bringing me these resumes and letters that are unbelievable. By our estimation, 90% of them contain multiple spelling and grammar errors. Many have sentences that just don't make sense. Worse, most of the "objectives" the applicants state mention nothing about what they can do for our company but rather, what they hope we can do for them. It's amazing.

All of these people are college graduates [sadly, even a few from UT]. What gives? Is this the norm? Is spell check not available any more? Or, is it just that we have achieved full employment in this country so that only the drecks are left searching for jobs? We received two resumes today alone that misspelled THE JOB TITLE. Petroluem?

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There was an article recently that my friends forwarded to me discussing the new generation as the Entitled Generation.

We both fall into this category but basically we grew up in schools where everyone is a super star and you get constant rewards and praise for doing things. By the time you hit college and finish and you're out in the real world. Everyone expects a high paying job and a promotion and salary increase in a year.

The article detailed a lot of things that I would admit I am guilty of but there's also a lot in there that I see current interns falling prey to. It's a very elitist attitude among many recent graduates that's been in the making for the past 20+ years.

Now in regards to your resumes you are receiving, well blame the applicant and whoever, if anyone, helped them. A couple resumes I saw when we added another to my department showed a couple skills and just a list of work experience. It also had a misspelling in there. I saw another that was the strangest format for a resume ever.

I think the resume should include when and where you graduated, some relevant curriculum, some job experience and the significance of it, and then skills and hobbies/achievements that could tell me something about the person I would be interviewing.
 
On the first assignment I gave this semester (junior level), one student turned it in written in purple ink, and one student repeatedly used "cuz" instead of "because."

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I've heard the "I'm not a test taker" line several times.

Either you know the material or you don't.

Also, if tests make you so nervous that you think straight, why in the hell would I want to hire you? How would you react in a pressure situation on the job?
 
i've posted several times about my run ins with the entitled generation.

I was a manager of a call team, had a 20 year old girl to whom the word incompetent was a compliment.

We did our year end reviews, and according to the scoring system adopted by the company, a 60% was meeting expectations.

75% exceeded expectations, 85% was excellent, and anything over 90% meant you were a ******* god (not surprisingly, the highest score in the company was just over 75%)

We hand out the scoring system to the employees before we give them there scores, we let them know anything above 60 is OK.

So I get to tell this dingbat 20 year old that her overall score was a 63. Which means she was MEETING EXPECTATIONS....

she bursts into tears and starts screaming that we (myself and my manager doing the review) are trying to fire her and that she deserves a 90%
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She ended up writing the ******* CEO demanding to get a 90% score (which if she actually got that score, would have meant an instant promotion and payraise). Thank god the CEO put in writing telling her shut the hell up or quit. And that it was obvious she was a moron and to stop wasting his time. This was a HAND written note, not done by his secretary...
 
From my experience, I don't think it's a bad thing to include goals and things you want to accomplish personally. In my placement group I used a couple of years ago, they talked about the intro statement as being a goal of what sort of position you wanted, what your goal was in terms of the type of position you were looking for. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

Where I think this really becomes more of an issue is the cover letter and the interview. This is where you really need to sell what you can do for the company - what is their need, and how can you fill it?
 
I had a job application from a football coach I believe at Prarie View, who was applying to be the head coach at USC. It even started out, Dear Coach Carrol, I'm so and so and I'm applying for the head coaching position at USC. Now I don't know what was dumber, him for applying for that, or the fact that I got the application in the first place. I don't work in athletics.
 
The objective should be about yourself. That's not weird at all. To think it's weird is weird.

The whole point of it is to figure out why someone would want to work for your company. What's in it for them other than a paycheck. Are they in for the long haul? Are they planning on going to law school or something but just want to stop off for a year or two at your company? Etcetera.

The objective should totally be about the applicant.
 
The entitlement generation is a constant source of conversation among my managers. We deal with it every day.

Today I received a "resumee" from a guy who lists among his objectives wanting a "sense of adventure" in his job. It almost made me want to hire him just so I could see the look on his face when I showed him to his cubicle.
 
Hey now, UTfanfromAZ gets a pass so long as he keeps entertaining the board.

At least he's consulting us for what he should and shouldn't be doing. If he would have consulted us earlier I bet we would have turned out an awesome paper. Yes, an awesome paper. A paper which would leave a reader in a state of awe. Awesome.

I almost think that it would be a grand social experiment. One student that frequents the boards enough that asks for help on everything from assignments to interviews. There's a wealth of knowledge on here, I wonder how much of it could be utilized.
 
Texanne: My response to your objective would be "shine my shoes" because doing so would meet all your criteria. If you are applying to be my IT Manager, for example, tell me in 2 sentences why I should hire you. Don't describe my company to me; I own it. I believe it to be stable and progressive etc. Don't tell me you want to expand your horizons. Most of the people who will be reading your resume have read 1000's of them in their career. If you don't capture me in the first 5-10 seconds, you never will. You might be the most qualified person by education and training for the job but if I have to wade thru your personal feelings, your hopes and desires for your life and your description of the company I built, I will never get down to the part of your resume that says you ran the IT department at a 300 employee company that is similar to mine. Think of it as a bumper sticker and write it in such a way that the reader knows immediately you are qualified. Trust me, I will find out if you are "motivated, energetic, etc" when I check your references and interview you. You don't need to waste your time telling me that. Hope this helps.
 
ruidosomike,

Wow. You got a lot of out two measly little lines. You sure read a lot into it. Nowhere in my objective did I list my hopes, dreams or say I wanted to "expand my horizons."

If an employer cannot get past a general two-line objective to read the rest of my resume, where I tell them how well I would fit into their workplace, then I guess I don't think too much of their applicant evaluation skills.

Sounds to me like I should put my qualifications in the objective. I thought that's what the rest of the resume -- and the cover letter -- were for.

Thanks for the response, though.
 
The objective shouldn't even need to be multiple sentences, it's not supposed to take the place of the cover letter or of anything else in the resume either. It's supposed to say you want a job in the type of field you're getting hired for, that's really it.

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The great Winston Zeddemore once said, "Ah, if there's a steady paycheck in it, I'll believe anything you say. "
 
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