L. Kirk Hagen

HUM 2305
COMPUTING FOR HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
ASSIGNMENT #2

Résumés
Plenty of free advice:

I am going to give you the specs for Assignment #2 in this web page.

First, however, you are going to have to sit through another one of my feature-by-feature reviews -- this time of Claris Works and MS Word, for what it's worth. My review is based on certain types of projects you will someday want to do, i.e. type memos, write a book, create a newsletter, and so on.

Keep in mind always that certain applications excel at certain tasks. Your computing needs will be best served if you learn how to use word processors in general rather than becoming hooked on a single product. All word processors are different. They are not so different, however, that you have to start from scratch every time you learn a new one. Below you will see a list of considerations you will want to remember.

Read on, and you'll get my biased review of each at no extra charge

WORD PROCESSING TASKS	WINNER ;-)	LOSER :-(
Memos and Letters	Claris Easy format lets you get simple jobs done quickly and painlessly.	MS Word Word will work for you, but not very efficiently. It's cluttered layout makes you look hard and long for even the most common tools. Tabs are buried somewhere in submenus, for example.
Term papers	MS Word Keep with next feature allows you to keep subheadings with the body of text even after you have reformatted, or added or deleted text.	Claris You can use endnotes or footnotes, but not both.
Off-size documents	Claris Page view feature lets you see exactly what your layout will look like. The Draw program lets you create templates to your own specifications.	MS Word What you see is not what you get. Page preview feature makes you save before you get to see what you page looks like. If you're not happy with your most recent changes, you're sure out of luck.
Lengthy documents	MS Word It's got all the formatting tools and templates you will need to finish that novel you've always wanted to write.	Claris Spell-checker is wildly annoying. Anytime you pause to look over your text, you have to start from the very beginning. Imagine doing that in a 250 page book!
Newsletters	Claris Claris Draw documents lets you lay out that multi-columned document exactly as you want it! Graphics are easy to import.	MS Word You can do columns, alright, but you can't easily customize your layout by inserting pictures in a corner, graphs in the middle, and so on.
Documents with graphics	Claris Easy-to-use Draw and Paint programs have much more sophisticated color palettes. You can can copy-and-paste images directly into text, or lay them on top of your word processing docs.	MS Word Graphics are Microsoft's historic weak spot. Limited default color palette, awkward interface.

Now that that's out of the way, here's some general advice on writing your résumé (for what it's worth!):

Display your name prominently at the top of the page.
Remember that, for better or worse, people make judgments about your character based on how your résumé looks.
If your résumé is full of misspellings and grammar errors, a prospective employer may conclude that you are poorly educated or careless.
If you use some goofy font like Klang mT, a prospective employer may conclude that you are a goofy person.
If your margins or tabs are askew, a prospective employer may conclude that you don't know how to use a computer.
Customize your résumé. Different employers emphasize different facets of your experience. If a job announcement stresses education, then make your education stand out on your résumé. If it stresses experience, then make your experience stand out. There is nothing wrong with keeping several versions of your résumé on file, each of which highlights a unique aspect of you qualifications.
Try to keep your résumé down to one page. Of course, there may be special circumstances in which you need a résumé which is somewhat longer. If you do, make sure that your name and a page number appear on a header on every single page. When your prospective employer gets to page 3, you don't want her to forget whose job application she is reviewing!
Do you name references or not? This is a judgment call on your part. Many people advise you to include a References rubric with the notation Available upon request. On the other hand, if one of your references is Mayor Lee Brown or someone else who is highly respected, I'd include that. Besides, if you do include the names of references on your résumé, your prospective employer may conclude that you are being totally open and up front about your background. That may work in your favor!
Don't include irrelevant information on your résumé. Have you ever been to a meeting in which someone talks about this, that, and everything except what's on the agenda? If a lot of space on your résumé is dedicated to hobbies, club membership, marital status, etc., your prospective employer may conclude that you are one of those persons!

It is worth keeping in mind that your résumé may end up somewhere in a stack of fifty or more other résumés from other job candidates. Rule #1 should be this: you must do something to make your résumé stand out for all the right reasons.

When you type your career objective, remember that people will likely take what you say literally. If you say that you want to be a "Corporate VP," then your prospective employer may may assume that you are not interested in a lesser position.

Times is a good font to use because it's readable and it looks nice. If you use some primitive font like Chicago or Geneva, a prospective employer may think that you are using a primitive computer. That, in turn, suggests that you are not up-to-date on the latest technology.

REMEMBER! The space bar is used for inserting a blank space between one word and the next. DO NOT USE A SPACE BAR to align paragraphs! Use your margin tools!

More and more employers are scanning résumés using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software and storing them in electronic databases. OCR scanning is problematic when the background is dark or shaded. Always print your résumé on clear, white paper: avoid specialty colors like charcoal, beige, ivory, and so on. And NEVER use goldenrod or any shade of yellow.

Include a carefully-worded cover letter with your résumé. As in the case of the résumé itself, shorter is always better. In no case should your cover letter be more than one page in length. If you use Auto-insert function for the date, then your cover letter will be up-to-date every time you print it!

Turn in your cover letter and your résumé on the day specified on the syllabus. One last note: Save your file as follows: Your last name, followed by a blank space, followed by HW#2 as in

Smith HW#2