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One thing that excited me about hiring for a high level HR position was the opportunity to see the candidates’ cover letters and resumes. I, like you all should be, am constantly looking for ways to improve my own materials. You would expect that HR professionals have some of the best cover letters. I thought that I could learn something from these seasoned veterans.
I was wrong.
It was a disappointment to find that the cover letters and resumes were mediocre. One of the candidates had bragged to me in the past about his/her cover letter. This was the first time I was able to view it and I thought “this is it?!.” There was nothing to brag about.
And then there was the downright ridiculous. One of the cover letters started with:
Congratulations! You have found a qualified, dependable candidate…
This is not a bad way to start your cover letter, it’s a horrible way to start your cover letter. After rolling my eyes I quickly checked to see if the candidate even met the qualifications. Sure enough she/he didn’t. I admit to glancing at the resume – it’s hard to look away from a train wreck.
The first line of the resume was:
Awesome hands-on Training and Teaching experience.
Yep, awesome. Too bad TechRepublic’s article “More Words to Leave Off Your Resume” which features “awesome” as their first word listed didn’t come out until after this person submitted their resume.
I guess it’s just another example of where HR professionals are failing. Why is it so easy to criticize our clueless employees but so difficult to look back at our own careers and see where we’re failing.
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Comments
06.02.09
Do you know why? Because HR "professionals" don't actually have any raw talent. They push paper, outsource everything, and don't actually add value in an organization.
You should have a wealth of resumes to chooose from since they're the first ones to go due to cost cutting measures.
06.18.09
Have you seen, meet, and evaluated the work of your average HR person at your location? Most haven't. I have. In ten years I have worked for three companies. At each one I made sure to meet and know the HR group, or become part of the hiring/evaluating process. Most HR 'managers' are young, have little guidance, get yelled at constantly, and receive little to no instruction on Privacy Laws, grammer acceptance, nor are they encourage to improve their work process flow.
How do you fix it? I'm not sure. I do know more and more managers would rather let broke processes continue instead of actualy do work to fix them.
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