I’ve been following Paul DeBettignies and a few others on Twitter recently, and have seen a few of their blog posts about running into people giving bad advice. There’s one person in particular that’s creating some buzz in the blogosphere recently. I don’t want to drive traffic to her site, but I think some of my followers (all 2 of you) should at least see some of the things that are being passed around. She had a few posts, “Don’t burn bridges is bad career advice” and “Gen Y doesn’t need a reference“. Now I’ll admit, I’m new to the blogosphere, so I’ve been trying to stick to the basics, blogging about topics I know some about, and trying not to piss people off initially. But after reading Paul’s blog post on Rant About “Experts” And “Gurus” Slinging Bull Shit and this other persons posts, I started thinking about the advice I’ve gotten, as well as a few other people have gotten in their job search recently.

One case in particular really pissed me off and I’m going to highlight her advice below as another example. But me being Mr. nice guy I didn’t really do much about it. But after thinking about it more, I should’ve spoken my mind to this person and told them to shut their pie hole and quit giving people advice when you have no experience and/or background to do so. It was such bad advice, that if my brother-in-law would’ve taken it, he would’ve have had an even bigger hurdle to jump to get a job (and it’s already hard enough). And I guess what pissed me off the most, was the tone and the arrogance of the advice and email. If I was fresh out of college, I would’ve said “Wow, this chick knows what she’s talking about”. But, if you do your due diligence, you’d find her on LinkedIn and know that she’s been out of college for 2 years and hasn’t worked in a recruiting/hiring capacity whatsoever…..in fact, not even close. Yet, she’s an expert and gives advice to others. Here’s just a few of the many examples of her advice below.

“A resume is not just a piece of paper, it is a projection of yourself, so with it comes a pep-talk and advice. Confidence wins jobs, and confidence needs to shine through on a resume, otherwise the interview never comes. (Which I also coach, by the way, so if I get a little wordy, I’m sorry – I love helping people with this stuff!)”.
OK, ya a resume is a projection of yourself, super. Confidence wins jobs, sure. She coaches interviewing, that oughta be interesting!

“Work experience comes before education. ALWAYS!!! While the degree is an accomplishment and something you worked for and can be proud of, you have something now that employers want more – experience!!”.
Wrong! Work experience doesn’t always come before education first of all, not if you’re fresh out of college or have been out of college for a while but have been getting by with employment that isn’t your career path. So she’s saying you should highlight your bartending jobs in college or that position in the warehouse packing boxes….good idea! Resumes are meant to be flexible. I hate that she said “ALWAYS!!!”.

“Remember – white space is not bad – it is actually very important in a resume. It shows you have made a choice, and are only telling the reader things that you find to be important. Save the rest for the interview!”
WTF? White space is not bad, what the hell does that mean? It’s important in a resume? Again, WTF? I especially like “Save the rest for the interview”. So she’s saying purposely leave a bunch of stuff out of your resume, because it leaves the recruiter/hiring manager in suspense….they’ll want to interview you to find out more. Now that’s funny.

“There should always be the same # of bullet points under each heading.
Are you frickin’ kidding?

“Not centering the name gives the resume a flow that psychologically works to your advantage – it makes the reader think a) you are organized in your thoughts, b) you are confident enough in who you are that you do not need to center yourself on the page.”
OK, my anger is turning into laughter now.

“Make the name HUGE!!! This is you. If the resume ends up in a pile, a quick skim through the pile will always bring yours back to the top!”
Great idea! Make your name 58 font, it’ll stick out.

“2 fonts: sans serif and serif fonts work together to help separate thoughts and ideas. The fonts aren’t character fonts, showing that you have chosen these with purpose and decision, and are not afraid to stand out, yet still maintain a professional attitude.”
I’m starting to laugh a little harder now.

Oh yah, and she took his nice, catchy professional summary out of his resume and put this objective in there “To obtain a full-time position in a world-class organization utilizing my abilities as a reliable, productive, customer-focused team member.”
Boy if that doesn’t scream hire me, I don’t know what does!

All this brings up a really valid point. How and when do you consider yourself worthy of a professional blog? Great question. Since I’m new to this little community, I don’t really have an answer. But it’s something everyone should ask themselves before giving out career advice. Remember, new college graduates and the unemployed are a sponge desperately waiting for any kind of advice – and sometimes they don’t know how to decipher the good and the bad. Now I can’t blame the people posting/giving bad advice ALL the time, I think ultimately they are trying to help. But as we continue to see an enormous increase in the amount of blogs and people involved in social media, we’re bound to get more people claiming expertise in certain subjects. All we can do as recruiters (with experience), is to keep trying to help people find jobs, and respond and stick up to the crappy advice we all see. Educate as many job seekers and candidates as possible, research the people that are giving you advice. If they’re worth anything as a recruiter or HR professional, they’ll be on LinkedIn or somewhere on the web. Find them, and make sure they have the experience to be giving out advice. And most importantly, get second opinions on all advice you receive before implementing them into your job search or career path.

Other ideas?

Tags: career advice, resume advice

This entry was posted by Ehren Seim on Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 at 10:52 am and is filed under Economy/Job Market, HR, Job Search, Recruiting, Social media/networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.