Instead I'll tell a story I shared with my class at the jail this morning about getting my job at Novell. We were discussing resumes and job applications and how important presentation is. One of the recommendations on the handout I use is to avoid wrinkling or folding applications before turning them in.
In the early 90s, I started doing some freelance work writing customer success stories for Novell corporate communications. One day Mike, the manager of the team I worked with, asked if I'd be interested in meeting right that minute with someone named Darrell about a full-time job.
"Sure," I said. "But I don't have a copy of my resume."
"I think I might have one somewhere," said Mike as he disappeared into his office. He emerged with a copy of my resume all wrinkled. "I think I must have sat on it. Sorry."
So I carried my wrinkled resume to the education department and carefully presented it to Darrell. We had a good laugh, he interviewed me, and then he hired me.
Rarely have I gotten a job without breaking at least one cardinal rule. It makes it a little ironic that I teach a class on how to get hired.
1 comment:
I remember way back then, when you had to have extra copies of your resume because you couldn't simply pull it up on the internet and print it from wherever. How did we survive?
Sometimes breaking the rules is what it's all about. (Maybe not the lesson you want to teach your prison class -- scratch that.)
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