Know about your Resume?

“Hey Ravi! Come over! See this.” Bikash’s head could be seen popped up above his cubicle.

Ravi immediately pressed ctrl+alt+del on his keyboard and rushed to his side. He knew by Bikash’s sarcastic smile that he must have encountered something funny. It was common among them and actually a refuge for them from the arduous work of selecting relevant Resumes from the heap. Ravi could see the most common site of his life i.e. a resume on Bikash’s screen.  His eyes immediately started searching for that funny thing but everything seemed normal.

“Read through the resume?” Bikash asked looking up at Ravi’s curious face.

Ravi replied without looking at Bikash and still scrolling up and down the open Resume “Ya! But..... “

“Wait!” Bikash took the mouse from Ravi’s hand and clicked on another resume from the task bar and it got spread out on the screen. Bikash looked at Ravi’s face with smiling expectation.

Ravi’s eyes strained and in the next second it got spread wide. He immediately took control of the mouse and clicked on the minimize button at the right hand upper corner of the screen. He again maximized the resume and repeated the same process a few more times and then smiled and finally looked at Bikash and casually said, “They must be twins. There is nothing dissimilar in the resume other than their first name.”

“But is it not a rare thing?” Bikash asked.

“Yes! It is really rare. I have not seen or even heard from any of my fellow recruiter friends ever of such identical resumes. I encounter identical resumes on the daily basis but this is height of being identical where the parents and date of birth are also same. Amazing!” Ravi could not disagree with Bikash.

“Do you know? Last monday also I found 5 identical resumes.” Bikash said excitedly.

“5 identical resumes! Are you crazy?” Ravi could not believe his ears.

“Oh! Not as identical like this one but they read same college, same projects, same objectives, same hobbies and extracurricular activities, everything word to word same in the same format, same font and size.” Bikash clarified the misunderstanding.

“This is becoming quite prevalent these days as many institutes have come up with a standard format of resumes for their students, but yes the students tend to copy and paste each and every thing. I get fed up of seeing the same thing again and again continuously.” Ravi further added.

“I will go crazy one day because of these resumes. God! When will I get rid of this clutter?” It was as if Ravi had hit Bikash’s nerve.

“True my dear friend. Do you know that my outlook is still downloading mails since morning? Fifteen hundred mails have been downloaded and around more thousand are in queue. I don’t know when will I be able to check all of them? Monday mornings are hell.” Their nerves literally matched.

“Why there are so many mails? I got only  twelve hundred plus today. Was some job opening posted?” Bikash asked casually. It was not something implausible for him.

“Yes. Our dearest boss, Yogesh had posted a job on Friday evening. This is too much. He wants us to check each and every resume that we receive. Till now I can see 2500 responses but another 1000 would be coming by today evening. Even if I would have been possessing 10 heads like Ravan, I would’nt have been able to complete it in even a week. I see resumes even in my dreams. Come on lets have coffee. Till the time mails download, my system also goes into slumber.”  Ravi’s frustration was automatically pouring out knowingly that Bikash cant do anything other than sympathise with him.

Bikash stood up from his place and put his arm around Ravi and said, “Come on friend! Forward some of the responses to me. Now relax. Yogesh also knows that it is an impossible  to shortlist the relevant resumes from this flooding. Do you know that there are still more than 2500 unread mails in my Software Testing folder?” Ravi gave a wry smile and they moved towards the canteen.

Ravi and Bikash were recruiters in an MNC. They both had completed their Management degree in Human Resources last year. They first had a short stint at a recruitment company and thereafter got this opportunity in the current organization. Their task was to screen resumes for relevant job openings through job portals and the responses that they get on the jobs posted. Thereafter they used to call each shortlisted candidate to further probe into their suitability before calling them for the face to face round of interviews.

“Will you take coffee or tea?” Bikash asked Ravi pressing the button of the coffee vending machine and sliding the empty plastic glass in time under the nozzle.

“No I will take nothing. I saw the office boy cleaning this machine the other day and there were cockroaches all over. I would suggest you also to stop having coffee from this machine.” Ravi suggested.

“Leave it dear! Untill and unless I see it from my own eyes, let me enjoy my coffee. This is the only break we get from our monotone, if we stop even this then what will we do then?” Bikash justified.

“Ya! This is also correct.” Ravi agreed.

“However! which profile is the job posting for?” Bikash asked casually with his first sip of coffee.

“It is for the new upcoming project starting next month. Oracle programmers are needed.” Ravi answered pouring a glass of water for himself. A crave to follow the other person in company.

“DBA’s or PL/SQL programmers?” Bikash wanted further clarifications.

“Programmers dear but DBA’s are also sending resumes in hordes.” Ravi’s frustration was evident.

“This is the pain about job postings. Whoever feels like just applies without going through the postings. You will find more than half of the responses from the fresher’s only. They just login into their job portal account and apply to each and every job postings until the day’s limit lasts.” Bikash again sympathised.

“And moreover they copy each and every mail id provided on the postings and send a common mail to all of them together. I receive two mails from each one of them. I don’t remember when I last got a really good resume from a job posting responses. I don’t know what fascination Yogesh has with job postings?” Ravi was not ready to be sympathised.

“Job postings are more of advertising. Don’t you remember the type of responses we had when our Ad was published in the print media.” Bikash was trying to explain.

“Ya! That was really maddening. And we hardly looked at any of the Resumes. What was that worth for?” Ravi didn’t agree to Bikash’s explanation.

“That was purely Advertisement that such and such company exists and by mentioning the open positions we advertised that we work on such and such domain and technology.” Bikash tried to explain the real motive.

“Then what are these job postings for on the job portals?” Ravi demanded an explanation crushing the plastic glass in his hand and tossing it into the bin. 

“They also have the same purpose of advertising our existence and growth at a very low cost.” Bikash answered casually moving towards one the empty benches in the canteen while sipping his coffee.

“But why are we wasting our time and energy in looking through the heaps of irrelevant responses to the job postings?” Ravi was not to be satisfied.

“Now the answer to this is a bit harsh. We have just started our career and are in need and such kind of jobs are kept for needy people like us only. There can be a few relevant resumes from the 2500 responses that you have received today and the company is concerned about those few and expect us to dive into this pool of resumes and come out with the catch, no matter how we do it.” Bikash had understood the real crux of the job.

“What if I don’t go through the responses? Who will come to know? Will Yogesh re-check all the responses?” Ravi seemed to be in rebellious mood.

“Nobody will know and even cross check but it is up to us to find out the suitable profile for the open position and ultimately the end result will speak and we will be questioned.” Bikash seemed to have gone through the same thought process earlier. “That is why there is no point getting frustrated on the things that are not in our hands. Try to enjoy this monotonous and tumulus work and find out techniques to ease your pressure.” And also seemed to successfully come out.

Ravi took a deep breath as if surrendered and said, “You are correct. Things are like that only everywhere. But I wonder what goes on into the mind of the job seekers when they apply to each and every job posting they lay their hands on?”

“Think about their irony also. We ourselves have gone through the same phase. Can freshers understand their suitability for a given job opening by the job postings? No. They only look at the education qualification criteria before applying and hope of being called for the interview at least. You have seen their resumes. Nothing reflects from a fresher’s resume. It is not a resume but literally a bio data. Formats and fonts don’t make a resume you know.” Bikash’s struggle as a fresher came alive.

“True very true. Same age old pattern of writing a resume, starting with Objectives is still followed. Have you ever interviewed any fresher on their written objective? I have done that whenever I have happened to glance upon their written objective. None of them remembered, what they had written.” Ravi was sarcastic.

“No. I have never done that. In fact I have never looked at the objective section while talking to them. What else can they do? They are being given and guided to prepare their resume in that way only. It is actually when they take on the challenges of the job market head on, then they understand the tricks and ways to sell themselves. I don’t find anything relevant in a fresher’s resume other than his/her education qualification. Tell me the first section that you look at while looking at a fresher’s resume?” Bikash expression was like he knew the answer. He looked at Ravi’s face and sipped through his coffee but nothing touched his lips. He looked down to see that he had already emptied the glass.

Ravi thoughtfully said, “I think the education qualification is where my attention goes while short listing their Resumes and in fact nothing else further. Yes, you are right. We happen to look at the other sections only when we are talking to them. Even their projects fail to save them. They are mostly copy and paste exercise. That is why the only criteria, that they are judged upon is their education qualification and basic communication skill.”

Bikash smiled on his reply and stood up to trash his coffee glass. Ravi also stood up and slowly moved towards the canteen door. Bikash quickly caught up with him and said, “As the experience grows, how different the resume becomes. We get know indeed so many things about the person from an experienced resume. Most of the time I am able to make a judgement by going through an experienced resumes and rarely I am proven wrong while having a conversation with them. You will not believe but I even imagine their appearance. ”

 Now it was Ravi’s turn to smile, “It is generally because the words are their own which reflect their own personality and the resumes that look so automatic for example, fresher’s resumes,  they draw a blank face in front of us.”

“Where from our CHANGU & MANGU are coming? Canteen? “ Divya’s entry was sudden and it took them both by surprise. She was one of their colleagues in HR department.

“Yes. We are coming from the canteen. Where were you? Coming late.” Bikash asked.

“Yes. I had gone to my hometown and directly coming from the railway station.” Divya replied.

“Suddenly. When did you leave for home? Is everything fine at home?” Ravi looked concerned.

“Yes. Mother was not well, but she is fine now. I left on Friday night.” Divya  replied. She moved ahead towards the canteen saying, “You all carry on. I will catch up after the coffee. Have not been able to get a good sleep.”

Ravi and Bikash turned towards their workstation. Bikash again put his hand on Ravi’s shoulder and said looking at his curious face, “Was this not the real reason for your bad mood since morning?” Ravi smiled on this.

“Unnecessarily you were blaming the resumes.” Bikash teased him further.

“One thing is for sure. She is like a beautiful rose among the thorns of resumes around us.” Ravi admitted.

“Yes. A million dollar statement my friend. We have already seen the rose, now it’s time for the thorns and they are more than 2500 and hopefully more to come.” Bikash again touchéd his nerve.

Ravi stamped his foot hard and dragged his feet towards his cubicle to again into his world of resumes and job seekers.