All of our time and energy we put forth during our schooling years is put into one magical document. After trudging through grade school and putting up with high school nonsense, we categorize all of our achievements and honors into one piece of paper. We define ourselves by our successes and some random self-assigned attributes. I remember students not knowing what to put down on their high school resume. The teacher I had would ask, “Well, are you organized? Hard-working?,” and if the student had other such key word adjectives they could throw into their resume.

On top of the awkward jumble of words on the resume, there is always the notorious resume template. All the resumes look the same. Center aligned, black and white text and the same headings for each section. Most ridiculous is the “objective” requirement. What’s your objective, huh? It is to make a ton of money and stop having to work; isn’t that what we all are trying to do? That’s what we were educated to do; find a career that you supposedly like, go to school for a bazillion years and then work until you’re old and crusty. We put all of our youth energy into producing one document that will show who we are. All those years of work, maybe unwanted, mulled over or hard earned pinched onto one side of a 8.5 x 11 inch piece of resume-grade paper. And in high school we’re told to put random adjectives and use a template. How could that possibly be beneficial?

So, we come to college, perhaps very prepared, perhaps slightly dazed. We have the same resume skills we were born from high school with. Four or five quick years later we now have to sum ourselves up in an efficient manner and look shiny to catch an employers eye. This is important, you know. There are resume workshops supplied by the Career Center, but they can only do so much. How much can you really gather from a couple hours of workshop? Can you learn to exemplify yourself on that piece of paper? Do you have an objective on there? Objective: To save the world! To sit in an office! To work my whole life! The idea of an objective is so elementary. It’s a forced statement that breathes inanity. Design seems rarely a factor and conformity the way to go.

Shouldn’t there be an area where we can say a few words about who we think we are? Or perhaps change the fonts up a bit and introduce some style. I once saw a resume that was an 8.5 x 22 inch paper folded in half. It had a nice cover then two pages for a summarization of the person and a clear back. It was like a nice little story. Aren’t we each worth a little more time then a one-sided glance, especially after working so hard? It would seem that employers would want to know more about the person they hire. Is personality a non-issue? Are we each measured by our GPA, test scores and how many unnecessary activities we did to show our leadership, responsibility and our aptitude (more key words)? Why, yes we are most of the time.

Why are we all so adamant on cramming our life story onto the front of one piece of paper? Is there some invisible force keeping us from specializing our resumes… or is it simply that students are not equipped or confident enough to effectively put together a resume? Is it that employers, in alignment with the country’s demeanor, are in a big gosh-darn hurry? Excuses often include time. We never have enough time to take our time, yet we can alienate ourselves through our own selective technologies. It would make it more fun if you could actually learn something about a person from their resume besides their corresponding numbers and key words. Mostly, I think there should be more emphasis on persons. We are social creatures, and care should be taken when the future of an individual is the topic and center of a decision. Even if having more identifying resumes does not change the outcome of employment, there is more appreciation and communication of persons. This is important in our hurried lives.