A Blog About Making Culture
Learning From the Mistakes of Others
April 28, 2004
Since so many people are still out there hunting for jobs in this tough economy, I would like to offer a bit of advice based on an unfortunate situation that I was lucky enough to not participate in firsthand:
Do not send your resume out to someone with "Track Changes" enabled. It just means your potential employer can actually watch your lies being written in front of them.
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A Gallimaufry of Links
Learn From Others: Learn From the Mistakes of Others... read more »lingosphere daily
Words to the Wise...: Anil Dash talks about a situation in which someone got caught, apparently, after leaving the "Track Changes" option turned on when they delivered a resume to a company. Ouch. In fact, you really shouldn't send Word documents to anyone -... read more »iBLOGthere4iM
Learning From the Mistakes of Others: Dash n Dude: Since so many people are still out there hunting for jobs in this tough economy, I would like to offer a bit of advice based on an unfortunate situation that I was lucky e... read more »Chrizzle P-Dizzle
Lesson Learned...: Learning From the Mistakes of Others... read more »IT Digest - Ingenious Tejas's Digest Blog
Learn from the advice of others: TITLE: Learn from the advice of others URL: http://geekswithblogs.net/tpatel/archive/2004/05/05/4609.aspx IP: 66.226.14.106 BLOG NAME: IT Digest - Ingenious Tejas's Digest Blog DATE: 05/04/2004 07:54:16 PM read more »foosh's blog
Like I said last time... : It could stand to be noted that... read more »Justin Blanton
Hahaha. Similar thing happened to a buddy of mine about a year ago. This after I told him to convert it to PDF for a completely unrelated reason.
Matt McIrvin
Aren’t plain-text resumes gradually taking over, at least in tech industry? I don’t think the formatted version of my current resume ever got used. Fine by me; it eliminates a whole layer of stupidity.
I’ve heard it suggested that some places ask for plain-text e-mailed resumes as a technical competence filter, since it’s actually harder for most people to send plain text than to attach a Word document.
Donald
I’m really beginning to think that it doesn’t make any difference. I have been pushing out plain text, PDFs, Word docs and hypertext links to HTML pages since 9/11 and I’m STILL unemployed.
Paul
I thought it was missspellings I had to worry about. I honestly think the only thing that will improve chances of getting a job in the city is for the economy to improve.
That or maybe sprinkling pixie dust on the resume.
Jim
Those aren’t lies! Merely, ah, qualifications of my qualifications. I’m, you know, a moving target, man. I change with the industry and stuff.
Anjali
YOWZERS! (that’s the only word i could come up with to describe what i’d be feeling if i left track changes enabled on just about anything). I make so many weird changes to things, and to know that someone else is seeing your pathology and your train of thought (as well as the things you considered more important, less important, etc) is frightening.
I’ve recently sent out a document on a listserv which not only had track changes but also honest (mean? even) commentary (and the original author of the document was on the listserv). many many mistakes in that one.
thomas
Tough economy? You might want to check out those unemployment numbers again.
Bob Myers
It’s not just Track Changes. If you have Fast Save on, old information is retained and can be seen with a binary editor.
My previous company was supplying services to the very company that markets Word. During a price negotiation, they sent us a Word document of suggested prices for the next year which they had fast-saved so that it still contained the prices they had offered to competitors. That made our negotiations much easier. I guess that’s what they call “eating your own dogfood.”
BrainDan
Good thing resumes are one of the leading examples in the Track Changes documentation:
http://office.microsoft.com/assistance/preview.aspx?AssetID=HA010983881033&CTT=3&Origin=HP052416341033&Client=1
Not that that will prevent anyone from sending resumes with their edits…
brianb
i too am searching for a job, and this economy does suck. I mean there are jobs out there, but not the ones you want. Anyway, this is good advice about track changes, i never turned it on, so i didn’t even think about turning it off.
anyway, anyone interested in a blog for job-hunting? I know there is the digital media job blog, but something more expansive and not run by some super-large commercial enterprise like monster might be useful…. I am willing to partake in it/help out if anyone wants email me brian[AT]breslin.com
Dan Fowlkes
re: Paul’s comment
No, sprinkling pixie dust on your resume gets the business to which you are applying evacuated by a HAZMAT crew and men in dark glasses showing up at your doorstep with questions.
kimberly
I once got an RFP from a potential client that had ripped the RFP from her old job and changed small pieces to fit her needs. Since my Word has comments/reviewing on by default, I saw every last part she changed. This also included comments (to herself? a partner?) such as “What the f*ck does this mean?”
Oh my.
dawnkeyotie
this is not appropriate, but “check those unemployment numbers again”??? you mean the ones they used AFTER they dropped off, like, half the categories they used to count? the numbers went up, yea, but that’s because they excluded a large segment of the population that they used to include.
ask anyone who is looking for a job if there are many good jobs out there. there’s your REAL proof.
Stan
Check this out: http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/strikeout/.
This guy downloaded *.doc documents from Microsoft’s web site and looked for changes and found quite a bit of amusing stuff.
wheezy joe
Anil, the track changes issue, along with Word’s Recover Text from Any File feature, are becoming very problematic in the legal field. Opposing counsel sends you a pleading, and when you scrutinize the document you find that it was cribbed from another law firm’s electronic filing for a different case. Big no-no in legal ethics. So vendors are developing products that scrub all that “hidden” information to keep from prying eyes. Maybe there’s a market for consumers as well.
Karl
There are decent jobs out there that look very interesting to someone like me who’s graduating in six weeks from an excellent university program and already has decent experience in my field.
The problem seems to be that I’m not getting through the online automated resume input/filtering systems. I can’t answer “Do you have a bachelor’s degree?” with a ‘Yes’, because that would be dishonest. But I realize that answering ‘No’ to that question immediately roundfiles your resume. And don’t even bother calling the company and asking to talk to a recruiter or someone in HR.
I also can’t get someone from another area to look at my resume because they don’t want to relocate an entry-level employee, and I live in Portland, OR — one of the worst economies in the nation right now. It looks like I’m going to end up moving in with my parents in LA and then starting to look again down there with a local address.
(And Anil, by the way, comment previewing is broken. Moz 1.6/WinXP)
again
“ask anyone who is looking for a job if there are many good jobs out there. there’s your REAL proof.”
You have to be joking. Ever taken a statistics class? I couldn’t ask enough people to make that question worth while or relevant.
Unemployment stats are calculated the same way time after time. Compare the latest unemployment figures with the past 40 years and you’ll find out its average.
This whole misconception that the unemployment figures are high comes from ignorance. Unless you believe in conspiracies, in which case you keep that tinfoil hat strapped on tight.
Karl
Again - Yes, unemployment stats are counted the same way every time. Do you know how they’re counted?
100 people in a market area (typically a city or in rural areas a county) are called via telephone and asked, “Are you looking for work right now?” … if the answer is “yes”, they are counted as unemployed. If the answer is “no”, they are not counted as unemployed… whether or not they have a job. Of course, this is a self-selecting group — only those who can be reached and who are not on ‘do not call lists’ (or whom, like me, use a cellular phone as their only phone) are included. The number of people receiving unemployment benefits is also ignored in these federal unemployment survey figures. The two numbers only jive by random chance.
The number is generally irrelevant. Statistically, it isn’t a sound measurement of the number of unemployed people in a specific area… 100 people is a decent sample size for rural Grant’s Pass in Oregon, but is not a stastically significant sample by any means in Portland. Also, the point that the previous poster made — “… there are many GOOD jobs out there” (emphasis mine)… the unemployment rate doesn’t in any way address the qualitative measure of unemployment — the fact that someone, to get work, would have to take a demotion and a large pay cut and isn’t willing to do that. Numbers do not tell all.
dawnkeyotie
well. i have no less than 45 things to say in response, but i imagine it’s probably in poor taste to suck up the anil dash bandwidth and comments log with a political debate (read: argument), so i’ll pass. but if this were a forum - it’d be ON, buddy!
Anil
Hey! Let’s turn a not-very-funny joke into an completely boring political argument! wooo!
mike
I have advice for people looking for a job in new york. MOVE. That place is a shithole. Less than two weeks after I got the hell out of there I had a new job. New York is full of sleazy fake people and there are no jobs.
Mo Nickels
I’m glad to hear that making license plates is working out for you in Joliet, Mike.
Amit
What about Copy/Paste to a new document and THEN edit?? No, I’m not looking for the loop hole. ;)
david
Those aren’t lies! Merely, ah, qualifications of my qualifications. I’m, you know, a moving target, man. I change with the industry and stuff.
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