Of Resumes, Vitae, and Newspeak

Resumes at one time were a reflection of an individual's style, personality,  rganization of information, and general use of the English language. Unfortunately with computer programs "making it easy," individuality has been lost. Corporations, businesses, and even educational institutions have placed everyone into boxes with no allowances for "thinking outside the box," if you will pardon the cliché.

I recently spent several hours in the program "Digital Measures," which does not provide clear direction and certainly doesn't permit any refinement or details. In a word, it is BORING. The individual must find the most basic choice of words rather than providing explanatory --- or PRECISE --- terms that provide the correct connotation. Thus, there is no way the reader or evaluator, as the case may be, can make a distinction between or among all the resumes that use the same terms in the same phrases.

A person less adept at writing can also use boilerplate terminology which can "score" higher than a precise term. Or the writer can open an electronic thesaurus and choose a word from a list, thinking that all of the words on the list mean exactly the same thing.  Careless writers do not know—or care--that each word choice has its own meaning or connotation and each has its own place depending on the message the writer wishes to convey.

Remember your junior high school English teacher circling your word "nice," and gently explaining that this term is too broad? What he/she was trying to tell you is that nuance—and the correct word--is needed in order for your meaning to be clear and precise. My fear is that if we continue to accept each of the words in a list of synonyms (or Thesaurus, as computer programs would have you believe) as meaning exactly the same thing, we will lose all nuance intended by our rich English vocabulary.  That, in turn, will lead to fewer words and less degree of meaning—exactly where Newspeak would take us.

I don't want a two-page resume from an applicant any more than I want a report replete with cliches and words such as "nice" that have no precise meaning. I want to read a resume as a reflection of the person, who he/she is, where he has been, and where she wants to go.

On the other hand, if someone wants to read my complete vita (curriculum vitae) or resume, then that person should be able to read it as I present it and not reduced to the number of characters LinkedIn and other social and business networks determine.

See next blog for my publications.  Full vita available on request from jtwitmer@aol.com