An Honest Resume

If you ever want to feel really old, try starting over at the job market in your late forties.

Holy crap! Did I just say LATE forties?!?

When the fuck did THAT happen???

If you’ve been reading this blog long enough, then you know that the office where I work at my day job is scheduled to close some time in 2019. We don’t have an exact date yet, so I’ve started dipping my toes in the water to see what it looks like out there.

As a forty-something person, you’ll never feel so obsolete as you will when you start reading all the requirements for entry level positions:

“Must have a degree in biomedical engineering, at least five years experience harvesting tumeric plants, and posess a good citizenship certificate. Must know Microsoft office, Excel, Snapchat and the Flashlight app on an Android phone. Must be able to sit/stand/somersault for at least six hours a day, lift a fat toddler over your head and swipe right on Tinder. Must be able to communicate effectively in Swahili, English, and emojis and should be able to type at least 300 words per minute, but only using your index fingers. Compensation: $9 per hour.”

Seriously? How do you even write a resume that can cover all the bullshit that’s “preferred” by candidate these days?

I decided that while I’m off for a few weeks recovering from surgery, I could probably stand to “punch up” my resume to make it more effective. But even resumes aren’t like they used to be. Maybe we should just be honest and see where that gets us. If my resume was 100% honest, this is what it would probably look like:

Professional Summary

Apparently, you’re supposed to summarize a whole lifetime of professional achievements and accolades in a brief sentence or two.

If you are a writer like me, you know how utterly impossible this task is. I want to expound and write three pages worth of interesting tidbits about myself, but alas, I’m limited to a VERY BRIEF statement. Here’s what I came up with:

Accomplished below-the-radar-flier with a successful tack record of not rocking the boat, showing up, doing my job, then going home. I’m not drinking the Koolaid. Please quit offering it.

Skills

Now this part is supposed to be made up of a few “bullet points” demonstrating your best skills for the job. There’s no way I can summarize forty six years worth of real world skills and twenty six years worth of job skills in a couple of bullet points, so I’ve decided to group them into categories. This may be off-putting to a H.R. Rep, but I think the skills speak for themselves:

Languages: Fluent in English, Spanish, Sarcasm and Texan. Still learning Okie and texting.

Technical skills: I can offer your company skills not readily available among your millennial candidates. For example, I can actually “keyboard” with all fingers on both hands, without looking at the keyboard. These skills were honed on an electric typewriter and burned into my brain by a very tiny, Filipino nun who owned more shoes than Imelda Marcos. However, please don’t discount my “computing skills” as I learned Word Processing, Spreadsheets, and two dimensional video games on an Apple IIE computer, using floppy disks. Don’t underestimate the value of 56 K worth of memory! You might also be interested in my ability to dial a rotary phone, make a “mix tape” from the radio without recording the commercials, playing records backwards to look for subliminal messages, and making it to the higher levels of Ms.PacMan. 

Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg with me. Check out these “real life” skills!

Other Noteworthy skills: I excel at pissing people off with the truth (just ask my brother…if you can find him, that is.) I would say I also have a “black belt” in finding someone’s “hot button” and repeatedly pushing it. Years of customer service, marriage, and being around toddlers have sharpened my ability to stare intently to convince you I’m paying attention to what you’re saying when I’m really planning my next meal. Speaking of customer service, I have a customer service voice that doesn’t sound anything like the real me and actually sounds like a kind, caring human being full of empathy. People hear this voice and ALWAYS proceed to tell me their life stories.

Experience

Well, this is the real meat and potatoes, isn’t it? I’m not sure what this qualifies me for, but here it is: 

• Thirty-four years of “tough love”, which entails the following: no you can’t have any money, put your big boy panties on, yes I know I’m a shitty sister.
• Eighteen years of marriage which has included repeating everything I say at least twice, sneaking clothes out of the closet that haven’t been in style since 1990 while making room for yet more T-shirts, and not losing my shit when I see the dirty clothes laying on the floor NEXT to the clothes hamper.
•  Seventeen years of call center/customer service, getting yelled and cursed at, hating my life, wanting to burn down the building but not actually doing it. 
• Sixteen years parenting (eighteen years of step-parenting), exerting patience I never knew I had, worrying about literally EVERYTHING, being the head cheerleader/education advocate/and truth teller without being the dream squasher. Usually the bad cop in the good cop/bad cop scenario.
• Seven years teaching, being underpaid and unappreciated, glorified babysitter because I wasn’t allowed to actually use discipline.
• Four years of retail, fuck my life, why do people suck?

Achievements and Other Notables

This is the part where you get to brag about yourself a little. I know it can be difficult to toot your own horn, but it’s important to highlight those things that make you stand out. Here are mine:

Achievements: Survived ten years of driving around in cars without a car seat or seatbelt, walked through miles and miles of shag carpet to change the three channels on the television, graduated high school and college without Google, and have completed several road trips using an actual paper map.

And finally, I feel like it’s important to point out other notable perks of hiring someone who is “older”:

• I remember when Bruce Willis had hair. 
• I won’t have anymore babies so you don’t have to worry about maternity leave, but I’m young enough I won’t be retiring any time soon. In fact, I’ll probably work up until lunch time on the day of my funeral. 
• I know how to cook with 70% fat ground beef, real butter, whole milk and gluten.
• I saw the original Star Wars trilogy in the movie theater before George Lucas tweaked it and fucked it up and I can tell you without equivocation that Han shot first.

Hobbies and Personal Interests

A lot of companies like to see you list personal interests and hobbies, so that they can pat themselves on the back for hiring a “whole” person. I find that a short, succinct paragraph suffices in this situation:

In my spare time, I enjoy coloring in adult coloring books with bad words. I’m nosier than Homeland Security and just as dangerous. I like watching “Bar Rescue” and “Kitchen Nightmares” on TV and then critiquing all of the local establishments we visit. I’ve been voted the Grandma most likely to teach the grandkids inappropriate words. I’m also adept at having body parts removed. To date, this includes my wisdom teeth, half my stomach, and all of my reproductive organs. 

Now who wants to hire me???