What to do When Employers Reject Your Resume…

The rules are simple:

1) Get rid of the fluff and write your truth, even if it risks offending someone.

2) Keep a few polysyllabic words, so they know you possess a smart of some hue.

3) Interrupt the intellectualized rhythm of the standard resume with your own strut.

4) Stand tall and tread hard.

For those of you who are a bit reluctant to begin, I have taken the liberty of posting my résumé online as an example for you to follow. Enjoy!

Talia Taylor |address: google me | phone: 510.2**.1439 (don’t call me after 9 p.m.)

Objective

To get a job so that I can continue to feed, clothe and house myself.

Qualifications

•  8 years experience interacting with people who infrequently smile
•  Computer literate; can troubleshoot Macs. Only because they are better than PCs
•  Went to college for longer than expected
•  Entrepreneurial experience (I sold candy and other paraphernalia in high school)

Work Experience

Sales Professional|2010 seasonal

• distract dissatisfied customers from their initial complaints and occasionally confuse elderly Germans by pretending to be a customer
• open and close registers
• meticulously dust glassware
• influence customers to become a valued card holder so that over time, they will owe an excessive amount of money to the corporation

Leadership Instructor|2009-2010

• show up to work every day
• talk for one and one half hours as animated as possible to keep up with adolescent attention spans
• make friends with co-workers and promise to go out for drinks, but never do
• organize and chaperone field trips with the intent to increase the social and cultural capital of youth
• execute classroom management practices that are non-threatening and diplomatic, on most occasions

 Receptionist/Hair Stylist|2007-200

• refrain from yelling at over-demanding customers/clients
• listen intently to conversations that have no relevance to personal growth
• boost immune system by becoming accustomed to inhaling toxic nail polish removers

Poet-Mentor|2002-2010

• display an overwhelming sense of emotion when students recite personal poems in front of a crowd of over 1,000
• drive long distances to cities with fictive names
• wear really cool clothing and accessories
• show resourcefulness in finding money for food and transportation when my paycheck was late arriving. every month

University of East Anglia| Exchange Student| 2005-2006

• attend courses in which european americans condemned Langston Hughes’ for writing about lynchings instead of tulips
• refrain from socking people
• host a radio show with as little talking as possible
• navigate my way through way Rome, Milan, Florence, Venice, and Barcelona with just one guidebook and little interest in reading it
• land a feature column in the Valentine’s Day edition of the school paper
• join the photography club and learn to develop photos of my ex

Education

B.A. I talk a lot to some people, San Francisco State University

B.A. I like all things Black people related, San Francisco State University

References

A few