resumes

The blog "Rands in Repose" had a really good post about what hiring managers look for when reading a resume. The upshot is that you have spent hours tinkering with your resume and have only 30 seconds to make a favorable impression--that is, an impression that will get you a phone screen. This particular person is in high-tech, but most of what he says applies across industries.

After describing his process of reading resumes, he gives some suggestions. Some interesting points he makes:

• He will look to see if you have a blog or other public web presence.
• When describing skills and experience, give meaningful and believable descriptions.
• It is a good idea to include seemingly irrelevant experience. If you don't have directly related experience, at least show that you have held jobs before. Seeing that someone worked through school makes a favorable impression.

I recommend that my 100WB students read this article; it's a glimpse into the mind of your audience. In this case, the audience has the power to give you something you want--or not--so it is very important to know what they are thinking.

strike vote

The Mercury News today reports that the California Faculty Union has scheduled a strike vote for mid-March. I'm a little surprised they have already scheduled the vote since fact-finding is not yet finished. The article mentions that this could be an historic strike, the largest strike of educators in US history. If so, it's a part of history I am very sorry to be a part of.

I'm beginning to better understand the difference between the CFA's position and the administration's position. The administration is saying that it is offering a 24% pay raise, while the CFA says it is in reality only 14%. The administration's numbers include merit pay increases (which not everyone would receive), funding for raises that were promised but not given over the last 4 years, and imaginary money that the State is not giving. If it really were a 24% increase, the union and all faculty members would support accepting the contract.

CSU/Faculty bargaining

This morning, KQED broadcast a forum discussing the state of the CSU/faculty bargaining. [audio archive]

Business 100W

An article in the Spartan Daily today discusses the move of Business 100W out of the College of Business and into English, Communications, and Linguistics & Language Development (where I teach the new 100WB). Unfortunately there was no explanation of the situation, in fact little else besides the uninformed imaginings of business students. In "researching" the situation, it seems that the writer of the article spoke with just one person, the director of the business advising center, who could not explain what is going on. Finding out who could explain and then speaking with that person would have been a good next step.

But back to the uninformed imaginings, especially shocking was this concern from one student:

"Some students might have trouble learning proper English skills if they're not familiar with the language and the class being outside of the department might not deal with that issue."

In fact Linguistics & Language Development is best-positioned to assist ESL students since it is one of the core missions of the department, and I am sure that the English department has a great deal of expertise as well.

There are definitely legitimate concerns about the move, and I would like to get the full story as well; but unfortunately the Spartan Daily article did not contribute anything meaningful to the discussion.

student blogs

Some good posts are showing up in the LLD 100WB student blogs [Betina, Heather, Ronny]. Remember that there are some suggestions about subjects and types of blog entries in the WebCT assignment called "Blog revision 1."

One possible type of entry is to discuss a topic or event that you read about. If the source is available on-line, then include a link to it. For blogs hosted on blogger.com, just select a word in the text entry box, click the link button (it looks like a globe with a chain in front of it), then enter the URL in the box that pops up [blogger.com Help].

If it is an off-line source, then give enough information so that an interested reader could find it. For example, '"Rich Man, Poor Man" (The Economist, Jan. 20, 2007, pp. 15-16) notes that there is a growing backlash against globalization.' Later on you'll learn how to create citations that meet formal rules, but the essence is to enable your readers to find the source and verify what you write.

more on business blogging

Today's Mercury News includes an editorial about questions of journalistic ethics in blogging. Some influential bloggers are being courted by the companies they observe, sometimes receiving junkets and other free goodies for writing positive posts. The problem arises when these "gifts" are not disclosed to the readers.

blogging for class

My colleague Sue B. sent us LLD 100WB instructors an exemplary blog entry. For any of my students who wonder what a good blog entry looks like, it looks like that.

Ronny thinks that it's interesting having a blog for class, and I hope others of you do as well. But even if not, it's still required. Take a look at your classmates' blogs! And keep up with making entries too, so they have something to read.