Job Hunters

Right now, I am trying so hard not to laugh that my eyes are watering. I'm having trouble breathing, and I'm getting light headed.

What's so funny, you might ask?

I'm reading resumes. I am hunting for potential candidates for a job opening in the company I work for. We're trying to find a qualified systems administrator to take a chunk of my work load and get all our systems running the way I want them to be. Simple enough. There should be plenty of those people out there.

Wrong. WRONG.

After doing my initial filter and having to discount most of the resumes immediately because they're from out of state... I start to dig a little bit more. A lot more of them are thrown out pretty quickly because all I see are jumbles of letters starting with MS. Yay Microsoft certifications. TRASH! So far, I think I've had 3 people who got past these filters... one of them was actually fairly impressive, but works with technology that's on a scale I only wish we could afford here. The other two, however, are the ones who have me laughing so hard.

The first little gem I found was somebody who had been working for several years in the US Navy as an "Information systems technician"... alright, he's got my attention there. I'll bite. Looks like he's out of the Navy now... should be holding a fairly decent job but... wait, this says he's a "Cement finisher" now. Hmmm. He's a cement finisher, and he's asking for a $75k salary. BZZZZT! NEXT!

I found that previous one pretty amusing... but the one that's causing my asphyxiation is even better, at least to me. The headline on this resume reads "Information Systems Operator/Analysist". Even better, in his work experience, he lists "2006-2007 U.S. Army Signal Core - Information System Operator/Analysist". Will somebody, anybody, PLEASE tell me what in the world an "analysist" does!? I love it when people make up words... especially on a document as important as their resume!

Also, notice a common theme with these two applicants? That's right, they're both fresh out of our United States armed forces! I thought they were supposed to be able to get good careers (or at least be able to spell...) when they got out of the military. Things ain't looking so good for Uncle Sam...