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REVIEW QUESTIONS & SUGGESTED ANSWERS
1 Where can you obtain information about the responsibilities, compensation, and career
potential of a certain job?
2 List five sources from which prospective employers’ names and addresses may be
obtained; include traditional and electronic sources.
3 How can a job applicant conduct a successful job search without leaving home?
4 Explain the rise in popularity of the “career summary” section on résumés. How else
have résumés changed in recent years?
The “career summary” section can allow applicants with special skills or licenses to place that
5 What are the standard parts of a résumé? What are some optional parts? How does a
job candidate decide which parts to include?
The purpose of the résumé is to present a concise, informative, easy-to-read summary of relevant
© 2015 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a
publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
1
6 Under what conditions might you choose to include or not include references on a
résumé? Is obtaining permission from references necessary?
References could be omitted if (a) you prefer to delay your present employer’s awareness of your
1. Describe the three organizational patterns of résumés and explain under what
circumstances each would be effective.
The chronological résumé is the traditional format for résumés that list education and experience
7 How does the format and content of a scannable résumé differ from a print résumé?
8 What safeguards should be taken when posting a résumé electronically?
9 Describe a job for which a video recording might be an effective résumé enhancement.
What should the video include?
10 Is it possible for a candidate to “try too hard” when preparing a résumé? Explain your
answers.
© 2015 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a
publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
2
FEATURED ASSIGNMENTS
1Examining Résumé Mistakes: Visit one of the career sites and develop a list of the top ten
résumé blunders. You should be prepared to share your list with the class or in small groups,
or to contribute your thoughts to a blog related to crafting a winning résumé.
2. Formatting an Electronic Application: Assume one of your networking contacts asked you
to email your résumé for a potential opening in his firm. You should prepare an abbreviated
version of an application letter and email your professor the application message with an
inline résumé positioned below the letter. Use a subject line that stands out in an overloaded
mailbox as an expected message from a known person.
3. Critiquing an Existing Résumé: Critique the resume distributed by your professor. Look at
its effectiveness using the guidelines and the examples provided in the chapter. Summarize
your overall impression of the résumé and give specific suggestions for improving it.
4. Presenting Your Career Portfolio: Prepare a class presentation that will showcase your
employment strengths. You may need to assemble a series of materials in a career portfolio.
You should emphasize preparation, experiences, and skills that have prepared you for your
ideal career position.
5. Formatting a Beamable Résumé: Prepare a beamer résumé you can broadcast at a
networking event to identify leads for an internship or full-time job. Include your contact
information and qualifications in a format suitable for the small screens of a PDA or cell
phone. In small groups, send your résumés to each other’s PDAs or cell phones. In small
groups or as a whole class, discuss their overall impression of each résumé, suggestions for
improvement, and the effectiveness of this delivery option. Consider having students delete
their names and personal information so that critiques can be more objective and students
more open to having their work examined by their peers.
© 2015 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a
publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
3
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS
1Surfing Cyberspace to Land a Job: Visit one a career site and note the types of career
guidance information available. Print the page of a resource that you believe will be
beneficial to you as you search for a job. Summarize the results of your exploration in a short
report to your instructor. Your instructor may ask you to complete the activities in the Internet
case related to Internet recruiting.
6. Assessing Career Interests: Various career, or vocational, tests are available that can help
you assess your areas of job interest. Visit the following site http://www.jobhuntersbible.com/,
enter the counseling section and click on the tests link. Read about the value and use of such
assessments and follow links to some representative examples of career tests:
7. Getting Essential Information to Make a Wise Career Decision: Select a job listing for a
job for which you wish to interview (full- or part-time, internship or co-op position).
Complete the planning forms available at the text support site to direct your reflection on
your interests and abilities and understanding of your career and job sought. To validate
your career and job analyses, interview a person currently working in your career field. Give
honest, insightful answers to each question; add additional questions that you deem
appropriate for a complete analysis in the planning form for each part of the analysis.
8. Preparing a Company/Job Profile: Use information obtained from completing the previous
assignment to prepare a company/job profile for the company/job in which you expect to be
interviewing. Use the profile to complete these steps:
© 2015 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a
publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
4
a. Review the completed profile and note the degree of compatibility between your
qualifications and the company and job requirements.
b. Compile a list of strengths and weaknesses (lack of a match between your qualifications
and job requirements) as they relate to the job requirements.
c. Consider carefully the deficiencies you must overcome before your qualifications fully
match the job requirements. What are possible strategies for overcoming these
deficiencies? Are any of these strategies feasible, or is overcoming these deficiencies out
of your control?
d. Analyze the final comparison and decide whether interviewing for this job would be wise.
9. Critiquing a Peer’s Résumé: Exchange a rough draft of your résumé with another class
member. Critique the document’s effectiveness using the guidelines and the examples
provided in the chapter. Send an email message to the student giving your overall impression
of the résumé and specific suggestions for improving it. Print a copy of your message and
submit it to your instructor with a copy of the student’s résumé.
10. Print and Scannable Résumé with Accompanying Application Letter: Prepare print and
scannable versions of your résumé and an application letter for a job of your choice using
information compiled in earlier assignments. Assume you are applying for an immediate
part-time job, a full-time job for the summer, a cooperative education assignment or
internship, or a full-time job immediately after you graduate. Look at the list of courses you
plan to take and write as though you had taken them and satisfied the requirements for a
degree. Follow the guidelines for preparing a print résumé, and then incorporate the valid
comments of at least two others competent in proofreading and résumé design. Use the
desktop publishing capability available to you to produce a highly effective, professional
document.
© 2015 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a
publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
5
11. Completing Electronic Postings: If you are within three semesters of graduation, register
with your career services center and acquaint yourself with the services they provide. Follow
instructions precisely for posting your résumé to your university’s career services website for
submission to prospective employers. Alternately, your instructor may request that you post
your résumé to a company’s website. Access the website of a company of your choice and
follow instructions carefully in order to prepare a résumé suitable for the company’s use.
12. Designing an Electronic Portfolio: Sketch the information you would include on the first
page of an electronic portfolio posted at your personal website. Brainstorm about the types
of information you might include in links to additional qualifications. Consider materials you
have prepared for your career portfolio while completing the Your Turn applications in the
text. Create your electronic résumé if your instructor directs you to do so. Consider using a
template in a high-level word processing program. Post to your student home page in your
online course or your personal web page. Send your instructor an email message providing
the URL address if posted to your personal webpage.
13. Analyzing Résumé Critiques Made by Experts: Study the “before and after” versions of
résumés, including recommendations from career experts, available at major career sites.
Compile a list of suggestions that reinforce and/or supplement the information related to
résumé construction presented in the chapter. Note any discrepancies in this information and
your textbook or current knowledge. Share your suggestions in a short presentation to the
class.
14. Launching a Newsletter to Boost Career Skills: A student organization that you’re a
member of is initiating an online monthly recruiting newsletter available to members at the
organization’s home page. The vision is to create a fresh, personalized approach to career
information specifically related to the needs of the members of your group and the current
competitive market. Each newsletter will include at least one article addressing specific job
search skills, highlights of special recruiting events and previews of upcoming events, and an
interview providing insights from an employer, returning co-op students, campus recruiters,
etc. In small groups, generate an issue of the newsletter for an organization of your choice.
Consider using a newsletter template from a high-level word processing program to assist
you in generating the document. Email your newsletter to your instructor; distribute to the
class through email or an electronic posting to the student home page in your online course
or a personal web page.
© 2015 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a
publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
6
CASE ASSIGNMENT
EMPLOYMENT MARKET UNDERGOES CYBER REVOLUTION
The cyberspace employment market is here and advancing rapidly. What is being witnessed is
nothing less than a transformation in the way people look for jobs and how organizations look for
qualified employees. Those who do not engage in electronic employment searching may soon be
left out entirely from the digital economy.
Until recently, employers and prospective employees carried on their mutual searching
process in physical space. Now, information can be exchanged totally electronically. In a recent
study of members of the Society of Human Resource Managers and the Recruitment Marketplace,
82 percent of respondents said they use online advertising to fill open positions. In fact, Internet
recruiting is now second only to newspaper advertising in terms of volume of applicants
generated and recruited.31 Large and small companies alike are realizing the advantages offered
by online recruiting:
Worldwide access to job postings increases the response rates to advertised job openings.
More and better information on applicants is available since a résumé document can provide
links to publications, reference letters, and other informational items.
The ability to quickly scan files, looking for keywords emphasizing experience, knowledge,
and abilities, is replacing the tedious task of sorting through volumes of paper résumés, thus
reducing the number of days necessary to fill a vacant position.
A company can instantly ask an applicant to supply additional or missing information.
The search process can be programmed to run the necessary security, criminal, or credit
checks on the applicant automatically.
In sum, the process by which organizations gather necessary information from and about
applicants can be made much more efficient through the application of an Internet-based
recruiting process. Likewise, the communications garnered through such an automated procedure
can be gathered much more quickly—at the speed of light rather than the speed of bureaucratic
action and snail mail delivery.
Making use of the Internet allows companies to expand their geographic reach greatly.
The paradox, however, of the increasing use of the Internet for corporate recruiting is the
potential for both less and greater diversity in organizations. Although an applicant’s gender, race,
and even physical disabilities play no role in the decision-making process, current statistics on the
Internet community reflect a built-in bias. While the demographics are beginning to change to be
more reflective of society as a whole, the Internet is currently overwhelmingly male and white. In
fact, it has been speculated that employers who would rely solely on the Internet for recruiting
might well be in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Employers should thus be aware of
the potential for discrimination inherent in Internet-based recruiting. The EEOC currently
requires that companies with more than 100 employees store all submitted résumés for one year
and compile demographic data on applicants; EEOC officials can use the data to look for
discriminatory hiring practices.
Sources: J.J. Coloa, The Facebook Job Board Is Here: Recruiting Will Never Look The Same, Forbes,
11/14/2012; Olga Kharif, Job Recruiters Turn to LinkedIn, Social Media Startups, Business Week, December 13, 2012;
EEOC addresses online recruiting. (2002, September 15).
© 2015 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a
publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
7
Activities
1 Locate the web page of an organization for which you would like to work. Print the page.
Does the web page provide information about job vacancies? Does it invite résumé postings?
How effectively is the company using its web page for recruiting applicants? Report your
findings to the class.
15. Locate the online résumé of a job applicant in your chosen field. Print it out. Is the résumé
effectively designed? Are linked files used, and if so, do they enhance the candidate’s appeal?
What personal information is included? Does the information presented give rise to possible
discrimination? Send an email to your instructor reporting what you found.
16. Visit the following website that presents information on recent Internet recruiting polls and
statistics: http://www.recruitersnetwork.com. Write a short informative paper that describes
the current status of Internet recruiting. Give examples to substantiate trends and practices.
© 2015 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a
publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
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