SueAnn Porter

A few months ago, my son and my husband were both in search of new jobs. My son had graduated from high school and was in his first year of college.

My husband had been working for the same company for a decade, and due to shake-ups and downsizing and all-around nonsense, it was time to move on.

I typed up my son’s resumé using the format that his high school guidance counselor had suggested. It listed activities he had been doing in high school, and his one previous job at a fast-food chain, along with his education.

We hired a “professional” write my husband’s resumé. He is a senior professional in his field, and although I graduated from business school where resumé writing and interview skills were burned into us, we decided it was best left to the professionals. Besides, things have changed since the 1980’s. Now, the computer scans the resume, searching for buzzwords applicable to the job and must get a score of 70% or higher before a human even looks at it.

My son had landed an interview for 10 am, and a friend was giving him a ride over there. I needed to drive over to my son’s town and drop off the resumé with him before he went off to the interview.

My husband found a job ad for a company that was very close to my son’s town, so after I dropped off my son’s resume at his apartment, I continued down the same highway a few miles and hand-delivered the resumé to the company secretary.

My son got the job the same day.

My husband got the job he applied for also.

So although it was strange that I was driving around hand-delivering resumés in this day of email, they both got the jobs. My husband referred to me as the  Resumé Angel after that. It was well worth the time and effort to drive over and hand-deliver the resumés. At least they didn’t get lost in a pile of email!