THE IN DUSTRIAL CHYMIST SO WHAT HAVE YOU DONE LATELY? B. J . Luberof, Ph.D. “When you’ve been in the business for ten years, make sure that you have ten years of experience; not one year’s ten times.” Good advice? Then, why do resume’s of so many 10-year men read just like those of new grads? The vital statistics are first, then schools and extracurricular activities. Finally, a list of employers and so forth. This is a fine format for a young fellow who hasn’t yet got much to sell. But after you’ve been out for awhile--“So what have you done lately?” An experienced man should have experience and his resume should show it. Obvious? Certainly, but it’s amazing how many new-grad resumes one sees from mature men. The origin of this problem, I think, is twofold: (1) Nobody has said much about resume writing since college days; (2) When a fellow is job shopping, his self-image usually isn’t at its peak. This, coupled with the usual technical man’s lack of a sales orientation, makes for a less than top-notch sales campaign. If there’s anything that’s sad, it’s the resume that starts off: “I. M . Beat, M.S.; Age46.” Or,’the fellow whose major qualification, because it’s listed first, is: “Married.” The first step is to realize that getting a better job requires good, old-fashioned selling. Most of us aren’t such bargain mousetraps that our phone is clattering constantly with job offers. The next thing to pin down is what it is that’s being sold. For an experienced man, it’s a proved ability to perform a valuable service uniquely well. The resume must convey this positive idea right off the bat. If you don’t feel this way about yourself when you sit down to write a resume, don’t write
it. Maybe, instead, it would be better to start by writing a personal inventory of the things you’ve doneand they don’t all have to be work connected. If you had had the opportunity to do great things at work, and had done them, odds are you wouldn’t be writing a resume. On the other hand, what a man does on his own time is pretty informative. More on this later. With this inventory in hand, you should look pretty good to yourself. Start the resume with a terse listing of these accomplishments and you’ll look good to a prospective employer too. This is really the whole point. After a name and address heading (include any advanced degree after your name: J. C. Chymist, Ph.D.), lead off with the things you’ve accomplished-increases in profitability, patents and publications (titles, not just references), efficiencies effected, organizations created or run, savings, problems solved, smoothly run projects. If your list of specific accomplishments is long, consider a couple-line summary to start. Follow up with a chronology of employers, last one first, and schools. Lastly comes the personal data. It’s here that hobbies should be listed: If you were given a choice between a hunter and a chess player, which would you prefer for a plant manager? For a n analytical chemist? Would you want a car tinkerer on your maintenance staff? An Urban Leaguer as a shift engineer? Now that the resume is written, what next? Put it away for a few days and then re-read it. Having someone else read it also helps. Then, when it’s finally in shape, get it typed. This may be a private quirk, but a mimeographed resume “turns me off.” I get the feeling that this chap isn’t especially interested in us. He’s sent hundreds of these out. Maybe hundreds of employers have already turned him down. This is particularly true if a
few little changes have been inked in. “Boy, how long has this guy been looking? He doesn’t think enough of himself to do a professional job on his resume ; what kind of work does he turn out?” An individually typed resume isn’t that big a deal for a professional man. Ones typed by a computer service bureau look good and aren’t that expensive. Finally, there should always be a cover letter. You wouldn’t thrust a resume into your prospective boss’s hand without a word. The cover letter should give the feeling that this is THE company for you and should present what you can do for them. If you don’t know much about T H E company, check it out by walking into any stock brokerage office and looking it up in the appropriate “Standard and Poor’s’’ book. Writing for an annual report never hurts either. T h e cover letter should give your feelings on references (“Later please”), confidentiality, and phone contacts. (Don’t give your home phone if your wife “doesn’t know.”) Finally, the cover letter is the place to open the salary question. All that’s necessary is a statement of current remuneration. Hopefully you’ll never need any of this, but if you do, Good Luck !
D R . L U B E R O F F has been working at the interface between chemistry and engineering since receiving his Ph.D. from Columbia in 7953. H e has been associated with American Cyanamid and Stauffm Chemical‘ Co., and is presently Manager of Process Researchfor- The Lummus Company, BloomJeld, N . J . His publications which aftear in the scientij7c and patent literature, both here and abroad, number several dozen. They are characterized by the diversity of fields they cover: from pesticide residue analysis through homogeneous catalysis to full process flow sheets. VOL. 6 2 N O . 3
MARCH 1970
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