January 18th, 2008
#424 - Resume
I hate job hunting. Trying to get a job is usually a lot more stressful than the job I end up with. It’s almost a shame when I get hired. I just spent so much time researching and getting good at interviews when it all ends and they start paying me. Then I loose all those skills and have to develop them all over again the next time that the hunt begins.
January 18th, 2008 at 12:17 am
Keep digging, Biff! If you’re lucky, you’ll hit oil! Then you won’t even need a job
The Duck Has Spoken.
January 18th, 2008 at 12:30 am
Naw, hes digging to China. Perhaps the exchange rate will favor him there.
January 18th, 2008 at 12:31 am
My secret? Wing it.
I usually throw a bunch of applications around until one of ‘em lands and I end up in an interview, I dress nice and use my shining personality to get the job. Never really had a problem. Although, finding someone who is hiring is a different matter entirely…
January 18th, 2008 at 12:59 am
No one is ever hiring in this town. Ever.
Unless, of course, you have connections like “my aunt manages the Orange Julius.”
THEN you get a job.
*begins digging alongside Biff*
January 18th, 2008 at 1:35 am
Yikes. Yeah, good jobs are hard to come by. I like my job, but there are days when it’s not so fun.
Chris, I just found your site a few days ago (a banner ad from the webcomic Shortpacked, if I remember correctly) and went through the archives. Very, very funny. I really enjoyed it and look forward to more. I read a lot of webcomics (about 30) but I moved your bookmark to the top 5 on my list.
It’s the creativity of the ideas of just what Biff will think to do next, with the absurdity of the situations he often finds himself in, that makes this comic unique.
I’ll be buying a book soon. Thanks for the laughs.
January 18th, 2008 at 2:23 am
*starts digging*
Doubt i would have the skills for interviews >_
January 18th, 2008 at 2:44 am
*dig, dig, dig*
Y’know, i’d have a job…except i’m a student and can do without…for now.
January 18th, 2008 at 5:12 am
“Loose” the skills?
Networking networking networking.
I’ve never been unemployed ’since I was 15, and networking is the key. Research and a well-written resume are very important, but networking gets the job.
January 18th, 2008 at 6:23 am
Here at my university the faintest posibility of a job would be here. The time schedules simply won’t fit otherwise =(
January 18th, 2008 at 7:12 am
Hey thanks Kevin
January 18th, 2008 at 10:04 am
I just got a new job. Knowing 3 people that worked here helped. I’ve been working at a contractor, but it looks like at this place, they will actually hire me. The best part, it is a minute closer than my last job, so I will save a fortune in gas!
January 18th, 2008 at 10:33 am
It took me forever to get my present job: sectioning cancer research tissues in a surgical pathology ward for the University of PA.
I had sent out resumes for four months before I got a hit, and I got lucky… my present boss and supervisor used to work for my old job. Aside from my rugged good looks, experience, and staggering intellect, they desperately wanted to stick it to my old manager. They hired me on the spot and I’ve been here for almost three years now.
January 18th, 2008 at 10:50 am
And if you find a job,
the hole gets bigger still.
January 18th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
@Seraphine - awesome.
January 18th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
The Key To interviewing= Mislead them but don’t lie.
Tell them what they want to hear, but don’t straight out lie and say you have skills you don’t. You might find yourself unemployed again shortly.
Manipulation is the key, and it is really easy to make people believe what you want them to
Chris thanks for the comic,. I went through the entire thing and loved it. You really should have Biff talk to the patent office. You never know when one of these devices might make him an additional fortune!
January 18th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Being in college makes getting a job hard, I think. My college is in a town that’s only slightly larger than the college itself, and so the closer to campus a business is, the more people swamp them with jobs. For someone - like me - who doesn’t have a car, it’s next to impossible to get a good job, since the bus system in this town kinda sucks.
Anyway, though, maybe Biff should just dig the ditches in the shape of his resume. I’m sure the government satellites will see it. I know if I were monitoring the satellites, I’d be impressed by that. Or aliens could see it. I picture Biff as a common abduction target.
January 18th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Yea I hate job hunting, it takes so much time and effort but I guess in the end once you end up with a job its all worth it.
January 18th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
I’m sure he’d make a good under-taker.
January 18th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Chris, I want to buy from the Store-of-Biff using a check, but I don’t know what to send for shipping. What’s your algorithm?
CXBandit: There’s an art to deciding when to mislead and when not to. If company X wants all employees to have characteristic Y, an applicant without that characteristic *could* give misleading but true statements that imply he has charactersitic Y, but if hired, he might not like the job. But there are a number of cases where this is safe:
1. If characteristic Y is something easily acquired and the applicant doesn’t mind, e.g., “is knowledgeable about the range of products the company provides.” Someone who isn’t can probably quickly learn this information with some concerted effort and would if their job depended on it. But not “Is fluent in Norwegian” if the applicant has never studied it (too difficult to do in a short time) or “Will enthusiastically convince his friends to buy the company’s products” (many would not be willing).
2. If characteristic Y is something that really has no bearing on the job, but the interviewer is being an idiot. e.g., “loves baseball” for a database programmer serving telecommunications clients. This, especially if the interviewer is not someone you’d be working with anyway.
I’ve been interviewing candidates for a job, and it’s refreshing to see when a candidate withdraws his application when he realizes there is really no fit. On the other hand, I realize it’s scary to do that, since it may be that one’s choice is between no job, and a bad fit at a job.
January 18th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Did everyone else noticed that dot under the caption?
January 18th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
@Ben: Didn’t you know? Periods reproduce by binary fission. That fellow tried to make a break for it.
January 18th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Ben, you fool! I played dumb and pretended not to notice it! Now that it nows that we’ve seen it, we’re all done for! YOU FOOL!!!
The Duck Has Spoken.
January 20th, 2008 at 12:17 am
Reminds me of Holes by Louis Sachar.
January 20th, 2008 at 2:03 am
@PsychoDuck: Oh NO! RUN FOR THE HILLS! WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST! After me. Everyone else stay behind and hold the line. My life is at stake here!
January 20th, 2008 at 2:21 am
Hey, you’re the LAST Melon, implying that you are last in line! I’m female, and half-child, so I win!
January 20th, 2008 at 7:21 am
*grabs the Melon and chucks it one of the job-digging holes*
January 20th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Erm… I’m gonna be picky again. You’ll LOSE all your skills.
You sound like you release them all back intot he wild at the moment >.>
R*
January 20th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
I did that for a few years. Finally was called in for an interview and I managed to get the job one week latter.
January 21st, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Heh, I generally work for the labor union in Roanoke and they call me for work whenever they need somebody. I’ve worked for them for about two years, and I’ve done everything from digging ditches for silt fence (that black looking fence that you generally see around construction sites) to tearing down scaffolding in an incinerator at a power plant, to doing nothing but sitting on my butt in my truck in the middle of the night keeping an eye on brush fires. In between jobs I draw unemployment. And the sad thing about that is that I can draw more off of unemployment than I can working anywhere near where i live at.