Resume, Resume

I had a chance today to glance at my resume. I hadn't looked at that thing in years, let me tell you. The last time I was so much as in the same room with that thing, it was when I was about to stuff it into a series of envelopes and mail them off to several hundred colleges.

To me, it was plain and scanty. I was somewhat shocked upon hearing it praised, openly, in class, as being perfect and consisting of everything that I needed.

Let me back up.

I have not invented anything. I have no awards for curing diseases.
I was not the number one in my class. The top 40, at least.
I was not at any time a part of any major student organizations. I never was one for Amnesty International or Students Rights.

Somehow, looking at that list, it pleased the class and I hadn't an idea why.

There are several notable things. Boy Scout, black belt, playwrite, cleaned a small pox cemetery. But there are no outstanding notices about having competed in the math leagues or published major award-winning articles in the paper.

Actually, the major notable newspaper article I wrote covered the performance of "The Laramie Project" at my school and was the one article which generated a great deal of controversy when it was censored, landing me at the heart of a campus politics war.

So.

Yeah.

This goes to show you this: no matter what we see in ourselves, for a resume is merely a well-documented and articulate reflection of our person, someone is going to see it very differently.

Life . . . it is strange.
I wrote down Head of Relay For Life Team, 2004, and thought nothing of it. The college I was accepted to was thrilled to see this.
I wrote down that I competed in the Drama Fest in Boston, thinking it would be smirked at. Instead, it has identified me as a competitor.
I wrote down that I had worked at two retails, a factory, and mowed lawns, realizing these aren't the most sparkling internships one can have.
Can you say "work study?"

The resume, therefore, is tricky.
You can't see yourself through it. You can see yourself ON it.
To explain that: you can write every brilliant comment and shining moment of your life on it, you can record every time you rescued a kitty from a tree, you can stuff in every A+ that you've ever recieved - it doesn't matter how intelligent or wonderful you see yourself.

All that matters is that someone else will see your resume. And when they see it, they will see you.

So, ask yourself this: who will they see?

Can't tell? Neither could I.