The Resume as Genre

The article begins by explaining that the resume is an excellent "genre" to teach in schools because it actually has a place in the real world. The authors seem to think that in showing students that there is more to a resume than filling in some blanks, that there is some rhetoric behind the task, they will be breaking a creativity crushing attitude towards writing/life in general (the attitude that rules are good because they are easily followed). They assume that rules are easy to follow for everyone, which I am at odds with. It was interesting to read this article after being blindly thrown into the world of resume writing because I was placed in the same situation as these students. Except I found that building a resume was not just about a set of rules, but about hyping onesself up, deciding which information to include or to not, and trying to figure out these conventions that are so completely foreign to me.

Peagler and Yancey say, "discursive practices position forms of identity that can be at odds with the identity of the student, and in the case of the resume, there is the tension between the still-in-formation student and the fully formed professional. As a genre, the resume would allow us to speak to that tension in helpful ways." They are spot on about the existence of this tension, but they may not realize how damaging the tension can be to one's psyche. I felt like an idiot creating my resume, feeling as though I didn't know what to put on there because my jobs have been not at all in my profession (however a necessity) and because in having a job and rejecting the phoniness of clubs and sororities I have not had much extracurricular work. In my field, the resume does nothing to speak of what I've done. I need to show portfolios and recommendations, so building my resume was kind of crushing to my conception of my self worth within the "professional world."

They say that the teaching of resumes would "speak to that tension in helpful ways." I am not sure of in what way they mean this. One "helpful way" I guess would be if they then read and workshopped your resume to teach you how to fake your way into professional good graces. It reminds me of the article we read on Discourses. The professional world is not a primary discourse for me, so my only option is to fake it or to gain meta knowledge about it. Okay, well, my resume can be workshopped and someone can tell me how to fake it. So I guess that is helpful. Another helpful way I guess would be for the teacher to acknowledge the downfalls of the resume, to acknowledge its ass kissing phoniness at times.

For me, "learning" to write a "successful" resume is just another lesson in glossing one over for the man, in selling myself, in having to boil myself down to a few experiences that do not show my talents at all. I hate formalities; I resist the resume.