My Conversation with a Monster

[eat_my_pencil]

i had a jobhunting question and though i've asked various people their opinions on it, i thought of contacting the good ol' people at monster.com to get their "professional" advice. i ended up using monster's online web chat person option (1st time i've ever used such a thing). the conversation wasn't necessarily funny or anything, but i was

Comments

[lithiumpearl]

Once my friend posted an infuriating online conversation she had with a customer service rep for T-mobile who was obviously an outsourced employee. Anyways, I initially thought bot as well, just because they sort of evaded the real question and kept repeating the same things, but I think they are actually human and meant to annoy the heck out of you so you don't use this service again and bother them. Things like "while in interview, if employer asks about more details..." is a human thing to say. Not bot can be coded to communicate like an ESL student!

And oh, I don't think her answer was very good. If I was an employer and saw a gap in your resume, I would wonder if you were just being lazy or if you could not get employment (eek!) or if you did have a legitimate reason for having a gap. If it's a job you are serious about, I would talk about it in the cover letter (not resume) and talk about how it strengthened your ethic on life and work. It's a cheap shot, and I hate exploiting difficulties as well, but I think it will make your application more memorable and make you seem all the more human and not just another fancy resume/cl that was generated by a professional service.

[eat_my_pencil]

yea, i'm still considering doing some mentioning of my situation in the cover letter. i guess its a tricky situation, cuz what works for one person isn't guaranteed to work for another...