The Role of Writing Quality in Effective Student Résumés

While writing teachers view the résumé as a sophisticated rhetorical chal lenge, students tend to see it as a "technical specification"of their employment qualifications. This study investigated the reader's perspective by examining how writing features influence recruiters' asse...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of business and technical communication 1989-01, Vol.3 (1), p.36-53
Main Authors: Charney, Davida H., Rayman, Jack R.
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:While writing teachers view the résumé as a sophisticated rhetorical chal lenge, students tend to see it as a "technical specification"of their employment qualifications. This study investigated the reader's perspective by examining how writing features influence recruiters' assessments of résumés. Eighteen recruiters rated 72 résumés describing fictitious mechanical-engineering stu dents. Four résumé features were systematically varied: relevance of previous work experience, elaboration ofindependent coursework, stylistic quality, and mechanical correctness. The major result suggests that technical work experi ence is important but not sufficient: If the résumés of technically well- qualified applicants contained grammatical errors, recruiters rated these résumés lower than résumés listing less experience but containing more accu rate writing.1
ISSN:1050-6519
1552-4574
DOI:10.1177/105065198900300102