We created a resume for a chap working in a contract position supervising WHS&E, for a large Adelaide company a while back. There were issues but from a third party.

The client’s contract was coming to an end and he had an old template resume that was six pages long, going back 30 years. We did a major revamp.

He showed his boss the second draft of the resume, which we wrote in partnership (our main mode of working).

His boss tore it to shreds. He deleted his recent sporting awards – some of which were recent major SA titles – and included a sentence about a minor certificate gained in 1983, which immediately dated my client as being in his mid 50s.

His boss deleted two of his three major projects at the top of the Career History, thereby destroying his project management experience.

In one swoop, his boss erased from a prospective recruiter or employer, an important insight in to our client’s character (a winner), while leaving him open to age prejudice and extinguishing his project management experience.

Then his boss changed his work title (!!) and rewrote paragraphs in the passive voice, making them weaker. He went on to question the terms his own employee used for specialist software (which we checked were correct).

Generally, showing a resume to a third party as a work in progress, is beneficial. In this case, not so. Seriously, not so.