Accomplishments on a resume take precedence over skills

Opinion

TECHNICIAN

PAGE 5 • THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, 2018

Accomplishments on a resume take precedence over skills

A truth that I’ve gradually realized and accepted as I’ve advanced through higher education is that at this stage, especially at an institution the size of NC State, I am in a constant state of evaluation. Regardless of my awareness of this, nearly every decision I make that remotely involves college in any way is recorded, categorized or graded in some fashion. This, of course, is no surprise or shocking revelation. Integrating that understanding into my lifestyle, however, has proven a different challenge.

Maintaining an updated mental rubric of what we’re being evaluated on in every social, academic or professional situation we find ourselves in can be quite draining. Whether it’s the participation standards of a particular course, the etiquette of a career-based event or the harmless interactions with our peers on and off campus, there will always exist society’s aggregated scrutiny of our actions. Part of this notion involves understanding which people need to know which of your attributes, as well as how those people prefer those attributes be communicated to them.

Consider the numerous factors that go into writing a solid resume. Often it can seem as if a new consideration or tweak pops up as soon as you’ve finished editing in the last one. Coupled with this is the fact that everyone has a different idea of the “perfect resume.” I’m not claiming to know what that would look like; the variations are endless.

One piece of advice that stood out to me and really put the world beyond college into perspective was the distinction between skills and accomplishments. While there was no confusion on my part about their definitions, I did display a tendency to interchange their importance. In fact, there are plenty of reasons, some obvious and some less so, for prioritizing the inclusion of accomplishments and achievements in a resume instead of a list or summary of “skills.”

Without proper demonstration, skills are just subjective descriptions. A person who merely mentions their mathematical skill is much harder to believe than one who actually solves a complex equation on their own. In one scenario, it’s their word against anyone else’s; convincing anyone of their aptitude depends solely on any (subjective) verbal or nonverbal indicators of their sincerity. In the other scenario, a witnessed display of their ability provides all the (objective) proof needed to banish any doubts.

Resume writing and reading follows similar logic. A piece of paper or digital document that details an applicant’s academic and professional history should contain, well, their history. History is always being made, so any present or ongoing acquisition of relevant qualifications shouldn’t be left out. My recommendation is to stick to the indisputable facts that paint a picture of what said applicant can explicitly do.

“Who you are” is an interview problem; only then is there an opportunity to establish a rapport and a baseline professional personality. “What you’ve done” establishes your fitness for the job beforehand; employers are investigating and hopefully investing in your abilities, not your textbook personality.

One useful sentiment that I’ve come across multiple times has to do with ascribing some quantity to the impact of your accomplishments. “When detailing your career accomplishments,” writes Robin Madell of US News, “avoid being vague. Use exact numbers, dollars and quantities whenever possible.”

Accomplishments are even less linguistically vague than a bundle of skills. Describing personal achievements of what was expected in a position and the application of those achievements beyond their contexts diversifies an employer’s understanding of an applicant’s capabilities outside of a list of tasks. In short, accomplishments provide a clear outline of your previous duties and exploits as well as your impact beyond them.

“[G]o beyond listing day-to-day tasks and responsibilities,” writes Madeleine Burry of The Balance. “Think bigger: Employers want to know what you’ll accomplish if you’re hired on. Give them a sense of your abilities by putting your achievements — whether it’s overhauling

an inefficient system, saving the company money, or generating sales revenue — on display.” Personal, professional or academic projects are also descriptive indicators of unnamed skills, interests and inclinaRasheed Harding Staff Columnist tions. A portfolio of designs, inventions, presentations and physically built models speaks volumes about what you enjoy doing and how well you do it. Of course, listing the conceivably desirable buzzwords and go-to phrases at one’s disposal is convenient and hard to resist. All it takes is both understanding that certain positions require certain skills and recalling specific moments in your life when those “skills” were displayed. An applicant’s memory of a moment when they were “punctual” would ideally suffice in convincing themselves they consistently are so. The problem is that employers cannot read minds. They have no clue if you even believe you are punctual, and even your belief in this description of yourself wouldn’t be proof enough that you possess the actual trait. Overall, accomplishments on a resume kill many birds with one stone. Anyone can state their skills, but outlining relevant personal experiences and achievements can put those skills into perspective. They also give potential employers an idea of your potential qualitative and quantitative value to their organization. As usual, actions speak louder than words.

What people are missing in the free speech debate

Shawn Fredericks

Free speech on college campuses is a hotly debated topic that gets many people riled — more particularly right-leaning people. Universities, specifically public universities like NC State, are becoming the battleground for the debate, with hard lines being drawn in the sand between partisans.

The problem with this framework, like many partisan issues, is that nuance and contextualization are lost in the debate with only extreme absolutes left as options. A great “Star Wars” quote that I deem to be very fitting in the discussion of principles, especially political ones, is very simple and very enlightening: “Only Sith deal in absolutes.” Granted, the rightleaning side of this partisan issue tends to be more overzealous for my taste in their attempts to “protect” free speech with the promotion of tolerance and, in my view, normalization of hateful speech.

The thing is that both extremes are misunderstanding each other. The right tends to think that “protecting” free speech is the same as accepting hateful ideas. More libertarian views take any criticisms of free speech as the promotion of censorship and hold that there are no distinctions that should be considered in free speech. However, there is a lot of nuance that is lost when these are the only positions that can be taken with no alternatives being deemed acceptable.

My view is this: free speech needs to be a central principle that has to be upheld, but it cannot remain this vague subjective principle that continues to only serve the free speech of the socioeconomically privileged. There is a distinction between equality of speech and the license to say whatever you want.

Opinion

TECHNICIAN

PAGE 6 • THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, 2018

You get an attorney, and you get an attorney

College is a time when young people are perhaps exposed to the highest potential to need legal assistance that they have encountered in their lives. The chances Kevin Moye of facing legal trouble are heightened due to our newfound autonomy paired with Staff Columnist the potential to engage in illegal activities such as underage drinking. Fortunately, NC State offers its students free legal counsel through the Student Legal Services.

As highlighted in an earlier Technician news article, “Student Legal Services aim to confidentially advise and counsel students on legal matters in order to maintain a safe educational environment.” Perhaps the most appealing part of this claim by SLS is their commitment to keeping matters confidential between the student and the attorneys. A student could come to access this free resource without fear of having the information released to family members or even the university.

Arguably the most valuable service that SLS provides to students is the wealth of information they give to students through their online pamphlets and legal podcasts. The SLS website gives great information on the landlord/ tenant legal issues that may arise for students. With 59 percent of NC State students living off campus, this information can be invaluable to many students.

An equally valuable source of information that Student Legal Services holds on their website is a guide telling students what to do in interactions with the police. Students, such as myself, who have never had any interactions with police would likely be overwhelmed the first time a police officer stops them. In the “Interacting With a Police Officer” SLS informs students of well-known rights they have from the right to remain silent to perhaps less common information, such as the fact that individuals have the right to leave the situation if they are not under arrest.

Student Legal Services can provide invaluable help to international students who are not United States citizens, and who may not have as much information about the U.S. legal system. Because the service only requires its users to be registered as NC State students, all international students should have access to this resource. Even if immediate attorney attention is not needed, these students can still inform themselves on the American legal system through the resources on the SLS website, or even through advice from one of the attorneys.

Student Legal Services could be an even bigger advantage to students at NC State if they employed students looking for a career in law to assist them in day-to-day activities. Many prelaw students at NC State would be honored to have the chance to work for attorneys, especially with their workplace being on campus.

Of course, students would not be able to be involved in helping the attorneys deal with student legal issues as this would break the vow of confidentiality; however, student action in less direct capacities could prove to be incredible opportunities for legal-minded students on campus. They would be able to receive great law experience and vocational knowledge, while also easing the workload on the attorneys at Student Legal Services.

SPEECH

continued from page 5

The Greeks had two conceptions of freedom of speech, called “isegoria” and “parrhesia” — equality of speech and the freedom to say whatever you want. The equality of speech in democratic debate allowed every citizen the right to participate in public debate. The freedom to say whatever you want essentially gave citizens a license to say whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, to whomever they wanted.

These are two important distinctions to make and to seriously consider when debating free speech. There is a balance that has to be achieved with the principle of free speech that has not been met. Proponents of free speech often are not cognizant that freedom of speech has always protected the privileged. Rights are abstractions that have no power by themselves, they have an intrinsic social and economic relationship, meaning they must be backed by institutional support.

America on a macro level has not institutionally supported the free speech of all groups, and this cannot be blamed on simple human nature, leading to oversight, but the result of the marginalization of groups by America.

Equality of speech must always be upheld; however, the license to say whatever you want — that “freedom” — must be scrutinized and in more extreme cases criminalized. Fake news, misinformation and tolerance for hate have disastrous consequences.

Daniel Altman highlights these consequences in his article “This Is How Every Genocide Begins” in Foreign Policy magazine. “The pamphlets, megaphones, and radio broadcasts came before the pogroms, murders, and forced relocations,” Altman said.

This is not me trying to scare people into censorship. What I am highlighting is that freedom to say whatever has dire consequences that cannot be ignored. This is especially true for college campuses, where the next generation of leadership is being groomed, making it very alarming when alt-right groups are using campuses as recruitment grounds and trying to bring their views from an online space to a physical one.

What free speech advocates on this issue must understand is that no one wants to take away the freedom to exchange ideas, even conflicting ones. But considerations have to be made on institutional levels. Government institutions like NC State, which are run like million-dollar corporations in the business of selling education, need to institutionally support marginalized voices that have been excluded from the tools the privileged have always had, like priority given to their voice on campus issues.

Marginalized groups should be able to work hard, pay tuition, succeed in their classes and receive the same institutional level of support as the majority. To say there has been no disparity both socially and culturally is asinine.

In the wake of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I think it is important to highlight how America has historically failed to criminalize hateful ideas on an institutional level, lest we forget as a nation that America let the South rebel against the Union scot-free and abandon black southerners back in the 1800s. Also, we cannot forget the internment camps of the 1940s that caged and violated the civil rights of Japanese Americans.

We must not forget the attempt at cultural genocide of Native American culture through Indian boarding schools. And, the current Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies and rhetoric toward Hispanics and Haitians have all contributed to an America that does not value marginalized communities and their voices as equal citizens.

I want to leave the reader with a quote by Teresa M. Bejan, who inspired this piece with her analysis of the two concepts of free speech in her article “Two concepts of Freedom of Speech” in The Atlantic.

“Most of these students do not see themselves as standing against free speech at all. What they care about is the equal right to speech, and equal access to a public forum in which the historically marginalized and excluded can be heard and count equally with the privileged. … When the rights of all become the privilege of a few, neither liberty nor equality can last.”