Resume chasers: friend or foe?

Resume chasing is a widespread epidemic impacting the majority of Northview’s population– that’s a fact everyone’s aware of, and rambling on and on about its adverse effects and toxicity feels redundant given that most resume-chasers are fully aware of the consequences of their actions. Rather than harping on about the ruthless nature of resume-chasing, I’d like to highlight some of its rather unintentional positive impacts instead. Because despite how self-serving, performative, and insincere resume-chasing is, there’s a reason why society conveniently turns a blind eye to it.

For one, resume chasers do a lot of the grunt work that nobody else is willing to do. Does your Math Olympiad team need some spreadsheets organized? They’ve got you covered. Did your jewelry club forget to make its weekly Instagram post? Don’t panic, they’ve already got that post drafted and ready to go. Is your animal welfare society lacking a volunteer for its latest event?

Not to worry, your neighborhood resume-chaser has your back. Largely due to their desire to accumulate as many recommendations, leadership positions, and extracurricular activities as possible to bolster their resumes, it is these kinds of overachievers who end up shouldering the brunt of the work they share with others, and thus, through an albeit convoluted manner, benefiting their peers and community.

Now, the false altruism doesn’t end there. Often, along their journey to supplement their resumes, these overachievers start new clubs at school and inadvertently better their communities. At Northview, it is painfully obvious that the plethora of clubs we offer results from such behavior. Resume-chasing students will start clubs for just about every social cause known to man, and though their underlying intentions for starting such organizations are self-serving, ironically enough, they end up serving their community through partaking in such activities. Regardless of their selfish reasoning, every marathon, fundraiser, and donation drive those students participate in benefits the involved communities nonetheless.

Of course, to say that resume chasing’s positive impacts outweigh its negative ones is a gross blanket statement I’m not trying to make. Resume-chasers are just as much do-gooders as they are players of this cutthroat game vying for college acceptances, and I understand this full well. Rather, I’m just trying to highlight the silver lining to a persistent issue in schools nationwide.