We get lots of questions which are basically "help me with making decisions regarding my resume please."
Do we want a question similar to this one or this one except applied to resume questions?
Perhaps a better idea would be to create a meta post explaining what kind of resume questions are off-topic or too-localized and why, and how to write a good on-topic resume question
Questions that ask "Is my resume OK" or "Please review my resume" are too-localized, however questions which could be applied to any resume, such as Should I include a career objective on my resume? or Why is a one to two page résumé recommended? are great questions for the site.
I don't think we can write one single canonical question that would apply to all resumes, but we can write up a good set of guidelines explaining what makes a good resume question for this site and why, and direct users there when the post an off-topic or too-localized resume question.
Of the two questions you've cited, one of them is community wiki, and the other one could have been marked as community wiki if Rachel, the author, requests it Correction, the answer is community wiki, not the entire thread. Not that it's needed though; the suggested edit system sort of eliminates the need to make something community wiki, as any user can already suggest an edit.
Additionally, creating a canonical resume post just for the sake of making poorly formatted resume questions appear on-topic may not be the best course of action. When we create a single, catch-all post, we're no longer focusing on questions about a real, actual problem that we're facing, and when we ask questions about real, actual problems, we can easily end up with 10 or 100 really great questions about how to solve problem X, instead of just 1 post.
The canonical post takes all of these potentially awesome Q&A pieces and completely eliminates the potential for growth of our site by limiting one class of questions to a single post.
From the blog post, The Future of community Wiki, Grace Note points out how avoid community wiki posts, which can be detrimental:
Instead, strive for quality. If you’re unsure a certain question class belongs on the site, don’t tolerate the worst examples — demand that these questions be awesome. Questions shouldn’t be swept under the rug with community wiki; they should get the same respect and treatment as the rest of your Q&A. If those questions are something you are uncomfortable showing to visitors … they probably don’t belong on your site.
Many things which “need” to be community wiki simply don’t. Sometimes it’s just a matter of understanding the root of a question: “Software to record video games” can be turned into a great question without needing the crutch of community wiki. Or, you may need to break the original question into smaller parts; a rather well-timed Ask Different Meta post explores this very avenue.
I’m relatively new here, but the examples of ‘community wiki’ that I’ve seen so far seem to be actively detrimental to the web site. For example, the ‘What Lion bugs irritate you the most?’ thread takes lots of good questions and answers that could (should?) be individually placed on the main page and effectively hides them in a single thread.
With that said, I'm wondering if there's a way to take resume questions as they're asked and then edit them into something great. If we can allow resume questions without lowering the quality of the site, and without having to close each and every one of them as a duplicate, then that would create far more value than a single post; it would grow our site and create more good content.
A good course of action is to find a closed resume question and see if we can edit it into shape so that it fits our scope. If we can make them fit, awesome!
If we can't make those questions fit our scope, and they should still be off-topic, then we shouldn't allow them only as closed duplicates, as that sends the message that we consider these low quality distractions to be on-topic when they're really not.
As an aside, a resume-writing blog post could be a great piece for our Workplace Blog, which still needs 2 more contributors, by the way. :)
pool of great, on topic questions
;)
– enderland
Jan 2 '13 at 14:51
Alternatively, this could be where a blog post/series really shines.
We may not be able to post a duplicate question but being able to link to a blog and saying, "resume questions are generally considered off topic for the Q/A part of this site, but some of our awesome bloggers have written a series of articles for consideration when writing a resume."
I suspect that this is a question where its difficult to get a good single answer, even in a blog.
Ignoring for a second the resume/CV issue, there's big cultural variations (photograph vs not as one example) as well as industry (say marketing vs banking vs software), and situational (career stage, online, recruiter, direct application, specific post..)
I'd suggest it is diffcult to break out of any viewpoint that is be definition going to be highly localised in its scope, unless you have worked across a lot of different industries and were involved in screening/comparing resumes.
It is also going to depend on how the resume is processed/screened. In my role, I "own" the whole process from putting forward the business case for new staff through to making the appointment - others (like HR, team members, management) advise or approve, but it is my call, in the end.
In other organisations the people doing the screening might not be involved in the interview stages, which, again gives a different perspective.
So - some suggestions I have are for more open questions are:
"What makes a bad resume and why?" might help people to avoid the common, generic pitfalls without being to localised to what makes a "good" resume for a specific situation.
"What do you look for when selecting a CV or resume for interview?" might help to keep the answers focussed on the employers/recruiters perspective, as opposed to opinions from applicants as to why they were/n't selected for interview or the role.
"What factors influence you when creating a short list for interview?" would encourage answers that "kept the end in mind" as much as possible, and perhaps highlight reasons why a good resume alone might not be enough.
Yes, I believe we should.
Many people come here thinking they can receive advice on how to write resumes better, etc. We currently just close those questions as a community, but I think we could greatly increase user retention by having them closed as duplicates - linking to a question answered at length about "factors to consider when writing a resume" rather than just closing as a dead end.
I suspect many of those users will never return, thinking "they don't answer my questions" but if there was a duplicate link given perhaps they would be more interested in sticking around the community. This may be a bit idealistic but, I think it would be good for this site regardless to have such an answer for the resume question as the certification/salary questions from above.
Questions like
These are just off the "recently edited questions about resumes" list here