Shanan Kan's Qualifications and Experience

Bored one afternoon, I was taking a look at Chris' Facebook profile and I came across an application that hosted his resume. Being the naturally curious and nosey person that I am, I opened it. I was suitably impressed. I know the guy well enough to know what half of what the contents of his resume actually involved, particularly anything related to his AW work. I'm not going to go into some long-winded rant about how I never knew you could bullshit like that on a resume, because quite frankly, I've known that as long as I've known about resumes. No, this opening paragraph acts as a non-self-obsessed segue into me thinking about what I could put on my resume.

For me, resumes break down into two broad categories: Qualifications and Experience. The former is the more 'objective' one, in the sense that you either have the qualification or not, there's not subjective interpretation there. Aside from formal academic results (HSC, UAI, School Certification, Uni grades too, I guess) I'm pretty much not-qualified at all :D Obviously if what I was going for was like a scholarship or some other studential field, my qualifications are rather meaningless.

So that leaves Experience. What experience do I have, and what minor experience do I have that I can manipulate into sounding as rather impressive? Well, I have no work experience, so I can't list former employees, since I've never held a job in my life. This kind of experience is also sorta objective, in the sense that you can write "Hydrophillics Anonymous, Secretary, 2005-2007" or whatever. The stuff you'd write after about what you did there would be subjective, but there's that impersonal prelude. Seeing as I have none of these ... I'm pretty much left with...

School Captain of St Pat's
Since this was four years ago, I don't think people really care. I do still think there are skills I developed here that would go well on a resume.

Vice House Captain at Grammar
Less official than School Captain, but more recent. Probably far more interaction with the 'people' rather than the previous one which was a lot of hob-knobbing with officials and giving speeches. Note to self: include House Music victory here.

Assistant Director
Again, more recent. Another very people oriented one.

Tutoring
This would be my "job" I guess :\ I wouldn't personally call it that, given how informal it all is. Aside from the people skills, I'm wary of what other experience I can garner from this that would be applicable in other settings.

SWI
Probably one of the better ones I have. Let's see, for SWI have I learnt two (maybe even three, if I could Java) different programming languages, utilised an existing SDK, worked in an international team of programmers on an online game with over 1000 players, acted as both a programmer, story/scenario writer, content creator and lead developer on minigames. Ultimately where I think this one falls most short for me is that I wouldn't've been able to accomplish all this without the other SWI guys, which is great if they're looking for teamwork/organisation skills, but not so much if they're after, say, programming skills - not that I'd be looking for one of those anyway.

This blog
I noted that Chris also mentioned his blog as part of his list of experiences... Maintaining an online presence, building up a community (albeit incredibly small), debating and discussing contrasting viewpoints, moderating said discussion, dedication to writing posts almost daily and of substantial quantity (in both size and depth).

Anyway, what I wanted to get to was just looking at all these points. They're all a bit iffy and not exactly anything tangible, there'd be a lot of waffle going on with just a bit of bullshitting, I reckon, but people reading resumes are expecting that. But it does look woefully small. Most people my age writing these will have a whole bunch of more 'real' experiences, a list of casual employment they've had, sporting achievements. I'm missing these. I almost sort of wish I had some, though I'm wishing I had really interesting and odd ones.

Most people in this situation would probably read some sort of 'wake up' call into this. They'd go out and try to change that, to bulk up the resume. But as one of my favourite aphorisms go: I'm not most people. In fact, I represent just one person... although it is the one person (ho ho, solipsism). I'm merely wishing to point out the gaping whole in my resume without a single move to try and change it in a conscious and deliberate manner.

I probably will, over the course of the next few weeks (if I can be arsed), compose a proper PDF looking thing which would serve as my resume. Not that I need one for anything, but I figure it to be a good exercise to try out of fun. It'd be interesting to see how other friends of mine fair in the task. Personally, when I get the inspiration, I'd like to register a domain under my name, seeing as I still have those 6 NameCheap ones, and make an online resume, where I can be quite more verbose and comprehensive, as well as provide examples of, for example, my writing and maybe a few things from the projects I'm working on.

I've also been toying around with calling my current occupation a Professional Amateur. Failing that, an Amateur Professional. I'd like to think either one describes the kind of approach I'm taking to my projects. I just need to decide which makes me seem better. I'm thinking Amateur Professional, as that at least gives off the impression that I'm trying to display finesse, rather than the reverse, which makes me sound like someone who's just really good at being really bad and not looking to improve (or worse yet, trying to become worse).

I was going to include something here along the lines of why I don't care if people read some of the things I write, especially when those things could impair my future ambitions (such as my un-PC jokes, bizarre insanities, dead baby metaphors running rampant ...) but I'll save that for another time. Doesn't fit in with the mood of this post. But I am including this one paragraph so that when I do eventually look back here to compose my resume, I will remember this point.

What I'm waiting for, to bolster my resume, would be for a break. That's what I want. I don't want a steady trail of working up through the workforce, starting with a crappy job and moving onto a less crappy one and eventually hitting something either impressive or eccentric. I want to start out there. Something like head of a department in a Government office, or as a director of a successful line of porn films. I want to so fully and completely wow someone with my personality so much so that they surrender their entire business to me. Delusional? Yeah. Dreaming? Yeah. Impossible? I dare say not ;)