Bullshit advice from CSO or no?

[rayiner]

My CSO told me my resume needs to be 3 pages long, insisted that I include all my experience I have ever obtained including high school jobs that have absolutely zero relevance to anything, told me that every single activity I have ever done in law school is "an honor" and should be under the "Honors" section of the resume and then proceeded to bold 2/3rds of the resume cause it needed to "stand out". I wish I was kidding.

Moral of the story is CSO is a laughing stock at the vast majority of schools.

CSO's vary dramatically in quality. My career counsellor gave me advice that made me revise my bid list even though I'd churned a ton of data and talked to TLS megaposters in coming up with it.

[IAFG]

I used to work for someone who spent 30 years in fedgov and he said you basically have to hire a consultant to rewrite your resume to be read by scanners rather than people.

[Anonymous User]

I used to work for someone who spent 30 years in fedgov and he said you basically have to hire a consultant to rewrite your resume to be read by scanners rather than people.

I buy this, but it is hard to know which consultants are scams and which are actually helpful in retooling resumes specifically for fedgov positions. A quick google brings up pages of options. Did your boss have any insight about what's worth while vs what is a waste of $$$?

[IAFG]

I used to work for someone who spent 30 years in fedgov and he said you basically have to hire a consultant to rewrite your resume to be read by scanners rather than people.

I buy this, but it is hard to know which consultants are scams and which are actually helpful in retooling resumes specifically for fedgov positions. A quick google brings up pages of options. Did your boss have any insight about what's worth while vs what is a waste of $$$?

He didn't because at that point people called him to offer him jobs on a weekly basis, and I wasn't looking for anything new. I wouldn't know where to begin researching the subject.

[Pretzel_Logic]

I'm at the USAO for the summer as a 2L and there is a nationwide hiring freeze. They hand out a few exemptions periodically but those all require at least one year post-JD and those application processes are bloodthirsty-competitive. Our office had a budget meeting a few weeks ago where they said it's going to get worse before it gets better in terms of hiring.

tl;dr, CSO lady has no clue about the USAO.

[Anonymous User]

It may very well be different for the honors hiring, but this is exactly how it is for normal federal hiring.

This. Fed Gov atty positions are exempt from the points nonsense.

Also, did I correctly understand that you FOIA'd resumes because you didn't get a fed gov job?

I FOIA'd for info on why I didn't get one specific job and they sent the resume with the name and contact info redacted. The resume wasn't what I asked for, but I was shocked at how horrible the resume was, and even more shocked at how many pages it was. It was full of generic, embellished BS and had very little real substance.

The reason I FOIA'd on that one was that I had been notified that I made the most qualified list, and I was curious what they based their decision on.

Just curious how do you FOIA for info on why you didn't get a specific job? There is a fed. agency that turned me down and I am curious to see why as well.