I was early so I sat near the front initially. Later, I joined some other familiar faces to sit at the last few row of seats at the back of the auditorium.
The reason? Near the exit mah... If bored then can zao.
Which some of them promptly did. Soon my friend and her buddy left too, leaving me alone to submit the consent forms for them. It was an agreement that our resumes would become property of the school, allowing them to freely publish and distribute them, just like a free newspaper.
Anyway, the highlight of the talk was what constituted a good resume. Here's when the fun started.
Hundreds of blank faces looked up at the speaker, a middle-aged lady from OCS, who was blunt and straight to the point. Unfortunately, what could be honesty could count as elitism, depending on how you looked at it.
She presented a good resume, an exemplary standard of academic excellence. The person in question was a real girl who had participated in the resume compilation drive the previous year, and whose resume was blown up and flashed on the powerpoint slide.
4.0/4.0 GPA...
SMU Ambassador...
Lee Kong Chian scholar...
Hosted a panel discussion, with one of members being a prominent director from John Hopkins University...
Internships at prestigious multinational corporations in overseas places like New York...
As well as other stuff I can't recall.
The words were small, so she had to read them out so that people at the back could see. As she droned on about this obviously talented student's achievements, titters, oohs and waahs could be heard from the audience. People began to get restless, and rightly so.
我们只不过是平民百姓，不是状元。
Most of us just have average grades, some industry and part-time experience and possibly so-so participation in school activities. A significant portion of us are generally struggling with school work and part-time jobs. Some of us don't have the resources to go overseas, and have commitments at home instead. And quite a number of us would probably like to spend our free time with friends and family, instead of studying or taking on additional enrichment activities.
Not to say that the person above has no life, but whether by consequence or personal choice, not everyone is a perfect scholar or all-rounder. The audience in general couldn't relate to the example. We had come here to know the step-by-step processes needed for the resume compilation, not to be told that we had to be fantastic to even land a chance at a great job.
On the other hand, from another point of view, perhaps the lady was simply being realistic. The competition for good jobs is tough, and all young Singaporeans are fighting with foreign talent for positions in top companies. Among the mountains of resumes, you really have to "shine" to even have your foot in the door for an interview. Perhaps this was a "scare" tactic, to get us to pull up our socks.
As the saying goes, it's a dog-eat-dog world out there. You have to be the most vicious one around, chewing up your competitors and spitting them out, all with the right credentials of course.
Whatever her reasons, the outcome wasn't very desirable. I was hoping that they would show another more average resume for us to peruse, but she didn't. She went on to say other stuff like what was a good GPA etc.
I was thankful when the hour and a half talk came to an end. The general message I took away from the talk was this.
Excel, or be screwed.
Well, that's just great.
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