The Job Search/Part 1

By Frank Absher

Remember how stressful it was putting together your resume for a job search? Listening to the radio or watching television now, you wonder if management knows anything about the people they hire.

I once served as PD for a small market station in Central Illinois, and we needed a jock. The ad I ran in Broadcasting magazine was right to the point: “Small market, low pay, long hours.” We got 75 resumes.

The first thing I did was weed out – we disregarded anyone who didn’t have a degree from a 4-year college or university. That wiped out half of them (3 applicants had master’s degrees). We then looked at experience and listened to tapes.

The quality was impressive. We ended up getting a terrific young man who was everything we could have hoped for. He’s now in a major market on the West Coast.

There was nothing magical or gimmicky about his application. He was a good, solid applicant.

Several years later, while working in the newsroom of a major station, I was called into the news director’s office. He had a resume from a guy who had replaced me at my previous station when I moved up. He showed me the guy’s resume and asked what I thought.

This guy had claimed credit for everything I had set up at the previous station, all systems that were in place when he was hired there. The news director sensed I was upset and asked for an explanation, which I gave him. The resume was summarily dismissed because of the guy’s lies.

It’s a fairly basic point: Lie on the resume and there’s a very good chance you’ll get caught.

Today I run a website that lists announcers who’ve been in the market and I occasionally get emails from people telling me they’ve worked at such-and-such a station and want to be listed. When I write back, asking for the dates they were on the air and mentioning that I don’t remember hearing them, they usually admit they were an intern there and not actually on the air.

The situation isn’t unique to broadcasting, but it makes me wonder what goes through the minds of these people. Doesn’t it worry them that they’ll be found out?

Judging from what I hear and see on the air today, the folks doing the hiring aren’t even bothering to read the resumes.

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