Co-Consulting #1

I had a very frustrating co-consulting experience today. The student we worked with came in with a cover letter for an organization. When we asked her what she wanted to work on, she said she needed to write a resume and was not sure if what she had written would pass as a resume. The student clearly told us she needed a resume to apply, that she did not know what format or what content to put in her resume, but the tutor I worked with decided to spend the entire hour working with her cover letter and simply telling her to look online for sample resumes.

Personally, I have re-written my resume several times and find it difficult when writing your first resume. I made a copy of information on resumes and gave it to her and also suggested that if she had any trouble with her resume at all to make another appointment.

I also was frustrated with how the tutor worked with the student. He literally re-wrote several of her sentences on her letter and hardly asked her for any input. I tried to interrupt and ask her questions and help her, but he usually said "yes that too.." and then went back to re-writing her sentences. He also told her to replace the word interest in a sentence "I am interested in joining this organization..." to sparked. I had to explain to him that saying "I am sparked in joining this organization" did not make sense, that she did not need to change the word, but if she wanted to she could say motivated or passionate instead. I think the tutor was an ESL student himself, but he should not have been so direct when working with the student. Although his suggestions were mostly correct and very intelligent, he should have asked her more questions and had her do more of her own writing during the session.