Being in the staffing business is truly an education. In fact, it's so instructive that I feel entitled to full degrees in psychology, urban planning, social work, and translation.

Let me explain. The psychology degree is for the analyst this work brings out in you. And the social-work sheepskin I figure I earn for helping the people I encounter find their way in life. Urban planning? Yeah. As a recruiter, you must be keenly familiar with how close candidates are to the places you're trying to send them to. How close is close? For some people, more than a 15-minute car ride is too far. For others, a two-hour train ride is a piece of cake. My favorite was a candidate who was looking for opportunities within a 10-mile radius of his home.

Now, my most important "degree" is in translation. In the nearly four years I've run this business (which places writers and editors in permanent and temporary jobs), I have reviewed close to 5,000 résumés. If I couldn't translate them, I'd be in big trouble. Some need heavy translation -- not only for what they say, but for what they leave out.

I am constantly amazed by the cover letters and résumés I receive in response to a specific job opening. Retail clerks with no experience but a "love for the written word" apply for a very specific technical-writing job preparing user manuals and documentation. And English majors -- I love English majors -- who have no real experience apply for just about everything because they can diagram sentences. (Oh boy, here comes the hate mail. At least, it'll be in the proper syntax.)

I love people's hobbies, too. One guy boasted about his talent for "crowd control." O.K., next time I have a job opening for a bouncer, I'll make sure I contact him. Another included "fire eating" as a skill. She must be a hot candidate. "Maybe I should take that out, huh?" she said, as I interviewed her. "Uh, no," I said. "It's, umm, different."

Other résumés are studies in extremes. Some claim to cover 45 years of experience, yet they are barely a page long and don't include dates. Others record every single working moment -- except maybe lunch breaks. These long résumés sometimes exceed five pages. I tell these people that if it takes me more than 15 seconds to figure out the order of the submission, it goes in the circular file. And I'm the recruiter!

I love the résumés that look like works of art. One of them was in the form of a menu with the skills being appetizers, entrées, and so on. Cute, but not very functional. Others are done on the résumé paper you buy at Staples with intricate backgrounds and multicolors designed to catch the eye. Trust me, if the résumé is not on plain white or off-white paper, the eye leaps out of its socket trying to find the type.

Since we're on that, let's talk about type: It should not be six point. I know candidates are trying to keep résumés to a page. But the smaller the type gets, the more frustrating it is to read -- especially if the résumé has been faxed about a million times. And I wish job shoppers would lose the fancy fonts. You'd hire someone whose résumé is typed in Old English?

Sounds brutal, I know. Hey, this is a tough business. Actually, most people are nice and professional. We've had some nasty ones, though. Some even appeared to be comatose. One guy came in for an interview with about five rings in his ears and one tiny one in his nose. I was afraid to look at his tongue. I told him I was not the staffing agent for Ringling Brothers. (Oh God, more mail -- this could get really nasty.)

George Giokas is the president and CEO of StaffWriters Plus, a specialty agency that places writers in temporary and permanent positions with corporate and other employers. It also provides editorial consulting work. His database includes 2,500 writers and editors specializing in more than 60 categories. His Web site is located at www.staffwriters.com, and you can E-mail him at george@staffwriters.com.