Thoughts on Career Development, Communication Strategies, Job Search, Ruminations and more
Sep 06 2010
There are three old but still relevant axioms I’d like to quote here. The first is: You can’t judge a book by its cover. The second is: What you see is what you get. And the third is: You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Now when we think of [...]
Aug 08 2010
For years I’ve been advocating that Libraries are a great place to do your job search! Here’s a great article by Carolyn Said of the San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/01/BURU1EK0UQ.DTL
Apr 19 2010
Despite the recent slight uptick in job growth, the graduating class of 2010 will face the toughest job search challenge of the past 20 years, maybe longer. Sadly, it will be harder for most new graduates to find work related to their degrees than in recent memory. While so many earlier generations were promised unlimited [...]
Apr 05 2010
The concept of up-selling (trying to sell the customer more than just what they asked for), has been around for a long while. Whether it’s the waitress asking, “Do you want fries with that?”, or the appliance vendor asking if you want the matching stand for the plasma TV, offering more to the customer than [...]
Feb 08 2010
Recently while providing feedback to job seekers about their resumes at a local job search preparation event, I was surprised by the overall quality of information delivered by many of those in attendance. It seemed that many candidates I spoke with were trying, often successfully, to convey not just what they did on their jobs, [...]
Oct 19 2009
Recently I attended a very large, and very crowded free outdoor 3-day music festival in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Moving between six stages of exceptional talent proved to be an arduous and exhausting experience; that thankfully wouldn’t diminish the inspiration and invigoration fueled by the great music.
But I was thinking that it might have [...]
Oct 05 2009
Opinions about what belongs in a good resume are a little like belly buttons – everybody’s got one! Myself included. Career development specialists, employers, human resource professionals, corporate recruiters and head-hunters, hiring managers, department heads, and every successful job seeker, all believe they know the secrets that go into creating resumes that get results. And [...]
Sep 21 2009
Throughout the country, state-provided resources for job seekers are drying up. Staff shortages, mandatory layoffs and furlough days that close facilities all impact the employment offices’ ability to provide comprehensive one-on-one services. It wasn’t that long ago that if you were out of work, you could have gone to your local unemployment office, talked to [...]
Jun 15 2009
“Have Gun – Will Travel reads the card of man.” So went the lines of the theme song (and title) to the popular western starring Richard Boone as Paladin, a soldier of fortune and gun for hire that ran on CBS from 1957 through 1963. Here was a guy who liberally passed out business cards [...]
May 19 2009
There are an awful lot of things that get in the way of our success, whether the objective is looking for and finding work, or any other personally important endeavor. Fear of rejection and failure in the job search are among the most cited concerns voiced by job seekers. “What if I don’t get the [...]
Apr 20 2009
A client recently called to say she had just returned from an interview with a company where she really wanted to work, and that she felt her interview went very well. I asked why she felt so confident that she had a good interview, and she said, “I had no trouble answering all their questions, [...]
Apr 06 2009
One of the questions I get asked most often is: “Do I need to customize my resume for each job that I apply for?”
Unless you are applying for only one specific kind of job with little variance to the functions you want to perform (and even then so), the answer is Yes, you do need [...]
Mar 09 2009
Recently I met with a small business owner and we discussed recruiting for his growing business. When I asked him if he did any of his recruiting online and if he looked at resumes posted on job search sites, he answered with a very enthusiastic “Yes!”. He told me he has been successful in filling [...]
Feb 23 2009
In school, were you the one who always had a better/different way of doing things? When the teacher was explaining that 2 + 2 = 4, were you the one who said the same result could be achieved by adding 3 +1? Or by subtracting 1 from 5?
If you’re still looking at things a bit [...]
Feb 09 2009
Whether you are a new graduate looking for your first major gig, or an experienced professional who has been laid off, open and honest communication with your network of family, friends and industry peers is your best bet for making headway in your job search.
It is not uncommon to feel withdrawn when you’re out of [...]
Jan 26 2009
An Objective statement on your resume, and reiterated in your cover letter is a concise way for you to communicate your career goals. Too often Objective statements are written as flowery batches of verbiage that convey little or nothing about the job seeker’s real aspirations. Once upon a time it was OK to use a [...]
Dec 29 2008
Look, I know the economy sucks right now. People are getting laid off in record numbers and you begin to wonder whether looking for a job is worth the effort.
Your frustrations mount because there are bills to be paid, you’ve got personal and familial responsibilities, and the outlook is less than optimistic.
Well, I get it! [...]
Dec 15 2008
My conversation with a young cab driver the other day went something like this:
Hank: If you weren’t driving this cab, what you rather be doing?
Cabbie: I’m not sure. I’ve thought about doing a lot of different things. I only graduated high school last year and needed to find work, and this is what I got?
H: [...]
Dec 01 2008
With the unemployment rate rising, it is apparent that more people are completing for fewer jobs. And as employers are receiving more resumes than they have positions to fill, they can’t always spend the time coding, classifying and filing all the resumes they receive – electronic or paper – for present or future consideration.
Even though [...]
Nov 16 2008
There’s no question that one’s skills, experience and qualifications should be the primary consideration by an employer when selecting a candidate for hiring. But one of the most important skill sets any applicant can bring to a job is far less recognizable from interviewing alone. The qualities one brings for being able to deal with [...]