Preparing For the Question—Why Did You Leave Your Last Position One of the most important parts of an interview is the preparation phase. That is where you research the company and the interview team, and practice how you’ll answer the questions the team might ask. And trust me, the outcome of the interview’s success is […]
Should You Include a Resume Summary? For being so concise, resumes are tricky to write properly. People include all kinds of sections on resumes, and one common section that seems harmless is the resume summary. But is it harmless? And should it be included? Let’s take a look at a few real summaries: Expert, hands-on […]
Working With Headhunters Headhunters are hated by some, revered by others, but mostly viewed with indifference—a ubiquitous necessity. A part of doing business. I’ve been a headhunter for 30 years, and I can tell you the reception I’ve received from candidates has run the gamut—from a warm, pleasant “Let me close the door,” comment, to […]
Learn How to Hire the Right Person—It’s Like A Horse Race Some of you might think that’s a strange analogy, but learning how to hire the right person and selecting winning horses are very much alike. And neither one of them is easy. When I was a little kid, I worked at the race track selling papers. […]
Job Descriptions Are Boring Have you ever fallen asleep while reading a job description? I’m not kidding. Have you? I have even thought that for the people who take sleeping pills, doctors might try substituting a reading regimen—read three job descriptions ten minutes before bedtime. Yes, job descriptions are boring, but they don’t need to be. […]
Is The Weakness Question The Most Important Interview Question? HR reps and headhunters don’t always agree, but one thing they are usually in sync on is the most important interview question—what is your greatest weakness. You might be reading this and think…”They didn’t ask me that in my last interview.” But they probably did, although […]
No Mistakes Resume Checklist: Looking for a job? Don’t do this: Don’t send a resume without a cover letter. Don’t include an objective. Don’t include a summary. Don’t send a resume with mistakes. But definitely do this: Do research on the company and the job. Tailor your resume specifically for the job description. Show them—don’t […]
I Feel Good When I ask people “How are you?”, I typically receive a response of “I’m well, thank you.” But is that the right response? Should you say good or well? This is a particularly sensitive issue, because in almost every interview situation candidates are asked something similar to “How are you?” And you’ll probably […]
Resume Mistakes People think recruiters and resume writers exaggerate when we say that resume mistakes kill your chances of an interview. The truth is more complicated than that simple statement. Mistakes do kill resumes, but not for the reasons you might think. Before we go into all of the details of why mistakes matter, let’s look at […]
Interview Don’ts That Will Help You Seal The Deal I realize a large part of the advice I’m dishing out is “don’t do this,” or “don’t do that.” And I’m sure you’ve heard most of them previously, but in case you forgot, or maybe missed a few, here’s a quick reminder. It’s important because knowing […]
Interview Myths, Or Facts? Okay, you made it through the phone screen, you did your research and other preparation, and now you’re going for an on-site interview. Before you go, let’s review some of the more common interview myths to see if they’re true or not. The Interviewer Is Always Prepared—Myth Unfortunately, that’s not always […]
Every Person Can Have The World’s Best Resume Obviously that title is misleading. Not every person can have the best resume in the world. But if you work at it, you can have the best resume for you. In other words, the absolute best resume that you can make based on your experience. All it takes is a little work. If you […]
The Danger of a Coffee-Shop Interview Don’t Think a Coffee-Shop Interview Is Easy Many candidates think a coffee-shop interview is as easy as it gets, and yet, it might be the toughest—if you don’t keep your guard up. How tough can it be? You are dressed casually. You’re at a public place on neutral ground. […]
Resume Writing Is Not Rocket Science Everyone seems to worry when it comes time to write their resume. Either that, or they rush through the process and end up with a piece of…well, you know. Don’t let it fool you. Resume writing is not rocket science; in fact, it’s not difficult at all. All You […]
Be Perfect On Your Next Interview—Use The Goldilocks Method I realize this sounds ridiculous, but when you give it thought, a large part of the interview process is about avoiding mistakes. Yes, you have to show them you have the experience to do the job. Yes, you have to be able to answer their questions […]
When To Take Resume Advice, and When To Ignore It Most people pretend to listen to advice, but they seldom heed it. And nowhere is this more true than with resume advice. I see a lot of resumes. A few are good. A respectable number are okay. But most are poorly written. I try my […]
What Does a Resume Screener Look Like? Before we get started on this, I’d like to ask a few questions. What does a nephrologist do? How about a manufacturing engineer? Clinical psychologist? Disk drive engineer? Pharmacokineticist? Would you know the requirements for each of the above positions? I’d be surprised if you did. But assuming […]
How To Beat the ATS (Applicant Tracking System) Have you ever wondered what happens to your resume once you send it off? Most of it depends on where you sent it, and what type of system—if any—they use for screening. Since most companies use ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems), we’ll focus on that process. (We’ll also […]
3 Rules For Capitalization on Resumes I wrote a post a few months ago about “What To Capitalize on a Resume,” but from the number of emails I receive it’s obvious I didn’t go into enough detail. In this post, I’ll cover a few of the rules for capitalization, and we’ll go into more detail […]
10 Words to Avoid on Resumes Do you struggle deciding which words to use on your resume? Many people do, which prompted me to write this article. I did another post on impact words for resumes, and also one about how powerful words can be in all of your writing. Today, we’ll explore the opposite […]
Use or Utilize This post is more for the professional crowd. I may have mentioned that I worked as a headhunter for more than thirty years. During that time, I got a lot of résumés—more than twelve thousand of them. One thing that used to jump out at me was how people tried so hard […]
Make Sure Your Résumé Isn’t Wasting My Time When companies need to hire someone, they resort to what they feel is a process that works, and all too often, it’s a black-and-white decision. It has to be. The person screening résumés has a stack of 200–400 or more applications in front of them, and they […]
Ten Best Words to Put on a Résumé A while ago, I did a post on the ten words to avoid on your résumé. You can see it here. In that article, I mentioned how many of the “go-to” words people typically use are useless. I’m including a table I used in that post to show […]
Rules You Shouldn’t Break When Writing a Résumé The easy answer to that statement is “all of them” but that wouldn’t be correct. As we saw in a previous post, there are a few rules you want to break. The majority of them, however, should be adhered to. So read on for a quick rundown […]
Seven Worst Résumé Mistakes There are a lot of mistakes people make when writing résumés. Some are forgivable and some not. But instead of talking about all the mistakes, let’s just discuss the seven worst résumé mistakes. What Is a Résumé’s Purpose? We’ve talked about this before also. A résumé has only one purpose—to get […]
It Takes a Great Résumé to Get an Interview Before we begin, let’s look at a few things that take a résumé down a peg or two. Spelling mistakes. This may be the number one reason why résumés go into the trash, and yet they’re so easy to fix. A quick run with a spellchecker […]
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