How To Handle Interview Feedback In preparation for writing my No Mistakes Careers books, I talked to hundreds, perhaps even thousands of candidates and asked them what their biggest complaints were about the hiring process. I told them we wanted their input and it didn’t matter whether it was about dealing with headhunters or directly […]
Interview Mistakes I took a poll of several hundred human resource and hiring managers and asked their opinion on what the ten worst interview mistakes were. The following were the answers. I was surprised by a few of them, and some of the ones I would have included didn’t make it to this list, but […]
Resume Advice I’m often asked for advice regarding resumes, cover letters, interview techniques, references…just about anything related to careers, but most of the questions deal with resumes. The questions are usually simple ones: • How do I cut it down to two pages? • Is this a good resume? • How can I improve it? […]
How To Write A Great Resume I realize there are many options when it comes to writing a resume, but I’m not talking about any old resume; I’m talking about a great resume. There are a lot of requirements for producing a document like that, but in this post we’re only dealing with one—specifics. What […]
How To Negotiate A Job Offer Getting a job offer is no easy task. Assuming that you’re selective about the kind of work you do, the first order of business is to find a company with a job opening that suits you. Once that feat is accomplished, you have to write a resume—preferably one that’s […]
Should You Ask For Introductions on Linked in? This is a tough question, and the answer is—it depends on the relationship you have with the person. I have a statement at the bottom of my profile that lists my policy. It would be great if everyone did. Here’s mine: I don’t forward requests from people […]
7 Steps To A Winning Phone Interview Many interviews are preceded by a phone screen, which seems friendly, but don’t be lulled into complacency. A phone interview is not a friendly chat; it’s a process to eliminate you. You need to prepare for it just like you would an onsite interview. If the company is […]
3 Things Every Resume Should Have If you want to make a difference on your resume, a real difference, make sure to include these three things. The items I’m talking about are these: #, $, %. The symbols don’t have to be on there but what they represent should. Not every resume will have them, […]
25 Impact Words For Your Resume (Most of this is an excerpt from one of the chapters in my book, No Mistakes Resumes.) Your resume should be filled with impact words. Words can be very powerful. Think of the emotions some of these simple statements generate: “I love you.†“I hate you.†“You are so […]
Are Your References Killing You? Imagine you’ve gotten through the first few steps of the hiring process, and now you’re at the gates, ready to get an offer. All that’s left is for you to pass the reference check process. But that’s a piece of cake, you think. You’ve got great references. All I can […]
Should I Tell A Headhunter My Salary? This question often brings strong opinions, on both sides of the fence. I’ve seen advice stated firmly for and against, and I’ve seen some of the experts waffle on the issue. If you’ve followed this blog for long, or you’ve read my resume book, you know I don’t […]
Responsibilities Dilute Your Message Responsibilities take up a huge part of most resumes, and that’s unfortunate. I say unfortunate because the space most people devote to responsibilities could be used much more effectively. If you have a compelling reason to list responsibilities, follow these few rules: Keep it simple. Keep it short. Keep it relevant. […]
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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