Three Things Every Job Description Needs How to write a job description is something they should teach every manager, or at least the ones responsibile for writing job descriptions. It’s not that difficult. When you break it down, there are only three things every job description needs. I worked as a headhunter for almost thirty-five […]
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 […]
I’ve mentioned time and again about making no mistakes on your résumé, but there are certain grammar rules you should break when writing a résumé. Résumés have their own set of rules, and they should be adhered to if you want your résumé read. Rule Number One Don’t Include the Articles “The”, “A”, or “An” […]
What is Success? And What Isn’t It? What is success? Isn’t that subjective? Ask ten people and you’re likely to get at least seven different answers. One of my nephews is the epitome of what i consider a success; He has a wonderful wife, three gorgeous kids, his house is almost paid off, and, most […]
The Importance of Trust in a Work Relationship I’ve been married for 47 years. I have run my own business for 33 years, and done business with more than a few of the same clients. I’ve gone to the same doctor for 35 years. What is the secret to all of this longevity? Trust. It’s […]
Should I Include Months on a Résumé? The Dilemma of Putting Months on a Résumé? Why should I? No one else does. I know. It’s tough to do the right thing. But as my dear old mother used to say, ‘If Johnny jumped off the bridge, would you do it too?’ That’s the same kind of dilemma […]
Responsibilities Or Accomplishments? I have screened thousands of résumés, hell, tens of thousands. And yet, not much has changed. I still see about the same percentage of mistakes as when I started. What mistakes, you might ask? The ones demonstrated by that age-old haunting question–should I list responsibilities or accomplishments? There are plenty to choose […]
List of Business Redundancies Everyday speech, television, movies, books, emails, and all other forms of communication are riddled with redundancies. Most of it is harmless, of no consequence, but if you want to present yourself in the best light, try learning a few of the more common business redundancies. These appear frequently on resumes, […]
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. […]
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 […]
What Is an Em Dash and How Do I Use It Hyphens, en Dashes, Em Dashes In order to understand an em dash, it’s important to put it into perspective. That means we need to explore a few details on hyphens and en dashes. The following are definitions from CMOS (Chicago Manual of Style). Hyphen […]
Great Resumes Must Be Created I learned long ago that writing the perfect resume was not much different than cooking. If you’re making your favorite dish—let’s say lasagna—you don’t just throw any old thing into the pot. If my wife caught me putting carrots in her sauce, she’d cut an appendage off, and she wouldn’t […]
Body Language, A Candidate’s Perspective If you’re preparing for an interview, you need to give some consideration to what your body language is saying about you. I’m not a fan of body-language interpretation, but I think I’m in the minority because everyone else seems to be on a body-language kick. Do an Internet search for […]
New Interview Technique Using “King Of The Hill†as an Interview Technique I’ve been in the recruiting business for 30 years, and I’m always searching for a new interview technique. A lot of what I’ve learned in life has come from observing the animals on our sanctuary; it’s amazing what you can pick up from […]
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 […]
We’re going to talk about the dates on your resume. Many of the problems I see with resumes stems from people not knowing what to do and how to list them. Near the end we’ll get to the big question—should you include months on a resume? Dates I like talking about nothing more than dates. […]
A lot of writing, whether or not it’s books or, especially formal business writing, has become excessively bloated, quite pretentious, and very confusing. It has been heavily bogged down with redundancies, and it seems to be quickly getting much worse. Whoa! I hope you made it this far, because if it had been me reading […]
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 […]
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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