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 […]
Four Things You Don’t Need on a Job Description Responsibilities Responsibilities—The first of the four things you don’t need on a job description is a long list of responsibilities. We discussed this on a , but it won’t hurt to mention it again. No one I know of gets excited by the thought of responsibilities. […]
An Interview Is Like a Date I think it’s safe to say that the majority of people reading this have been on a date before. It may have been a long time, but I’m sure you remember the drill—or most of it. Your time for dating may be over, but probably not for interviewing. I […]
How to Write a Résumé. It’s easy to write a résumé, he said with a smirk. What could be easier? You’re simply reducing your five or ten or twenty-plus-year work history down to one or two pages. How to write a résumé sounds simple enough. But the reality is that editing anything is difficult, much […]
Put Your Best Foot Forward When writing resumes, it’s important to remember that your “best†accomplishments might not be the right ones to list on your resume. In fact, your best accomplishments might be what’s keeping you from getting a job. I’m going to let you in on a secret—resume screeners are opinionated! Imagine that? […]
Things Headhunters Do Wrong I know what you’re thinking—things headhunters do wrong could fill a book—and you’re probably right. But today I’m only going to tackle a couple of the main issues. In fact, let me clarify that even more—these are only main issues as I see them. And I’m looking at it from the wrong side […]
What a Headhunter Doesn’t Tell You Working with headhunters can be beneficial, helpful, troublesome, and frustrating. And sometimes all of these can be rolled up into one experience. The best way to deal with headhunters is for both parties to be honest. The problem is that not all job seekers—or headhunters—follow that rule. I’ll cover […]
Don’t Cram Your Resume With Useless Information Some people would argue this, but in my opinion, and that of many others, you only need three things to make your resume shine. Below is an Infographic that explains it, but you can get more details from this post. If you enjoyed this post, please share. […]
What To Say When You Don’t Know The Answer To An Interview Question Interviews are easy, especially when you’re prepared for them. Some people, however, grow anxious as interview time approaches. They are unsure how to answer interview questions. Relax. Take a deep breath. I know you may be nervous, but there’s no need to […]
Behavioral Interview Questions—Tell Me About Yourself Before we get started with this section, let’s talk a little about how to answer questions. Yes, (said with a sigh) there is a method to everything, especially when dealing with behavioral interviewing questions, and especially when dealing with the seemingly innocent “tell me about yourself” question. Most companies […]
How To Close the Job Interview Your Way There are a gazillion (I know I keep using that word, but I love it) ways to close the deal, and if you read enough articles and books, you’re bound to encounter conflicting opinions on how to do it and what the most important thing to do is. My […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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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