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 […]
Power Words For Resumes Words can be very powerful. And since your resume is—by necessity—limited to a page or two, it is important that the words you use have impact. Resumes consist of incomplete sentences and bullet points; you can’t afford to use weak or passive verbs. I compiled this list from many sources, including […]
How To Format A Resume We all know that many resumes end up in the trash. But quite a few get tossed not because of content, but because they look so bad. Before you send out your next resume I want you to pretend it’s the one going for an interview. Then dress it up […]
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 […]
Why Resume Mistakes Make a Difference I reviewed twenty-seven resumes this week—not many. But the frustration level was high because nineteen of them had mistakes—and yes—mistakes matter. Some were minor: • Lead instead of led. • Compound adjectives used improperly. • Semicolons used when they should have used a comma. • A couple of misspellings, […]
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 […]
How To Answer Interview Questions Tell Me About Yourself This is an almost universal question, but the problem is that you never know why they’re asking it or what they expect to hear. Many people think the interviewer just wants to hear your answer. Unfortunately, a lot of times this question is asked because the […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 Answer Interview Questions—Part 1 You never know what questions an interview team might ask you, but some questions seem to consistently pop up, regardless of the job or the company. I thought in this series of posts we’d cover them one by one. The key to answering interview questions is all about understanding […]
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 […]
It’s Not All About Them Anymore Much of the advice you’ll find in books and on the Internet warns candidates that the interview process is all about the company. I disagree. The resume process is about the company, and everything else is until you get the interview. Once you have an interview arranged, the process […]
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 […]
Does Your Resume Make You Look Guilty? If you’re using a functional resume, you might be starting out the job search process with two strikes against you. Most recruiters and gatekeepers despise functional resumes. The consensus is that if a person uses a functional resume they are hiding something. Using a functional resume is like […]
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 […]
The best person doesn’t always get the job—the person who interviews best does. No Mistakes Interviews This book will teach you how to: Prepare for the interview. Identify the company’s primary need. Assess your skills as they relate to that need. Sell yourself as the solution. No Mistakes Interviews will help you get the job […]
The 10-Second Resume Rule: Truth or Bullshit? It seems as if every other month someone is writing an article on the “10-second†rule of resume screening—that you only have 10 seconds to get the recruiter or the gatekeeper’s attention. I even mention it in my book, No Mistakes Resumes. I don’t like the way it’s […]
Resume Killer What Are The Biggest Resume Killers? Resumes are complicated—at least that’s what many people think. But in reality, they are one of the simplest documents to write. Despite being simple, a lot of resumes from qualified people end up in the trash. Why? Sometimes it’s a single item, at other times it’s a […]
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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