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. […]
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 […]
Does Anyone Read Cover Letters? It might seem ridiculous to ask Does anyone read cover letters? Because it’s like asking if anyone drinks coffee. The answers to both are simple: Yes, people drink coffee if it’s good. Yes, people will read a cover letter if it’s good. The key words to those answers were “If […]
There Are Three Interview Questions You Should Never Ask If you’re fortunate enough to be invited to interview with a company, do yourself a favor and do not waste their time. What do I mean by that? It’s simple. Most people who are assigned to an interview team probably don’t want to be there. To […]
For everyone reading this, I’ve got news for you: good résumés do not earn you interviews. Only great résumés get interviews. How do you get a great résumé? Read on, and you’ll see. First, let’s look at the differences between a good resume and a great résumé. Good Résumés Get Looked at. Great Résumés Get […]
When to Use Compound Modifiers on Résumés Compound modifiers play an important part in the English language, particularly when written. Many people pay no attention to them, but it’s important to know when to use compound modifiers—especially on résumés—because some of the people who screen résumés do pay attention. And of all the places where […]
How to Read a Résumé Waiting to hear back from a company regarding your candidacy for a job can be frustrating. Sometimes the days stretch into weeks, and before long you’re convinced that they’re not interested, and you’re getting pissed off that they didn’t call or write to let you know. What could they be […]
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 […]
How can a cover letter do that? Suppose you want to apply for a position working for a medical device company that designs and manufactures devices for diabetics to monitor their blood sugar. The job description calls for experience that you don’t have, but you do have the skills. Don’t fret. Great cover letters can […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Cover Letter Basics I’ve seen a lot written lately questioning the value of cover letters. Some articles go so far as to say including a cover letter is detrimental. I say bull… nonsense. I’ll address that issue in another post; for today, we’re going to deal with the finer details of writing a cover letter. […]
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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