Real-world advice for today's job market
Real-world advice for today's job market
Can job hopping hurt your chances of landing jobs in the future? Sometimes in our working lives, things just don’t work out. Maybe the job turned out to be something other than what it seemed. Sometimes there’s a personality conflict with someone that just can’t be overcome. Other times, the company switches gears at a bad time for you – making a change that means your job no longer exists. Read More
Becoming suddenly unemployed – no matter how it happens – is traumatic. We’re thrust from a comfortable routine into the unknown. Financial uncertainty compounds the stress. And we don’t always realize, until we’re in this situation, just how much of our self-identity is wrapped up in the job we hold. If you’re in this situation right now, I am very truly sorry. You’re grieving a loss, and there will be some tough days yet to come.
The best possible way to overcome (or at least lessen) what you’re feeling now is to start doing things that will shorten the time to full recovery: the first day of your next job. And that’s what I’d like to share with you here: a four-step ‘first aid’ plan that will get you back on your feet sooner.
Your resume is the single most important document you will use when you’re looking for a job. Far more than your cover letter (which – despite the name – almost every recruiter reads last, if at all), it is your resume that will determine whether you’ll be invited to interview. Given its importance, I’ll be spending more time here talking in detail about various parts of your resume. But as an introduction, I’m here today to share ’10 Commandments’ of resume writing. The things you must and must not do, if you want me to consider taking the time to interview you.
DO: Make it easy to contact you.
Name, phone number, and email. If you want to include your mailing address you can, but if a recruiter is going to be replying to you by email that’s not necessary anymore. Pro tip: if your email address and outgoing voicemail messages don’t sound professional, fix that.
What does a recruiter do, and how can they help you in your job search?
When you begin to look for a job, people will often suggest that you should contact local recruitment firms or employment agencies. You may have interviewed with recruiters in the past. Read More
Let me 
get this out of the way first: I hate trick questions. In all cases, but particularly in interviews. I don’t like them, I don’t ask them, and I don’t like it when people ask them of me. I have a strongly-held belief that an interview should be an honest, professional conversation between two people, with the intent of determining whether a given job could be a good fit for the person. Trick questions turn that into a sort of game, and it’s the worst kind of game because only one of the players knows the rules.
If you’re interviewing for jobs, I can promise you two things. First, I’ll never ask you one of these questions if I happen to end up on the other side of the desk from you. Second, I’m almost sure that someone, somewhere, will ask you one of these kinds of questions.