December 2014

Regardless of whether you are looking for a job or not, everyone should periodically update their resume. Considering the volatile employment market, have no doubts about it, the good jobs everyone wants are available for only a short time. For the harder-to-fill jobs, they call someone like me. Regardless, when you identify a job for which you may have interest and think you can update your resume and send it, or contact the company a week later, you’ll likely be too late. Now, during the holiday period, is as good a time as any as we look forward to a New Year – are you ready and able to act swiftly when / if a good opportunity presents itself? Whenever you choose to update the document that represents you, don’t simply update the same information. Drawing from more than two decades

I write this blog for the same reason I wrote my quick-reference career survival-guide handbook -- to help people improve their abilities in all things related to job search and interview technique. It encompasses the old-school methods, which work even better today than back in the day, primarily because of that which most no longer do, much less even remember to do, in our increasingly plain-vanilla, cookie-cutter everyone’s the same, point and click world. I recall that last year I was asked if I would simultaneously post my blog to a website with other people giving various advice about searching for jobs, resumes, social networking, etc. After a couple of entries I was contacted by the administrator, who suggested I soften my tone. She suggested that I am too direct and they instead wanted people to feel good about themselves; she

Does hiring slow down or stop during the holiday season and if so, is it a waste of time to do anything during that period? Different nations and cultures have their own holiday periods when business decisions seem to take a back seat. But for the sake of this blog entry I am referring to Western holiday period, relatively speaking between Christmas and the New Year. And just to be clear I am not talking about part-time holiday hiring in the retail sector. I know from many years of experience that as it relates to concentrating at work, most people’s brains begin to shut down to business matters from about the 10th of December and don’t switch back on again fully until or in the days following the first Monday following New Year’s Day. As such, most folks assume there is no

Do you remember the old television detective series “Columbo”? He would always stop before leaving, turn and say, “Just one more thing…” and then throw in one last question or request that always ended up making a notable difference in the outcome. Well, I am suggesting you do something similar as a last point of consideration near the end of a successful interview process. The next time you are approaching a positive outcome of an interview ritual in which you are being considered, if you have not yet met any of the people you’ll work with, request it. I’m not speaking about those you’ll work for and report to, you’re already meeting them at your interviews, I am rather speaking about your potential co-workers. I am suggesting that you mention to the hiring manager or HR representative, “I’d like to meet