Pernickety \Per*snick”et*y\, a. 1. pernickety adj : Finicky or fussy; demanding excessive attention to petty details or niceties; unduly particular; characterized by excessive precision and attention to trivial details; Nothing screams ”I am unnaturally obsessed by excessive attention to trivial detail” than the pernickety resume. In case you haven’t become acquainted with this particular type of resume, [...]

Imagine this: Recruiter: So where do you see yourself heading in the next five years? Ben the Executive: Good question, I don’t know. I’d like a new challenge. Recruiter: Well, are you looking to take the next step up in your career, maintaining the status quo, or easing back? Ben the Executive: I’m not sure. Recruiter: [...]

One of my job search advisory tweets sent out today (follow me @GayleHoward) received an interesting reply. You’ll see the screen image of it here, where I advised jobseekers not to get too concerned with making the first draft of a resume perfect, but instead work to get it all down before starting to refine [...]

Let’s face it. Frankenstein’s monster wasn’t too pretty, nor was he effective. Resumes often suffer the same fate. It’s clear that the monster’s maker Dr Frankenstein, was better at sourcing and finding spare parts than overseeing the quality of the final product. Yet, despite the 1816 book by Mary Shelley, lessons have not been learned [...]

Hands-up if you use weasel words in your resume. Weasel words, (thanks to my friend and colleague Karalyn Brown of Interview IQ who coined the term and shares my distaste) are namby-pamby, wishy-washy, nothing words and phrases. Yes, they can be jargonistic terms that people think sound cool like “results oriented” or “proven track record [...]

This week, a question from my inbox: “What do you see as the top three resume essentials?” 1. Achievements. Intellectually, most people now know that achievements are important in a resume and that just providing a dry list of job responsibilities isn’t going to build a compelling case for hire. (After all, anyone who does [...]