Careers can evolve and progress over decades or they can move rapidly—prompted by life-changing circumstances such as retrenchment, a personal revelation, or the ill-health of a family member. If change is being forced upon you or you have decided to take the plunge and follow your “bliss” be prepared to become more agile—in your thinking, [...]
Communicating achievements is cited as one of the key issues jobseekers consider a real challenge. Some people are reluctant to be frank about what they do well; they feel squeamish about recounting tales of how they distinguished themselves against their peers and consider it bragging (and we all know that nobody likes an show-off!) As [...]
There are two ways to stand out in a crowd as far as resumes are concerned. There’s the good way: This is the resume that is perfectly formatted in a contemporary, sharp, sophisticated design that showcases your skills and experience as an unbeatable candidate who blitzes the competition and begs to be snapped up. Then [...]
Some time ago, a client shared her story while we were developing her resume. She told me about her life at the hands of her abusive spouse and how, after years of suffering, she fled the family home to a shelter leaving behind all their possessions and with her children in tow. Years later, she [...]
No resume is ever read and no one ever gets interviewed or hired, unless the employer is trying to solve a problem or a series of problems. Sales may be declining in a key territory, or the manager could be bogged down by routine administration; staff may be leaving in droves, productivity and morale is [...]
#careercollective “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken” Oscar Wilde “Thanks so much!” said Jim as he prepared to leave my office with his new resume. “Oh there’s just one thing”, he whispered conspiratorially. “I guess I had better get a wife and three kids before my interview! Ha!” Stunned, I stood there processing the [...]
You know in your heart it absolutely looks awful. I’m taking about that gap in your resume where you just can’t easily explain your absence. Did I say “gap”? The more you look at it you see a great yawning chasm with nothing to link the dates before “the event” and after. “The Event” of [...]
Cutting and pasting your current job description into the experience section of your resume speaks volumes about your slap dash, throw-it-all-together-in-a-minute approach and attitude. Is that really the impression you want to give? The key problem with job descriptions (apart from the fact they are mind-numbingly boring to read and full of fluffy, nonsensical business-speak) [...]
It’s a rare day that goes by where someone doesn’t ask me to critique his or her resume. To be brutally honest, most resumes are not up to par. From the spelling errors to the lousy formatting, from the boring, never-ending laundry lists of duties, to the straight copy-and-paste job descriptions full of fluffy business-speak, [...]
Don’t tell me, because I’m about to guess. Your New Year’s Resolution to lose a few pounds? It’s been broken already hasn’t it? Sure it has! You’re only human after all! And that other resolution; the one where you said that this is the year you’re not going to destroy your health by running yourself [...]