Eighty percent of all submitted résumés (and 100 percent of résumés sent to Fortune 1000 companies) get scanned by software commonly known as an applicant-tracking system (ATS), and such scanned résumés are stored on a server in a digitized format. Humans are seeing your résumé only if it resurfaces based on a query. That’s why most job applicants don’t receive responses from companies after submitting résumés. Therefore, in order to increase your résumé’s chances of being at least viewed by a human–even if it’s not thereafter considered suitable–you have to understand the process and beat them at their own game. [click to continue…]
When it comes to your resume, don’t be fooled into thinking that there are set in stone rules that you must abide by. People will try to tell you otherwise – the hiring manager, the recruiter, the well intentioned friend – but there is no way you could follow all of these “rules” and have a resume that is anything less than a complete mess. [click to continue…]
Whew! It looks like we may actually survive to the end of 2011 – and it’s been a brutal year. If you’re lucky enough to have a job, you’ve probably worried about whether you’d keep it.
Time to have some great quality time with the family, and refresh for a new year. [click to continue…]
The formula expressed in the title sounds so simple yet for some is difficult to achieve. So let’s together demystify the two elements for getting a job offer.
The Résumé
Because of the enormously large pool of job applicants nowadays, even a very good résumé may not get singled out when compared with the many outstanding résumés. It’s a competition for sure, and only, say, five résumés might be considered for invitations to face-to-face interviews. So, how does one put together an excellent résumé? That depends: if you have good writing skills, you can draft a résumé and then have some people whose proficiency and judgment you trust review and edit it for you until it becomes excellent. Consult career coaches, human resources professionals, or recruiters. Hopefully, you’ve developed good relationships with such people, who will agree to help by expressing their opinions. [click to continue…]
Typically my articles focus on resumes, cover letters, and all things related so I might be stretching a bit this time to tie it in but something happened this week that I feel is worth sharing. First, I have to give you a bit of back story.
I had a former client call me a few days ago; super nice guy who just wanted to pay it forward by purchasing a professionally written resume for an out of work acquaintance. He was truly looking to do something nice for someone else with no expectations attached.
I made contact with the person he purchased the resume for and setup a time to conduct a phone interview. In between scheduling the phone interview and the agreed upon time my area was hit with the first snow storm of the season causing us to lose power for two days. I contacted the client requesting that we reschedule due to the power outage. They agreed and I thought all was well. Boy, was I wrong. [click to continue…]
The title of this blog is of course oversimplified but I wanted to emphasize the vast difference between the two sides. As a career coach, I spend a lot of time with people who are not employed, whether they’re my private clients or attendees at the various job-search networking groups I support and frequent.
On one hand, I certainly understand the self-imposed pressure or the family pressure or friends’ pressure on these people. It can be debilitating, devastating, and, as time goes by, more and more depressing. On the other hand, many of those who are currently employed simply don’t understand those on the other side. While the unemployed have to succumb to the reality that the money that used to come in has stopped and while they have to make very painful and unprecedented lifestyle changes, those who are employed and therefore unaffected by the 10 percent rate of unemployment live their lives as well as ever they did. The restaurants in my area are always very busy, and my neighborhood’s Lotus dealer is selling those $75,000 cars; I can tell by the dealer’s parking lot. [click to continue…]
Some years ago, I ran across a person who asked me, “How’s it going?”. I issued the standard answer, “fine,” thinking nothing of it. End of conversation, nothing interesting said.
For those of you outside the US, you need to understand that this is a totally normal interchange. The real intent of it is to acknowledge the other person’s existence, without having any actual investment in the relationship. It’s equivalent to each person saying “hello,” but only slightly less boring.
What was interesting this time was that the other person then proceeded to ask me, “What would it take to change it from ‘fine’ to ‘wonderful’?” Now THIS was a question worth considering. We had a conversation going. [click to continue…]
Yeah, your boss is a pain. Always getting on your case about something or other, and she never listens to your requests for some time off or making your job easier.
Realize that being a manager is a real job, and your boss is a real person. She probably doesn’t WANT to make your life miserable, she just finds it a necessary part of getting the work done.
Here’s some ideas for how to build up the relationship so that, just maybe, she’ll treat you a bit more like a human. [click to continue…]
Have you heard of the latest trend in resumes? It’s called an Infographic Resume and until recently I had never heard it. You might be asking, “What the heck is an infographic resume?” Or maybe you already know all about infographic resumes and I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. (Hey! I don’t get out much, ok!) But for the sake of the article let’s pretend I’m telling you something completely new.
An infographic resume is your resume expressed in a visual format using graphs, charts, and pictures. The theory behind infographic resumes is that in general we respond best to a visual image rather than simply reading text. With up to 65% of the population deemed visual learners it would seem that a graphic representation of your resume may be received better than a traditional resume by some. [click to continue…]
To start with, I must make an important disclaimer. I am not a psychologist but a career coach. I don’t find it surprising that there is much in common between the two professions, and I have lots of stories to prove it. If you happen to be in transition, you may want to understand the psychology of the decision makers. It would be useful ammo you could deploy in order to promote yourself in landing a job.
Borders, Barnes & Noble, and similar stores have shelves and shelves of books on the subject of finding a job. I’m going to spare you from having to read several of those books. I want to focus on your need to start accepting change. It’s a known fact that our comfort zone lies within what we know. People exhibit various degrees of resistance to change. But when you’re in transition, you’d better embrace change, because if you resist, the world will go by and you’ll get left behind. [click to continue…]
