Don’t Make this Fatal Mistake in Interviews

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I had lunch with a Deloitte alumni friend recently.  He is now a VP of Retail Sales at a major financial institution.  Since he knew I had a passion for career coaching, he told me the following recruiting story.  In the last few weeks, he has interviewed over 20 candidates for several sales openings, Manager or Director level roles.  He told me over 50% of candidates made the same fatal mistake in the interview.  Can you guess what it is? ...  read more

Second Most Common Mistake People Make at Work

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asking for help is a strength

If you want to succeed, you need to be able to accomplish everything on your own.  Is this true? I don’t think so, but this is a common misconception, especially among recent college graduates.  School was all about doing your own work.  If you turned in a test or homework after asking someone else for help, it is considered cheating. ...  read more

How to Communicate Bad News to Your Manager

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I don't have to tell you that not everything at work is always smooth sailing. Sometime things are delayed, mistakes are made, wrong numbers are published. It may be your fault, it may be a bad circumstance, or a combination of both. What do you say when your boss wants a progress report and things are not going so well?

How Hiring Managers Think

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I went to a café for lunch today.  I don’t usually eavesdrop on other’s conversation, but in this café, it’s so cozy it’s impossible to ignore other’s conversations.   Well I happen to overhear a very interesting and loud conversation between 3 people who work at an environmental software company.   They are trying to decide whether to hire a candidate they already interview and how to fill another entry-level sales position.  I thought I share this to demonstrate one example of how the hiring managers think and what that may mean for job seekers ...  read more

Resume Writing Service – Pros and Cons

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If you typed in “resume writing service” on Google today, you would get over 1.8million results.  Wow, what a big market!  Should you use a resume writing service for your resume?  Is this right for you?  Here are some pros and cons to consider.

Pros:

  • Correct English: It’s always good to get another person to read your resume and make sure it is understandable and has no grammatic or spelling mistakes.  A resume writer can do that.  Of course, a friend can do that too.
  • Fresh Perspective: A good resume writer can give you a new perspective.  Instead of incrementally enhancing your resume a bit at a time, a good writer can give you quite a different version from your current one.
  • Un-attached marketer on your behave: We sometimes can be overly modest on our accomplishments or experience in our resume.  A good writer can really understand the job opportunity you want to apply, and put better emphasis / wording around your experience on your resume that best suits that opportunity
  • Dedicated, discreet help: Job search is a personal thing and sometimes it’s hard to ask friends for feedback or ask them to spend a lot of time to help.  Hiring a writer makes sure you can get someone to help and it is kept confidential

Cons:

  • Difficult to find a good writer:   How will you separate the “lemons” from the truly exceptional resume writing services? Every resume writing service on the web looks similar.   I haven’t found too many true, unbiased rating websites of who is good, who is not, and what to watch out for.    Testimonials are no longer good enough as they could be made up or they could be from people that are in complete different situations than you.   I have seen many state that they are CPRW – certified professional resume writer.  The certification cost $175 to take and provides at least some credibility.  It is unclear how much that will help you in your particular situation. To read more about CPRW click here
  • Potential disconnect between your resume and interview: If your resume is completely rewritten, you need to make sure you understand exactly what it says and it still describes you.  The worse thing you can do is get an interview with a great resume and not get the job because you sound nothing like your resume in the interview.
  • Can be expensive: Typical resume writing service are between $100 to $300.  That could be per job opportunity or type since you should have tailored resume for each job opportunity to maximize your chances.  Can you afford it if you are out of work?  What if it doesn’t help?
  • Outsource a key job search skill: Once you start outsourcing resume writing to a third party, you may need to do it every time you job search.  You are no longer developing resume writing skills yourself.  Is this okay with you?  As the old saying goes – Do you want to learn how to fish one time or buy the fish each time?

I am not writing this to advocate using a resume writing service or discourage it.  Whatever you decide is okay as long as you understand the benefit and the risks associated with it.  For those who just need basic resume guidance, you can get it for free on my site – click here for free resume template; click here for 10 key tips to an effective resume. ...  read more

Being laid off is an opportunity

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There are 3 things that are I believe is absolutely true about being laid off

  1. It will happen to you and me at least once in our life time, but more likely multiple times.
  2. It sucks every time it happens no matter how prepared or unprepared we are.  There is no escaping feeling at least some disappointment, anger, frustration, confidence blow, hostility  etc…
  3. It’s up to us to decide how long we will let it suck – we can dwell on our bad luck and let the event forever define us in some negative way OR we can rise above it after awhile and choose to view it as an opportunity to reflect and perhaps do what we really want to do in life.

Last night I saw the movie  “Up in the Air” by George Clooney – great movie!  That’s what prompted this post.    He plays a character named Ryan Bingham, whose job is to fire people from theirs.    The main point of the movie is not relevant here , but I wanted to share three parts of the movie that really stood out to me related to job transitions. ...  read more

Annual Salary Needed to be Happy

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What annual salary do you need to be happy?  $1 million?  $200K? $100K+?.  Well the answer according to a wide range of research is even lower – around $40K to $75K a year.   Daniel Gilbert, professor of psychology at Harvard University, says once you have enough money to meet basic needs – food, shelter, but not necessarily cable —incremental increases have little effect on your happiness. ...  read more