A Brief Debrief
After a big game – win or lose – a good coach always gathers the team together and talks about how they played. After each performance, a world-class musician reviews where they made mistakes, and practices those passages repeatedly before the next performance. I could go on, but you get the drift. We have to figure out what needs improvement, before we can improve it.
Think about your last job interview. Did you leave the meeting, head home, send a thank you, cross your fingers that you’d hear back soon, and – more or less – leave it at that? If you said yes, you’re not alone. This is true for most people. Read More
If you’re on the job market – whether you’re employed or not – responding to job postings is usually the starting point. And rightly so; to borrow sales terminology, these are the ‘hot leads’ of the job-seekers world. But if you’re stopping there, you’re missing out on a lot of potential opportunities. The way to tap into that opportunity is through networking. If you’re wondering why or how, read on.
We all know people who just never seem to doubt themselves, who can walk into any room or any conversation with sure-footed ease. The truth is that nobody is really always sure of themselves. Even the people who exude confidence outwardly are often just putting a brave face on, when they feel differently inside.
I’ve done the math, and I figure I’ve read and reviewed well over 50,000 resumes throughout my career. Some were excellent, many were very good, and some were … well, they were awful. Most, though, were just okay. Mediocre. Lukewarm. And when I think about the resumes that I’ve seen that were just ‘meh’ in that way, there’s a common thread: the most common mistake that people make when writing their resume. I’d like to share it with you here, so that you can make sure you’re not making it as well.
Behavioral interview questions are the reason you should invest some time early in your job search to develop a bank of stories you can tell. If you don’t, you risk being caught off guard. Having to mentally scrounge through all your previous work experiences for a good example to use, before you can even start to answer the question. Here’s how to avoid that.
I’ll say this right up front: I have a strong bias for chronological resumes, and I know I’m not alone. Most recruiters and hiring managers I know lean towards chronological resumes because they make it 
If I asked you to pick one interview question that twists your stomach in knots, I’d bet good money that it’s exactly that: money. “So, tell me … what are your salary expectations?” It’s the question almost everyone dreads. Most mid-career working people today were raised in homes where our parents didn’t talk openly about what they earned. Generationally and culturally speaking, it’s not in our nature. 
I’ll never understand how someone can sleep at night when they spend their time taking advantage of other people. Even more so, when the people they target are already vulnerable. There’s a particularly vile brand of scammer who targets people looking for a job; people who in many cases are already vulnerable and lacking confidence, and sometimes already feeling a financial pinch. Let’s take a closer look at job scams to see how they work, and how you can protect yourself.