One of the most common questions I get as a hiring manager goes something like this: “I’ve sent out my resume to dozens (or even hundreds) of job openings and haven’t received a single response or offer to interview. What’s wrong? Could it be my resume?” If you too have doubts about the effectiveness of…
It happens sometimes. You had an interview, thought it went well, and you’ve heard nothing. You want to follow up but don’t want to come across as desperate or offensive. Here’s how to do it the right way. From a timing standpoint, if you haven’t heard anything in two weeks after a first interview, it’s…
Here’s the scenario: you’ve interviewed for a job and it seemed to go pretty well. It’s been a week and you haven’t heard anything. Now what should you do? Keep waiting? If so, how long? Call HR and ask what your status is? Call the Hiring Manager and ask why you’ve rudely been kept waiting?…
A friend of mine recently went through a job interview and told me afterward that he felt it was going very well until he got asked the following question: “What do you see as your greatest weakness?”. He admitted he wasn’t prepared for it (he should have been – this question get asked fairly often)…
In my last post I stressed the importance of customizing your resume to specifically match every position to which you apply. Since I’m frequently asked how to go about doing this, I wanted to go into a bit of detail for you. At the very beginning of your resume, it’s important that you include specific…
I’ve been a hiring manager in various industries for over 25 years and estimate that I’ve hired somewhere between 250 and 300 people. Since I probably read at least 15 – 20 resumes for each opening, this means I’ve read about 4,000 to 5,000 resumes during my career. Sadly, only perhaps one out of every…
Headlines everywhere are pontificating about the employment crisis and how challenging the job market is today. Indeed, these are challenging times. So job seekers need all the tools they can get in order to find a job, or find a better opportunity if they are already employed. Resumes are the primary step to getting the…
It’s been said over and over again that honesty is the best policy. However, when it comes to your resume, it is the only policy. It used to be that almost everyone fudged their resume in some way. Perhaps they would embellish their work experience. Perhaps they would exaggerate on their education. Whatever the case…
Career fairs can be great opportunities to find a job that will be rewarding in pay and in personal satisfaction, but only if you go about them the right way. There are many mistakes that are commonly made which can prove costly when attending a career fair and these mistakes should be avoided at all…
If Dale Hausner illustrates anything whatever it is that a government job is a lifelong sinecure. And this isn’t only because the percentage of employees of the federal government who are dismissed from their positions for all of the usual reasons (lousy performance, sky-high absenteeism, gross misconduct) was at one-half of one percent last year,…
If you are all about finding a job, then you need to be all about resume distribution. This means getting your resume out in any way that you can as the more eyes that end up on your resume, the better. So, short of throwing your resume at people, you really need to hustle and…
For job seekers, the resume is often cited as the most important document. It’s a one or two page summary of your educational qualifications, work experiences, professional achievements, and career objectives. Most people who have gone through high school or college should have received some training on resume writing. If not, there are countless articles…