Blue Sky Resumes Blog
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How to Write a Resume – Step #1: Feel their Pain
Writing a resume is a chore for most people. I know this because whenever I do an online search for the term ‘how to write a resume’ or ‘writing a resume’, I come across someone tweeting “ARRRGH I hate writing my resume” or “I have been trying to write this stupid resume for weeks. I hate it!!!” Being the intuitive person that I am, I therefore deduce that resume writing is not something more people enjoy. Me? I love it! For me, writing a resume... |
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How Would Steve Jobs Look for a Job?
That’s nuts right? Steve Jobs will never have to look for a job. But what if he did? Would he wait for vacancies and then apply to the ones he was most qualified for? And once he’d done that, would he wait for the phone to ring for an interview? I don’t know about you, but back when I was job hunting, I often did just that. I’d find vacancies and apply. Or I’d write to recruiters and then wait for them to call. For many years I did what everyone else does. Then one... |
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The 7 Deadly Job Search Sins
If you’re looking for a job in this current climate, the bad news is that you have a lot of competition. The good news is that most of them have no idea what they’re doing. I meet a lot of job seekers during the course of my work as a professional resume writer. From executives to entry-level, I see the same mistakes over and over again. And the people making these mistakes have no clue that they could be doing better. So how about you? Are you committing any of these sins? 1. You... |
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What George Costanza Knows About Job Search
Skimming through blogs this morning, I came across a startling post on Collegerecruiter.com. The whole post is worth reading but the gist is this: 34 percent said they found their last job through a job board and when asked where they expect to find their next job, almost 70 percent said a job board! I guess I shouldn’t have been quite so surprised. I often hear from potential clients who want to hire Blue Sky to rewrite their resume when their real problem is poor job search strategy. These... |
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Should I Be on LinkedIn?
I get asked this question all the time. Let me ask you this in return … if you knew of a regular social gathering attended by all the decision-makers who could impact your job search, would you go? What if I told you that most of them would even be open to connecting with you in some way if you just approached them? And further, what if I said that lots of them posted their senior-level vacancies on a bulletin board available to all members? Finally, I’m going to tell you that the... |
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One Surefire Way to Stand Out in Your Job Search
Imagine if employers saw you as not just another job applicant, but as an expert in your field. Think how it would feel to point recruiters to the speech you gave at a prestigious conference or your Masters thesis on your industry. If you’re not a well-know entrepreneur or senior executive, you might think that’s just a pipe dream. But it’s not! No matter what you do for a living, the Internet makes it possible for you to establish yourself as an expert. There are lots of ways... |
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The Number One Secret to Writing a Great Resume
Search the web for ‘resume help’ or ‘resume advice’ and you’ll find lots of pearls of wisdom. All of which are true. But all of which are ultimately misleading. Most resume advice articles will tell you to focus on achievements not responsibilities, or to use lots of action-oriented words, or to be sure you communicate your ‘personal brand.’ I’ve written these articles myself and I meant well, I really did! But all of this is what I call ‘bitty’... |
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How to Write a Twitter Bio that Attracts More Followers
If you’re using Twitter to promote your business, your products or yourself, followers are the key to your success. But not just any followers — you want the right kind of followers. People who will enjoy what you have to say and will therefore pay attention. But how do you attract those people? Twitter doesn’t exactly make it easy. You don’t get much real estate to talk about yourself – just a tiny little bio and space for one outbound link. But those two things,... |
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Is Your Resume a Used Car Salesman?
Don’t we all dread buying a car? The hype, the evasions, the glib sales pitch … it all just reeks of desperation. Hiring a new employee can often feel the same way. One resume after another, all filled with hype and smooth sales talk, all with the faint whiff of desperation. By glib sales talk, I mean cliched ‘resume speak.’ The stuff you see on everybody else’s resume. Like this … Accomplished 10-year veteran with extensive cross-functional and matrix experience... |
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10 Web Designers Create a Resume
The Web Design Source had a really cool contest to see what 10 great designers would do with the same person’s resume. Click through to see all the designs, but here are my personal favorites: (Note this is an English website, so they’re including some personal info that would be a no-no here in the US, such as birth date and marital status). The post also includes some great resume tips, all of which I agree with, but I do have a couple of concerns about these resumes: 1) Unless... |
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How Much Should an Executive Resume Cost?
Shopping for a new resume is not like shopping for a new car. There’s no ‘blue book’ to tell you what you should be paying and it’s hard to find even a ballpark figure. This results in confusion. As someone who writes a lot of executive resumes, I’ve found that client expectations are all over the map. Some expect a resume to cost $100-$200. Some are expecting something over $1,000. And with this much uncertainty, it can be hard to evaluate the price you’re... |
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How to Get Through a Big Change Without Having a Cow
I haven’t blogged for quite a while. That’s not because I ran out of things to say (My husband will confirm that I never run out of things to say) or because I just got lazy and spent the last month eating chocolate and watching reruns of The Golden Girls. I haven’t blogged because our site was being redesigned. Once the blog content had been moved, I had to wait for the new site to go live before adding any new posts. A few technical hitches slowed us down, but we’re finally... |
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What Posh Spice Knows About Starting a New Gig
Before Tuesday night’s American Idol premiere, I knew precisely 3 things about Victoria Beckham (aka Posh Spice): 1) She used to be the in Spice Girls. 2) She’s married to David Beckham. 3) She’s a clueless and cold-hearted clothes hanger with no personality. I have no idea where I got that last one from because I have never paid the woman one iota of attention, but there it is, in my brain anyway. Or there it was until Tuesday night when she appeared as a guest judge on my favorite... |
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How to Resign With Class
If you’ve been following the entertainment news over the last few days, you’ll know that NBC plans to deal with the failure of Jay Leno’s new show by giving him his old time slot back and pushing Conan O’ Brien’s Tonight Show back to after midnight. Not surprisingly, Conan isn’t happy with this. He’s been waiting to take over the Tonight Show for years – indeed, he had a contractual agreement with NBC to do that. And he apparently turned down offers... |
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It’s All in a Name … or Is It?
I’m happy to be one of CareerRealism’s Twitter career experts. We answer job seeker questions in 140 characters or less, but today’s question seemed to call for a more detailed answer. Here it is: I am in job search mode, and have decided to take the opportunity to transition into another field. It is a role I have performed in the past but not titled. Advised by professionals/experts in the field, that it is feasible. However, although my targeted resume has gotten to the hiring... |
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How to Find a Job in Just 18 Minutes a Day
According to the US Department of Labor, the average job seeker spends 18 minutes a day looking for a new job. It would be great if I could fulfill the promise of my title and tell you how to succeed doing the same, but of course I can’t. Because 18 minutes a day IS NOT ENOUGH! Until I replaced my PC a few months ago, it took about that long for it to warm up in the morning! My hobby is drawing and I’m currently working on a still life done in colored pencils. I’ve spent more... |
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Advice to a Friend on Starting Her Business
I was emailing back and forth with a friend the other night who is starting up a small business. She was struggling with writing copy for her website and wanted to know what I thought. Seeing her agonize over the process reminded me of something a very wise ex-colleague said to me when I was getting to ready to launch my business. I had gone to him for an opinion on our business plan. He said: There are two things you need to know: 1) Everything will take longer and cost more than you originally... |
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You Had Me … and Then You Totally Lost Me
I’m watching 60 Minutes and they have on a really moving piece about a small town in Ohio, and they interview this guy who’s probably in his late 40s/early 50s and he’s explaining how he used to have a great job managing a hundred people, but then his company shut down and he can’t find work. There’s a video of him as a senior executive a year ago, and then they show him now, and he’s not clean shaven and he looks older and tired and he explains how his house... |
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Want to Find a Job? Pull a Susan Boyle.
Earlier this year, Susan Boyle became famous for being able to sing well even though she was neither young nor pretty (apparently we find this surprising!). Simon Cowell rolled his eyes when she first walked on stage to sing on his TV talent show The X-Factor, although he soon warmed to her when she began to sing. A few months later, he was in the US filming the US version of his talent show, American Idol. As the season advanced, he declared several times that one contestant, Adam Lambert, would... |
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Money Can’t Buy Happiness? Really?
‘Money can’t buy happiness.’ It’s an over-used cliche that came to mind this weekend while I was reading this article in the New York Times about the increase in use of food stamps. It’s a heartbreaking read about people who have worked hard and contributed their whole lives, but who now find themselves struggling due to lost jobs or reduced overtime. The first thing that struck me is how the people in the story often see themselves as desperately in need, but think... |