Recently, I attended a local job fair and spoke to several of the employers to solicit their response to the following question: ”If you were to offer one tip for job seekers attending a job fair, what would it be?” The two answers given most frequently? “Dress professionally” and “Communicate what you want and what you have to offer.” This seemed like common sense to me, but considering how many employers mentioned the...

I was recently coaching a job seeker who was lamenting the fact that she has had multiple job changes over a course of five years. She attempted to minimize attention to this fact by combining positions on her résumé, not revealing that she had recently ended one job and begun another. She attempted to direct the employer’s attention to what she labeled “Summary of Qualifications”, although nowhere on the résumé did she ans...

Losing a job is quite an emotional experience – looking for your next opportunity leans more toward the cerebral. Until you can come to terms with the first, it is difficult to tackle the latter. I recall my last job loss more than 10 years ago as if it were yesterday. I have always had the reputation of being the logical, analytical one that doesn’t get sidetracked by the emotional aspects of life. There is some truth in t...

Recently I began providing job search coaching for clients who are receiving services through their university. Each coaching session is done over the phone and limited to one hour, so it is imperative that I cover as much as I can to help each job candidate jumpstart or enhance their job search efforts. All of my calls cover a variety of topics; however, if I were only able to provide just one nugget of advice that would d...

One of the more difficult hurdles to surmount when making a career change is to begin thinking and talking about you in a new way. When we have been in a role for a very long time, we have an ingrained way of thinking, communicating and acting that reflects this. If you want your prospective employer to see you play the part for which you are “auditioning,” it is essential that you take on the persona of that “character”. I...

Sometimes job seekers do the strangest things. Take the interview, for example. As with football, sometimes things can go badly in a split second and put you out of the game. Some of the common reasons interviewers reject candidates are things that are totally within the job seeker’s control. Naturally, I can reference a dating experience to illustrate many of these:Showed up late: Getting lost or not planning enough time f...

Ensuring that your résumé format works in every situation is a bit tricky. Do you create it using MS Word or is an alternate word-processing program acceptable? Is it okay to include tables, graphs, shaded text boxes, and/or borders? How about color and graphics?Yes, I do have a dating analogy to answer those questions!Suppose you accept a date with an outdoorsman who wants to take you hiking? Obviously the proper attire wo...

Loosing a job is quite an emotional experience – looking for your next opportunity leans more toward the cerebral. Until you can come to terms with the first, it is difficult to tackle the later.I recall my last job loss more than 10 years ago as if it were yesterday. I have always had the reputation of being the logical, analytical one who doesn’t get sidetracked by the emotional aspects of life. There is some truth in tha...

If you or someone you know has made a New Year's resolution to get a new job, I have one good piece of advice – stop looking for job openings. Yes, you read that correctly – structuring your activities around trying to locate suitable job openings increases your frustration level, as well as the likelihood that almost every day will end without reward. Following is an accurate definition of a “job opening” that I recently c...

Recently I attended a local job fair and spoke to several of the employers to solicit their response to the following question: "If you were to offer one tip for job seekers attending a job fair, what would it be?" The two answers given most frequently: "Dress professionally" and "communicate what you want and what you have to offer."Since so many employers mentioned these two things, along with other valuable tips, it occu...