In today’s world most jobs will entail some form of travel. Some are three or four times a year while others are three or four times a week. If you are in the latter category and are not used to it, quite a lot of adjustment is needed. Everything from the food you eat to […]

Now that we are pretty much done with performance reviews, it is a good time to look at some truths about performance ratings. Note: this is not about your performance review where you and your manager (hopefully) talk through your work during the period. Instead, this is about the rating number you were given that is […]

Quality job references are gold. So why do we treat our job references so poorly? I’ve given a lot of job references in my career — and no one has a process down outside of, “Can I use you as a reference?”. Since companies now rarely give references (outside of dates of employment and job […]

I always like the “break the rules” posts about your career. What they require is that you have enough confidence in yourself about how you want to conduct your career that you can pull these off. Not everyone can. So take a look at yourself, your abilities and your career framework. Then give a few […]

The information in this infographic is, no doubt, oriented to students in a classroom taking notes. When I looked at it, though, I thought it pertained better to taking notes — or capturing minutes and action items — in meetings. I know I’ve struggled with taking notes both handwritten and on a laptop. In most cases, […]

Sooner is always better when it comes to retirement planning, and that’s why you should go over your retirement plan with your employer as soon as you’re hired. Don’t just set your 401k contribution without asking any questions. When you sit down with your employer to talk about retirement, here are five important things to […]

You hate your job. It blows the big one. There’s no culture, it makes you uncomfortable, and Janet from accounting is always whispering whatever behind your back. There are a whole list of red flags you kick yourself for ignoring during the interview. If you haven’t experienced this yet, here are a few red flags […]

There is an incredible amount of noise about writing your resume. Hundreds of rules, contradictory advice, many different formats – and no sense of what it takes to win. Often, it is really overwhelming. So we give up. We take something chronological, slap it together, describe what we do on our jobs (responsibilities), and then […]

One of my most consistent resume themes is that your resume must show your accomplishments. Logical — but where do you find your accomplishments to put on your resume? This is a big deal to a lot of people. Defining an accomplishment is one thing. What happens, though, is once you define an accomplishment, you are […]

Take a survey of remote workers. Compare it to a survey of 200,000 office workers. See what it says. That’s the idea behind TINYpulse, an employee engagement company, surveying “509 U.S. employees who work remotely at all times to find out about their experiences in the workplace and compared their responses from over 200,000 employees across […]

Writing resumes can be tough. There are so many rules. Most of the rules don’t mean much. But this one does: Use action verbs to describe your work. Most of the time, people put their job responsibilities on their resume. Maybe a line or two of that is okay, but most of the resume should be about the […]

You know what soft skills are, right? Those are the “playing well in the sandbox with others” skills. People skills. They are the ways that you interact with the team, how you handle stress on the job, how you handle a “fast-paced environment.” It seems every company has a “fast-paced environment.” LOL. But putting these people […]

Adding job skills to your toolset may be much easier than you think. Achieving new job skills without heading back to the classroom, saving you time and money. For many professionals currently in the workforce, getting time off to expand the ever-important toolset can be challenging. However, there are plenty of places to turn when […]

I once had a coworker who, as was a requirement, humorously put his job title in his email signature as ‘Data Janitor III.’ It wasn’t far from the truth — he was a Database Administrator. Keeping data clean was part of his job. Now, should he put that ‘Data Janitor III’ into his resume? Nope. […]

You’re keenly aware of the competition out there. You have an impressive resume but so do other applicants. Step to the head of the line by knowing what catches a recruiter’s ears and eyes. Here’s how to be a standout candidate beyond your written credentials. First Contact Writing for The Muse, Jim Belosic shares his […]

Here is the frustrating question: “I need to redo my resume because I want a new job. What should I put in it?” It’s a frustrating question…because I can’t answer it. So, I ask questions. And then I start frustrating the person asking the question, usually because they don’t know the answers. Basic stuff, really. […]

For many years, I wrote about the x number of actions based on the years in the new year. But 17 actions to take seems a bit much, even for the best of New Year Resolution types. This year is also different. Regardless of how you voted in last year’s election, this is the first […]

Let’s get resume building back to the beginning for a bit. Let’s start with the basics and go through what sections every resume should include. Even though many, if not most, resumes don’t include all these sections. To their peril. Each section has unique attributes and all of them together strive to build a story […]

The economy is great — getting a job is easier than any time in the last decade. And yet, for many of us, it is not. It’s a conundrum I’ve been thinking about for quite a while — how can the economy be so good, job openings plentiful, but still difficult to get a job? […]

Whenever I went to any sales-type training, one of the consistent subjects was all about “controlling the sale.” That somehow, the salesperson could extract dollars out of the buyer if all they did was “control the sale.” I always had problems with that approach. After all, the buyer can always, always say no. Sometimes pretty […]