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Does your education appear front and center on your resume?

That may not be the best location.

At graduation, students are encouraged to put their education first on their resumes – and that’s good advice.  Education is a new graduate’s strongest asset. 

If you have experience, it’s a different story.  Throughout your career, you’ve developed more assets – skills, accomplishment, capabilities.  Education may no longer be your biggest strength.  It could even be a liability. When that happens - education does not belong at the top of your resume!

Put your Education Where it Best Supports Your Case

Emphasize a strong Education Section by locating it in the top half of your resume’s first page. Putting your Education above the fold gets it noticed by HR and hiring managers.   Read more...

According to the U.S. Department of Education, if you’re between 25-34 years old with a bachelor’s degree, you earn 55% more than a peer with a high school diploma or equivalent.  

If you’re between 25-34,  that’s a pretty motivating reason to finish your undergraduate degree. If you’re in an (ahem) older age bracket  - there’s not a moment to lose!

If you are employed, consider a non-traditional undergraduate degree  programs. Not only are they structured for working adults, many programs give academic credit for their students’ previous and existing  knowledge and experience.

You could complete your degree sooner than you think, if your background and experience qualify for credit.  Requirements vary from School to School; compare them carefully to select the one that is right for you.

Ask about these four sources of academic credit when you speak with School admissions counselors.     Read more...

The end of the Great Recession – are we there yet?   Half of our workforce can hardly wait. According to a recent survey by the Adecco Group North America, 54% of employed Americans plan to look for a new job as soon as the economy improves. You too?  That’s a lot of competition – if I were you I’d start now.

I’ve always tended to toward the “Lord helps those who help themselves” approach to things.  So please, help yourself to a few, proven strategies to get ready for when the job market improves:

Become the Ideal Candidate  Read more...

I have pirates on the brain. Swashbuckling pirates. First there was Talk Like a Pirate day, then  Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl   played a million times on cable and now I’ve got that pirate song stuck in my head. It’s the one they sing at the top of their lungs while happily hoisting mugs of grog:

“Yo ho, a pirate’s life for me!”

I ask you, who has a happier career than a pirate? No one. They are the poster children of career satisfaction.  And why? Because they are absolutely, positively, perfectly suited to being pirates.  It is not just that they have superior pirate skills or that they love their pirate job duties. Those things are important, but there’s more to it than that.   Read more...

God invented word processing so that we can create a tailored resume every, single time we apply for a job.  I am absolutely certain of it.

In ancient times –  B.W.P. – (before word processing)  there was no “insert”; no “delete”; no “search and replace”. Imagine…an entire world without “undo”!  It was so sloggingly slow to modify a resume that pretty much everybody wrote one resume; end of story. 

Inexplicably, even in our modern, A.W.P. times, most  job seekers still use just one resume.  And it is easy to understand why. The thought of it is just so deliciously, temptingly easy: you write your resume once – and you’re done.    

Sadly, easy is one thing; effective is another.  Read more...