Be sure your resume meets all these criteria so that you can stand out in a competitive field of applicants. Your career brand and your value proposition 1. The reader can grasp a "reason to hire you" inside of 3 seconds. 2. The recruiter or hiring authority can get a sense of your career brand, that is, what makes you YOU professionally and distinguishes your from the competition. 3. The recruiter or hiring authority can f...

People have been telling you for years now to drop the objective on your resume - it automatically dates you and makes your resume look old-fashioned. Well, that is undeniably true, if we're talking about the typical objective statement that reads like: Objective: Seeking a position as a Project Manager where I can contribute to the company and continue to upgrade my skills. Ditch it, if you've got one like it. But let's no...

Where is that? Yup, you guessed it, social media is where recruiters report sourcing 25% of executive hires. And those are 2012 figures! I'm ready to say it straight out:"If you're not spending a portion of your time every week on one of more of the following - LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs, youtube, Pinterest - you will be seriously handicapped in your job search both now and in the future." Here's what you'll want to do: Leve...

I just had to write a quick post to let you all know about an intriguing trick interview question and the trick to answering it!I was talking to an IT Director who said that he was asked this question when he was applying, earlier in his career, for a position managing a Help Desk. He was offered the job on the basis of his answer. The hiring authority told him other candidates failed to answer this question in a way that w...

One of the biggest concerns my executive clients have is how to use social media in their job search. They know that it's the new kid on the job search block, but they themselves have rarely gone beyond a bare bones LinkedIn profile (LIP). Facebook evokes shudders of horror, and Twitter is deemed trivial.Some rethinking might be in order. Life calls on us to go out of our comfort zone on occasion - and this may be one of th...

Usually we think of "passive" being a negative descriptor, right? Well, in terms of job search and career management in general, being passive in social media is good! Being active is good too! It's a case, not of either/or, but of both/and. Today we're going to talk about the passive job search via social media. Once you implement the tips below, you can be attracting recruiter interest 24/7.With the acceleration of social...

Have you been wanting to improve your LinkedIn Profile without tipping off your employer, boss or peers that you are looking? A number of people I talk to are reluctant to fully utilize the potential of LinkedIn for job search for fear of getting questioned or fired by their employer. It's a legitimate concern. Some companies do keep an eye on changes employees make to their profiles and may view them as red flags.So what d...

Executive at a crossroadsLet’s call him Jesse. His story is a hypothetical example, but one that is not uncommon. Jesse has done all kinds of great things. Wonderful quantifiable achievements. And in several industries – IT, Manufacturing, Consulting. Clearly, he’s loaded with talent.So, he’s 45 or thereabouts. And he wants to apply at the VP level for positions that might come up in any of those fields. The trouble is, is...

It's amazing, though understandable, that so many people are pursuing job search strategies that are apt to yield no results.The job search environment is more complex and requires greater sophistication to navigate than ever before. Here are 6 of the things you should not do to avoid getting stalled in your job search.1. Give your resume to your contact list and assume you've done their networking2. Failed to get your resu...

The top technology authority in an organization can be the CIO (Chief Information Officer), CTO (Chief Technology Officer),VP of IT (Vice President of Information Technology) or one of the newer hybrid titles that emphasizes leadership in both the business and technology organizations. What aspects of your role do you want to emphasize in your CIO resume? How much do you want to emphasize your technology credentials versus...