If you’re submitting resumes and calling companies, there are only so many resumes you can submit, calls you can make, before you start burning out. If you start burning out, you reduce the chances you’ll ace the interview because your brain is being beaten into submission by monotony.

That’s why it’s important for you to sprinkle in other activities throughout the day. It’s hard to do this because when you don’t have a job, you feel like you have to get one. To get one you have to submit resumes, call companies, and do all the things involved in “job hunting.” Then you fall into a vicious cycle… no job, want job, must search, keep searching, burn out… you get it. So how do you introduce activities that aren’t directly related to looking for a job but improve your prospects?

Volunteering

You have skills and volunteer organizations need skills. Whether you have trade skills or office skills or you’re just a fast and hard worker, local volunteer organizations can use you. By working as a volunteer, you don’t lose unemployment benefit eligibility and you can flex some of your skills and keep them sharp.

Also, this gives you a great answer to a common interview question: “what have you been doing since your last job?” Being able to say that you help an organization solve a problem is a fantastic answer.

Freelance Consulting

If you’ve exhausted your unemployment benefits and are still having difficulty, consider freelance consulting. A lot of companies need talent but can’t afford to add someone to their payroll, so offering your services as a consultant can bring in some much needed income while keeping your industry knowledge and skills fresh. If you think you might be able to do this, consider going to some local business events like chamber meetings to meet other business owners or search online sites like Craigslist for freelance gigs.

The freelance road isn’t for everyone and it’s not easy but if you’re able to leverage your skills this way you could accidentally start your own business or find your next job.

Pick Up a Complementary Hobby

Want to teach yourself something useful by accident? Pick a hobby that builds on a skill you might find useful in your main career. Let’s say you’ve been doing web design for the last five years and you’ve become pretty good, why not take up a little reading on graphic design or search engine optimization? Start a blog tracking everything you learn and you never know, that might blow up and become a nice side income for you. If nothing else you pick up some new skills that complement your career skills and you become a better hire down the road.

Do Something Fun

Do something you’ve always wanted to do but never had a chance to. This won’t really keep your skills fresh while your unemployed but it will keep you fresh. It’ll break up the monotony and make you a more appealing candidate when your job prospect improve and you get called into interviews. You want to go into interviews with a lot of energy and excitement, which are very difficult to fake especially after months of searching.

And when you do something fun… it’s fun!

Do you have any good suggestions for what a job seeker should do, outside of direct job hunting activities, that can help him or her become a better candidate or a better person?

How to Keep Your Skills Fresh When Unemployed from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

But, enough about why *I* look at the list, let’s see which companies stack up where it matters most – pay.

2010 Top Ten Paying Companies

Here are the top ten paying companies of 2010:

1. Baker Donelson (Law firm) – $319,779
2. Salesforce.com (CRM software) – $249,607
3. Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe (Law firm) – $245,206
4. Bingham McCutchen (Law firm) – $233,800
5. Devon Energy (Energy company) – $187,819
6. Alston & Bird (Law firm) – $185,938
7. Perkins Coie (Law firm) – $183,376
8. EOG Resources (Energy company) – $171,943
9. Arnold & Porter (Law firm) – $171,074
10. Brocade Communications Systems (technology company) – $170,175 (“devices that connect servers with storage centers”)

Of the top ten, six were law firms, two were software companies, and two were energy companies.

Want to see something eerie? Take a look at Fortune’s list from last year. Eight of the names from 2009 were reshuffled and retained their top ten status. Last year’s #9, Adobe Systems, slipped off the top ten and was listed as 11th this year. Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network (#2 in 2009) was nowhere to be found and Brocade Communication Systems moved into the 10th spot in 2010. That makes for some pretty good consistency at the top…

The lesson here is that you should become a lawyer! I’m kidding, being a lawyer is tough work and if supply and demand still work in this country, it’s an indication that the supply of lawyers isn’t meeting the demand for them. There’s a reason for that – it’s difficult work (either challenging, grueling, or just cruel) or everyone would be able to do it.

Either way… law, technology, or energy firms were your best bet last year and continue to be strong this year. I’m willing to bet that they will continue to be strong next year, unless supplanted by an even hotter industry.

(Photo: chicanerii)

2010 Fortune’s 25 Top Paying Companies from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

J.K. left a great comment on my post about the most common interview questions that I’ll repeat verbatim:

Jim, I think you need to step back and add a “strategic” spin on this.

As an experienced recruiter and interviewee myself, I find this to work best:

1. Before the interview, research the company you are interviewing with thoroughly. This really matters.
2. Next think about what the job opening requirements are and in addition, what the “unspoken” requirements are (e.g. a sales rep should be self-secure, outgoing etc) – using this, create a punch list of traits / experience / expertise that the interviewer is looking for.
3. Then articulate your own “must mention” punch list of things to mention in the interview, to make sure you satisfy all of the interviewers major punch list items. I typically recommend picking 2-3 stories you want to tell, or experience sets you want to emphasize, that put together cover your and the interviewers punch lists.
4. Then write those stories onto index cards and practice them until you can tell the stories, fluently and convincingly.
5. Finally, at the interview use whatever questions come along to tell your stories. Always answer the question, but if possible find a natural point to launch one of your stories. If you did your homework right, his questions will be aligned wuit your stories and it will be easy to weave them in.

That punch list is just like a politician’s talking points. The good thing about a job interview is that the interviewer, if they know what they’re doing, already knows what qualities the company wants and will actively ask you questions to see if you have the unspoken requirements. Sometimes politicians are forced to shoehorn talking points into otherwise irrelevant questions (i.e. “Well, I don’t want to focus on that, I want to talk about …”). By preparing ahead of time, you know how to answer those questions when they come and you know what you want to emphasize.

J.K., over email, later expanded on this idea and said:

Every candidate going into an interview should have an executive summary of what they want to bring across and “plug” during the interview.

E.g. I have 5 key strengths that I bring to this job: 1st great communication skills both written and oral, 2nd intellectual horsepower and creativity – I enjoy cracking tough nuts, 3rd interpersonal skills – I get along with people including “difficult” folks and am usually able to help form a cohesive team quickly, 4th entrepreneurial spirit and experience and finally I am a proven leader who has managed teams of up to 10 people before.

Your mission is to establish your talking points ahead of time and weave them into the interview. While I’ve never done this myself, it seems like such an obvious thing to do that I feel silly preparing only for the questions! It’s like focusing on winning a few key battles in a war, rather than focusing on the war itself.

Finally, J.K. stresses the importance of stories as a way of engaging with the interviewer and “showing” you have skills, rather than just saying “I’m good at XYZ.”

When you tell an interviewer that you have a certain skill / experience / expertise whatever, you are asserting. I.e., you claim to have that what he or she is looking for, but that doesn’t mean that the interviewer is going to believe you. So to make your point you should always provide “proof points” during your interview – this converts a baseless assertion into a powerful evidence-based fact.

For example, if I interview someone and he says: “I am a great leader”, I won’t believe him. But if he says: “I have a strong leadership track record. For example, while in college I was president of my fratenity we had a budget crisis, and my fraternity brothers were resigned to shutting down our fraternity, but I was able to rally the team, galvanize them into action and turn around our finances. And because of what we accomplished our fraternity is still thriving to
this day”, I will tend to believe him. I might ask some probing questions to make sure he isn’t bluffing, but I feel much better about it than what the other guy said.

As an aside, this is one of the reasons why blogs are so powerful and why I think people visit Bargaineering. We have smart and clever people out there, like J.K., who are sharing their successful approaches to an otherwise difficult problem. I appreciate it tremendously when you share your insight and we get the chance to learn and grow as a community.

This article is part of Bargaineering Career Week 2009, a week-long series focused on your career – how to find a job, how to tailor your resume, how to find the job opportunities and how to nail the interview. This article is the third article of day four – the interview process.

(Photo: sskennel)

Interview Like A Politician: Dominate the Conversation from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

In most cases, the purpose of a thank you letter isn’t to help you land the job. The point is to make you stand out since many people won’t write thank you letters. In many organizations, a hiring decision is made very soon after the conclusion of an interview. At one of my former employers, the interviewers of a candidate met minutes after the last interview to discuss whether or not to make a hiring decision. It’s quick by design because you want people to make decisions before their memories have had a chance to fade. So when you write the thank you letter, chances are the decision has already been made.

This article is part of Bargaineering Career Week 2009, a week-long series focused on your career – how to find a job, how to tailor your resume, how to find the job opportunities and how to nail the interview. This article is the third article of day four – the interview process.

So why should you write a thank you letter? If you stand out in the interview but aren’t necessarily the best fit for the open job, an interviewer might remember you for another opening when it comes up. If the interview was just the first round and someone drops out of the second round interview, they might call you to jump in because you stood out. Thank you letters won’t land you the job but could give you a small edge.

Writing a Follow Up Thank You Letter

Follow up thank you letters are very simple to write and you should send them within two business days of the interview. Follow the same business letter format you would use for a cover letter, it will be the same for this thank you letter. In the letter itself, be sure name the interviewer by name, thank them for their time and the opportunity, express your excitement for both the position and their organization, and include anything you may have missed in the interview. You can find some sample thank you letters online but that’s the general gist of the letter. Most importantly stay positive and don’t be pushy, the goal is to thank them and show good manners, not sell them on anything.

There’s a little debate over whether you should email the letter or send one through postal mail. In general, you should do whatever feel comfortable to you and the situation. Postal mail will take a few days to get there so you need to take that into account for your timing. There’s also debate as to whether you should type or handwrite it, I think that typing is usually the best approach because it’s more professional.

Finally, all the same warnings I had in the article on cover letters also apply here. Use professional language, avoid typos, misspellings, and incorrect grammar. Have someone look it over if you’re unsure.

Do you have any tips for writing a proper interview follow up or thank you letter?

(Photo: gi)

How To Write an Interview Followup Thank You Letter from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

When it comes to interviews, there are two types – the soft qualitative interview and the hard quantitative interview. The soft qualitative interview is one where the interviewer is trying to get a feel for how you’d fit in the team and the organization. It’s designed to learn more about you, your goals, and learning whether those goals are in line with the goals of the organization. The hard quantitative interview is designed to figure out if you are able to do the job by testing you on your domain knowledge and expertise. This post will try to help you with the qualitative questions, the ones designed to find out more about your personality and see if you fit with the company, because the quantitative questions will change from field to field.

This article is part of Bargaineering Career Week 2009, a week-long series focused on your career – how to find a job, how to tailor your resume, how to find the job opportunities and how to nail the interview. This article is the second article of day four – the interview process.

Most Common Interview Questions

Tell me a little about yourself. This is probably the most common of all the interview questions because it’s an easy icebreaker. Whenever I asked someone this question, I just wanted to hear them talk, see what their personality was like, and just get to know them a little more. As an interviewee, my approach to answering this question is to let it be my opportunity to direct the conversation. If I know there’s a bullet on my resume that matches the job very well, I’d highlight it by saying “in the last year, one of my favorite projects was …” and mention it by name. Most interviewers will, consciously or unconsciously, take that cue and ask me about that project.

Where do you want your career to go? This question is usually designed to figure out two things: 1) have you given much thought to your career and how this job fits in that plan; 2) does that career match the needs of the company. If your goal is to earn as much money as possible regardless of who its for, then they might not want to hire you if you will jump from company to company. To prepare for this question, you need to have an idea of what you want to do in five or ten years and see where this job fits.

What would you consider your greatest strengths? This is an opportunity for you to mention a strength that may not be reflected on your resume. If you have a lot of team projects and you’ve talked about team work a lot, don’t mention it as one of your greatest strengths because the interviewer already knows you are strong here. Maybe you’re extremely persistent and attentive to detail, things that are hard to display on a resume, mention that and give an example from your resume.

What would you consider your greatest weakness? I don’t think an interviewer ever expects an interviewee to honestly answer this question and actually give their greatest weakness, so don’t exceed their expectations. And don’t say you have no weaknesses or try to frame a strength as a weakness, people see right through that. My approach has always been to find a weakness you have and show how you’ve taken steps to try to overcome it, preferably highlighting projects on your resume that substantiate that claim.

What motivates you? This is another tricky question that most people would honestly answer “money,” (money may not be motivation #1 but it is always in the top 3, everyone has to eat!) but you can’t say that in an interview because it points to greed. You’ll want to answer honestly so try to find some projects you worked on that you really enjoyed and think about what motivated you to do a good job. Perhaps you were motivated to do good work, so you volunteered at your local soup kitchen. Keep it positive and use it to point to one of your accomplishments.

What interests you about this job? Why do you want this job? You’ll usually be asked a version of this question sometime during an interview because the interviewee wants to understand your motivations more. This also helps them understand how much you understand about the job. Maybe the job has high turnover and is high stress, be sure to address it and say how you would overcome it. Maybe the job is mundane and boring, why are you interested in it? The answer is never “for the paycheck,” but you can always find something about it that interests you. Even a retail job folding clothes or staffing a cash register is a stepping stone into a managerial role in the retail industry.

Are you willing to travel? This question is one of the few that you should answer honestly because if you are unwilling to travel, get the job, and are forced to travel then you will be miserable. If you are willing to travel, say so. They will usually ask what percent, just give a slightly higher percentage than you think you’re actually comfortable with. In general, unless it’s 100%, you won’t travel as much as you think you will.

What are your salary expectations? If you can, defer. A safe bet is always to say “That I don’t know, I’ve been focusing on learning more about the position and whether it’s a good fit for the both of us.” Usually you aren’t asked this question until you are interviewed by someone in Human Resources, usually in an information gathering step, but if you can’t defer and are pushed for an answer, do research beforehand and give a range you are comfortable with.

How soon do you need a response? This is usually a gauge of how in demand you are. If you have pending offers with deadlines, give a day or two before those deadlines as a response. If you don’t, give it about a week. Most decisions are made within a day or two and, judging on the size of the company, an offer within a week depending on how responsive the HR department is with managing approvals and whatnot. You don’t want to say “whenever,” because then they realize you have nothing else pending… which isn’t good.

Do you have any questions for me? This is where the interviewer is trying to gauge your true interest in the job and the company. What you want to do is make sure that you ask questions that show you are interested in the company. I like to ask what the “next steps in the process are” and more pointed questions about the culture of the company, what it’s like to work there, and what the interviewer enjoys about the company.

If these ten weren’t enough, check out this list of the 50 most common interview questions and recommended answers. They are excerpted from The Accelerated Job Search by Wayne D. Ford, Ph.D.

Is there a common interview question I left off the top ten? If so, what is it and what is your recommended response?

How to Answer the 10 Most Common Interview Questions from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

This article is part of Bargaineering Career Week 2009, a week-long series focused on your career – how to find a job, how to tailor your resume, how to find the job opportunities and how to nail the interview. This article is the second article of day four – the interview process.

Check Ahead of Time

Check the clothes you’re going to wear at least two days ahead of your interview. You might realize that the suit you want to wear needs to be dry-cleaned or the pants no longer fit properly. You don’t want to discover a stain on your tie an hour before the interview, you want to find out with enough time to react.

Wear A Suit

No one will fault you for wearing a suit to an interview, so if you have one or can borrow one, do so. If you’re ever in doubt, you should always dress on the conservative side because no one will ever fault you for it. Don’t wear anything provocative and don’t wear anything flashy, you want your abilities and your accomplishments to shine, not yourself.

Drive By’s

If you aren’t sure what you should wear and you don’t want to wear a suit unless you have to, drive by the company’s office. Take a look at what the employees are wearing and wear one step higher. If people are working in jeans and t-shirts, go business casual with a button down shirt and khakis or slacks. If people are business casual, go in a full suit or put on a tie. When it doubt, wear a suit.

Look Professional

Since I’m a guy, these “look professional” tips are going to be a little male centric but the theme is the same – look well groomed and presentable. I think that having a neat and clean hairstyle is important, whether you’re a guy or a girl, and guys should make sure you’re clean shaven. You don’t want your suit to say professional but the 5 o’clock shadow to say you’re too lazy to bring a razor to your face. Shower before your interview, clip your nails, and go easy on the perfumes, colognes, and aftershave.

Big Don’ts…

Whatever you do, don’t…

• Chew gum – You can’t answer clearly if you have gum in your mouth.
• Bring your cell phone – You don’t need it in the interview, so leave it in the car.
• Drink coffee or soda beforehand – Coffee can give you bad breath, soda will make you burp.
• Flaunt tattoos or wear excessive piercings – As I said earlier, let your accomplishments do the talking. People have preconceived notions about people with “too many” tattoos or piercings.

And good luck on that interview!

(Photo: matt512)

How to Dress for an Interview from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

The typical headhunter scenario works like this. An employer is looking to fill a specific job opening within a few weeks. They go to a headhunting company that looks in its database of candidates and tries to fill the role. If the job opening is filled, the headhunting company gets paid. Headhunters are constantly on the lookout for new talent to add to their database, so they often search job sites, as employers do, for strong candidates. The job seeker never pays for the headhunter’s services, the employers do. (in fact, if a headhunter wants to charge you a fee, run the other way)

This post will teach you how to properly use these wonderful (free) additions to your job hunting team.

This article is part of Bargaineering Career Week 2009, a week-long series focused on your career – how to find a job, how to tailor your resume, how to find the job opportunities and how to nail the interview. This article is the third article of day three – on the hunt for a new job.

Beware Scams

There are a lot of scams perpetrated by supposed headhunters so you really need to be careful whenever you deal with someone claiming to be a headhunter. They should always have specifics about a job for you and they should never ask you for payment. Don’t send them your resume until you are absolutely certain the job they claim to have actually exists. Your natural fraud detector should be able to tell whether or not this person is just looking steal your identity or use you to get “in” with another company.

Headhunters will never need any personal information not normally included on a resume. Never give out your social security number, mother’s maiden name, bank information, names of family members or employees from your former company, or anything that seems strange.

You’re Not Married To One

There isn’t a rule that says you can only work with one headhunter at a time. If several contact you, take advantage of all of their services. The only thing that can beat having one headhunter working for you is having two, or three, or five. You probably won’t be contacted by five, it certainly doesn’t hurt to answer the phone to hear what they have to say.

Set Expectations

If you start working with a headhunter, be specific in setting expectations. You want them to understand the jobs you are interested, including salary requirements, location, travel, benefits, etc. You don’t want them to waste their time and yours on jobs that you’re unqualified for or not interested in. If you don’t set expectations and they bring you a bunch of leads you aren’t interested in, they may lose interest in you and then no one wins.

Interview, Resume Preparation

When it comes time to submit resumes, ask them to give yours a once over. They will have seen a lot of resumes in their time and they will have a good understanding of what are good techniques and what are not. Take advantage of their expertise by asking them for help. It’s in their best interests to have you put the best foot forward, so they’ll usually be willing to help.

The same goes for interviewing tips and coaching. They will have gone through the process so many times and it’s in their best interests for the employer to select you as a candidate, because then they get paid. They won’t have as much experience with interview tips but it doesn’t hurt to ask.

Don’t Stop Looking

Headhunters won’t be looking for jobs for you, they’ll simply be trying to fit you to the pool of jobs they are currently recruiting for. You should in no way stop your own job search because it’s your job to find a job, not the headhunters. I’ve seen a lot of scenarios where people stop because a headhunter has a good job lead, only to have it fall through and the headhunter move on. Even if you have a job offer in hand, don’t stop looking until you’ve worked a day past the probationary period.

Have you worked with a headhunter? Do you have any suggestions on how to best utilize one?

How to Properly Use Headhunters from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

To counter this, you need to take advantage of the power of the Internet and the various job hunting and employment websites. They’ve been around for years and only the strong have survived, having been gobbled up by others, and I’ve looked through the bunch to try to select the best of the best. These are for the general job boards, not industry specific ones. If you are in a particular industry, try to find a job board (or use my first recommendation, SimplyHired) specific to that. For example, Dice.com is the #1 job board for tech and IT jobs.

This article is part of Bargaineering Career Week 2009, a week-long series focused on your career – how to find a job, how to tailor your resume, how to find the job opportunities and how to nail the interview. This article is the first article of day three – on the hunt for a new job.

SimplyHired

SimplyHired is a job search engine that lets you search jobs on other websites, including directly with companies themselves. When I did a search on my local zip code, I found a lot of local job listings I wouldn’t expect to find on other job websites. For example, I saw a dozen listings from UPS, pulled from their company specific job boards. There were also PETCO jobs listings, pulled from their PETCO Jobs Portal. The downside is that you can’t post your resume for employers to search since the site is directed towards job seekers but it is by far the most comprehensive search engine.

Yahoo Hot Jobs

HotJobs was originally founded in 1996 before they were acquired by Yahoo! in 2002. One of the oldest job search engines, it is still one of the most popular employment websites and now has a wealth of information available to job seekers. One of the best features of the site is that you can see how many times your resume has been viewed, which can give you a lot of insight into how much interest there is. If it’s been viewed a lot, you can use that as a sign that you need to work on your resume. The only downside is that it doesn’t have as many job listings as Monster.com and some other competitors.

Monster.com

Monster.com is one of the oldest job websites, having been founded in 1994 and a presence in about 50 countries throughout the world. According to the Monster.com job search, over 5,000 job listings are posted each day in a variety of fields including Aerospace and Defense, Banking, Clothing and Textiles, Computer/IT Services, Construction, and Education. Monster also powers the job boards of many popular newspapers, such as the New York Times.

Careerbuilder.com

CareerBuilder.com is owned by Gannett Co, Inc., Tribune Company, The McClatchy Compnay, and Microsoft. Careerbuilder claims to have over a million jobs in their database and it’s the engine that powers more than 9,000 websites and 140 newspapers. For example, the job board at the Baltimore Sun is powered by Careerbuilder (The Baltimore Sun is owned by the Tribune Company).

Craigslist

Craigslist isn’t your traditional job website, in the style of Monster or Careerbuilder, but if you’re looking for some part time or seasonal work, you can always look in your local city’s Craigslist website for leads. It’s a little hit or miss because companies aren’t charged, or charged a nominal fee, for job listings so you have to wade through all the scams to find genuine listings. Fortunately, you can look at the jobs very quickly and decide if it’s worth your time to continue looking. I would only recommend it as a last resort for some part time work.

With this list of four, five if you count Craigslist, you should have most of the major job boards covered. One unintended benefit of listing your resume on these boards is that you’ll be contacted by headhunters, who only get paid if you secure a job. Headhunters can be hit or miss, especially in this environment, but anytime you can get someone else working on you behalf, you should take advantage. More on headhunters in the next article in the series.

Do you have experience with any of these websites? Any hints, tips, or gotchas people should be aware of?

(Photo: argonne)

Best Employment & Job Search Websites from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

As you read the list below, you might be surprised at some of the mistakes but you couldn’t imagine committing them. With the exception of the “make it readable” rule, I’ve seen them all. Most of the time, I think it’s because the candidate just didn’t notice it or wasn’t aware it was a bad idea. However, if you’re taking a look at your resume, I recommend you review these ten mistakes and make sure you aren’t committing them.

This article is part of Bargaineering Career Week 2009, a week-long series focused on your career – how to find a job, how to tailor your resume, how to find the job opportunities and how to nail the interview. This article is the first article of day two – resume reconstruction.

1. Untailored Resume

Employers don’t spend more than a few seconds scanning through resumes so your resume needs to be tailored to the job you’re applying for. You shouldn’t try to be a generalist, be as specific to the job as possible. If you are going after a job that requires certain skills, ensure that the resume emphasizes the positions you’ve held where those qualifications have been in the spotlight. You should not be sending the same resume to every job opening, it should be tailored to the position and time spent in this area will improve your response rate.

2. Typos and Grammatical Errors

Much like your cover letter, your resume has to be perfect when it comes to typos and grammatical errors. I always recommend having a friend, preferably one with better spelling and grammar, look it over for any errors before you post it.

3. Make It Readable

If you’re going to submit your resume online, make sure it’s readable. What looks nicely formatted in Word can come out looking horrific when you paste it into a text box. Make sure that what you submit is readable by a human being. It would be awful if a computer made sense of it and selected you only to be discarded because your resume came out as gibberish.

4. Make It Well Organized

When you organize the sections of your resume, be sure to organize it in the order of importance. I usually list my contact information, followed by my objective, education, accomplishments, skills, and then awards. If you’ve been out of school for quite some time, flip education and accomplishments. You want the most important material towards the front.

5. Focus on Accomplishments

When you list your various jobs, focus on accomplishments rather than what the duties of the job were. For example, if you are an administrative assistant, your resume shouldn’t consist of a list of administrative assistant job functions. It should explain specific accomplishments you completed while in that role. Did you plan events? List those events, size and scope, so that hiring managers understand you were in charge of an event with 500 attendees, rather than “responsible for event planning.”

Whenever possible, try to outline where you helped the company earn more revenue, save on expenses, solve a problem, build business relationships, etc. Focus on things that imtract the bottom line.

6. Use Keywords

With the level of competition for jobs and the pace of technology, hiring managers usually don’t see every resume that is submitted. That’s why it’s important that you tailor your resume to include keywords that the job position is looking for. If the job requires certain IT certifications, you should make sure those certifications appear on your resume. Without those keywords, the software searching the database of resumes will never pick yours out from the masses.

7. Scannable

Since a hiring manager is going to spend only a few seconds reviewing your resume, before they decide whether to look closer, it’s important for you to make your resume scannable. That means using bullets whenever possible and vary the font size and boldness to emphasize former job titles and employers. You don’t want to vary it too much (don’t make it look like a ransom note) but enough so that certain headlines stand out.

8. Keep It Under Two Pages

Years ago, the advice was that you should always keep your resume to under a single page. While this makes sense for a college graduate, the reality is that today people switch jobs more often than they used to and they have taken on a lot more responsible. The “one page rule” for resumes is now more a myth than a rule and you should use as much space as you need to list your accomplishments. However, don’t take this to mean that you can write a novel, just keep it under two pages.

9. Correct and Professional Contact Information

Double check that your contact information is correct. All it takes is a misspelling to your email address or mis-keying in your telephone number to take an otherwise awesome resume and turn it into a clunker. If employers try calling and get a wrong number, they won’t try again.

Also, email addresses are free so stop using that 10 year old babygrrrl8888@hotmail.com or hotboi1976@yahoo.com as your contact email address. Sign up for a more professional sounding email address so employers don’t prejudge you or ignore you because of it.

10. Don’t Mention References

Never put references directly on your resume. Companies rarely call references before talking to a candidate and you don’t want your references’ contact information floating around the Internet. If they want a reference, they can ask you for it. Likewise, references are always available upon request, so there really isn’t a point to putting “References available upon request” on your resume.

Those ten resume mistakes are probably the most egregious, but there are plenty more. What was the worst resume mistake you saw? (or committed?)

(Photo: kafka4prez)

Ten Resume Mistakes You Must Avoid from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

After you’ve figured out the template and written a few cover letters, the process will be very easy and you’ll be able to produce a good cover letter in just a few minutes. If the hiring manager never sees it, it’s only a few minutes lost. If the hiring manager does, it’s a great opportunity to present your skills and accomplishments in a way that matches the job opening.

This article is part of Bargaineering Career Week 2009, a week-long series focused on your career – how to find a job, how to tailor your resume, how to find the job opportunities and how to nail the interview. This article is the first article of day two – resume reconstruction.

Research The Company, Industry

Before you do anything, research the company and the industry they are in. It’s important for you to understand the company’s core, such as its mission and it’s values, as well as their history and current state of business. You may not necessarily use this in the cover letter but you want to understand if they emphasize anything in particular, so you can tailor the letter to emphasize those as well (as long as it makes sense). This will also be crucial should you land an interview.

Research The Job Position

The job listing will have a list of qualifications they are looking for and ones that are required. Be sure to take notes on both and ensure that you satisfy the job’s requirements. When you write your cover letter, you’ll want to emphasize some of the skills you posses that match their needs and complement their needs. You will also want to find the name of the hiring manager so that you can write it to a name, rather than a generic opening.

Writing The Cover Letter

The format of the letter should follow the business letter format and no more than one page. You can find various templates online but any one will do. Once you get the general format, it’s the content that will be crucial. Throughout the whole letter writing process, you’ll want to keep in mind that your cover letter is really a sales letter. You are selling yourself. If you’re familiar with copywriting, try to employ copywriting techniques in your cover letter.

An important step that is often missed is addressing the letter to an individual, rather than a generic “HR director” or “To Whom It May Concern.” That’s why it was important for you to research the job position and the hiring manager. When you address a person, you are able to connect with them better than a “Sir or Madam.”

The meat of the cover letter should contain three paragraphs:

1. First paragraph should tell the employer why you’re writing in no more than two or three sentences. Don’t waste a sentence by telling the employer how you found out about a job because they won’t care, spend your words carefully.
2. The second paragraph should explain your qualifications and match them to the requirements of the job opening, which you researched before. You want to be enthusiastic and highlight things are separate you from the competition. Emphasize how you would help them reach their goals and use specific examples if you can.
3. The last paragraph should talk about next steps and entice the employer to call you. Keep things positive, ask for an interview and leave your contact information, and do it in fewer than three or four sentences. Be sure to be courteous and reserve one of those sentences to thank them for their time and consideration.

Then end the letter with a simple “Sincerely” or “Regards” followed by your signature and your name.

Proofread

This is absolutely crucial. You want to go through the letter carefully to review it for spelling and grammatical errors. If it’s your first cover letter, have a friend review it for any errors. When you write something, it’s often difficult to find errors even if you look it over a half dozen times. In addition to grammar and spelling, review the letter for any informal and weak language. Avoid “I thinks” and either remove them entirely or replace them with emphatic qualifiers, like “I am certain.” As for informal language, this isn’t an informal email, it’s a formal business letter. You don’t want to sink your chances by using unprofessional phrases.

Cover letters are very important and all to often overlooked. With these tips, your cover letter will stand out and give you a better chance against the competition when it comes to landing an interview. If you have cover letter tips I’ve missed, please let us know about them in the comments!

(Photo: wwworks)

How to Write A Kick-Ass Cover Letter from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

This article is part of Bargaineering Career Week 2009, a week-long series focused on your career – how to find a job, how to tailor your resume, how to find the job opportunities and how to nail the interview. This article is the third article of day one – career planning.

You don’t have volunteer every single day, just pick one day and donate a few of your hours to a cause you believe in. It only takes a few minutes to enter your your zip code and some causes you want to support into the search box at Serve.gov (which takes you to Allforgood.org). Within minutes you’ll be able to find a volunteer opportunity that fits your schedule.

Still not convinced? Here’s why I think you should donate a few of your hours each week to a local charity:

• You’ll feel productive. This is probably the most valuable part about volunteering when you’re out of work. After hours of sending resumes that result in few phone calls, you’ll feel very unproductive despite doing so much. By volunteering, you’ll get to work hands-on and see the product of your effort. It’s a big psychological boost.
• You’ll be doing good. It always feels good to volunteer because you’re helping other people. You’re helping an organization further it’s goal of helping other people. Whatever it is, you’re working towards a good cause and that has to boost your morale.
• You’ll work with others. This has multiple benefits. First, you’ll be interacting with other people, which takes you out of the very solitary feeling of job hunting. Second, you might meet people who can help you find a job. The other volunteers are usually going to be employed or retired, which means they could even give you leads to openings in their organizations or former organizations.
• Volunteer organizations usually have employees… and job openings. When I was volunteering at Meals on Wheels, some of the drivers were paid. From what I understand, it wasn’t a lot of money (it was more about reimbursement for the gas and time), but charitable organizations aren’t 100% staffed by volunteers. You could find a little side work or contract work doing specific tasks for them… which beats unemployment.

Ultimately, volunteering is a way to boost morale in an otherwise difficult time. The prospects of finding a job with or through a volunteer organization is pretty low, but it’s there, so you should volunteer because it helps charities that are otherwise struggling and it will make you feel better. That, in turn, will make you a better job seeker and candidate when the opportunity presents itself.

Boost Morale & Fill Time by Volunteering from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

This article is part of Bargaineering Career Week 2009, a week-long series focused on your career – how to find a job, how to tailor your resume, how to find the job opportunities and how to nail the interview. This article is the second article of day one – career planning.

So when career advice says that you shouldn’t find the first job that comes your way and that you should use your unemployment to find the right career, it makes sense up to a point. If you’ve been out of work long enough to exhaust your savings and your unemployment benefits are running out, then you need to get a job.

How does a job differ from a career? A job is something you do just for the paycheck. You might enjoy the work but it’s not something you want to do for the rest of your life. It’s not something that gets you out of bed, excited and invigorated, every day. A career is a job that does. It’s a job that might be something you want to do in thirty years. Or it’s a stepping stone to the next level. It’s a job that opens up doors for your future.

However, when times are tight, we need to worry more about the near term future than the long term future. When you’re struggling to pay the bills tomorrow, it doesn’t matter whether taking the first job limits your future because you’re simply worrying about getting there.

There are some people who say that they will never take a minimum wage job. They see it as “below” their ability (if you don’t believe me, read some of the comments on this post of whether you should take a low paying job). Unfortunately, when you’re in survival mode, you take any job that puts food on your table.

Do you agree or disagree with me? Do you think that taking a job that pays the bills over a job that is more in line with your career is a mistake? Even in tough times?

(Photo: jdeepaniii)

Find A Job, Then A Career from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

This article is part of Bargaineering Career Week 2009, a week-long series focused on your career – how to find a job, how to tailor your resume, how to find the job opportunities and how to nail the interview. This article is the first article of day one – career planning.

Use Mind Maps

If you think about how your thoughts are stored in your brain, you probably recognize that it’s not linear. It’s more like pockets of main thoughts with associated thoughts branching off that, and more thoughts off that, etc. A mind map is a visual representation of how your mind thinks and can be used as a brainstorming tool to get your thoughts on paper. For a look at some mind maps, you should review this amazing gallary at Buzan.com.

I won’t go into the mechanics of mind maps, you can find that easily online (or just check out this PDF), but when you conduct the exercise, your goal should be to figure out what you want to do with your life. Write down the things you enjoy, what makes you happy, what is important to you, and so on. You may have to do this several times but in the end you’ll have mind maps that you can review to try to figure out what career path you should go towards.

Don’t Let The Past Dictate The Future

One of the hardest decisions I ever made was to become a full-time blogger nearly two years ago. one of the big reasons why it was so hard was because my entire career path was in some sort of software architecture and development. My education was in computer science and software engineering, my years of work involved designing and development software systems and applications, and all of that would be, effectively, for naught if the rest of my career was involved in writing a blog.

But I did it anyway because I enjoy what I do, it was financially feasible, and I didn’t let fear make decisions for me. Don’t let the past dictate the future. If you really want something and it makes sense, go for it. If it doesn’t work out, you can always go back!

Go For It

If the brainstorming and mind mapping teased out a career path that is in a totally different direction than where you were going, give it a try. I am of the belief that if a path is financially feasible, meaning it can pay for your lifestyle or your lifestyle can adjust to the pay, and it makes you happy, you should give it a try. If it doesn’t work out, at least you were happy doing it!

As an aside, I’m always asked if I believe the maxim that “if you do what you love, the money will come.” No, I don’t believe that. However, I believe that “if you do what you love and the money doesn’t come, at least you were doing what you love. If you do what you hate and the money doesn’t come, well then you lose on both counts.”

Have you used mind maps or other brainstorming tools to help you chart our your career? If you have any techniques you used, I’d love to hear it in the comments because the more ideas we have, the better.

(Photo: mshades)

Rethink Your Career from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

If you look below, you’ll see a list of the posts that will make up Career Week. When the posts are published, I’ll make them active links, but I wanted to give you a sneak peek at what’s to come…

Monday: Career Planning

If you are without a job or just planning a change, the first step in that process is 100% mental.

• Rethink Your Career – Sometimes you have to find the silver lining the cloud. If you recently lost your job, maybe it’s a good time to rethink your career path.
• Find A Job, Then A Career – When it comes right down to it, you may not have the luxury of finding the perfect “career” and have to settle for a “job” that pays the bills. That’s fine too, it’s about surviving first, thriving next.
• Boost Morale & Fill Time by Volunteering – If you find yourself restless, a little down that the responses to your resume haven’t been as frequent, you could take this time to volunteer in your community. It’s time well spent and can re-energize you to help a cause you believe in.

Tuesday: Resume Reconstruction

• How to Write A Kick-Ass Cover Letter – The cover letter is one of the few ways you can add color to your resume, many job seekers overlook it.
• Ten Tips to a Kick Ass Resume – Not originally part of the Career Week 2009 series, this post was given honorary membership given its popularity.
• Ten Resume Mistakes You Must Avoid – No resume day would be completely with a discussion of some big resume no-no’s you MUST to avoid.

Wednesday: On The Hunt

• How To Find A New Job – Another post that wasn’t originally part of Career Week 2009, this post establishes a good approach towards finding a new job. It sets up a good framework for finding leads.
• Best Employment & Job Search Websites – There are too many websites and many are a waste of your time, I profile a handful that are worth the time it takes to submit your resume.
• How to Properly Use Headhunters – This post details what to watch out for with the scammers and how to utilize the legitimate ones.

Thursday: Interview Room

• How to Dress for an Interview – Dress for success, this post explains how to figure out how you should dress for your interview.
• Common Interview Questions and How to Answer Them – The probability that you won’t get at least two or three (or five) questions on this list is very slim.
• How To Write an Interview Followup Thank You Letter – The follow up is as important as the interview, because it opens up other opportunities.
• Interview like a Politician – Preparation of your talking points is a great way to take control and be active in the interview.

Friday: Your Thoughts

We’ll round out the week with a special Career Week Your Take question where you can share your best career tips with the rest of the Bargaineering readers.

(Photo: sanspoof)

Bargaineering Career Week 2009 from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

The average American spend over a week sitting in his or her car driving to or from work. It’s no wonder driving is more dangerous than flying, we spent over a week in the car just getting to and from work. This doesn’t count the time we spend on vacation, going out, whatever.

The longest commute belonged to citizens of East Stroudsburg, PA where many of the residents commute the 60 miles to work in NYC, spending 40.6 minutes a trip. The shortest belonged to folks of Grand Forks, ND where the average commute was a scant 14.3 minutes each way.

When I used to drive to work, mine was about 25 minutes to the home office each way. At one point I supported a client around the Washington DC area and my commute ranged anywhere from 45 minutes to several hours if the weather or traffic wasn’t cooperative. I passed the time listening to some audiobooks, sports talk radio, and/or NPR shows.

How long is your commute? And what do you use to kill the time?

(Photo: ethandb)

Your Take: How Long Is Your Commute? from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.