Blue Sky Resumes

Before Tuesday night’s American Idol premiere, I knew precisely 3 things about Victoria Beckham (aka Posh Spice):
1) She used to be the in Spice Girls.
2) She’s married to David Beckham.
3) She’s a clueless and cold-hearted clothes hanger with no personality.
I have no idea where I got that last one from because I have never paid [...]

Every now and then, one of my clients sends their resume in to another service for a critique. When they send it to some places, they get an honest response – usually saying ‘this is great and you don’t need any more help.’ But when they send it to one of the big resume mills [...]

Do you prefer the word ‘reduced’ to the word ‘cut’?
Given the choice, would you use “generated savings of…” or “saved”?
I ask because recently I edited some website copy for someone who preferred big words to short ones and long, complex sentences to concise ones.
I’m the opposite. I think simplicity is the key to good communication [...]

Regular readers know that American Idol is my guilty pleasure and last night, the show provided a rare surprise – despite the fact that producers and judges had been hyping a finale between Danny Gokey and Adam Lambert all season, a dark horse contestant sneaked in under the wire, beat one of the two the [...]

A couple of days ago, I described my frustration at the lack of personalized responses to my ad for a designer. Commenter Mose suggested that instead of just venting, I actually explain how to customize your resume. Good idea! So I’ve taken a resume I had on my desk (disguised of course) and we’re going [...]

I read this post from Michael Martine (aka Remarkablogger) while half-watching American Idol.
Yeah, yeah I know – Idol is cheesy. There are better things to do with my time. I know. But I watch it anyway, so shoot me. I’ve watched it for 4 years actually and I’m to the point where I can tell [...]

The last time I wrote a post about the concept of personal branding, I received several comments from people who disagreed with my point of view. Some commenters assured me that personal branding isn’t about making up an image, but is about communicating who you authentically are. And I think communicating who you authentically are [...]

We all know that networking is the #1 way to get a new job. Everyone says so! But what if you’re shy and hate doing it?
I’m just like that. The idea of networking always terrified me. When I started my business, I knew I’d have to make new contacts and revive old ones, and so [...]