Blue Sky Resumes

Earlier this year, Susan Boyle became famous for being able to sing well even though she was neither young nor pretty (apparently we find this surprising!). Simon Cowell rolled his eyes when she first walked on stage to sing on his TV talent show The X-Factor, although he soon warmed to her when she began [...]

In my last post in this series, I talked about how you can use VisualCV to put your resume online. Creating a VisualCV is an important step in establishing yourself online, but as I mentioned in that post, you also need to find ways to make sure you rank highly for your own name in [...]

I’ve seen some great pieces on the Susan Boyle phenomenon and all make sense. (If you don’t know who Susan Boyle is, go here first). This one by Letti Cottin Pogrebin suggests that Susan makes middle-aged women cry because she represents a triumph over ageism. I wonder about this – like many people, I’ve watched [...]

The people who do well in the world’s biggest karaoke show might not seem to have much in common at first glance. In recent years we’ve had indie rockers, country singers, R&B, southern rock, pop … and this year we have everything from a a gay glam rocker to a church-going widower, but all these [...]

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 [...]

If you’re not using Twitter, you’re not alone. Although the social networking site is growing at a rapid pace, it is still far smaller than giants like Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace. And yet it may provide more opportunities for job seekers than any of those sites. To understand why, you first need to understand how [...]

A reader writes: 2008 has been a strange year for me. I was laid off in January then found another job in April with a new company and was laid off just the other week. How should I address this on my resume and in interviews? Is it better to have a gap on your [...]

Just finishing with a client who loves his new resume. He’s thrilled with my work and says he’ll tell everyone he knows – which is a surprise to me because honestly I started out thinking he was unhappy with my service. When I first sent his resume, his response was: Thanks for the resume. Please [...]