Are You Just One of the Herd? The “LinkedIn-Is-Your-Resume” Debate Continues. By Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter “My goal — and what attracted me to your website — is that you can portray the essence of who I am. It’s not just skill, but it is everything else that I bring to the table – my attitude – all of the life experience, the drive, the energy that I have. I...

DIGGING OUT FROM UNDER THE SNOW STORM OF JOB LOSS I’ve known loss. Haven’t we all? A blizzard storms through our lives, creating paralyzing white-out conditions. In my life, a painful storm from which I not only survived but from which ashes I arose to rebuild a new and BETTER life, occurred when my first husband requested a divorce. Within months, I...

MATCH(.COM) YOUR WAY TO A NEW JOB! FIRST IMPRESSIONS MATTER First impressions matter in dating and job search. I know this all too well as I have moved through dozens of first-date impressions during the seven years following my divorce and before I remarried in 2008. My husband, Rob, and I met online via Match.com. Besides the...

Does your job currency stand out like a shiny coin? According to Altan Khendup, senior technology leader, strategist and advocate in Silicon Valley, California, when people think you’re interesting, they start listening; they become engaged, and then you can inject your pitch and your value. I’ve had the pleasure of keeping in touch with this...

You can thrive in, not just survive, an economic slogging! As co-coordinator with my colleague Miriam Salpeter, I am pleased to participate in our second round of posts from our community of expert career advisors and resume writing professionals called the Career Collective. This month’s articles are in response to Quintessential Careers Job Action Day. I...

I’m not a career coach, and that’s okay Okay, so by default, I weave guidance into my in-depth resume writing processes that smacks of coaching.  Recently, Recruiting Animal (@Animal) took note of this in his blog post: “The Resume Writer.” However, today, I beg to differentiate myself: I am a word wrangler, message clarifier and...

Don’t Be a “People Person” In Your Job Search I understand the impulse to flesh out one’s career value with sweeping generalities: I’m a people person (or, I’m really good with people; or, I like people). I’m very strategic. I’m attentive to detail. I’m very organized. I’m results oriented. I’m innovative. I think outside the...

Six Tips to Hit Your Job-Target Bullseye After a recent consultation with a job seeker, I was inspired to post the following on Twitter (via @ValueIntoWords): Often hear re: job target, “I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.” Take a stand, be somebody~focus on a bullseye. Harry Urschel, also a Twitterer via @eExecutives and...

Einstein, Bob Marley and Me As I sat watching the cars whiz by me on the interstate, I envied them all their 4 good tires, all full of air going around and around, 70 miles per hour plus. I, on the other hand, had only three, which is why I am here, on the shoulder of the highway I had only moments ago been on. Air conditioning...

Disengaging from Job-Search Crisis Mode Do you know that person? The one consistently in crisis? The one whose voice is always a pitch or two above their normal when explaining their day to day challenges? Someone who is never quite satisfied and always  the victim or simply the sad sack with little hope? Though we all, as humans,  share a given...