By Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter It is human nature in job search – as in dating – to want to keep your options open. Many job seekers, whether early-career and fairly inexperienced or 15+ years in and heralding a plethora of different functional strengths, feel they will limit their opportunities by narrowing their job search target. In fact, […]
Resolving Resume Confusion
By Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter While the futurists vie for the first-place ribbon in having predicted the resume’s demise, the resume heart beats strong. Social Profiles Are Modes of Transportation For Your Resume The primary challenge with many articles written by these forward-thinking bloggers is that they want to present a replacement to the resume when, in fact, they’re simply suggesting […]
Why Legislating Resume Writing Is Wrong
By Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter While I write resumes for a living, I realize (and prefer) that it isn’t “my way or the highway.” How bland of a career marketing world would it be if every resume was written by some formulaic approach? Unfortunately, though, myriad people seem to want to legislate resume writing into a tiny […]
The Painful Process of Naming Yourself
By Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter I hear it repeatedly, how painful and intellectually rigorous my writing processes are. Collaborating with clients on their career stories, I hear that my career-intel gathering phase is both “demanding” and “mind-bending.” However, I have learned, over the years, that if such feedback is absent, then I probably am not doing […]
Pink Tennis Shoes and Resumes
By Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter I recently bought a pair of (hot-pink) Nike tennis shoes. I researched, consulted with the sports store pros and tried on several pairs to ensure a confident purchasing decision. On the heels of a focused 12-month exercise and fitness journey that has reinforced the value of strong, capable footwear, I needed to […]
Get Over Yourself When Writing Your Resume
By Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter It may seem counterintuitive to take the focus off of YOU when writing a value-packed resume. However, since a resume is a personal marketing document masterfully written to ignite the reader’s interest, you must focus fully on THEIR (hiring decision maker’s, owner’s, manager’s) needs and wants. Deeply dig into their needs — […]
Not All Career Advice Is Good: 10 Tips to Ignore
By Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter “There’s a lot of bad advice out there.” “As somebody who has helped people find jobs for over 15 years, I’m amazed at the number of myths that still float around.” These are just two of the eight comments on my recent post challenging 10 of the ‘career expert’ myths that float […]
Unraveling the Resume Keyword-Packing Myth
By Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter Analyzing applicant tracking systems and stuffing your resume full of keywords are popular activities right now. In reality, the purported “science of resumes” and the idea you must perform a hairsplitting task of gaming your resume to meet algorithmic settings are both exaggerations, in my experience. While you certainly must sprinkle words […]
Are There Cracks in Your Career Communications Strategy?
By Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter Shedding light on your target audience, becoming intimate with your own value and drumming up muscular career stories that transport your reader all are essential action steps to forge a rock-solid resume. This foundational aspect of today’s job search helps prevent job-search flops and missteps and keep your career messaging infrastructure solid. […]
Your Resume: Be the Red Balloon in a Field of Yellow Ones
By Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter It seems so simple, doesn’t it? After all, who better knows where you’ve been and what you’ve done than you? Open up your Word file and dump all that information into a pleasing format, forward it to a prospective employer or two, then sit back and wait for the phone to ring. Before you hit “send” […]