Email Cover Letters

Most resumes are transmitted these days by email. Paper resumes are used at interviews or upon request by recruiters. But what about cover letters? When you send your resume by email, the content of the email itself serves as the cover letter. Due to the nature of email communications, however, it is necessary to be [...]

Resume Length – Myths and Facts

One of the most common questions posed to professional resume writers is “How long should my resume be?” The answer to that question is “As long as it needs to be”. For years and years, there was a rule that resumes should not be over one page in length. That worked just fine when career [...]

Career Change?

Are you considering a career change? If so, you are not alone. Statistics show that the American worker will change jobs at least 11 times in his/her lifetime and will change complete career fields three times. Whereas 20 or 30 years ago, workers went to work for one company and stayed with that company until [...]

Discover Who is Hiring in Your Field

If you have explored our website, you will notice there is a Job Search Checklist that we provide to help you in getting organized in your job search. Part of the checklist involves homework on companies to find out who is hiring. Many job seekers are flummoxed by this assignment and do not know how [...]

Education on a Resume

The Education and Training section on a resume often provides a hurdle to job seekers but it is really the easiest section to create on a resume. The question of GPA arises as does what training to include and what training should be excluded. Should seminars and conferences be included? What about individual classes?
The [...]

W2 Conundrum

Dear Career-Resumes®,
I have gone through two interviews for a position as a Branch Manager and now the prospective employer has asked for my W2 form from ’04. Why does he want it and should I provide it?
Puzzled
Marion, IN
Dear Puzzled,
You did not say what you would be a Branch Manager of in your post if you [...]

Common Resume Goofs

Since the age of personal computers and spell-check features, most people have gotten lazy about proofreading their writing. If the computer doesn’t catch it, then why worry about it? The staffing service Accountemps recently conducted a survey of hiring executives and found that the most common mistake seen on resumes was typos. Sometimes, lenient hiring [...]

You Get What You Pay For

One of the hardest arguments we professional resume writers have with job seekers is the argument that a professional resume is a good investment. Most of our clients have college degrees and/or work in white collar positions where writing memos, reports, and analyses is part of their daily jobs. It is difficult to jump the [...]

Recruiters 101 – Part Two

In Part One, we outlined the basic job description of a recruiter and how recruiters are paid. We also mentioned that working with recruiters is often a matter of numbers since the types of jobs for which recruiters source vary from day to day. A recruiter might be given an assignment to source candidates for [...]

Recruiters 101 – Part One

Most job seekers we work with do not have a fundamental understanding of how executive recruiters (also known as headhunters) actually work. Most people are under the wrong impression that executive recruiters work to benefit the job seeker. Because of this assumption, job seekers get upset when they do not get speedy replies or feedback [...]