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Margaret Says

The secret to landing a job interview or indeed job offer

There are all these articles out there on the Internet, or even worse as actual books you have to BUY, telling you about “secret” things that apparently resume-reviewers want to see on resumes and cover letters. There are “secret” things you must remember to say, or then again, not say in interviews. Let’s not forget the “secret” things you have to mention in thank you letters. I haven’t quite figured out why consultants write like that. Is it to turn common-sense advice on how to find a job into  a whole mystique, so that you feel you HAVE to read

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I’m depressed…..Motivate me…..

I have always said that the worst job in the world is looking for a job. I mean, if you pin me against the wall and tell me there are actually worse, then yes, I guess I’m exaggerating. Working down a salt mine in a country with deficient safety standards is doubtless quite a bit worse. The point is, looking for a job IS a job. There’s no money coming in – in fact, it costs you to dress up and travel in for interviews – and you don’t necessarily get the satisfaction of doing good work the way you

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Why Merit? In fact, why staffing services at all?

Scenario 1: I’m intelligent – if you don’t believe me, just ask my mother. I have great skills, good experience. I’m a team player. Why, then, would I need a staffing service to help me find a job? Scenario 2: I’m intelligent – see Scenario 1…. I have great skills, good experience. I’m a team player. WHY CAN’T I FIND A JOB? Scenario 3: I went to a staffing service once, the Scuzz Bucket Employment Agency.  They were awful, lied to me and then stopped returning my calls. Why would I risk going to another? Basically, the answer to that

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Here’s the bad news…

You went on a job interview. You prepared/could have prepared a bit better. You dressed in your interview best/you couldn’t dress appropriately because your boss would have guessed immediately what you were up to. You did your best/you weren’t on your game and totally blew it. You were the best candidate around but they put the position on hold/you were not even close to being the best candidate around. You thought before the interview it was the ideal job/during the interview you realized this would be a horrible fit.   All of the above  scenarios have ended up in your not being offered the

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How to blow it… Part 2…Cover letters

Cover letters can be crucial to the success of your job search. They can bring out the specifics the company is seeking. They can give you the opportunity to highlight achievements that may not fit neatly into your resume. They can show that you have a pleasing command of the English language, with clear, cohesive sentences all joined together into attractive paragraphs. But an unfortunate cover letter can put paid to your interview chances even with a terrific resume. How to avoid the landmines……read on…..  1) The correct length. Remember Goldilocks; it has to be just right. Too long is bad,

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How did I blow it? Let me count the ways?**

**with apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her fabulous romantic sonnet, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”.       1) You didn’t do your homework.  Mr/Ms Google is going to go to straight to heaven for coming up with a search engine that tells you everything you wanted to know, and sometimes more than you wanted to know, about all companies and most people. Depending upon the job, it may indeed sometimes be necessary to wade your way through annual reports but there are usually bite-sized bits of interesting information for you to chuck around

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“Hello (insert name here). This is Merit”

We’re normal people. We have normal feelings though, frankly, some of my colleagues spend waaaay too much time looking at The Kardashians and American Idol. Maybe that makes THEM normal and me the one who’s out of sync with the world; that’s for another blog or possibly even a therapist’s couch. We’re here to find people — we call them candidates — jobs, and to help companies – we call them clients – fill their vacant positions. If we’re successful, the candidates send nice thank you cards, the company pays us a fee and that means we can pay our

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Just let me ask Snuffles…..

The last blog was about what not to say in interview, you know, the NORMAL dumb questions. This week, I thought I’d write about the absolute silliest things ever  that my colleagues have been told their candidates said on interview (not through Merit, I hasten to add)… You sometimes read articles like this on msn home page, but I thought I’d write about examples that I can swear actually happened (well, unless my colleagues were lying to me, of course, but that would never happen). I’d like to say that I’m relating these so you can learn from them. But

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So…what’s the salary?

I have previously written about what to do when you get asked the tough questions, and when you get asked the same questions several times by different people for a specific job. This week, I thought it would be helpful to talk in more general terms about what NOT to say in a interview. You have the chance to blow it at the end of an interview when the interviewer smiles and asks, “Have you any questions for me?” This is notthe time for you to be snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. On the contrary, it gives you

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You made your 2013 goals. Was one of them “Find new job”?

Last week I wrote about whether it was advisable to look for a new job in such a volatile economy —  and the answer was, basically, “Depends how strongly you want to move.” This week I’d like share my thoughts on New Year’s Resolutions. You may or may not have made any, you may or may not have kept to them or broken some of them. (Side track – at Lent each year, I give up dieting, and I always find the inner strength to stick to it). Let’s assume that the relevant 2013 resolution was to find a new

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Is it too risky to look for a job now in this economic climate?

It’s a judgment call. If you took no risks at all in life, you’d never leave the house – and even then you could fall down the stairs. If it weren’t for bad luck, some people would have no luck at all. So…what’s an unhappily employed person to do? First, take a few minutes to think through why you’re wanting to leave. Reasons, alas, abound. `      a)      You work in the Accounts Payable Department so you can see that your firm has a serious cash flow   problem.         b)      You work in the Chairman’s Office and

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Resume words that help your cause

Hiring managers want to hire people who will do the job well and, unless they want/need to hire a relative, the procedure to find that special someone can involve a resume, interviews and references. If your resume doesn’t jump out from the competition, then forget the interview and reference stages. What makes a resume stand out? Not gimmicks….no lay-out initiatives that have your sterling qualities in cute boxes down the side of the sheet, no 4-color displays. One exception to this is graphic artists. They are not using gimmicks, they are show-casing their expertise. HR and line managers like to see readable

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