Margaret Says – Page 4 – Merit Personnel & Consulting

Resume words I never want to see again

There are certain words that are used soooo often in resumes they have become meaningless. They are generic and don’t show the reader WHY you are using them. Point A) You think that the reader will take your word for it? Ain’t happening. Point B) Your resume may be the 15th that morning that the Human Resources Department has scanned quickly through (you think they all give you a good three minutes/resume? HAH!). If there’s been nothing to stop them using it to line the trash can, then that’s what it’ll do. Here is some of the most popular resume

January 2, 2013 10:14AM

Potty-mouth…to swear or not to swear

Those of you who know me will be snorting in derision at the thought that I , Margaret, Queen of the vulgar, obscene, inappropriate language will be offering advice on what naughty words NOT to use in interview and, if you’re lucky enough to get the job, in those crucial first few months of employment. Not that you should refrain from swearing for 90 days and then feel that you can legitimately let rip. But once a company knows and loves you, they are more likely to smile indulgently at the little oopsies. We live in a world that is

December 26, 2012 11:09AM

End of year, should you end your job search?

End of year ≠ end of job search Btw, ≠ is mathematical for “does not equal”. But you all knew that, right? Don’t give up on looking for a job just because it’s End of Year/Holiday Season. I touched on this in a previous thread – it’s always some sort of holiday, Thanksgiving, July 4th , your parents’ 40th anniversary, and you can’t afford to stop looking. You have to keep the antennae waving around if only because there will be other job seekers out there who decide that this is the ideal time for them to be sneakily sending

December 17, 2012 9:30AM

Do motivational speakers make you barf?

Some of them are just dandy and help you through crises in your lives. Sometimes they even help you focus your career thoughts. But some are a bit, er ahem cough cough, a bit nauseating – of course, if you disagree, and think it’s just Margaret being her usual cynical self, let me know. I welcome criticism (I’m going to get struck down for THAT lie). H-o-w-e-v-e-r, there are nuggets of wisdom and helpful advice in the midst of all that syrup and over-the-top verbiage. Let’s come up with some frinstances for interviewing technique, class. These are headings (well, I

December 5, 2012 1:05PM

Put off the job search till things get better?

I could make this a very short blog this week by writing “Are you INSANE?” and leave it at that. But let’s try to figure out why all those Internet pundits who get paid to write Human Resource/recruitment/life coaching articles based on common sense seem to have lost theirs. Here are the arguments for holding off. You might already have seen rubbish articles on the Internet along these lines. You’re tired out from looking, and just feel stale. It’s a jungle out there. Take a break. The economy will be a lot better by 2013. (Depends who becomes President, doesn’t

October 22, 2012 8:32AM

They hire by PERSONALITY?

Yup, that they do. Think about it, lads and lassies. Let’s start with the more mundane jobs – I don’t want to offend anyone with what I consider mundane but e.g. if you’re a minimum-wage barista, then you have to be pleasant to customers, or you’ll start affecting their revenue as customers disappear to the shop a couple of blocks away. You have to be nice to colleagues, too: My local supermarket has in recent months lost lots of friendly, helpful check-out staff because they couldn’t take the less-than-adorable store manager. At the other end of the scale, CEOs known

October 15, 2012 8:24AM

I’ve been out of work for, er, ahem, QUITE some time

There have always been reasons that resumes stop w–a–y before the actual date they were sent out to prospective employers. With today’s economy, that has never been more the case. We’re not talking out of work for a few months here, sometimes now it’s two and three years. Do you not say anything on your resume about the recent gap, and hope that no-one minds? If what you have been doing sounds really lame to you, do you think you should write it down anyway because you think you have to tell them something? Do you think that every minute

October 8, 2012 8:25AM

“I hate my job”

Maybe you have, alas, very good reasons to hate your job. Maybe it’s not as bad as you think but you hate it anyway. It doesn’t matter why and let’s not make this week’s blog a real downer with listing all sorts of ghastly reasons why you just HAVE to win the lottery. The point is you want a new job NOW. Staffing services are here to help and they’ll try to find a good match and get you out of your Slough of Despond** as quickly as possible. But more of the jobs these days are temp-to-perm. I am stating quite

October 1, 2012 8:12AM

What Not To Wear….Say….Do….

….today’s lesson, gals and guys, will be to talk about the wrongstuff when you visit an employment agency. First, though, please, a word about employment agencies from our point of view. We are here to help you find jobs, and to help our clients find the very best people to fill those jobs. We help our candidates, for free, with their resumes, with their interview techniques, with advice on how not to blow it. Candidates for their part should recognize that, friendly, helpful, and sometimes informal though we might be, we are still interviewing you, just as our clients do.

September 10, 2012 8:51AM

5 resume dos, 5 resume don’ts

5 dos: Bullet points. The days of prose to give an overview of your job are gone the way of the dodo (and, if we don’t watch out, the tiger and the polar bear. But that’s for a whole other blog). Remember that whoever is looking over your resume has limited time to ooh and aah over it, and wants to see accomplishments, level of responsibility, and NUMBERS. My, do employers like their numbers…more of that later…. Start with a punchy verb that’s action-focused. Grab the reviewer’s attention. Examples of action verbs

September 4, 2012 8:23AM

To proof or not to proof…

You’d think it was a given, wouldn’t you, that you should carefully proof your resume? But a depressing number of resumes that end up in front of me have mistakes in them. Some minor, some pretty horrendous. Two of my favorite examples: a) Two proofreaders who managed to misspell the word proofreading on their resumes. I mean, what were the odds? And b) a candidate who wrote at the top of the resume, in bold, upper case “DETAIL ORIENTED SLEF MOTIVATED.” Second phrase rather disproved the first one, didn’t it? It didn’t gain the owner any Brownie points but it

August 27, 2012 9:17AM