When looking for a new position, your resume is quite often your very first opportunity to sell yourself to a recruiter or a prospective employer. But most people don't update their resume until the very moment that it's needed. For instance, you've lost your job and need to quickly find a new one. Or you are stably employed, but a job that you are very interested in has just presented itself. In either case, the situation needs to be acted on … [Read more...]

Possibly the most important question you could be asking yourself as you prepare for an interview is, “What makes me a really good fit for this role?” A hiring manager will almost always make a hiring decision based on the gut feeling that the interviewee is a really good fit for their role. So, shouldn’t you be prepared to demonstrate to them that you are that candidate? A “good fit” is generally based on three things: skill, culture, and being … [Read more...]

With an industry as dynamic and fluid as Information Technology, there will certainly be a degree of forgiveness when a resume shows a position or two lasting a couple of years or less. But unless properly positioned, a resume filled with short-term roles will give the impression that you are a job hopper—and it is not uncommon for a hiring manager to decline a resume for that one reason alone. Following are three sure-fire methods to … [Read more...]

Recently, my wife was getting ready to leave for the airport to fly out for a job interview. As I was carrying her luggage out to the car, I offered up all the best advice I could offer in the two minutes or less that I had available to me. Here's what I had to say. Make sure your shoes are polished. I thought out loud as I looked down at my beat-up gardening boots over on the door mat. In my wife's case, however, there was no need to speak of … [Read more...]

What a Hiring Manager Should See In the technical staffing side of our business, when we submit a candidate to a company we forward over at least two pieces of information: 1) a resume, and 2) a paragraph or two of notes highlighting how this candidate is a great fit for the position (in essence, a "cover letter"). This information will either get sent directly to the hiring manager or it will be sent to someone in HR who will review and then … [Read more...]