As a career marketing professional, I coach clients and teach college classes on the importance of networking in your job search. Today we recognize networking comes in many forms and includes both online and in-person networking. For the past three years, I have expanded and experimented with my online networking skills and definitely grew a healthy and helpful network. In-person networking in my life has been la...

NO! You can’t write the same cover letter for every job. It then is just an extra document, extra page, with no extra information. Almost every day I get this question from a client or inquirer: Can I use the same cover letter for all of them? or “Just write me a cover letter” (and some of those people don’t even bother to find a job they are targeting first. The confusion about what a cover letter is and is not never seems...

One of the AmeriCorps members asked a common question: What’s the cut off (time of years passed) when a job is no longer applicable on a resume? And what about training classes or memberships? This is a common question because my clients ask it all the time. Here are some of the points to remember when putting things on your resume or taking them off and some ways to use old information. One rule of thumb for p...

Nothing is more frustrating as a job seeker than sending an e-mail out and not getting a response or even knowing if it was received.You might be doing several thing to block you from even getting to the employer’s inbox and you could look more professional when your e-mail does arrive in the inbox.#1. Your e-mail address should be your name and it should be on your resume as part of the header. If your name is John Smith,...

Today I spent the day in the hospital waiting while my husband, Bill, had outpatient surgery. Since I am not good at waiting, I packed plenty of work, books, my phone, and my laptop to keep me company while I waited.InterconnectedI certainly wasn’t alone. The easily accessible wifi connected me with my e-mail and my Facebook status let my network know where I was and what was going on. I talked to clients via e-mail, talked...

Meet Beau and Titan, the visiting Newfoundland puppies who come to be socialized with Teddy, our German Shepherd. Beau and Titan belong to Lee, a friend of my sons, and his dad. Titan is Lee’s and Beau is his dad’s puppy.At 10 weeks old, they compete to get the same toys. Even when I give them identical toys, they fight to get the one the other one has. Lee insists that Titan is the alpha male but I see Beau (red collar) sh...

When you are self-employed, the phrase feast or famine is common place.Since I have been self-employed longer than most people are employed, I have heard it a lot.Along with feast and famine comes downpour or drought, nothing or almost too much.For the employed, it may feel the same way — too many work projects, swimming in paperwork, or overwhelmed with details or e-mails.And if you should go from employed to suddenly unem...

Yesterday, I picked raspberries at my father-in-law Bob’s house. The raspberries are early this year. In other years, the raspberries were at their peak during the week of the fair in early August. But spring came early and so did the raspberries.No ordinary raspberry patchBob has no ordinary raspberry patch with just a few bushes. It feels like a jungle in there. I picked for over an hour, emptying my container several tim...

One day last week, this little blue jay flew over to my window and perched for a few minutes on my screen. I’ve never seen a baby blue jay before. I believe he was in the middle of flying lessons from his parents and made a wrong turn.Since then, I have seen his brother (or sister) and the littlest blue jay flying around my neighborhood with mom and dad blue jay, practicing short little jaunts from branch to branch, sometim...

The telephone has always played an important role in the job search but since cell phones have changed the rules somewhat, let’s revisit how to best use your phone in the job search.Q: Should I put my cell phone number on the resume?In today’s world, you need your cell phone on the resume. Most business calls are returned during daytime hours. You need a number that a hiring manager can easily access during the day. If your...