Cover Letters

Here’s how one company takes a multimedia approach to personal branding. A few years ago, the idea of posting a video highlighting your professional and academic achievements online was regarded as a novelty. Some job seekers tried it, but they risked public scorn. Aleksey Vayner was perhaps the best-known poster child for video resumes gone … Read More

Before you face the hiring manager, you’ll probably spend some time on the phone with the company’s HR department. Here’s what it takes to win them over. If your resume passes muster for a job to which you’ve applied, a phone screen will probably be your next stop. Human-resources and hiring managers just don’t have … Read More

Employers already know your goal is to get a job, so ditch the objective statement and instead write a summary that compels them to read on. Are you “looking to obtain a challenging position that will facilitate your work ethic”? “Seeking to obtain this challenging position in,” oh, let’s say the music industry? Perhaps you … Read More

If you’re not scoring many interviews by applying for jobs and forwarding your resume to HR, try more creative means to get the hiring manager’s attention. Got your eye on a specific job? Don’t want your resume to get lost in the shuffle? There are ingenious methods of getting an employer’s attention through the side … Read More

Do cover letters matter? Do recruiters and human resources managers even look at the correspondence that accompanies your resume and job application? The answers vary widely even among career experts and HR pros, many of whom have strong opinions on the matter. At one extreme: Susan Cucuzza, a business coach with Live Forward and formerly … Read More

Michigan job seeker Connie Corwin grew tired of being stumped on interviews, so she made her own prep list of questions and answers for every eventuality. Getting a job interview turned out to be less of a hurdle than Connie Corwin expected when she began her first job search in three decades. Corwin, a member … Read More

Putting a ‘Career Objectives’ section at the top may be passé, but your resume should still be structured to tell the story of your career path. A waitress wants to move into corporate training. A librarian hungers for a job with more emphasis on history, her passion. A computer programmer plots how to make the … Read More

Use a signature color to build your personal brand. Color is one implement in your personal-branding toolbox that will help express brand attributes and create emotional connections with hiring managers and recruiters. Deployed intelligently, color can help you stand out in a job search. Once you think of yourself as a brand, you require a … Read More

In the wake of one of the worst economic downturns in our nation’s history, big gaps between gainful employment tenures aren’t unusual or unexpected. Read More