Resume Tips

By Leslie Anglesey Your resume may only be a single page, but it's a potential minefield when it comes to your career. On one hand, you want enough information so the employer sees what a stellar candidate you are. On the other, you don't want to step into any pitfalls that will give the hiring manager reason...

By Robert Half International There are certain resume words and phrases that have become so ubiquitous they do little more than induce yawns and eye rolls from hiring managers. Employers are so accustomed to hearing from "team players" and "problem solvers," for example, that those descriptions are now...

By Anna Pitts Applying for jobs is a challenging task, one made all the more difficult when you know your recruiter has dozens of other applicants to consider. Instead of getting lost in the crowd, here are some things you can do to fast-track your resume to the front of a long queue:

Shouldn't it be easy to get a job if you are more than qualified -- even overqualified -- for the opportunity? If you're an experienced engineer with a Ph.D. and you're having trouble landing an entry-level engineering job, it can be tough on your morale. However, you should not be surprised when employers don't...

The tough economy has forced many people to reconsider their careers. For some, that's meant gaining additional skills to hang on to a job, but others -- sometimes through no fault of their own -- have found that they have to consider a whole new career path. But explaining to a potential employer that you...

The death of paper resumes has been predicted ever since the advent of email. And now some tech-savvy employers are even refusing to look at traditional resumes or conduct in-person interviews, instead relying on applicants' postings on Twitter in the pursuit of top talent. Known in some circles as...

By Vivian Giang When you apply for a job at a larger firm, there's a high chance that your resume will be scanned by a filtering software for words related to certain job vacancies. This kind of automation process will also reject your resume if it doesn't "meet traditional, business-dictated document...

I've been at the career-reinvention wheel for nearly two months now, and I've applied for exactly one job. That's because I'm rethinking my new identity and direction. Last week I made a major leap forward as a result of talking to Karen Kang, a personal-branding guru and author of BrandingPays: The Five-Step...

There's nothing like a 90-minute session with a resume maven to point out how little you know about your own accomplishments-or how lame you look on paper. I knew I needed help, but when Miriam Salpeter, a job and social media coach, began her critique, my head started spinning.

Face facts: Some people will never read your cover letter. The rest of the people may trash your resume if it does not include a cover letter. Others will value the cover letter over all other application materials. Since you can't know for sure which type of employer or recruiter will receive and review your...

About 85 million Americans work as white-collar professionals in the private sector, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

By Vivian Giang If you're applying for a position at a larger firm, your resume will likely be among hundreds - or even thousands - that recruiters receive, and if you don't use the right keywords, you'll risk a chance of never crossing a recruiter's radar. More and more companies are using a...

By Brad Hoover Your tie is straight and your hair is neat. You've practiced that perfect handshake. You're more than ready to dazzle a potential employer ... but none of that matters if you haven't yet gotten the call for an interview. Remember: It's not only your experience or skills that will make or...

Conventional wisdom holds that job searching during the holidays is a huge waste of time. Employers simply don't hire this time of year, the thinking goes, so those in the job market often take December off, resolving to start fresh in the new year. But waiting may not be wise. A recent survey of executive...

Zillions of resumes are useless except perhaps for lining a bird cage's floor. The main cause? Resume advice has changed little over the decades, so most resumes today feel moldy, cliche-larded, as if spewed from resume software or a hired gun from the disco era.

By Beth Braccio-Hering Duncan Mathison, co-author of "Unlock the Hidden Job Market: Six Steps to a Successful Job Search When Times Are Tough," recalls working with an ex-Navy SEAL who was trying to land a civilian job. "He realized that most people thought his skills consisted of landing on beaches and...

When it comes to the challenges of job hunting, simply getting your resume before a hiring manager can be an obstacle. Too few job seekers, however, are adept at making their experience and talents stand out on the page. One example is the resume of Alex Doe (a pseudonym), below. He leads with a "summary of...

Ever ace an interview only to find out you didn't get the job? If so, you likely asked yourself a lot of questions about what went wrong: Did I talk about myself too much? Was my handshake too aggressive or too weak? Did I wear the wrong outfit? The painful truth is that it probably wasn't any of those...

It's not always easy determining which information to include on a resume -- and in which order. Air National Guardsman Clay Doe, a pseudonym, thought that listing his planned bachelor of science degree was a priority, which is why he included it as the first item on his resume. But Doe would do better to...

By Susan Ricker If you just bought new, expensive resume paper, you've already made a job-search mistake. Most job applications and resumes are submitted online now -- one of countless new trends in the modern hiring process. Many job seekers are using outdated job-search practices, risking the impression...