Many facets of the job interview appear to not have changed over time – the awkward wait in the reception area, the small talk (though small talk actually has a big impact), the common questions like, “Tell Me About Yourself.” However, in the 20+ years that I have been recruiting, I have noticed five ways [...]

After several years at a top management consulting firm, my engineer client moved rapidly up the ranks of a start-up from operations to project management to head of business development, until slow growth and slower fundraising made him realize that he not only was not going to have the big exit story to tell at [...]

Jeff asks: My daughter is 28, married and has been at 6 figures for 4 years.  She is 6 hours from us, their closest family.  Her husband’s family is 12 hours or an expensive flight. They have had their 1st child. She recently asked me about quitting her job and coming home to join the [...]

Just like it makes sense to regularly update your resume, you want to regularly update your other career branding tools, including your LinkedIn profile. If you’re in job search mode, the target audience for your LinkedIn profile is the recruiter. You want recruiters to find your profile when they do research, and you want your [...]

Employers and recruiters are impressed when a candidate has done research in advance and has knowledge of the company s/he is applying to. Just like a personal relationship grows when you take time and effort to learn about the other person, when you take the time and effort to learn about a company, you demonstrate [...]

In my 20+ years of recruiting, most candidates don’t practice enough for a job interview, so overwork is not a common problem. If you are looking for a job and not currently doing any interview practice, you want to do some preparation ASAP and not worry about sounding overly rehearsed. (You can start with these [...]

Brand name employers and education are a powerful way to make your resume stand out, but not the only way to make a positive first impression. Brand names include Fortune 500 companies, top-tier universities, high-profile start-ups and other household names that are easily recognizable by a wide variety of people. These places are presumably hard [...]

If you’re an experienced professional, you might only think of your alma mater during a reunion year or when a fundraising pitch comes in the mail. If you’re a recent graduate, you might have used your university career services during campus recruiting, but since you’re ineligible for that now you fall out of touch. However, [...]

  Most job interviews include at least one negative interview question: What is your biggest weakness? Tell me about a project where something went wrong. What is the biggest mistake you made? The interviewer is looking for habits, qualities or skill deficiencies that might hinder your ability to do the job. In addition, the interviewer [...]