As regular readers know, I’m fond of ranting about outdated career advice that somehow continues to circulate. Over at U.S. News & World Report today, I talk about 10 pieces of career advice that are outdated and that you should ignore.
And #1 will seem awfully familiar to the 155 of you (!) who weighed in on the heated landline versus cell phone debate here last week.
You can check it out here.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Can you provide some example answers to the “What’s your weakness” questions? In this job market I don’t think anyone wants to market themselves as being weak in any aspect of their job. Or- maybe what you’re saying is that vulnerability is the key?
Here you go:
http://www.askamanager.org/2007/08/how-to-answer-what-are-your-weaknesses.html
As a recent college graduate who has conducted a (successful!) job search over the last couple of years, all of these things just make me cringe… I wonder how they ever were a good idea, like spandex.
I was so relieved when I first read your advice to skip the resume objective. Ever since I wrote my first resume at 15 I absolutely hated the “objective” section. They seemed weird and pointless to me then, and still do.
FYI – I saw an ad in the paper the other day for a legitimate company asking applicants to mail (snail mail!) their cover letters and resumes. The company provided the mailing address and to whom to address it.
I’m wondering about deleting jobs from one’s resume. Does that prevent employers from contacting a former employer who might not have nice things to say? And assuming it’s not a large time gap, could it be explained like any other gap (for example, I was volunteering or I was obtaining more professional training)?
I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that hiring managers don’t expect every single job you’ve ever had to be on your resume. The gap doesn’t necessarily need to be explained on the resume, although you might be asked about it in the interview.
There’s no foolproof way to make sure a prospective employer won’t find out about and contact all of your previous employers. I certainly wouldn’t lie about the gap – you have a good chance of successfully explaining away a job that was a poor fit or whatever, but not explaining away the lying.
I never list all my jobs on my resume. Some of them wouldn’t be relevant, and some I don’t want to do ever again. I had a long period of unemployment when I made ends meet by temping, and then took a permanent job which lasted 3 months. I just lopped that time into my temping category.