Are You Hogtying Your Writer?

Posted on January 22, 2012 by The Résumé Studio

I love writing résumés. With a passion. So I usually want to hang finished documents on the wall and stare at them all day.

Occasionally, however, I want to shred them into tiny bits and sprinkle them into the recycling bin.

I’ve often wondered: what’s the difference?

I’m the same person, after all. How can I feel like I’m producing exceptional work one moment, then no matter how hard I try, crank out a document that I don’t like?

Not that the work is flawed. Not that it doesn’t work for the client.

It’s just uninspired.

One day, it clicked.

The difference is the willingness of the subject to collaborate. To give the right amount of input. To trust. To allow. To be willing to face questions under a new lens and get creative.

Most of my clients give me the freedom to lead a project. In fact, they require my expertise as a former executive search consultant. They expect that the project won’t happen in a vacuum. They demand that I consider and shape context.

But from time to time, a client impedes every step of the process and rules with an iron will. In the end, it feels a bit like that client simply pays handsomely for dictation.

Here are some ideas to consider next time you hire a writer.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Job Search Tips, Resume Updates | Leave a comment »

Google Alerts Job Search Blooper?

Posted on January 15, 2012 by The Résumé Studio

Over Christmas dinner 2011, a friend asked my advice about the best way to jumpstart her job search in the New Year.  

I listed networking as my absolute number one recommendation.

I also mentioned my aversion to posting one’s résumé online for reasons including potential identity theft.

At the same moment, her husband closed his phone and said, “Interesting you say that. I was just alerted that a colleague is looking for a new job.”

“Really? How?” We all asked.

Troy, who leads marketing and PR for his company, said: “The Google Alert set for our firm just pointed me to a colleague’s résumé, which she apparently uploaded to Monster.com.”

Everybody at the table stopped eating, agape. Forks mid-air. Continue reading →

Filed under: Job Search Tips, Online Privacy | 2 Comments »

Slow Down, Motor-mouth!

Posted on December 11, 2011 by The Résumé Studio

It was 6:45 p.m. more than a decade ago, and I’d just met for coffee with the board president of a New York organization where I was helping assess the prospects for a turnaround.

She had 20 minutes to spare, but I had at least an hour of details to hammer through. Staff to be paid. Deadlines to be met.

At 70 m.p.h, I relayed budget numbers and donor strategy, program results and marketing plans, government funding gaps and vendor relationships.

How to Conduct a Professional Conversation

Too fast!

At about 10 minutes in, she took a sip of tea, blinked, and asked me to slow down.

“What?” I thought. Here was the general counsel of a New York hedge fund. Couldn’t she keep up?

I slowed down and we spent the next ten minutes profitably.

As we parted, she leaned in: “You know I like you. But if I’d just met you, I wouldn’t have been impressed during those first ten minutes.”

Call it New York. Call it the lawyer in her. Whatever. Call it right.

What she saw was this:  Continue reading →

Filed under: Job Search Tips, Mostly Young Professionals | Leave a comment »

How to Write a Great LinkedIn Recommendation

Posted on December 4, 2011 by The Résumé Studio

How to write a great LinkedIn recommendationEver been asked to write a LinkedIn recommendation for a friend or colleague?

It’s flattering, right? Until you realize how much work it can involve. How many questions it elicits when you finally sit down to write “what should be simple.”

As with all writing, developing a strategy before going in is an essential start. For this article I’ve lifted directly from my own LinkedIn profile.

Start With Who They Are

In the screenshot below, you’ll notice that I’ve recommended five people to date. Three show up as teaser lines, prompting you to click for more.

Writing LinkedIn recommendations

From My Own LinkedIn Profile

So what do you notice about the copy? Each leads with what the subject brings to the world, professionally.

Victoria Ekegren Ahlén (CEO of social media agency Awoque) and I went to school together. I’ve since admired her work from afar, but since we went to school together, I can’t speak directly about her work today.

However, I remember Victoria from college as a smart woman who cares deeply about things that matter, she is also a person of immense integrity. Her international perspective helped me see beyond my own backyard all those years ago.

So it took time to develop a strategy for Victoria’s recommendation, but I finally led with “even before she was a branding guru,” which gets who she is out the gate fast. By framing it this way, I acknowledged her now, in a way that lets me speak authentically about Victoria as I know her.

You’ll notice the same approach when I wrote recommendations for my virtual assistant, Kandace Friesen of Friesen Virtual Assistants and my graphic / web designer, Jennifer Quinton of Quinton Design Studio. In each example, the reader knows who the subject is without having to click for more. And perhaps it breathes a bit of life into the reader experience. Professional writing shouldn’t mean stale writing.

Be Honest

There are two ideas under the honesty category.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Inspiration, LinkedIn Ideas, Social Media | 1 Comment »

What’s a Recruiter Looking For? (If I Had a Nickel)

Posted on October 9, 2011 by The Résumé Studio

Look familiar?

For us to stop asking that question, that’s what!

If you want to keep spinning in job search circles, keep asking that question.

If you want to send a recruiter leaping into the nearest river (and who doesn’t every now and then), keep asking that question.

What’s a recruiter looking for?

Only s/he knows because only s/he has access to the pile of work on his or her plate.

Somewhere along the way job seeking turned into recruiter mongering. People loathe recruiters until they need a job. Then they want to pal around, not unlike the theater geek turned movie star. (“Hey, didn’t we hang out in high school?”)

The truth is, recruiting is match-making and recruiters are doing a job. If they do their job right, they’ll keep match-making. If they do it wrong, they’ll soon be looking for their own next adventure.

So what’s a recruiter looking for?

(Again with that question!)

Here’s the big answer:  Continue reading →

Filed under: Hopefully Humorous, Job Search Tips, On Recruiters | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

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