Now I’m not trying to stay on a politics kick but sometimes there are just interested stories that revolve around it. Especially since it’s an election year all eyes are on the candidates and their staff. It’s a historical year for politics. Not only is there a black man running for president but there is a woman running for vice president. It’s great. Anyways you have to wonder what runs through Obama’s head when anyone from his campaign team starts blowing up his phone. I’m sure it happened when Ludacris wrote his support Obama song, Obama is here. But just…

I’m sure you’ve looked at it a hundred million times. You wrote it you know what is says. But does it work? Is it really selling you the way it should be? Your resume is the only thing that is going to get you an interview. It’s the first thing an employer or a recruiter sees. If your resume looks like crap do you actually think someone is going to inquire upon you? Here are a couple hints that might help you get more phone calls.

1) List your phone number. I know stupid right. I’ve actually seen resumes with only…

If you are in advertising, you should know better than to send out and post 100 copies of a resume that sucks. If you are an art director or designer, you REALLY have no excuse. Even though most creatives have caught on to the necessity of creating a URL resume/portfolio, many have not done so, and are still sending WD resumes in TIMES NEW ROMAN. They leave out the clients they have worked on. They include awards they won in 1985. It’s a bad scene.

Just as important as your portfolio book is the unique concept behind your resume – you. You must…

I can’t help it, I do, I hate them. I can’t think of many things more callous and bland than having your entire life reduced to a seemingly meaningless collection of dates and one liner descriptions. Before becoming a recruiter I was so adamantly opposed to resumes that I stubbornly refused to write one up. I simply wouldn’t do it. My friends and colleagues thought that I was crazy (maybe I was). I just couldn’t buy into the obsessive neurosis that my friends went through when studying their finely crafted cover letters and fretting over the spacing between their headers and margins.…

I spend a good chunk of my day looking through your resumes. Most of the time, I’m looking for something pretty specific. I have a job order that requires a specific skill set and I’m going through resumes to find the right match.

There are several things you can do to be sure yours is the one that jumps out at me. Let’s take a look at what really matters.

1. Give me two numbers where I can reach you. It would be nice if one of them is your cell number since you probably aren’t at home all day.

2. Indicate the…

As a recruiter I always hear how rare talented people are in any given industry and how difficult it is to retain quality talent. For any company to successfully draw in quality employees they must reevaluate each stage of a candidate’s experience – from initial contact to hire and evaluation.

A recruiter’s challenge and responsibility is to manage the candidate experience fully, being prepared from every angle to provide support, information and most importantly to begin your search with proactive sourcing and great first impressions. To really embrace what your candidate experiences will change the way you view your talent and how you…

So I was looking back at some of the new-hire profiles we filled out when I joined and man-oh-man did I come off as a know-it-all frat boy ass. I tried too hard to be snarky and absurdest when I was simply absurd; click here to read it, it makes me laugh and cringe at the same time. Although I had already had the job, it was still early in my career here in Talent Zoo and although I never want to come off as a stiff, I should not run around brazenly espousing my love for the sauce; whether or…

Ok, I’ll admit it, I’ve been called a grammar snob. Actually, I’ve probably been called worse than that, but that’s another post.

All day long, I look at resumes and read job descriptions. And each and every day, I find little mistakes that make me wonder how serious this candidate or client is about impressing people.
I understand that small spelling or grammatical errors may not irk everyone like they do me, but the thing is this…You don’t know who is reading your resume. Why take the chance that the errors will just be shrugged off?

Recently, I submitted a candidate for…

The latest trend in job hunting is the video resume. Long gone are the days of hard copy resumes sent out to potential emloyers via snail mail, and now it seems that even electonic documents sent via email are becoming outdated.  Today you will find more and more job hunters shooting video resumes to be sent to employers. This new method can give you an edge, certainly, as it will showcase your personality and set you apart from other "paper" applicants. However,  this method does come with a ceratin amount of risk.  Some employers may view this as a bit informal,…