The company I work for recently had a position open up in the very department I work in. The position asks for 2-3 years experience so we are looking for the exact demographic the blog aims to attract – young professionals. I’ve had the opportunity to read some resumes and screen out candidates based on their resume content.

What I’ve seen disappointed me. There are so many tools and online articles about creating a good resume, I thought most professionals, even young professionals, would be able to create a resume that is at least passable. With unemployment so high and competition for jobs being so aggressive I would have thought people would put more effort into their resumes and cover letters. Yet, here I am screening through resumes that make me want to laugh and sometimes cry.   

Now that I’ve been on the other side of resume reviews I have some new insight into creating a powerful resume. I thought some of these tips were common sense but apparently I was wrong.

Don’t apply for jobs you aren’t qualified for

When I was unemployed last year my emotions ran from excited about new opportunities to terrified I would never find a new job. (Full disclosure, I was only unemployed for two months but as I’ve said before, I am a worrier).  I applied for almost every job that said Public Relations or Communications in the title. My experience range (5 years) puts me in an odd category. I’m too experienced for entry level jobs, but I don’t quite fit the profile of jobs that ask for 7-10 years experience. So I thought, why not try for a few jobs that are above my experience level in terms of year? Now I realize this was just annoying to those reading through the resumes.

I still believe it is good to try for positions that will represent a step up in your career and that years don’t always matter as much as what you’ve accomplished in the past. However, read the job description and if you truly don’t qualify, don’t apply. Similarly, if you have 15 years experience and the job is looking for 2-3 years experience I assume you are desperate and that as soon as the economy turns around you will leave. Don’t waste your time or mine applying for jobs you aren’t qualified for or don’t really want.

Don’t spend too much time on your cover letter

Because I am in a field that requires me to communicate both orally and in writing I spent a good amount of time customizing my cover letter for each job. My cover letter is beautifully written and demonstrates my writing abilities. I wish I hadn’t spent so much time on it. So far during the search for the new employee I’ve read exactly one cover letter and that is because it was so ridiculous the HR person shared it so we could both chuckle over it together. Make sure your cover letter is well written and has no spelling or grammar mistakes, but do not think you have to write the great American cover letter. No one is going to hire you, or even bring you in for an interview because of how well your cover letter is written. This is one of those cases where good is good enough, but bad will get your resume thrown out. So, make it good, just don’t stress about this part too much. 

Spelling and Grammar do matter

This should go without saying but I’ve seen some great mistakes. Saying you “lead a team of 5” makes me wonder if this is some euphemism for tying a person’s feet to a lead brick and sending them to the bottom of a river. Another favorite is periods at the end of phrases that aren’t sentences. Also, if you are going to write in your resume that you have excellent editing skills and attention to detail your resume better not have mistakes. I’ve learned that I am more of a stickler for this point that most people. Call me picky, but if a person says they edited collateral at their previous job I don’t want to also read they “Hotted events” for their company.  Now that I’ve said this I am sure I’ll receive 100 emails pointing out an error in this post. You know what, mistakes happen and they are forgivable, just not on a resume.

So does design

I do not have an eye for design so I keep my resume simple yet organized. Make sure your resume is easy to read and follows a consistent pattern. Don’t put the month and year you started at some jobs and only the year for others.  If you are going to use different font sizes for headings make sure you use the same one for each heading. Line up your bullet points and don’t make the resume too fancy.  I’ve seen others in my group of resume reviewers toss a resume aside because it was ugly or just plain hard to read. Have someone else look at your resume for aesthetics just as you would for spelling and grammar.

Do not send photos

In other countries it is normal to send a nice, professional headshot of yourself to prospective employees. Although this is not considered professional in the United States I realize that some people may not be aware of this and might send their headshot if they are accustomed to doing so. I am forgiving of this fact. However, if you are going to send a photo, do not (let me repeat this one) DO NOT EVER send a photo of yourself with a skimpy dress and a seductive look on your face. It is just weird. Also do not send a photo of yourself with a short skirt and half unbuttoned shirt, lying across a desk. It just creeps me out. I am not making this up – these are actual photos I’ve received. 

Online presence

This brings me to your online presence. I’ve Googled every single candidate whose resume I liked. I’ve also thrown out resumes because of what I’ve found on Facebook pages and Linkedin profile. If you are looking for a job make sure the information on your Linkedin profile matches your resume. It makes you look like a liar if you list your previous title as “Manager” on your resume and “Assistant” on LInkedin. Also, make sure you don’t have photos of yourself looking like you drank an entire keg yourself. In fact remove all photos you wouldn’t want your grandmother to see. I may be a prude, but these photos make me think of you as a kid, not a young professional.

Get rid of irrelevant information

When you are applying for a job that requires you have a Bachelors degree realize no one cares where you went to high school. Similarly, unless you’ve never had a professional job before remove your GPA, the societies and clubs you belonged to in college and your waitressing job. Yes, you had to have good interpersonal skills not to sucker punch the guy who kept calling you sweetheart and then left a paltry tip, but that has no bearing on the job you are applying for.  Finally, remove your personal interests. You may think it makes you seem more human to write you like the Patriots, but on your resume it just makes it look like you needed to fill space. If I want to know what your outside interests are I’ll ask during the interview.

Skills

And finally, if a job description states that you must be familiar with a specific computer program be sure it is on your resume – or don’t apply. In fact, if you really want the job and you are qualified except for this one small thing – put it on your resume! Then before you are called in for an interview learn the program. If you are unemployed it can’t hurt to have one more skill anyway.

This information may seem harsh but we’ve literally received hundreds of resumes for this one position. The only way to weed through all of them was to automatically throw out the ones that were ugly and had typos. From there we could be even pickier, looking for people who had the exact experience and skill set we want. So fix up your resume, update your Facebook page and then send your resume in to jobs you are qualified for. Oh, and good luck.

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So what is the problem? Well the problem comes when you are working with people who become offended. The truth is no matter what you say someone will be offended. What if they don’t celebrate Christmas at all? What if they are Jewish or Buddhist or Hindu, or even (gasp) atheist?

What to say?

An individual’s decision to celebrate a holiday is a personal one and not one that we discuss often as is their religion or belief system. In the US we do not walk around with patches that advertise our religious beliefs. America is very diverse and as such there are a lot of different beliefs. Saying Happy Holidays means we are including everyone, not just Christians who celebrate Christmas. It also includes New Years so you are acknowledging the season not a specific holiday. Thus, this is what I would recommend saying. If someone shows offense and says “merry Christmas” back as a way to announce their preference, make a little joke. Say something like “I never know what people prefer, there are too many holidays to keep track of.” Do not get dragged into a debate about the  de-Christianization of America (especially at work) it just isn’t worth it.

As for those of you who get offended, I have one suggestion – lighten up. I do not consider myself Christian, I do not believe in Christ and therefore Christmas to me isn’t a religious day. In fact I don’t really celebrate Christmas any longer. I use the day off as an opportunity to celebrate my family (which I love) and to reflect on how lucky I am to live in a country where I am not hanged because of my religious (or lack thereof) beliefs as well as my other “blessings”. That said, I do not get offended when someone says Merry Christmas to me. I know they are just trying to be pleasant so why be angry. It should be the same way when someone wishes a Christian happy holidays. Remember, this person is just trying to be nice and wish you happiness!

I was going to write about gift giving at work as well as the office holiday party but I feel this post is long enough already. I will write separate posts on each of these issues. In the meantime I would like to hear your thoughts on the whole “happy holidays”/”merry Christmas” debate.

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Defining a (sub)generation

This generation never knew a workplace without the Internet and thus we have different ideas of how fast things should happen then our Generation X bosses. However, unlike Millennials we do not use social media to discuss our personal lives and we are wary of posting personal information on sites like Facebook and Twitter. We do not require constant supervision nor do we require constant praise to stay motivated. For us, getting paid what we feel we are worth is important, but we do not measure our success by the size of our paychecks alone. I like to call us “Generation US” as many of us realize we don’t really belong to any group and we seek each other out.  – (but we’ll see if that catches on). Our generation isn’t so much about the year you are born, (although most of us are born between 1979 and 1983) but about our attitudes towards work, our social life and new technologies. We aren’t early adaptors, but we do not necessarily wait to for new technologies to become mainstream before we purchase them.

How to motivate

So how do you motivate people for whom money is not everything? “Generation US” wants a balance between work and their personal life so a job well done can be rewarded with an extra day off or even just the go ahead to leave a couple of hours early. I know if I was told I could take next Friday off because of a great job on a project it would motivate me to continue doing well.

The people I talk to who feel like they are part of this sub-generation often say they like to feel like their work matters. Not all of us are doctors or nurses or firefighters so we look for meaning in our work in other ways. For example, an events manager might be motivated by a thank you note from the couple whose reception they planned. I like to know that my efforts actually affect the company so when I complete a project being told how it will benefit the company and why this is important always makes me feel good. And then of course small bonuses don’t hurt either (everyone likes money and we all need more of it, no matter how much we make).

How to manage us

Unlike Millennials those who belong to Generation Us do not require constant supervision, hand holding or praise. In fact, of us appreciate a little room to be creative and even make mistakes. However, we do want to know that someone is there to bounce ideas off of and thus we like to work in small groups of equally dedicated employees. We love collaboration because when we come up with an idea it can be fine tuned or even loved by the group just the way it is. This consensus makes us feel like the idea is better than if we just came up with it on our own. This also means we do not need all the “credit” for a project. We have no problem sharing and working as a team.

The best way to manage my sub-generation is to give guidelines and let us come up with the rest. The projects I enjoy working on the most are the ones where I am given some basic information (we are announcing a new product) and I come up with the communications strategy myself. But we also want to know that our ideas are considered as well. We like to know that if we come up with a new way of doing something or a new idea for a project or initiative our bosses won’t say “we don’t have time for that” or “how will that fit into the budget” we want to know that our creativity will be nurtured.

When giving criticism it is important to note that while we aren’t as sensitive or easily discouraged as Millennials we do need to be told we are doing well, however not as often as Millennials. A formal quarterly review would be all it takes for me to be sure I am on the right track or to understand what I can do to improve.  

Many of the people I went to college with fear nothing more than sitting at a desk all day starting at a computer screen. We do not want jobs that simply pay the bills. We want some meaning in our careers and to feel like we contribute to the greater good of our company and even the world.

I don’t believe that the sub-generation I feel I belong to is officially recognized. I know that we are lumped in with Millennials, but to manage “Generation Us” like you would manage the Gen X and Millennials would be a mistake.

Do any of you feel like you are stuck between generations? Do you have ideas on how you like ot be managed and motivated?

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Loyalty is a great quality to have as an employee. It means you are always looking out for your employers best interest and that you more than likely work hard for your company. But loyalty can have downsides as well. Is it smart to remain loyal to a company that isn’t loyal to you?

Whether you are talking about a romantic relationship or a professional relationship loyalty is a two way street. And while I think it is good to be a loyal employee, someone who wants to work hard for their employer’s long term success and be there for the long run it is also important to realize when your loyalty is hurting you.

At the beginning of the year I had some personal issues to attend to at home. Of course these personal issues came at a time when life at my job was also very hectic. Luckily, my employer was flexible enough with me to let me take some time off and to let me work a flexible schedule so that I could deal with the personal stuff as well as the job stuff. For example, I would go into work at about 7:30 or 8:00 until about noon, then I would leave for a few hours to attend to the personal issue, then around three I would start working again (from home). I’d then stop working around 5 to do more personal stuff and then I would work from around 8 to about midnight and start again the next day.

If you added up the hours I worked that week it was probably way more than the normal 50 I usually do. However, I didn’t mind, my boss and my employer was being flexible with me, the work needed to be done and being a loyal employee I thought that is what mattered. Then right after the “big project” was complete I was laid off. I don’t believe for a second that it had anything to do with the time I needed to take off for my family. Layoffs were happening all over the country at the time and our department was being restructured. But that is logic talking. My emotions told me that I was loyal to the company and they should be loyal to me – but now they were getting rid of me.

I learned something from this experience. I learned that I owe a company to do my best and work my hardest while I am employed, and they owe me a paycheck and opportunities to learn and grow. This is loyalty. Laying me off was not being disloyal; it was doing what was best for the company at that time. Leaving one job for another that will offer career advancement, additional opportunities to learn or even more money is not disloyal, it is doing what is best for you. Staying in a job that no longer offers these things (with the exception of money, money isn’t everything!) isn’t being loyal it is being stupid, or not caring about your career advancement. Perhaps career advancement isn’t what is important to you. And in that case staying isn’t stupid, it is perfectly fine. But don’t stay in a job simply out of loyalty, stay because it offers you something you need, a paycheck, fulfillment, a short commute, a flexible work schedule or whatever it is you need.

That said, leaving job after job for a bigger paycheck or other small reasons and having absolutely no loyalty is stupid as well. As one person commented on my last post: this will make potential employers question your commitment to your job, and will prevent many employers from hiring you. You should remain loyal to any company that continues to offer you what you require from a career (again whatever that is for you).  And you do owe it to your current employers to help them provide what it is you need.  For example, you want to learn more about graphic design, ask to be a part of a graphic design project (in addition to your normal responsibilities). The point is let your boss know what your goals are. Chances are they will want to help you meet them, because that is a company’s way of being loyal to you.   You work hard and share your goals, they pay you and help you achieve your goals (with training etc.)

But I must reiterate; do not reject new opportunities that will provide you with more of what  it is you want if you can no longer get what you need out of your current employer. They will get rid of you if it is best for the company, you shouldn’t hesitate to leave if it is really what is best for you.

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Wikipedia defines a job as: “A job is a regular activity performed in exchange for payment, usually as one’s occupation. The duration of a job may range from an hour to a lifetime. If a person is trained for a certain type of job, they may have a profession. The series of jobs a person holds in their life is their career.”

And Career as:” Career is a term defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as an individual’s “course or progress through life (or a distinct portion of life)”. It is usually considered to pertain to remunerative work (and sometimes also formal education).”

Thank you Wikipedia, that’s all fine and dandy, but there is a lot more to it that just a plain old description that our grandparents mentioned once.  Suzanne Lainson says that “Most people earn their living by working (as opposed to inheriting money or winning the lottery). Some have jobs, others pursue careers. The difference between the two approaches has as much to do with attitude as it does anything else.

If you say you have a career, that implies that you have conscientiously chosen this field of work and that each job you take helps you advance to higher and higher levels. Careers involve long-range planning.” and the funny thing is that she was talking about athletes, a career that few follow, yet it involves the same amount (or more) or preparation and dedication.

Patty Inglish, MS suggests that “Many people believe, or have been taught, that a career and a job are the same thing. However, these two entities are not identical. In fact, a well-planned career usually encompasses several jobs in a logical progression upwards in pay rate, fringes and perks, and responsibilities. In other words, a job can mean survival and a career can mean choice. It is much more enjoyable to have a choice about what one does for a living. A life-long career should not be only a survival mechanism and it should certainly not be punishment.

While not everyone can work at their true, individual, special calling throughout their lives, they can plan toward that goal and take actions and make choices that will enable that goal to be more closely approached and met. Usually, this does not happen by accident.

Any specific job is only one piece of the lifelong learning and career puzzle. Any job is only a part of a larger, life-long career.

At one time in America, a person could graduate from high school, find a job with a good company and work in that job until they retired, perhaps being promoted and receiving raises in pay during that time. This is rarely possible in today’s business environment.”

Bottom line: your job is what you are doing today. Your career is what you’ve done over the past years and what you plan to do in the future.  If you don’t know where you want your career to take you, is because you have no career, you have been falling by chance in some jobs that provide you with what you need.  So when you think “career”, you have to think long-term.

And when you think long-term, you begin to realize the following:
• Everything you do counts
• Everything you do needs to have a good reason behind it
• You have to make good decisions
• Always think “What’s my next step?”
• What you do today determines your tomorrow
• Mistakes can potentially haunt you for a long time

“You should pay serious attention to this “career” thing. Your job feeds you and your family today. Your career will feed you and your family tomorrow and beyond. “ Suzanne Lainson

Good Luck

-Frank

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I “professionally” recorded my first multi-track song when I was 15 years old and back in 1994

that was quite an accomplishment; these days, my 16 year old nephew has more videos on the web than I do.  Media editing, once a respected and complicated profession has become the hobby of thousands of kids that make songs on their “garage band” (included in every mac) or make their own videos on Windows Video Maker (included in every PC), and these sometimes sound and look way better than those produced by media companies a few years ago.  My brother posts HD videos of my 4 months-old nephew for the love God.

David Meerman Scott starts his book The New Rules of Marketing and PR, saying that you shouldn’t hire a video company and pay them $80,000 (average) for an online video campaign, that you should get that $200 video camera and upload it yourself (as he did for Microsoft Corporation a few years ago), and I’m proud to say, that I’ve been saying the same thing for a couple of years now. Earlier this year I hired a company to make a product video for close to $10,000 and then made another version of the same from scratch using Adobe Flash and some free music I found online for FREE.

These examples present me with the idea that this industry is going through some changes that we already saw the music industry go through after the whole Napster lawsuit, and the birth of affordable computer recording; the question is: For how long will it survive?  My bet is five more years, till some new technology comes along, and everything known to man as the media industry dies as we know it.

Since this is called YOUNG AND EMPLOYED, I feel obligated to ask “what’s going to happen with all those jobs in the industry?”  There are only so many Starbucks to work at, and these are people with degrees and years of experience doing what they do.  I’m not saying that everyone will suddenly be unemployed, since there will still be room for SuperBowl commercials that require better quality than Youtube but a big chunk of these people will no longer be needed.

IF you believe in my hypothesis, I would recommend one thing.  Everything you get paid for is for business, and even if you don’t understand business at all because what you do it carry a video camera around, it is a fact that they pay you because you help them make money.  Chances are you won’t find another job with the similar description in 5 years unless you go to Hollywood, so learn about the business part of your job, a manager in the media industry can be as successful as a manager in the hotel industry, but if you know nothing of the business you work for and stay working on your JOB, instead of your CAREER… you are in trouble.

Good luck

-Frank

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Reading through the one of the last posts of Money and Investment, (I seriously recommended it) where the author presents us with the need of an Exit Door for most negotiations in your life.  I start thinking of where does this door come from and how do you manage to get to it.

If you are reading this chances are you are some kind of professional, maybe with some college education and some years of experience; that may have given you an exit door, but in no way the ability to use it.

We’ve all been there, at the comfortable job.   That job that becomes a routine and plain-easy, that we can do while “facebooking”, reading books and blogs, spending too much time at the kitchen, taking long lunches and leaving early every day.  Even though for some this may sound like paradise (it did to me at some point), this is the definition of career suicide.  Sure it’s nice not to feel work-associated stress in a daily basis, but if your job became a routine that prevents you from challenging your skills or acquire any new ones, you are just wasting your time.

How to know if you got to that comfortable cloud of mediocrity:

• When you realize that your “job description” hasn’t changed in more than 6 months
• You have been using the same templates over and over
• You haven’t stayed late in over a month
• People only talk to you when they run into you at the kitchen or the restrooms
• Your email inbox seems to be quite empty every morning

If you have noticed some of these “symptoms” chances are, you got too comfortable and your job has just become so easy that a monkey could do it, and chances are your bosses boss will notice at some point.

Sometimes its quite unavoidable, you may be in a position that is not really needed and some other monkey in the company could push into his to-do list.  Some other times your boss may lack of some management skills; or any other reason/excuse for your misfortune.  But there is only one thing to do… RUN! …as fast and far as you can.  Look for a job that will challenge you, that will teach you, and help you achieve new levels of professionalism and skills, or soon you will become obsolete in your early 30’s.

I hear you; the economy is bad, and with an almost 10% of unemployment it’s hard to find a challenging job these days… Then make yours challenging one way or another.  There are at least 50 ways to do this, but all of them start with deciding to bring some change to your professional life.  When?  Today, you already wasted enough time, or you would have never found yourself in this position.

** Some useful ways to challenge your stalled career:

• SwapYourShop Blog
• Start a volunteer program at work
• Propose a new plan of action that includes your boss’s boss
• Make a plan to re-ignite your career

- Frank

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Reading an article in yahoo: ” The Most Annoying, Overused Words in the Workplace“, I laughed over and over, until I ran into something I’ve been known to say from time to time: “It is what it is…”  I would like to use my “English-is-not-my-first-language card, but I will take responsibility for the annoyance.

Here a list of phrases that annoy the bejesus out of me! (yes, the bejesus is one of those):

• Lets put your ducks in a row – Lets go to the town fair
• What do we have for OTB (open to buy) – How about asking how much money we have left?
• Circle back around – Wait, what?
• Timecrunch
• “Lets look at the CRN ASAP, to find our OTB, and cross-reference with our QTD revenue, to see if we could buy some more SEO and SMO services…”  - at some point you just feel like throwing in some more, FBI, ATF, CIA, JRR TOLKIEN!

You may be nodding while you read, and chances are when you close this window, you won’t ever think about it again, but don’t close it yet.  Think of how many of this things are on your resume, or cover letter, or on emails to clients or superiors… its not so funny anymore.

I’ve read many resumes, that I dont understand what they do, did or want to do, and not because its not expressed but because its in some weird lingo that only apply to a certain industry.  As a musician, I tend to say things like: “Wow, the Horn player was amazing“ and even though you can guess he was a wind instrument player, which instrument will still be unknown, some other phrase could be “That axe player has a serious stink” (translated), alright, so if you ever listened to K.I.S.S. you know the axe player is the guitarist, but what is it with body odor and musical talent?  Some phrases become annoying for someone out of your industry; and completely useless.

A little list of phrases we all have put on our resumes at some point:

• Results-oriented professional – Oh No, I like the other kind of professional
• Cross-functional teams – Its like cross gender but less of a hassle
• More than [x] years of progressively responsible experience – could you add more adjectives?
• Superior (or excellent) communication skills – Ok, so you know how to speak, and write, what else?
• Strong work ethic – according to the fact that you have not been sued for sexual harassment
• Extremely responsible – according to whom?  I swear I’m the most handsome guy in my office, but thats just my opinion

Are you running to look at your resume right now? Wanna bet some money you may find some of those there?

Lingoes are useful and somewhat necessary in a certain aspect of business, but you have to be really careful when you leave the comfort of your cube, office, farm barn or street gutter.

I know you just thought of 20 more, send them to me, I need a good laugh.

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