What is a Purple Squirrel? Unless you are in the recruiting world, you probably haven’t heard of the purple squirrel.  So, what is it?  In the recruiting world, the purple squirrel represents the perfect candidate with all the exact experience, qualifications, skills, education, and anything else needed to fill an open job.  Because there is no such thing as a

With all the articles that exist that suggest best practices for using LinkedIn, I thought it was necessary to discuss the wrong way to use LinkedIn. Given that there are so many job seekers, recent college graduates, and professionals still trying to grasp how to make the most of their LinkedIn experience, many may still not understand what they might

Re-think the Resume Career professionals and students alike need to re-think the resume.  The term resume derives from the English word “resumen” which means summation and from the French, “Resumer,” which means to summarize.  However, resumes should never be written to simply summarize; they should be written to persuade.  Resumes have obviously changed but the change is not only in purpose;

The World Has Changed As we approach the new year, it’s a good time to reflect on the past.  2011 was a tough year for many and 2012 is likely to be the beginning of a long-term transition for many job seekers and companies adjusting to all the changes that have occurred in the marketplace.  Although unemployment in the U.S.

The problem with job seekers is that they think like job seekers.  Just the words alone imply that getting a job is about seeking for jobs as if all one must do is search and find.  What happens after you find a job?  Do you apply and then hope things will go your way?  What happens once you land a

Finding a job takes hard work but the work only gets more challenging once you’ve landed the big job you wanted.  Naturally, you’ll be working because of the tasks your job requires you to do but you’ll need to acclimate to the politics, the environment, the culture, the challenges, the opportunities, the people, and all the other variables surrounding your

Introduction of a New Metric Social media has created a system in which we can now visually graph our relationships showing how we are connected to people.  Additionally, by observing how we interact with one another on social media, we can also see who in our social graph influences us based on how we respond to their social interactions, how

The Rise of the Infographic Infographics are popular these days.  We see them all the time on everything from the ROI of our mothers (a classic infographic) to the history of computers.  In a previous post, I wrote about the infographic resume and a company known as Vizualize.me that can help job seekers create their very own infographic resume.  However,

The Importance of Personal Brand Reputation I have always said that the job search process is a marketing process.  Employers are the shoppers and job seekers are the products.  Which product an employer chooses is influenced by the marketing collateral (resumes, cover letters, portfolio), the sales pitch (interview), product testing (personaity tests, skills assessments) and product reputation (Letters of recommendation,

Healthy Frustration vs. Chronic Complaining In this economy, there are many frustrated people looking for work or looking to progress in their careers. There’s nothing wrong with frustration as long as you learn to deal with it in a constructive manner. However, there is a difference between those who are merely frustrated and those who are just chronic career complainers.