Every week I check dozens of “career” blogs and other online publications, looking for things that will help you find a job, get promoted, develop your skills, and keep everything in perspective and balance. Here’s the pick of the lot for this week. I’m pointing you to items about branding yourself online, tips for college seniors, preparing your resume, following-up, and talkative interviewers.

From HRM Today: 50+ Tips to Brand Yourself Online
“Once you’ve designed your personal brand and have a personal brand name, use this handy list of suggestions to implement your personal branding strategy.”

Wally’s Comment: Social media are today’s hot topic and HRM today gives you some ideas about how to use them to build your personal brand.

From CollegeRecruiter.com: 10 Tips for Job Hunting College Seniors
“John Buettner of Stevenson University, was quoted in an Examiner.com article about how college seniors can land a job in a down economy. John provided 10 great tips for the article. I’ve taken those tips and adapted some of them to better suit the needs of the students and recent graduates who use CollegeRecruiter.com to help them find a great internship or entry-level job.”

Wally’s Comment: From tip number one, “Get real,” all the way to the end this is a good read for you if you’re a college senior thinking about entering the job market. It’s a good read for the rest of us, too.

From Alison Green at US News and World Report: Objectives: Leave Them Off Your Resume
“I’ve never seen an objective that made me more interested in hiring a candidate, and I’ve seen plenty that actually hurt a candidate’s chances. At best they’re neutral, so why risk it?”

Wally’s Comment: Should you include an objective on your resume? Many advisors think you should. Alison Green thinks it’s a bad idea.

From the Wall Street Journal: Did You Get My Resume?
“Recruiters say the percentage of online applications viewed by an actual human being ranges from 5% to 25%. And while it drives job hunters crazy, there’s a good reason companies use so-called applicant-tracking systems to screen and rank candidates. Even in slow periods, your average coffee-stained corporate headhunter is scrambling to fill 20 positions at a time. Given the ease of applying online, recruiters are flooded with more résumés than they can possibly review.”

Wally’s Comment: The reason so many people feel like they’re sending their resume into an automated black hole is because they are. Here’s a good article that will help you understand the systems that large companies use, so you know what you can and what you can’t do.

From Fortify Your Oasis: Talkative interviewers
“Question: What do I do if I find myself being interviewed by an interviewer who just won’t shut up? I had this situation recently and he kept on talking about how successful the company was what a wonderful place it was to work in, but I couldn’t get a word in edgeways to sell myself and ended up not getting the job. What should I do if I encounter this again?”

Wally’s Comment: “Make the blathering man stop!!!” Sooner or later you’ll get one of those ramblin’ interviewers who will go on and on and on and on. Rowan Manahan suggests some things you can do to escape, short of faking a medical emergency.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 10:20 am and is filed under Tools and Strategies for Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.