Talent Alley

The British newspaper The Telegraph recently printed an article detailing the unintentionally hilarious results from a CareerBuilder survey soliciting employers for their worst resume experiences. The details were entertaining, including candidates who: listed “God” as a reference (though without any phone number) sent a 24 page resume to detail a five year career included a [...]

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While dining this week with the CEO and owner of a nationally recognized SEO firm and the CIO of a large Cleveland institution, the topic turned to business and the current challenges facing both organizations. Not surprisingly, both declared that their single biggest challenge was finding and hiring talent. Finding and hiring bodies to occupy [...]

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A lot of large companies are coming to the realization that in order to grow and thrive, they need to develop and pursue internal innovation capabilities. However, they also frequently recognize that they don’t have the internal talent needed to foster a culture of innovation. Organizations are hidebound by organizational memory that stifles innovation and continually pursues [...]

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It’s getting tougher and tougher to make your resume stand out on a recruiter’s or hiring manager’s desk. Most resumes adopt similar formats, and virtually all are created in Microsoft Word, using its default fonts, so making your resume stand apart requires some creativity. Since your job search is really just a personal marketing exercise, [...]

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I’ve received a number of questions and comments about my previous post in the Toughest Interview Questions series: Why Should I Hire You? that suggest that some more detail and explanation is in order. The reason the question is so difficult for job seekers, and so revealing for employers, is that it requires the candidate [...]

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There are times when job seekers are their own worst enemy. Doug Hardman the CEO of Sparkbase, a local technology company, shared a recent series of email communications he had with a prospective hire for an internal marketing position that illustrate how a job candidate can destroy their job prospects with reflexive and imprudent email [...]

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Telephone interviews are nerve-racking. Candidates receive no visual feedback – either positive or negative – from their interrogators, feel pressured to perform and all too often are unprepared to provide the answers that will elevate them to the next level of the job hunting process. When you don’t get an invitation to meet face to [...]

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The single most frequent question I receive from job seekers immediately after their interview is: should I follow up with an email or with a letter? My answer: an unequivocal “Yes.” The most important thing is to send some kind of follow up after your interview. Despite that fact that every career guiding book, blog [...]

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It is a near certainty that job seekers today will encounter the dreaded telephone interview during their job search. Knowing what to expect and how to prepare for the telephone interview can provide job seekers with an enormous advantage, but too many candidates make common mistakes that knock them out of consideration before getting a [...]

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Let’s face it, the person you need to impress the most during the job interview process is the manager you’re going to be working for. They are the only ones who can say those magic words,” You’re hired. When can you start?” From the hiring manager’s perspective they are looking to determine three things. Are [...]

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