Job Resume Quotes

There comes a time when you ought to start doing what you want. Take a job that you love. You will jump out of bed in the morning. I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don't like because you think it will look good on your resume. Isn't that a little like saving up sex for your old age?

What would Ren do in Oregon? Would he get a job? What would he put on his resume? High Protector and former Prince of India?

So the hours are pretty good then?' he resumed. The Vogon stared down at him as sluggish thoughts moiled around in the murky depths. Yeah,' he said, 'but now you come to mention it, most of the actual minutes are pretty lousy.

I find it a challenge to cooperate in a society where it's considered moral to critique a résumé yet immoral to critique morality.

When it comes to getting a job or client, congruent value is aligning the employer's need with your value add.

Not every single broke and unemployed person needs a job; some need customers.

The most important tool you have on a resume is language.

A huge number of jobs that are filled are never advertised to the public, or if they are, they’re filled by people who have a connection to the employer.

Resume's are incapable of holistically communicating a candidates value.

Unemployment is an excellent time to beef up your resume.

My particular memory is of a quail-pie. Quails may be alright for Moses in the desert, but, if they are served in the form of pie at dinner, they should be distributed at a side-table, not handed round from guest to guest. The countess having shuddered at it and resumed her biscuit, it was left to me to make the opening excavation. The difficulty was to know where each quail began and ended: the job really wanted a professional quail-finder, who might have indicated the on the surface of the crust at which it would be most hopeful to dig for quails.

Redemption is not just about being saved *from* the consequences of sin, it is also about being saved *to* something- to resume the task for which we were originally created. And what was that task? In Genesis, God gives what we might call the first job description: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it." "Be fruitful and multiply", means to develop the social world: build families, churches, cities, governments, laws. The second phrase, "subdue the earth" means to harness the natural world: plant crops, build bridges, design computers, compose music. This passage is sometimes called the "cultural mandate" because it tells us that our original purpose was to create cultures and build civilizations- nothing less.

Contradictions, in any communication, are the first stepping stones of mistrust

IN COLLEGE, I FELT LOST.

The one surefire way to get me not to hire you is to send me your resume, especially if you've already got a good job. I won't be interested, because in a couple years, you'll be doing the same thing to me that you're doing to your current boss: looking for a better deal.

I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don't like because you think it will look good on your resume. Isn't that a little like saving up sex for your old age?

In the age of instant information man ends his job of fragmented specializing and assumes the role of information-gathering. Today information-gathering resumes the inclusive concept of “culture” exactly as the primitive food-gatherer worked in complete equilibrium with his entire environment. Our quarry now, in this new nomadic and “workless” world, is knowledge and insight into the creative processes of life and society.

In 1969, both John and I began job hunting. I had finished my second master’s degree and started sending out resumes. I got several offers from various schools—Metropolitan State University in Denver, Keene State College in New Hampshire—and John also had some offers. But neither of us wanted to be a “trailing spouse.” What to do?Then we went to the College Art Association conference in Washington, D.C., and met Gene Grissom, chair of the art department at the University of Florida. They were looking for a young faculty member with some administrative experience, and John fit the bill perfectly. There was also a possibility for me to teach either art history or humanities. After several weeks of negotiations, we decided to make the move to Florida where BOTH of us had jobs!

Picture it. Nineteenth-century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations. Digests, Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending.” “Snap ending.” Mildred nodded. “Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column, winding up at last as a ten- or twelve-line dictionary resume. I exaggerate, of course. The dictionaries were for reference. But many were those whose sole knowledge of Hamlet (you know the title certainly, Montag; it is probably only a faint rumor of a title to you, Mrs. Montag), whose sole knowledge, as I say, of Hamlet was a one-page digest in a book that claimed: now at last you can read all the classics; keep up with your neighbors. Do you see? Out of the nursery into the college and back to the nursery; there’s your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more.” Mildred arose and began to move around the room, picking things up and putting them down. Beatty ignored her and continued: “Speed up the film, Montag, quick. Click, Pic, Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom! Digest-digests, digest-digest-digests. Politics? One column, two sentences, a headline! Then, in mid-air, all vanishes! Whirl man’s mind around about so fast under the pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary, time-wasting thought!” Mildred smoothed the bedclothes. Montag felt his heart jump and jump again as she patted his pillow. Right now she was pulling at his shoulder to try to get him to move so she could take the pillow out and fix it nicely and put it back. And perhaps cry out and stare or simply reach down her hand and say, “What’s this?” and hold up the hidden book with touching innocence. “School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work. Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts?

The primary purpose of a resume is to get yourself invited in for an interview.

Your LinkedIn profile should leave no room for doubt about the kind of job you’re looking for and why you’re the best person for that position.

If someone out of work knows only three words about their impending job-hunt, I’m willing to bet those three words will be: resumes/CV, interviews, and networking.

Action is the spark that ignites potential.

The road to happiness lies in two simple principles— find what interests you and that you can do and put your whole soul into it.” —John D. Rockefeller III

I need my eulogy to look better than my resume. I'm living for that.

Think of your resume as your calling card. Your goal is to make people want to meet you after they’ve read it.

I'm glad you are happy in your new job." "As you said I'd be, Mamm. How did you know?" "I've known you a long time." Eunice resumed hoeing, though she stayed close enough that they could continue talking. "You're pretty much happy wherever you are planted, sort of like these tomato plants. As long as they receive a little sun, some water, and a bit of care...they thrive.

Make sure your LinkedIn profile has a targeted headline. Not only should the headline clearly state your career focus, it’s also the most important place to add a keyword or two, because this influences how you appear in search results

I’ll never forget one of the first families I visited. The father was a railroad man who had lost his job. I was told by my supervisor that I really had to see the poverty. If the family needed clothing, I was to investigate how much clothing they had at hand. So I looked into this man’s closet—(pauses, it becomes difficult)—he was a tall, gray-haired man, though not terribly old. He let me look in the closet—he was so insulted. (She weeps angrily.) He said, “Why are you doing this?” I remember his feeling of humiliation . . . this terrible humiliation. (She can’t continue. After a pause, she resumes.) He said, “I really haven’t anything to hide, but if you really must look into it. . ..” I could see he was very proud. He was so deeply humiliated. And I was, too. . ..

Though he could not remember how he had been injured or how long he had been unconcious, his first thought was to call the office and find someone to cover his shifts. He had a busy week of beating people to a bloody pulp, and his victims weren't going to punch themselves in the face. He couldn't leave his bosses in the lurch. He was evil, but he was professional. Perhaps it was his dedication to his work that had built him such an impressive resume: fifteen broken jaws, fifty-seven legs, a hundred arms, and more noses than he could count. He had knocked out thousands of teeth, pushed a few people off bridges, and once buried a guy in concrete up to his neck. He had been nominated for the Goon of the Year nine times by OUCH (Organization of United Criminals and Henchman), and had won its highest honor, the Brass Knuckle, seven times. At the office, he showed up early and left late. He ate his lunch on the job, frequently beating people as he ate his peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. You didn't get on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list by taking a sick day!

One of the first people I interviewed was Alvy Ray Smith, a charismatic Texan with a Ph.D. in computer science and a sparkling resume that included teaching stints at New York University and UC Berkeley and a gig at Xerox PARC, the distinguished R&D lab in Palo Alto. I had conflicting feelings when I met Alvy because, frankly, he seemed more qualified to lead the lab than I was. I can still remember the uneasiness in my gut, that instinctual twinge spurred by a potential threat: This, I thought, could be the guy who takes my job one day. I hired him anyway.

was well known in the industry that the greatest desire of many, if not most, SEC employees was to obtain a job inside the securities industry. A stint at the SEC was simply an important addition to their resumes before moving on to join the industry that they were supposed to regulate.

How much did a degree and a neat resume really prepare someone for a job? The Alan Turings and Claude Shannons of the world had been eccentric, inventive, forceful people. Rule breakers. The people at Bletchley Park and Room 40 didn’t stop to check boxes; they got the job done no matter what the cost.

Dear Miss Hummingbird,
 The leaves are turning green now, but not with envy. But they should be envious, because I, Jarod Ora Kintz, son of a thousand question marks, now have what every unemployed American most covets: a cat. Oh, and I’ve also got a new job. Almost forgot to mention it. “What will you be doing?” you may be wondering, and “Is it legal?” Those answers, as you can imagine, are gray. But so are elephants. Gray, I mean. Elephants are gray, not illegal, even though a certain political party in this country that’s represented by an elephant mascot certainly does things that to the normal citizen would be considered illegal. But I digress.
 Turns out that right under “Mayor of Orafouraville” on my resume, I can now add “Concierge at the Five-Star Hotel.” Concierge is just a fancy term that means something similar in Latin, I’m sure.
 My job will be to arrange activities for hotel guests for everything from opera tickets to dinner reservations to even organizing the burial of a loved one—though not if the disposal of the body is to be kept secret because a murder has occurred. Murder is such a ghastly (and ghostly) way to spoil dinner reservations for two, wouldn’t you agree? Or, rather, wouldn’t you not disagree?
 This job will allow me to meet interesting people from all over the planet, and possibly even other planets (like Pluto, if that’s still even a planet).
 It’s a full-time job, at least part of the time (40 hours per week out of a possible 168 hours). I’ll be expected to wear a shirt and tie. And, of course, pants—but that goes without saying. What also goes without saying are guests, but I hope some at least say goodbye before they go. 


Government has coddled, accepted, and ignored white collar crime for too long. It is time the nation woke up and realized that it's not the armed robbers or drug dealers who cause the most economic harm, it's the white collar criminals living in the most expensive homes who have the most impressive resumes who harm us the most. They steal our pensions, bankrupt our companies, and destroy thousands of jobs, ruining countless lives.

To make the most of every encounter, personalize your verbal resume with just as much care as you would your written curriculum vitae. Instead of having one answer to the omnipresent ‘What do you do?’ prepare a dozen or so variations, depending on who’s asking. For optimum networking, every time someone asks about your job, give a calculated oral resume in a nutshell. Before you submit your answer, consider what possible interest the asker could have in you and your work.

None of it made any difference. The hollow feeling refused to go away. The next days were very hard. I found myself in the grip of a crippling ennui. I was back at square one, but I couldn’t bring myself to resume my job hunt; it was all I could do to drag myself from the bedroom floor to the sofa. With every passing day my financial affairs grew more ruinous, and it became harder and harder even to conceive of how I might dig myself out of the hole I was in—which only compounded my ennui, and my disinclination to do anything about it.

There are some Baby Step Three clarifications. Joe asked recently if he should stop his Snowball—Step Two—to get his emergency fund finished. Joe and his wife have twins due in six months. Brad’s plant is closing in four months, and he will lose his job. Mike got a huge severance check of $25,000 last week when his company downsized him. Should these people work on debt or finish the emergency fund? All three should temporarily stop Snowballing and concentrate on the emergency fund because we can see distant storm clouds that are real. Once the storm passes, they can resume the plan as before. Resuming the plan for Joe means that once the babies are born healthy, are home, and everyone is fine, Joe will take the emergency fund back down to $1,000 by using the rest of the savings to pay the Debt Snowball. Resuming for Brad would mean that once he finds his new job, he’ll do the same. Mike should hold his instant emergency fund of $25,000 until he is reemployed. The sooner he can get a job, the more that severance is going to look like a bonus and have a huge impact on the Debt Snowball.

Identity capital is our collection of personal assets. It is the repertoire of individual resources that we assemble over time. These are the investments we make in ourselves, the things we do well enough, or long enough, that they become a part of who we are. Some identity capital goes on a resume, such as degrees, jobs, test scores, and clubs. Other identity capital is more personal, such as how we speak, where we are from, how we solve problems, how we look. Identity capital is how we build ourselves--bit by bit, over time. Most important, identity capital is what we bring to the adult marketplace. It is the currency we use to metaphorically purchase jobs and relationships and other things we want.

Two years ago, he and Harold were at a restaurant and Harold was giving him a lecture about how his job at Rosen Pritchard had made him essentially an accessory to corporate malfeasance, when they both realized that their waiter was standing above them, holding his pad before him. "Pardon me," said the waiter. "Should I come back?" "No, don't worry," Harold said, picking up his menu. "I'm just yelling at my son, but I can do that after we order." The waiter had given him a commiserating smile, and he had smiled back, thrilled to have been claimed as another's in public, to finally be a member of the tribe of sons and daughters. Later, Harold had resumed his rant, and he had pretended to be upset, but really, he had been happy the entire night, contentment saturating his every cell, smiling so much that Harold had finally asked him if he was drunk.

The ability to do hard things is perhaps the most useful ability you can foster in yourself or your children. And proof that you are someone who can do them is one of the most useful assets you can have on your life resume. Our self-image is composed of historical evidence of our abilities. The more hard things you push yourself to do, the more competent you will see yourself to be. If you can run marathons or throw double your body weight over your head, the sleep deprivation from a newborn is only a mild irritant. If you can excel at organic chemistry or econometrics, onboarding for a new finance job will be a breeze. But if we avoid hard things, anything mildly challenging will seem insurmountable. We’ll cry into TikTok over an errant period at the end of a text message. We’ll see ourselves as incapable of learning new skills, taking on new careers, and escaping bad situations. The proof you can do hard things is one of the most powerful gifts you can give yourself.

Why don't you make everybody an Alpha Double Plus while you're about it?" Mustapha Mond laughed. "Because we have no wish to have our throats cut," he answered. "We believe in happiness and stability. A society of Alphas couldn't fail to be unstable and miserable. Imagine a factory staffed by Alphas–that is to say by separate and unrelated individuals of good heredity and conditioned so as to be capable (within limits) of making a free choice and assuming responsibilities. Imagine it!" he repeated. The Savage tried to imagine it, not very successfully. "It's an absurdity. An Alpha-decanted, Alpha-conditioned man would go mad if he had to do Epsilon Semi-Moron work–go mad, or start smashing things up. Alphas can be completely socialized–but only on condition that you make them do Alpha work. Only an Epsilon can be expected to make Epsilon sacrifices, for the good reason that for him they aren't sacrifices; they're the line of least resistance. His conditioning has laid down rails along which he's got to run. He can't help himself; he's foredoomed. Even after decanting, he's still inside a bottle–an invisible bottle of infantile and embryonic fixations. Each one of us, of course," the Controller meditatively continued, "goes through life inside a bottle. But if we happen to be Alphas, our bottles are, relatively speaking, enormous. We should suffer acutely if we were confined in a narrower space. You cannot pour upper-caste champagne-surrogate into lower-caste bottles. It's obvious theoretically. But it has also been proved in actual practice. The result of the Cyprus experiment was convincing." "What was that?" asked the Savage. Mustapha Mond smiled. "Well, you can call it an experiment in rebottling if you like. It began in A.F. 473. The Controllers had the island of Cyprus cleared of all its existing inhabitants and re-colonized with a specially prepared batch of twenty-two thousand Alphas. All agricultural and industrial equipment was handed over to them and they were left to manage their own affairs. The result exactly fulfilled all the theoretical predictions. The land wasn't properly worked; there were strikes in all the factories; the laws were set at naught, orders disobeyed; all the people detailed for a spell of low-grade work were perpetually intriguing for high-grade jobs, and all the people with high-grade jobs were counter-intriguing at all costs to stay where they were. Within six years they were having a first-class civil war. When nineteen out of the twenty-two thousand had been killed, the survivors unanimously petitioned the World Controllers to resume the government of the island. Which they did. And that was the end of the only society of Alphas that the world has ever seen." The Savage sighed, profoundly. "The optimum population," said Mustapha Mond, "is modelled on the iceberg–eight-ninths below the water line, one-ninth above." "And they're happy below the water line?" "Happier than above it.

Yes, I want you.” Payne stopped, and then looked over her shoulder again. After a moment, she said, “You are a fine healer and you have done your job, as you so aptly pointed out. We have no further cause to speak.” When she resumed walking, his footsteps approached fast and he caught her, wheeling her around. “If I didn’t keep my pants on, I couldn’t have kept myself out of you.” “Really.” “Give me your hand.” Without looking, she held one unto him. “Why ever for—” He moved fast, putting her palm between his legs, and pressing her into the hot, hard length at his hips. “You’re right.” He moved against her, his pelvis undulating, the arousal pushing against her palm as he started to breathe deeply. “Even as I tried to tell myself otherwise, I knew that if I got naked, you were going to stay a virgin only long enough for me to get you on your back. Not romantic, but really, totally fucking true.” As her lips parted, his eyes dropped to her mouth and he growled, “You can feel the truth, can’t you. It’s in your g**damn hand.” -Manny & Payne

Once, books appealed to a few people, here, there, everywhere. They could afford to be different. The world was roomy. But then the world got full of eyes and elbows and mouths. Double, triple, quadruple population. Films and radios, magazines, books levelled down to a sort of paste pudding norm [...]. [...] Nineteenth-century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations, Digests. Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending. [...] Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column, winding up at last as a ten- or twelve-line dictionary resume. I exaggerate, of course. The dictionaries were for reference. But many were those whose sole knowledge of Hamlet [...] was a one-page digest in a book that claimed: "now at least you can read all the classics; keep up with your neighbors". Do you see? Out of the nursery into the college and back to the nursery; there's your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more. [...] Speed up the film, Montag, quick. Click? Pic, Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom! Digest-digests, digest-digest-digests. Politics? One column, two sentences, a headline! Then, in mid-air, all vanishes! Whirl man's mind around about so fast under the pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters, that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary, time-wasting thought! [...] School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work. Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts? [...] The zipper displaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour. [...] Life becomes one big pratfall, Montag; everything bang, boff, and wow!

Her husband had pursued an “alternative lifestyle” that was “free of the fetters of capitalism.” The woman herself, when she was in college, had considered the conformist pressures of getting good grades, building a resume, and landing a job in some big corporation to be tedious and distasteful and had thought the life her husband wanted dovetailed with hers. They got married as soon as she graduated, and she got a job right after. She learned quickly that an “alternative lifestyle” meant nothing without a detailed, concrete plan, and living “free of the fetters of capitalism” meant working for places that didn’t pay their workers on time. As she worried about realizing this alternative lifestyle in the real world, she crumbled away under the pressures of working at a company in the non-profit sector that was run not by the normal labor of workers, but through their unrequited sacrifices. Meanwhile, her husband, who was her upperclassman in college but graduated later than she did, fiddled around in search of his ideal “alternative lifestyle” without ever settling down on any particular profession—the result being the twenty-million-won loan he had taken out and used up without her knowledge.

Here's a resume of crucial knowledge you should have in today's world but universities are not providing: Financial - Not just on management, but also on how to profit, how to manage and control flows of income; Linguistic - In today's world, speaking only a language is prove of lack of education. Knowing two languages is a basic necessity, and knowing three languages is essential, while knowing four is merely the ideal situation. Which four languages? Chinese, English, Spanish, and another of your choice, just for fun; Intellectual - It's not about what you know; it’s all about how you think about what you know. Therefore, it's ridiculous to think that there’s only one answer and one way to examine our life. Most students are extremely dumb because they lack the ability to educate themselves, despite their certificates or where they’ve studied. They never read with an intention in mind. And as they graduate, they become completely futile as individuals. This situation is the same all over the world. Millions are graduating every year, without any significant knowledge to live with. Their books are often outdated once they graduate and they're unable to learn by themselves and develop the necessary skills to adjust to the economic society in which we live. Maybe they can keep a job for 3 or 5 years of their life, but then are surprised to lose it and never finding a suitable job again. The world is changing very fast and most people can’t or are unwilling to recognize this fact.

A few hours later, Jane came out of her boudoir to find her husband in his dressing gown, stretched out across the bed reading the newspaper and idly petting their spaniel Little Archer, a pup from Mrs. Patch’s brood. Seizing the moment, Little Archer leapt off the bed and into her dressing room, where he could chew up slippers to his heart’s content. Dom, however, didn’t even look up as she entered. “They’re calling this the most elegant coronation in history.” He snorted. “I noticed there’s no mention of its being the most interminable.” “Dom,” she purred as she closed the dog into the dressing room for the moment. “All that pomp and circumstance is so tedious.” Still reading, he turned the page of the newspaper. “Ravenswood told me that King William is determined to make sure that parliamentary reform is enacted.” She walked languidly forward. “Dom.” He snapped the paper to straighten it. “It’s about bloody time. I should think--” “Dom!” she practically shouted. “Hmm?” He glanced up, then frowned. “Why are you wearing your coronation robe?” “I was cold,” she said with a teasing smile. She let the robe fall open. “Since I have nothing on underneath.” Dom stared, then gulped. Unsurprisingly, his staff jerked instantly to attention. “If you’re trying to torture me,” he said hoarsely, “you’re doing a good job of it.” She sashayed toward the bed, letting the velvet and ermine robe swing about her. “No torture intended.” She put one knee on the bed. “Dr. Worth said I may resume relations with my husband whenever I am ready.” He blinked, then rose to his knees and seized her about the waist. “May I assume that you’re ready?” he rasped as he brushed a kiss to her cheek. “You have no idea.” She met his mouth with hers. They kissed a long moment, a hot, heavenly kiss that reminded her of how very talented her husband was at this aspect of marriage. She untied his dressing gown and shoved it off his shoulders. He had just finished tearing off his drawers when she shoved him down onto the bed. His eyes lit up as she hovered over him. “Ah, so it’s to be like that, my wicked little seductress?” “Oh, yes.” She grinned at him. “I do so enjoy having a viscount fall before me.” She started to remove her robe, but he stayed her with his hand. “Don’t.” He raked her with a heated glance. “Next session of parliament, I’ll endure the boredom of the endless speeches by imagining you seducing me in all your pomp and circumstance.” “My pomp is nothing to yours, my love,” she murmured as she caught his rampant flesh in her hand. “Yours is quite…er…pompous.” “That’s what happens if the viscount falls.” He thrust against her hand. “His pomp always rises.” And as she laughed, they created a pomp and circumstance all their own.

A knock at the enameled door of the carriage altered them to the presence of a porter and a platform inspector just outside. Sebastian looked up and handed the baby back to Evie. He went to speak to the men. After a minute or two, he came back from the threshold with a basket. Looking both perturbed and amused, he brought it to Phoebe. “This was delivered to the station for you.” “Just now?” Phoebe asked with a nonplussed laugh. “Why, I believe it’s Ernestine’s mending basket! Don’t say the Ravenels went to the trouble of sending someone all the way to Alton to return it?” “It’s not empty,” her father said. As he set the basket in her lap, it quivered and rustled, and a blood-curdling yowl emerged. Astonished, Phoebe fumbled with the latch on the lid and opened it. The black cat sprang out and crawled frantically up her front, clinging to her shoulder with such ferocity that nothing could have detached her claws. “Galoshes!” Justin exclaimed, hurrying over to her. “Gosh-gosh!” Stephen cried in excitement. Phoebe stroked the frantic cat and tried to calm her. “Galoshes, how . . . why are you . . . oh, this is Mr. Ravenel’s doing! I’m going to murder him. You poor little thing.” Justin came to stand beside her, running his hands over the dusty, bedraggled feline. “Are we going to keep her now, Mama?” “I don’t think we have a choice,” Phoebe said distractedly. “Ivo, will you go with Justin to the dining compartment, and fetch her some food and water?” The two boys dashed off immediately. “Why has he done this?” Phoebe fretted. “He probably couldn’t make her stay at the barn, either. But she’s not meant to be a pet. She’s sure to run off as soon as we reach home.” Resuming his seat next to Evie, Sebastian said dryly, “Redbird, I doubt that creature will stray more than an arm’s length from you.” Discovering a note in the mending basket, Phoebe plucked it out and unfolded it. She instantly recognized West’s handwriting. Unemployed Feline Seeking Household Position To Whom It May Concern, I hereby offer my services as an experienced mouser and personal companion. References from a reputable family to be provided upon request. Willing to accept room and board in lieu of pay. Indoor lodgings preferred. Your servant, Galoshes the Cat Glancing up from the note, Phoebe found her parents’ questioning gazes on her. “Job application,” she explained sourly. “From the cat.” “How charming,” Seraphina exclaimed, reading over her shoulder. “‘Personal companion,’ my foot,” Phoebe muttered. “This is a semi-feral animal who has lived in outbuildings and fed on vermin.” “I wonder,” Seraphina said thoughtfully. “If she were truly feral, she wouldn’t want any contact with humans. With time and patience, she might become domesticated.” Phoebe rolled her eyes. “It seems we’ll find out.” The boys returned from the dining car with a bowl of water and a tray of refreshments. Galoshes descended to the floor long enough to devour a boiled egg, an anchovy canapé, and a spoonful of black caviar from a silver dish on ice. Licking her lips and purring, the cat jumped back into Phoebe’s lap and curled up with a sigh.

Here’s a little problem with that plan: the vast majority of jobs are not filled through cold resumes coming in advertisements. Do a little googling on the term “hidden job market.” The hidden job market (also called the “unpublicized job market” or the “unadvertised job market”) comprises all jobs that are not listed publicly or filled through means such as employment ads, job boards, or career fairs. Published estimates typically place the hidden job market at 70 percent to 95 percent of all jobs filled at all levels. In an article published on MSNBC.com, Steven Rothberg, founder of CollegeRecruiter.com, says, “[a]bout 90 percent of job openings go unadvertised, yet about 90 percent of candidates apply only to advertised job openings.”10 Let’s say the correct figure for the unpublicized job market is 80 percent. How are those “hidden” jobs being filled? Primarily through networking and referrals.

So I want to be clear: Andy Card and I have known each other since the 1980s, though age separated us, and most of my time was spent with his younger brother. What’s more, Andy’s a good political player. Come election time, what with my mother’s growing media empire in the wilds of Alaska—and her ties to the good and honorable Senator Stevens—it just made sense that Andy Card would make a special nod to our family in Alaska. Perceptions to the contrary would be grossly inaccurate. After I warned about the 1993 World Trade Center attack, and started working as an Asset, I had to distance myself from Andy, who had national political aspirations after all. Our need for distance ended overnight when President-elect George Bush, Jr. named Andy to serve as White House Chief of Staff. At that point, my background was fully revealed, all cards on the table, when I approached him in December, 2000 about our back channel talks to resume the weapons inspections in Iraq. I expected Andy to be surprised. But I was at the top of my game. I had accomplished many good things involving Libya and Iraq, with special regards to anti-terrorism, through a decade of perseverance and creative strategizing. I expected a man like Andy Card to be proud of my actions. A man who brags to his friends about his outstanding devotion to my field of work should be fiercely proud that one of his own family has been on the cutting edge of it for a decade. When you do the work I have done, you don’t apologize for communicating with the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States of America. At the end of the conversation, you expect him to say thank you. Think about it. I was a primary source of raw intelligence on Iraq and Middle Eastern anti-terrorism overall. I enjoyed high level access to officials in Baghdad and Libya. It was extremely valuable for the White House Chief of Staff to have first-hand access to major new developments inside Iraq. Given my status as an Asset—and his— it was entirely appropriate for him to receive these debriefings. That was part of his job. No doubt that’s why Andy Card never suggested I should break off communications with Iraq— or that I should stop providing him with my insider’s analysis of breaking developments in Baghdad. All of which makes our end so galling.

I was in a turmoil. Does friendship really offer a door to love or it’s like being ‘just’ friends? She knows I am interested in her but she’ll see me just as a friend. I will hang around. She will notice me. She will find me a great guy, yet won’t think about me in that way. Moreover, I won’t be able to approach her, lacking the courage to risk our friendship. This is roughly equivalent to the scenario where a guy goes to a job interview and the company says, “You have a great resume, you have all the qualifications we were looking for, but we are not going to hire you. We will, however, use your resume as the basis of comparison for all other applicants. We are still going to hire somebody else who is far less qualified and is probably an alcoholic. However, if it doesn’t work out, we will still hire somebody but not you. In fact, we will never hire you. But we will call you from time to time to complain about the person we hired.

More than 95% of jobs are not advertised anymore because employers are ill equipped to deal with the avalanche of resumes, each one of which has to be filed, tracked, and replied to for Equal Opportunity Employer reasons.

One dad taught the author how to write an impressive resume so he could find a good job. The other taught him how to write strong business and financial plans so he could create jobs.

You must do the thinking for the reader of your resume.

A focused resume is a powerful resume. A resume that tries to be all things to all people ends up being nothing at all.

This is not to cast Barbie as a New Traditionalist. Even in retrograde times, she has never stayed at home against her will. The jobs on her 1989 resume—physician, astronaut, veterinarian, fashion designer, executive, Olympic athlete—are impressive; a little girl could do worse than identify with such a doll. Her move away from demeaning stereotypes can also be documented. Compared with, say, the 1973 Barbie Friend Ship, in which Barbie is forced to play scullery maid to a painted-on pilot, the 1990 Flight Time Barbie, developed in 1989, is herself an aviatrix. But Flight Time Barbie is also a Day-to-Night doll, and her after-hours outfit, vastly more girlish than what she wore in 1985, undercuts her authority. In five years, her homeovestite behavior has intensified, suggesting that her achievements have left her fraught with anxiety.

Candidates who reach out to recruiters through LinkedIn are much more likely to break through the clutter and get recruiters’ attention than are people who simply send in a resume and/or leave a voice mail.

The only way to keep up with all of this work was to do what SpaceX had promised from the beginning: operate in the spirit of a Silicon Valley start-up. Musk was always looking for brainy engineers who had not just done well at school but had done something exceptional with their talents. When he found someone good, Musk was relentless in courting him or her to come to SpaceX. Bryan Gardner, for example, first met Musk at a space rave in the hangars at the Mojave airport and a short while later started talking about a job. Gardner was having some of his academic work sponsored by Northrop Grumman. “Elon said, ‘We’ll buy them out,’” Gardner said. “So, I e-mailed him my resume at two thirty A.M., and he replied back in thirty minutes addressing everything I put in there point by point. He said, ‘When you interview make sure you can talk concretely about what you do rather than use buzzwords.’ It floored me that he would take the time to do this.

No one creates a perfect resume on their first try.

Your education is important because with only a few words you can show an employer the depth of your potential.

A resume isn’t read; it’s skimmed. A resume screener will glance at your resume for about 15 seconds (or maybe less) to make a decision about whether or not to interview you. This forms the guiding principle of resumes. A resume should be optimized for that 15-second skim.

The time period in question was before the proliferation of outsourcing, but there was already Craigslist as a “ready reserve” resource. I had to resolutely disregard interesting-but-unhelpful search terms with advertising of local people looking for “casual encounters” and “rants and raves.” In the possibly more helpful Craigslist category enigmatically titled “Gigs,” I typed in: Lawyer seeks help. College drop-out preferred. Long hours, pressure-cooker environment, unyielding schedule. Pays all the Ramen noodles you can eat. Great opportunity to broaden your horizons and enhance your resume! It was a truthful description of the job, and consequently, I did not expect many takers.

The smartest people can write the worst emails and those of less intellect can write the best.

The smartest people can write the worst emails and those of less intellect can write the best.

To make a simple change of a typeface can instantly transform text which had the appearance and tone of a joyous announcement to suddenly convey that of a somber tragedy.

Your LinkedIn profile must be consistent with how you portray yourself elsewhere. Not only should your official résumé match the experience you list on LinkedIn, but it also should be consistent with Twitter and public Facebook information.

Your LinkedIn profile must include keywords for specific skills that match your desired job.

As the children grew, Goldilocks took great joy in introducing them to the stories she had loved as a child. When her son went off to kindergarten, Goldilocks thought about looking for a job. But her resume now had a seven-year hole in it, and her practical skills were long out of date. The only jobs Goldilocks could qualify for were minimum wage. She suddenly realized that being practical had made her horribly unhappy. On a whim, Goldilocks decided to do the one thing she had always wanted more than anything else—she was finally going to write a novel. She didn’t care if it was impractical. She didn’t care if nobody would ever read her novel. She was going to do it just because she wanted to.

No one is a lost cause. And it hurts seeing people get dismissed because at one point in their career they had a setback and might have not been able to stand back up. As time passes, they fall even deeper into hopelessness. It could have been anyone of us and you know it.

Consider all recruiters to be lazy and short of time.

A résumé is like a ticket to the job journey; without it, you are not in.

No matter how long or short your résumé is, ensure you capture all important information in the first 10% of your résumé

I am on Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and both my children are in school. . . . I have graduated from college with distinction, 128th in a class of over 1000, with a B.A. in English and sociology. I have experience in library work, child care, social work and counseling. I have been to the CETA office. They have nothing for me. . . . I also go every week to the library to scour the newspaper Help Wanted ads. I have kept a copy of every cover letter that I have sent out with my resume; the stack is inches thick. I have applied for jobs paying as little as $8000 a year. I work part-time in a library for $3.50 an hour, welfare reduces my allotment to compensate. . . . It appears we have employment offices that can’t employ, governments that can’t govern and an economic systemthat can’t produce jobs for people ready to work. . . . Last week I sold my bed to pay for the insurance on my car, which, in the absence of mass transportation, I need to go job hunting. I sleep on a piece of rubber foamsomebody gave me. So this is the great American dream my parents came to this country for: Work hard, get a good education, follow the rules, and you will be rich. I don’t want to be rich. I just want to be able to feed my children and live with some semblance of dignity. . . .

An overdecorated CV is usually an overcompensation for being uneducated and/or inexperienced.

Quando você cresce, costuma ouvir que o mundo é do jeito que é e a sua vida se resume apenas a viver a sua vida dentro do mundo. Tentar não bater demais contra as paredes. Tentar ter uma vida familiar agradável, ser feliz, poupar dinheiro. É uma vida muito limitada. A vida pode ser muito mais ampla se você descobrir um único fato: isto é, tudo a sua volta que você chama de vida foi criado por pessoas com inteligência semelhante a sua. E você pode mudá-la. Você pode influenciá-la… Quando você aprender isso, nunca mais vai ser o mesmo. [STEVE JOBS]

Do You Need Resume Writing Services? Getting a job can be hard. It doesn't have to be! We can help you find a job that's perfect for you and match your skills. We offer resume writing services, career development services, and much more. Contact us today! Resume writing services canada Do you have trouble finding work because your resume is unimpressive? Get your resume to stand out by contacting our Canada-based services. The best resumes in your field are only available with us, from top rated experts. Career Development Services Having your resume written by an expert can be expensive, but could lead to success in your job search. Job seekers might find that they're more confident when applying for jobs and will have an edge over other candidates who are trying to get their resumes approved. Writing Your Resume Your resume is more than just an advertisement for your skills. It is also an opportunity to tell employers who you are as person and why they should hire you. Your resume is not only about what skills you have or what jobs you've had in the past, but it's also about who you are. The Best Way to Edit Your Resume Many of us have never had to put together our own resume. It's something that most people only do when they are first looking for work, or in some cases, if they need to update their resume for various reasons. Here are some tips to help you better edit your resume: - Leave off all information that is not absolutely necessary. - Be concise.

The areas on which we offer our expertise in HR Consulting, include: Understanding the specific requirements of our clients and providing them with prospective candidates to suit the job profile. The process we follow stats with collecting resumes suited to the hob profile, shortlist them and forward them to our clients Our process of screening, Verification of background and making the correct assessment is done through our Developed Pre Screening Checking processes so that we are able to provide pre-screened candidates to speed up hiring needs. We also have an Applicant Tracking System. abhishek.sinngh@wawcl.com +91-9953328778 408, 4th Floor, Tower C KLJ Noida One, B-8, Block B, Sector 62, Noida – 201309 ( UP )

Capture the Quantitative Impact of Your Accomplishments Examine everything you’ve done, but don’t merely report what you’ve done. Report the quantitative impact, that is, the numbers that resulted from your achievement. That’s what hiring managers care about most. For example: When I was in school, I worked in the University’s Personnel department. During my time there, the Director asked if I could explain a monthly report she received from Accounts Payable. The report identified everything charged to Personnel. Unfortunately, neither the Director nor her team could understand what it was saying. After some analysis and research, I was able to translate the confusing report into something the Director could understand. What I did not do was ask the Director and her team for the financial impact of now being able to understand the report. While what I did was a valuable story to share at my next interview, it would have meant a lot more if I’d identified the dollars saved or some other quantified impact. As noted earlier, a few years later, I worked for a high-tech company that sold equipment to Fortune 500 firms. The company wasn’t winning the large deals like they had in the past, so I was asked to investigate. I identified the process breakdown causing the problem. I also created a short-term solution, so that the company could start winning bids again while the long-term solution was being developed. What I did not do — and almost have to kick myself now for not doing — was to ask for the value of the deals we were now winning. Those $$$ would have clearly explained the positive impact of my work. It would have been a wonderful talking point in my resume. After my job was eliminated for the second time in 13 years, I started doing a better job of quantifying the impact of my accomplishments.

How to Quantify Achievement Stories When hiring managers, recruiters, and staffing firms see a resume or LinkedIn profile or attend an interview with verbiage but no numbers, they don’t know what those words mean. In fact, they know next to nothing until you add the numbers that explain the impact of your work. Here’s how you can resolve this issue. Work With Finance Sometimes the impact of our work is not always clear. At times like this, reaching out to one of your friends in the Finance Department can be very helpful. Finance has access to numbers that are not always readily available to other departments. If you’re no longer with the company, explain to the Finance associate that the numbers he provides could make the difference in determining whether you land another position. Using a Range Per Lily Zhang of the Muse, one reason job seekers avoid quantifying is not knowing the exact number. Lily suggests using a range. Using my work experience, here’s what that means: Before: Chaired weekly product manager meeting. After: Chaired weekly meeting with 7 to 12 product managers so plans could be discussed and coordinated. Confusion and rework were eliminated. Frequency Lily shared that one of the easiest ways to add numbers is to identify the frequency with which you perform a given task. This can help the hiring manager understand how much you can handle. For example: Before: Responded to pricing requests from the Sales Force. After: Responded to 15 to 20 pricing requests from the Sales Force on a daily basis. Scale Everyone on the hiring side of the business loves when candidates provide numbers, because numbers explain the impact of what you’ve done. The most meaningful numbers are those associated with making money, saving money, and driving productivity. Here are a couple examples from my work experience: Before: Reduced time to perform Operations Manager’s role; after analysis showed tasks could be batched and performed at the end of the month. After: Reduced time to perform Operations Manager role by 66%; after analysis showed tasks could be batched and performed at the end of the month. Asked Director if I could take on the responsibilities of employees who were laid off. Before: Analysis revealed misconfigured offers; worked with other departments to correct errors. Implemented process to prevent future errors. After: Analysis revealed misconfigured offers; worked with other departments to correct errors. Recognized $7.2M. Implemented process to prevent future errors.

Job Postings Say, “Do Not Contact The Hiring Manager” This seems logical at first. However, the Application Tracking System rejects anywhere from 75% to 90% of applicants, and the system is notorious for misreading resumes. So, if you receive an automated rejection letter, you have nothing to lose and potentially a lot to gain by contacting the hiring manager. For instance, Kelly Kinnebrew, Ph.D, an Organizational and Leadership expert notes that: "If you are targeted and make a strong case for why a contact would want to speak with you, I have found outreaches directly to hiring managers, VPs of talent and the like give back a reply probably 8 out of 10 times." In other words, don’t ever think the automated rejection has sealed your fate.

Networking Beats The HR Elimination System Every Time In a LinkedIn post, Lynda Spiegel shared that she submitted her resume to two different companies, both looking for a senior level human resources executive with global experience. Lynda's experience matched most of the requirements. However, within hours of hitting "send," she received emails from both companies telling her there were other candidates more qualified for the position. Fortunately, Lynda had used her connections to send her resume to the hiring managers at both firms. Within one day of the ATS rejection, she received calls from these hiring managers asking her to interview based on the strength of her resume.

Job Postings Say, “Do Not Contact The Hiring Manager.” This seems logical at first. However, the Application Tracking System rejects anywhere from 75% to 90% of applicants, and the system is notorious for misreading resumes. So, if you receive an automated rejection letter, you have nothing to lose and potentially a lot to gain by contacting the hiring manager.

The Most Widely Known Path If you're like most people, you believe landing an interview is limited to these three steps: 1.) Applying online, 2.) HR reviewing your application, and 3.) If your application is selected, the hiring manager reviewing it. You believe this because almost everything you’ve read comes from current or former HR folks. This process has significant flaws. Because the Internet made applying for positions easy, HR was drowning in applications. As a result, the HR Elimination system was born. That’s not its official name, but the name fits. The official name is Applicant Tracking System or ATS. ATS systems reject, on average, 75% of all applicants. Sometimes the rejection rate can be as high as 90%. J. P. Medved, content director at Capterra, a firm that helps companies find the right software for their business, said, Reducing the number of candidates might seem good if we're weeding out irrelevant resumes...In reality, many of these rejected candidates were knocked out of the running for bad reasons. An automated system, like an ATS, will sometimes reject people for very minor reasons, like incorrect resume formatting. Bersin & Associates, an Oakland-based firm specializing in talent management, tested an ATS system. They created the perfect resume for an ideal candidate for a clinical scientist position. Matching the resume to the job description from a leading manufacturer, they submitted the resume to an applicant tracking system. The ATS lost one of the candidate's work experiences. It also failed to read several educational degrees. As a result, the perfect resume for a clinical scientist position earned a score of 43, because the applicant tracking system misread it. Similarly, a Vice-President of Human Resources decided to test his company's ATS system. He applied for a job at his own company and received an automated rejection letter from the ATS.

What is an Achievement Story? As noted in the Hiring Manager’s Secrets chapter, hiring managers want to know: How you made money for your employer, How you saved money for your employer, How you made yourself, your department, your division, or your company more productive. They want to know how you made a positive difference. This is your time to answer the above questions with real-life examples from your experience. According to “Ask A Manager” blogger, Alison Green, resumes that stand out tell the reader what you accomplished that someone else wouldn’t have in the same position. For example, if you’re like me you may have: — trained managers to sell products through a new ordering system by documenting the process and conducting training sessions, — took on the work of two laid off employees, or — developed a budgeting system enabling managers to customize their budgets based on their unique needs. Alison also says that the hiring manager wants to know, “Were you solely interested in producing acceptable work, or did you do an impressive job?

How To Collect Your Achievement Stories

 Before we can write our Achievement Stories, we need to identify each and every one. This will take some work, but the payoff is employment and higher wages and salaries.

 Because I want you to look as impressive as possible, I’m going to remind you of all of the places where your achievements can be found:

 Performance Reviews 

I worked at a place where, at the end of every year, my boss had to convince his peers why I should get a raise and or a bonus. As a result, my performance reviews were a great place to find achievements I might have forgotten about.

 Awards 

Every time you receive an award, you have evidence that you are special. Depending on the number of achievements, you might want to list your awards as achievements. Usually, the reason you received the award is an achievement. 

Promotions 

Getting promoted is an achievement. Your promotion says to the hiring manager, “This woman is so good that we gave her more responsibility and a higher salary. Bosses and Coworkers If you’re wracking your brain trying to think of achievements, consider giving a list of the achievements you’ve identified to bosses and co-workers. Then ask them, “What’s missing? What have I left out?” Emails If you have access to your old emails, go through each one to see what you can find. I did this every year when my boss asked for my achievements, this gave him the ammunition he needed to negotiate for my raises. This is the ammunition you need to win over the hiring manager. LinkedIn Recommendations Just the other day, I was reading my LinkedIn recommendations and was reminded of an accomplishment I had not included in my LI profile or resume. As you read each recommendation, think about the work you did with that person. It may jog your memory and help you remember things you’ve left out.

Where Are Achievement Stories Used? Achievement stories are used in your resume, your LinkedIn profile, and your interviews: In your resume, your achievements will be bulleted sentences. In your LinkedIn profile, it will be a more detailed paragraph. In your interviews, achievement stories enable the hiring manager to understand your accomplishments in detail. They are also great additions to your cover letter and portfolio.

Will Spelling Keep You Out Of Interviews? Whether we like it or not, hiring managers judge job seekers based on how our resumes, cover letters, and LinkedIn profiles are written. That’s why it is essential that you turn on Microsoft Word’s spell-check so it catches every error in your resume and cover letter. But don’t stop there, after turning on Microsoft Word’s spell check, copy all of the verbiage in your LinkedIn profile and paste it into a Word document. Here are some of the reasons I say this… • 5,908 LinkedIn Profiles contained “Universiry” where they meant to write “University”. • 34,254 profiles contain “Graduat” where they meant to write “Graduate”. • 25 English teacher’s profiles contain “Colege” where they meant to write “College”. If you’re not getting interviews, take a second look at your resume, cover letter and LinkedIn profiles. Hiring managers get to choose who they want to hire. Don’t let your spelling be the reason they don’t hire you.

A résumé is the most important document in your journey to get a job, more important than your degree.

A good résumé is very dynamic and changes with every company. It is like an advertisement of a solution to the problem faced by the company. As problems can vary from company to company, so should the résumé

Just this year, we introduced an exercise for our Duke MBAs called “How Your Talents Add Value” to help drive this point home for them. We presented them with four “buckets” of work: (1) Making things happen, (2) Collaborating with others, (3) Leading and influencing others, and (4) Solving challenging problems. We then asked our students to pick two of their Top 5 talent themes that they must regularly combine in order to accomplish each bucket of work. They were instructed to put in their own words how they used these talent themes in tandem to do good work and then to describe an example where they did so.

It's either in writing or it's nothing.

Richard could make his resume more accomplishment-oriented. He should take each job and ask himself, “What are my five biggest accomplishments?” These should form the bullets of his resume.

You know, Ahmed, I'm not looking for a job. I'm looking for fulfillment. And for me, there are only two ingredients: knowing that my work means something for others, and the company's culture.

Please remember, these homeless or long-term unemployed people were not born this way, they had an accident that brought them to where they are today. Allow them to one day tell the story of this perfect stranger who changed their life without asking for anything in return.

An interview is either a lesson or a blessing. You either use it as practice or you get a great job.

If you just focus on being liked by them, how can you truly join a company that deserves you? You've got to have some standards. You must be assessing them, too. And if things don't work out because they're not up to your standards, then you've probably done yourself a huge favor.

The river instantly resumed its thundering way toward the Salton Sea. Cory brought the river back under control on November 4 “by exhausting the capacities of every quarry between Los Angeles and Nogales, four hundred and eighty-five miles to the east.” Yet one month later, the river busted loose again. For Harry Cory, the sixth failed attempt to close the breach was the last straw. The Southern Pacific had poured more than a million dollars “into that hole” and the river had swept it all away. A sustainable repair required not only a dam, but the construction and permanent maintenance of fifteen miles of levees along the west bank, reinforced with concrete and steel to keep the river corralled even at its most violent. These would be the most expensive levees ever built over such a distance—not a job for the Southern Pacific, in his weary judgment. The railroad was the most resourceful, rich, and powerful enterprise in the Southwest, yet the river had brought it to its knees.

Thus begins my only sustained conversation in the Grand Canyon, as the man and I walk the second half of South Kaibab Trail together. I learn he’s on his way to a water treatment plant at the Colorado River. “I treat sewage water and recycle it to use at Phantom Ranch,” he explains. A self-described “Steward of the Grand Canyon,” he’s been doing this work all his life – a job he took over from his uncle and grandfather before him. “No matter the weather I hike to the plant every other week,” he says. “I stay for about a week at a time.” This week he’s on a special mission to train some new “young bucks” in the art of water treatment. “They never last,” he shakes his head. “They think they know what they’re getting into, and then reality hits when it gets cold.” He pauses, staring down the emerald Colorado River snaking below us. Then he swings around, looking me straight in the eyes, “I have given up everything I love for this canyon.” He resumes his speed walk as I trail clumsily behind him, trying to keep up. My bike bounces on my back.

What’s Slipping Under Your Radar? Word Count: 1096 Summary: Ben, a high-level leader in a multi-national firm, recently confessed that he felt like a bad father. That weekend he had messed up his Saturday daddy duties. When he took his son to soccer practice, Ben stayed for a while to support him. In the process, though, he forgot to take his daughter to her piano lesson. By the time they got to the piano teacher’s house, the next student was already playing. This extremely successful businessman felt like a failure. Keywords: Dr. Karen Otazo, Global Executive Coaching, Leadership Article Body: Ben, a high-level leader in a multi-national firm, recently confessed that he felt like a bad father. That weekend he had messed up his Saturday daddy duties. When he took his son to soccer practice, Ben stayed for a while to support him. In the process, though, he forgot to take his daughter to her piano lesson. By the time they got to the piano teacher’s house, the next student was already playing. This extremely successful businessman felt like a failure. At work, one of Ben’s greatest strengths is keeping his focus no matter what. As a strategic visionary, he keeps his eyes on the ongoing strategy, the high-profile projects and the high-level commitments of his group. Even on weekends Ben spends time on email, reading and writing so he can attend the many meetings in his busy work schedule. Since he is so good at multi-processing in his work environment, he assumed he could do that at home too. But when we talked, Ben was surprised to realize that he is missing a crucial skill: keeping people on his radar. Ben is great at holding tasks and strategies in the forefront of his mind, but he has trouble thinking of people and their priorities in the same way. To succeed at home, Ben needs to keep track of his family members’ needs in the same way he tracks key business commitments. He also needs to consider what’s on their radar screens. In my field of executive coaching, I keep every client on my radar screen by holding them in my thinking on a daily and weekly basis. That way, I can ask the right questions and remind them of what matters in their work lives. No matter what your field is, though, keeping people on your radar is essential. Consider Roger, who led a team of gung-ho sales people. His guys and gals loved working with him because his gut instincts were superb. He could look at most situations and immediately know how to make them work. His gut was great, almost a sixth sense. But when Sidney, one of his team of sales managers, wanted to move quickly to hire a new salesperson, Roger was busy. He was managing a new sales campaign and wrangling with marketing and headquarters bigwigs on how to position the company’s consumer products. Those projects were the only things on his radar screen. He didn’t realize that Sidney was counting on hiring someone fast. Roger reviewed the paperwork for the new hire. It was apparent to Roger that the prospective recruit didn’t have the right background for the role. He was too green in his experience with the senior people he’d be exposed to in the job. Roger saw that there would be political hassles down the road which would stymie someone without enough political savvy or experience with other parts of the organization. He wanted an insider or a seasoned outside hire with great political skills. To get the issue off his radar screen quickly, Roger told Human Resources to give the potential recruit a rejection letter. In his haste, he didn’t consult with Sidney first. It seemed obvious from the resume that this was the wrong person. Roger rushed off to deal with the top tasks on his radar screen. In the process, Sidney was hurt and became angry. Roger was taken by surprise since he thought he had done the right thing, but he could have seen this coming.

Some think that the universe was designed. If it was, I’m guessing that whoever did that job doesn’t include it on their resume. It’d be too much of an embarrassment, and so they’d have a 14 billion year gap that would need to be explained at their next job interview.