“I’m underpaid. Should I threaten to leave to see if I can get more money?”This question netted a visceral response from me because of my recruiting background and I don’t like the threat game. Either do it or don’t, but don’t threaten actions to get your way. The list of 10 reasons not to accept counter offers (below) harkens back to my recruiting days. Nothing is worse for a recruiter than a candidate using the recruiter...

One of the first questions I ask clients in the resume creation process is who’s our audience? I tell them we have to know what our buyer is buying before we can sell to them. I may conduct all my business over the telephone, but I know a “deer in the headlights” look when I hear one. If necessary, I back up a bit and say, “OK, let’s talk about, how you’re searching.”I want clients to see their skills as a product, the hiri...

Bart wandered in our lives on a Saturday night. Strangely enough, he appeared on the eve of the day we said good-bye to Sadie. It was almost as if he knew there’d be an opening for a dog at our house and he was Johnny-on-the-spot ready to fill it. We had and now, thanks to Bart, still have six dogs...At first glance, I thought he was a young dog. Always smiling, tail wagging, full of energy and happy, incredibly, smile-insp...

I did some research on local networking opportunities a while back for a job seeker. She and I met though the Job Angels initiative originally started on Twitter. She recently graduated with an engineering degree and moved from Michigan to Wilmington, NC. She knew virtually no one and was anxious to launch her career. She asked me how to meet and network in this town. I put a call out to my Tweeps on Twitter to get as much...

Today, I’m sharing some observations and insights gained while volunteering to do resume reviews at a local mall for a job fair. To say I’m disgusted by what I saw is an understatement. And I’m not talking about the resumes. I’m used to seeing boring career autobiographies, all out career confessionals and self-centered, “this is what I want” documents. That’s not what bothered me. That can easily be fixed. That’s what I do...

The Professional Association of Resume Writers had a great conversation on their elist about how to identify companies in a specific geographic areas – like San Francisco metro and in a specific industry — life medical device or biotech – recently. The ideas for conducting targeted searches were so good, I consolidated all the posts and am sharing the information here. Linkedin: Create an account, if you don’t already...

As you may already know, I ran a pet sitting service in addition to my resume writing enterprise. (October 5th I notified clients I was shutting down.) If you think working for corporate America is demanding, try caring for someone’s animals in their own home. Goodness me, the stories I could tell.I also volunteer as a Career Expert for Careerealism’s Twitter Advice Project (T.A.P.) Anonymous individuals pose job search and...

During the past year, as I watched the face of the economy and, in turn, job search strategies shift, I started sharing the importance of networking and social media, more and more with my clients. Blogger and recruiter, Jeff Lipschultz included statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor in his post “40 jobs in 40 years? Fact or Fiction?” According to 2008 statistics individuals changed jobs, every 2.9 to 6.0 years. With...