Submitting your application and waiting for a response from employers can be an excruciating process. Especially when you’re not hearing back and wondering if something’s amiss with your résumé. These ten expert tips will help you freshen up your résumé so you can land the interview.
It’s 2017, and we’re in a job seeker’s market. Employers are competing for top candidates.
We’ve talked about the best ways to end an email; now let’s talk about beginnings.
You might wonder whether it’s really necessary to put much thought into how you begin your emails and other correspondence. If you’ve ever ignored a letter because it began with “To Whom It May Concern,” groaned because your name was misspelled, or wondered if the sender was human or canine because their greeting was so overly enthusiastic, then you know that getting your email salutation right is a big deal.
There are two things you need to keep in mind when you’re creating a résumé. First, you should be aware that a lot of recruiters and employers use special software that searches your résumé for specific keywords. Even when your résumé does get seen by human eyes—and this is the second thing you need to remember—the employer will take only six seconds to make a decision about how good of a fit you might be for the job.
Everyone knows the problem with spell-check: your word might be spelled right, but it may be the wrong word. English is full of confusing words that sound alike but are spelled differently. It’s also full of words that share similar (but not identical) meanings that are easy to misuse. Below are some of the most commonly confused and misused words in English.
You are battling toward the nexus in a 5v5-ranked game late on a Wednesday night. You have to work the next day and know you are not going to get enough sleep. But fear not! Your dedication to League of Legends is helping more than just your online rep. It’s helping you to be a better team player by teaching you these five valuable lessons in communicating under pressure.
Writing job applications is a necessary evil that awaits most of us. On the plus side, applications allow us to reach for the stars—or at least for employers we would never be able to reach through recommendations or word of mouth. On the flip side, they offer the same opportunity to hundreds of other people who are also looking for a job. To make matters even worse, in this day and age you can’t use the same résumé and cover letter for every job post you see.
Is poor writing an indicator that you will be less successful in your career?
Kyle Wiens, CEO at iFixit, suggested as much in a July 20, 2012 article (“I Won’t Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here’s Why.”) which appeared in Harvard Business Review’s blog network.
Yesterday, in honor of National Grammar Day, Harvard Business Review posted another article (“Grammar Should Be Everyone’s Business”) written by Grammarly CEO Brad Hoover.
Imagine, for a minute, that you’re an employer. You need to fill a position and you receive hundreds of applications every day. You’ve deleted the ones from senders like cutie143@email.com, the ones with misspellings in the subject line or email body, and the ones that sound like generic templates.
Then you read a cover letter that shows knowledge of the position, skill fit, proper grammar and spelling, and enthusiasm.
