And the “world’s most admired companies” are…

Posted on March 28, 2012
Filed Under Employment, Finding a Job | Leave a Comment

Are you familiar with the idiom, “perception is reality?” Although I find this idiomatic phrase, and the sensibility it represents highly suspect—for example, what if the perceiving person is delusional, and the facts of reality simply don’t correspond to his or her delusions?—I do think, as I am certain no one would disagree, it is important to be perceived well, regardless of whether those perceptions track objective reality. Although this may seem like a rather curious introduction to Fortune’s list of the “World’s 50 Most Admired Companies,” I do have a point (even if an unsavory one). Read more

Translating vacancy announcement jargon

Posted on March 23, 2012
Filed Under Employment, Finding a Job | Leave a Comment

After completing graduate school, I read thousands of job vacancies as each day I would sit behind my laptop pouring over the information returned to me by job listing aggregators like Indeed.com. For better or worse, the Internet is an ever-expansive information landscape, whose beginning and end are never in reach, and always out of sight. In short, my queries returned all of the information I could possibly handle. While this less-than-systematic approach to searching for a job didn’t supply me with any solid leads, after a month of searching I began to recognize patterns—similar logic—underlying seemingly divergent position descriptions. Beyond evident structural similarities, contained within many of those vacancies was the same tired, vapid, unspecific language. In the same way that we might form “schools” out of writers whose prose have similar, identifiable stylistic or thematic touches, job vacancies, full of vague unhelpful language and jargon, might be understood as representing a specific, thoroughly unentertaining, uninviting species of literature, its name both entirely apropos—reflective of its function—and ironic: Vacant. Read more

Keeping your shoes on in your next interview

Posted on March 20, 2012
Filed Under Employment, Finding a Job, Interview | Leave a Comment

Nowhere does Murphy’s Law ring more true than in an interview. It’s a gauntlet. Something through which job seekers are forced to pass, hoping to make it out the other end intact; a series of carefully devised challenges, tailored to incite confusion, anxiety, and, sometimes, (mild) panic. For many job seekers, living through an interview might appear like surviving the garbage compactor—a room of sodden of trash and debris, its walls closing in without any evident means of escape—into which Luke Skywalker and his motley gang tumble in “A New Hope.” While some job seekers may face this daunting challenge with greater air of confidence and courage than others, the experience strikes every job seeker with the same, inextricable fear. And some job seekers, unsure of how to handle the situation or pressure, box themselves in, committing some of the most egregious interviewing sins. Read more

A case against cellphone usage at work

Posted on March 13, 2012
Filed Under Employment, Keeping your Job, Technology in the Workplace, The Workplace | Leave a Comment

Do you remember your first cellphone? I remember mine; though, calling it a cellphone—which in some way seems to connote small or minute size—may be a bit of a misnomer. It was a large, rectangular prism which, in terms of its dimensions, size, and weight, resembled a red stone brick rather than a cutting edge piece of telecommunications technology. Even if the phone filled up at least twice the volume of my front jean pocket in which I would cram it, I wore this piece of technology, protruding from my front most pant pocket, as a badge of honor. Although as the components supporting our telecommunication devices have grown more complex, the size of mobile phones have, again, begun to balloon. Unlike when I was trusted with my first cellphone, mobile phone technology has become ubiquitous. More than an accessory, it has become a permanent, unwieldy facet of human life. Unfortunately, as mobile phones have become as ubiquitous as, say, a kitchen blender, use of mobile phone technology fills our day, so much so, that addict cellphone users, when separated from their mobile device, experience a something akin to phantom leg syndrome, called phantom vibration syndrome. Even if our cellphone may accompany us wherever we go, there remain some temples within whose walls their inconsiderate use would not only be inappropriate, but undignified and unwise. One such ‘temple’ is the workplace. Read more

Reading resumes as cultural economic history

Posted on March 7, 2012
Filed Under Cover Letters and Resumes, Employment, Finding a Job, Hiring Forecast, Recession | Leave a Comment

Have you ever considered what’s driving lexical evolution? That is, have you ever wondered how forces of culture and language interact, and may influence each other? Although it can be difficult to trace effect to cause, determining how the introduction of certain words into the public lexicon may begin to impact or shape our cultural horizons and vice versa, woven into our everyday language is a complex web of understanding. While stating that language is a gateway to understanding may be a bit mundane—after all, without language we would presumably lack the requisite tools to properly formulate the ideas which form the foundation for all understanding—perhaps more exceptional is the remark that, in using language, we sometimes subconsciously communicate information about our social, cultural, and/or historical context. That, unbeknownst to us, our use of certain words instead of others may covertly convey important details about the socio-cultural milieu of which we are part. So what does this have to do with resume writing? More than you might think. Read more

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