College graduates are all too familiar with the challenges of job searching in an economy that hasn’t fully recovered from its five-year trough. Every October, the Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys recent graduates to determine their employment picture. The latest reported data, from October 2011, shows 12.6 percent unemployment for recent grads versus 7.3 percent…
……………………………By Guest Contributor Rachel Pryzby After you read my first guest post (Resume Greatest Hits: Questions I Get Asked Most), you’re probably on your way to creating a solid resume that effectively markets your skills and achievements. A cover letter, on the other hand, is a completely different animal, and one that doesn’t get as…
……………………………This week I’m re-posting one of my reader’s favorite posts on interviewing. Enjoy I gained a reputation for being a tough interviewer at the bank where I worked. It was a slow evolution. I remember always being considered so nice. Oh, maybe that was high school. My interviewing days stretched back to working as a…
By Guest Contributor Rachel Pryzby Many young professionals get one set of resume advice from their parents, completely different suggestions from their college career center, and a regular ol’ Google search brings up countless articles and blog posts with titles like “Common Resume Mistakes That Can Cost You Your Dream Job.” It can be confusing…
You probably realized soon after you arrived at college that by the time you are a senior you better have a resume that grabs recruiters’ attention. The easiest way to do that is to win an Olympic medal in alpine skiing. Or…get a good summer internship. Even if you need to earn money over the…
I loved my job and had no thoughts of leaving. But a funny thing happened when I went on maternity leave; half my 30-person work group left for a competitor. The news came as a shock to me, even in my rather emotionally removed state. I hadn’t seen the change coming and felt a mixture…
Last Friday, an enterprising 2008 Smith College alumna, Regina Chien, organized a group of 28 college students to visit a few technology companies in New York City, including Google’s NYC headquarters, and her office at Silicon Valley Bank. Regina hoped to give these students a peak at different career options as well as to educate…
Cover letters, or cover emails, are a necessary evil to landing an interview. It’s annoying to have to craft a brilliant, succinct and distinctive email when many interviewers toss them aside and dive right into your resume. But then again, there are those hirers that won’t get to your resume if they don’t like your…
If you haven’t landed one of your A List jobs, you may not be responding to a weakness in your resume. Even if the interviewer doesn’t ask you about the issue, it’s on her mind so you better deal with it or she may politely write you off. Yesterday I spoke with a recently graduated…
