If you are changing careers or fields, or if you have a significant gap in your work history, you might hear the advice to use a functional resume, rather than one that lays out your career experience in a chronological format. If you get this advice, you have my permission to ignore it. In fact, I demand that you ignore it! What is a functional resume? The functional resume was popularized in the late 1980s. In short...

It seems simple enough. Someone asks you to do something that you don’t want to do, or can’t take on at the moment. You should say no. But you don’t. All too often, we waffle. This is especially true of women, who have been socialized to be helpful and agreeable, often to the detriment of our own best interests. It doesn’t help that in today’s workplace, we are constantly challenged to do more...

Both job seekers and recruiters know that over the course of the last few years, the job market has gone from a buyer’s market to a seller’s one. The talent shortage is intensifying. Employers are finding it more and more difficult to fill open positions with top candidates. Time-to-fill rates are getting higher. Line managers are putting more pressure on recruiters to get the talent the company needs to reach i...

I remember teachers always impressing upon students the importance of being able to write clearly and cogently. I was a strong writer, and banging out a quick five paragraph essay posed no problem for me, only minor inconvenience. I knew that not everyone was as adept at writing as I, but I also recognized that other people were far better at math and science than I. It was not until email became a widely-used tool for b...

In simpler times, back before everyone had a home computer, and before the emergence of the Internet, people used to use typewriters, paper, and postal mail. When you wanted to search for a job, you sat down at your typewriter and typed up your resume. If you were engaged in an aggressive job search, you would take your resume to a stationery store, purchase some 80-pound bond paper, and have multiple copies of your resume...

Worldwide, women are paid 23% less than men who do the same jobs. This gender pay gap may be ardently disputed, but its existence is well documented and indisputable. The inherent problem with the pay gap is not only the disparity in earnings between the genders, but also the fact that a lifetime of economic inequality pushes women into poverty. Globally, unmarried women live in poverty at a disproportionately higher rate t...

Gimmicks—video resumes, sending cookies to your interviewer, etc.—will not get you hired. But what about those situations in which the candidate is subjected to gimmicks, and is asked to perform parlor tricks for the interviewer? Yet another symptom of the lack of interview training on the part of managers, these types of questions are highly effective—at screening out top talent. My client Jeff has 20...

Dear Deb: I’m extremely frustrated. Over the last three weeks, I had a series of very successful interviews with a company that is a major player in my industry. They even flew me out to the west coast to meet the development team I would be working with. Before traveling out to the west coast, the hiring manager coached me on each of the people I’d be meeting with, gave me some intel into the key issues the...

I’m sure you’ve seen it. There’s a lot of Millennial hating going on out there. This newest generation to arrive in the workplace is alternately painted as lazy and entitled, or as enthusiastic and diligent. They are the first truly “digitally native” generation. They’ve always had access to a computerized solution for virtually any problem, and they can’t remember when the Internet...

I was speaking with a client about an issue she has in her current position. Her manager has an aggressive revenue goal to meet this year, but he doesn’t want to leave the office. My client is concerned that her manager’s reluctance to get out and engage the market directly is going to result in the revenue goal not being met. She is wise to realize this because if the revenue goal is missed, it can have unpleas...