In today’s competitive job market, you want to make your resume as appealing as possible to prospective employers. Most employers are looking for competent workers to fill key positions quickly, with the expectation that new workers will stay around for many years and become valuable assets to the company. Therefore, a big gap in work history could be viewed by some employers as a sign that you are not looking for a long term commitment to a job.

You need to be honest on your resume about any big gap in work history, but you can be creative in your explanation to present your history in the best light possible. If you have a gap of more than a few months in your work history, you can’t just skip over it on your resume and hope no one will notice. Even though you were not working during that time, you might have been doing something that would look good to an employer.

Having a big gap in work history should not negatively impact your chances of finding a job if you can make the gap look like it was not time wasted. If you had to leave work in order to take care of your ailing parents, or if you took two years off after the birth of your child, you can highlight the valuable experiences you gained during your time off.

If you took a year or two off from a “real” job and spent the time wandering around Europe, describe this period as a personal sabbatical for enhancing your education and understanding of the world.

List the time interval as though it was a period of employment, except that you didn’t get paid for it. If the other job descriptions on your resume take up six lines each, devote the same space to describing your “duties” during your time off.

It is better to be up front and honest with potential employers when describing your background. If you have one or more big gaps in employment that were due to circumstances that an employer might see as negative, it is better to explain those circumstances fully in your cover letter when applying for a job. If you spent time in prison or drug rehab, it is better for you to explain what valuable lessons you learned from the experience in your job application process, than it is to hide the truth and hope your potential employer doesn’t discover it in a background check.

Many employers will not view a gap in employment negatively. They recognize the value of continuing education, caring for others, and personal growth experiences. They will often seek out job candidates who have something unusual to offer. By explaining your big gap in work history in the proper light, you may show the boss that you are the exact type of creative and self-motivated individual the company needs for that job you have always dreamed of.

I’ve been listening to a close friend of mine talk about one of her co-workers who tries to sabotage her on the job. My friend S. says that her co-worker will bring her in a muffin every day, all smiles and “how was your night?”, and then tell their boss if S. took 5 extra minutes of a lunch break. S. tells me story after story of little things here and there that her co-worker does to get one step ahead. Some examples are not so little. They work in a small, but competitive, team and every week brings some new way her co-worker tries to one-up her. I asked S.if she retaliates or brings it up to her boss, but she refuses, saying she doesn’t want to bring this pettiness to her boss. At the same, S. tells me that her co-worker has a very bubbly, likable personality (when not trying to steal S’s job), so she is torn. Personally, I wouldn’t be torn, I’d be spitting mad, but I’m getting off track here…

Because of the sheer amount of time that full-time jobs consume, it can be difficult to find friendships outside of work, which can make it tempting to seek friendship within the office. Sometimes, though, these relationships can turn sour, especially if it’s a coworker with whom you might potentially compete for a promotion. At work, you’ve probably had a “frenemy” or two. A frenemy acts cordial in general, but he or she makes snide remarks and puts you down in front of colleagues and superiors. We all know people like that, maybe we have even been one?

Unfortunately, it’s not so simple writing these people off – after all, your livelihood depends on being civil with these people. When dealing with office frenemies, always save your correspondence with the person, and be confident in your capabilities. Although office dynamics vary from place to place, these two strategies will help anyone who must cope with such difficult coworkers. By following these guidelines, you can maintain a good reputation at work, and you will show the frenemy that you are not an easy target.

The best way to deal with office frenemies is to save all correspondence. In the event that your job is at stake, it’s important to have evidence showing the work that you do. Save e-mails and other written communication from your frenemies, and at the same time, don’t reveal too much in your own e-mails. Or as my mom always said, “Don’t ever put anything in writing that you don’t want the rest of the world to read” (that woman is always right).

Always keep lines of communication open. A common tactic of frenemies is to deny knowledge that you passed along a crucial bit of information that they overlooked. Instead of taking the blame, they might project it onto you, accusing you of never having given them the information. To avoid this, always clarify important conversations in writing. When the frenemy tries to say, “You never told me that I was supposed to send a status report on this project by Friday,” you can respond by saying that you did indeed send it, and refer him or her to the e-mail. Another tactic that a frenemy might use is to take credit for your ideas. If your coworker is working with you on the same project and is attempting to do this, document your progress in regular intervals (once every other day, for example), and e-mail it to that coworker as well as the project supervisor.

Another effective way of dealing with frenemies is to be confident. When you show that you have things under control, it’s more difficult for someone to undermine your achievements. Also, when you speak often at team meetings and provide transparency to your contributions to the company, people will have less reason to question what you’re up to in your own cubicle. If you rarely leave your desk to speak with other coworkers and someone accuses you of slacking off, that rumor might effectively spread around. However, if you interact with your colleagues regularly and keep the appropriate people updated on your projects, it’s much more difficult for someone to make false accusations about you.

These strategies can help you to deal with office frenemies, and at the same time, these guidelines can minimize the risk of establishing frenemies at all. As cumbersome as they can be to your job and sanity, it’s vital to face them in a straightforward manner to diffuse tension and make for a more productive job atmosphere.

Time and technology changes everything, even how we write our resumes. The old fashioned chronological resume that worked so well even just five years ago may now land your resume in the trash can before it has even been looked at. If you want to stand out, you need a career summary. What’s more, readers of resumes love them. A properly written career summary can quickly and efficiently spell out to a prospective employer why you are most qualified for the position. Simply put, a career summary can be the difference between landing an interview and missing an opportunity.

The career summary typically is positioned beneath your contact information, directly above job experiences. It offers you a chance to quickly summarize all of your relevant experience in one place. By carefully selecting achievements and successes in your career summary, you are creating an effective picture of what you can offer a company. Use your career summary to easily point out what experiences from each of your previous jobs is applicable to the one you are seeking.

While a career summary is not mandatory, and is not suggested for people with little experience, most job seekers can benefit by including a summary in their resume. Writing an adequate summary takes a little bit of skill and should be done on a case by case basis.  If you are looking for a new position and would like to include a career summary on your updated resume, there are a few simple steps to take.

1. Update your resume: update your resume with new experience and achievements as you normally would.
2. Review positions: during your job search, carefully review each position you are interested in for their specific qualifications. For example, a particular position may require five or more year’s experience.
3. Customize your summary: create a new career summary for each position you are apply for, utilizing the specifications discovered during your review.

By creating custom career summaries for each position you apply for you can easily tailor your resume for each position.

Formatting your career summary is easy as well. Most resume experts agree that a bullet point format is best for your career summary section. Try to include three to five bullet points, applicable to each specific job, in your career summary. The bullet points draw the eye and customized qualifications will guarantee further interest in you as a candidate.

Always remember that by not including a career summary with your resume most of your experience is likely to be overlooked. Most hiring professionals quickly scan initial resumes, focusing almost entirely on the last position held. They are unlikely to look at previous experience, meaning much of your experience will be unread and ineffectual. A career summary allows a hiring professional to understand how your entire career experience has molded you to be a perfect fit for their needs.

Writing an executive resume has become an extremely complex art. Executive resumes generally are far more detailed than regular resumes. To compete for the high paying, high powered positions, you need to create a resume that doesn’t just inform, but excites, entices and extends the invitation to learn more about your skills, competencies and all the right reasons why you should be the next CEO, CFO or President.

Begin by remembering that very few of the executives in charge of hiring will actually read your resume in full. These days, with the high level of competition and well qualified applicants, even executive resumes need a special polish to attract those hiring. The idea is that this will lead you to the interview, where your other skills will then be examined. To get that interview, your resume needs to be sharp, direct, and catch the eyes of those in charge early.

You want to come across as a well-rounded, exceptionally professional and highly skilled applicant who is the best choice for the job. Don’t be afraid to outline all the skills and experiences that make you so desirable. Still, keep the summary brief, concise and up front, but allow for more details of some of the more important skills and experiences that will prove you are the best.

Perhaps one of the most important aspects of your executive resume is establishing your value. Since the corporation or company will be paying you top dollar, you need to prove that you are of the greatest worth and unique attributes that are rare and can only be found in you (sell yourself!). Your specific talents for solving complex problems can be outlined, but describing the challenges you faced and the actions you took to solve the problems as well as the results of those actions will convey your worth in clear and undeniable ways.

Your focus needs to very targeted and clear. As an executive–a leader– you need to show the reader what you’ve done and what you can do for them. I have my clients get very detailed and accomplishment-focused. It may take some time to gather all the facts of what you’ve done, but it is ‘homework’ worth doing.  Nothing says, ‘I’m hesitant about my skills’ like a vague, unfocused resume.  These kinds of details will show them you didn’t just step off the truck, but that in fact you have been building your skills all along. Examine all your experiences carefully and pick the ones that best show the timeline of how you learned what you learned that will make you the best choice for this job.

Be very thoughtful about what personal information you include. While board memberships and professional associations might be relevant, certain religious or free time activities might not be pertinent (i.e. less is more). Some personal information can be used as an ice breaker (rock climbing as a hobby?), but be aware that some personal information may work against you and be used to screen you out of the running.

In the current economic downturn, more and more Americans are joining in the hunt for jobs. Positions that once received ninety resumes are now seeing applications in the hundreds.

Industry standards that once applied to resumes are now doubly, even triply true. You’d heard that employers skimmed through resumes before? You can only imagine how quickly they toss through the pile now.

With your resume as a single sheet in that huge stack of paper, creating a pertinent, easy to skim document is more important than ever. So more and more people are taking steps like hiring a professional resume writer to aid them in their job search.

Some people question the ethics of enlisting this type of aid, implying that you cannot present yourself in a genuine manner with the use of such a service, or that the need for help is a manufactured need, or even that the type of help provided leads to a non-accurate representation of one’s skills.

However, these statements seem to stem from a misunderstanding of what it is that the professional resume writer does.

To start with, what is a resume, exactly? It’s a marketing tool that advertises your skills and experience.

In your business, is it unethical to hire a marketing firm in order to sell your product? Probably not. It’s only logical to hire experts to help you in areas where their expertise is needed to improve sales.

A proper resume writer won’t represent you in a way that is not genuine. It is against our code of ethics, and would damage our reputations as professionals.

Let’s face it, in a consulting-type business, your reputation is really all you have. Not to mention that representing clients inaccurately would cause real problems for them, once uncovered.

What does a resume writer do? We take information, that you supply, of your past jobs and accomplishments, your education and experiences, your old resumes and supporting documents, job positions you are interested in and anything else you think we will need for resume preparation — and present you with a new document, tailored to the type of job that you’re pursuing while showcasing your strengths and promoting your value.

We have industry knowledge of certain words that will catch the boss’s attention in your line of business, and they know how HR filters documents. For one thing, did you know that these days, resumes are often scanned by computer for certain keywords?

Let’s be honest, the first thing we all do when faced with a huge stack of paper that we have to weed down to just a few sheets, is to get rid of as much as possible, as easily as possible. So, the first scan, whether by computer or an individual is for weeding out the chaff.

Industry hiring experts know what keywords are typically used in the computerized process and can ensure that your resume includes them. We also excel at aiding people in camouflaging gaps in history.

We are resume experts, and we know how to make yours clear and readable — after all, if those two attributes aren’t met, the rest falls by the wayside.

In 2007, Marilee Jones, called the “most celebrated Admissions Dean in America” resigned from MIT — the reason? A lie on her 1979 job application, fabricating several degrees.

In 2006, David Edmondson stepped down as Radio Shack’s CEO, after he was caught lying about his academic record —again, claiming degrees that he didn’t earn.

Lying on one’s resume can provide rewards unless one is caught, and then the fall-out can be enormous.

Due, perhaps, to the recent rise in applicant lines, more applicants are being caught lying. Experts estimate that as the economy continues to plummet, the numbers of those lying on job applications will increase. Various sources state that between one-third and one-half of all job applicants lie on their applications, even though in some states, it’s illegal.

And, moreover, the employer of a person caught lying on her or her application can potentially sue the person for losses and expenses incurred.

Just ask Richard Clark about his employment at Coopers Lybrand consulting agency in Canada. He lost his employers several clients when they found out he didn’t have any of his three claimed degrees. He paid for his mistake in cash!

According to a study done by Careerbuilder.com, almost all managers who catch a potential hire lying on his resume will automatically cross him off their list of applicants. Nearly half will automatically dismiss him even after he is hired, should such a lie come to light.

And the potential ramifications are even greater than that — once fired for lying on your resume, do you list that job on your resume and have your new boss call and find out the truth, or do you leave it off and just keep lying, hoping that you’re not caught again? It’s a vicious cycle.

More and more managers are doing background checks on employees, so common lies, like claiming a degree that you didn’t earn or inflating your previous title, are more likely to get caught. Another common lie, changing dates to hide gaps in employment, is especially easy to catch.

And the lies aren’t just from the little people. Executives and other high profile personalities are getting caught, too. Laura Callahan lost her senior position in the Department of Homeland Security when her diploma was shown to be a fake in 2004. Experts state that lies about education are often early resume lies that are carried on throughout a career.

In fact, resume-padding has become so popular, not only are there sites dedicated to resume lies, but there are also entities referred to as “degree mills” and “diploma mills” to further aid pretenders in their goals.

So-called “diploma mills” fabricate degrees from real colleges, while “degree mills” refer to colleges that are not accredited (though they may claim to be) and require either no, or substandard, work.

Even a small exaggeration, such as stating that one has already earned a degree that is still a few months away, can be grounds for automatic dismissal. Is it really worth the risk?

Editor’s Note: I love anything written by Jack Canfield. He inspires millions with his “Success Principles” and “Dream Big Collection” (which I personally own and attribute to my own successes). I love this article because it is so basic and yet so many people still don’t get it. I know that I always found myself working harder for the boss who thanked me, or occasionally acknowledged my extra efforts. It only takes a second, but a simple ‘thank you’ can impact someone’s life forever.
That being said, I figured rather than refer to almost every area of the article in a separate post, I would add the entire thing here.  Enjoy– and thank someone today.

Practice Uncommon Appreciation
by Jack Canfield

A recent management study revealed that 46% of employees leaving a company do so because they feel unappreciated; 61% said their bosses don’t place much importance on them as people; and 88% said they don’t receive acknowledgement for the work they do.

Whether you are an entrepreneur, manager, teacher, parent, coach or simply a friend, if you want to be successful with other people, you must master the art of appreciation.

I’ve never known anyone to complain about receiving too much positive feedback. Have you? In fact, just the opposite is true.

Consider this: Every year, a management consulting firm conducts a survey with 200 companies on the subject on what motivates employees. When given a list of 10 possible things that would most motivate them, the employee always list appreciation as the number-one motivator.

Managers and supervisors ranked appreciation number eight. This is a major mismatch, as the chart below so clearly shows.

10 Ways to Really Motivate an Employee
Employees Appreciation Feeling  “in” on things Understanding attitude Job security Good wages Interesting work Promotional opportunities Loyalty from management Good working conditions Tactful discipline	Supervisors Good Wages Job Security Promotional Opportunities Good working conditions Interesting work Loyalty from management Tactful discipline Appreciation Understanding attitude Feeling “in” on things

Notice that the top three motivators for employees don’t cost anything, just a few moments of time, respect and understanding.

Keeping Score

When I first learned about the power of appreciation, it made total sense to me. However, it was still something that I forgot to do. I hadn’t yet turned it into a habit.

A valuable technique that I employed to help me lock in this new habit was to carry a 3” x 5” card in my pocket all day, and every time I acknowledged and appreciated someone, I would place a check mark on the card. I would not allow myself to go to bed until I had appreciated 10 people. If it was late in the evening and I didn’t have 10 check marks, I would appreciate my wife and children, I would send an e-mails to several of my staff, or I would write a letter to my mother or stepfather.

I did whatever it took until it became an unconscious habit. I did this every single day for 6 months—until I no longer needed the card to remind me.

Appreciation as a Secret of Success

Another important reason for being in a state of appreciation as often as possible is that when you are in such a state, you are in one of the highest emotional states possible.

When you are in a state of appreciation and gratitude, you are in a state of abundance. You are appreciating what you do have instead of focusing on, and complaining about, what you don’t have. Your focus is on what you have received… and you always get more of what you focus on.

And because the law of attraction states that like attracts like, the more you are in a state of gratitude, the more you will attract, and even more to be grateful for. It becomes an upward-spiraling process of ever-increasing abundance that just keeps getting better and better.

Think about it. The more grateful people are for the gifts we give them, the more inclined we are to give them more gifts. Their gratitude and appreciation reinforces our giving. The same principle holds true on a universal and spiritual level as it does on an interpersonal level.

I challenge you to discover ways to immediately appreciate someone in your life, starting today!

For more tips and suggestions on how you, too, can find ways to appreciate those in your life, read Principle 53 in The Success Principles.

© 2009 Jack Canfield

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Jack Canfield, America’s #1 Success Coach, is founder of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul© and a leading authority on Peak Performance and Life Success. If you’re ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get your FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: www.FreeSuccessStrategies.com

I read a lot of blogs. A lot. I want to read even more, but it gets overwhelming when I see my Google Reader overflowing with unread blog posts. So, I got to thinking that if I did it for “research” it would actually be job related. Yes, I am justifying my blog reading addiction. But who cares.

I’m not a professional reviewer obviously, so I am just going to give my thoughts on the blog and how it helped me, or how it might help you. Some will be career-related and some not, because let’s face it, not every thing I read is career-related. Gasp!

You never know… my next review might be YOUR BLOG!

So, without further ado, I give you….

What Would Dad Say? by GL Hoffman        

What Would Dad Say was one of the first blogs I became addicted to when I was in my fast and furious ‘I love reading blogs’ mode. I still remember the first post I stumbled upon of his about Megan Joy, the American Idol contestant covered in tattoos.

It’s author, GL Hoffman, is the Chairman of  JobDig, a career search and employment guide. He also created and launched the incredibly successful LinkUp, a job search engine that search’s jobs from almost 22,000 company websites!

But it wasn’t only the useful sites to offer clients that interested me, but GL himself. As a veteran career expert, entrepreneur, and speaker, he offers a humorous take on all things career. The first sentence of his vision statement on his blog says it all, “I am having fun here…”. GL’s blog always promises a chuckle, some sarcasm, and a breath of fresh air.

He creates these pie chart funnies he calls, “Gruzzles” (graphs + puzzles) which have recently been featured in Fast Company. I love these. I don’t know any other way to explain them except to just go to this link and see for yourself. Clever and witty, they offer a break from the monotony of daily activities while giving you something to think about.

GL is quick to reply to your comments on his blog and knows how to keep a conversation going. BTW, his guest bloggers are interesting, too.

So, take time out of your hectic day to read GL’s blog or chuckle at his Gruzzles. You’ll be glad you did.

Have you ever worked with someone who just seemed to have everything go her way? Her projects are successful; she gets one promotion after the other, and she’s just plain happy. So, why is she so successful?

Turns out being happy not only feels good but can also be an important part to achieving job success.

In an article from “Psychology Today” Sonja Lyubomirsky, a social psychologist at the University of California, Riverside writes the following:

“The most persuasive data regarding the effects of happiness on positive work outcomes come from longitudinal studies – that is, investigations that track the same participants over a long period of time. These studies are great. For example, people who report that they are happy at age 18 achieve greater financial independence, higher occupational attainment and greater work autonomy by age 26. Furthermore, the happier a person is, the more likely she will get a job offer, keep her job, and get a new job if she ever loses it. Finally, one fascinating study showed that people who express more positive emotions on the job receive more favorable evaluations from their supervisors 3.5 years later.”

Wow, that’s great news if you’re a naturally happy person, but what if you find being happy a challenge? In Kathryn Britton’s article, Six Tips for Taking Positive Psychology to Work she sites a study by R. Emmons and M.E. McCullough that found that people who focused on increasing their feelings of gratitude are healthier and feel better about their lives. So how do we increase our level of gratitude? Britton offers these suggestions:

1. Pay attention to good things, large and small. This often requires intentional thought because bad things are more salient to us than good things. For example, I have a friend in his 80’s with arthritis in his hands. He becomes aware of it whenever he knocks something over or has trouble picking something up. I suggested that whenever he finds himself saying, “My poor crippled hands,” that he follow it with “My magnificent legs that let me walk every day without cane or walker.” That does not mean ignoring the painful or disabled. It means balancing it with occasional thoughts of how lucky we are to have so many working parts! We have to work a little to give the positive thoughts space in our brains.
2. Pay attention to bad things that are avoided. I recently tripped over a small stump and fell flat on my face during a practice hike to get ready for our trip to the mountains. When I picked myself up, I was very grateful to have only a deep bruise on my thigh, no broken bones. It will take a while for the gorgeous 8 inch bruise to go away, but I can still hike. Thank goodness!
3. Practice downward comparisons. That means thinking about how things could be worse, or were worse, or are worse for someone else. I don’t particularly like the idea of making myself feel more grateful by thinking of others who are worse off than I am. But it doesn’t have to be interpersonal. You can use downward comparison by remembering your own times of adversity or being aware of adversity avoided. The poet, Robert Pollock, said it thus: “Sorrows remembered sweeten present joy.” Here’s a work example. I have two friends who recently moved into the same department in the same company. One is relieved and happy because the situation seems so much better than before. The other is dissatisfied because the teamwork characterizing the old job is no longer there. The first has an easy time with downward contrast. The second will have to work a little harder to find reasons to be grateful.
4. Establish regular times to focus on being grateful. Gratitude is a character strength that can be enhanced with practice. So practice. Marty Seligman describes two exercises in Authentic Happiness, the Gratitude Visit and a form of keeping a gratitude journal.
5. When facing a loss or a difficult task or situation, remind yourself to be grateful both for what you haven’t lost and for the strengths and opportunities that arise from facing difficulties. Negative moods are catching, but positive ones can be as well. The character, Pollyanna, helped other people see the benefits in their situations by teaching them the Glad Game. Sometimes, having someone else see what is good in your own life makes it visible to you.
6. Elicit and reinforce gratitude in the people around you. Tennen and Affleck found that benefit-seeking and benefit-remembering are linked to psychological and physical health. Benefit finding involves choosing to focus on the positive aspects of the situation and avoiding the feeling of being a victim.

So now you know her secret. Sure she may be talented too, but she’s happy and that is her competitive edge. Find ways to increase your own happiness: focus on gratitude, celebrate little victories, look for the positive in every situation, what ever works for you and get ready to experience your own career success.

This was from a call I took yesterday. The conversation went something like this:

Caller: “Hi, um, my name is Bob.  I want to know about your resume service and when you can finish it. Because I need it soon.”

Me: “Hi Bob. Well, let’s skip to your most important question. How quickly do you need it?”

Bob: “I need it by tomorrow. I saw a job position I want to apply for at Johnson & Johnson and the position closes tomorrow.”

Me: “Oh! Tomorrow. Has the position been open a while or did you hear about it from someone?”

Bob: “I heard about it through a buddy of mine who works there. It’s for Regional Sales Management position– my dream job with my dream company. He told me about it awhile ago, but I didn’t really think about it much until last night when we met for a beer and he reminded me it was still open. But it closes tomorrow. He said to send my resume in to the HR person sometime in the morning.”

Me: “Well, it’s 4:30 in the afternoon and I leave my office in an hour and a half. I won’t be able to do it in that amount of time…”

We talked for a little bit more and Bob even emailed me his resume. It was pretty bad (think Microsoft Word’s basic resume template… lots of white space, left-aligned, bullet-ridden and worse, hadn’t been updated since 2001).

The thing that got me was that he had known about the position for a month, assumed he’d have time to fix up his resume, then consequently forgot about the position, and was now in an all-out panic. We’ve all done it with one thing or another–putting off something we really shouldn’t have, and then regretting it later.

I felt bad for Bob because I knew his chances of getting the job with the old resume were slim to none. Worse, when he started talking about his experience and his excellent accomplishments I thought he would have probably had the chance. He said he was going to work on it himself and hope for the best.

So, the moral of the story is UPDATE YOUR RESUME TODAY. Don’t wait until your dream opportunity passes you by.