Education Is A Commodity

by Josh Barsch

Ever hear the talking heads on CNN discussing the stock market and talking about the “commodities market”? They’re talking about stuff like coffee beans, wheat, corn, etc. We call these things commodities, which means there isn’t much difference between coffee beans in Africa or Jamaica or Guatemala. Sure, there are subtle variations in quality and [...]

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More Great Advice No One’s Given You

by Josh Barsch

Use a real email address. Do not spend hours putting together a great resume and then ruin your professional image by putting down phatbootyshaka@aol.com or demonicoverlord420@yahoo.com. Or even goyankees@, andyaknowdis@msn.com. Sign up for a new Yahoo! or Hotmail address that is firstname.lastname, firstname_lastname, etc. Use it for all job-related correspondence. Piggy Forgetful, use graphic and [...]

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A Photo: To See, Or Not To See?

by Josh Barsch

When I was a graduate student at the University of Missouri, few topics of discussion generated the ferocity of debate as the question of whether you should attach a photo to your resume. For most readers, this is a completely new idea. It’s rarely mentioned in any books on the subject, and ten bucks says [...]

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References Available Upon Request

by Josh Barsch

This runs neck-and-neck with the Objective as the most annoying, ubiquitous, aggravating mistake on resumes today, both for new as well as experienced job-seekers. Why is it such a big deal? First let’s recall some important things that we’ve already learned: You’re competing with hundreds of other people for this job, and the employer already [...]

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Internships

by Josh Barsch

For students who are still in college, internships are the most popular form of experience on a resume. There’s a good reason for that: just about every business out there loves interns. Adores them. We love interns because you’re cheap! Hell, a lot of the time, in the case of unpaid internships, you’re not just [...]

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”Yes, I Invented Post-It Notes” Or To Pad, Or Not To Pad?

by Josh Barsch

With all that talk about the thousands of new competitors you’re going to have for every job thanks to the Internet, you’re probably already thinking about padding your resume. After all, I’ve been railing and railing on you about putting your best foot forward in this one concise page, right? So when the competition is [...]

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Padding Principle 1: Don’t Include Skills You Don’t Have

by Josh Barsch

It bears repeating: a surprising many people think that padding your resume means making stuff up out of thin air. They think that if they just pack enough BS into their resume, then they’ll look like a major big shot to whom companies will want to make a big job offer right away. But that’s [...]

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Padding Principle 2: If You’ve Held Multiple Positions At The Same Company, Use The Best One

by Josh Barsch

You may have started out in the mail room in 2003 and moved up to receptionist in 2004 and up to personnel manager in 2005, but you don’t need to give details about every single step you’ve made in order to get where you are. More important than the mundane details of your ascent are [...]

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Padding Principle 3: If The Company On Your Resume No Longer Exists, Then You’ve Got More Leeway When Padding

by Josh Barsch

This is especially useful for those of you who were working, or at least in college, during the heyday of the Internet. If you worked in an industry that was even close to being associated with the Internet, chances are you did some work for a company that doesn’t exist today. That was a real [...]

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Padding Principle 4: Use Powerful, Active Words To Describe Your Duties.

by Josh Barsch

This isn’t only a principle of padding; it’s a principle of good resume writing and, for that matter, all good writing. But I mean to take it a step further here in our padding section to remind you that even seemingly frivolous or even fun things you’ve done on the job can be described as [...]

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