Career Marketplace Blog

In his article for Mashable.com, Tony Morrison explains the Top 3 Mistakes Job Seekers Make on Facebook Timeline.

Read an excerpt of Morrison’s article below. Read Full Article

Eventually, Facebook’s 845 million users will have to climb abroad the Facebook Timeline hub.

There will be plenty of challenges to consider with the slow roll-out of updates to the world’s largest social network affecting millions of people.

More than 18.4 million Americans have used Facebook to find a job. Facebook Timeline poses new obstacles for current adults looking for work.

How can the Timeline mess up an existing job search? Here are three things job seekers should avoid doing on Facebook Timeline.

Read on

In her article for U.S. News & World Report, Alison Green explains, How to Kill a Job Offer at the Last Minute.

Mistakes Green describes in this article include:

• Refusing to answer until you’ve heard from other employers
• Not responding to the offer right away
• Making over-the-top-salary demands

Read Full Article

The Wall Street Journal’s Elizabeth Garone encourages readers not to exaggerate job responsibilities, titles, or experience on their resume.

Garone gives advice to a job seeker who is nervous about an upcoming job interview because they exaggerated on their resume. Read Her Response.

In her article for Forbes.com, Jacquelyn Smith reveals, The Year’s Most Ridiculous Excuses For Calling In Sick.

Memorable excuses in Smith’s article include:

• Employee’s finger was stuck in a bowling ball
• Employee said he wasn’t feeling too clever that day
• Employee burned mouth on Thanksgiving pumpkin pie

Read Full Article

In his article, Resume Padding: A Dangerous Game, Robert McCauley of Robert Half International warns job seekers of the dangers of adding false details on your resume.

Below is an excerpt from McCauley’s article: Read full article

Fudging your hire date or your end date for a past job. Inflating your job duties. Adding a few tenths of a point to your grade point average.

It’s no big deal when job seekers make these types of adjustments to their resumes, right?

Wrong.

In today’s competitive employment market, every applicant is looking for an edge, and padding your resume may seem like the only way to get a leg up on the competition. At the same time, the chances of getting caught can appear to be relatively low.

But exaggerating your skills and qualifications is a risk you don’t want to take. For one thing, your deception is easier to uncover than you may realize. In the age of lightning-fast web searches, a hiring manager can research your background and discover the fraudulent information with just a few mouse clicks. A quick call to a previous employer or your alma mater can also reveal the falsified details on your resume. And even a small departure from the truth could eliminate you from consideration for the job.

Here are the areas where applicants most often pad their resumes and the reasons exaggerations won’t help you land the job:

Read On

Women’s Day article, Top 10 Work-at-Home Scams, Audri G. Lanford of ScamBusters.org lists Work-at-Home opportunities you should stay away from.

Below is an excerpt from Landford’s article: Read Full Article

1. “Make Money at Home Stuffing Envelopes!” This classic has been around since the 1920s. You pay to learn how to get started with your business, and what you get is a photocopy of the same ad you read, with instructions to make copies of it to snag other unsuspecting souls.

2. “This Really Works!” You receive this as a chain letter, then send the email you received along with money to the top names on the list, adding your name to the bottom. You’re guaranteed to be a millionaire, say the scammers. The only problems: The money never comes—and chain letters like these are illegal.

3. “Financial Freedom Working at Home!” This is trying to pull you into a pyramid-type business where you pay upfront fees for an “opportunity.” And that opportunity turns out to be selling the same “opportunity” to others. One way to tell the difference between this kind of scheme and a trustworthy, reliable venture is the method by which you are solicited. Scam pyramid schemes mostly arrive from strangers in unsolicited emails; legitimate offers come from people you know.

4. “Typing at Home.” This is so common and so old. You pay to get “more information,” which is a sheet of paper that tells you how to make copies of it and then place home typist ads selling the same information to other suckers. You might see these ads on websites, as pop-up ads or in the back of tabloid publications.

5. “Turn Your Computer into a Money-Making Machine!” As in #4, you get ridiculous information that you’re supposed to sell to others.

Read On

Wall Street Journal article, When Job-Interview Questions Become Too Personal, Sue Shellenbarger gives examples of job interview questions employers should not ask you.

Below is an excerpt from Shellenbarger’s article. Read Full Article Here

Prepping for job interviews is the subject of plenty of coaching and advice. But when job interviews turn to juggle-related topics, some questions can catch interviewees completely unprepared.

Some women readers say they have been asked, “What are your child-care arrangements?” or “Do you plan to have a family any time soon?” Author Bob Rosner identifies other “toxic questions” in his book,“The Boss’s Survival Guide”:  “I love your accent; where are you from?” (This one suggests ethnic or racial discrimination.) “When did you graduate from high school?” (This one smacks of age discrimination.) “Are you currently using birth control?” (Again, implies pregnancy discrimination.)

To avoid appearing to discriminate based on sex, bosses should stick strictly to job-related queries. Employers with 15 or more employees are covered by federal anti-discrimination law, which makes sex and pregnancy discrimination illegal; a few states, including New York, New Jersey and California, have anti-bias laws covering smaller employers.

Read on

Forbes.com article, 13 Big Mistakes Job Seekers Make, Jacquelyn Smith documents job search mistakes that can derail your job search.

Below is an except of Smith’s article. Read Full Article

There are a lot of ways you can go wrong during your job search. You can fail to spend enough time at it, but you can also get so involved you become isolated from family and friends. Those are among the most common mistakes job seekers make, according to a new study published in theAcademy of Management Journal. Three scholarly researchers, Connie Wanberg, Jing Zhu and Edwin A. J. van Hooft wrote a paper titled “The Job-Search Grind: Perceived Progress, Self-Reactions, and Self-Regulation of Search Effort.” The study shows that signs of progress can make you relax too much and that you should have diversified ways of searching.

The three scholars asked 233 participants to complete a baseline survey and then follow up online every Monday through Friday for three weeks. They were asked to indicate their emotions, the time they dedicated to their job search and the level of confidence they felt about finding an acceptable job. They all had been out of work for about 16 weeks.

Read On

Related Story – In Pictures:  13 Big Mistakes Job Seekers Make

U.S. News & World Report article, 5 Things to Do When You Get a Job Offer*, Alison Green gives great advice on what you should do before you accept a job offer.

Tips from this article include:

• “Always, always, always get every detail of a job offer in writing, if you want those details to be respected.”
• “If you don’t feel like you have a good understanding of the manager, the culture, or the expectations of the job, now is the time to ask.”
• “Listen to your gut.”

Have you accepted a job offer you later regretted? How did you handle the situation? Tell us more in the comments section.

*Click link to read full article.

For her U.S. News and World Report article, 5 Things to Consider Before You Quit Your Job*, Alison Green warns job seekers to carefully consider their options before turning in their resignation letter.

What should you consider before you move on? Green says,

“Think carefully about the advantages of your job that you may not find somewhere else.” – Green asks readers to think about what they DO like about their current job. Short commute, extended vacation time. What is it that makes your current employer more valuable than others?

“Never quit just to “show them” – Green reminds readers to keep a level head when frustrated with their current job. The employer will move on faster than you will.

“Be realistic about what will happen after you quit” - Green advises if you don’t have another job lined up to consider how long you can survive unemployed both financially and professionally.

*Click link to read full article