Get Your Resume Past the ATS Robots

Ever had the experience of submitting your resume to jobs you thought were a good fit and getting zero response? Don’t assume that the hiring decision maker read your resume and rejected you (the good news). There’s a good chance your resume may not have even made it past the resume screening robots (the bad news).

Rise of the Bots

About 80% of the resume submissions I see today are submitted through software. The exceptions tend to be

(1) really senior opportunit…

Tired of not getting results from LinkedIn? There's 5 LinkedIn steps that drive your career, business and job success on LinkedIn. As a summary of a webinar I delivered this week for UBC Alumni, on “Take Your LinkedIn Presence to the Next Level” I thought I’d share the key points.

Get On-Board the LinkedIn Platform

The LinkedIn platform is growing rapidly. It has become the #1 social platform for “business” and for those who don’t “do” social. Recruitment represents the #1 revenue source for Linke…

In a previous article - Loosen-up: How to write an engaging LinkedIn post, I covered how leveraging the evolving social side of LinkedIn can aid your career growth and job / business success. I began an experiment to illustrate the effectiveness and impact of content with conversation / engagement on LinkedIn. The experiment was successful and I wanted to share my LinkedIn post experiment results with you to help you better leverage LinkedIn.

I wrote a text post, which LinkedIn initially distri…

Engagement is Key

There’s a sea-change occurring on LinkedIn and if you’ve been active in the last months, you’ve already noticed it. Activity is becoming more social, more personal and less “buttoned-down.” If you want traction, you need to loosen-up. Let’s walk through the reasoning and ideas on how to become more engaging on LinkedIn. Don’t get me wrong. LinkedIn is a business platform. What’s happening though is as a result of (1) feature additions / changes, (2) the way the LinkedIn traffic …

There Is No Perfect Path

One of the major roadblocks to career growth, is operating on the assumption or belief that there is a perfect career, one magic job or profession that someone should be in, and that if it could be identified, would be the solution to everything. Or, it's the dream job at a Google or Tesla, so far from where they are currently as to be like a Mount Everest to their basic hiking capabilities.

So, in the absence of finding the perfect career (aka right answer), people stay p…

There's more to career growth than aspirations and goals. These four key career growth questions provide a grounded foundation for pursuing those professional goals. I had an excellent intake meeting this week with a Career Growth Program member, someone fully embedded in one company and his leadership role. He had enrolled in the program not because he intends to move jobs but rather with a view to having more influence over what happens in his 50's and beyond. The thought process of our intake…

The YOU In Your Brand

I get to work with fascinating and inspiring clients. And a lot of what we do together as part of personal branding is making sense of the various threads of their stories. How they got here. What they offer. And where they’re going. I was meeting with a client this week who in addition to having built up a not-for-profit, has both an unusual early professional background and a rich, extra-curricular artistic life. The question:

How much of HER can and should go into her pers…

Stop Diminishing the Impact of that Valuable Visit to Your LinkedIn Profile

There's a LinkedIn feature that in most cases does you no good, and may even harm the overall impression you're making on your LinkedIn profile. You can't see it when your editing or viewing your profile. And you have no control over it. What it looks like on your profile is only discoverable if you view your profile from someone else's account. That is, the Viewers of this profile also viewed setting.

What's the problem w…