Sometimes the shortest route to a new job is a straight line.
That’s what one Irish “guerrilla” job hunter found in Canada, with ramifications for your job search — no matter where you live.
This story is courtesy of Curt Bolan, a career and employment consultant at Canada-Saskatchewan Career and Employment Services, in Saskatoon.
Read on to learn four ways you can get hired faster by taking the “Irish” approach …
“It was Spring 2009 when Pat first e-mailed me, from Ireland,” says Bolan. “He and his young family were interested in opportunities in …

Networking is a hot topic. It’s common to hear that the majority of jobs are won through some form of networking. So, if you plan on getting another job in your lifetime then learning about networking is a wise choice!
If you are wondering where in the world to start learning how to network or if you are apprehensive to network because it’s new for you or you have had a negative networking experience from the past, this article is for you. Here are three must-haves that are easy and powerful …

I found Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner set nicely on my keyboard.  My coworker, Robert, who knows I run and read stuff like this left it there for me.  I  cracked it open and couldn’t put it down.
Dean Karnazes writes about his 100+ mile ultra marathon running feats, but he does so much more.  Karnazes had reached the point in his life where his life had no meaning and purpose.  He had a void in his life and his six figure salary couldn’t fill it.  He explains how he turned to running, something he had love …

“Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things.”
That’s according to economist and Harvard professor, Theodore Levitt.
And that’s absolutely correct.
Especially in job hunting, where too many people think too much and do too little.
Want proof?
According to surveys cited by David Wessel in The Wall Street Journal, “The unemployed in the United States spend 40 minutes a day looking for work and 3 hours and 20 minutes a day watching TV.”
This may explain why the average job search in America now lasts 33 weeks, according to US Bureau of …

Things are changing in corporate America and they are changing fast.   There are things in the works many of us never would have thought possible a mere 10 years back.  Get this PersonnelToday.com article.  It covers IBM’s plans to cut its staff drastically over the next several years.
Please keep in mind that IBM is no corporate fly-by-night.  I worked there from 1984 to 1994 and until 1993 they had NEVER laid any off.  They had kept their full employment policy intact since 1911.  The company truly believed it owed …

One day in September 1996, I was talking to Steve, my manager.
We had just interviewed a woman for a writing job. Discussing how we ourselves had been hired, I mentioned that I had mailed a thank-you note to the manager who interviewed me. “So did I,” replied Steve. And we were both hired. Ha. Wasn’t that a coincidence?
The next day, we each received a thank-you note in the mail from Leitha, the woman we interviewed. We hired Leitha.
Coincidence? I think not.
Because, according to the American psychologist William James: “The deepest …

“Everything You Do MUST Have Value to Others.” That’s the title of a Career Opportunities podcast I listened to recently. It made a recommendation we should all consider when we doing just about anything.
I see this problem over and over again.  Someone takes an idea for a new business, a product idea or even something they’d like to do as a career and when they execute the idea, it flops.  It gets flat out rejected by the target audience.  Then everyone sits around staring at each other asking, “What happened?”
Those in …

We tend to bestow our jobs with the ultimate status; granting it almost exaggerated importance in our lives. While it is obvious that a paycheck is absolute survival for the vast majority, being challenged to think beyond this no-brainer.
If you can look away for even a moment, it may help you to maintain balance and offer a bit of solace while you continue the often brutal search for a job.
By now you might think me to be nuts but something struck me and stuck with me some time back. It still …

(This one’s dedicated to my Monica and her friends who I pray will follow their dreams taking on their post-college challenges with gusto.)
Last week I wrote “My Daughter’s Graduation Reminds Me to Keep on Dreaming.”  College graduation is such an exciting time!  In its own way, it’s also terrifying.  A few months back I remember a fellow speaker at a high school career day dish out these words of wisdom.
He said that from the beginning, our lives are neatly cut up into segments.  We start in preschool and look forward to elementary …

If you’ve been on the Internet for longer than 30 minutes, you’ve likely heard of Twitter.com.
It’s the “micro-blogging” web site that lets you share information with people in your network using short updates of 140 characters or less, called “tweets.” It’s free to join and to use.
Can it help you find a job? Yes.
Can it also be a huge waste of time in your job search? Yes.
So, let’s look at a Twitter job-search success story to extract the lessons that can save you time and perhaps get you hired …
Christine …

Last summer I wrote a review on Tory Johnson’s womenforhire.com  website.  It’s a good resource.  Around the same time, I commented on a story she aired on her Good Morning, America Job Hunt Club. (Click here for that one.)  It provided great advice for older job hunters.  I definitely recommended it for helping job hunters get through the struggle.
Unfortunately, I CANNOT say the same for her Fired to Hired: Bouncing Back from Job Loss to Get to Work Right Now.  Is it a horrible book? No way.  Is it great resource every job hunter should make sure and read?  Not exactly.  It’s …

In part one of this article (click here for that one), we looked at the facts and fallacies of the hidden job market including why you should consider tapping into it, why you should consider sending your resume to a company that has not advertised positions matching your skills and the level of experience you should be at in order to benefit from the hidden market.
Now I bet you are wondering precisely how to tap into the unadvertised market. There are three strategies to quickly get you started focusing on and …

On Saturday, my oldest daughter will dawn her cap and gown and cross the stage to collect the diploma she worked hard to earn.   As I watch her and her friends finishing off their four years, a few things in particular strike a chord in me.  They’ve got something so many of us older folks forget.  They remind me of how important it is to make a difference in the world and how making a difference gives  meaning ot our lives.
When my daughter graduated from high school, she wanted to …