*IMPORTANT* Resume Tips (Trust Me); and the Ever-Present Job Hunt Continues...

My father was...a drinker. And a fiend. And one night he goes off crazier than usual..... I'm only kidding. My father owns a limo company called Flying High Transit, based in Clinton, N.J. He drives clients to and from the airport and into the city as well. Being caught in a stigma of constantly needing cash to pay bills and student loans off due to my current unemployed status, I occasionally help him out by driving people when he is occupied.

On Friday evening, I drove this nice older couple back from Newark Airport. They have daughters in their thirties, one of whom works for an insurance rating company in a nearby town. I dropped off the couple at their house, and they asked me for my e-mail address to give to their daughter for consideration for an employment opportunity (You never know.... It's called networking). That really pumped me up, a chance for a career, finally? I was pleasantly surprised to get an e-mail in a timely fashion the very next morning from their daughter, asking me to send my resume to both her personal and work e-mail addresses and she would then forward it to Human Resources.

Ahhhhh, the good old HR Department, the resume graveyard itself in any company. I felt my spirits sink along with my chances of actually getting an interview, having my resume in the caring hands of a department of people who don't know me personally, and do not know my strengths and assets in a team and professional environment.

HR departments are like automated answering machines for a company that you would like to get in touch with and possibly even start a relationship with. Let's just say that the company is a girl that you want to ask out for dinner. The girl is usually busy and is NEVER home so you must deal with her answering machine. You have to make a good impression on the answering machine to spark the interest of the girl, so it's all about presentation, aka the resume. So you have to do work now, in order to "DO WORK!!!" later.

On Saturday I was in Connecticut with my family for my grandfather's 85th birthday (Happy Birthday, Pop!!) I started reading this article about a guide to getting a career in the jobs section of Reader's Digest, written by Cathie Gandel and Hilary Sterne, (Yes I said it, Reader's Digest, don't judge!) This article was loaded with a plethora of good information about getting a job, being in between jobs, and advice from career coaches.

My primary focus was on the part of the article pertaining to resumes.

HR people like a "powered up resume," so instead of saying "I worked," say "I collaborated" or "I led," for instance.

Here is a list of some more power verbs that will boost your resume's value, and HR people will fall head-over-heels in love with it based on the words they read, assuming they took their adderall that morning and will give resumes/people the attention they deserve:

-accelerated
-accomplished
-collaborated
-constructed
-created
-designed
-developed
-devised
-drafted
-established
-expanded
-formulated
-generated
-implemented
-improved
-initiated
-launched
-managed
-negotiated
-operated
-presented
-produced
-streamlined
-supervised
-tracked
-wrote

The article also features good advice from resume professionals: Paul Mathews, Peter Weddle, Anita Attridge, Michael Worthington, and Cheryl Lynch Simpson.

Resumes are all about the past, job posts are all about the future. Think about how your qualifications can match up well with what the employer is looking for on a professional level. Don't use any font under 11-point on your resume (remember the "HR-ADD Factor"), and send it as part of the e-mail and NOT as an attachment, (thanks for the information that could've been BROUGHT TO MY ATTENTION YESTERDAY!!!! Or 10 months ago). Read the job description and use the same words, so if the ad specifies 'instructor' don't write down 'trainer' on your resume. Also, don't use buzz-words (team member, problem solver, or self-motivated). Instead, specifically describe your accomplishments (not duties) by quantifying your experience.


It's like a football game. It's a game that pits you, as the prospective employee, vs. the HR department, aka 'the opposition' as I like to refer to them as. You must illustrate and implement plays that baffle or dazzle the opposition in order to get by them, head to the end-zone (the initial interview) to score, and ultimately win the game (get the job offer).

Disappointment and Door-to-Door Marketing

I knew I had to make some epic moves and do some serious work like Rob & Big to start a career, so I jumped on the job search engine bandwagon. The massive paydays from both my graduation party and birthday were quickly dwindling, whittling down to a pittance of their initial sum. The first one I chose to try was monster.com. After continually striking out with this site, I decided on going to craigslist, because you didn't have to spend time registering with the site, you could just view the jobs directly by category, and simply apply from there. I cited the KISS method: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

I decided against the journalism route this time, and instead, decided to reinvent myself by diversifying my talents. Print journalism is a stagnant industry, and no longer are the daily papers the #1 source of media consumption in the United States. Traditional newspapers are constantly laying off workers in today's terrible economy, and some of these daily publications are even going out of business. I wish I opened my friggin eyes four years ago and changed my major.

I've always been interested in sales and marketing. I perused craigslist and found many opportunities for employment. I ended up responding to many, but, as the job search goes, got very few responses. One company in particular, stood out. They said you could "be your own manager." They promised sky's-the-limit pay and they gave a list of reputable clients they "work with," one being my favorite baseball team, the NEW YORK YANKEES!!! That caught my attention like a pretty girl at a construction site.

Enter ASL Marketing Group.

I arranged to meet with them for an interview at their Branford, Conn. office, (about 20 minutes away from my alma-mater Quinnipiac, so I scheduled it on a Friday to make a weekend out of it, having had traveled two and-a-half hours from New Jersey). As you can see from the link, a modern-looking commercial high rise office is pictured on their website. To my surprise, the actual office was actually located in the rear of an industrial building off the Post Rd., nothing like the picture. That should have triggered a red flag right then and there.

I entered the building and found out that I was, in fact, at the right place. I interviewed with the guy who owns the business. After a few brief questions, he told me several times that he was very impressed with my resume and my responses to his questions, blowing smoke up my ass, and that he wanted to schedule a second interview. The initial interview lasted about 10-15 minutes, which is really short for an interview and should have triggered another warning sign, but then again, I was still an interview noob.

I scheduled the second "interview" two weeks later on a Friday (and another weekend at Quinnipiac). It was this time when he arranged for me to go out in the field with his "associate." He drove me and another employee to Milford, which was about a 20-minute car ride away. Shortly thereafter, I found out what I was in store for. 9-10 hours of pounding the pavement knocking on doors trying to push home improvement projects on unsuspecting residents trying to otherwise mind their own business.

The company's acronym, ASL, stands for "Actions Speak Louder," meaning "actions speak louder than words." What that simply translates to is that fact that their "actions" include their "workers" going door-to-door to market for the home improvement contractor company that they share the building with. I know that if I wanted work done on my house, I'll go with a contractor that I know and trust, or do it myself with the Home Depot or Lowes. Either that or get Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor and Al Borland to get the job done and take care of business.



On this particular trip, we canvassed a local neighborhood, knocking on doors of approximately 100 residences beginning at around noon. It was only a short time after Halloween and most of the decorations were still up, and the neighbors at first glance might have thought we were dazed and confused trick-or-treaters trying to score some last minute candy, unfortunately it was NOT the case. It took a couple of hours and only few people answered, seeing that it was a workday.

After a tiring trek around a few blocks, we stopped for lunch at a McDonalds, and I was thinking of ways to escape (to my chagrin, as I said, my car was back in Branford...a 20-minute car ride away, so I had to suck it up). After lunch, it was back to the same block for a second journey around the Milford Tour of Embarrassment, and after that, a third.

As the day wore on, more and more people came back from work/school. The guy I was with was unrelenting and would not take NO for an answer, pressuring otherwise uninterested people to sign up for home improvement services. Some of the residents were naturally hostile and told us to leave and even threatened to call the police on several instances. It was seriously shaping out to be the job interview from hell.

The day finally ended, and no one was more ecstatic than me. We finally drove back to Branford and I had the actual second interview with the same person who interviewed me two weeks earlier. It was a terrible experience, but hey, you have to look at the positives, I got some great exercise and now I know what the hell to avoid on job search sites from companies that don't tell you that their illegitimate business practices entail door-to-door marketing and pyramid scams... Thanks, but no thanks, ASL Marketing Group.


Here are a few things YOU can do to avoid these scams:

1) Take caution when searching "sales" or "marketing" on ANY job search engine.
2) AVOID ALL CAPITAL LETTERS of employment ads from companies promising pay to the moon and back.
3) "A sports-minded company for sports-minded people" IS a red-flag.
4) First interviews aren't meant to be easy. If it seems like a breeze, then something's fishy about the company.
5) RESEARCH the company before you agree to an interview. Go to their website and look up blogs or discussion boards pertaining to the company. First-hand experiences and advice from other people is usually the best method of research.