Think Like a Headhunter, Maximize Your Odds & Stand Out.

I am a recruiter, or if you prefer, a headhunter. As I joke on my Linkedin profile, I don't get too wrapped up in titles. I find and deliver specific talent to companies. In essence, I sell people to other people to pay my mortgage. While I make an important distinction between finding people jobs and finding talent for companies (disclosure: the companies pay my fees), I think a recruiter's unique perspective can inform and assist folks looking for new opportunities. When people ask me what I do for work, I joke that I gamble for a living, but it is closer to the truth to say I constantly search for ways to maximize the odds of my own success, and so should every job seeker. Searches I take on are often contingency searches, which means I only get paid when I present the winning candidate and the company successfully hires them,so I am careful where I spend my time. This is one of the first things I want to share with folks looking for a job: The person you contact matters, the way you make contact matters, and your presentation matters. Lots of layoffs are taking place, and the first reaction is often panic, fear, and gloom. One might feel like wallpapering every available surface with a resume and cover letter, but honestly that isn't going to help.

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Large Hadron Collider To End the World

There are plenty of innumerate groups who think that the LHC will destroy the world, as they have with each generation of nuclear test device before. Loud groups with mailing lists and placards. The Large Hadron Collider (in case you were unaware) is the Swiss upgrade to the unfinished Superconducting…

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Looking for practical uses for psychology?

Psyblog has lots of useful and succinct articles on psychology. The writing, which often draws from newly released research published by psychological journals, really gets to the point. This article, "Ten Practical Uses for Psychological Research in Everyday Life," contains a list of practical uses for psychology. I found myself…

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Separating virtual wheat from chaff

As usual my head is abuzz with the social media explosion and the impact technology has on my world. While communication has always been a part of the technology, folks that barely own computers are becoming familiar with Linkedin, Facebook, myspace, and twitter.  iPhones are being advertised so deliciously on…

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