I have been working for the last few weeks trying to get the word out about Best Word Forward and I came across something that astounded me. I found a website called ProfileTree which allows people or business to post their services. I quickly took advantage of this opportunity to get some more exposure for Best Word Forward. Once I had posted my information, I browsed around the site for a bit to see where my postings landed when someone searched for them. I found a few people posting writing services where they would write articles for a small fee. The only problem with these posts that offered writing services was that each one had misspelled words and absolutely terrible grammar. Granted, when you’re working with 30-70 characters, grammar can tend to take a back seat to simply getting your point across. However, if you’re advertising writing services, you probably want to make sure the writing in your advertisement, follows the basic norms of the language you’re writing in. Now, if I am to believe the images that went along with these pictures, the people posting these ads were likely from foreign countries and not native English speakers. This does not excuse them from having to use the English language correctly if they are advertising to do so. I would compare this to a graphic designer advertising her services with something drawn in crayon on the back of a napkin or a company that makes fine stationary advertising on a piece of ripped up cardboard. With all of the noise in the world today, it’s hard to get noticed and I’m worried that these people might get noticed simply because of their silly mix-ups and I might get skipped over because I seem to know what I’m talking about. I hope that’s not the case, but the fact that these advertisements are allowed to remain on the sight with their glaring errors, frustrates me to no end. Perhaps I should offer my services to these people and help them become better writers and in turn spread that around the world. Please let me know if you would hire these people to write for you. Maybe I’ll have to rethink my advertising strategy.
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It is that time again. The Winter Olympics have arrived. By the time you read this, there will have already been one full day of competition in Sochi and the Opening Ceremonies will be in full swing. Most athletes competing in the Olympic Games this month would consider just getting to that stage to be the crowning achievement in their sport. They have worked the better part of the past four years (if not more) to get to this point. Many have put other life goals on hold just to have the opportunity to walk into the Olympic Stadium representing their country. Now imagine if you will that you are a recruiter for your company. Several résumés come across your desk for a new position that has opened up. As you are sifting through the stack, you notice one of the applicants has “Participated in Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia” listed among their achievements. I don’t know about you, but this would immediately pique my interest and at the very least make me consider bringing the applicant in for an interview. My question to you today is simple. When you’re thinking about your résumé and how to make it stand out from the crowd, think about what would grab someone’s attention like the example I gave above? Most of us can’t legitimately put “Olympian” on our résumés, at least I know I can’t, but there likely is something that we can put on there that makes us unique and has the potential to grab the attention of the recruiter or HR director looking at our résumé. Remember that the point of the résumé is to get your foot in the door and get an interview. If you can get someone interested in you before they even meet you, then you are one step ahead of other applicants from the beginning. So you’re writing a short story. You moving right along and suddenly realize that your story is over thirty pages long. It’s starting to move from being a short story into being a short novella. Or you may have another dilemma. You started writing your story and were able to wrap up the narrative in only two pages. You went from having a short story idea to having a REALLY short story. Technically, either of these remains correct when called a short story. There are many different types of short stories and they can range from something extremely brief to a longer and more fully developed narrative that unfolds over many pages and may even be broken into mini-chapters. That is the beauty of the short story format. There is no correct way to write it! Chances are you have filled out a job application at least one in your life. You probably filled in a section on that application asking you to list professional references. You sat and thought for a minute before writing down the name of a friend that you worked with at your last job that would give you a glowing recommendation if and when the HR manager called them. What you really want for a reference is someone who can speak to your strengths but also be honest about potential areas of growth. A manager with whom you worked closely on important projects fits this role perfectly. Let's look at a slightly different scenario. You're scoring the internet job boards for your next new job and find one that looks perfect. Before submitting your résumé, you add a list of four people you would consider quality references at the bottom even though the job paying didn't specifically ask for references. One you're satisfied, you post your résumé to the job site and start the clock waiting for someone to call you for an interview. I see two potential problems here. First, there was no mention of references being needed in the job posting. If the hiring manager needs them, they should be included as a requirement as you apply. Providing extra information only serves to muddy the waters and in the long run can create confusion. If your résumé confuses the person reading it, there is a good chance it will end up in the "no" pile. The second concern I have is the placement of the references. By putting them at the end off your résumé, it may send the message that they are not as important as the rest of the document. If you are placing the references in you résumé because you feel they are important, make sure you put them in a place that shows that importance. I was playing around in MS Word the other day and noticed an option to include readability statistics when doing a spelling and grammar check. I decided to mark the box and see what happened. A little to my surprise I fewer misspellings that I had anticipated, many thanks to the autocorrect function in Word for that. I also received a little window that gave me a “readability score” (in the mid 60s) and a “grade level” (nearly 8th grade!) for my document. I didn't entirely understand the meaning of these numbers or what scale they should be judged against, something Microsoft might want to incorporate into their programming when they are provided, so I went online to find out more. The name associated with the numbers was Flesch. I quickly came upon an article by Rudolf Flesch on the website of the University of Canterbury (New Zealand) titled How to Write Plain English. Apparently Mr. Flesch developed a formula for figuring out the readability of any piece of English language writing and placing it on a scale. Regardless of what you are writing, there is something in here for everyone. If you’re writing young adult novels, this formula can help you determine if you’re writing to old or young for the average reader in the ages you are targeting. If you have a piece of writing and the readability score comes back in the teens or single digits, you probably need to find some time to edit as soon as possible. I can hear you asking already, how can language be distilled down into a formula? It can’t. We can however use this formula as a tool for guiding us in our writing. Something as complicated as language can never be measured simply like numbers but the more information we have about our writing, the better off we will be. Check out Flesch’s entire article. And while you’re at it, browse around the rest of the University of Canterbury’s website. I always find it interesting to see what sites look like for places around the world. I posted a note about this on the Best Word Forward Facebook page yesterday but wanted to make an official post about it on the blog. I originally wanted to make posts here at least three times a week, but that proved to be far too much to handle. For the time being, I will be making weekly posts every Friday, alternating between an editing topic and a résumé topic each week. Hopefully this will keep the blog moving forward and will help you the reader know when to expect new content each week. If there is a topic you have questions on regarding your own writing or résumé, please leave a comment below or email me and I will do my best to answer your question in an upcoming post. Thank you and keep working to put your BEST WORD FORWARD! Almost ten years ago, I encountered a situation where I had two companies offer me jobs at the same time. I was in a situation in my life where I was able to actually start working both jobs before making a decision which one I should keep. I know I made the correct decision all that time ago. The job that I choose to keep allowed me to meet wonderful mentors and leaders across many levels of the business (and others), grow my skills in many areas, and generally put me in a much better position than I think I would have been with the other job. For that I am eternally grateful. Obviously, most people in this situation would not have that luxury so it becomes harder to figure out which direction to go. If you do find yourself in this predicament, first of all, congratulations! Secondly, check out James Caan’s piece on LinkedIn yesterday for some thoughts on how to make the best decision for you. Do you have a story that you’re writing or a big paper due at school? Always feel like you can’t just get your point across the way you want to? I have an opportunity for you. I’m offering you a limited time offer through the end of November to let me help you grow as a writer by reviewing a piece of writing that you need help with. Just fill out the form below and I will respond to your request within 48 hours. I would like to keep the offer to anything under 10 pages, but if it’s around that length, we can certainly discuss options. Fill out the form and start becoming a better writer today! Sometimes, one of the best ways to learn how to do something well is to practice it over and over again. Other times, the best way is to read about how others have done it successfully and try to emulate that. In looking at how to interview, I posted a link to an article the other day that listed things you must never do and things you must do in an interview. This could certainly help you out if you’re prepping for a big interview, but what if you got to look at it from the other side of the table. If you have had a chance to conduct interviews in your past, you can probably remember some interviews that were great and what you liked about them. But if you've never interviewed people, maybe you don’t know what interviewers truly look for when they speak with a candidate. You may think you know, but how can you be absolutely sure? Try this great resource for finding out what is in the minds of interviewers. There are plenty of things that can be considered dumb, especially when interviewing for a job. Normally I would try to work on my own list, but I found this recently on LinkedIn and decided to just pass the word along.
Check out the Five Things You Must NOT Do in an Interview and Five Things You Must |
AuthorJonathan Ytreberg is the owner of Best Word Forward, committed to providing the best resume advice and services to clients around the globe. Archives
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