“Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday!”
In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, I have the full video of his speech from 1963. Enjoy!

Have you ever gotten an invitation for a second interview after you’d already decided this was not the right job for you? How’d you handle it?
That’s the situation I’m in right now. After my job interview the other day I had made up my mind that this was not the place for me at this point in my career. Why? Well, I’d be taking about a 10 grand per year cut in pay to go to work for an organization that really needs some TLC. (That’s code for I’d need to put in a lot …read more

Being fully prepared for an interview is one of the easiest, yet most overlooked aspects of the job hunt, even for yours truly.
Earlier this week I found myself sitting in the Human Resources department trying to complete an application without the data I needed at my fingertips. It made me unnecessarily anxious and I ultimately had to leave a couple of fields blank on my application – that can’t be good!
Here’s a list of things you’ll always want to bring along to the interview so that you don’t get yourself all stressed out over trying to find the phone …read more

Im sure all of us have wondered if we should pay a professional resume writer at some point in our lives. For the most part I’d say no. Here’s why.

Resume Wizard on Microsoft Word is so easy to use that it’s made it possible for everybody to create a professional looking resume.
They can be expensive.
As a hiring manager, you can usually spot a professionally prepared resume a mile away and I tend to wonder why the person didn’t just prepare it themselves.
They are too high on fluff and too low on quality. Resume’s ought to be straight …read more

The other night I was watching the festivities at the Republican National Convention and something that one of the speakers said really brought home the importance of having a great resume.
“Imagine that you have both candidates resumes’ and the names and party affliliations are blacked out. Suppose that all you had to go on was experience? Who would you give the job to?”
Granted, most job interviews are not really much like the presidential campaign and in this particular election, it could be really dangerous to only go on experience, but it does illustrate a great point.
The hiring manager …read more

If you’re anything like me you probably have a minimum of 5 different email accounts that you maintain. With so many sites offering (even requiring if you want to view their content) free accounts, it can be pretty tempting to come up with some cutesy address. If you are one of those people who tend to use the cutesy email addresses, be sure to maintain at least one with a regular, professional sounding email address. You’ll need it for the job search.
I can’t really give you any real good reason why it is but using an unprofessional …read more

Months ago a good friend and coworker wrote on a small white index card “Gina’s dream job” and asked me to fill it in. I was really stumped and the card ended up sitting blank on my desk for a long time. The problem I was having was that the job I really wanted to write on that card seemed really silly to me, out of my reach, and pretty low paying.
One day after I’d moved to a different office in my organization I ran across the card and after staring at it for a while, I grabbed …read more

When I started this article I planned to write about how to handle illegal interview questions but while I was doing research for it I discovered some information that indicated asking the questions is not illegal but using the information to decide whether or not to hire the applicant is, so why bother asking. Is there a lawyer in the house? I’m still investigating this and I’ll share my findings with you as soon as I’m done.
In the meantime, it really doesn’t matter if the questions are illegal or not when it comes right down to it. …read more

Stanley F. Bronstein, the founder of the Achievement IQ® movement and the creator of the Laws of Positioning® has been a CPA for more than 21 years and an attorney for more than 16 years. His soon to be released third book, Achievement IQ Moments: 50 Extraordinary Stories About People Who Transformed Vision, Attraction, Readiness and Action Into Massive Success. Stanely is joining Gina and I as we participate in the The Great Blog Off. Enjoy!
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How To Differentiate Yourself From Other Applicants
by Stanley Bronstein
This article is going to focus on the point of view of the prospective employer. …read more

WOW! I’ve never even heard of a “blog-off” before this, let alone participated in one.  By the time Darlene and I are done, I think we’ll have posted 24 times in 24 hours.  We rock! Right?
Many of the b5media Business Channel blogs participated in the blog-off so be sure to drop by to read all the other great posts. 
I’d like to thank all my guest writers for their contributions.  I appreciate you all.  And a special thank you to taxgirl for keeping us on our toes and motivated over the last 24.
Here’s a list of my guest posts.  Please be sure to …read more