When I began writing this book with Courtney Pike, I had no idea it would be released at such a relevant time. The job market is crashing, hiring is freezing, and unemployment is going up in flames. We're in extreme times, and professionals across the nation are in dire need of help in the job search.

I'm proud to announce the launch of How to Say It on Your Resume: A Top Recruiting Director's Guide to Writing the Perfect Resume for Every Job.

Here's a snapshot of the book as seen on the back cover:

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Set Yourself Apart from a Sea of Candidates

Hiring managers will decide whether they want you for a job within five seconds of reading your resume. With such little time to make that first impression, you need a resume that will instantly distinguish you from the hundreds of candidates competing for the same position.

How to Say It on Your Resume is the only book that gives you insider advice on what recruiting directors really look for. While everyone else writes the same drab resume, you'll learn how to:

• Avoid common mistakes that nearly every applicant makes
• Write a resume that complements your specific situation, whether you want to change industries, get hired after a layoff, or get an internal promotion
• Tailor your resume to the job you're applying for
• Address and overcome even the most sensitive career obstacles

Packed with dozens of real before-and-after resumes and tips from a hiring director who has seen it all, this book shows you exactly what it takes to create a resume that will land you that dream job.

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If you are intrigued, you should check out a copy at your local bookstore or on Amazon.

www.JobBound.com

With the holidays just around the corner, it's easy to fall into a "turkey coma" and forget all about your plans for the job search. Don't let it happen to you! Stay focused on the ultimate gift - a job - this holiday season.

We've compiled our top ten tips for holiday job hunting to help you along the way. Of course, the pros are always standing by to help at JobBound.com if you need advice or assistance at any point.

10. Ditch the football game for a few minutes. On Thanksgiving Day, watch Brad Karsh on CNN at 1:00pm EST to learn the tips for recession-proofing your career.

9. Schmooze with your family. You may think they're crazy, but they do have jobs AND connections.

8. Put your business card in holiday cards. Hit up recruiting directors with whom you interviewed and also include your well-connected friends.

7. Set one job search goal every day. And no eggnog until you complete it!

6. Get a temporary job. ...Especially if you need experience or funds. Who knows, you might be the lucky temp who gets hired full-time.

5. Attend the "ugly sweater" holiday party. Get out there to meet new people and expand your network. Who said the job search couldn't be fun?

4. Make some calls to Recruiting Directors. Sure, you've memorized their voicemail, but during the holidays, you have a better chance of catching recruiting directors at their desk.

3. Fine tune your resume. You know it, and I know it. Your resume could use a little help. Finally, you have a little down time to give it the attention it deserves.

2. Volunteer and help out your community. You gain experience, you meet people, and you momentarily forget that you don't have a job yet.

1. Watch Brad on CNN on Christmas Day. Just in case "A New Job" isn't gift-wrapped under the tree, you can gain the secrets for securing a job in a recession.

www.jobbound.com

Recently, we touched on the topic of being a liar on your resume, and what a terrible idea it is. However, it is extremely important to be a good storyteller, both throughout the job hunt and once you enter the workplace. According to a recent post on the New York Times' Shifting Careers blog, learning better storytelling skills is essential to being a better worker.

In the job hunt, your very first point of contact with a potential employer is your cover letter. To many, cover letters are merely a regurgitation of the information on your resume. Let's face it; if you used a template from a book, off the Web, or even just wrote one like they teach in college, your cover letter isn't doing you justice.

Instead, your cover letter needs to supplement your resume by filling in the details of your personality. It doesn't have to tell your entire life story, but it does need to attract interest in your resume. Keep it short; make some sentences just a few words, and make some paragraphs one sentence. Write it very personally, and be conversational.

Often, it's helpful to think about how you got interested in the field, why you like the particular job or company, or even some special connections or skills you have that the reader would find interesting.

Tell an honest, interesting, and relevant story, and your cover letter is much less likely to end up in the trash.

http://www.JobBound.com

Why would anyone lie on their resume? I mean, this seems like a no-brainer. Yet, according to a recent study by CareerBuilder.com, nearly half of employers have caught a liar.

According to their poll of over 3,000 hiring managers, the most common lie, by far, was embellishment of responsibilities at 38%. Look, it's simple: If you don't have the experience/skill/trait, don't list it. There's a big difference between writing focused, targeted bullet points that showcase your skills, and "puffing up" your resume with half-truths and errors of omission.

Besides, the veteran recruiter will see right through the nonsense, and even the novice interviewer will be able to tell that you're fudging when they meet you in person. If, by some chance, your lies get you a job, you won't have that job for very long. Either people will discover that you're a fraud through the quality of your work, or when they find out about your fibs some other way, they'll fire you - regardless of your quality of work. Just look at these examples:

-Dave Edmondson was the chief executive officer of RadioShack.

-Kenneth Lonchar was the chief financial officer of Veritas.

-George O'Leary was the head football coach at Notre Dame.

All three were fired from their high-powered positions because they lied on their resume.

Job hunting is not a time to believe that "it's only wrong if you get caught." Rather, show an employer the best you, the real you... and go from there.

www.JobBound.com

So, let's say you're doing everything right when it comes to job searching in the 21st century - you've got a great network of contacts, your resume is really telling your story, and you even have your virtual outposts (Facebook, MySpace, Blogger, etc.) - tailored to show the world why they should hire you. Yet, one day, you log into your LinkedIn account - the one with hundreds of professional connections, your virtual resume, and recommendations from co-workers - and instead of being greeted by your normal welcome page, you're confronted with this:

Profile Not Found

According to a recent post at JibberJobber, this nightmare is coming true for one user whose account was mistaken for that of a spammer. What's more, LinkedIn claimed that they couldn't reinstate her account, or restore any of her contacts and information. Clearly, this demonstrates an important lesson in "career management 2.0": Always, always maintain backups of everything!

Whether it's your resume, your list of connections, or copies of correspondence with potential employers, you need to maintain multiple copies of the computer files as well as back-up printouts irreplaceable information - like your database of contacts. The post at JibberJobber gives tips for saving your LinkedIn information, but you also need to set aside time to back up all your career information - both online and off. Don't let a technological snafu sideline your job search!

www.jobbbound.com

Facebook, MySpace, and personal blogs are a fun way to network with friends, but can this seemingly harmless tool ruin your chances of getting that dream job? College graduates and young professionals do not have many past bosses or employers, so some companies are turning to the Internet to run informal background checks.

A 2007 survey by Ponemon Institute found that:

-35 percent of hiring managers use Google to do online background checks on job candidates

-23 percent look people up on social networking sites.

-About one-third of those Web searches lead to rejections, according to the survey.

A study by another workforce consulting firm showed that 66 percent of Generation Y respondents, those in their late teens and 20s, were not aware that the information they put online can be factored into hiring decisions. Fifty-six percent said they think the practice is unfair.

Unfair or not, there is not much legislation out there that guards against discriminating against questionable Facebook profiles. Play it safe and keep your profile G-rated if you're serious about securing a good job.

www.jobbound.com

Years ago, there were not many job changes much less many "career changes." Most people got a job, and they worked at that company for 35 years until they retired with their gold watch.

Nowadays, it is not odd for people to have several different careers in their lifetime. Recruiting directors are becoming more attuned and aware of this trend, so it is not as difficult to make a career change if you go about it the right way.

There are a few secrets of making a successful career change:

1. Gain relevant experiences. You want to get experiences outside of your current line of work that directly relate to the job you want. If you know you want to leave your banking job to write for your favorite travel magazine, start writing on the side and building your portfolio. If you want to switch from teaching to event planning, plan your class's graduation event to gain relevant experience. And if you want to leave journalism for marketing, check out your newspaper's marketing department before heading out.

You can also take classes, pick up new hobbies, or join industry organizations to acquire relevant skills and get in tune with the environment of your new field.

2. Create a summary section on your resume or highlight transferable skills. A summary can be a great way to show relevant skills when you don't have the exact background a company is seeking. Again, if a Recruiting director is looking for a marketing professional, the most recent job may throw him or her off. By starting with a summary, you can actually match what you have done with the job description.

You also want to pinpoint the skills you gained in your past experiences that directly parlay to the job you want. Paint a clear picture for the recruiting director. You want them to see the skills and assets you have that transfer smoothly to their industry.

3. Make the best out of the experiences. Even if you don't have perfectly relevant experience, you want to sound as good as possible. In addition to hard skills, employers are also looking for soft skills, such as a strong work ethic, accomplishment, communication skills, management skills, etc. By showing you have done well in your past jobs, a potential employer will see you can be an asset to the organization.

www.jobbound.com

Ah, the old, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" question. This certainly ranks up there as one of the most vexing probes an interviewer can ask.

Like many interview questions, it's less important what you say and more important how you say it. Candidates often think there's a "right" answer to this one - something like, "I'd of course like to be the VP of Sales at this company in 10 years, and then COO by the time I'm 33, and naturally President of your organization in the year 2037."

The good news is that no interviewer is looking for a response like that. Instead, they are just trying to get a sense of your overall goals and aspirations and see if those may fit into what the company can offer. They don't expect that you'll be working at the company for the next 35 years, but they also don't want to hear that you are planning to "give it a shot" for three months. In fact, in my more than 1,000 interviews I heard some pretty bad responses to this question.

Here's what you DO NOT want to say:

"I'd like to work here for a little while, get some experience, and then go make some real money."

-"I just need to get some experience on my resume before I go to grad school next year."

-"Heck, I barely know what I want to do tomorrow, let alone what I'd like to do in the long term."

The way to properly deal with this question is to think about it in more broad terms. What are your goals? What do you want out of your career? Even if you have no idea what you want to do, you probably have a sense for the type of work environment you like. Then take some of those thoughts, tie them in with a few strengths you have, and speak generally.

Here's a good response:

"I love working with people and I consider myself a fairly competitive person. That's why this job in sales appeals to me. At some point in my career, I'd like to be in a manager role since I've had success as a leader. Ultimately, it would be wonderful to be running a company, but that will be quite a ways down the road. As long as the company feels like I'm contributing and as long as I continue to develop and grow, I can see myself in a career like this one for a while."

You haven't made any commitments to them, and you also haven't said you're planning to walk out the door in a year. What you have done is shown them that you've thought a bit about your future and that you could be a good match for their company.

www.jobbound.com