You Know You Flunked the Job Interview When… is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Everyone, at some time, has done or said something in an interview that they regretted and that cost them the job.

Harry Urschel, at The Wise Job Search blog, put together a fun list finishing this sentence:

You know the interview isn’t going well…

If you’re doing 70% of the talking.

If your interviewer is doing 70% of the talking.

If you have a great outside interest in common, and that’s all you talk about.

If you’re not sure of something they refer to on your resume.

If you can’t remember what an acronym on your resume stands for.

If you have no examples of work situations.

If you can’t tell them what’s different about you.

If your cell phone rings in the interview, and you look to see who it is.

If your 1 hour interview ends in 20 minutes.

If they ask about your weaknesses and you give one that’s critical to the job.

If you’re asking about salary, benefits, and vacation in the first 30 minutes.

If you put your feet on their desk and belch (it’s happened).

If you arrive in a T-Shirt and Khaki’s when they all wear suits (it’s happened).

If you’re wearing a nice suit and tie, with hiking boots (it’s happened).

If you’re telling stories about what a jerk your previous boss was (it’s happened).

Check out his blog for the full list.

Photo by Jill Grindle

Personal Brands That Attract Despite Some Dubious Attributes is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

I know my speech and writing aren’t perfect. I’m as guilty as anyone of grammatical flubs. Sometimes I purposefully twist words, just because it tickles me. Even so, I cringe at misuse of the language.

I can’t take it when people pronounce the “t” in “often”. My skin crawls when they say:
       
◊  “Supposably” for “supposedly”
◊  “Fermiliar” for “familiar”
◊  “Realitor” for “realtor” . . . especially someone who works in the profession
◊  “Nuke-ya-ler” for “nuclear” . . . a certain former President comes to mind.

But some people (fictional and real) who verbally jitterbug and mix things up, endear themselves to me more with each abuse. In their cases, two in particular, it seems that what would otherwise be a negative personal brand attribute, is a positive one, because I want to hear more.

One of my favorites is bumbling, inept, but lovable Deputy Barney Fife, of the vintage Andy Griffith Show, who had a special brand of language mangling. Famous for his malapropisms and mixed metaphors spoken with great conviction and zeal, Barney provided a wealth of goodies I couldn’t get enough of.

I still love watching reruns of the show that feature Barney. Here is some of his best work:

◊  To him, someone with a strong urge had a “compellshun” to do the thing.

◊  Someone deeply intuitive had “extra sensitive perception”.

◊  Something that makes you feel better is “therapettic”.

◊  Someone who is inexperienced is “nave”.

◊  He opined that, “The kindness of mercy is not strained; it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven.”

◊  Barney, telling a long story to Andy, said,  “Andy, it was like a tale out of two cities!”

◊  When Andy asks for Floyd the barber’s help tracking down a clue, Barney said, “Don’t ask him, he’s as blind as an owl!”.

◊  Showing off his authority and aggrandizing his small town’s 2-cell jailhouse to little Opie and friends he cautioned, “Here at ‘the Rock,’ we have two basic rules. Memorize them so you can say them in your sleep. Rule One: Obey all rules!”

My Aunt Jeannie was another oblivious mangler, who was well-known and loved for her slip-ups. More than overlooking this fault, her blunders were a distinguishing and memorable characteristic. My family and I couldn’t get enough of them. Here’s a short list of some of her gems:

◊  She baked in a “confection” oven.

◊  She had friends in “Terry Hawk”, Indiana.

◊  When she visited them, she stayed at the “Marrionette” Hotel.

◊  She owned an “Electriclux” vacuum.

◊  She took a trip to “Alcapulco”.

◊  She took “Pepta Dismal” for a bad stomach.

◊  She would “mari-ah-nate” meat before cooking.

◊  She called those flakes in her hair “dandreth”.

◊  She took “Tylenaw” for a headache.

For a little diversion, take a look at Barney trying to recite the Preamble to the Constitution. Andy has to prompt him with every word.

Related post:

What Are Your Top Personal Brand Attributes?

Executive Job Search Got You Down? Brighten Your Day with a Tickle is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

We all need to lighten up from time to time and, with the present crushing economic landscape and job search challenges, we need some distractions more than ever.

Want to get your thoughts away from all that’s negative out there today?

I just came across a site you may want to noodle around on a bit to lift your spirits, as I just did.  

49 professionals from various walks of life — techies, activists, bankers, educators, and even an ex-combat pilot — started Tickled by Life in August 2008 with the objective to

“Surprise, provoke, inspire and wow you with articles on personal development and life skills. We stand by our original promise to enable you to live joyfully and creatively in your own way.”

Readers claim that, “just spending 10-15 minutes on this site every day gives them enough tickles to keep them on a high all day.”

To give you an idea of what they’re doing over there, here are a few popular “tickles” or blog posts:

• Top 10 tips for being highly uncreative
• Folding a T-Shirt in 1.5 Seconds!
• 16 habits of highly creative people
• Success through Personal Branding!
• Zen and the Art of Coming Full Circle
• A seven-step plan for success
• Should your spouse live four houses away?
• Communication is complete only when it is registered by the receiver!
• Use the Hero Myth to create your leadership journey!
• My Journey with Mind Maps!
• PowerPoint is my slave!
• Why is it good for you to be a vegetarian?
• Say NO and feel great!
• The Fine Art of Persuasive Communication!
• Deciding how to decide!
• How to get more done in less time
• 50 ways to a bright idea!
• Success is just like riding a bicycle
• Teaching the teacher
• Contentment vs. discontentment
• I love to fail!
• The power of unlearning

I hope you enjoy letting your mind wander a little, before getting back to the work at hand.

Even Santa Has a VisualCV is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Here’s how Santa immediately captures attention with his clever, on-brand VisualCV:

“I am a seasoned global logistics executive with a 300-year track record. I work at the highest level to ensure consistent delivery every time. I take enormous pride in the holiday season customer experience and through my efforts, strive to ensure that the joy of giving and receiving stays relevant in our digital age. I enjoy working with animals, children and elves.

I am also lucky enough to have a very recognizable personal brand which has led to a lot of work in advertising and image licensing, for greetings cards in particular. I was keen to take control of my personal brand online and also increase my career networking opportunities by building my own VisualCV, after all, no-one’s job is guaranteed 100% these days.”

His work history includes “Advertising Frontman for Coca-Cola”.

His skills include:

• Driving a flying reindeer sleigh
• Chimney entry & exit

I hope his VisualCV brings him everlasting online brand visibility and job security.

Obama: A Rebirth of the Cool and Return to Intelligible Speech At the Top is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Have you heard the collective sigh of relief? Have people told you they suddenly feel lighter and comforted by Obama’s move into leadership?

A friend swore to me yesterday that her blood pressure recently dropped to a healthy level, after an 8-year dangerous high.

Stand-up comedians are concerned about the sudden lack of good material to work from. Some fear it’s the end of comedy.

Among hopefully many other positives and benefits with Obama and his administration, we’ll no longer be plagued by hearing the leader of the free world talk about “nuke-yah-ler” weapons. Or mangle the English language. Or fumble for an obvious word.

As a wordsmith and someone who appreciates smart use of words, I’ve been cringing for 8 years, anticipating yet another beating to our wonderful language.

Andy Borowitz opines tongue firmly in cheek in his Huffington Post article, Obama’s Use of Complete Sentences Stirs Controversy, that Obama has broken with a tradition established over the past eight years:

“Millions of Americans who watched Mr. Obama’s appearance on CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday witnessed the president-elect’s unorthodox verbal tic, which had Mr. Obama employing grammatically correct sentences virtually every time he opened his mouth.

But Mr. Obama’s decision to use complete sentences in his public pronouncements carries with it certain risks, since after the last eight years many Americans may find his odd speaking style jarring.

According to presidential historian Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota, some Americans might find it ‘alienating’ to have a president who speaks English as if it were his first language.

“Every time Obama opens his mouth, his subjects and verbs are in agreement,” says Mr. Logsdon. “If he keeps it up, he is running the risk of sounding like an elitist.”

Conversely, Borowitz includes a rebuke of Obama’s insistence on using complete sentences by Gov. Sarah Palin:

“Talking with complete sentences there and also too talking in a way that ordinary Americans like Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder can’t really do there, I think needing to do that isn’t tapping into what Americans are needing also,” she said.

Ain’t literacy great???

More of the Funniest Resume Blunders and Bloopers is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

I thought a little levity was in order to lighten our spirits in these unsettling times. So I went back to JobMob’s 150 Funniest Resume Mistakes, Bloopers and Blunders Ever, and grabbed a few more from Jacob Share’s list.

These gems come from comments on Fortune’s Ask Annie column:

1. “An applicant ghosted a headshot as the background to her resume.”

2. Why Interested in Position?: “to keep my parole officer from putting back me in jail”

3. The objective on one recent resume I received stated that the applicant wished to pursue a challenging account executive position with our rival firm.

4. Objective: “career on the Information Supper Highway”

5. Experience: “Stalking, shipping & receiving”

6. “My duties included cleaning the restrooms and seating the customers.”

7. I once received a resume with a head and shoulders picture in the top left of the first page. The picture was of a lion’s head, wearing a coat, shirt, and tie.
 
8. A resume… was printed on the back of the person’s current employer’s letterhead.

9. One resume that came across my desk stated how the individual had won a contest for building toothpick bridges in middle school.

10. A resume… had several grease stains and a smudge of chocolate on it.

11. Other Interests: “Playing with my two dogs (They actually belong to my wife but I love the dogs more than my wife)”.

Related post:

Some of the Funniest Resume Bloopers I’ve Ever Seen

Obama and McCain’s Campaigns Get Limericked is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Talk about personal brands being scrutinized and put through the wringer, the Washington Post just concluded its annual PostPartisan “Tell-the-Campaign-in-a-Limerick Contest”, and out of 300 entries, the winners are in.

As a professional wordsmith who appreciates clever turns of phrases that tickle, I couldn’t resist sharing 3 of the Honorable Mentions and the Winner. ENJOY!

by engelmann:
No greater survivor there can surely be
than John McCain, Vietnam pilot and detainee
but even a veteran of crashes
couldn’t escape from the ashes
of the smoldering wreckage of Bush forty three

by slenon:
When engaged in a contest political
Running mate choice is most critical
Avoid giggles and winks
Pick a partner who thinks,
And possesses some skills analytical

f_kranzberg:
“It’s the economy, stupid” they say,
‘Cept for McCain on that fateful Fall day.
Did it cost him the crown?
Or is Palin the clown,
Who cares – we enjoyed Tina Fey!

And the Winner is: busstopboxer
McCain’s new best friend, Joe the Plumber
Is having his Indian Summer
He soon hopes to be
On a country CD
And probably driving a Hummer

Even Brad Pitt Didn’t Become a Famous Personal Brand Overnight is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Before they staked a claim and became well-known, these celebrities had to slowly build brand recognition, just like the rest of us.

Here’s what they were doing before we knew them:

1. Brad Pitt – worked as a giant chicken in front of El Pollo Loco, a fast food chain

2. Marlon Brando – department store elevator operator (he quit after four days because having to call out “lingerie” embarrassed him)

3. Danny DeVito – hairdresser in his sister’s beauty salon

4. Whoopi Goldberg – applied makeup to corpses in a mortuary (she said it was great work because clients never complained about how they looked)

5. Gene Hackman – ladies’ shoe salesman at Saks, New York

6. Gregory Hines – karate instructor

7. Cyndi Lauper – cleaned dog kennels

8. Steve Martin – eight years at Disneyland selling Mouseketeer ears and Davy Crockett coonskin hats

9. Gregory Peck – carnival barker at the World’s Fair and tour guide at New York’s Rockefeller Center

10. Telly Savalas – Peabody Award-winning executive with ABC News and State Department employee

11. Sylvester Stallone – gym instructor and dorm bouncer at a girl’s boarding school in Switzerland

12.  Warren Beatty – dishwasher and cocktail-lounge pianist

13. Benny Hill – milkman

14. Sinéad O’Connor – singing kiss-o-gram French maid in Dublin

15. Luther Vandross – defective merchandise clerk at S&H trading stamps

16. Dan Akyroyd – wrote a manual for penitentiary guards

17. Frank Zappa – greeting card designer and encyclopedia salesman

18. Sean Connery – milkman and coffin polisher

19. Danny Glover – social worker

20. Rod Stewart – grave digger, fence erector, and sign writer.

Compiled from “The Book of Lists” by David Wallechinsky.

Some of the Funniest Resume Bloopers I’ve Ever Seen is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Jobmob has put together a list of 150 ridiculous mistakes that job seekers make on their resumes, cover letters, and applications, culled from various sources.

I see a lot of grammatical errors and typos on the executive resumes that come my way, but these are priceless. Here’s a taste of some of the toppers:

→  Hobbies: “enjoy cooking Chinese and Italians”

→  “Career break in 1999 to renovate my horse”

→  Background: “28 dog years of experience in sales (four human).”

→  A resume listed a skill as “being bi-lingual in three languages”

→  Languages: “Fluent in English. Also I have been heard muttering Gibberish in my sleep.”

→  Application: How large was the department you worked in with your last company? “Answer: 3 stories.”

→  Employer: “Myself; received pay raise for high sales.”

→  Reason for leaving: “I thought the world was coming to an end.”

→  Objective: “I need money because I have bills to pay and I would like to have a life, go out partying, please my young wife with gifts, and have a menu entrée consisting of more than soup.”

→  Salary desired: “Starting over due to recent bankruptcies. Need large bonus when starting job.”

Take a look at the entire list for a good laugh. It’s a great diversion on a Monday morning, especially in these somber economic times.

Paris Hilton Rescues Her Personal Brand is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Link here if video doesn’t play.

Have you seen this? She even throws in a bit of savvy political advice on how the candidates can compromise towards a future energy policy.

I have to concur with Scot Herrick who says on his Cube Rules blog that he’s not a Paris Hilton fan, but gives her credit for building a strong personal brand, which she’s very good at defending and reinforcing.

After the attack by John McCain, she was smart to come up with an absolutely on-brand way to reaffirm her brand. And she neatly ridicules those who try to corrupt her brand and reputation.

Nicely done!