A tip on applying for jobs

April 7, 2010

One of the things I do on an ongoing basis is help maintain the job applicant system at the office. A couple of trends continue to amaze me. First of all if you're submitting a file giving it the name "resume.doc" is a sure-fire way to make sure your resume will get lost, messed up and never make it to where it needs to be. A second great way to cause problems is to put special characters in the file name. Calling it "Joe's Resume.doc" or "resume/web-2010.pdf" won't help you win friends either.

So here is a simple idea. Keep the name of your files descriptive and use only letters, numbers, dashes and underscores in the file name. The newspaper says there are a few folks out there looking for jobs these days. You don't want to miss out on the interview just because the folks trying to read your resume can't find it amongst the piles of submissions.

Laptop Funding

November 25, 2006

In the creative thinking column this idea gets a top rating.

Thinking about failure

October 6, 2006

This morning I needed to send an email admitting a project had failed. It was a simple enough project at the outset but my lack of clarity on the intended outcome and determination to complete the project once the misunderstanding was understood prevented the salient course of saying no.

Sitting down to write the email apologizing, accepting defeat and beginning to make amends with the colleagues I've let down in this process, I came up with one more idea. That last sliver of hope. So the last two hours have been spent trying for that last sliver. It's really tough letting go when I've failed on a project. Even tougher when I know my colleagues have made commitments based on my commitments to them and their belief in my ability to deliver on my commitments.

A little tip

May 19, 2006

Each day provides new opportunities to learn important little tips. Tonight, for example, I spent some time helping in the kitchen. Not much really, just a couple of batches of cookies that have to be moved from the oven to the cooling rack and the next batch journeys to the oven.

It turns out, however, that flipping hot cookies straight from the cookie sheet into the air like a flapjack and aiming for the cooling rack is not a good idea. Warm to hot cookie parts end up strewn everywhere.

Telling time

September 24, 2004

Dave Winer and Adam Curry were commenting in a post earlier this week that they were having problems getting in sync across time zones. Perhaps they should look at the Charlotte van der Waals collection of clocks at Ameico.