In case you missed this week’s articles, here is a summary:
Nail Removal – A father gives his son a plank and a bag of nails. He tells the boy to hammer a nail into the plank every time he does something bad. Next he instructs him to pull out a nail every time he does a good deed. A week later the board is full of holes but there are no remaining nails. The symbolism is memorable: No amount of good acts can remove the scars of the bad. Maybe the modern online application of this story is looking at the whole concept of branding.
Old School Re-Defined – The term “old school†was observed in no less than three Twitter chat sessions in the past few weeks. Research shows that it also appears regularly in personal blog posts as well as scholarly journals. In most cases it is apparent that people generally agree on the definition of this term, but its use is varied based on the source of the comments. Most dictionary definitions of old school acknowledge that it refers to things from an earlier era, but there is some disagreement whether or not it is a respectful term giving deference to traditional values or a derogatory term referring to ultra-conservative thinking that is resistant to change.
Objective Overruled! – A book written about resume writing won’t sell if it is like every other book that has ever been written about resume writing. I’m convinced that is the reason for the existence of so many different types of resumes in vogue today. All of them are justifiable based on some unusual perspective or special circumstances and some are different just to be different. Recruiters will sift through hundreds of resumes every day. For the most part their expectation is that they will see a chronologically formatted presentation of education, experience, skills and accomplishments. The trick is for a job seeker to learn how to meet that expectation while offering something unique. Lately, it has become fashionable for the experts to chastise anyone who starts the page with an Objective statement.