As you create your resume there are certain things you should make sure you do:

• Use action verbs
• Show real results (numbers, percentages, etc.)
• Remember that it’s a sales too, not a history of all the jobs you’ve held.
• And so on.

Below are some things you never should put on a resume as well as tactics that are best avoided.

• Demand that certain requests be met, such as a certain amount of paid time off, tuition reimbursement, etc. before you’ll even consider working at a company.
• A resume longer than two or, at the very most, three pages. One page is best.
• Photos, especially of your family members and pets.
• “Cute” e-mail addresses (examples: sexydancer@, dannylovesbeer@, even JohnSue1@). Instead, aim to have an email address that’s just your name: JaneSmith@, Jane.Smith@, SmithJane@, etc.).
• Including references you know will give you a poor one (such as when you are fired from a position). Honesty is good, but be judicious when it comes to references. Call everyone you plan to list as a reference and ask them if they will give you a good reference. If a reference can’t give you a good one, don’t list it.
• Don’t submit poetry, song lyrics, short stories, etc. (people have actually done this).
• Don’t use the same resume for every job for which you apply. You should tailor your resume to each job, highlighting the skills you have that best fit each position’s requirements.
• Don’t create your resume and send it without sending it to yourself first. How does it look when it arrives as a document? Does the formatting go all to pieces? Consider making it into a PDF.
• Don’t forget to proofread it for typos and grammatical mistakes.
• Don’t lie. Don’t exaggerate. Don’t create jobs, duties and skills you never had/don’t possess.

If you need help creating a great resume, contact a recruiter at RealStreet Staffing. We love helping construction, architecture and engineering professionals looking for work in the Washington DC area and we’d love to help you. We look forward to hearing from you!

You’ve been called in for a second interview. Yes, congratulate yourself; you truly should be proud.

But now you need to return to perhaps at least one or two of the same people – and probably some new ones — and wow them all over again. And you can rest assured that this interview will be “tougher” than the first.

Follow the tips below to help you ace the second round of job interviews.

1. Be especially prepared because the second round of interviews tend to be more intense than the first. The first interview tends to be a screening session. Now your hiring manager/interviewer will get to the meat of what it is you bring to the table.
2. Ask who will be at the second interview. You can ask this when you are notified that you’ve been selected for a second round. Will your direct supervisor be there? His or her boss? Additional colleagues and/or constituents?
3. Once you know names (and you should ask for names), start some online sleuthing. Check out LinkedIn profiles. Google a person’s name and see what comes up. Your aim is to learn about the person’s business past and see where you have commonalities (perhaps you went to the same school, or belong to the same business organization).
4. A second interview often is where hiring managers look to see how well you’ll fit in in the company and, more importantly, the department in which you’ll be working. So expect behavioral questions (“Describe a time when you handled an angry customer”) as well as queries your interviewer will use in order to see how well you think on your feet.
5. Second interviews sometimes can take place in a group situation, where you’ll meet with several people at the same time. These can be nerve wracking, but a great tip to help you relax is to answer questions by looking at each person in the group individually for a moment or two as you give your answer.
6. Don’t forget: you’re interviewing the company/department as well. When you leave the interview, ask yourself how you felt about your potential future colleagues/boss, how the company runs itself and other “intangibles” regarding how well you and your new employer will “get along.” If you don’t feel this is a good fit for you, you may want to take a pass on this opportunity and keep looking for the position/firm that’s best for you.

RealStreet Staffing can help IT, construction, engineering and architecture professionals take the next step up in their careers. Contact one of our recruiters today to learn more about some of the job opportunities we have with some of Washington, DC’s top employers. We look forward to hearing from you!

In today’s economy, the time to innovate isn’t when you begin your new job, it’ when you want to create an effective job search.

The first way to innovate is with the kinds of questions you ask, because they set the course for the direction you are going to take, according to business analysts Jeff Dyer and Hal Gregersen. For example, instead of asking what kind of job you can find, ask yourself what kind of job you can create. Dyer and Gregersen suggest spending several minutes each day writing down questions during your job search. You may start out by asking “How can I find a job that will pay a lot of money?”, but over time that may change into “What will make me happy in the long run?”

Another way to innovate, the analysts say, is to look at the work that companies need to have done, rather than focusing on the job that you used to do. You need to look at what people need products and services for. And then ask yourself what service or job are you good at that provides these products or services that people want. In fact, the authors suggest that to find the things that people want, you must spend some time routinely observing what people do to see what you could provide for them.

In the same way, you need to network innovatively by contacting people to create a job, rather than to just find a job. You do this not by talking with the people you would usually contact – those in the same area as you – but with people who are in different areas, people who look at things differently than you do. Then you talk with them about the jobs that need to be done, and in this way you can develop new ideas that might help your search.

Another way to be innovative is to experiment, to try new things, to take things apart, or to take an idea and see if it will work, no matter how oddball it may be. For example, if you want to try new things, you could look at hobbies or at developing skills you currently don’t have that might lead to something new.

Innovation in a job search is important, but don’t forget that a staffing service also can help you land work – and relatively quickly. Contact RealStreet Staffing today for positions in Washington DC’s IT, engineering, construction and architecture sectors.

As you make your way through the interview process, you’ll undoubtedly find yourself going through what is known as a “behavioral interview” at least once.

A behavioral interview simply is an interview strategy in which the interviewer/hiring manager works to find out how you behaved in certain workplace situations in the past. The premise – and it’s usually true – is that how we reacted in the past/what we did in the past is a good gauge of what we’ll do/how we’ll perform in the future.

Some examples of behavioral questions are:

• Describe the most stressful work-related time of your life and how you handled it.
• Tell me about the time you had to deal with an unhappy client and how you resolved it. Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?
•  Have you ever had to persuade someone to do something he or she didn’t want to do? Describe it for me.

In order to do well with a behavioral interview, you need to prepare. (It’s best to assume that you could be asked behavioral questions at any time during any interview, so be prepared for them at all times.)

To prepare well, you should research the company as much as you can. This is pretty easy to do today via Google and the company’s own website.

Take a look back at your own professional experience for examples of the following:

• When you tackled something very difficult and had a successful outcome.
• When you had to deal with extreme pressure or obstacles and how you successfully overcame them.
• How you were able to persuade someone to do something he or she didn’t want to do (particularly applicable for sales positions).
• How you handled an irate client or colleague.

Aim to come up with a beginning, middle and end of each of the scenarios. Tell a story (one with a happy ending, if possible, or with lessons learned, if not).

If possible, practice some tough behavioral questions with a trusted friend or mentor.

If you’d like more help with interview techniques, contact a recruiter at RealStreet Staffing. We can help our IT, architecture, engineering and construction candidates get ready for their interviews with our clients – some of the top businesses in these sectors in the Washington, DC area. We look forward to hearing from you!

One growing trend in the workplace is that employers are using recruiters more to look for workers as part of their hiring process. If you are looking for a job, it is to your advantage to know how to work with recruiters, and to know how they work.

Preparation is key here. If you have never been contacted by a recruiter, or it’s been some time since you’ve talked with one, do some research and learn about the process, or to refresh your memory.

Although the recruiter is working for the employer, he or she can be very helpful to you as a job seeker. The recruiter can give you advice about the process and be used for feedback for your own impressions.  The recruiter also can be a go-between for employers and job applicants.  The recruiter can pass along information or respond to other concerns even before actual contact between the parties occurs.

Find out the payment system that the recruiter is using.  Is he being paid on a retainer basis, where he will receive payment regardless of the outcome, or on a strictly commission basis, which tends to make the recruiter work to close the deal as quickly as possible?   Knowing this as a job candidate is important because if the recruiter is working on a retainer, you can be more confident knowing that he will not be in a rush to close the deal and will be more concerned about finding the right person for the job.

You need to be able to sell yourself to a recruiter.  You need to give the recruiter a solid understanding of your skills and experience, as well as what kind of position you seek.

It’s also important in dealing with a recruiter to be yourself.  Trying to create an appearance that is not the real you just to fit a job description will sooner or later lead to problems because you may end up in a job that is not a good fit.  Try not to come across as too eager, which might be seen as desperation.  You need to be poised and confident in dealing with a recruiter.

As with any job search, you also want to investigate your potential employer and make yourself as informed as possible about the company.

You need to let the recruiter know if you are following up on any other job leads. The recruiter and the employer know that candidates are pursuing as many opportunities as they can find, so this is not a problem. It might also make you look better to a company if it knows you are being sought by other employers as well.

You also have to be willing to take suggestions and even criticism from the recruiter. Don’t take it personally because the recruiter is simply trying to improve your attractiveness as a job candidate.

If you’re looking for work in the construction, engineering or architecture sectors in the Washington, DC area, contact a recruiter at RealStreet Staffing. We have many temporary, temp-to-hire and direct-hire assignments with some of DC’s best companies. We look forward to hearing from you.

It has become a common lament among job seekers, one you hear often. They send out hundreds upon hundreds of resumes, all to no avail. There is no doubt that in their job search they are working hard, but the question is, are they working smart?

If you send out several hundred resumes and do not even get one response, you might want to take a look at your resume and what you might be doing wrong, rather than simply lamenting how tough the job market is, says career coach Priscilla Claman.

The problem might be a simple one – such as a misspelling on your resume. But you need to confront the fact that something is wrong and take steps to correct it.

There are three questions you need to ask about your job search, Claman says.

The first – Are you getting five or six interviews for every 100 resumes you send out? (This ratio should not be taken as uniform. It may vary depending on where you work or what type of work you do.) If you are not getting this many interviews, the probability is that the problem lies with your resume, or you are not targeting the right kinds of jobs. If you simply take a scattershot approach to sending resumes, giving it to anyplace that is advertising a job opening, the odds are you are not going to have much success.

If you are not getting any bites after sending out batches of your resume, stop the mass mailings.

First, have someone take a look at your resume for errors or any other problems.

If you’ve been focusing on job boards like Monster, get away from that and move toward other job search strategies, such as using social media and networking through friends, or using company websites. Zero in on companies you really want to work for and go after them, even if they are not interviewing. Get your name out there. Find what works and stick to it.

The second question to ask, according to Claman, are you getting at least one follow-up interview for every eight initial interviews? If not, again, stop and think about what you are doing in the interview process. Are you preparing properly? Do you know why you want the job and can you express your reasons well?

The third question to ask, Claman says, have you been a finalist for eight or nine jobs and still not received an offer? Again, if not, you need to assess why not. At this stage, since all candidates are likely very qualified for the position, you may not get a sure answer, but you need to examine the situation.

The important point, Claman says, is that if something is not working, you need to change what you are doing, not simply do more of it and hope things will be different.

If you’ve applied to dozens of jobs with no results in the Washington, DC area, bring your resume to RealStreet Staffing. We’ll take a look at your resume and offer pointers on how to improve it. We’ll also help you find temporary (long- and short-term) assignments in the construction, engineering and architecture sectors that often can lead to full-time employment. Contact us today!

“Tell me a little about yourself.”

That’s a common line in any job interview. It’s something you should know is coming and something for which you should prepare. You should have some idea as to how you are going to answer such a question, so you’re not left stammering or giving a rambling, hard-to-follow answer.

If you are not sure how to answer the question, here are a few tips on how to approach it.
When the interviewer asks a question like this, he or she is trying to determine how good a fit you will be with the company. The hiring manager is trying to get a sense of your personality and attitude. If, for example, you come across as a sober and straitlaced type, and the company or department has a more informal, relaxed atmosphere, that might raise some reservations in the hiring manager’s mind as to whether the company/department is the right place for you.

The irony of the situation is that a hiring manager doesn’t really want to know a lot about you personally.  You can save the biographical information for another time.

What an interviewer is most interested in hearing about is what you’ve achieved in career or job history. And now is a good time to expand on what you have on your résumé, to go beyond the bullet points and talk about what you have done, the contributions you have made, and to do it in a bit more depth. The interviewer wants to know what kind of job you are going to do in his or her company/department and telling him or her what you’ve done in the past will give the hiring manager an idea of how you’ll be able to contribute in the future.

You can also add a little information here about your attitude and personality, how you see yourself, what personality traits define you.

And, while many job applicants are under the mistaken impression that they need to be as brief as possible in their answers, you do need to watch so that you don’t wander off topic. Before you answer, take a little time to collect your thoughts and come up with a general plan as to what you are going to say. And again, it’s perfectly acceptable to talk for a few minutes about your background and experience, but watch that you don’t take any detours from your main point.

Got the job interview jitters? We’ll help calm you and give you some great tips when we send you for an interview with one of our client companies. Call RealStreet Staffing today so that we can help you find temporary and direct-hire positions with some of Washington DC’s top architecture, construction and engineering firms. We look forward to hearing from you!

If you were upset at hearing about air traffic controllers falling asleep on the job, you shouldn’t be, according to Tony Schwartz, a business consultant.  The problem here is basically biological.  We have evolved to be awake during the day and to sleep at night.  The later it gets, the more tired we become.  Some of the worst accidents in history occurred at night – Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, the Exxon Valdez running aground.

The government did a study about the effects of napping on the night shift and found that the more time the air traffic controllers had to sleep, the more alert they were.  Other studies of airline pilots showed the same thing.

What all of this points to is the fact that our society does not value rest and recuperation as much as it should.  And this hurts us all.  When we have a lot to do, rest and sleep usually are the first things to go, even if by cutting out sleep we do a poor job.  Businesses tend to judge their employees purely by the number of hours they put in, rather than the value they create.

But rather than get to work early and stay late, it would be better to get to work at little later and leave a little earlier, and take a few more breaks at work.  The fact is, if you do this, you will be more alert and do a better job.  And you will be more productive, because you will get more things done in a smaller amount of time.

You can see for yourself if resting more really does work, according to Schwartz.  For the next few weeks, try getting about 20 to 30 minutes of sleep between 1 and 3 p.m. You shouldn’t sleep for more than 30 minutes, or you will wake up groggy.  Then, at the end of the day, see how productive you were during the time after the nap.  You will be surprised at how much of a difference it makes.  If for some reason you don’t have the opportunity to sleep for a short time, find some other way to get some rest during the work day.  The best time schedule for this is to do it every 90 minutes.

The bottom line, according to Schwartz, is that there is nothing more important to improving your productivity and effectiveness at work than making sure you get enough rest.

RealStreet Staffing helps Washington Metro-area businesses in the construction, engineering and architecture sectors find productive and effective professionals. If you’re a Washington Metro engineering, construction or architecture firm looking for help in sourcing terrific professionals, contact us today!

One of the most vexing things for otherwise talented and ambitious business professionals is when they fail to reach their full capabilities, when they are less productive than they could be.

Often this is because they are reluctant to take on new challenges and new ventures, preoccupied with the worry that their performance in this new area will not measure up to the way they have performed in the past.

Because of their ability, they may not have struggled all that much to acquire the expertise they have, and they are unwilling to risk the reputation they have gained in attempting something new where they feel they  might embarrass themselves.  Even when they do encounter problems, these high-achievers are usually reluctant to ask for help, again out of concern for the way they feel it would reflect on them.

If you are one of these people, there are ways to manage yourself out of these mindsets and into excellence.  You need to do a self-examination and try to identify the things that are preventing you from taking on new challenges, the things that raise your anxiety level.

Also, you cannot let the past interfere.  Often we make comparisons between something we did in the past and something we are doing now, and we tend to assume, if the past event didn’t turn out well, that something similar might happen again, although there usually is no basis for such a belief.

When this happens, it is useful to ask yourself some questions about your assumptions.  In the past negative experience, why did you take on the challenge?  Why do you think you had difficulty with it?  Did you ask for assistance?  Does your viewpoint about what happened match the view of others?  In hindsight, what would you have done differently?  When you are able to see more clearly how the past event differs from the current challenge, it will be easier to tackle the new challenge.

Another thing to do is develop and use a support network.  Those who are outstanding performers generally don’t believe they need any help.  Or, again, they may be afraid to ask for help out of concern for how it may affect their reputation.  But in doing this, you are simply holding yourself back, depriving yourself of valuable advice that may help you.

Also, it is important to look at the big picture, to think long-range.  This helps you put things in perspective.  When you look at the big picture, small mistakes don’t seem so catastrophic.  And so you are more willing to take more risks.

Have you been putting off looking into new opportunities because you’ve heard “it’s tough out there?” If so, let RealStreet Staffing help you find a great position in the architecture, construction or engineering sectors in the Washington Metro area. Contact a recruiter today!

Keeping a diary is ordinarily not something we associate with a work strategy, but recording daily thoughts and events can actually help in providing focus to what we are doing, in giving us more patience, in providing ideas to help with planning, and in helping with personal growth.

At first, keeping a diary may seem a little awkward, and you may feel that you could be making better use of your time.  But recording thoughts on a daily basis can have valuable results.

By using a diary about work, you can gain a focus to help determine your strengths and to identify the things you do that give you the most satisfaction.  You may learn where you can be the most effective and successful in your workplace.  By sitting down to write each day and writing out your thoughts, you learn patience.

Your journal will become a record of your progress, and an aid in helping you to pinpoint where you might have made errors.  It will help you gain perspective on your career – looking back over time, it may show that what appeared to be huge obstacles were actually only minor disturbances.  It may even become habit forming.

Psychological research has also shown the value of writing about daily experiences.  Writing about traumatic or stressful events helps a person develop a stronger defense system to adversity and actually helps improve overall health and sense of well-being.  It may even lead to some unexpected discoveries.

One of the most important benefits to be gained from keeping a diary is personal development.  Keeping a daily diary will help you to gain a new perspective on yourself and your job and what you need to do to make yourself better.  One person who kept a diary noticed that in reading over his entries, he had a rather pessimistic attitude toward his days’ activities.  He now tries to approach new activities with a more optimistic frame of mind.  Another person said that keeping a diary helped him learn more about how to motivate and get along with the members of his team at work.

If you’re an experienced professional in the architecture, engineering or construction sectors in the Washington, DC area, bring your resume to RealStreet Staffing. We can place you in temporary, temp-to-hire and direct-hire assignments with some of the DC area’s top employers. We look forward to hearing from you.