What a Night indeed!
Managed to get Dixit for "FREE" with 15% discount. Finally get my sis Miss E to return $$$ to me via buying games for me....oh yeah...cool idea....but not cool for my mum...who has to contend with more boxes to handle.
So for some reason, she just exploded in front of me because She just want to get something arranged all by herself.
Also to thank God is that Jerry, who I initially just want to have fellowship over a meal, intends to join me for church service. On Sunday Morning, 0900 at TCT. Praise God and let His will be done. Cleared pathway, prepared ground, knocking on the door, open door and touched life. May Jerry received You as his Lord and saviour.
So back to the stormy night......not the weather but in the one room. So just Pi Pao Gao and Panadol Influenza...+ warm water......+ uproar heard.....really make me quite sleepless.....or because the medication, cause me to hallucinate and not sleep. Scene of lying on the bed (going to die scenario) ..... having the last chance to meet people of my life....appeared again for at least the second time of my life. People whom I would like to meet are as follows, in no order of prefence:
1. Miss E
A dear sister to me, whom I spent time to "minister", will look to see her be moulded by God. And will wish that she will be under the shepherd of Miss Lin. Also asking her it is time to return to God as my final wish.
2. Miss Lin
Only know that I could firmly acknowledge that I love her as a sister - in - christ. Where love, a word I rarely use, but via actions of love. Ask for her to take care of Miss E
3. Esther Chua
Thanks God that she made a big difference in my life. Love her in action but not knowing that those action are of love.
4. G.G
Thank God that she remain faithful and believe God will make a difference in my life. And God indeed made a big change in my life for the glory of God.
5.Parents
In service to them, I failed, In honouring them, I didn't fair better. Part-away gift. Not sure what I have. Just great friends, brother and sister in christ whom I blessed and wish they will enjoy their company too.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Raising Holy Children
Our faith is not a one-stop occurrence. It can not simply end with our confession of who Christ is. Once we finally accept Jesus for who He is, we need to make sure that we turn around , and actively demonstrate our testimony to everyone who is around us; be that strangers, friends, or family.
This especially rings true to those of us who have been blessed with children, in any sense of that word. Our children depend on us for growth. It is important not only to feed and clothe our kids physically, but spiritually as well. Ephesians 6:4 instructs, "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the disciplining and instruction of the Lord."
John Piper encourages us to instruct our children by taking every moment and making it consumed by God; praying together; asserting the importance of Bible; being examples of the faith by being men and women who are joyful, humble, and self-controlled and disciplined. Piper encourages families to worship together, to honor standards of purity, and most importantly, to be family members who demonstrate love.
We cannot choose what our children will do, and being raised in a Christian home does not necessarily make someone saved. After all, just as some of us came from broken homes, and yet came to faith in Christ, others have been raised in good circumstances, but rejected Him. Christ calls us to do what we can, which means raising children in a Christ centered home, so that when the time comes for them to decide for themselves, our children choose Jesus, because they were taught to love Him from birth.
Living Life
This especially rings true to those of us who have been blessed with children, in any sense of that word. Our children depend on us for growth. It is important not only to feed and clothe our kids physically, but spiritually as well. Ephesians 6:4 instructs, "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the disciplining and instruction of the Lord."
John Piper encourages us to instruct our children by taking every moment and making it consumed by God; praying together; asserting the importance of Bible; being examples of the faith by being men and women who are joyful, humble, and self-controlled and disciplined. Piper encourages families to worship together, to honor standards of purity, and most importantly, to be family members who demonstrate love.
We cannot choose what our children will do, and being raised in a Christian home does not necessarily make someone saved. After all, just as some of us came from broken homes, and yet came to faith in Christ, others have been raised in good circumstances, but rejected Him. Christ calls us to do what we can, which means raising children in a Christ centered home, so that when the time comes for them to decide for themselves, our children choose Jesus, because they were taught to love Him from birth.
Living Life
How to remember anything: lessons from a memory champion.
How to remember anything: lessons from a memory champion.
by Piper Weiss, Shine Staff, 18 hours ago
Joshua Foer keeps a Post-it note above his computer that says "Don't forget to remember." The author of the new book "Mookwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything" went from a man with an average memory to the official U.S. Memory Champ in 2006 by immersing himself in the world of professional memorizing. After studying the skills to learn entire dictionaries, he became convinced that anyone could have an exceptional memory. You just need to know certain memory techniques. Here are six secrets from his book to becoming a savant.
Build a "memory palace": "Housing" a list of things you need to memorize is essential.
"The idea is to create a space in the mind's eye, a place that you know well and can easily visualize and then populate that imagined place with images representing whatever you want to remember," writes Foer. It's a method used all the way back in Ancient Rome, when orators needed to commit their speeches to memory and when books hadn't yet become the main method of storytelling. The memory palace should be a place you know inherently, like the home you grew up in, or the route you take to work every day. Then take the ten things you need to remember, like a grocery list, and plant each item in a different place in your memory palace.
For example, put "paper towels" in your parent's old mailbox, then walk inside your old home and put "garlic cloves" on the kitchen counter. When you need to recall those items at the grocery store, instead of remembering the words, walk through your childhood home and find each item where you mentally placed it. It may seem like a lot of effort, but it's a process of embedding one kind of memory into another memory. Foer explains: "Humans are good at using spatial memory to structure and store information whose order comes less naturally." So a list of numbers or words may be hard to remember but if you embed them in a memory that naturally unfolds, like the blueprint of your old apartment, they'll live longer and be easier to retrieve.
Get creative: When you're "dropping off" those grocery list items in your "memory palace" it helps to engage all of your senses. Remembering what the garlic smells like, or how the garlic skin crumbles in your hand before you place it on your mentally rendered kitchen counter, will help solidify where you put it. It makes sense in literal life. You're less likely to forget where you put your keys when you focus on their texture in your hand as you're laying them down on a table. When you need to remember where you put them, you'll remember how your hand felt as you put them down and the image of the table will simultaneously appear. As Foer found, engaging a sense in your memory helps solidify it.
Get colorful: "Things that grab our attention are more memorable," explains Foer. "The funnier, lewder, and more bizarre, the better." When he was memorizing a grocery list by placing each item in his "memory palace", Foer was advised to get surreal in his thinking. "Paint the mind a scene unlike any that has been seen before so that it cannot be forgotten," Foer's memory coach advised. As he memorized his first grocery list by using the "memory palace" technique" he committed "salmon" to memory by imagining it flopping under the strings of a piano. "The general idea with most memory techniques is to change whatever boring thing is being inputted into your memory into something that is so colorful, so exciting and so different from anything you've seen before that you can't possibly forget it," he writes.
Try "chunking": "Chunking is a way to decrease the number of items you have to remember by increasing the size of each item," explains Foer. It's the reason phone numbers are broken up into three sections or why remembering a sentence is easier than remembering each letter in the sentence. If you are given a series of digits to remember, just break them up into parts. It also helps to assign meaning to them. Separating them into three sections as if they were a date and then remembering that specific date (take 021411 and rethink it as 02/14/11 or Valentine's Day), will help solidify the memory.
Practice makes perfect: Foer made it to the memory championships not simply by learning these techniques but by replacing them with web surfing or even reading. He'd memorize numbers up to four hours a day before the big championship. But for the rest of us, all it takes is about an hour a day of practicing memory techniques to get our brains working like humming hard drives.
Wear earmuffs: We live in a world of distraction, now more than ever. In some ways those distractions serve as our exterior memory banks. Writes Foer: “With our blogs and tweets, digital cameras, and unlimited-gigabyte e-mail archives, participation in the online culture now means creating a trail of always present, ever-searchable, unforgetting external memories that only grows as one ages.”
But those same blogs, tweets and instant messages with their pinging noises and flashing colors, make it impossible to focus on one task at hand, like memorizing a poem. "No matter how crude, colorful and explicit the images one paints in one's memory palaces, one can only look at pages of random numbers for so long before beginning to wonder if there isn't something more interesting going on in another room." Foer found that an oversize pair of earmuffs worked to block out exterior noise and helped his brain zoom in on one task, like memorizing a series of numbers. But more subtle ear plugs would work just as well.
Quoted: http://www.shine.yahoo.com/event/vitality/how-to-remember-anything-lessons-from-a-memory-champion-2463626/
by Piper Weiss, Shine Staff, 18 hours ago
Joshua Foer keeps a Post-it note above his computer that says "Don't forget to remember." The author of the new book "Mookwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything" went from a man with an average memory to the official U.S. Memory Champ in 2006 by immersing himself in the world of professional memorizing. After studying the skills to learn entire dictionaries, he became convinced that anyone could have an exceptional memory. You just need to know certain memory techniques. Here are six secrets from his book to becoming a savant.
Build a "memory palace": "Housing" a list of things you need to memorize is essential.
"The idea is to create a space in the mind's eye, a place that you know well and can easily visualize and then populate that imagined place with images representing whatever you want to remember," writes Foer. It's a method used all the way back in Ancient Rome, when orators needed to commit their speeches to memory and when books hadn't yet become the main method of storytelling. The memory palace should be a place you know inherently, like the home you grew up in, or the route you take to work every day. Then take the ten things you need to remember, like a grocery list, and plant each item in a different place in your memory palace.
For example, put "paper towels" in your parent's old mailbox, then walk inside your old home and put "garlic cloves" on the kitchen counter. When you need to recall those items at the grocery store, instead of remembering the words, walk through your childhood home and find each item where you mentally placed it. It may seem like a lot of effort, but it's a process of embedding one kind of memory into another memory. Foer explains: "Humans are good at using spatial memory to structure and store information whose order comes less naturally." So a list of numbers or words may be hard to remember but if you embed them in a memory that naturally unfolds, like the blueprint of your old apartment, they'll live longer and be easier to retrieve.
Get creative: When you're "dropping off" those grocery list items in your "memory palace" it helps to engage all of your senses. Remembering what the garlic smells like, or how the garlic skin crumbles in your hand before you place it on your mentally rendered kitchen counter, will help solidify where you put it. It makes sense in literal life. You're less likely to forget where you put your keys when you focus on their texture in your hand as you're laying them down on a table. When you need to remember where you put them, you'll remember how your hand felt as you put them down and the image of the table will simultaneously appear. As Foer found, engaging a sense in your memory helps solidify it.
Get colorful: "Things that grab our attention are more memorable," explains Foer. "The funnier, lewder, and more bizarre, the better." When he was memorizing a grocery list by placing each item in his "memory palace", Foer was advised to get surreal in his thinking. "Paint the mind a scene unlike any that has been seen before so that it cannot be forgotten," Foer's memory coach advised. As he memorized his first grocery list by using the "memory palace" technique" he committed "salmon" to memory by imagining it flopping under the strings of a piano. "The general idea with most memory techniques is to change whatever boring thing is being inputted into your memory into something that is so colorful, so exciting and so different from anything you've seen before that you can't possibly forget it," he writes.
Try "chunking": "Chunking is a way to decrease the number of items you have to remember by increasing the size of each item," explains Foer. It's the reason phone numbers are broken up into three sections or why remembering a sentence is easier than remembering each letter in the sentence. If you are given a series of digits to remember, just break them up into parts. It also helps to assign meaning to them. Separating them into three sections as if they were a date and then remembering that specific date (take 021411 and rethink it as 02/14/11 or Valentine's Day), will help solidify the memory.
Practice makes perfect: Foer made it to the memory championships not simply by learning these techniques but by replacing them with web surfing or even reading. He'd memorize numbers up to four hours a day before the big championship. But for the rest of us, all it takes is about an hour a day of practicing memory techniques to get our brains working like humming hard drives.
Wear earmuffs: We live in a world of distraction, now more than ever. In some ways those distractions serve as our exterior memory banks. Writes Foer: “With our blogs and tweets, digital cameras, and unlimited-gigabyte e-mail archives, participation in the online culture now means creating a trail of always present, ever-searchable, unforgetting external memories that only grows as one ages.”
But those same blogs, tweets and instant messages with their pinging noises and flashing colors, make it impossible to focus on one task at hand, like memorizing a poem. "No matter how crude, colorful and explicit the images one paints in one's memory palaces, one can only look at pages of random numbers for so long before beginning to wonder if there isn't something more interesting going on in another room." Foer found that an oversize pair of earmuffs worked to block out exterior noise and helped his brain zoom in on one task, like memorizing a series of numbers. But more subtle ear plugs would work just as well.
Quoted: http://www.shine.yahoo.com/event/vitality/how-to-remember-anything-lessons-from-a-memory-champion-2463626/
Long-shot dating made doable
Long-shot dating made doable
By Matt Schneiderman
“Wow — that person could do so much better!” We’ve all heard that kind of comment before — maybe even muttered it ourselves — about a couple fit for Beauty and the Beast without the Disney treatment. But, odds are, there’s no real mystery about the pairing; the two just clicked, perhaps at a party, perhaps online. You may not have model-caliber looks, but you definitely have some winning combination of humor, kindness, success and intelligence. By learning to highlight those qualities, you can have a potential partner swooning. So before you discount the beauty before you, use these tips to place yourself squarely in the hotties’ league.
Tease your way to conversation
Top experts recommend some counterintuitive tactics for online flirtation to bolster your confidence — and intrigue your intended. April Masini, author of Think and Date Like a Man and Date Out of Your League, suggests sending a short note with an out-there, curiosity-provoking subject line, such as “Thanks for the message.” Neil Strauss, author of The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, favors an irresistible challenge that shows your confidence, like: “Tell me about something funny that happened to you recently. If it makes me laugh, I’ll send you two photos. You won’t be disappointed.” Or send a link to a website that generates your, say, rock star name or Hobbit name, and sign it with yours so he or she feels compelled to share the one found when he or she clicks. All of these are effective email ideas that get a person to hit “reply” and start typing — often before he or she has even checked out your profile.
Chat with panache
Stand out from the pack online by not stating the obvious (“I liked your profile.” “I think you’re cute.” “We both like pizza!”) in your correspondence. Instead, find obscure things that truly interest you — foreign travel or a favorite book — and mention that. Consider this case history: “I knew the woman I wanted to meet was a model — she said as much in her profile,” says Alex Garth of New York City, a self-described “6” on the looks scale. “She also mentioned that she’d traveled to China, which we had in common, so I sent her an email asking her what she thought of Shanghai. Within a couple of weeks, we were dating.” Use the same principle when you’re making getting-to-know-you conversation in person with that new someone you want to impress. Focusing on something minor that he or she doesn’t usually talk about sets you apart from the rest of the dating world by demonstrating your depth.
Pave the way for a first date
Once you’ve exchanged a couple of messages, swap phone numbers for the all-important call by saying, “I get busy, so let’s continue this over the phone.” The 15-minute conversation should prove to him or her that you’re worth the effort and allow you to offer your time for a first meeting. One key to charming someone very desirable and in-demand? Don’t appear overeager. “Mention that you’re busy Wednesday and Friday, say, but can meet for one hour on Thursday,” says Strauss. Being a busy and fulfilled individual is more attractive to most singles than someone with outward looks, and this kind of approach emphasizes those — whether or not they’re 100% true.
Empower yourself in person
Whether you’re approaching a stranger at a bar or meeting up with the person you found online, continue to show confidence, even if you have to fake it at first (eventually, you’ll realize you deserve to have it and actually become suave — we promise). Masini recommends walking straight up to the man or woman you’re eyeing and introducing yourself. “Don’t be a shark and waste your night circling,” says Masini. “That invests your time in someone you don’t know,” which will only make you feel more self-conscious about not being “good enough” for the person. To psych yourself up, tell yourself that you’re the one who deserves to be convinced he or she’s worth your time, not the other way around. After all, looks are only part of the package, right? Once you’ve started talking, set yourself apart from everyone else who gushes over this person’s looks. Focus on aspects of his or her personality that other folks may overlook: “You have the best laugh!” “I love that you’re a good tipper — it says a lot about how you treat people.” Unusual compliments highlight your intuitive nature, and the person you’re talking to is more likely to perceive a genuine connection between you two than if you offer canned praise.
Look good, even if you’re not great-looking
So what if you’re not drop-dead gorgeous yourself? Strauss says he lacks obvious physical charms, but that his confidence and charisma more than compensate. “Girls would meet me and be initially disappointed, but I would still win them over,” says Strauss. “You don’t have to be good-looking — you just have to act good-looking.” Accomplish this by wearing flattering clothing (ask a straight-shooting salesperson to put you in a casual date outfit if you’re not sure what looks best on you), walking tall, smiling at strangers, holding eye contact, and otherwise acting like you own the room. So raise your standards, hone your inner charm, and go for the cutie already!
Matt Schneiderman has written for Stuff, Cargo, and Sync magazines.
Quoted: http://yahoo.match.com/y/article.aspx?articleid=6069&TrackingID=526103&BannerID=738554
By Matt Schneiderman
“Wow — that person could do so much better!” We’ve all heard that kind of comment before — maybe even muttered it ourselves — about a couple fit for Beauty and the Beast without the Disney treatment. But, odds are, there’s no real mystery about the pairing; the two just clicked, perhaps at a party, perhaps online. You may not have model-caliber looks, but you definitely have some winning combination of humor, kindness, success and intelligence. By learning to highlight those qualities, you can have a potential partner swooning. So before you discount the beauty before you, use these tips to place yourself squarely in the hotties’ league.
Tease your way to conversation
Top experts recommend some counterintuitive tactics for online flirtation to bolster your confidence — and intrigue your intended. April Masini, author of Think and Date Like a Man and Date Out of Your League, suggests sending a short note with an out-there, curiosity-provoking subject line, such as “Thanks for the message.” Neil Strauss, author of The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, favors an irresistible challenge that shows your confidence, like: “Tell me about something funny that happened to you recently. If it makes me laugh, I’ll send you two photos. You won’t be disappointed.” Or send a link to a website that generates your, say, rock star name or Hobbit name, and sign it with yours so he or she feels compelled to share the one found when he or she clicks. All of these are effective email ideas that get a person to hit “reply” and start typing — often before he or she has even checked out your profile.
Chat with panache
Stand out from the pack online by not stating the obvious (“I liked your profile.” “I think you’re cute.” “We both like pizza!”) in your correspondence. Instead, find obscure things that truly interest you — foreign travel or a favorite book — and mention that. Consider this case history: “I knew the woman I wanted to meet was a model — she said as much in her profile,” says Alex Garth of New York City, a self-described “6” on the looks scale. “She also mentioned that she’d traveled to China, which we had in common, so I sent her an email asking her what she thought of Shanghai. Within a couple of weeks, we were dating.” Use the same principle when you’re making getting-to-know-you conversation in person with that new someone you want to impress. Focusing on something minor that he or she doesn’t usually talk about sets you apart from the rest of the dating world by demonstrating your depth.
Pave the way for a first date
Once you’ve exchanged a couple of messages, swap phone numbers for the all-important call by saying, “I get busy, so let’s continue this over the phone.” The 15-minute conversation should prove to him or her that you’re worth the effort and allow you to offer your time for a first meeting. One key to charming someone very desirable and in-demand? Don’t appear overeager. “Mention that you’re busy Wednesday and Friday, say, but can meet for one hour on Thursday,” says Strauss. Being a busy and fulfilled individual is more attractive to most singles than someone with outward looks, and this kind of approach emphasizes those — whether or not they’re 100% true.
Empower yourself in person
Whether you’re approaching a stranger at a bar or meeting up with the person you found online, continue to show confidence, even if you have to fake it at first (eventually, you’ll realize you deserve to have it and actually become suave — we promise). Masini recommends walking straight up to the man or woman you’re eyeing and introducing yourself. “Don’t be a shark and waste your night circling,” says Masini. “That invests your time in someone you don’t know,” which will only make you feel more self-conscious about not being “good enough” for the person. To psych yourself up, tell yourself that you’re the one who deserves to be convinced he or she’s worth your time, not the other way around. After all, looks are only part of the package, right? Once you’ve started talking, set yourself apart from everyone else who gushes over this person’s looks. Focus on aspects of his or her personality that other folks may overlook: “You have the best laugh!” “I love that you’re a good tipper — it says a lot about how you treat people.” Unusual compliments highlight your intuitive nature, and the person you’re talking to is more likely to perceive a genuine connection between you two than if you offer canned praise.
Look good, even if you’re not great-looking
So what if you’re not drop-dead gorgeous yourself? Strauss says he lacks obvious physical charms, but that his confidence and charisma more than compensate. “Girls would meet me and be initially disappointed, but I would still win them over,” says Strauss. “You don’t have to be good-looking — you just have to act good-looking.” Accomplish this by wearing flattering clothing (ask a straight-shooting salesperson to put you in a casual date outfit if you’re not sure what looks best on you), walking tall, smiling at strangers, holding eye contact, and otherwise acting like you own the room. So raise your standards, hone your inner charm, and go for the cutie already!
Matt Schneiderman has written for Stuff, Cargo, and Sync magazines.
Quoted: http://yahoo.match.com/y/article.aspx?articleid=6069&TrackingID=526103&BannerID=738554
The Death of the One-Page Resume?
The Death of the One-Page Resume?
Alexis Grant, On Tuesday March 8, 2011, 11:30 am EST
We've long been told to keep the resume to one page. But now that the job hunt has turned digital, job seekers are left wondering: Does that rule-of-thumb still stand?
While the answer depends largely on who you ask, many career coaches, recruiters, and hiring managers agree on something that comes as a shocker to job seekers who have edited, tweaked, and downsized fonts to abide by what was once regarded as a universal rule. If you need more than one page to showcase your fit for a position, they say, you should go for a second one.
"If you have enough experience and credentials to really highlight on two pages, don't short-change yourself," says Vicki Salemi, a recruiter and author of Big Career in the Big City: Land a Job and Get a Life in New York. "It's not the end of the world if you do need to go onto two pages."
[See 9 Tips to Make Your Resume Stand Out.]
Not only is the longer-than-a-page resume not the end of the world, but many recruiters and job-search advisors actually encourage job seekers to continue selling themselves after the page break. Paul Anderson , a Seattle-based career coach, says one-page resumes simply don't have enough content. "I completely advise against [the one-page resume] unless it's a college graduate or someone who's brand-new to the marketplace," he says.
This newfound affinity for page two is largely due to the job market's digital transition. Reading onto a second page now means scrolling down on a computer screen rather than actually turning a piece of paper. And job seekers have more than the human reader to consider; resumes are now at the mercy of computerized applicant-tracking systems. Those databases search not only for keywords, but for frequency of keywords, Anderson says, which means a resume that mentions coveted job responsibilities or skills four times is likely to outrank ones that includes that same keyword only once or twice. And to include keywords repeatedly, you need space--at least two pages, possibly three, he says.
It's not a system that rewards brevity, much to the chagrin of the human hiring managers who are next in line to read applications. That's why bosses like Jerry Hauser, who helps nonprofit leaders with hiring practices as CEO of The Management Center, still appreciate a well-written one-pager. "Partly what I want to know is that you can convey information concisely," Hauser says. "I don't need to know every last detail about each job. Often, the more detail there is, the less real information, because you're not pulling out the most important things you accomplished, which is what I'm really interested in."
That's the same approach advised by Fran D'Ooge, president of Washington, D.C.-based recruiting firm Tangent. Although she says it's now "the norm" for applicants to exceed one page, "the thrust of the one-page rule is still important, which is, keep it as short as humanly possible."
For job seekers in certain industries, however, as short as humanly possible means two or even three pages. That's because academics, as well as specialists in some scientific, technological, and healthcare fields, are expected to include published works, knowledge of various programming languages, or other esoteric skills. For those applicants, condensing to one page signifies lack of experience, which could land their resume in the digital trash.
[See Don't Underestimate the Power of Your Cover Letter.]
With all of this conflicting advice, how are job seekers supposed to figure out how long their resume should be? Though other experts will no doubt beg to differ, Susan Ireland, author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Perfect Resume, suggests this neither-hard-nor-fast guideline: Aim for one page if you have less than five years of work experience, and if you have more, consider two pages (so long as you don't work in the industries listed above).
Yet even Ireland, who recognizes that two-page resumes are now widely accepted, recommends keeping it to one page if possible. "It's out of consideration for your reader," says Ireland, who has worked in the career industry since 1989. (Her resume is still one page.) "Take as much work off the reader's shoulders as possible, but still give yourself all the credit that you deserve."
Still, some managers like Jamie Morgan, who's responsible for staffing at Microsoft's online services, say they don't mind reading resumes longer than one page, as long as the presentation is straightforward. "I'm more interested in the content than the length," Morgan says. "I've seen people accomplish it very well in one page, and I've seen people accomplish it in two or three pages."
Therein lies the key: accomplishing it well. Ellen Gordon Reeves, a career advisor and author of Can I Wear my Nose Ring to the Interview?, says too many resumes are long for the wrong reasons. "A lot of people who have two-page resumes really could have a one-page resume, but they're not using the space efficiently."
[See: Be Proactive in Your Job Search: Pitch Your Dream Company.]
If you do go for two pages, make sure your second page doesn't include an awkward amount of white space. If you're only using a quarter of the second page, try to condense it into one page instead. And if you're at one-and-a-half pages, play with the layout and fonts to use that leftover space, giving your accomplishments room to breathe. Don't forget to include your name on both pages and number them in case they get separated.
The lesson here? Do what works for you. "You shouldn't listen to some arbitrary, ridiculous rule that just won't die," says Dawn Bugni, a resume writer and former recruiter. "The only [real] rule for a resume is that it's accurate and it lands an interview."
For more job-search advice, visit U.S. News Careers, or find us on Facebook or Twitter.
Quoted: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/The-Death-of-the-OnePage-usnews-367610885.html?x=0
Alexis Grant, On Tuesday March 8, 2011, 11:30 am EST
We've long been told to keep the resume to one page. But now that the job hunt has turned digital, job seekers are left wondering: Does that rule-of-thumb still stand?
While the answer depends largely on who you ask, many career coaches, recruiters, and hiring managers agree on something that comes as a shocker to job seekers who have edited, tweaked, and downsized fonts to abide by what was once regarded as a universal rule. If you need more than one page to showcase your fit for a position, they say, you should go for a second one.
"If you have enough experience and credentials to really highlight on two pages, don't short-change yourself," says Vicki Salemi, a recruiter and author of Big Career in the Big City: Land a Job and Get a Life in New York. "It's not the end of the world if you do need to go onto two pages."
[See 9 Tips to Make Your Resume Stand Out.]
Not only is the longer-than-a-page resume not the end of the world, but many recruiters and job-search advisors actually encourage job seekers to continue selling themselves after the page break. Paul Anderson , a Seattle-based career coach, says one-page resumes simply don't have enough content. "I completely advise against [the one-page resume] unless it's a college graduate or someone who's brand-new to the marketplace," he says.
This newfound affinity for page two is largely due to the job market's digital transition. Reading onto a second page now means scrolling down on a computer screen rather than actually turning a piece of paper. And job seekers have more than the human reader to consider; resumes are now at the mercy of computerized applicant-tracking systems. Those databases search not only for keywords, but for frequency of keywords, Anderson says, which means a resume that mentions coveted job responsibilities or skills four times is likely to outrank ones that includes that same keyword only once or twice. And to include keywords repeatedly, you need space--at least two pages, possibly three, he says.
It's not a system that rewards brevity, much to the chagrin of the human hiring managers who are next in line to read applications. That's why bosses like Jerry Hauser, who helps nonprofit leaders with hiring practices as CEO of The Management Center, still appreciate a well-written one-pager. "Partly what I want to know is that you can convey information concisely," Hauser says. "I don't need to know every last detail about each job. Often, the more detail there is, the less real information, because you're not pulling out the most important things you accomplished, which is what I'm really interested in."
That's the same approach advised by Fran D'Ooge, president of Washington, D.C.-based recruiting firm Tangent. Although she says it's now "the norm" for applicants to exceed one page, "the thrust of the one-page rule is still important, which is, keep it as short as humanly possible."
For job seekers in certain industries, however, as short as humanly possible means two or even three pages. That's because academics, as well as specialists in some scientific, technological, and healthcare fields, are expected to include published works, knowledge of various programming languages, or other esoteric skills. For those applicants, condensing to one page signifies lack of experience, which could land their resume in the digital trash.
[See Don't Underestimate the Power of Your Cover Letter.]
With all of this conflicting advice, how are job seekers supposed to figure out how long their resume should be? Though other experts will no doubt beg to differ, Susan Ireland, author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Perfect Resume, suggests this neither-hard-nor-fast guideline: Aim for one page if you have less than five years of work experience, and if you have more, consider two pages (so long as you don't work in the industries listed above).
Yet even Ireland, who recognizes that two-page resumes are now widely accepted, recommends keeping it to one page if possible. "It's out of consideration for your reader," says Ireland, who has worked in the career industry since 1989. (Her resume is still one page.) "Take as much work off the reader's shoulders as possible, but still give yourself all the credit that you deserve."
Still, some managers like Jamie Morgan, who's responsible for staffing at Microsoft's online services, say they don't mind reading resumes longer than one page, as long as the presentation is straightforward. "I'm more interested in the content than the length," Morgan says. "I've seen people accomplish it very well in one page, and I've seen people accomplish it in two or three pages."
Therein lies the key: accomplishing it well. Ellen Gordon Reeves, a career advisor and author of Can I Wear my Nose Ring to the Interview?, says too many resumes are long for the wrong reasons. "A lot of people who have two-page resumes really could have a one-page resume, but they're not using the space efficiently."
[See: Be Proactive in Your Job Search: Pitch Your Dream Company.]
If you do go for two pages, make sure your second page doesn't include an awkward amount of white space. If you're only using a quarter of the second page, try to condense it into one page instead. And if you're at one-and-a-half pages, play with the layout and fonts to use that leftover space, giving your accomplishments room to breathe. Don't forget to include your name on both pages and number them in case they get separated.
The lesson here? Do what works for you. "You shouldn't listen to some arbitrary, ridiculous rule that just won't die," says Dawn Bugni, a resume writer and former recruiter. "The only [real] rule for a resume is that it's accurate and it lands an interview."
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Quoted: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/The-Death-of-the-OnePage-usnews-367610885.html?x=0
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