Grads: TAKE CHARGE™!

Don't self-destruct when writing your resume

After working for a staffing and recruiting agency for nearly 6 years, I’ve seen my share of poorly written, badly formatted, and self-destructing resumes. Many jobseekers have shot themselves in the foot for making simple and basic mistakes. As I’m sure you’ve heard and read time and time again, your resume is a marketing tool to promote yourself. It’s evident to hiring managers how much time and effort you’ve invested in this critical piece and the results speak for themselves.

Read the entire article on EmploymentDigest.

Biz cards for the unemployed: what should they say?

If you're pounding the pavement looking for a job, then you already know that networking is the name of the game. So play with the right equipment: go armed with business cards. But what should they say if you aren't employed?

Read this article on EmploymentDigest and order 100 free cards online. Then get out there and network, network, network!

10 things the Class of 2010 must do right now

For the Class of 2010, the final round of final exams might be over, or nearly so, but that doesn't mean that it's time to party, party, party. This free Special Report from QwikSmarts® outlines 10 things you need to do right now (or at least within a month of graduation) to truly take charge of your future and set yourself up for success.

Take this super-fast five-question survey about what concerns you about landing your first job, then download the free Special Report: 10 Things the College Class of 2010 Must Do Right Now to Take Charge of Their Future (plus a few more to boost your bank account).

Resources to help improve your writing skills

Writing skills are often downplayed by new college graduates: "I wrote a ton of papers in school and got good grades; I don't need to do any better than that. Heck, I may never have to write again." That's exactly what the majority of grads think...to their detriment. For those of you who see the huge door that leaves open for good writers, no matter what your job or industry, here are some good sites to help you polish your skills and leap frog right over your competition:

10 tips from Suite101

10 quick tips from About.com

Grammar tips from Grammar Girl

Tips about punctuation, abbreviations, and more from Writer's Block.

Roommate finances: simplified

One of the major stress factors in roommate situations is dividing up rent, utilities, and other common expenses equitably. Do you know who William is? He' keeps track of the agreements between roommates, collects monies from each, and pays the rent and bills. What a great guy!

Check out William and his relationship-saving service here.

#TripleTuesday Tweets: Focus your reading

Time will get more and more precious as you get deeper into your career and all the extras of life after college. You may thoroughly enjoy spending hours poking around on the web or through the newspaper or at the library, but you need to be sure that what you're spending your time on is providing you with true value. Take a look at your goals (you do have them written down, don't you?) and choose to spend time on reading that will help get you closer to them. Purely pleasure reading is fine for vacations or other times of total decompression, but while you're searching for a job or getting adjusted to one, your focus needs to be on it.

#TripleTuesday Tweets: Bookmark helpful websites

Just in case you don't already save bookmarks for the sites you visit that you've found helpful, now is the time to start. Organize them by topic to make them easier to find. When you enter the work world, you'll be busier than you ever thought possible, so a few minutes saved here and there will be valuable to you.

#TripleTuesday Tweets: Read the instructions

If you're like most people, when you get a new cell phone or software program, you probably don't bother reading the manuals. That's fine if you are the only person who will be impacted if you can't get the phone or software to work. But when you're new on the job and learning your employer's systems, don't just poke around and hope that you figure it out. Take time to read the manuals--even take them home to read at night, if you need extra time--so you can get yourself up and running (and productive) as fast as possible.

#TripleTuesday Tweets: Tweet interesting information

So you've heard that you need to 'be on' Twitter and that there's a way to tweet your way to a job. But how do you do that? The main rule to remember is to tweet interesting and/or helpful information. No one wants to know what you had for lunch and no one cares about your dog's latest grooming appointment. Show your followers what you know, what you're passionate about, what you're learning.

#TripleTuesday Tweets: Save ten percent

Financial advice is coming at you from all sides these days, but one piece of advice that has never grown old is to save ten percent of your take-home pay each and every month. At first, that ten percent will be stocking your emergency fund--and you don't need a reminder of how often people are dipping into those these days. Once you have six months' of living expenses in that fund, keep taking that 10% out of each paycheck and begin investing for your future (retirement, your own business, a home).