Laid Off: What to Do in the First Two Weeks
An ordered fourteen-day plan, from what to get in writing before your access is cut to the rhythm your search should settle into.
Job Search
Guides filed under Job Search, newest first.
Ten Good Applications Beat a Hundred Rushed Ones
The maths of response rates explains why volume applying feels productive and almost never is.
Changing Careers After 40: What Transfers and What Doesn't
Judgement and stakeholder skill travel with you. Title, seniority and sometimes salary do not. Plan for both.
What to Do With a Rejection
A rejection carries far less information than candidates extract from it, and the useful signal only appears across five or six of them.
Which Certifications Employers Actually Check
Most certifications are never verified. A small number are checked line by line, and in some fields you cannot be hired without them.
The Phone Screen: What Recruiters Are Really Checking
The phone screen is a filter, not an assessment. Five things decide it, and none of them is how good you are at the job.
Your First 90 Days in a New Job
The instinct to prove yourself by fixing things early is the most reliable way to fail a probation period.
How to Ask for a Referral Without Making It Awkward
The people most likely to refer you are not close friends but the ones who barely know you and have nothing at stake in saying yes.
Your First Job When Entry-Level Roles Are Scarce
The generalist graduate tier has thinned. Here is where employers are still hiring people with no experience, and what to send them.
How and When to Follow Up After Applying
One well-aimed follow-up at ten days moves applications; the second rarely does, and the third actively costs you.
Nine CV Details That Get an Application Rejected
Applications are rarely rejected for weak experience. They are rejected for small, fixable details that give a screener a reason to stop reading.
How Recruiters Get Paid, and What It Means for You
A recruiter's incentives are visible from their fee structure, and they explain almost everything candidates find confusing about the process.
What to Say When They Ask Your Salary Expectations
The old rule was never name a number first. Pay transparency law has quietly killed it in a growing number of markets.
Leaving the Military: Translating Service Into a Civilian CV
The experience transfers almost entirely. The vocabulary does not. Most of the work is translation, and it is learnable in a fortnight.
How to Explain an Employment Gap on Your CV
Recruiters do not assume the worst about a gap. They assume the worst about a hole you have tried to hide, and they notice the hiding first.
Which Job Boards Are Worth Your Time
Most boards are a mirror of other boards, and the useful signal is not which listings exist but which ones are fresh.
How to Negotiate an Offer Without Losing It
The offer stage is the only point in the process where your leverage is real, and most candidates spend it on the wrong things.
How to Job Hunt on LinkedIn Without Telling Your Boss
The platform is built to broadcast. Here is what is actually visible to whom, and how to run a search that stays quiet.
Take-Home Assignments: How Much Work Is Too Much
The problem with take-home tasks is rarely that they are unpaid. It is that scope is never specified, and the candidate absorbs the cost of that.
How to Resign Without Burning It Down
The two weeks after you resign shape your reference for a decade, and most people spend them thinking the job is already over.
Networking for People Who Hate Networking
The version that works is not events or small talk — it is fifteen named people, a four-sentence message, and a small ask.
How to Return to Work After a Career Break
The reason for the gap matters less than you think. The mechanics of the return are the same either way.