It’s hard to believe that a few words could irritate someone enough to make them stop reading your resume, but it’s true. Some hiring managers and recruiters admit that they have their own mental lists of words that annoy them. Resume how-to books may recommend that you pack your resume full of as many verbs, adjectives, and adverbs as you can. But if you aren’t careful, you could turn off more prospective employers than you entice. Effective word choice is what really appeals to hiring managers—not action verbs and glittery modifiers. Here’s a rundown of some words that hiring managers...

A common adage in the management consulting business is that efficiency and effectiveness are completely different measurements. An organization can be extremely efficient, getting high productivity from their workforce and producing their product or service with very little waste or churn, yet be totally ineffective in meeting their objectives if, for instance, their product or service is not accepted in the marketplace. This difference is often distilled to the statement “efficiency is about doing things right, while effectiveness is about doing the right things.” The Seven S approach is...

Many a times you find it difficult to manage your work. Here are few strategies that will help you manage your work, and help you getting things done. 1.) Start with the hard stuff first. We often tend to put the difficult tasks as a late entry on our to-do list because we just don’t want to deal with it right now. Moreover, we are attracted to the smaller and easier tasks because it gives us a false impression that we’re doing more. “Saving the worst for last” can prove to be detrimental in our ability to get things done because we’ve already used up our initial energy on non-critical...

Inspires a Shared Vision An effective project leader is often described as having a vision of where to go and the ability to articulate it. Visionaries thrive on change and being able to draw new boundaries. It was once said that a leader is someone who “lifts us up, gives us a reason for being and gives the vision and spirit to change.” Visionary leaders enable people to feel they have a real stake in the project. They empower people to experience the vision on their own. According to Bennis “They offer people opportunities to create their own vision, to explore what the vision...

Small projects don’t necessarily require much knowledge of project management or much project management discipline. But as a project gets larger, formal processes and techniques become essential. Different project management methodologies organize and structure these processes in various ways, but we’re going to focus on 10 basic areas: Define the project Plan the work Manage the workplan Manage issues Manage scope Manage risks Manage communication Manage documentation Manage quality Manage metrics In general, if you can master these areas, you can succeed in most projects. You may not...