Plan Your Career by Julie Desmond

Julie Desmond is Talent Manager for Express Employment Professionals. Write to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Your resume: An invitation to interview

Thursday, 28 July 2011 14:10 Julie Desmond

Think of the last big party you were invited to attend. The one where someone sent a Save the Date card out in advance, and then followed up with an invitation in an envelope with a stamp on it. What did that invitation look like?

Did it provide a detailed agenda of everything that would take place during the party? Imagine that invitation: Please join us for a party in honor of Joe’s birthday. Our party begins at five, but Aunt Betty will be early and many of you will be quite late. By the time you arrive, the food will be cold and the drinks will be warm and Aunt Betty will have eaten half the cake, which is chocolate, by the way, with yellow frosting and little sprinkles on the top…

Creating a workplace people want to join

Tuesday, 19 July 2011 14:23 Julie Desmond

NASA Administrator and Astronaut Charles Bolden Jr is living an industrious and adventurous life as the first African American to travel into space. He spoke recently about the future of the evolutionary and evolving NASA. What caught my interest was that people apply for work with NASA by the thousands every week. And yet, NASA is a space-focused organization which very recently sent its last ship into space. One reporter asked him the obvious, “Why would anyone want to work there?”

Sharing Salary Secrets: Someone’s not going to be happy

Tuesday, 05 July 2011 16:46 Julie Desmond

Working forty plus hours with the same people week after week, co-workers commonly develop close friendships. And with long weeks comes some amount of down time, which leads to conversations which leads to deeper trust levels. All this is great for company morale. But that friendship can end abruptly if someone senses the boss is playing favorites, especially with salaries. The “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” conversation starter always has the same ending: someone is going to walk away mad.

Let’s say you are earning far more than your co-worker for the same job. You did not mean to let your pay rate slip out. Maybe you overheard what someone else was making and you acted surprised; maybe you laughed out loud. Now your colleague is curious. He wants to know why you never complain about low wages. She wonders why you eat out every day, when everyone else brings a sandwich from home.

The Rich Life

Monday, 27 June 2011 14:41 Julie Desmond

Positive visualization: If you can imagine it, it can be yours. Those rich-guy shows like Cribs or Kardashians can invoke a pretty strong case of the want-that’s. A pool table in every room, cars for every day of the week, a clothes budget without a budget attached… who wouldn’t want that?

My winning (read, competitive) personality naturally turns a Want-that into an I Could Have That. But how? And what is a rich life, anyway? The How is easy: expect, anticipate, imagine. The What is not always what TV tells us it is. So we’ll start with the How.

Why I hired you

Friday, 17 June 2011 14:24 Julie Desmond

Hiring lately has been happening everywhere and at a fast pace. Manufacturers are taking orders and hiring production, operations and engineering people; retail and service businesses are hiring, too. The employment agency where I spend my time sees new jobs every day. Good times.

If you want to know why you got a new position and the guy next to you did not, here’s the answer: I wanted to hire you.

I wanted to hire you because you called me and asked about the job. You followed my instructions about applying online, and you followed up with a very brief message to let me know you were ready for next steps.

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