Crafting a compelling, convincing cover letter is not easy. The pressure to the capture the reader’s attention without being annoying can be paralyzing. Concentrate on showing how you can contribute to the employer’s success while avoiding these mistakes.

Assertions That You Are the Ideal Canidate

Chandlee Bryan, Community Manager at StartWire, shares this advice:

Don’t ever say you are the ideal candidate for the job. Unless you’ve seen the applicant pool and you know the hiring values aside from the job description, you can’t assume you are the ideal candidate.

Here’s a tactic you can use instead: Restate primary qualifications of the job and show how your past experience and skill set fits “hand in glove” with the requirements. You ask for ____; I offer ___. Bullets work well for this. Including short, concrete examples of past achievements that are relevant for the job is another winning approach.

Read more useful tips on wisebread.com!

GRIM number of the week: 14,087,000.

Fourteen million, in round numbers — that is how many Americans are now officially out of work.

Word came Friday from the Labor Department that, despite all the optimistic talk of an economic recovery, unemployment is going up, not down. The jobless rate rose to 9.2 percent in June.

What gives? And where, if anywhere, is the outrage?

The United States is in the grips of its gravest jobs crisis since Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House. Lose your job, and it will take roughly nine months to find a new one. That is off the charts. Many Americans have simply given up.

Read the full article on nytimes.com!

The Wall Street Journal reports that employee perks are up!  Companies that have been treating their employees like [insert bad word of your choice] are, apparently, now realizing that their best employees just might be prone to leaving them if a better offer comes along. 

Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. of Chicago conducted a survey of 100 Human Resource executives and found out that things are looking better on the employee perks scene:

About 18% said their companies have restored all pre-recession perks and 41% have brought back some of those that were cut or eliminated. Nearly one quarter of respondents indicated that their firms had introduced entirely new perks.

Read the rest on bnet.com

The jobs market got two optimistic signs Thursday as private sector employers added 157,000 positions in June and fewer people filed new claims for unemployment benefits, according to two reports.

Payroll processing company ADP said private jobs grew rapidly in June — a figure that was much higher than expected and more than four times higher than the prior month. May’s figures were downwardly revised to 36,000 jobs.

Economists were expecting a gain of just 60,000 private sector jobs, according to consensus estimates from Briefing.com.

Smaller businesses led the charge in June. Small businesses, defined as those with fewer than 50 workers, added 88,000 jobs in June. Medium-size businesses, defined as those with between 50 and 499 workers, gained 59,000.

Read the full article on chicagotribune.com!

Tamara Guion-Yagy was disappointed when Tetra Tech, an environmental engineering firm in Pasadena, Calif., hired somebody else for the job that she wanted. The 40-year-old graphic designer thought she was being tried out when the firm hired her as a temporary worker.

So Ms. Guion-Yagy worked even harder at the same temp job, often staying late to finish work. Her manager responded by creating another full-time position for Ms. Guion-Yagy. “I knew I’d be good at the job and liked the work,” she says. “I just needed to show them how much.”

When times are prosperous, companies are more likely to use temporary jobs as a low-risk way to vet full-time candidates. But the conversion rate from temporary to permanent worker has been low over the past few years as more companies lean on temps as a hedge against a double-dip recession, says Jonas Prising, president of Manpower North, a temporary-staffing company in Milwaukee, Wis.

Read the rest on online.wsj.com!

With more job stress than ever resting on your shoulders, it may be tempting to leave – either quitting or being fired – in a blaze of glory, giving everyone who made you dread going to work a piece of your mind. But experts say that while it may feel good at the time, it’s not your best career move.

“It’s never a good idea to be a public flameout, unless you’re going for a career in reality TV,” says Chandlee Bryan, community manager at StartWire, a company that develops online recruiting tools. “If you want to be Snooki, it’s probably a great way to quit.”

News travels fast

The main reason to leave a job graciously is that you never know when you’ll need assistance from your former boss or want to come back and work for your former employer. Dan Ryan, owner of Ryan Search & Consulting, says it’s better for the company to be able to re-hire you, too.

Read the rest on chicagotribune.com!

Check out this workspace show and tell! People post pictures of their home offices and workspaces and share great ideas about getting organized- get inspired or post your own space!

 Lifehacker Workspace Show and Tell Pool.

You’ve likely seen the usual closing line on an online job posting: “No phone calls, please.”

But how important is it to abide by potential employers’ requests not to call about, or even show up in person for, a job opening? How else is one to stand out in a sea of electronic applicants?

The answer: It’s very important. And there are many other ways that job seekers can differentiate themselves from the competition.

Recruiters and hiring managers largely agree that going against the “no calls” request is a surefire way of jeopardizing a first impression.

“No matter how much technology changes our world, hiring decisions will ultimately be influenced by human behavior,” says Patricia Lenkov, a New York City-based executive recruiter specializing in senior-level job searches.

Read the full article on chicagotribune.com!

Just about everyone is using Facebook for personal networking, but you can use it for professional networking, as well. With lots of job search applications to choose from, Facebook is becoming more than a social networking site. These Facebook applications can all be used as part of your job search.

Before you start, be sure to adjust your privacy settings so professional connections and potential employers aren’t viewing too much of your personal information.

How to Get Facebook Job Search Applications

Login to Facebook, click on Profile, type the application name in the search box, then follow the instructions to install. Or, visit the Facebook Application Directory and search using “job search” “career” or “jobs” as keywords.

Read the rest on about.com!

It’s important to be as honest as possible with your recruiter about your career, preferences and anything else that could affect your job search.

“Job seekers sometimes fail to tell their recruiter when their company, position, or compensation preferences change. Second, job seekers hurt themselves by not telling recruiters about personal obligations and other things that might interfere with their job searches,” says Katy Keogh, of the staffing firm Winter, Wyman.

“Bring these things up at the last minute, and they can be a deal-breaker. Why? Changing the game at the last second with a hiring company makes you look sneaky or complicated for no reason at all.”

Read more on businessinsider.com!

Web apps are a friend to all who mash the keyboard from nine to five. They live in the cloud, are accessible from any Internet connection and are great for chopping those mundane work tasks off at the knees.

We’ve previously highlighted a batch of web apps that reduce the headaches and keystrokes associated with common tech chores, and after receiving some great feedback from readers, we thought it only right to hunt down a few more worthy bookmarkables.

See below for five more picks, and remember to leave your own time-saving web ditties in the comments.

Read the rest on mashable.com!

Everyone has plateaus in their career, but you want to avoid those slumps whenever possible—especially in this job market. The Wall Street Journal offers a few tips for constantly improving your job performance.

The Journal bases their tips off of the Center for Creative Leadership’s study of executive derailment, their number one tip being to ask for instant feedback:

Read the rest on lifehacker.com!

Your hands are clammy and your heart is racing as you progress through the the job interview gauntlet at a particular company. One interviewer blends into the next, and the questions vary from the ever-popular, “What are your strengths and weaknesses?” to “How many cups of coffee do people in London drink per day?”

It doesn’t help that recent job reports show fewer jobs being added to the economy, which means that companies are being more stringent than ever in the interview process, and that the competition for open positions will continue to be fierce.  And, let’s face it, some interviews are tougher than others. But, does a difficult interview directly correlate to a difficult job or an unpleasant work experience?

Read the full article on glassdoor.com!

She never had to look for work.

As a Truman scholar and a top-notch statistics, marine biology and water-quality expert with two master’s degrees and a Ph.D., work looked for this seasoned professional. Until recently, that is, when the bottom fell out of the economy.

After a recent layoff, the overwhelming prospect of redoing her resume is paralyzing the mid-career scientist. Because we’re hearing plenty of stories like hers, we turned to time-management and resume experts for help on how to prepare for a major resume update, even if you’re going to have a professional do the writing for you. Read on for their tips.

Read the rest on theladders.com!

CISC Summer Kick-Off Event  

Tonight! June 16, 2011 

 NV Penthouse Lounge, 6 PM

• Drinks and Passed Appetizers
• No Cover
• Private Reception for
  2 hours

Great networking opportunity for anyone associated with the interactive industry. Be there or be square!

The failure most of us frequently face in the business of design? The failure to recognize that a client project is something you should decline. Here are common situations where working designers fail to decline an opportunity that may be a poor fit.

The client thinks you want the work they’re offering, no matter what.

This is the beauty of establishing strong client relationships from your first contact — if you connect during those initial dialogues, there will be a strong reservoir of trust that will fuel your first projects. They like talking with you, and expect that working with you will be the same. They genuinely care about your shared success. They just don’t realize that what they’re throwing your way is not the best fit. Right client, wrong project. And we’re afraid to say no, for fear they won’t come back.

Your long-term client knows you need work badly.

The studio has been quiet, except for your primary client’s big project. This client, when they’re in the studio or communicating with you, is aware that the studio needs business. You might have even asked them directly for more business. And in return, they bring you a project that can keep the cash flow running, but is a poor fit for your short- and long-term goals. So, you take it.

Read the rest on salon.com!

It’s hard to think of Facebook as an also-ran, but here it is: Some 59 percent of those who use social networking sites-like Facebook-say that their most important social networking account is their LinkedInaccount. Last year, only 41 percent chose LinkedIn as their most important account.

The fact that LinkedIn is cited as the most important is particularly interesting given that LinkedIn users don’t visit the site nearly as often as Facebook users.

• Of the social networks studied, only MySpace was visited less frequently than LinkedIn.
• Some 20 percent of respondents said they visited LinkedIn daily, compared to 70 percent for Facebook.
• Half of respondents visit linked in every day, but 97 percent visit Facebook daily.

Read the full article on bnet.com!

For those employees who have been lucky enough to keep their jobs or get job offers during the recession, negotiating a higher salary or asking for a raise may not be top-of-mind.

In the last few years, most people have taken pay cuts or remained at the same wage, so if you haven’t gotten a raise in two years, that could be fine. However, it may be perfectly appropriate, even necessary, to roll the dice and ask for a higher wage.

For those employees who have been lucky enough to keep their jobs or get job offers during the recession, negotiating a higher salary or asking for a raise may not be top-of-mind.

In the last few years, most people have taken pay cuts or remained at the same wage, so if you haven’t gotten a raise in two years, that could be fine. However, it may be perfectly appropriate, even necessary, to roll the dice and ask for a higher wage.

Read more at chicagotribune.com!