Interesting fact:

David Dinges, a University of Pennsylvania professor (who also conducted sleep studies for NASA), says the average adult needs to get 7.5 hours of high-quality shut-eye if they want to give their best the next day.

You may have heard that before.

A particular relative of mine dropped by for a visit.

We hadn’t seen her in several months — for a good reason.

I’ll explain why in just a moment. But first, here’s what happened:

Creating a resume is both easy and hard. It’s easy because you can create something within a few minutes, hard because there’s so much information available online that it’s difficult to filter out what to follow and not to follow.

If you currently in the process of creating a resume, make sure you avoid making the following mistakes of most folks who are making one.

I never got a chance to tell you Nancy's story.
            
Many years ago, she joined a manufacturing company, as a production manager, straight out of university. And she encountered sexism right away.
            
They told her, pretty much straight up -- "If you fail at this, we'll never hire a woman production manager ever again. So you'd better not fail."
            
So Nancy puts her head down and works hard.

Nancy's husband used to work for a large pharmaceutical.
            
Every few years, they'd do a round of layoffs. Anyway, this one time, literally hours after they'd sent a few hundred employees packing, their IT system went down without warning. The entire organization ground to a halt.
            
And, yes -- you've guessed it:
            
They'd just laid off the only guy who had the skills to fix it!

What follows is a true story:

(It was published in the National Enquirer, back in 1977.)

Laura Shultz, a 63-year-old grandmother was in her kitchen preparing dinner. Then, out of nowhere, she heard screaming from her driveway. Not the kind of scream you hear in horror movies, but a desperate shriek that makes you feel like someone poured molten steel down your spine.

A while back, we received an interesting question from "Francis"

I've been through 2 interviews for a position which I believe I am both highly qualified and interested in! My dream job!

But, at the end of the last interview, they told me they will revert to me shortly... it's been more than a month now that I am waiting for the decision....

I sent an email for an update and got no answer... should I forget about this opportunity?

When I was a kid, I used to daydream about having a "skeleton key" -- one that would allow me to open any door and get inside without any effort

Looking back, I don't know why. I wasn't a thief or anything.

I guess I just enjoyed snooping around and going places where I shouldn't. (Like -- backstage at Disney World, or behind those doors in museums when someone "checks in the back"...)

A member of our team told me about his friend.

Let's call him Mike.

Mike is a master's student. He just graduated in biotechnology. But in his state, there are no opportunities in this field.

As you might have noticed, folks with a long gap in their resume get a particularly hard time from HR reps and recruiters.

Why?

Because -- rightly or wrongly -- they assume there's something major that stops you from "holding down a job".