Common Cover Letter Mistakes

By now you hopefully know that a cover letter is just as vital in your job search as your resume. A well-written cover letter helps to separate yourself from the rest of the pack, and gives you one-page to explain the bullet points of your resume and give your future employer a little more personal information.

With that said, the cover letter can also be your worst enemy. Writer Tom Arten gives a brief list of some of the pitfalls to avoid when penning your cover letter. Some of these include repeating yourself, using form cover letters, and forgetting to state which job you are applying for.

Just remember to take some time to craft an individualized, personal letter for each place your applying to and you’ll be filling up your new desk before you know it.

Magic Words for Resumes

For every job opening, employers have to sift through a mountain of resumes. If your resume doesn’t catch their eye after a quick read through, it will likely be wadded up and placed in the round file.

So how do you get your resume out of the slush pile? Like opening a stone door or making a person vanish into thin air, every resume needs help from magic words. No, not abracadabra or shazaam. The magic words I’m talking about are action words – words that show that you are well-rounded.

Here are a few of “must-have” words for your resume:

Teamwork: Teamwork is more important than ever in the workplace. The ability to work well with others to accomplish a common goal is vital for a harmonious workplace.

Flexibility: Employers value workers who are flexible and able to juggle multiple tasks simultaneously. In other words, it's sometimes just as important to be a jack-of-all-trades as a master of one.

Detail-Oriented: Employers want to know that they can trust workers to handle a project down to the last detail. Being "detail-oriented" means being organized and meticulous about your work. It also implies that you can work without constant supervision and act independently.

Self-Motivated: Employers value employees who are self-starters. These workers can generate their own ideas and follow them through to fruition.

Interruptions - Everybody's Got 'Em

Everyone gets busy on the job. You’ll have a computer screen full of documents that you’re working on simultaneously, an inbox full of unread e-mails, three phone lines ringing, and someone standing impatiently in front of your desk.

Office technology makes everything seem more urgent. However, writer Anya Martin offers some concrete advice to pushing through the interruptions.

Martin suggests taking the following steps to putting the productivity back into your workday.

1. Prioritize
2. Be Polite
3. Silence Socializers
4. Turn Your Desk Around
5. Multitask
6. Do It Now
7. Turn It Off
8. Race Away from the Rush

Hopefully if you take these into consideration your day will be… hold on a second, the phone’s ringing.

One More Reason to Contact MetaTech

The reasons to contact MetaTech are apparent: access to great jobs, personal assistance along every step, and vast industry knowledge. So it’s no surprise that Business Week gives you one more reason to contact us. Jobs in the IT industry are flourishing and the leading city where these jobs continue to grow is right in MetaTech’s backyard – Seattle.

No other city matches the number and variety of IT careers that Seattle claims. So if you are lucky enough to already be a Seattleite or if your considering the move to this beautiful part of the country, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Think You're Underpaid? Good Luck Finding Out

You can’t talk about it. It’s extremely personal, awkward, and can severely damage relationships. No it’s not that. It’s how much money we make.

This topic has been taboo since I’m assuming the Stone Age (given that cavemen had water coolers in their offices to have such conversations around). However, if this topic is off limits, how do you know if you’re being underpaid at your current position? Sure, Ted started at the company when you did, has the same title, but how do you know that you’re making as much as him? If you ask, you risk creating some tension in an otherwise cordial relationship.

Well, Sam Grobart, senior editor at Money Magazine, has a few weapons to offer when it comes to confronting the situation of assessing the money issue. He suggests doing some online research into what the average income for your position is in your area – though he warns that these can be a bit inaccurate and shouldn’t be taken at face value.

He offers a few more pointers, but even then, I suggest navigating this minefield very carefully – and hopefully in the end all of your tip-toeing will pay off in your bank account.

Human Capital

Written By
Tom Parrish
MetaTech Sales Guy

“Ministers meet, work on the movement of goods
Also work on the movement of capital
Also work on the movement of human beings
As if we were so many cattle…”
“Grim Travelers”
Bruce Cockburn
Humans, 1980

So I was driving to work listening to Grim Travelers and got to thinking, don’t you sometimes wonder how the pseudo-experts came up with the pairing of the words Human and Capital? For me, this is like visually pairing the finest crystal swan – beautiful, rare, fragile beyond any one’s imagination and the Caterpillar 797B, the ultra-class mining truck deployed to the Ft. McMurray area of Alberta for tar-sands excavation. (visual depiction below)

Human


+

Capital


Now, don’t get me wrong…I get as turned on as the next guy at the thought of the application of modern operations research techniques to the problems of optimizing the human supply-chain, but really, doesn’t all this pseudo-expert drivel make you want to scream?!

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Don't Get Drunk: And Other Networking Tips

We all know that networking events are one the most important ways of making connections that can benefit your career for years to come. However, a lot of people don’t understand the most basic truth of these events – sure it looks like a party, sounds like a party, even smells like a party – but it isn’t a party. You’re on the job.

As Miss Manners would say “Etiquette is Important,” and this article by Caroline Levchuck details the four most common mistakes people make at networking events.

I’ll let you head to that article if you’d like, but I’ll spend a few pixels laying out what, in my opinion, are the best and most crucial points.

1. Don’t Get Drunk: Just because the bar is open, doesn’t mean that you have to try to prove something. This is a professional event, not a social one, and you don’t want to do something that will not only alienate contacts, but might wind up on YouTube.
2. Dress Appropriately: Dress conservatively for the event. Show people that you are a professional (i.e. – don’t wear flip flops and a puka shell necklace).
3. Do Your Homework: Don’t arrive with nothing to say. If you do this, you’ll either be too quiet and you’ll go unnoticed or you’ll end up babbling incoherently. Either way, you’ll finish the night with a rolodex as desolate as an Old West ghost town.