I love teaching young people everything I've learned about succeeding in life, leadership, and operating at peak performance. I'll take any opportunity I can to help others live, learn, and lead. 

Not long ago I was having breakfast on the second day of a conference with over 400 college students, eager to learn the art of entrepreneurship. My table was filled with nine somewhat attentive, well... half awake anyway, but otherwise ambitious young lads and ladies ready to take on any challenge. A gentleman I had met a month before at a similar event walked by, I stopped him and asked, "Hey Paul, how have you been?" After exchanging a few kind words with Paul, I turned to the table and explained the secret to remembering peoples names.

"Maddy," I said, "I met Paul at a conference a month ago and still remember his name. I used to be terrible with names. I'd even brag about how awful I was at remembering someone's name. Until one day, I read a newspaper article on the subject."

Side Note:
[Newspapers are these things people used to get their information from before blogs, Twitter, and Facebook. There are a few still in circulation. I  have one delivered to my home everyday. You can also find them in grocery stores, gas stations, and your local library.] 

Ok, back to my amazing ability to remember people's names. "The newspaper article that changed my name remembering prowess simply explained, 'PEOPLE THAT SAY THAT THEY CAN'T REMEMBER NAMES ARE PEOPLE THAT DON'T REALLY CARE ABOUT YOU OR YOUR NAME ANYWAY'."

Wow! That hit home. The truth is, I really didn't try very hard to remember people's names. Why would I, I had that great excuse I've been bragging about for years.

I've learned to turn this from a weakness into a strength. When I meet someone new, I aways repeat their name throughout the conversation. I'll say things like, "So Maddy, where are you from?" Or, "So Maddy, what do you do?" Or, "Maddy, what's it like being in business for yourself?"

If I can repeat your name at least three times throughout our initial conversation, there is a good chance I will be able to remember you and your name. I will also use word associations (silently in my head). Like, Maddy's major is Business Management. Or something even simpler like, Gene wears glasses. 

"The main point is, if you put the effort in, it makes a big difference. It shows you really give a damn."

Maddy, one of the students at my table and the main focus of my lesson replied, "That's really cool and everything, but my name is Mandy."

Check out John's book, No Shorts, Flip Flops, or Sunglasses. Free shipping. Proceeds benefit Children's Dyslexia Centers.

Too Many Cooks

If you get an interview and the woman or man behind the desk asks you about one of the items on your resume, you should not answer, as more than a few applicants have, “Gee, I dunno. My Dad put that on there. What’s it say?”

 Moms and dads have a lot of experience and insight to offer their eager beavers. But, parents, please don’t do the work. It’s the opposite of helping. Provide guidance in the job search, suggestions, proofreading, editing the cover letter, but please don’t write it for them, and absolutely do not deliver it or hand it out.

Do not make any of the calls on your child’s behalf, or follow up, or demand to know why Buddy didn’t get the job. It’s right near the top of the list of pet peeves among hiring execs. It undermines your son’s or daughter’s self-confidence. It makes them look helpless and clueless.

Practice interview questions, do a mock phone call, but make sure your son or daughter makes the call herself, preferably in a quiet room with total privacy from eavesdropping. Make it clear that she is the one ultimately responsible, that you will not be keeping her schedule or organizing her materials.

There Are No Rules

A good resume is short, sweet and to the point. However, you will find many opinions as to the details, and some people have created amazing, clever resumes that helped them stand out from the crowd.

A friend who works for a large educational firm serving college students sees many people entering the job market for the first time.  She has some great advice and a caution for anyone who needs to create a resume.

“It’s true that there are standards and conventions for writing a good resume. However, it is also true that most hiring managers, career coaches, and HR (human resources) professionals tend to disagree on what those standards and conventions are." 

“Job seekers are advised to ask at least three people who know about resumes to review and edit their resume before submittal. You can bet that all three will have differing opinions on what makes a resume perfect. And you can also bet all three will change it, and change it some more, then change it again.”

At the end of the day, it’s your resume and if you get the interview, you’ll have to be comfortable enough with it to answer questions. Do what you feel is right, and learn from what happens.

Helpful Sites for Job Hunting, Resumes, Interviewing 

CareerOneStop.com: resume templates, cover letters, thanks-you notes, etc
JobSearch.About.com: how to dress for interviews, do's and don't's, job search tips, etc
Resume.com: free online resume builder
Monster.com or CareerBuilder.com: Job search
RecruitmentQueen.com: Beautiful Bucks County, PA Job Search
SummerOpenings.com: great opportunity for students to work for a reputable company, gain resume experience, fair pay, and a fun work environment. Locations nationwide throughout the U.S. and Canada.
 
For more tips on Resume Writing from Author John Wasserman, check out 7 Resume Blunders You Can't Afford to Make. 
Or, better yet, get the book No Shorts, Flip Flops, or Sunglasses: How to Get and Make the Most of Your First Real Job.

If you have a friend or classmate who found a job, chances are they got it some other way than by trolling Craigslist or any of the other online services that allow employers to post openings. If you’ve been looking that way, you’ve probably answered dozens of ads, replying to anonymous email addresses, and wonder why all you hear is crickets. The main problem is that thousands of other students are doing the same thing at the same time. Ask anyone who does hiring and they’ll tell you how depressing it is to open their email inbox and find hundreds of inquiries to slog through. They usually end up deleting whole batches without even reading them.

1) Too Clever

If your e-mail address is babelicious@yahoo or kegmaster@gmail—or just sounds dumb or cute—get a new email account that uses your proper name, first name followed by last name. You might have to use underscores, periods, dashes, or numbers to get one that includes your proper name, but do it. 

However, don’t use your birth year as a number in your email address. Recruiters will guess your age, which may limit your opportunities. Also, do NOT use a cooked up business name in your email (or your address) unless you’re actually in business. No one is going to believe that Enoch Schmidley Enterprises, Enoch Schmidley, chairman and ceo, is anything more than a college student with a pretentious letterhead. It’s another one of those trying-too-hard red flags.

Your email is how most people will communicate with you and what it says will count against you if it sounds frivolous, over-reaching, or offensive. 

2) Suiting Up

Before you start calling up your relatives and friends of your parents asking if they know anyone who’s hiring, you’ve got some work to do, starting with your online profile. Begin by scrubbing or concealing from public access those pictures on Facebook and other sites of you doing anything you wouldn’t put on your resume, as well as anything you’ve written that you might have to explain away to a prospective employer. 

The beer pong parties, the sketchy tattoos, the pole dancing at a friends party—this is the time to put aside (or at least hide from public view) childish things. Make sure you also hide those bikini shots, thongs or ab-vertisements (as in abdominals). Any company that is considering hiring you is going to Google your name. What are they going to find? Something like the this…

Or this…?



























Anyone serious about pursuing a job in a professional or business setting should have at least a basic LinkedIn.com profile with a photo that doesn’t look like it was taken with a smartphone on spring break. LinkedIn is the Facebook for professional and business people. It’s a great place to show yourself off at your professional best, and to research companies in your field of interest.

You should be well groomed and the picture should show your face clearly. Men should be wearing a suit jacket, button-down dress shirt, and tie. For women it means light makeup, no provocative clothing or poses, coif in place and of a color closely resembling that of human hair.

Your picture is the first thing any potential employer is going to see. If you look like you just stumbled out of a club or a zombie costume party, you’ve probably killed your chances before you even got a start. If you look like someone who’s serious about work, you increase the chances your profile will get read.

3) Dress for Success

In our offices, when someone phones about coming in to fill out an application and be interviewed, the folks who take the calls tell them, “Dress professionally. No jeans. No sneakers.” I know I’m not a kid anymore, but it amazes me that only about one in a hundred comment, “Really?  You have to tell people how to dress?”

Yes, it’s true. A surprising number of applicants show up for their interviews wearing flip-flops, shorts, and even sunglasses. The guys will sometimes show up wearing Justin Bieber-style caps perched high on their heads and off-center, or a bandanna. 

You don’t last long in our kind of business if you judge people by what they wear to an interview, and the last thing I want to do is embarrass anyone in front of the troops. Being interviewed for a job is hard enough as it is, especially if your experience is limited to restaurant work and manual labor. You’re walking into an unfamiliar environment where you will be questioned and evaluated. The fight-or-flight instinct kicks in. This is how people handle being nervous.

So I say, firmly but politely, “Hey, you know, you can take those sunglasses off now.” Or, “We don’t wear caps in the office, so you can take yours off.” This often produces a smile of relief. It’s like saying, Hey, let’s cut the posing and get real.

If you show up for an interview with our company wearing flip-flops, shorts, t-shirt, sunglasses, and a funky baseball cap turned sideways—or in a tube top and impossibly short cutoffs—you’re in luck. It’s just about the only place in America you can apply for a professional marketing position where you won’t be shown the door before you’re even through it.

Don’t get me wrong—unless you’re applying to be the drummer for a rock band or a waitress in a sports bar, it’s exactly the wrong way to dress for a job interview. Because we have so many young people apply, especially for our summer openings, we know a couple of things that most other companies don’t—it’s not your fault. You just haven’t broken the code yet. Nobody’s explained it to you—yet.

We also know that what you look like or act like does not define who you are, nor does it predict whether or not you’ll be successful in marketing. We’ve discovered that there are plenty of smart, motivated, and engaging sales reps hiding behind costumes of self-expression, or who appear to be careless about their appearance, or ignored our instructions about how to dress. Our mission is to show them why it matters, and how to make that knowledge work for them.

You could argue that we live in a society that has become informal in many ways, because it’s true. When I applied for my first job as a dishwasher at a little backwater restaurant in north central Pennsylvania more than twenty years ago, my father explained that no matter how mundane the work may be, I should always wear a tie and jacket to an interview, to show I was serious and respectful. I think for many, that way of thinking has been lost. I enjoy teaching people how to make great first impressions and make the sale. After all, isn't that what the job interview is all about, making the sale? Just remember, you are the product.

Taking a break and want to see a quick slideshow? Check out 16 Reasons to Sell This Summer.

Also, check out the book. This is way more than your average, cookie-cutter book on how to write a résumé and find a job. 

It’s a personal journey of discovery that I hope will inform, inspire, and empower. I’ve been sharing my journey for more than twenty years with small groups of college-aged men and women, showing them how to get a head start on their professional and business lives and have fun doing it.

From how to look your best to how to deal with rejection, it's all here in this breezy, fun tutorial on the essentials that will give you an edge when you head out to start your full-time career. Proceeds go to a great charity, Children's Dyslexia Centers.

In my field I meet a lot of young people who haven’t learned the fundamentals of being independent. I’ve met more than a few who have never cooked a meal, even for themselves. I’ve taught a few college seniors how to make dishes as simple as spaghetti. 

The biggest and most important gap is in financial knowledge. Many college students arrive on my doorstep having already made a hash of their finances. They got those “free” credit cards when they got to college and used them for emergencies, like pizza and beer kegs. I’ve had to teach more than a few business administration majors the basics of interest expense and even how to balance a checkbook.

Most of these students have had the same experience I did—my father never talked to me about money. Without any guidance, I spent too much and saved too little. It wasn’t until my late twenties, when I was thinking about getting married and settling down, that I realized how much debt I had accumulated. I didn’t want to start a family in a financial hole and that’s when I buckled down and got everything paid off. 

Why parents and their children don’t talk about money and how it works is a mystery. In my case, my father was frugal, but the way he talked about money I assumed he wasn’t very good at managing it, so I didn’t quite see that as an object lesson. 


When you’re young, the answer to having too little money is to figure out how to make more. My father worked in the public sector, as a game warden, so he never made a lot of money. Not until many years later, when he was retired and announced that he was buying a vacation home, did I discover the reason for his frugality—he had been socking money away for retirement. Not only had he been good at managing his money, he was great at it.

DECLARING YOUR UN-DEPENDENCE 
Becoming independent means becoming un-dependent on credit cards and other borrowings (car loans, for example) to support the lifestyle you think you deserve or aspire to. It’s hard to get a degree these days without ending up in debt, but the money you borrowed to get your education was an investment in your life, at a very low interest rate, that will pay off for years to come. 

The money you borrow to buy a shiny new set of wheels automatically makes you dependent on your future income. If a solid opportunity comes along that requires you to move, or maybe take a pay cut in exchange for ownership in a business, or take a year off to travel around the world, you might discover you’ve bought yourself a shiny pair of handcuffs. 

Check out this great video and learn How to Drive Free Cars for Life. This one decision could change your life.

Being un-dependent gives you the opportunity to help those you love. Around the time I began to make some real money and had sorted out my finances, I went to visit my mother on her birthday. She’d been having a hard time and had fallen two months behind in her rent. She was in real danger of being evicted. I went to her landlord, got her caught up, and put the receipt in a birthday card.

My mother burst into tears when she opened it, and so did I. I had never felt as independent as I did in that moment, but also so grateful that I could give back for all the sacrifices I knew she’d made for me. I’d have felt terrible if, instead, all my spare cash was going to support a fancy car or a credit card bill for expensive toys and nights on the town.

DECLARING YOUR INDEPENDANCE 
Being financially independent also protects you from having to borrow from friends and family to support yourself. It’s a confidence killer to have to admit to those who know you well that you messed up. And once you’ve borrowed the money, you will discover that Thanksgiving and Christmas just aren’t the same, especially if you haven’t been able to pay back the loans. You’ll find yourself avoiding those to whom you owe money, and when you can’t avoid them, you’ll feel you have to hide that new tablet computer and park that new car around the corner.

The reverse is also true. If a close friend or relative asks to borrow money from you, don’t ruin an important relationship by saddling them with an obligation they might not be able to handle. I’ve learned the hard way and you probably will also. Instead of lending money, I figure out how much I can afford to lose and I make it a gift instead. I feel better, the borrower has no obligation, and there’s no reason for anyone to feel slighted or disrespected.

Being financially sound and independent helps you sleep at night, gives you the freedom to leave a bad job that pays well to take a great job doing something you love that might pay less. It also could affect your ability to get a great job in the first place. Many firms will order a credit check on you when they’re considering you as a job candidate. They want to avoid hiring people who are struggling to make ends meet. People under financial pressure tend to make poor choices, are distracted from their work responsibilities and, in some cases, take risks they wouldn’t otherwise consider.

At my company, we consider knowing how to manage your finances so important that we’ve incorporated courses into our orientation program on how money works, how to manage yours, how to save, how to raise your credit score, and all the basics that go into living an un-dependent financial life. If you feel confused or overwhelmed by your financial circumstances and your company does not offer a course, find one you can take on your own, buy some books, and learn while you’re young what so many older people wish they had known when they were your age.

And, yes, there are more important things in life than money. The problem is they all cost money.

Taking a break and want to read more on finances? Check out CREATE A NEW FINANCIAL PARADIGM. 

Also, check out the book. This is way more than your average, cookie-cutter book on how to write a résumé and find a job. 

It’s a personal journey of discovery that I hope will inform, inspire, and empower. I’ve been sharing my journey for more than twenty years with small groups of college-aged men and women, showing them how to get a head start on their professional and business lives and have fun doing it.

From how to look your best to how to deal with rejection, it's all here in this breezy, fun tutorial on the essentials that will give you an edge when you head out to start your full-time career. Proceeds go to a great charity, Children's Dyslexia Centers.

1. Work with the Network You Already Have
How many people do you know already? I’m guessing easily 500, maybe even a thousand. If you think that’s impossible, try this exercise we used to give our new reps on the first day of training: go home and write down the names of 150 people you know. They can be any age, live anywhere, from any background. This has several purposes. The first is to show how to go about developing sales leads. Most young people are surprised when they realize just how many people they’ve had some contact or interaction with.

Many of our recruits will go to their Facebook page and write down every name, or get out their high school or college yearbook and copy names from there. Their lists usually include a lot of other young people and students who are unlikely to be in the market for our high-end products. The point is to show them how they are already networked to hundreds of others. It’s a starting place. Try it. The exercise can be surprisingly fun. The network you already have can be a great source for job opportunities. And save the list, who knows, maybe you will run for political office one day and you'll need a list of people to help you get your campaign off the ground.

The exercise is also an opportunity to challenge them to do more than the minimum. I learned the value of this lesson when I was in high school and had an an assignment to collect nuts and berries and leaves for biology. We were supposed to collect a hundred and identify them. It was so much fun that I kept going until I had collected about 200. My teacher was so impressed I got a grade of 200%. Ever since I’ve strived to outperform the expectations of others.

2. The Best Habit for Success
What I learned and try to teach others is that to get more out of life you need to give more. Don’t settle for mediocrity. Don’t do the minimum just to get by because all you’ll ever get, is by. If you can go above and beyond the call of duty, you are setting yourself up for success. Make this a habit and you’ll get promoted faster, you’ll get more out of life. Especially when you’re new at a job, the best thing you can do is pour your heart and soul into it.

Your first job may not be your dream assignment, but forget any thoughts you may have that your performance doesn’t matter. You never know who might be watching you, looking for talent to groom. That’s what happened to James Collins, a young man from Cleveland who lost his job in a factory and went to work at Wendy’s. He put his heart and soul into his work and had been promoted up the ladder to restaurant manager in record time.

What he didn’t know was that managers from the McDonald’s across the street had been watching him. One day one of them walked in and offered him a job managing the highest-volume restaurant in the region.

“When that happened,” Collins later recalled, “I thought about something my grandmother always used to say. ‘Do good when no one else is watching because you never know where your blessings are going to come from.’ I connected her advice, which I took to heart, with being observed by the folks from McDonald’s. You never know who’s watching.” Collins went on to become a senior vice president for McDonald’s USA.

3. Build a Great Resume First, Then Do What You Love
Many students struggle to choose a major. And who can blame them. Studies show that our brains are not fully formed until our mid 20s. So asking a teenager to choose a career path that they think they will be passionate about for the rest of their lives is kind of crazy. If you can find a summer job in marketing, sales, or even customer service you will have a unique opportunity to network with people who are in careers in many different fields. You will get the chance to ask questions about those career choices and it’s common for customers to offer advice. They love talking about their jobs, and love the idea that they are helping a young person shape his or her future. 

The idea of waiting for that perfect career out of college is great, in a booming economy. But sadly, we are not in that type of environment. You have graduated into one of the worst economic downturns in our history. According to a report by Pew Research Center, 36% of millennials were living with mom and dad last year. The highest it's been in 40 years. It's not time to follow your passion, just yet. It's time to get to work, build your resume, and get out of your parent's basement. The experts are calling it a jobless recovery. That means, the best thing you can do is work on your resume, build on your experiences, and try to advance. Once you have a few years of solid work experience then you can look for the dream job. That's the reality that we live in today. 

Success in business has many elements but the one that matters most is persistence. If you’re in sales and marketing and you’ve just gotten a series of rejections, think of it like dealing a deck of cards. If you get a run of red cards the odds start to favor black cards. Keep playing and the black cards inevitably will turn up. Don’t be in a hurry to give up, to hit the reset button. Even a job you dislike can be a great learning opportunity.