Posts by John Zornick

How to win an interview but lose the job

How to win an interview but lose the job When writing an article to help people achieve a more successful transition, I prefer to focus on positive items. Yet, here’s a case where I want to address some negative topics that could kill your job opportunity, even if you’ve got a stellar resume and provide […]

3 Things You Don’t Need on Your Resume

Having spent the last 15+ years in the recruiting sector, I’ve seen countless variations to the resume.  When I think back to my own transition from the Army, I believe I worried about my resume more than any other single thing.  I was so accustomed to the Army’s way of dictating precisely how things must […]

Stratify Yourself

One of the items we encourage our military candidates to put on a resume is a stratification of their ranking among their peer group. We know that may not be possible if a ranking is not mentioned in a performance report (we would highly discourage you from doing so if it couldn’t be documented).  Including […]

Reflections from a recent Alliance placement

Ian Oliver recently sat down with Alliance Careers’ director of Recruiting, Ryan Wilde, to reflect on his experience in our program. Because Ian was very open to multiple career options, we kept him very busy interviewing at his hiring conference. He walked away with a tremendous sales opportunity with Nucor Building Group.

Focus on the Job at Hand

There is a chance that one day you find yourself interviewing for a very large company – the type of company that, when you go to their website, overwhelms you with the amount and diversity of their various business units. Perhaps the classic example of such a company is General Electric. Though maybe a fraction […]

Reflections from an Alliance Alum

Today we’d like to highlight a recent conversation we had with Dylan Allen, USMA 2018. Dylan is a former Army Engineer officer that came through the Alliance program and secured a project management position with Vulcraft. He took time to meet with Ryan Wilde to discuss his transition experience.

Approximation vs. Precision on Your Resume

This week’s message focuses on some best practices for reporting numbers in your resume. My experience is that most candidates realize the importance of using numbers to describe their responsibilities and achievements. As a leader, it’s probably been beaten into your head:  you gotta hit your numbers, you gotta hit your numbers. It’s generally understood that using numbers […]

Ask this question instead

As a candidate, it’s vitally important to ask good questions when given the opportunity during a job interview.  Over the years, I’ve heard some pretty insightful questions that were guaranteed to spark interest from the interviewer. I’ve also heard those questions that might cause the interviewer to think: “Why on earth would he/she ask me […]

What are you worth? Answering the salary question

One of the more challenging, and some would argue unfairly, asked questions you may face in an interview is:  “What are your salary expectations?”  I personally don’t have a problem with the nature of the question, but that doesn’t mean it’s an easy question for a candidate to face. Forms of this question are commonly […]

Put Yourself in the Interviewer’s Shoes

One of the keys to nailing an interview is to have a good variety of stories prepared ahead of time. And one thing I really love about my job is that for the last 15 years I have heard some truly amazing stories. But a story is only effective when the interviewer has a good appreciation […]