Executive Resumes and Cover Letters - Hire a Professional Or Write Your Own?

That's the title of my new article, arguing that a professionally written resume is important, particularly in the age of a bazillion applicants whose resumes are scanned by software. Other job correspondence? Well, I lay out my argument for why those documents need to be written quickly, and, ideally, written by the candidate -- with a good editor, of course.

You can find the article here.

Let me know what you think.

National Delete Your Name from Spokeo Campaign

I launched ASAP Edit to help senior executives and professionals present their best selves to the world when they face fast deadlines for critical written business communications and career search correspondence. Many of you work or have worked with Executive Coaches who have challenged you to develop as professionals and as people. ASAP Edit exists to make sure that you maintain your hard earned reputation even when the stresses of time and circumstance require you to write something important quickly and with little time for review. At ASAP Edit we are acutely concerned with protecting the reputation and confidentiality of clients, particularly at times in their careers when reputation and confidentiality are most important.

Sites that traffic in information that they don't fact check, and that is often erroneous, can cause harm without you ever knowing. Spokeo is a site that aggregates often-erroneous information about me and you and then sells it to clients for a few dollars a month. Look up your family, your friends, or yourself and you’ll see what I mean. In every search I ran, Spokeo’s information was inaccurate -- and that was just the information they revealed for free. Who knows what falsehoods lie beneath?

If you are concerned about your reputation, I recommend that you delete your name from Spokeo. If you are an Executive Career Coach, you might want to suggest to your clients that they do so, as well.

Delete your name from Spokeo, but be careful how you do it:

Spokeo provides an opt-out option that’s a bit hard to navigate, so I'll walk you through the steps below. More importantly, Spokeo requires that you enter a verifiable email address, so it is possible that they are using their opt-out system to troll for email addresses that they can turn around and sell to their customers as "verified."

So I suggest that you set up a new email account (I use Gmail below, but you can use any free online email account provider) that you can use for opting out and then delete when you're done.

Here are step by step instructions on opting out of Spokeo without providing them an email address that they can sell.

I. Set up a new Gmail Account (instructions here).

II. Follow these steps to opt out of Spokeo
1. Go to Spokeo
2. Enter your name (first last) in the search box and click "Search."
3. Select and copy the URL from your browser's Address Bar.
4. Click on the Spokeo logo at the top left corner to return to the Home Page.
5. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the small "Privacy" button.
6. Ignore the sales pitch for "ReputationDefender" and scroll down to the bottom.
7. Paste the URL you copied into the "URL" box.
8. Enter your newly created email address in the "Email" box.
9. Enter the code they provide into the "Code" box.
10. Click "Remove Listing."
11. Check the inbox of your new email account, open the email from Spokeo and delete your name by clicking on the URL they provide in the body of the email.

III. Delete the Gmail Account (Instructions here).

You're done.

The Campaign’s Goal:

Our goal is to help as many people as possible protect themselves from Spokeo and other sites that traffic in unverified personal information.

Feel free to send this link to your friends and family so that they too can protect themselves from Spokeo.

And leave us a comment when you've deleted yourself so that we can track the success of the campaign.

Best,

Yitz Francus

Founder