The 17th-century French scientist and mathematician Blaise Pascal said, “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.” The principle that writing concise documents takes more time than writing long-winded ones applies to just about every type of document, including reports, fact sheets, websites, letters, presentations and applications. Instead of leaving the preparation of documents to the last minute, take time to: Tailor each document to its target audience. When deciding what to leave in or out and how to order your document’s contents, consider what your audience most wants and needs, and prioritize accordingly. And when…

Statistics, measurements, counts and other metrics sound scientific, inarguable and objective. If you bolster your resume, answers to interview questions and updates to your supervisor, LinkedIn profile and other professional documents with such metrics, they will sound scientific, inarguable and objective. By quantifying your achievements, you will also underscore their heft and help prove that you’re an action-oriented go-getter rather than a self-promoting talker. “Time” metrics are one way to help quantify your achievements: Your years of experience or hours of training or courses. Tight, non-negotiable deadlines you met, or the number of work products (such as press releases, articles,…

A winning way to craft your résumé is to begin by brandishing your name — followed by abbreviations for any certifications or graduate degrees you earned — in large, bold font on the first line. And cite in large, bold font your professional title on the second line of your résumé. By doing so, you’ll instantly broadcast to harried hiring managers who only skim your résumé what you are and what you could do for them. Your professional title should be honest, but need not necessarily match the job title of your current job, particularly if the latter fails to…

Want to understand how to impress hiring managers? It takes one to know one, as the saying goes. So the best way to understand hiring managers is to become one. You may be able to do so by volunteering to serve on a hiring committee. If you serve on a hiring committee, you will be shocked, outraged, entertained, horrified, humored, impressed and enlightened by how job seekers present themselves. But more importantly, you will be rewarded for your service with insider insights about how hiring managers think and how job seekers fail and succeed in their job quests — information…

Which of these statements is more persuasive and impressive? “I am an excellent swimmer. I know you will be impressed by how well I swim when you watch me.” “I won an Olympic gold medal in swimming.” The first statement — unsupported by any objective validation — could easily be dismissed as self-serving propaganda and an empty, presumptuous promise. By contrast, the second assertion is impressive because it incorporates objective, inarguable, universally respected validation: an Olympic medal. The second assertion meets the gold standard, literally. You can similarly use the power of validation to prove that you have met the…

Because of the bad economy, the limitations of federal retirement benefits, the housing crisis, ever-increasing health care costs and lengthening life spans, the phrase “retirement career” is no longer an oxymoron. But beware: Retirement careers often require long-term planning. The first step for considering your options is to identify your earliest possible federal retirement date, based on your age and years of service. If you’re a full-time fed and want to keep working for the federal government after reaching retirement eligibility, you probably have two main options: Continue your current federal career path, provided that your job doesn’t have a…

My Sept. 24 column reviewed potential federal contracting opportunities to consider if you start your own business after leaving your federal job. Here are tips I collected from federal contract managers on how to win contracting bids: Follow solicitation instructions to the letter, and submit all required documents. Discuss solicitations that interest you with your target agency’s contracting officer (CO) before you submit proposals. Also, consult him if you anticipate missing deadlines or if you hit other obstacles while preparing proposals or fulfilling contracts. It is the CO’s job to communicate with vendors; don’t be shy out of the mistaken…

Do you have an itch to switch to the private sector — either because government does not suit you or because you want to keep working during your federal retirement? If so, check out the federal contracting world. If you would like to work for a federal contractor, click here. This new website, the brainchild of a former Pentagon personnel official, is designed to help connect job hunters who have federal experience with contractors who want to hire it. Although businesses must pay to post openings on the site, job hunters use the site for free. Perhaps you would like…

Hiring managers generally are more likely to hire you if they see tangible evidence of your skills rather than if they just read about them in your résumé or hear them described. Consider accommodating this “seeing is believing” principle into your networking strategy. A case in point: I know a computer mapping specialist who cold-called an Environmental Protection Agency manager to discuss a computer mapping issue that was relevant to both of them. Then, after the specialist kicked off a job search several months later, he again called the EPA manager to tell him how his innovative computer mapping strategy…

Hopefully, you will never experience health problems serious enough to compel you to use leave available under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). But because health and family crises may arise suddenly, you should always carry with you your boss’s contact information so you can inform him of your need for FMLA leave as soon as possible. Also, always carry with you any passwords, security tokens and Web addresses you need to remotely access your work email and the desktop of your work computer. If you must take FMLA leave for a crisis or for the birth of a child,…