Getting in the hiring mode has got me started on a screed about mistakes that far too many job applicants make. In my last entry, I detailed faux pas on resumes and application forms. Now to interviews. I start with something that many people forget to do before the interview and that is research the […]
We’re hiring again at Jampole Communications, and for the first time in a few years it’s because the business is growing past the resources of the existing staff. Growth is good, but I think I’m not the only businessperson who has more fears approaching the hiring process than when involved in any other aspect of […]
“Good taste is knowing how to eat right,” is the headline for a Diet Coke ad I found near the back of the GQ through which I recently flipped. The ad depicts Tom Colicchio, supposedly an award-winning chef, seated in a plush restaurant booth, before him a luscious and healthy salmon dish that we are […]
Someone in my household bought the latest GQ to read the feature on Vladimir Putin, so naturally I took a look-see at this slick rag. The ads in GQ were just as I remembered them from the last time I perused a copy, probably some 25 years ago: very sharp photographs of highly-chiseled models in […]
As usual, there were a lot of disturbing trends to note in last Sunday’s newspapers. Let’s skip the small stuff, such as the increasingly common misuse of “but,” “though” and “nevertheless” by reporters and public relations writers, and instead look first at a weird bit of “celebriosis,” and then at a long-term trend that has […]
In the wake of two recent stories about people on Medicaid in which all the case histories were African-American, the New York Times today presented a story of brave and highly skilled Americans who have been looking for jobs so long that they have became discouraged and are no longer looking. The four people, whom […]
There are many variations on the old saw that there are relatively few patterns in human communication. Some examples: Jack Benn told only six jokes. There are only 10 basic plots for all stories. The theory of Theophrastus (371 b. c. e. – 281 b. c. e) that there are only 30 basic character types […]
The old French expression, “la plus ça change,” or “the more things change… (the more they remain the same)” certainly applies to the health care reform debate. While looking for something else on the bookcase in the Jampole Communications office today, I found a very intriguing soft cover book titled “Health Care Reform Terms” from […]
The New York Times today offered two examples of ideological subtext, which roughly speaking is the embedding of a basic value, belief or social axiom into the subtext of a communication. The reference to the belief usually is unnecessary to the understanding of the article, and sometimes runs counter to the facts that the article […]
The New York Times may be going a little too far in trying to make its Tuesday “Science Times” section accessible to the mythical average Joe-and-Jane. I’m sure many of my (perhaps mythical) readers know the section I’m talking about: It’s the one with all the health care and technology/engineering articles with some occasional science thrown […]