Improving or killing your job chances

During his 24 years as an executive recruiter for The HBC Group in Manhattan, Lawrence High School alumnus and former Cedarhurst resident Peter Herzog has looked at more than 50,000 resumes since the mid-1990s and began setting aside resumes that stood out, not necessarily in a good way, in hopes that one day he would put together a book of what not to do.

Although Herzog didn’t do much with his idea for a book right away, in 2004 he wrote, “How to Prolong Your Job Search: A Humorous Guide to the Pitfalls of Resume Writing,” that was concise and to the point as he felt many resume books other authors had written were long and tedious.

Herzog sent the book to more than 30 publishers who seemed interested at the time but it didn’t go anywhere. “I left it at that point and put it on the back burner,” he said.

In 2011, Herzog’s research intern at the HBC Group, Noah Greenstein, had a side business helping people get published and encouraged Herzog to self-publish his book, on an Amazon owned website, CreateSpace.com. “It was low cost and I did my own marketing so it really took off from there,” Herzog said.

Greenstein said after talking with Herzog about his book, he like the idea. “It’s a no nonsense project about putting together a solid resume, while maintaining a sense of humor,” he said. “The book is based on funny actual examples of things that make employers cringe.”

By taking a completely different approach to the typical 200- to 300-page resume books, Herzog’s 46-page book is short, to the point and injects humor throughout by giving readers pointers on what he believes makes a great resume. “You want to design a resume for someone who is reading it in five minutes, on a Friday, right before their vacation,” he said. “In this economy a lot of companies are understaffed and people are overworked so you want to get right to the point. It’s not brain surgery.”

Herzog said the book writing process was a lot of fun and since he originally came up with the idea in the mid-1990s and did not publish the book until last year, his time-tested approach was the best. “My feeling still remains exactly the same and I still feel as strongly as I did in the mid-1990s of what a good resume looks like,” he said.

Barbara and Michael, Herzog’s parents and longtime Cedarhurst residents, said they could not be prouder of their son’s accomplishments. “His experience as a headhunter and seeing thousands of resumes over the years has given him the ability to understand what works and what doesn’t work,” Michael said. “It’s not your standard resume guide as it’s humorous and a book where you can understand the pitfalls of resumes that would easily be rejected and through humor and simplicity, it will guide someone through the resume process.”

As a retired teacher at Number Five School in Cedarhurst for 38 years, Barbara said she could see her son’s book being put to good use in schools. “This would be marvelous for a senior in high school,” she said. “This could be a very valuable book for a student. I got a kick out of the book and its short, sweet and to the point.”

Graduating from Lawrence School District set the tone for Herzog’s future. “Lawrence was extremely positive, there were excellent teachers and good role models,” he said. “A strong family, environment and school district and all of the experiences I had combined, laid the groundwork and made me who I am today.”