Posts By Heather Krasna, MS

Handling illegal interview questions

One of my job-seeking clients recently had an interview in which the employer asked her a question about her race/ethnicity. It was for a position that required a lot of cross-cultural understanding, and my guess is that the employer wanted to know whether the candidate had the cross-cultural skills needed for the job. However, employersRead… Read more »

Public Speaking: Stand & Deliver

Public Speaking: Stand & Deliver I’ve been coaching candidates for the Presidential Management Fellowship’s in-person assessment lately, and one part of the assessment process is a 5-minute policy presentation which each candidate must deliver in front of a panel of judges. Public speaking is, for many people, scarier than watching Aliens while on PCP. ScarierRead… Read more »

Personal Branding and Your Online Reputation

Personal branding The idea of personal branding has gained popularity in the last couple of years. It seems to mainly be used to refer to one’s online identity—meaning, mostly, what hits come up if someone Googles your name. Like product branding, the personal brand includes a number of values and ideas. It includes what peopleRead… Read more »

Civil Service Hiring in New York State

Civil Service Hiring in New York State This post may be one of the longer ones I’ve written because the hiring process for New York State is so different from the private sector process. It is what I would call a “classic civil service” process, in which networking or personal connections will do absolutely noRead… Read more »

Federal Hiring Reform, Round 2: Pathways

As those who follow the intricacies of federal hiring already know, the Merit Systems Protection Board found that the Federal Career Intern Program (FCIP) violated merit systems principles because positions were not advertised enough to allow veterans to apply, and thus violated veteran’s preference. (For those not familiar with federal hiring, this last sentence willRead… Read more »

Should I reveal my leadership in certain organizations on my resume?

Here’s a question I recently was asked: Should I reveal my leadership in an organization that reveals something personal about me, on my resume? For example, leadership in an addiction recovery organization? Here is my opinion. It is definitely opinion and others may disagree. I would welcome a heated debate about this, as a matterRead… Read more »