Job Search.

Everybody lies.

I can't say that it's my favorite quote. On the other hand, it's true. And in the job-seeking world, it's not an exception. It's the rule.

For the most part, I have been independent for the last decade and it was a path that seemed best-suited to my personality. I worked in commissioned sales. Then when the opportunity came, I took off on my own shouldering the burden of being employer and employee. In this world, there was only one divining principle you followed in order to survive: you made your own rain.

It rained. It poured. But when the economy collapsed and our community drowned in a regrettable flood of sharply declining values tied to a housing market inventory that is projected to last the next five years, I found less and less need for my services. I held out a little longer than most but in the end, I joined the ranks of entrepreneurs looking elsewhere for a steady paycheck and reluctantly began the process of job-hunting.

Of course, the first step was to polish the resume–long forgotten under a file that I thankfully still had in my computer. I updated my work history to include my current status as owner of my own design firm and reviewed the previous jobs for relevance and accuracy. I was careful to maintain a brief, concise, single-page presentation I always believed to be more credible than the multi-page pandering I've seen in the past.

I've reviewed my share of resumes for former employers who invited me to sit in the hiring process and for my own company when the time came that I needed help. Those that went to the circular file ran the gamut from mediocre to appalling to hilarious. They verified my suspicion that unless you're a professional athlete whose stats are scrutinized by anybody and everybody, the superfluous padding on that resume is likely not worth the paper it's printed on.

Ultimately, I knew that I needed to be as straightforward as possible. I . Interviews are the final measure of how well our image holds up. Granted, there are always those who will present themselves well. But when the honeymoon is over, I would just as soon not have them look at me and wonder where that person they hired went. After all, the interview is going to determine why you want this job and how badly you want it. The best course is enthusiasm.

I turned in my resume to several potential employers: an insurance company for a sales position; the ski resort for a marketing and the school district for a paraprofessional. This is not a career objective but they don't need to know that. Sure, I wanted a rewarding position with opportunity for advancement but at this point. any job will do.

 A lie, after all, as a means to an end.