Health Insurance for Resume Writers

Alright, I'll tackle a business management issue today: Health insurance. Most resume writers are self-employed -- and unless you have a spouse with health insurance, you're probably going to need your own health insurance plan.


Health insurance can be confusing, especially if it is your first time shopping around with different providers. Terms such as deductible, co-payments, and pre-existing conditions can be confusing if you do not know what they really mean. There are many ways to find out more about health insurance so that you are as knowledgeable as possible. You could talk to a health insurance company, find an insurance broker, or you can do your research on the Internet.

Logically, you would assume that the experts at the insurance company would be able to answer any questions that you have about terminology and any other queries that you have. The best way to get in touch with them is to simply call your provider and ask any questions that you have, no matter how general or specific. They are there to help you, and this should be your primary concern. Think about it: if an agent isn't helpful with your preliminary questions, just how helpful will he or she be if you need to settle a claim?

For answers to general questions such as terminology confusion, an Internet search engine can point you straight to your answer. This is a great options available to anyone who does not want to call their health insurance company just for a couple of simple questions. There may be information that you had overlooked in the past when you quickly skimmed through your policy. Your specific provider may have a web site where you can get facts about anything, including anything that you may not have been clear on regarding any additional benefits they offer. You can read all of the literature available at your own pace and on your own time.

Health insurance can be complicated at first, but the more you know the better off you will be.

Regaining Your Creative Spark

In a recent weekly email newsletter, author Harvey Mackey addressed the topic of creativity. 

I addressed the same topic in my book, "Write Great Resumes Faster." 
Sometimes you just get stuck when you're writing a resume. You can't figure out how to start -- or you start, and you can't finish. While the book gives you some specific strategies for helping you write resumes, Mackay gives you some more general creativity builders.

His suggestions:

• Be aware of what's going on around you. Stay on top of trends. Learn from other people's ideas and mistakes.
• Rely on your instincts. As you assimilate the information around you and assess the possibilities, factor in your instincts to come up with creative solutions.
• Assess your options. Sort your ideas into categories, and rank them. Try combining ideas, and eliminate any that don't fit what you're looking for.
• Stick with it. You need to be persistent if you want to achieve anything significant. Keep a detailed picture of the intended result in your mind to hep you stay focused and move forward.
• Be patient. You can't hurry creativity, so take time to ponder your ideas. Sit back and take time to think things over. That's usually how the best ideas bloom.
• Evaluate the results. At the end of the process, ask yourself: Has my vision been realized? Learn from what works and what fails, so you can move on to your next project.
• Creativity isn't just a process. It's a value. If you value success, get creative!

Creativity can be your best asset when you're feeling it -- and it can be your biggest enemy when you're struggling. Use Mackay's tips -- and the strategies in Write Great Resumes Faster (including Quick Reference Guides to action verbs, personality traits, profile descriptions, section headers, keywords and more)k0 -- to stay on track!

Do You Need Disability Insurance?

As a self-employed resume writer, disability insurance can be an important component in your financial security. There have been numerous resume writers who could have suffered health challenges that have kept them from writing resumes. There have been resume writers who have had strokes, fought cancer, and had heart attacks. Without disability insurance, your income may suffer.

In the event that you are injured or become ill and cannot work, disability insurance will give you peace of mind -- you will still able to provide for your family. (This is particularly important if you are your family's sole provider.) While we would like to think that we will always been in good health, accidents do happen and you need to be sure that you have every angle covered. If you become ill or injured -- and, as a result you are unable to return to work -- there are a couple of options that will replace lost income. These types of disability insurance are not going to fully replace your income because they want you to have an incentive for returning back to work once you get well.

Social Security benefits are paid to you when your disability is expected to last for at least 12 months. Most of the time this is when no gainful employment can occur and you must remain out of work for the entire duration of your leave. You can also purchase private disability insurance.

When you are looking at disability insurance policies, it is important to understand what they mean. While the two available policies are both for disability, they both cover a different amount of time you will be covered, and when you will start receiving your compensation.

A short-term disability policy means that you will be covered for no longer than two years. With this policy, you may have to wait up to 14 days before you start receiving compensation. A long-term disability policy is a little different. The disability compensation will not kick in for several weeks, sometimes a couple of months. However, long-term disability will cover you for a longer period of time -- sometimes for the rest of your life.

Along with having the two different types of insurance policies, there are also two different protection features. Protection is offered to you to ensure that you are not going to be treated unfairly due to your inability to work. Non-cancelable means that unless you don't pay your premiums, your policy can't be canceled. With this type of policy you will lock in your premium and will not risk a decrease in the benefits. On the other hand, a guaranteed renewable policy means that the same benefits will be available every year. The only way that your premium will be increased is if every policyholder within the same rating class as yourself increases also.

While there are many options when choosing disability insurance as well, these are the most popular selections. It is important to discuss all available options when choosing a disability insurance policy to ensure that you know what you will receive in the event of an accident or illness. Research your options to find the best choice for you and your family.

New Twist for Job-Seeking Clients: Social Media Background Check

Every once in a while, I'd have a client who was having success getting interviews (even second interviews), but wasn't getting the job. After investigating to see if the problem was how he or she interviewed, sometimes it was clear that something was sabotaging the process between the interview and the offer ... and sometimes that was a bad reference.

Usually, the way we found out about this was to use a reference-checking service. The client would engage the firm, and the firm would call the client's references and pretend to be a prospective employer verifying information. 

The results were sometimes shocking -- the former boss who promised a great recommendation started out by praising my client, but made several backhanded comments that would put doubts in the mind of any prospective employer. Almost as bad were references who had promised to vouch for the candidate, but when asked, wouldn't give information beyond "name, rank, and serial number" (understandable if the company policy prohibited providing more than that information ... but telling the former employee one thing and then doing another isn't helpful...).

Now, our clients have to be concerned about social media background checks. Now, any resume writer worth his or her salt tells their clients "What happens on the Internet DOES NOT stay on the Internet" -- but every day on Facebook, I still see things that make me cringe. 

Even if you have your privacy settings locked down, the background checks will still find stuff... you're probably not as protected as you think you are.

For an introduction to the social media background check, read this article on Gizmodo. It's eye-opening stuff ... but with some good hints to pass along to our clients.

First of all, the author notes that these checks screen for just a handful of things: aggressive or violent acts or assertions, unlawful activity, discriminatory activity (for example, making racist statements), and sexually explicit activity.

But more importantly, he notes how candidates can minimize the digital dirt that is unearthed about them:

It only uses the data an employer gives it to run a search. This tends to be standard issue information from your resume. Your name, your university, your email address and physical location. Which means that, ultimately, you are the one supplying all the data for a background check. Because you are the one who supplies that data to your employer. And that means you should be smart about what kinds of contact information you put on your resume.

Great advice -- including the suggestion that most of us give to clients already -- to start a fresh e-mail address that they use for their job search only. Just another thing to think about when giving clients advice about online reputation management.