Here’s something that seems like a very plain vanilla job search trick, but it’s pretty useful if you don’t know how to do it.

When we print resumes on heavy resume paper for our clients, we will very often print on both sides of the paper. Thus, a 2-page resume can sit on one sheet of paper, front and back.

This weekend, I had a client ask if we used any sort of fancy printer to do it. She wanted to know if she could do this herself going forward. I said no. In fact, we use a very basic HP laser printer to do our printing, and I figure that a lot of modern printers can do what we do. So, if your printer is, say, less than 5 years old, you can print your resume on both sides of the paper as well.

Here’s how to do it:

How To Print Your Resume On Both Sides Of The Paper

Check and see if your printer handles “duplex printing.”

What is duplex printing? It’s the fancy term for… you guessed it… printing on both sides of the paper. If you have this feature, then the process is pretty straight forward and automated.

First, go to print. I’ll be assuming you’re using Microsoft Word.

Select print, but not “quick print.”

Next, you’re going to want to hit the Properties button.

Finally, you’re going to hit the Printing Shortcuts tab, and select Eco-print (Two-sided Printing)

And that’s it. Now when you hit OK to print, it will automatically print first on one side of the paper… then suck it back in and print on the other side.

By the way, you can click on any of the pictures above to enlarge them.

But What If My Printer Doesn’t Have Duplex Printing?

This is not a problem. Why? Because if you think about it, you can manually force any printer to print on both sides of the paper.

Simply print one page.

Then, take that page and manually feed it back into the printer, but being sure to turn it over. Now, print page 2. It should come out on the other side of the page you’ve just printed.

You might have to experiment a few times to get this right, as some printers feed upside down, head to foot, etc.

But if you just experiment a little with manually feeding the paper, absolutely any printer can print on both sides of the paper.

Simple tip, I know. But might be useful to some.

Related posts:

1. Resume Paper – What Paper Should I Print My Resume On?
2. Office Hack: Confidential Network Printing
3. How To Bind Paper Without Staples Or Clips

Apropos of our recent discussions of Twitter and it’s usefulness in the job search, it’s important to remember that, as with Facebook, you have to watch what you say.

Read the following cautionary tale from I’m Not Actually A Geek:

A lucky job applicant tweeted the following:

Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.

This tweet caught the attention of Tim Levad, a channel partner advocate for Cisco. To which he responded:

Who is the hiring manager. I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web.

Might be a good idea to not immediately share your post-interview impressions on teh Twitter.

Unless of course, they’re extremely, extremely positive. Then it could be helpful… they don’t know that you know that they’re watching you. They think, “That guy was so jazzed to work for us, he twittered all his friends.”

Then again… maybe they wouldn’t like you sharing their private business practices or interview practices with the world.

Sigh… modern gadgetry… why must every useful new tool also have a minefield of potential pitfalls?

Related posts:

1. 6 Signs The Job Interview Went Well
2. Our First Twitter Job Search Experiment Tweet
3. Train Yourself To Ace The Interview By Going On Trial Run Interviews

If, like me, you were around in the dot com wild west days, the thing you coveted more than anything else (more than yoga classes or free lunches) was the Herman Miller Aeron chair. It’s pretty much gone down in history as the greatest office chair eva!

But now Gizmodo alerts us to a new challenger to the throne.

Behold, the Embody! Click through for more and bigger pictures.

This thing is $1600. Is it worth it? The Gizmodo crew thinks so.

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The invention of the cell phone gave job seekers one of their most powerful tools. You might do your search and application process over computers and emails, but the cell phone is your primary weapon when it comes to the interviewing stage.

Wielding this weapon in the right way can be very important to your overall job search success.

Here are a few key points to keep in mind when job searching via cell phone:

• I like the cell phone for the simple reason that it gives you immediacy. Immediate feedback and immediate response. You know right away when interview offers come in. And you can follow up right away… even while you’re in the middle of running a marathon, according to the picture (not recommended). If you use your home phone, at best you have to call in to your voicemail. At worst you have to go home, get the message, and at that point it’s probably past business hours, so you can’t respond in a timely manner.
• You NEVER want to job search on your work cell. Personal cell only.
• One cell phone. One number. One number for them to call and reach you reliably, and one number that will show up on their caller id when you respond. No confusion that way. And all of your job-search related voicemails are in one place.
• My favorite thing about the cell phone: you can follow up right away, but you don’t have to take every call blindly. Some people might not agree with this, but I say, let the call go to voicemail. This way you can see who called and what their business is. Is your schedule open for the interview time they offered? What are they offering? Is it worth it? Going to voicemail gives you a quick chance to think things over. And then there’s this… WHO is that that called again? If you’re managing a big job search, you have time to do a quick google search or re-read the original job post you applied to. Bone up a bit before you call back so you know what you’re talking about.
• You probably don’t want to follow up to, or manage interview requests while at work. No prob. Step outside. Do it on your lunchbreak. They can make the offer and you can respond in the same hour. No trying to juggle or hide messages from your boss. And keeping your cell phone on your desk all day set on vibrate is a good and private way to see what offers are incoming.
• Having said that, try to call back from an indoor, or at least a quiet location. Just simple courtesy.

Related posts:

1. Back Up Your Cell Phone Numbers
2. 10 Reasons to Hate Cell Phone Carriers
3. Best Job Search Tip In Months: Your Voicemail As A Supplementary Resume!

I’m usually hard on Microsoft on this blog. But nerdy tech circles today are abuzz at the announcement of Live Mesh from Microsoft. Think of Live Mesh as one ring to sync them all, every device and every file… provided you use Windows.

Apparently, this whole system is not quite ready for immediate use, but if things pan out like promised, this would obviously be a hugely helpful thing for the modern office worker. It might actually go a long way to make the Windows environment more useful.

A lot of the discussion around this announcement is confusing, so I’m going to crib from an easy-to-understand rundown from the techblog Mashable.

What – Live Mesh is a service that lets you synchronize your settings, files, feeds and applications on several computers.

What’s the big deal – there are already ways to synchronize stuff on the net. Foxmarks is a good example: you install it in Firefox on several computers, and your bookmarks sync seamlessly. Live Mesh, however, is a single platform that will make it easier for 3rd party app developers to do this. If Microsoft does this right, you’ll get used to using the Live Mesh for syncing all your devices, files as well as most or all of your applications.

Is this like a WebOS (Webdesktop, Webtop?) – yes, although everyone seems to be avoiding the term, this is a lot like all those WebOS apps you’ve seen. You get a virtual desktop with 5GB of storage and you can access it from anywhere. It’s integrated with Windows’ Remote Desktop, so it’s really simple to set up.

How will it look and feel in practice (we’re talking about the future here) – Let’s say that you and three other coworkers have a shared Mesh desktop. You fire it up, check out the log to see who changed what. Great, Mike added the graphics you needed. You add some notes to the graphics and drop them into the Mesh, but you share it only with your devices; they’re not ready to be seen by everyone just yet. On the way to work, you want to start some downloads on your computer at work, so you remotely connect to it through your iPhone. The rest of the trip you read your feeds; the ones you read at home are marked read so you can just keep reading where you left of.

To put it really simple: the promise of the Mesh is that you won’t have to care where you are or which device you’re using – your data will always be there. You’ll only have to care about which data you want to share with whom.

Which devices – Right now, we’re talking only about Windows XP and Vista computers; in the future, it will work with Mac, mobiles, etc.

Related posts:

1. Fighting Back Against Windows
2. This Time, Don’t Ignore The Windows Update Thingy
3. Abandoning Microsoft Word

Here’s a real MacGyver office hack for you.

Ever find yourself without a paper clip or stapler handy, but need to quickly and firmly keep a bunch of papers together?

This step-by-step tutorial will show you how to use an origami technique to keep all your papers fastened.

Of course, this technique does require the use of a scissors… and if you don’t have a stapler or paper clips handy, then you probably don’t have your scissors in reach either.

Whatever. It looks neat.

(h/t Lifehacker)

Related posts:

1. How To Print On Both Sides Of The Paper
2. Resume Paper – What Paper Should I Print My Resume On?
3. Don’t Steal A Person’s Stapler

Last week, Lifehacker wrapped up their annual coolest cubicle contest.

The workspace pictured to the left is not the winner of that contest, but this is the workspace I want.

This guy rigged up his workspace atop a treadmill.

Another guy did a similar thing.

The thing about this setup, is you don’t have to set it to run very fast to have an impact.

That picture below is little old me walking 1 mile per hour while blogging…at my desk. I’m there from 8:30am t 12:30pm, five day a week now. And, here’s the amazing thing…It doesn’t even feel like exercise! One mile per hour is the equivalent of a very slow walk. It’s slower than the pace I usually follow whenever I am on the phone (I have to move when I talk or feel like I’m gonna die). You don’t really get tired, you don’t sweat and, at my weight… By lunchtime, I’ve already burned around 600 friggin’ calories!

Related posts:

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2. A Clean Cubicle Is A Healthy Cubicle
3. Mothra Stewart- Spruce Up Your Bland Cubicle

No, this isn’t a career advice article. This is another post from the I-learn-you-learn department.

WebWorkerDaily turned me on to Where’sMyCellPhone. What does it do? Just that. And only that. Helps you find your cell phone.

You go to the site, input your cell number and the service rings your phone.

Why is this useful? Well, if you’re like me and you’re misplacing your cell phone all the time, the first thing you think to do is ring up the phone so the ring tone will lead you to the right pile of dirty clothes your phone is hiding under.

And if you’re like me, you don’t have a landline anymore. So, if you lose your phone and you’re all alone in your house… well, you can’t very well call someone up and have them ring the phone for you can you?

Related posts:

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2. Cell Phone Zen For Job Search Success
3. Back Up Your Cell Phone Numbers

From the department of How Come No One Has Ever Thought About This Before.

Just for storing pens alone, this is genius. It’s like those new trashbags with an elastic top so the bags stay in the trash can. This could change my life.

I hereby demand that all keyboard manufacturers include a storage box underneath all keyboards.

Full details at Gizmodo.

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3. Ultra-Eraser… Dry Board Eraser 2.0

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Richard Rinyai of TheProfessionalAssistant.net.

Do you have confidential documents that you need to send to your network printer? Do you not want to run back and forth between your desk and the printer to make sure that no one can see what you are printing?

Ok, the last sentence sounds like you are doing something wrong at work (and you may be, which is obviously not a good thing), but you might be trying to print something that has sensitive information.

There are times where managers ask me to print documents that have to be kept private either for a period of time or completely. Since I am at one end of the office (other staff members call this area “oblivion”) and the printer is on the other end, it makes it difficult for me to run back and forth.

Most printers nowadays come with a simple function called the “Hold and Print” function. This allows you to print a document or several documents and asks you to enter a 4-digit PIN on your computer. Once you get a chance to go to the printer and want to release the one or several print jobs, you are asked to enter your pin for each job.

The printer would usually specify the login ID and then enter your PIN. For example, mine would be my employee number. This way, I can only access my own print jobs and cannot unlock other staff members’ documents.

Unfortunately, I can’t provide details of how this is done, since each printer’s functions are different. However, if you click File, Print and then click on Properties, you should be able to find this type of function, provided that your printer has it built in. If you’re not sure how this works, check with your IT department. This will help you and your staff members become more productive.

Related posts:

1. How To Print On Both Sides Of The Paper
2. FedEx Office To Offer Free Resume Printing On March 10th
3. Office Pranks- Freeze Someone’s Computer