Job Search Book Cuts Clutter

HOW old are you? Where were you born? How tall are you? Do you own your own home?

These are just some of the questions that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission forbids potential employers to ask job inter- viewees. And author Jeffrey Mayer counsels interviewees against offering such details.

"Many people volunteer information unwittingly that disqualifies them from a job," he says in a telephone interview.

What about resumes that say "married, two children" and include a photo? "Once again, you're setting yourself up to be discriminated against," Mr. Mayer says.

Mayer is a Chicago-based time management consultant for executives and author of "If You Haven't Got The Time To Do It Right, When Will You Find The Time To Do It Over?" which he says has sold nearly 200,000 copies.

Now he is back with "Find The Job You've Always Wanted in Half The Time With Half The Effort."

The book is oriented toward college-educated people wanting to land in a corporate environment. The topic is timely, considering the number of laid-off workers and new graduates looking for a niche in the recovering United States economy.

But how does Mayer's book improve on "What Color Is My Parachute?" and other classics of the employment search genre? For one thing, he says, "What Color Is My Parachute?" is now more than 400-pages long. "You can read my book in an hour." But then, even the unemployed will have their hands full executing his minutely detailed, military campaign-style job search.

Mayer recommends cutting the clutter from resumes so the busy executives he consults for can focus on the essentials. More imporant: Resumes should not even go in the mail until the jobhunter has telephoned the company to qualify it as a serious job prospect.

The more a jobhunter is willing to risk "live" rejection on the telephone, Mayer says, the sooner he will land that elusive desk job.