By Darcy Pope

Hi everyone! So who thinks that businesses are a place of all work and no play? Well, that’s a bunch of nonsense! There are several big businesses that play April Fools pranks on their customers on this very special day of the year.

Google is infamous for their hilarious pranks. Here are just a few personal favorites: one year they created a video for a fake job posting for a ‘Google Autocompleter’ where, at first, was border-line believable and then became hilariously over the top. They created a video saying they made a Google Maps 8-bit form for the NES (users could actually go to the website and check it out). Last year they created a Google Map Treasure Map to find the notorious Captain Kidd’s long lost treasure, and they also created a video saying they made Gmail Motion where your email actions could be controlled by body movements through your webcam.

Obviously, there are several more but those are some of the funniest (in my opinion, Google the rest and see what other schemes they’ve done). Google isn’t the only company that has a sense of humor though. Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Mobile, said one year his company bought the ex-planet Pluto with hopes to once again make it a planet and use a space vehicle to increase its planetary mass. So on April 1^st go to Google.com to see what prank they’ve concocted and check out the news for any other business pranksters!

Have you ever wondered how to create a resume without your potential employer thinking it’s a joke? Well, here are some great tips for building a great resume where, not only will you be taken seriously but, you can show off what skills and credentials you can bring into that position.

1) Stick to ONE page. It’s been reported that some employers only take 10 seconds to look over a resume. If it’s too long or cluttered, you have a chance of being thrown into the recycle bin.

2) Make sure your social media presence isn’t showing you in a bad light. AKA putting those statuses of how lazy you are, or how much you hate your coworkers probably aren’t the best things to post. This is 2014 after all and many companies look to social media websites to look at the real person they’re hiring.

3) Put a link to your LinkedIn account under your contact information. LinkedIn is a great social networking for professionals. This also allows future employers to look at skills and experience you may have that you’ve omitted from your resume to meet requirement number one.

4) Customize your resume to the job you’re applying to. Don’t just list general skills such as “excels at teamwork,” or “great at multi-tasking” (unless the job specifically says that in the requirements). Re-read the job posting several times to see what this employer is looking for in a candidate.

5) Spelling, Grammar, and Keywords are important! If you submit a resume that is filled with spelling and grammar mistakes and insignificant words the employer is going to think that you don’t even care enough to hit the spell check button!

That’s all for this issue! Thank you for reading!