It should come as no surprise that tattoos have increased in popularity and become more mainstream in our culture. The question is, does it still have negative effects on our personal branding? In the United States, you’ll find more than 45 million Americans with at least one tattoo. As you decrease in age, the number of tattoos on your body rises with Gen Y accounting for the demographic with the most number of tattoos. With these permanent images of body art that set you apart and the stereotypes associated with them, are job applicants just setting themselves up for failure?

It’s hard to believe that winter is coming to an end already and that spring is here. As the year goes by, those of you who are recent graduates or re-entering the job market, might be frustrated with your job search and wondering what you can do to get closer to getting hired. While you prepare to clean out your closet this spring, it may also benefit you to think about how you can apply some organization and “spring cleaning” to your job hunt. We got our talent acquisitions specialists together and came up with a check list of items that might help you get hired, faster.

Writing a résumé is by no means an experience of magic. If you spend enough time crafting a professional résumé, and put a considerable amount of effort into it, your résumé will help you in securing a qualified position in your field. Below are some of the tips you should follow when writing a résumé:

• Don’t make it long as can be. A résumé is simple a way to secure an interview with an interested employer. There’s no need to list your whole life story. Limit it to one page.

• Put enough details in your résumé to help your employer understand your previous experience. Do not use short sentences, like ‘Reported Daily’. Instead, expand on each description to fully explain your previous roles. For example, ‘Tracked daily reporting to make sure all management data was precise and KPI’s were completed.

You've spent hours carefully tailoring your resume and cover letter to each position, sent out hundreds of applications, and have become yet another player in the painfully frustrating waiting game. It’s a hair-pulling, cliff-hanging experience that makes you second-guess your every move.

It also makes you want to throw your hands up in the air and shout to the high heavens, “What else can I possibly do!?”

There’s no doubt that one of the most frustrating aspects of the job search is waiting to hear back from an employer. Every career expert will tell you applying to jobs is a tough process that takes time, to which most of us reply with a sigh and secretly think, “Not me. I’ll be the exception to the rule.”

Since your main objective is scoring an interview, here are three tips to increase your chances of winning a return phone call.

If you’ve just graduated college or will be in the coming weeks, let me congratulate you. No matter what anyone says (ahem, Mr. Stephens), earning a degree is an achievement regardless of the degree or how long it took you to get it.

Most of us have been there. Took those hair-pulling philosophy exams and wrote those harrowing English papers, so we know the effort that goes into surviving college. Although you’re not exactly graduating into promising circumstances in this bleak job market, don’t let that stop you from moving forward. It’s no shock that many grads who come home jobless face tough challenges including bills, uncertain living situations, the job search, and what might be worst of all: self doubt.

As a jobless grad, you’re not alone and you’re not the only one who’s having an identity crisis after months or years of trying to find a job. So what do you do in this situation? For starters, you don’t sit home and watch Grey’s Anatomy reruns all day while eating peanut butter out of the jar. Here are some more productive uses of your time.

Whether you’re a college student or well into your career, hopefully you’ve recognized that social media outlets can enhance your chances of being a top-notch job candidate. Social recruiting is at an all-time high. In 2011, 89 percent of U.S. companies used social networks to recruit employees, up from 83 percent in 2010. No matter what industry you’re looking to work in, it’s clear your social footprint matters to future employers.

There are plenty of articles that discuss how social media can hurt your job search, but I’m more interested in discussing how you can use the powers of social media for good. We’re living in a digital age, which means every industry—from investment banking to entertainment—is using social media and looking to see how employees are using these sites, too.  Here are five ways to show you’re social media-savvy and a serious job candidate.

Winter break is the glorious time that we all look forward to a few short weeks after the semester begins. That vacation gets old really fast however. Why not get one step ahead of your peers and get a few more weeks of internship experience under your belt? An internship over winter break will help you develop your network and be productive while you are home from college.

Of all the social networks, LinkedIn is the most important when it comes to presenting yourself professionally to potential employers and recruiters. Although it may seem tedious and awkward at first, investing time and energy into your LinkedIn profile as you would a job application, helps build your online presence among 175 million job seekers and professionals.  With recent changes in August, the social networking platform places more emphasis on the person than it ever has.  The profile picture is bigger, recommendations correlate to skills and the installation of a contact button takes engagement beyond the profile. Read below for tips on how to optimize your profile for the job search.

I get it, personal social networking profiles should be places where you can share personal information, express yourself and be social with your friends and family. Unfortunately, thanks to the accessibility provided by the Internet, what was once private and personal is now public information. As a job candidate, over 80% of employers will search your name and look at your social profiles.  47% of recruiters react negatively to pictures that include alcohol and 54% see misspelling and poor grammar as a deal breaker. These are just some of the things that should be top of mind when posting to Twitter and Facebook. Below is a checklist to make sure that your nights out don’t reflect badly on your personal brand.