Book shares tips on how to prepare for a job interview

Can I Wear My Nose Ring to the Interview? The Crash Course: Finding, Landing, and Keeping Your First Real Job

By Ellen Gordon Reeves, Workman Publishing Co., 277 pgs., $13.95

She was late, but I was willing to give the 20-something job applicant some leeway, given the horrendous Washington traffic.

Maybe something happened to her. As time passed, I finally called her. She answered with a text message and then left a rambling voice mail explaining why she didn't show up for the interview.

She never apologized.

She just left a trail of electronic excuses.

I was hotter than the asphalt on a Deep South highway.

I should have sent the young woman the Color of Money Book Club pick for May, "Can I Wear My Nose Ring to the Interview? The Crash Course: Finding, Landing, and Keeping Your First Real Job" (Workman Publishing Co., $13.95), by Ellen Gordon Reeves, a résumé expert at the Columbia Publishing Course in New York.

So here we are just a few weeks from graduation ceremonies across the country. Although companies are hiring a bit more this year, it's still a tough market, according to CareerBuilder's annual job forecast.

I wonder how many of the graduates will make careless and thoughtless mistakes trying to find their first full-time job.

It's downright shocking the blunders many applicants make when looking for work. They should know better. The young woman I was scheduled to interview should have known better.

One would think that after several years in college, people would have been taught how to prepare a résumé and cover letter, what to do for an interview (like show up), what not to do during an interview, what to wear, what to say or not say.