Author Archives: Rusty Rueff

About Rusty Rueff

Rusty Rueff, author of purposed worKING. Rusty Rueff is the former Chairman Emeritus of The GRAMMY Foundation in Los Angeles. He most recently completed the successful 16 month leadership role as Coordinating National Co-Chair for Technology for Obama (T4O) for the reelection of President Obama and ten-years of Board service and President of the Board of Trustees of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Corporately, most recently Rueff was the Chief Executive Officer at SNOCAP, Inc. until the acquisition of the company by imeem, Inc. in April 2008. Before joining SNOCAP in 2005, he was Executive Vice President of Human Resources at Electronic Arts (EA) from 1998 until 2005. He was also with the PepsiCo companies for more than ten years, with the Pratt & Whitney division of United Technologies for two years, and in commercial radio as an on-air personality for six years. Rusty holds an M.S. in counseling and a B.A. in radio and television from Purdue University. In 2003 he was named a distinguished Purdue alumnus, and he and his wife, Patti, are the named benefactors of Purdue’s Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts. He is a corporate director of Glassdoor.com and runcoach. He is the co-founder and Executive Committee Member of T4A.org, serves on the Founding Circle of The Centrist Project and a founding Board Member of The GRAMMY Music Education Coalition. He is also the co-author of the book Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business. Rusty and his wife, Patti, reside in Hillsborough, CA and Charlestown, R.I.

day 206; Proofreading

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I happened to hear up a radio piece yesterday about the importance of proofreading. And how important this is, especially for those who are looking for a job and submitting a resume and a cover letter to a prospective employer. I am out on the limb here a bit with talking about this subject because I know that my Purposed worKING blog is littered with typos and grammatical errors and I certainly wouldn’t want to get a comment back about why am I trying to remove the splinter in someone else’s eye when I have a board in my own? That said, I was struck by what I heard about the frequency of errors and typos that people leave in resumes and cover letters. I have also seen those over my career but in this day and age, when trying to find a job is so hard and critical, I would like to think that there is an extra amount of caution and attention being put on removing the simple issues, like typos. As I was listening to the story I also heard an interesting way of proofreading your work before you make a submission. The reporter said, try standing up and reading your work out loud to find the typos. That’s a great suggestion and I can see why it works. We (I) stare at a screen all day and no matter how many times I look at what I have written I seem to jump over a mistake as if my mind is moving too fast or mentally I just can’t see the error. Whatever it takes to catch an error before others see it, especially in this employment market to find the next job, or any job, I would suggest that we try. We all make mistakes, and I am no exception, but prospective employers and current employers are not the only one doing proofreading to be sure that we are not making the same mistakes over and over. God is watching over each of us with the high expectations that we will lean into his love and learning and follow Him with all of our heart to be a living example in our jobs of the life that Jesus would have lived, if He was in the same position as us. Of course, that is not easy and it is an objective that we must stretch ourselves to meet. But, it is what we are to do. In James 3:13 we read; “If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with humility and wisdom”. What James is saying to us is “proofread your life, my friend”. Edit out the bad and replace it with the good with proof by living a Godly and honorable life with each good work being done in a way that does not bring attraction to ourselves but proves out that we can do what is expected of us in humility. And because we have double-checked and tripled-checked ourselves over the years we can gain wisdom to ensure that we are doing the right things; the things that God expects. Some time today you are going to have to proofread, spell-check, or grammar check a document. As you hit F7 think about how God wants us to also to check ourselves, continuously, to ensure that we are living the life that He desires, and expects from us. It’s never to late to edit, delete, and white-out, the sins and flaws that are within us. Isn’t it great to have a God that lets us err and edit and delete so that we don’t have to carry those mistakes going forward? Let’s all do a life F7 today and see what we come up with?

Reference: James 3:13 (New Living Testament)