I’m Paul Freiberger. I’ve been a cook, a house painter, a teacher, a newspaper reporter, a magazine editor, a technology product manager, a night porter, a project manager, and a consultant. And my career is still in development. I am also a best-selling writer and the author of the book When Can You Start? How to Ace the Interview and Land the Job. It’s all about the all-important job interview and how you can nail it as you have never done before.

I understand the frustration and challenges that every job applicant has faced—and from my own experience and by helping hundreds of others, I know how to overcome them. I have achieved the goal that many of us in a fast-paced global economy share: to transition through several successful careers and work at the peak of a number of competitive fields.

I also coauthored  Fuzzy Logic: The Discovery of a Revolutionary Computer Technology, (with Daniel McNeill), which won the LA Times Book Award. And I am the coauthor (with Michael Swaine) of the first book to document the history of the PC field, Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer, which was made into the Hollywood movie Pirates of Silicon Valley, which received 5 Emmy nominations.

As a journalist, I produced reports for NPR programs such as All Things Considered and Morning Edition. I was also a columnist for the San Jose Mercury News and a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner. I was a senior editor at InfoWorld.

I then spent almost a decade in the field of technology research, recruiting, hiring, and managing staff at Interval Research, the think tank and lab created by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

As West Coast head of corporate communications, I went on to counsel directors and partners of the prestigious global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

During this time at McKinsey, colleagues and friends increasingly began calling on me for advice about how to advance in their careers. They were looking for the secret sauce.

That was how I discovered the satisfaction in sharing what I had learned and giving other people the tools to ace the interview and win the job. Seven years ago I set up Shimmering Resumes, a firm that has helped thousands of job seekers craft the ideal resume, prepare for job interviews, and set their career on a whole new trajectory. And I founded Career Upshift Productions, a specialist media and publishing company that brings the very best in career advice to a global audience.

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area with my wife and children, two dogs, a miniature apple orchard, a miniature vegetable garden, and a miniature lemon grove. I am happy that you stopped by this website and I hope you enjoy my latest book, When Can You Start?