Without further adieu, here’s what you missed in the news last week:

Even for summer jobs, teens should craft a resume (Washington Post)

Job interviewers are ‘like’-minded (The Kansas City Star)

Resume followup key to landing new position (AZCentral.com)

Job titles should tell people what you really do on the job (Democrat & Chronicle)

The Why-Worry Generation (The New York Times)

• Teachers Facing Weakest Market in Years (The New York Times)
• Class of 2010 Grads Join Tough Job Market (CBS News)
• Resumania: Send the resume; hold the head shot (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
• Wooing Job Recruiters With Video Résumés (Wall Street Journal)
• ‘Hired’: MTV adds to its impressive resume (The Washington Post)

Video resumes? For real? I’m not so sure what to make of that. What do you all think?

If you don’t know about Michelle or her business, Mockingbird Creative, check her out. She does awesome work and is in high demand.

So take a look around. I’ve included an area highlighting recent work and also information on all my services and packages. There’s also a FAQ section and a little bit about lil’ ole me. This is my first day live, so please comment here if you see anything out of sorts.

Things are moving along swimmingly here at Ad Astra. I’m finishing up one press release this week, and I’m about to embark on the second issue of Halftime Report next week. Halftime Report will definitely get some more tweaking this next issue as I try to really give it the look of a sports magazine.

Something I’ve been grappling with lately deserves a whole ‘nother post: ATS parsing issues. One of my clients uses The Ladders and he showed me how the resume I recently completed for him was parsed by the site’s software. Wowie. Not pretty. It wasn’t awful, but things just looked a little… hinky. Anyway, I’ll write more on that later, because I think a lot of people will benefit from what I discovered.

This blog will be a little bit of everything. I’ll give you insight on my business with some behind-the-scenes details. I’ll give you some tips along the way as well. And I hope to share some success stories with you as well. Because, really, what this all boils down to is helping people improve their careers and small businesses.

1) I got yet another paying client today. He’s ex-military and is about to graduate with a bachelor’s in molecular bioscience. He’s ready to take the next step and I’m happy to help.

2) I’m planning my our office, which means a roadtrip to Dallas is in my near future. Why Dallas? Because The Big D is the home to the nearest IKEA. Luckily I have a few awesome friends in the Metroplex so the trip won’t just be for business.

Usually I’m more of a transitional gal when it comes to furnishings. But NOT when it comes to office spaces. I imagine clean lines, lots of white to contrast with my green walls and a functional workstation that can accommodate both solo and team projects. And I want it cheap. That’s where the Swedish superstore comes in:

Office by Michelle Malashock on Polyvore.com

3) Slowly but surely the details are sorting themselves out, too. Starting a business isn’t all about promoting yourself on Facebook and picking out office furniture. I finally bought myself the full versions of Microsoft Office and conquered QuickBooks. My domain name has been purchased, my debit card has arrived and just today I got my latest biz-related package:

Yay! Business cards! I got 50 of these bad boys for $1 from Overnight Prints with a coupon.

And now I have this blog up and running. Shortly my fabulous friend over at Mockingbird Creative will get to work on my site (that is, once I have a spare second to firm up my Web copy and shoot her an e-mail). I wanted a space to record my thoughts though until then. So look for posts on the upstart Ad Astra here as well as posts on resume and writing tips. Thanks for joining me on this ride.

Oh, by the way, I’ll be on vacation beginning tomorrow morning through Sunday. Which really means nothing for you guys, because I’ll be in the Beltway with laptop in tow and iPhone in pocket.