Tag Archives: resumes

5 habits to break during the job search

5 Replies

If there were one habit I’d like to break, it would be drinking coffee in the morning, on the way to work, and when taking my kids to their events in the evenings; the family joke when we get in the car is, “Dad, do you have your coffee?” I’ve had this habit for so long that I can’t imagine a day without coffee.

Habits are hard to break. Taking steps to correct them take small victories, which eventually lead to winning the battle. Just as there are habits in life, there are also habits that develop in the job search. Here are five habits you as a jobseeker must break.

  1. Believing that a résumé is enough to land an interview. It’s not hard to understand why this habit is one tough cookie to crack. The message that your résumé is enough is prevalent in the job search, where misguided job experts say the first thing you need to do is write or update your résumé. And once you’ve accomplished this, a job is bound to come around.
  2. Shotgunning résumés. How you’ve been taught to deliver your résumé is old school. I’ve heard some jobseekers say with pride that they send out five résumés a day. This means two things: one, they aren’t tailoring their résumés to individual companies and two, they’re not leaving their computers and making contact. A few well-placed résumés are better than hundreds of unfocused résumés to no one in particular.
  3. Shyness. Another habit that’s hard to break for some jobseekers is following their shy self. Your shy self tells you “Don’t tell people you’re looking for a job, even your staunch supporters like your family and friends….Don’t network with other jobseekers or business people….Don’t ask your former supervisors and managers for a written recommendation for LinkedIn.” Your shy self has been with you while you’ve worked, so it’s hard to shake off.
  4. Using the Internet for the wrong reasons. This habit might be the hardest one to break: using the Internet for online shopping, playing Farm Land and Mafia Wars, Googling for the best deal on a vacation spot; essentially using the Internet for the wrong reasons now in your life. It’s a bad sign when I ask jobseekers if they’re using LinkedIn and even Twitter and Facebook for their job search, and they give me a deer-in-the-headlights look.
  5. Stopping a good thing once you’ve gotten a job: A story I like to tell about a former jobseeker is how when he started using LinkedIn, he wasn’t a true believer. Then he got a job and his activity picked up three-fold. I asked him if he was in the job hunt again. To this he replied that one should never stop networking, especially when one’s working. Some people tend to think all networking should cease while they’re working; they become complacent. Don’t fall into this trap.

Habits, like drinking coffee night and day, are difficult to conquer but not impossible. Once you turn your habits into productive ones, you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment and your job search will be more successful.

10,000 hours dedicated to your job search may be too much, but the time you put in will make a difference

Leave a reply

If you think Bill Gates and the Beatles were successful because of their innate talent alone, Malcolm Gladwell offers another reason for their success, which he outlines in his book Outliers. Outliers are people who separate themselves from the “ordinary” because of their success, which is due in part because of the 10,000-hour rule. This rule asserts that the time one spends on a certain activity can often predict his/her success.

Gates, for instance, was given the opportunity to practice on personal computers at a private secondary school he attended when personal computers arrived on the scene. This was before he attended, and dropped out of, Harvard and later developed Microsoft.

The Beatles were given the opportunity to play eight hours a day in Hamburg, Germany, when they started out. Gates and the Beatles were driven and talented individuals, of course, but having logged over 10,000 hours to perfect their art made a huge difference, according to Gladwell.

What Gladwell’s 10,000-hour theory has to do with the job search is similar to the amount of time you must put into your search. In other words, your success is proportional to the hours you dedicate to it. However, you can’t dive into your job search without having a plan of attack. Your plan has to demonstrate vision with results. Here are the five most important elements of your job search:

  1. Determining your work values and assessing your skills.
  2. Revising your résumé to fit today’s résumé.
  3. Networking with a purpose.
  4. Polishing your interview techniques, both traditional and behavioral.
  5. Maintaining that positive attitude.

I hope your job search doesn’t require 10,000 hours, or 1.2 years. Forty hours a week for six months (or 960 hours) is probably more than some of you would like to spend on your search. One of the points Gladwell makes in this “must-read” book is that success doesn’t come from only raw talent; it comes from practice and hard work. Read the Outliers. There are many other stories about how people became successful, including timing and their ethnicity.

Don’t overlook the value of One-Stop career center job search workshops

Leave a reply

The other day I was talking with a neighbor who has been out of work for over six months. He’s a project manager who worked at a medical equipment conglomerate for five years. I asked him how his job search was going. He told me great; he had sent out more than 10 resumes that day on a number of job boards. I cringed—in to the black hole they went.

Find a job

I encouraged him to come down to the One-Stop career center, for which I work, for help with his job search. “The Unemployment Office?” he asked. Obviously he hadn’t been to a career center, where unemployment insurance assistance is one of many services the career centers offer.

“No the career center. We can help you with your job search. We have workshops on all kinds of job-search topics….” I also wanted to tell him that he’d feel very comfortable at our career center. He’d fit in.

Adapting to a Rapidly Growing Professional Job Seeker Clientele

One common misconception of One-Stop career centers is that the only people who attend job search workshops are those who know little to nothing about seeking employment or are non-exempt workers. For a vast majority of people, nothing could be further from the truth.

Increasingly more job seekers who attend workshops are savvy job seekers who come from all types of occupations. Positions like marketing, engineering, sales, pharmaceutical development, document control, manufacturing management, as well as mechanics, construction workers, et cetera.

To better serve the more experienced job seekers, career centers have had to upgrade many of its services. Workshop Specialists (WS) are finding the challenge of serving experienced job seekers to be both exhilarating and mentally stimulating.

They’ve had to up their game and are meeting the challenge. The consequence of not enhancing their knowledge is letting savvy job seekers down and driving them away. Below are some of the more popular workshops that WS’s have developed.

LinkedIn: To answer the demand of the LinkedIn aficionados, many career centers are offering workshops on Intro to LinkedIn and Advanced LinkedIn. The latter workshop addresses the elements that make a LinkedIn profile appealing to employers who are enabling the Hidden Job Market by searching for passive or active job seekers via LinkedIn. Employers are increasingly foregoing the traditional search process and instead using LinkedIn and social media like Facebook and Twitter. Approximately 80% of employers are using LinkedIn.

Advanced Résumé Writing: This is another area of the job search where advanced job seekers expect more than the rudimentary theories on writing this important marketing piece. Many of them have received costly assistance from outplacement agencies and professional résumé writers, so they know the drill when it comes to writing an effective marketing piece. Advanced Résumé Writing workshop focus more on Strategy, Positioning, and Selling one’s skills and experience. Workshop Specialists stress results that are quantified and related to the jobs to which jobseekers apply.

The Interview Process: Advanced jobseekers need to know more about the interview process than simply the etiquette one has to demonstrate at an interview, e.g. steady eye contact, a firm handshake, and good body posture. The importance of researching the job and company comes to no surprise to them, but combining the power of LinkedIn and reading the company’s website for additional details of the job is some food for thought. (The more experienced job seekers have an advantage over the ones who haven’t looked for work in more than ten years.) Behavioral questions and how to prepare for them is often new even to advanced job seekers. Many of them haven’t experienced behavioral questions, and if they have they were often taken off guard.

Networking: There is a clear divide between the experienced and inexperienced job seekers in a career networking workshop. The advanced job seekers have been attending networking groups once or perhaps twice a week, so they’re familiar with organized networking technique. The focus on how networking enables one to penetrate the Hidden Job Market. It’s fascinating to see workshop attendeess’ faces when WS’s talk about today’s hiring process—that 80% of employers are hiring from within, not advertising the very best positions and entertaining only the savviest networkers.

Job Search Letters: Experienced job seekers know the importance of effective written communications, but in this workshop they’re reminded of how important it is to be proactive in one’s job search. WS’s talk about approach letters as a way to network. Cover letters are always sent with a résumé unless instructed otherwise. When asked how many send cover letters with résumés, most don’t raise their hand. Jobseekers are encouraged to go beyond the typical cover letter with the typical first sentence, and write a vivid tagline that grabs employers’ attention. Boring doesn’t win brownie points with employers—it’s simply boring. The thank you letter is the conclusion of the interview process.

The next time you see someone who is biding his time applying online for jobs, suggest that he visit a One-Stop career center; talk to a career counselor; look into training; and, of course, join as many workshops as possible. Jobseekers of all experience levels shouldn’t turn their nose up to One-Stop career centers that are making a great effort to accommodate the expanding number of experienced job seekers…and often succeeding.

Recruiters and staffing agencies say your soft skills are important too

4 Replies

Based on two recent blogs I read on LinkedIn Today (a great feature), recruiters and staffing agencies are not only concerned about job candidates’ hard skills; they’re also concerned about their soft skills. And this makes sense. Who would want to hire a dud who brings the operation down with his attitude? Jon Prete, “Who would you hire: Charlie or Ashton? It’s all about attitude!” and Jeff Haden, “The 5 Biggest Hiring Mistakes,” both emphasize the importance of hiring someone who will be a good fit.

This said, how should you prepare for the job search with this in mind? Here are five areas of your job search to focus on.

1)       Be the round peg for the round hole: “The outstanding salesman with the incredible track record of generating business and terrorizing admin and support staff won’t immediately play well in your sandbox just because you hired him,” writes Haden.

Let’s face it; if you’re difficult to work for, you have one strike against you already. Look at yourself long and hard and determine what areas in your personality you might improve. Also determine in which work environments you feel most comfortable. If you’re a demanding person with little tolerance, you might consider an atmosphere with other demanding people…where you can’t terrorize other people.

2)      Show it on paper: Many jobseekers say writing about their soft skills on their résumé and in their cover letter is irrelevant. This is bunk, especially with your cover letter. I don’t suggest that you use clichés like, “hard worker,” “team player,” “dynamic.” I suggest you illustrate these traits through your accomplishments. Show rather than tell.

A Manufacturing Manager who has a team-work approach and leadership skills might write: Consistently met production deadlines through collaboration with colleagues in various departments and providing effective leadership to (formerly) unmotivated subordinates. Result: Products were shipped to customers with a 97% return rate.

3)      Talk about your soft skills while you’re networking: “I hate bragging at networking events,” I’m constantly told. “Nobody wants to hear about my personal qualities.” Yes they do. If someone is going to recommend you to a solid contact, wouldn’t you like to be assured that she will tell him that you loved what you were doing; you were a positive influence on you co-workers? Demonstrate your enthusiasm while you’re networking, whether at events or on the sidelines of your daughter’s soccer game. Instead of saying, “I’m innovative”; say, “I came up with ideas that were often implemented and led to significant cost savings.”

4)      Of course demonstrating your soft skills at the interview is important: This goes without saying. Interviewers today are using behavioral questions to find the people with the right attitude. “If crafted properly,” states Prete, “behavioral questions can provide a glimpse into a candidate’s decision-making process as well as their values. [Leadership Development Advisor, Beth Armknecht Miller] believes that a great majority of employees fail in a company because their soft skills and values don’t match those of their manager and company.”

Unlike the résumé where you have limited space, the interview provides you the platform to tell your stories using the STAR (situation, task, action, result) formula. You may be asked about your ability to effectively discipline subordinates. “Tell me about a time when you were effective in disciplining an employee. How did this help the employee perform better?” Have a story ready.

5)      Seal the deal: The interview is not concluded until you’ve sent a follow-up letter, I tell my workshop attendees. This is another opportunity to emphasize your strong personality skills, making you a better fit for the position than other applicants. Many jobseekers fail to send a thank you note, and some don’t get the job for that reason.

A former customer recently wrote me, “The HR person really liked my hand-written thank-you note; said it was rare.” The message here is that you can stand out as a courteous, professional, and follow-through type of candidate simply by sending a thank-you note.

Jobseekers generally think that recruiters and staffing agencies care only about the technical skills. (After all, recruiters can’t present a zebra with orange stripes to their client when a zebra with black stripes is called for.) But two recruiters are telling you that employers want a great personality fit, as well. Take their advice and sell yourself as an all-around employee from the very beginning.

Think Before You Write!

4 Replies

How would you, as a recruiter or employer, react to a Professional Profile on a résumé that states: I’m a young man who has been out of work for 10 months, has little skills to offer, but really needs a job? After getting over the initial shock and wondering if this is a joke or a cry for help, I imagine you’d quickly dismiss the résumé.

I recently read part of a LinkedIn profile that displayed a blog entry which was not as obviously inappropriate; but it prompted me to immediately leave the user’s profile. The author of the blog entry spoke of being unable to get out of bed because of her despondency over being out of work. While this may have been true—and I am sensitive to the plight of the unemployed—LinkedIn is not the platform to express feelings such as these.

I’ve similarly read answers on LinkedIn’s Answers feature that left me wondering why the authors were so free with their opinions. Like the blog entry I’ve described, I’ve been dismayed by the audacity of some of the answers, and questions, I’ve read. It’s a known fact that employers who are seeking additional information on jobseekers will venture into a person’s answers. Some of the answers I’ve read would certainly turn me away as an employer.

Jobseekers aren’t the only ones who express negative sentiments on LinkedIn. Business owners and the gainfully employed are also guilty of spewing trashy statements that immediately cast them in a negative light. This group of LinkedIn users shares its negativity with impunity. Although their ill thought-out comments may not affect them now, the comments may come back to bite the employed in the arse.

Why do people expose their “inner soul” on LinkedIn? Perhaps it’s out of anger or depression or hopelessness. Maybe they don’t understand we’re all judged on everything we write—as I am being judged now. They may be self-absorbed and want for an audience that will listen to their complaints or unhappiness.

I believe that everyone deserves to be listened to, regardless of the nature of their message, but only in the proper forum. Most LinkedIn users feel that this highly regarded networking application is professional and self-policed by people who want to keep it this way.

I asked a question on the Answers feature regarding LinkedIn maintaining its professionalism, to which Traci Thompson, NRWA answered: “I rarely stumble across unprofessional content or users on LinkedIn. Overall, I’m extremely pleased with the system functionality and its ability to bring job seekers and employers together.”

Would you submit a résumé or cover letter that is full of self-pitying verbiage or dripping with anger? You wouldn’t think of it. Your online written statements are worthy of consideration, as well. 

Think before you write is my advice. Every part of your LinkedIn profile will be scrutinized from your Snapshot, Summary, History, Blog entries, and even the recommendations written for you. Jobseekers and the gainfully employed, be aware of what you write. You’re being judged.

I Need Your Advice

Leave a reply

A colleague and I mentioned awhile ago that it would be a cool idea if I started a blog for my organization, a blog about job search tips. I have one problem with this idea. Or maybe two. My first problem is that I can’t talk about my family who include my outrageously funny and insightful son; my middle child, a quiet yet personable daughter; and my eldest daughter, a smart and engaging character. I also can’t mention my beautiful and intelligent wife who keeps me on my toes and tells me to look for things, even though she knows where they are (see my blog, It’s an Employer Thing).

Why is this important to me, you may ask. Simply put, my family is everything to me, and I like to write. So combining these two values, it makes for some entertainment and, hopefully, some learning value to people who read my blog.

So instead, I’ll probably write about something mundane like 5 tips to creating a successful résumé. Now who says there are only 5 tips? There could be 7, or 10, or 50. This all depends on who you ask. Not for nothing, but I have been following a discussion on LinkedIn where one person says every résumé should be targeted, while others say targeting a résumé to each and every job will only cause confusion. The jobseeker instead, it’s argued, should write one résumé—or two at the most—and tweak it to fit the values and key words the employers require. So, how can there be 5 outstanding tips on how to write a successful résumé when two people can’t agree on the positioning of a résumé?

I might also write tips on how to create an effective LinkedIn profile. Already I see a problem with this. I hold dear the value of the Summary section on LinkedIn, believing that it should be written in first person with the personal pronoun “I.” But there’s also something to be said about writing the profile in third person, if…the person is accomplished, as in an author or actor or comedian. The other thing about a LinkedIn profile is that no one can come to an agreement as to what the most important component of the profile is.

  1. Is it the Snap Shot which includes one’s name and title? Think key words and stunning photo.
  2. Is it the Summary? You know my feelings on this.
  3. Is it the (Work) History?
  4. Is it the Specialties section, which is really part of the Summary?
  5. Is it the Honors and Awards section, or the Recommendations, Blog, Website, Reading List…?

I’d write about Career Networking, of course. On this topic I’ve come to the conclusion that networking is a lot easier than people say it is. You’re told to get out to networking events and shake hands with folks, look them in the eyes, collect business cards, deliver your personal commercial, be sure not to spill your drink, etc. I see it differently. I think networking is a natural progression that is done best in informal settings. In fact, the majority of job opportunities are gained through acquaintances. I think people are far too uptight about networking than they should be.

Salary negotiation would be another topic on which I’d write. I honestly believe that all the advice in the world gets thrown out the window when push comes to shove. We’re supposed to avoid the issue as best we can by first deflecting the discussion altogether, then asking the employer what her salary range is, then telling the employer what our range is, and finally stating an exact figure. Most people I’ve spoken to have gone directly to stage 4. Another thing about networking is that the goal for the jobseeker is not to “beat up” the employer, as one would a car salesman; rather it’s to come to a “win-win situation” where the deal is only sealed if both parties are happy. This, to me is the major theme.

I couldn’t forget interview techniques. Now how do I break this down? Do I talk first about traditional interviews, followed by behavioral interviews? The two are very different but are usually combined. I run a workshop called the Complete Interview Process, which combines the two types of interviews for this very reason. What great folly it would be to draw an analogy between interviewing and interrogating one of my kids, only to end by saying, “Hey, it’s really not that bad, Mr. jobseeker.”

I suppose my second problem with writing a blog for my organization is that I’m way too literal in my views. In MBTI speak, I’m what’s called a Sensor—yes, I know, there are only Introverts and Extraverts—which means I see things as black and white. So, if there are a number of outstanding tips for writing a résumé, there has to be a specific number. Five, 10, 15, 20, 23, 33, 44, 55….There are different opinions on every aspect of the job search, I realize this; but I like things nice and neat. LinkedIn, Career Networking, Salary Negotiation: they’re all very complex, messy topics that can’t be covered in one sitting. As far as I can see, no one agrees 100% on any of this, and in my world, this concerns me.

I know that as I look at my bobblehead collection Dwight Schrute is the man, not Michael Scott, Jim, Pam, Creed, or Andy. You may disagree. I guess I’ll just have to bite the bullet and tell it how I feel the career search should be conducted. But it would be really cool if I could draw comparisons between The Office and Things Career Related.