7 Steps to Managing your Job Search in today’s Job Market

Posted by jobspeaker in Job Market on November 12, 2009

The first in our 10-part series of posts focused on how to efficiently and effectively manage your job search in today’s job market. We have explored this topic before but realize that we need to go into much more depth, so we’ll start with a refresher and then take it from there.

You may think you already know how to conduct a job search, or perhaps you are now one of those people who either hasn’t gone through a job search before or who hasn’t had to do it in a long time. In any case, we think the suggestions we have included here (and throughout the remainder of our series) will help you navigate the job market today. We are here to help. Compiled from a variety of sources this is our advice for the steps that you need to consider and manage to find your next role.

1. Define your Goal

Without a goal you are like a rudderless ship moving in the ocean (the job market) without a particular port (role) in mind. Ideally your next role should fit into your 5-10 year plan that you have mapped out for your career. Even in these tough economic times, it’s good to keep your eyes on the prize while also keeping yourself open to new and interesting opportunities.

2. What is your Job Search Strategy?

Perhaps you know the one person that can get you the perfect job – then your strategy is clear. However, for most people, the strategy(s) are not that clear so you need to pick the most effective strategies that align with your abilities, your environment/locale and your goals. In today’s market, we advise leaning more towards establishing more personal relationships; and so exploring local offline networking events centered around your industry or competency would be worth considering. Similarly, deploying a strategy to find a contact at a prospective company before sending in a resume so that you can get a warm introduction to the hiring manager is a necessary tactic today.

3. What companies should you Target?

What are the companies you’d like to work at most? And which have the most chance of needing your skill set? Some people forget the second part – it seems obvious, but with the job market today looking outside your core skills is going to be difficult. Also, make sure you would actually enjoy working there – it would be terrible to get hired and then realize that the company’s work environment/culture does not meet your expectation. So, get to know them better from a distance – research the people, the salaries (Salary.com), what schools they attended, where did they work before, etc., to get a better understanding of who they are and what they might look for in a candidate. Once you’ve made this assessment, you are in a better position to make a decision whether or not you’d like to work there.

4. The Art of the Approach

So you know what you are looking for, you know how you’d like to go about it and you know where you’d like to work. It’s time to increase your odds of actually getting that job by trying to get a warm introduction to that company – this way at least someone will look at your resume.

Today there are so many ways to find out who you know online. LinkedIn seems to be the most useful today but you should not forget friends, or friends of friends, on Facebook, Twitter or other social networks. But please don’t forget offline contacts as well (e.g. your soccer buddies, other parents at the PTA, your school alumni association or your church). Personal introductions through long-standing relationships are better.

5. First Contact

You’ve made contact with the company and are now speaking with a hiring manager. It’s now your job to convince the prospective boss that you are the best person for this job (even if this position is only a backup – there a lots of people in fallback jobs at the moment, just waiting for the market to pick up).

6. Interview

Be prepared! There is no better advice than this one – know the company and preferably the people you are meeting. Know the area that you are interviewing in, use Hoovers, Google News to find out about the company, people, department and position that you are interviewing for. Other resources like Vault can even tell you a little about the interviewing process. When you know more about the interview process, the interviewers and the company, you can speak more to your strengths that are required for the role.

Be professional, polite and always follow-up with a thank you afterwards.

7. Offer(s)

With any luck, you’ve managed the process very well so far and now it’s time to decide. There are lots of different factors to consider, not just salary – make sure to weigh them all properly before you make a decision.

Obviously role, salary and responsibilities are significant factors but don’t forget that you are going to spend a lot of time at this company with these people, so be sure to weigh the positives and negatives of the people you are working with, the direction it puts you in for your next career move and last, but certainly not least, how well it factors into the rest of your life – your hobbies, your family, your commute, etc.

Good Luck managing your job search!

Our next posts will go into each of the areas above in sequence and explore exactly how to manage them appropriately.

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Acing the On-Campus Interview

Posted by jobspeaker in Job Market on October 25, 2009

It’s that time of year again: the time of year when the leaves change color, football season gets into full swing, and companies begin their on-campus recruiting efforts at colleges across the country.

But how can you differentiate yourself from your classmates in a crowded market?  How can you convince employers that they want, no need, you to work for them?  And how do you find the time for several rounds of interviews when you’ve got midterms, papers, and beer pong tournaments that demand your attention?  In this article we’ll answer these questions and give you tips on how to ace the on-campus interview.

How to prepare: If the company is simply looking for good applicants in case a position opens up, you don’t need to cram too hard for the interview.  But if they are looking to fill a specific position, you should spend several hours getting to know the company.  Get a really clear understanding of what they do, how they make money, and how you would fit into the equation.  Are they on LinkedIn?  If you know who you’re interviewing with, find out where he went to college, or what his interests are.  Is the company on Twitter, and if so, what do they like to tweet about?  Search Google News and see if they have gotten any recent press.  Read the company’s own press section on their website – what are they proud of, and where are they headed?  Use websites like The Vault to learn about your particular job description and industry.

What to bring: Several copies of your resume, your letters of recommendation, and any samples of your work that would be impressive and appropriate.  You should also bring the notes you made about the company prior to the interview.  These will help you sound knowledgeable during the interview, and will help you ask intelligent questions when the time comes.

Get ready to wait: Once you arrive 10 to 15 minutes early for your interview, be prepared to wait a few minutes until you’re called in.  If there’s an administrator present, be sure to ask the name of the interviewer.  Spend this time going over the information you have about the company and rehearsing your answers to some of the standard questions.  Go over some of your best stories for use during behavioral interview questions.  And smile.  If you don’t smile and make eye contact with the interviewer, you can just go home.  So even if you’ve got crazy butterflies in your stomach, you still have to appear happy, enthusiastic, and excited about getting a chance to prove yourself.

Use what you know: Unlike a job interview in the real world, in an on-campus interview you already know who your competition is.  They’re your friends and your classmates.  Think about who they are, who they know, and what they know, and use this information to guess at their strengths and weaknesses.  If you and your friends are interviewing for an entry-level programming position and you know you’re the best at Ruby on Rails, be sure to say as much during the interview.  Marketers would call this selling yourself based on your “unique value proposition.”

The STAR approach: On-campus interviewers are famous for using behavioral interviewing techniques.  This means that they will ask you about situations you have faced, and will use your answers to predict likely behavior in the future, should you get the job.  One classic behavioral question is, “Can you tell me about a time you faced a conflict and what you did to resolve it?”  The STAR approach refers to a method used to answer these types of questions: Begin by describing the Situation you were in or the Task you had to complete.  Then describe the Action you took towards resolving the situation.  And finally, describe the Results you achieved.  Keep the focus on you, tell the interviewer what you did, not what you might do, and give specific details but keep the story down to about a minute in length.

And remember: The interview starts the minute your name is called.  Use every moment you have to sell yourself, show off that you’ve done your homework, and make a great impression.  ALWAYS follow up with a hand-written thank-you note, preferably the same day.  You can give it to the administrator to give to your interviewer as he leaves for the day.

The on-campus interview is the first step toward the on-site interview and your entree into the real world.  If you take it seriously, you’ll already be light years ahead of your less enlightened classmates.

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Tech Tips for Job Seekers: How to Make the Job Search a Little Bit Easier

Posted by jobspeaker in Job Market on July 18, 2009

Unless your career interests are so narrow as to only include one position in the world (for instance, personal assistant to Heidi Klum), there is a good chance you will be applying to quite a few positions during your job search. For example, if you are looking for an entry-level financial analyst position in New York City, there are hundreds of positions you could potentially apply to. Besides being time-consuming, this process is seriously tedious. But if you think smart before you begin, you can cut out a lot of the work.

1) Turn on the auto-fill feature on your web browser. For crying out loud, why would you want to type out your phone number on 350 applications? If you have that much time on your hands you’d do better to spend it counting the blades of grass on your lawn. There are built-in tools for this in the Google or Yahoo toolbars but also some very cool new tools for your browser to help manage all your private data, e.g. Sxipper.

2) Have your browser save your passwords for future access to sites. Every job site and almost every company has their own registration and password procedure to complete before you can fill out an application for employment. Having your browser remember the passwords for each site makes your life a lot easier, and it gives you faster access to the site should you need to look over your application again. Some products can accomplish both auto-fill and password management (e.g. LastPass) and more (e.g. Billeo), so going that route may be better than getting multiple tools.

3) Make a .txt version of your resume. Many companies require you to copy and paste a version of your resume into a text box as part of the application process. Rather than copying and pasting from a nicely formatted Word document, wouldn’t it be smarter to save a version of your resume as a .txt file? This way you only have to delete extraneous spaces and bullets once, and you can then spend your time customizing the resume to the specific job to which you’re applying. You can use Google Docs and/or Yahoo Notes to capture text files that you need to cut and paste again and again in online forms.

4) Keep a record of jobs to which you’ve applied. We have mentioned this tip before, because it is seriously important to stay on top of where you have applications and where you are in the application process. If you maintain a good record of what you’ve done and what still needs to be done, it’ll be a cinch to prepare for a job interview. If you get a call asking you to interview for a position and you have no idea what the recruiter is talking about, you stand little chance of adequately preparing and being an impressive candidate. Tools like Jing or Clipmarks can also help here – it allows you to take a snapshot of any piece of an online page. This is particularly relevant if you need to reference the job description and it’s not posted anymore.

5) Simplify and streamline your search by using company indexes like Hoovers. If you’re interested in working for a specific company or industry, a search on a site like Hoovers can give you a list of all the top national players, with links to jobs, financial statements, news, and expert analysis and forecasts. This eliminates a lot of guesswork on your part and can give you an edge over job seekers who are less savvy. It is also essential in preparing yourself for the interview so that you can speak intelligently about the industry and ask relevant questions.

I’m sure you have other tools or ways of making the whole process easier for yourself, would love to hear about them.

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Job Search: Top 3 Irritations and How to Fix Them

Posted by jobspeaker in Job Market on June 19, 2009

Frustration is a feeling near and dear to all job seekers. Whether you were laid off, you just graduated, you’re changing careers, or you just hate your current job, looking for employment is seriously not fun. Here are three common irritations of the job search, and three ways to make them a little less troublesome.

1) Recruiters are slow to get back to you, or never get back to you at all.

When you send your resumé out into the cold world, with it go your hopes for a better job. How depressing is it, then, when you never hear back from anyone? The truth is that recruiters are inundated with thousands of resumés each day, and simply lack the resources to sift through each one and craft a response. Fortunately some companies have created auto-responses that assure you your resumé was actually received. Not all recruiters have caught on to this practice however, and many job seekers are left wondering. The best thing to do if you have not heard back from a recruiter is to send a follow-up e-mail a few days after your original letter. Wait a few more days, and if you have still not heard back, call the recruiter. Remind them who you are, and what kind of job you’re looking for. Offer to come in for a face-to-face meeting. The point is to get your resume out of the stack of thousands and into the hands of a real person.

2) You don’t know how to find recruiters in your industry.

It’s a big challenge to find recruiters working in your industry, either because you’re entry level, you haven’t used a recruiter in years, you’re in an unfamiliar city, or because all the recruiters you used to know have since moved on. The challenge is even greater if you live in a small city with limited opportunities. The best way to find recruiters is through word-of-mouth. When you meet people at networking events or at informational interviews, ask them if they know of any industry recruiters. Their contacts may be old or obsolete, but they can at least point you in the direction of the appropriate firm. You can also search social networking sites, job boards, or conduct an internet search for local industry recruiters. The goal is to get a name and an e-mail. In your e-mail, say who referred you. Be brief and direct – recruiters are very short on time. And remember to emphasize how YOU can help THEM.

3) You’re having a hard time keeping your job search organized.

A job search in today’s economy could easily span over 6 months, and require hundreds of applications and e-mails. It’s a full-time job just to stay on top of the paper trail. But it’s essential to keep a record of which jobs you’ve applied to, who you’ve contacted at each job, and what steps you’re taking next. How embarrassing (and damaging!) would it be if a recruiter called you about a job and you had no idea which position she was talking about? A record management system will make all the difference between making you seem organized and competent, or sloppy and unprepared. Keeping on top of your job search will also save you time (since you won’t be applying to the same jobs twice) and headaches (since you won’t have to spend hours sorting through e-mails in your Sent folder trying to find the one relevant to your interview tomorrow).

10 Steps to Organize Your Job Search

Posted by jobspeaker in Job Market on June 10, 2009

Looking for a job can be one of life’s most unpleasant tasks, akin to shopping for car insurance or getting a root canal. But the process need not be so painful. If carried out in a thoughtful, directed way, the job search can be streamlined, and dare I say, even fun? Well let’s not get carried away.

Step 1: Define Your Goal

Before you can compose a resume, before you can schmooze at networking mixers, you need to know what you want to do. If you want to keep your options open, it’s ok to have several roles in mind (systems analyst, IT consultant, bikini inspector), as long as you know what job titles you’re aiming for. These roles will guide all your efforts from here on, so it’s important to get them figured out at the beginning of your search.

Step 2: Define Your Strategy

Before you start looking, decide in advance how you want to search for the role(s) you have in mind. Today the best recommendation is to use a variety of approaches combined to implement an efficient, well-rounded job search. In no particular order of importance, these are some of the strategies to employ: network into the companies, talk to recruiters in your industry, apply online through job boards, apply directly through company websites, talk to friends, network at industry conferences, etc. Depending on your industry and role, some or others might be more successful – decide before you start what the most successful strategy should be for the industry, role and companies you are targeting.

Step 3: Create Your Online Profile(s)

There are lots of ways to create your online profile – concentrate on those that are displayed in the first page of Google results when you search on your name. If nothing exists, create one using one of the popular professional social networking tools available today (e.g. Plaxo, LinkedIn). Make sure this online profile fits your career goals and how you wish to be portrayed to employers. Clean up any pictures, comments or other online content that you’d prefer an employer/recruiter not see. If you have several disparate jobs you are evaluating, keep your profile(s) relatively generic to highlight your transferable skills.

Step 4: Create Your Standard Resume(s)

A standard resume is what you use to customize for each role – create one for each different type of role you are interested in. Ideally you would have experience that actually qualifies you for your target positions, but you can always be creative (a waitress job could easily transition into public relations, conflict resolution, and even waste management!). Do use action verbs and industry jargon (but use responsibly). Do not include meaningless keywords at the bottom of your resume to fool resume-scanning software. Do include volunteer experience, awards, and unique items that make you stand out. Keep the layout clean and font consistent. Spell check, do not fudge facts, and if you are a recent college graduate, include your GPA unless it’s truly horrifying.

Step 5: Identify Target Companies

Now that you know what you want to do, you should figure out where you want to do it. Just like when you applied for college, it’s good to have a tier system of dream companies, mid-range prospects, and safeties (though obviously you never tell a safety that they’re a safety!).

Step 6: Network Your Heart Out

It’s cliched, but it’s the Newtonian law of finding a job. According to the 2009 edition of “What Color is Your Parachute?”, the success rate of applying to positions online is about 4%. The success rate of finding a job through networking however, is closer to 33%. Use your sleuthing skills to find people who work in the companies you’re targeting and make dates to speak on the phone, or even better, meet for coffee (and yes, you’re paying). Speak with recruiters who work for the companies you like and find out who they like to hire. Also speak with people who do what you want to do – find out how they got their job, what they like and dislike about the company, and if appropriate, ask if they can look at your resume. And always follow up with a thank-you e-mail. Other networking opportunities include your hobbies, interests, school, alumni or other affiliations – employers like to hire like-minded people.

Step 7: Customize Your Correspondence

It’s tedious, but you can’t send out form letters and generic resumes. Remember the job market is a numbers game and you have to set yourself apart from all the rest in a matter of seconds. Your cover letter and resume need to be specific to the job requirement if you are serious about the role. Explain why you want to work for Company X and no one else, why all of your experience to date satisfies their requirement and why you are passionate about the opportunity. You can use bullet points, tables, and bold or italic print as long as your letter is legible, and ideally address it directly to the hiring manager or recruiter responsible. In the resume, don’t forget to customize your objective to that job.

Step 8: Take Notes

It’s important to have a record of what jobs you’ve applied to, who you’ve spoken with, and who you need to contact next. The last thing you need to do is blow a great opportunity because you forgot about an interview or accidentally e-mailed the wrong person. After speaking with a recruiter or a new contact, keep notes of what was said and how you’ll follow up with them. Imagine the great impression you’ll make on your new boss if you remember he’s a whiskey connoisseur!

Step 9: Follow Up

Ask for business cards at your interviews – then you have the information necessary to send a thank you note. You probably haven’t written a thank-you note since Aunt Ethel gave you that hideous purple sweater in 9th grade, but it’s time to dust off the stationary and get writing. After every interview, even if it’s over phone or Skype, sending a hand-written thank-you note to everyone who interviewed. It should be in the mail within 24 hours after the interview. It doesn’t have to be fancy – just thank them for the interview and restate that you want the job. This kind of personal attention should set you apart from others, show your enthusiasm for the role and hopefully propel you into a second interview. If you interviewed at a company with a more relaxed culture, a thank-you email will suffice.

Step 10: Be Productive, Stay Positive

When you’re unemployed, it’s tempting to veg out and catch up on sleep, but you need to treat the search for a job as your actual job. If that means taking a shower and sitting down at your computer by 9 a.m., so be it. You also have time to develop new skills, catchup with friends new and old, explore new business ideas, and learn what makes you happy. If you’re asked during an interview what you’ve been doing for the last 6 months, you don’t want to say you’ve seen every episode of “Family Guy” – Twice. You’d be doing yourself a huge favor by using the time to your advantage. And stay positive. It won’t be long until you’re working 60 hours a week and having little to do is only a distant memory.

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