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Don’t Forget Your Other Social Network

By on April 25, 2012 in Networking

social network

Social networking has been a very hot topic for years now thanks to Facebook and Twitter (among other sites).  In the job search, LinkedIn gets a lot of attention for being a good place to find a job. With thousands of people joining every day, there are constant streams of new people to meet and interact with.  It’s hard to ignore these tools when it comes to your career search. I  have had some decent success with my clients finding interviews through LinkedIn, especially once you optimize your profile.  With all of this online social networking going on, it can be easy to forget the original social network, the one that takes place with hand shakes and smiles, the offline social network.

There are three layers to the “offline” social network.  At it’s core, this is really the same concept that LinkedIn was founded on.  Who you know and who your friends know.  The three layers are as follows:

1.) People well known to me – This includes family, friends and co-workers.  When you are looking for advice and information on trying to find a job, this is the group you can count on to get you down the right path.

2.) People with whom I am familiar - In this group you will find members of your church or other social group.  You can frequently find connections to people through this layer as it tends to spread much wider and has a much farther reach than your closer personal network of family and friends.

3.) People unknown to me, but connected to people I know –  This layer ties into layer two. This is where you are going to find a lot of people that could help you in your career search.  You never know where you might meet a senior executive or hiring manager in the crowd of people.

(Some people also include the “random stranger that is willing to help me” layer, but you can’t count on finding one of those.)

Consider any sort of social gathering a chance to network with people.  Family events, backyard cookouts, and class reunions (not everyone is on Facebook yet) all make great opportunities for social networking.  A job seeker never knows when they might run into the perfect contact that can provide valuable information.  I have actually been at a relative’s house for a barbecue and didn’t know that one of my cousin’s good friends is the CFO of a local college here in my area.  I was able to meet him and get an audience with him a week later to sell him on allowing me to supplement the universities “Career Development” department.  This turned into a very lucrative opportunity for me.

In my next article I will tell you the rules of offline social networking.  To get started, try to avoid walking around social gatherings with a big “J” on your forehead looking like a desperate job seeker.  Stay tuned!

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Don’t Fall Into the Job Board Trap

By on March 19, 2012 in Finding Leads

job board
It’s tough to break an old habit

Many of us feel that the way to get noticed by a hiring manager is to post our résumé on the job boards and then sit back and wait for a phone call or an email that never comes.

Frequently when I am giving seminars I’ll ask people how they have landed jobs previously. Was it through networking or from a job board where you are anonymous and competing against thousands of others. More often than not the answer is that they have landed jobs from knowing someone.

 

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Using Twitter In Your Career Search

By on March 5, 2012 in Finding Leads

Twitter is becoming a research resource.

Most of my clients recognize LinkedIn as their primary resource for professional networking online. You might not realize that it also shows a number of jobs. But most people have not awakened to the value of Twitter as a means of identifying positions in targeted companies.

I think too many people believe that Twitter is only an Internet time-waster, a site full of tweets on where someone is eating lunch, or the latest movie star rehab gossip.

Make use of hashtags (the “#”) to identify the important keywords for you. Words like #Accounting, #manager, etc. When these words appear in someone’s tweets, but they also appear to you.

You can also find job leads on Twitter, sometimes before they hit the big job boards. Just think of a company you want to work for and simply search Twitter for that company. If you find them, follow them. Do the same for other employers. Why not jump on your competition through social media?

If you already use Twitter in your search, how has it helped you? Or does it help at all?

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Difficult Interview Questions

By on February 20, 2012 in Interviewing

interview questions
I typically ask workshop attendees and my clients which questions tend to give them trouble. The two I hear most often center around compensation and ‘tell me about yourself.’ Both are difficult, but for different reasons.

Let’s tackle the most common and, likely, the most difficult question of all because it’s somewhat vague and is usually the first question asked in a typically nerve-wracking setting: Tell me about yourself.

Keep your answer to under one minute, remembering the question is merely an ice breaker and not the time to unload your entire life story. The employer is as often less interested in what you say than how you say it. How do you come across? Concise, professional? Or rambling?
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Three Resume Tips For Technical Job-Seekers

By on February 6, 2012 in Resume


Without further ado, three practical tips for your resume:

Show them value All business runs on the concept of ROI, or Return on Investment. In other words, a hiree has to show that they can do the job and bring significant return to the company. Show this in your resume: if your work led to concrete returns for a company, be sure to list it. (“revised business practices that reduced turnaround time by 15%” sounds a lot better than “Revised practices for technical support.” One has value, one does not.

Know what is behind the hiring curtain Employers are dealing with a swarm of resumes. Many times, these resumes are sent through an automated parser to “weed out” unqualified candidates. These systems do get the job done, yes, but they certainly aren’t human beings; certain resume formats can get your application tossed out of a pool. Keep the following in mind when submitting a resume:
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What Does an Employer Look For During an Interview?

By on January 23, 2012 in Interviewing



From time to time I see catchy seminar titles surrounding what employers are really looking for. And while there’s room for disagreement, for my money an employer focuses on skills and your attitude, and not necessarily in that order.

Attitude, or enthusiasm, is perhaps the single most important personal quality you can possess in terms of getting people to like you. Think about it. Among your friends, do you hang out with negative or dull people? In hiring, like with much of life, our emotions guide us. Take relatively equal candidates and the one most liked will probably generate the offer.

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Career Tip #24 – Stand Up to Stand Out!

By on January 9, 2012 in Interviewing

Standing up. Probably something most of us do multiple times a day, every day.
This is something quick I teach my clients, but can really make a difference. Seems like it’s not a big deal, but it’s the little things that set us apart. I often encourage my clients to “stand up” in an interview. Stand up for what and why is this important?

To start with, I’m referring to standing in the lobby prior to the interviewer coming out to meet you. First impressions are very critical. If you’re standing, the employer’s eyes will tend to shift to you first versus others in the lobby. You look professional and ready to take on the world. Make your right hand available to prepare to shake hands. (Not a noodle wrist hand shake, be firm!)

The receptionist might indicate that the employer is running late, and that is ok, just have a seat for a few minutes. Just make sure you’re standing a good five minutes prior to their anticipated arrival. If this is the first time you meet this person, make sure you get off to a good start by standing!

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Spot Opportunities: Landing Interviews without Job Postings

By on December 19, 2011 in Finding Leads


What is a Spot Opportunity?

A spot opportunity is reported information that can be utilized by career searchers to uncover or create employment opportunities. Anything that has happened, is happening or might happen in any working environment of interest, often presents a possibility for a spot opportunity. In other words, anything in a business that is changing can be a Spot Opportunity.

Why Are Spot Opportunities Important?

Capitalizing on spot opportunities is one of the most powerful approaches of all interview producing methods. It takes a modest amount of work to locate these spot opportunities and a little creative effort to capitalize on them. However, your investment of time is likely to produce exceptional results. Every type of change that happens in business represents an opportunity, and change is inevitable. Companies often could use new people to cope with adjustments; you might be the very person to provide that help. These opportunities can be advantageous to a career searcher in the following ways:

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10 Common Job Interview Questions

By on December 5, 2011 in Interviewing

Preparation is the key to a successful job interview. When you are being interviewed, the employer is looking at more that just your resume. They pay very close attention to how you answer questions, not necessarily right or wrong, but how you answer them. Do you think outside the box? Do you buckle under pressure? That is why it is necessary to be well prepared. Preparation increases your chances of being selected. I personally feel that the best way to gain confidence before a job interview is to practice answers to the common questions and recite each one several times before the interview.

 

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How to Find Spot Opportunities

By on November 21, 2011 in Finding Leads


In the last post, we went over what exactly a Spot Opportunity is. They’re definitely one of the best tricks of the trade in getting an interview. However, how does one exactly find them? That’s a good question and here’s the answer…

First of all, Ask Yourself 3 Important Questions

1. Does the situation that you’ve heard about suggest there will be a need for additional people? Because even in an environment of a downsize they may hire one person to take two previous spots.

2. Is this a situation where my capabilities might be useful?

3. What could I do to help these people? Knowing the answer to these will not only help you determine if news is a spot opportunity or not, but it will help you during the interview process. To answer these questions, we’ve come up with particular scenarios that you might hear about in a typical business journal article.

Upon reading that article…

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