10 R’s to Keep Your Job Search Alive When Winter Interferes

You were going gangbusters at searching for a new job to replace the one you lost through a layoff or other job loss. Then winter hit with full force.

It’s frustrating waiting for roads to clear and the job market to get back into full swing after blizzards and other natural interferences. What can you do in the meantime? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Review your strategy and make adjustments. Are there avenues you haven’t explored yet?
2. Research companies online to find those that might be a good fit and build a plan for getting inside for informational interviews.
3. Read books, blogs and articles by recruiters and other HR experts on conducting an effective job search.
4. Revise or update your resume and online profile.
5. Reconnect with your networking circle, checking in to see how they are doing, share interesting articles and make future plans.
6. Reorganize your files and workspace.
7. Ready your wardrobe in case you are called for an interview.
8. Recharge your energy with some exercise and healthy eating.
9. Reminisce a bit about your past accomplishments and write up some success stories you can discuss in cover letters and at interviews.
10. Rehearse your 30-second elevator speech—or write the one you don’t have and practice it.

© 2010 Cynthia C. Rosso

Climbing Out of Winter’s Job Search Black Hole

Has your job search come to a screeching halt? If suddenly you find yourself in a winter black hole—a void with no new and interesting job listings, no responses to applications, no help from your connections, and a sinking feeling inside—it’s time to step back and assess what’s going on.

Sometimes nature takes control of our destiny. If you live on the east coast, say anywhere from Raleigh to New York, then you know how this winter’s cold, snowy onslaught has affected businesses and the government. The federal government in Washington, DC shut down for nearly a week because of two storms that dropped 3 feet of snow. Networking events were canceled. No one could get anywhere because of ice-bound, clogged streets and a public transit system that couldn’t operate for days. Just about everything got put on hold. Most other parts of the country have been hit by winter’s wrath too. Hey, that’s life…and it doesn’t last forever.

Take heart. Soon winter will stop its assault on your job search progress. Employers and recruiters will be back in full action, posting jobs, interviewing, networking and hiring.

Photo and text © 2010 Cynthia C. Rosso

Posting Your Resume on a Major Job Board—A Shot in the Dark?

Job boards like Monster and its competitors have their detractors. Complaints include:

• They’re too big and not targeted.
• A large part of the jobs are lower-level positions.
• Many jobs they include are already filled.
• Employers will post jobs and then hire from within.
• When you make your resume searchable, you lay yourself open to approaches from scams.

Despite the negative possibilities, you increase your odds by adding another layer to your search when you use a job board.

Here’s a recent real case in point:

After keeping her resume private on one major job board, one professional decided that she had nothing to lose a year after a layoff by opening access to all employers and recruiters and making it searchable.

Predictably, within days she started receiving emails from insurance companies and other “recruiters” offering her a great future if she only contacted them, took a course, or something else suspect. Because these were anonymous emails and obviously not targeted to her personally, she trashed them immediately. For a couple of companies, though, she took the time to check them out on the web—and found several results that associated the word “scam” with them. At that point, she could have changed her settings to block public access to her resume, but she persisted.

One afternoon a week later she received a phone call from a legitimate employer’s recruiter, who had found her through a resume search. The call led to an in-person interview with the recruiter and a planned second interview with the executive team.

The following week she received an email about a temp-to-perm job that called for the skills she offered, asking her to call if interested. The sender signed the email, but forgot to mention that a job board resume search was the source. Our subject called and learned that the job was a real lead offering good pay. The short phone call concluded with plans for follow-up by the recruiting firm and a pitch to the employer.

So, you decide.

Major Online Job Boards—Are They Worth It or Not?

While online job boards, such as Monster or CareerBuilder, should not be your first line of attack in finding a new job, or even your second, they can be one piece of your overall strategy. Major ways to use them include:

• Searching for jobs and applying to them on your own
• Searching for jobs and applying via their own “Apply Now” feature
• Posting your resume so it is searchable by recruiters and employers, or keeping it private to use only for applications
• Setting up job agents so you receive likely matches by email
• Reading advice articles and using other resource tools they offer, such as salary benchmarks
• Letting them broadcast your resume to recruiters

Whether you apply for jobs through the job board’s mechanism or not is your choice, but I recommend researching each company and seeing who may be in your network from the company before submitting an application. Leverage your connections to learn more about the job or the organization. Then write a targeted cover letter to accompany your resume.

Keeping your resume private makes sense if you still have a job. To protect your personal privacy, be sure your posted resume does not include your home address, email or phone number. You can set your account to make all or none of your contact information available to employers and recruiters.

If you are out of work, however, you can increase your chances of being found by making your resume public. It’s a passive strategy, but it occasionally works. Keep in mind that your online resume should have all the relevant key words for your skills and job goals so that recruiter searches will land on your name.

Job agents are great, especially if you have chosen your key words well and set up a database friendly profile. They save you heaps of search time.

I have advocated against using resume broadcasting services, because they are too random, totally untargeted and generally unproductive. Many recruiters and hiring managers absolutely hate and ignore them. Such “robo-resumes” also eliminate the direct, personalized approach you should normally use, including your cover letter.

Large online job boards are a mixed bag. Used right they can be an asset, but they should rank low on your priority list of possible strategies. See last Thursday’s post on how job hunting expert Richard Nelson Bolles ranked them against other approaches.

Listening to Recruiters—Your LinkedIn Profile Is Important

After hearing a recruiter give advice in a recent job hunter’s support session, I realized that the LinkedIn profile I had thought was so great could really use some revision if recruiters were going to find me. So, I have made a few already.

 

She had some other helpful insights as well. For instance, she told the group that recruiters at her firm, which specializes in filling creative, marketing and web-based positions, check LinkedIn more often than massive job boards such as Monster or CareerBuilder to identify and screen candidates. LinkedIn members, she noted, represent an overall higher caliber of professionals.

Here are some of her other tips for jobseekers who want to be noticed:

• Add language to your title that tells people you are available, such as “Open to New Opportunities.”
• Add your email address to your title or name, if you want people to contact you directly. This also implies you are an open networker, which you may or may not choose to be. If you do, it will lead to a larger network.
• Make sure your profile summary tells visitors:
• Who you are
• What you do
• Why you are on LinkedIn
• How to contact you
• Under Specialties, list as many key words as space allows so you will come up in more searches.
• For descriptions in the Experience section, cut and paste from your resume, so they match. If you later change your resume, also change your LI profile.
• In your Contact settings, include an email address, but make it a professional address via a current email provider, such as Gmail or Yahoo, rather than AOL or Earthlink. Because these latter providers are not mainstream anymore, they imply you are out of tune with today’s wired world.

If you are not on LinkedIn or have done little with your profile, check the LinkedIn Learning Center to discover the basics to making it a proactive tool in your career, whether you are a jobseeker or currently employed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Do Recruiters Say? Retool Your Job Search Strategy

“For every quality job you see listed, there are probably between 5-7 qualified applicants competing for it. You need to focus on being the top person for that job.” These words were spoken by a recruiter, who specializes in IT and finance jobs, at a Northern Virginia job search support group session last week.

He added: “One of the biggest mistakes people make is to rely on just one job strategy. You need multiple strategies. The Internet is an incredibly powerful tool, but only 25% of people get jobs through the Internet. So you need to use a balanced approach. Use the Internet as your after-hours strategy or while you are watching a football game. Don’t make it your only strategy.”

At another presentation last week, a Washington, DC-based recruiter said she wants to see one- or two-paragraph cover letters—nothing longer. She and other recruiters can’t afford the time to read more—and often don’t read cover letters at all, especially longer ones. But, if you want yours noticed and read, your cover letter should directly address the requirements of the job, which you can accomplish in 3-4 bullet points.

Resumes are paramount, she said, and they must have all the most important information on the first page, near the top. That’s a good reason, she added, to limit the amount of personal data you put at the top so it doesn’t take so long to get to what makes you different and valuable. Instead, skip your mailing address and include only one phone number and your email. Including your LinkedIn profile link is okay, if you have a well developed, complete profile. The recruiter also noted that your resume should not have blocks of prose to summarize each job—they will go unread—but rather concise bullet points of your major accomplishments and responsibilities. Wordiness won’t win you a job.

There are no universal answers or magic keys to unlock the way to getting hired, but recruiters like these have a better pulse than jobseekers on what goes on in the job market. They are often the gatekeepers between you and a hiring manager. Maybe it’s time to listen.

Don’t Hold Your Breath—Be a Proactive Jobseeker

Suppose you submitted an application, made it through the first cut, had a phone interview and went on to an in-person interview. You are a success story already, even if it doesn’t feel that way yet. Every time you make it to the next level, you have achieved a goal.
Suppose you’ve even had two interviews, having made it to the finalist level, maybe even the top two. What should you expect next? Assuming the interview went well, your hopes are high for an offer.

You go home, write and send your thank-you note, and wait. How long should you wait? What is your strategy?

It is kosher and advisable to ask at the interview, if it hasn’t already been stated, what the time line and decision process will be.

However, don’t hold your breath. If a long time passes and you haven’t heard, there are a couple of likely scenarios. One is they have decided to delay making a decision or they are just slow—in other words, no offer has been made yet. The other is that you didn’t get the job.

No matter which scenario may be at play, take the initiative yourself to make a call or write an email to the lead interviewer, recruiter or hiring manager. Use this contact as an opportunity to restate your interest in the position. If it has not been filled yet, you increase your odds another notch by being proactive. If the job went to someone else, you will have closure so you can stop hoping this one will come through and put it behind you.

Hiring Decisions--How Do They Do It?

Recently, an online employer located in the Washington, DC area that was seeking to fill five lateral positions received more than 1,500 applications. As a hiring manager, I can’t imagine what a daunting job it must have been to sort through them, but they did. I say “they” because it must have been a team. I recall receiving 150 or more for one opening many years ago and thinking I’d never get through them…but I did.

Before applications went almost entirely electronic, I would create three piles. As I whittled the stack of letters and resumes down, I tossed all that lacked required information, had gross errors, or were obviously done in haste or addressed to the wrong organization, straight into the NO pile. Why waste time? My other two piles—MAYBE and PROBABLY—were trickier. The PROBABLY category was for those whose experience most closely matched the requirements and who wrote convincing, well crafted cover letters. This never turned out to be a large pile, but it had depth in quality. The MAYBEs were all the rest that had some qualifications but weren’t shoe-ins. Since the process went electronic, the physical piles have disappeared, but the general approach is often still the same, and it’s not easy.

Imagine yourself as a hiring manager or recruiter with 1,500 applications to review for those five positions. If you saw your own application among them, how would you do? Which pile would yours land in?

Keep this in mind when you write your next cover letter or fill out an application. Staying out of the NO pile is largely in your control. All you have to do is apply to jobs that are appropriate and pay attention to details. And, by targeting the right jobs—ones for which you are truly qualified—and writing compelling cover letters, you can also avoid the MAYBE designation. Landing in the PROBABLY pile is success and will likely lead to a phone call.

Shoes—A Detail That Can Affect Your Job Chances

In the past two weeks, I have focused my attention—while commuting by subway into the city—on feet. It started when I glanced across the aisle at a professionally dressed traveler who neglected (or chose not) to wear socks in his shiny loafers. Either way, he seemed unfinished.

There have been many interesting pairs of feet in the stations and trains. Some are shabbily shod with worn down heels, thin spots, dulled and scuffed leather, and even worse. Then there are the flip flops (even on cold days), humongous furry boots (even on warm days) and enormously long-pointed, needle-heeled showy shoes that make my feet hurt looking at them. Most others are wearing walking shoes for the commute, presumably because they have shoes at the office reserved for wearing at work only.

If you are a job seeker, your footwear decisions can be very important. Shoes can offer a lot of clues about you. Reportedly, many recruiters and hiring managers take notice of what’s on your feet the moment you walk into the interview room. And more often than not, first impressions can determine your fate. Within seconds, assumptions are being made as to whether you will fit in to the company culture.

Clean, polished, sensible but stylish shoes that complement your outfit, preferably a tailored suit in a neutral color, send a clear message that you pay attention to detail and want to make a good presentation. They mean you want the job. Paying attention to such a seemingly small detail will also take the interviewer’s focus off your feet and bring it back to you, where it belongs.

After the Networking Event—What’s Next?

When networking, you will likely meet people who are looking for jobs like yourself, some just laid off and others who have been on the market for months or longer. You will encounter others who are well connected in the DC business community, sales persons or business owners looking to gain a customer, and career coaches and recruiters. Any of these individuals could turn out to be good connections for you to make.

Each time I attend a networking opportunity, I leave with several business cards and connections that could lead either to freelance, contract or permanent work, or new friends, or even guest bloggers. These are just quick meetings, nothing definite, but bearing potential. So, what’s next?

Without follow-up, all these networking connections are just noise. It’s up to you to make the music. On the same or next day after a networking event, you should:

• Make sure the notes* you jotted on the business cards you collected are meaningful, while you can still remember enough about the people and what they said. I recommend that for later reference you also date the cards and add the name of the event or organization.
• Sort your cards (and your memories) into: A. those with true long-term potential; B. those with peripheral common interests; and C. those who are probably not going to be part of your immediate circle.
• Start contacting your A group first. Invite them to join your online network (LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.) or set up a time to meet over coffee.
• Write short greetings to your B group, and if you are so inclined, to your C group. After all, this latter group may have connections to other people you’d like to know.

Now you have begun the networking process—and it definitely doesn’t end here.

*See the October 20 post.

An A for Effort—The Customized Resume Rises to the Top

Think like a recruiter or hiring official just the way a marketer tries to think like a customer. Would you want to look through a pile of generic (boring) resumes or would your eyes light up if you saw a resume that directly addresses the key components of the job description?

It’s basic in marketing to target your message to your audience. When you are job hunting, your audience is your ticket to getting in the door for an interview. The person receiving and reading your resume is your customer. You need to show that above all others you are the right one for the job. Even the federal government requires you to target your resume to a specific job’s requirements, so why not do the same in the private sector too?

It’s so easy to create a resume and use it over and over…but will it get you results? Why not take the time—yes, it takes time—to customize your resume and increase your chances of making it to the top of the heap? It’s time well spent.

How Many Pages Should a Resume Have?

Here’s another question that has more than one answer. If you are new to the work world, your resume is likely to fit nicely on one page. If you are an academic, your curriculum vita will include more detail than most resumes, including your research papers and published articles. Such a resume could run several pages.

However, like most of us, if you have a few years of experience in a business setting already under your belt, whether for-profit or non-profit, how long is too long? What is the right length for a resume to be your best sales agent? You want to tell your story and grab attention so your resume lands at the top of the pile.

I have seen resumes of all types over the years, as a hiring manager and as a volunteer reviewer for friends, family and colleagues and at job fairs. What I’ve observed is that jobseekers sometimes forget that, like any other marketing piece, their resume has only seconds to capture the interest of recruiters or hiring managers. Also, with hundreds of resumes to read and time at a premium, if you haven’t intrigued them by page 2, you’re probably toast.

You’ve heard the phrase, “Keep it simple, stupid.” I’ll add to that (and remove the "stupid"): Keep it simple, professional, organized, concise and targeted. And stick to no more than two pages. You can do this with bullets, phrases and groupings that make your resume easy to scan and to the point.

A couple of resources for you:

A video by D.C. area human resources expert Patra Frame with her resume tips: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl-H2s9lwpk
An article that addresses the IT market: http://www.itworld.com/ITW3485

Blast Your Resume to the Moon or Target Your Mark?

If you do what all the large job banks and resume distributors suggest, you’ll upload your resume on their sites so they can blast your resume to all the jobs in their database that fit your profile, according to information you provide. Get your resume in front of 100s or 1,000s of employers, they’ll tell you.

But, I’ve heard from recruiters themselves, as recently as this week, that they receive too many resumes that are totally inappropriate or that come with a generic cover letter. That tells them instantly that these candidates didn’t target them and they didn’t do any research about the employer or the job.

You might as well blast your resume to the moon!

When I was in a hiring position, I often received well over 100 resumes for a job in my department. Here is how I sorted them out:

Instant Trash Bin Candidates:
Resumes with generic cover letters, no cover letter at all or letters addressed to the wrong employer
Resumes with errors

The Maybe Pile:
Resumes with some potential but maybe not quite on the mark

The Yes, I Need to Read These Again Pile:
Resumes that show relevant experience and accomplishments
Resumes with cover letters that address the job description and my organization

Robo resumes are about as popular with recruiters and hiring managers as robo calls are with voters, and they are probably less productive, if they do you any good at all. My advice is: don't do it.

Put on a Smile and Get out the Door

After too many days in a row in the house at the computer and phone, searching for and applying for jobs, it’s so easy to distance yourself from the real world. It’s time to get out the door and go to places and events where you can make connections, meet recruiters and hiring managers, and add to your knowledge. There are tons of ways to do this in the D.C. area (see my posting on building your network for some).

If you haven’t ventured into the networking arena, it’s time to start, because it’s a crucial part of finding a job. Here are a few tips:

1. Print some professional-looking business cards that include enough information about you to spur interest in staying in touch with you. They should include contact information at the least, but it’s also good to put your own URL or blog address, Twitter name and LinkedIn profile address.

2. Practice a confident handshake and your elevator speech. Be prepared to look people in the eye and tell them quickly, in a noisy environment, who you are and what you are looking for.

3. Pick clothes that will impress, shave off the “I’m not going anywhere today” stubble or fix up your hair, and put on a smile. Check your image, head to toe, in a mirror before you leave the house.

4. Follow up. This is probably the most important part of networking—what you do after the event. Invite them to link with you on social networks and share information, tips and ideas with them. Then, stay in touch periodically.