the405club:

It goes without saying that today’s job market is more challenging than it has been for many years. That means you have to work even harder to uncover opportunities and distinguish yourself among a crowded field of applicants. Here are 10 strategies to help you gain an edge in a tough employment market:

#1: Leave your comfort zone. Don’t limit your search to your current industry or field. Expand your horizons by focusing on your transferable skills. When writing your resume and cover letter, note the qualifications you possess that are valuable in any number of jobs, such as leadership and communication skills, and showcase how those abilities would apply to the open position.

#2: Minimize work history gaps. Hiring managers look for applicants who have remained professionally engaged and kept their skills current during periods of unemployment. If you are unable to find a position right away, consider temporary assignments, internships, and volunteer opportunities to stay active professionally. You also might consider taking a class to increase your knowledge in a specific area.

#3: Be flexible. Remaining open to all possibilities is essential in a challenging economy. Don’t overlook a position even if the job title, salary, or benefits may not be exactly what you hoped for. Once you get your foot in the door and prove yourself, you may be able to renegotiate aspects of the position.

#4: Manage your digital footprint. Think your friends are the only people who viewed those wild vacation photos you posted online? With a few mouse clicks, potential employers can dig up information about you, too, on blogs, personal websites and networking sites. As you look for employment, keep tabs on your online reputation to make sure there is no information about you on the Web that could affect your professional reputation.

#5: Find jobs before they’re advertised. Read local newspapers and business publications to identify companies that may be expanding, and send them your resume, even if they have no advertised openings. These firms may be searching for good talent anyway.

#6: Cast a wide net. While the major job boards can be extremely useful, don’t forget to investigate industry sites specific to your industry or professional discipline. These venues may list more targeted career opportunities.

#7: Network online and off. Tell everyone you know that you are looking for a job, including those you’ve met through networking websites such as LinkedIn and Facebook. Just keep mind that, while online networking is effective, it’s still important to arrange face-to-face meetings. Ask an online contact to a lunch meeting to build rapport.

#8: Customize your materials. Sending out a generic resume isn’t likely to catch a potential employer’s attention. Tailor your application materials to showcase your relevant skills for each opportunity, based on the job description. Employers want to see why you are the best fit for a particular position.

#9: Enhance your marketability. Find out what skills are most in-demand in your field and take steps — such as enrolling a class at a community college or a weekend seminar — to give yourself an edge in these areas. Attending events hosted by a local professional association and reading relevant trade publications are good ways to determine which abilities employers in your field value most.

#10: Meet with a recruiter. Staffing professionals often have access to open positions that aren’t advertised and can effectively double your job search efforts. They also can provide useful feedback on your resume, cover letter and interview skills, helping you improve your job-hunting techniques — and chances at landing a position.

-By Clea Badion, Guest Blogger and Robert Half International Recruiter

Robert Half International is the world’s first and largest specialized staffing firm with a global network of more than 360 offices worldwide. For more information about our professional services, please visit rhi.com. For additional workplace articles and podcasts, visit workvine.com.

1. What you shouldn’t (and should) worry about with Social Media: the brand-yourself.com blog helps define what is (and isn’t) acceptable on facebook:

There’s a strange chilling effect with social media users these days. With so many people looking for work, no one wants to write or post anything that might hurt their chances at their next interview. Not posting pictures of your last sushi night out with your friends, where you did all those sake bombers and wound up in the street in your underwear pretending to be a bullfighter and swinging your pants at oncoming traffic… that’s definitely something no hiring manager wants to see.

What about something more innocent? Should you write about your political beliefs? Music you hate? Post pictures of your last hunting trip, or a vacation video taken of you in a bathing suit?

2. Should I ‘Dumb Down’ My Resume? from careerealism.com answers a question sent in about dumbing down a resume for jobs you might be over-qualified for.

3. How Do I Find Legit Work-at-Home Jobs? is another careerealism.com that answers a very common question these days:

I have a full-time job, but I also work a part-time bartending job that’s not what I want to do, and it’s 40 minutes away. I would like to do something from home. I see ads saying you can make millions from home, but I don’t believe them. Can you point me in the right direction?

4. 3 Networking Myths from DrivenLeaders.com:

• Networking is for self-promoting schmoozers.
• Network is only for salespeople or outgoing personalities.
• Networking, by nature, is uncomfortable, forced, and contrived.

5. Heather Huhman posts another “Ask Heather” column about application submission, vacation, and quarter systems.

6. David Wright called into JobRadio.fm with his resume pet peeve.

1. My Dad Got Me the Interview…Do I Even Have a Shot? CareerRealism goes to the experts with the following question:

I’m going on an interview tomorrow for a job that I know I’m not qualified for. My father knows the owner of the company and agreed to meet with me. Do I have a shot at this job, or is he just being nice? What should I do to convince him I could do the job?

Answers here.

2. Crowd-Sourced Interview Tips from MSN Careers (via Gradversity) has some crowd-sourced interview advice. Some gems:

…talk if as if you already have the job. Say ‘I will,” not ‘I would.’ ‘I can,’ not ‘I could.’ This will remove doubt instead of inject it. Bosses like someone confident and proactive.

another…

The interview is not about the candidate, it’s about the job. No matter how great you are as a person or employee, the interviewer is trying to fill a position. Hence, talk about the job as much as possible. Ask what a perfect candidate would be like. Only occasionally talk about yourself and only to show how you suit their requirements.

3. 5 Networking Tips For Shy or Introverted People from Corn On The Job:

1. Utilize Social Media – Begin networking first on Linkedin, Facebook, Myspace, or any web 2.0 destination that connects you to people with similar interests. Start building up your contacts/friends list, and build up your relationship with these people. Once you feel comfortable, invite them to join a networking event with you. This may help the lessen any intimidation you may feel of going it alone.
2. Use being shy to your advantage - People absolutely love carrying on about themselves, so provide an ear for them to let loose on, and you’ll make a friend in the process. Don’t be intimidated by louder, extroverted net workers. They need you, and they know it. Just be yourself, be polite, listen, and sacrifice your ears over to the extroverts.
3. Set networking goals - Make it your mission to talk to X amount of people and/or set a goal on how many events you’ll attend each month. If nothing else, just set your mind on having fun and enjoying each event. A positive mind set is critical.
4. Know when to speak up - Lay low until a question surrounding your area of expertise is brought up. Once you feel confident, speak loud and clear. Keep it short and to the point, and you will look like a star.
5. Smile - Simple right? Not only does the upside down frown bring a look of confidence, but you’ll instantly become easier to approach as well. Heck, smiling may even force/trick you into having a good time. Not smiling can leave a negative impression that you’re intimidated, uncomfortable, uninterested (maybe the worst), tired, or just sociably awkward. I know this is weird, but just in case you honestly don’t know how to smile, click HERE TO LEARN.

4. In Preparation, Pitching, and the Perfect Interview, Megan Ogulnick shares the steps she stakes when preparing for an interview:

• Research: As soon as I have an interview set up, I make it my goal to find out as much as possible about the company. Look on the web, ask friends, ask family or anyone you may know in the industry. It is important to know the company’s reputation, objectives, values and goals. Know their brands, products and important clients. The more you know about the company, the better equipped you’ll be to customize your answers. Interviewers will be impressed with your knowledge of the organization and it will show your dedication to the position.
• Review Your Qualifications: You know how great you are, but it’s important to be able to articulate that. Before going into an interview think about the skills necessary to succeed in this position. Do you need to be organized, have good time management, have good writing skills or be good with people? Now, customize your own skill set to the position you are applying for. In addition, be able to articulate how you have put those skills in action recently. Use examples to prove your point and demonstrate your skill set.
• Prepare Questions: The job seeker isn’t necessarily the only one being interviewed.It is important for the interviewee to ask questions as well to see if the company is a good match. Before heading to an interview prepare questions to ask the interviewer. Examples of these are, “What are the responsibilities of the position?”, “What qualifications or skills are you looking for this person to hold?” and “What are the goals for this position?”. Interviewers will evaluate you not only on your answers to their questions, but also the questions you ask them. I try to prepare at least 5 questions prior to each interview.
• Be Prepared!: I know this seems obvious, but this is key. Besides what I discussed above, also make sure to have extra copies of your resume, have your portfolio prepared (or multiple copies if you’d like to leave a few behind) and have your outfit ironed and ready the day before. Know exactly where you are going and allow enough time to purchase train tickets, get gas or take the bus to wherever the interview is. Don’t wait until the last minute to get everything organized. You want to have a clear head going into the interview and being prepared ahead of time will help you with that.

1. Beginning your senior year with your career in mind from Heather Huhman and Entry Level Careers Examiner:

For those of you in your senior year of college, the “real world” is looming not too far ahead. Some of you might be thinking, “Thank goodness I have 10 months until graduation. Maybe the job market will bounce back by then.” Others might be focused entirely on class, not even thinking about what lies after graduation.

Your senior year is time to be on the offense instead of defense. There are many ways in which you can be proactive and still get your schoolwork done (and yes, attend those parties). In a recent interview with Susan DiTullio, manager of college recruiting at VistaPrint, she provided 10 tips to help prepare you for landing a perfect job and beginning the next exciting chapter of your life:

• Plan ahead
• Draw from past experiences
• Career Services is your advocate
• Keep your résumé current
• Network, network, network
• Attend career fairs
• Do your research
• Dress for success
• Working inside the process
• Don’t be afraid to ask for help

2. Intelligence Means Squat: Study Shows One Trait Predicts Success BETTER from CAREEREALISM:

…When it comes to predicting who is going to succeed, you gotta ask yourself one question:

“Got GRIT?”

The study shows people who focus on a goal and stick with it long-term seem to achieve more professional success than those who jump around . Duckworth explains this in a recent Boston Globe article as follows:

“Grit is very much about the big picture,” …“It’s about picking a specific goal off in the distant future and not swerving from it.”

3. Three Tips For Writing Your Personal Bio from the Brand-Yourself.com folks:

• Keep it short and sweet. Brevity is the soul of wit, as Shakespeare says, and the people reading your bio will be relieved if you stick to this idea. They are on your website to get a quick idea of you, not to read a novel.  Stick to the same rule-of-thumb as for your résumé: include all essential information, but keep it concise and to-the-point.
• Call him Ishmael. Remember to write your bio in third person.  After including your full name once, it is fine to refer to yourself by your first name for the remainder of the bio.  If, however, your career path requires a more formal style, use your surname for the rest of your bio instead.
• Be yourself. You are not writing a research paper on pelicans or economics, so resist the urge to revert back to college composition class (where you wrote a certain way because you needed an A).  Your personal bio needs of course to be readable and grammatically correct, but don’t confuse a need for professionalism with a reason to stay bland and generic in your writing.  Allow some of yourself to show through your words.

thehardworkersays:

Target the companies you want to work for. Despite lean times, companies are secretly almost always up for considering hiring dynamic achievers in their area of expertise after a time of layoffs and realizing they need some good staff again. Cold canvassing with compelling cover letters that are sincere and inviting coupled with powerful resumes are reputed to have the highest success rates of finding your next employer. Don’t wait for your dream companies to advertise openings. Your next employer might appreciate your initiative that you sought out his/her company before openings are advertised. If that is who you are, be that person. (“To Thine Own Self Be True”—Shakespeare)   Choosing the companies, agencies or organizations in your field and the individuals who head the departments in those companies is now easier than ever with the Internet. Years ago, the tool for cold calling was the Yellow Pages. Today there are many resources, including your public library, the company website, and innumerable publications including trade and media. Wall Street Journal; New York Times; Dun & Bradstreet; Crain’s New York Business News; Hoovers.com; Business Week; U.S. News and World Report; Forbes and Fortune Magazine. The infinite cyberspace of man’s creation has company websites with missions stated plainly and links to affiliates, as well as endless vehicles for learning trends, challenges, changes and new developments in every field of work and occupation. The gleaned material makes great fodder for introductory cover letters and for purposeful conversational interviews marrying your talents to their challenges. The same way you had to write substantive reports for school, term papers, essays and theses, you are already primed for this job search strategy.   A traditional interview where one answers an advertisement for a position always puts one at the ‘mercy’ and judgment of a stranger. Traditional interviews eliminate candidates more often than not, and leave one feeling like a sitting duck in a penny arcade.   So pick the places you’d love to work for, if you had the choice, and go for it. You might send hard postal copies. You can start out with three to ten and go from there. Nothing is ever a waste of time because it directly or indirectly hones you into someone ready for re-employment. You just never know when a seed planted today may yield results in the near future. You could be re-employed and miserable when a fresh opportunity is ripe for harvest down the road.   If you do not hear back, you can follow up with a phone call or email at another time. Even if your cold canvassing doesn’t lead to a job, you will feel better about taking charge of your own future rather than sitting home and waiting…No one job search strategy is guaranteed. Some find a new job through a head hunter in their occupational areas, others from connections on Linked In and in their social and professional circles. You have to try everything. You just never know what will work for you to get back to work. While targeting companies you want to work for and telling them why, may not yield direct results, the result it will most definitely yield is the satisfaction of knowing you tried and gave it your best shot and didn’t lay down and die just because the media says the economy is bad and the business world is thrown into a panic.

• Practice Makes Perfect: How to Rehearse for Your Next Job Interview
• Improving Your Resume
• Q#271 - Is Getting Your ‘Dream Job’ Just Luck?
• The no-brainer guide to networking
• Learning From a Terrible Interview
• Will your college major result in a highly secure future?
• Networking Tip #2 – Request With A Note
• How to followup after applying for job (4th installment from Julie Wernau)
• Two ways to hire (and a wrong way) - Great quick read with an excerpt below:

Two ways to hire (and a wrong way)

The wrong way first: interview someone for an hour. If you like them, have them interview three or four other people in your organization for an hour each.

You’ve invested five hours of your team’s time, but really you only were looking for approval, because you’d already decided you liked the person enough to work with them for years.

All the evidence we’ve seen shows that this is a lousy predictor of future performance. And, let’s tell the truth… if the first three people love the guy, are you really going to let the fourth, junior person veto him? Or is it just an annoying courtesy?

• Networking Tip #3 – Recommend As You Would Like To Be Recommended
• How To Kickstart Your Job Search
• 15 best and worst cities for job seekers
• On FastCompany.com: Why I Love My Gen Y Assistant
• Overcoming the résumé gap
• 10 Ways to Make a Bad First Impression — and How to Recover
• Why Your Resume Gets Tossed
• How to Get Ready for a Surge in Replacement Hiring

• 15 Advanced Tips for Navigating a Networking Event
• 10 Steps To A Great Interview
• Creating Your Professional Online Reputation
• To Thine Own Brand Be True: A caution on the concept of Personal Branding
• General Interview Tips
• Need a job? Ask the Feds
• What To Do After Your Internship is Over (Keeping Up Momentum)
• Women: The Interview Double-Standard
• When Your Friend Becomes Your Boss: How To Preserve Your Job And Friendship

jorgefusaro:

You have heard it said over and over again: “It’s not what you know but who you know that makes the difference.” This unknown proverb has become the wisdom of the ages, passed down from mentors, parents, coaches, and career counselors.

Networking is important and critical for success. Whether you are an artist, entrepreneur, student, leader, or professional, strong networking skills will eventually pay off. Opportunities multiply when you have a reliable and diverse network of friends and colleagues.

Technology, social media in particular, has allowed introverted types to interact socially with more confidence. Social networking websites have given users access to see and connect with others that they would have not been able to connect otherwise.

What networking is: In his book, Endless Referrals, Bob Burg, provides my favorite definition of networking: “I like to define networking as cultivating mutually beneficial, give-and-take, win-win relationships… The end result may be to develop a large and diverse group of people who will gladly and continually refer a lot of business to us, while we do the same for them.” I have little to add to Burg’s words, except that networking is more about other people than it is about you. Networking is about relating and filling someone else’s need(s).

What networking is not: Networking is not about popularity. Some people believe (or have been convinced by internet marketers and even consultants) that a high count of fans or followers will bring business knocking at the door. Let me say it in another way: online favoritism (“I likes” and “retweets” will not get you that job you are targeting.
I have learned a lot from Seth Godin over the years. In a recent interview at the AMEX OPEN Forum, Godin was asked how social networking can benefit businesses. He ranted that networking is not about keeping score by adding a bunch of people on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and/or LinkedIn: “Networking is always important when it’s real. And it’s always a useless distraction when it’s fake.” What makes it real? Try engaging and doing something for someone else.

We can agree that social networking has revolutionized the web and continues to provide dozens of accessible and effective marketing tools for small and large businesses. It has also helped us reconnect with long-lost friends from school, college, and past co-workers.

Yet connecting with people online doesn’t just transfer into business. A valuable exchange needs to happen; an exchange of information, knowledge, and/or resources between two parties. That’s the first secret to successful networking.

What makes networking successful? Successful networkers take other people’s needs seriously. They know the value of giving and receiving. They are not afraid to give and receive nothing in return.

Successful networkers actively involve others. It is important to let your network know what company hired you, laid you off, and what type of job/business you are looking for. Let your network know how they can help. Don’t be afraid to ask for advise, feedback, and/or referrals.

Successful networkers inform proactively. Let your network know what you are doing professionally and what your core strengths are. Share your professional development with others, such as, the experiences you have recently accumulated and what you are currently learning. Share your notes or insights from a recent conference or seminar. Let your network know if you are considering, starting, or finishing grad-school or obtaining a professional certification. Keep them in the loop if taking up a new hobby or learning a new skill, such as cooking, dancing, or learning a new language.

Let your network know your contact info and when it’s best to get in touch with you. Be clear when communicating who you are and who you are not. What can you do for them? For their business? For their organization? Team? Community? Emphasize what makes you truly unique and valuable.

In closing, invite your network into your life and make yourself available. And remember, next time you attend a networking event, put on your helper hat!

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