Author: gcapone

Your Competition: The Perfect Job Seeker

When you interview, you may be competing against the perfect person.  In fact, your competition may be the absolute ideal candidate that the hiring manager can imagine.

We all know that there isn’t a perfect candidate.  Despite this, you may be competing against perfection.

How is this possible?  A hiring manager usually doesn’t have a requirement to hire someone right now. When they interview job seekers, they need to be convinced to hire someone.  The best candidate interviewed will not get hired if the company decides leaves the position open.

The Economic Situation

In a strong economy, there are more jobs than people.  Some companies will hire as soon as the see someone with skills they need.  In some industries, companies would hire even if they didn’t have an open position.  The need to add talent was so critical, job seekers only needed prove they had the potential to do the job.

The situation has changed.  The economy is slowing and we’re seeing more job seekers than jobs.  Companies are still hiring, but are becoming much more reluctant. To make a hiring decision, the company will need to be convinced that the job seeker will add significant value to the company over the long term.  The bar that must be met is in the expectation of the hiring manager – and this expectation may be extremely high.

What You Need to Do

There are three things that you need to do to get hired.  You need to show you can do the job.  You need to show you are better than your competition.  You need demonstrate you will add sufficient value to persuade the hiring manager to fill the position.

Most job seekers focus on the first of these goals.  They try to show that they are qualified and are capable of doing the job.  This is the cost of admission for the interview.  A hiring manager expects everyone they consider to be capable.  This will not motivate them to hire you.

Some job seekers will try to show they are more capable than others.  This is an improvement, but still not enough to prompt a hiring decision.

The job seekers that will get hired will demonstrate a clear benefit that they will provide to the company.  The key to doing this is understanding what the company wants to achieve with the position.  Consider how you will help the company reach these goals.  Be able to articulate a the benefits you will deliver to the company and the hiring manager.

Are You Doing It Right?

Your results will tell you if you are providing a significant reason why you should be hired.  If you get hired, you probably did it right.  If you didn’t, that doesn’t necessarily mean that your interviewing was the problem.  There is a chance you didn’t have the skills or experience that were important to the company, or another individual was more qualified.  You can identify times when you interview skills were the problem.

To assess your interview skills, review your recent interviews.  At what stage did you get eliminated – the phone screen, the first interview or a later interview?  If you’re not getting past the phone screen, your interview skills are most likely the problem.  Companies decided to phone screen job seekers because their resume shows some capability to do the job.  If you convince them during the interview that this capability isn’t as strong as they thought, you need to improve your interviewing.

If you are getting to later stages of the process but still are not hired, there could be a lot of factors.  The clearest indicator of poor interview skills is a slowing in the process without an outright rejection.  In this situation, you go for an interview and all signs indicate a very positive connection with the hiring manager.  You leave the interview with a strong indication that the hiring manager thinks very highly of you.  Then, nothing happens.  Weeks go by.  You follow up, and each time you are told that the hiring really likes you but is considering other candidates.  Eventually, contact ceases and you move on.

In this situation, the job seeker did well enough that they never get rejected.  The hiring manager sees that the person can do the job – perhaps very effectively.  Despite this, they aren’t sold on hiring the person.  They keep looking, searching for a perfect candidate that will give them a compelling reason to be hired.

If this sounds like your job search, work on your interview skills.  Get a practice interview and have an expert assess you.  Develop a clear value proposition before each interview and be able to demonstrate the benefits you will provide if you are hired.

Transitioning Military Resume Mistake

I did a number of resume assessments on Thursday for transitioning military personnel and ran into the same mistake several times. 

The mistake each of the individuals made was to not state clearly what their employment was.  This may seem like an odd mistake, but it is actually very common and something I have seen on transitioning military resumes before.

The Mistake

There are several key elements that these individuals left out. 

Name of the Employer:  Although it is usually easy to figure out who the employer is, it's a good idea to make this absolutely clear.  One of the reasons for this is the variety of employment options in the military.  There are number of roles held by civilian contractors.  Specifying the employer ensures that no misinterpretation develops.

Full Dates of Service:  The overall dates of the individual's service were omitted from many of the resumes.  References to 10, 20 or 25 years of service were included within the text of the resume, but this information didn't standout.  What was not included was an actual range of dates, such at “1990 to Present.”  This may seem like nit-picking, but without a clear statement of when the individual joined, the job seeker could create uncertainty in the mind of the hiring manager.

Rank:  Many of the resumes omitted the individual's rank.  It's important for military personnel to put their career in civilian terms and not use too much military speak.  Unfortunately, many people go too far with this and make up terms for what they did that others don't understand.  Listing the rank of each position does two important things.  It helps individuals with a military background understand the job seeker better and it shows a clear progression over the individual's career.

Presenting a career of consistent promotions is a big selling point.  Listing the rank of each position shows the hiring manager when a person was promoted.  Even if someone can't differentiate one rank from another, it will be clear that a progression to high level positions occurred.

Why This is Important

I have looked at a lot of resumes from military personnel that make the mistake of not presenting basic information about their career.  This makes it difficult to know what position would be a good fit.  It also misses an opportunity.  Demonstrating a long service record, with consistent pattern of promotions, establishes a track record of success. 

Good File Formats for a Resume

When you submit a resume, it is important to provide it in a format that is useful to the company. Most companies have a database system that will pull the name, contact information and other data out of a resume.  This is done automatically, saving the company the time it would take to key this information in manually.  These systems are the backbone of a company's hiring process.  If your resume isn't compatible, it may be rejected without ever being read. 

The most common format for a resume is Microsoft Word – a .doc format.  Any hiring manager should be able to open this format.  One concern with Word is the version.  Most people have not upgraded to Microsoft Office 2007 yet.  2007 uses a .docx format that cannot be opened in earlier versions of Word.  It is much safer to use the Word 97/2000 file format.

Another common format you might consider is the Rich Text Format – a .rtf format.  An .rtf file can be opened by a very large range of programs.  It's a safe bet if you don't use Word.

A less utilized but very safe options is a plain text file – a .txt format.  This is probably the most compatible format, but it does have a significant drawback.  Plain text files do not offer any formatting options.  There are some recruiting database systems that are limited to importing plain text.  Usually these systems will require you to copy your resume into text box as part of a registration form.

A common format that you should not use for your resume is the Portable Document Format – the .pdf.  PDF's are great to ensure that the reader sees exactly the same layout and format you created.  The problem with a pdf is that most database systems cannot extract the content.

One final type that is rare and should be avoided is an image file.  Image files are even worse than pdf's.  They can't be read by the software that processes resumes and the text can't be highlight and copied manually.  This makes entering the data from a resume into a contact management system completely manual, and will often lead to the resume being discarded.

Bottom line: Stay with standard formats – Word 97/2000, rich text or plain text.

Job Fair Advice

Yesterday, I attended the Military Job Fair of Virginia.  This job fair caters to transitioning and former military personnel.  My firm does a lot of recruiting for defense contractors and we wanted to expand our network of candidates. It was a great event and we met a lot of good people. 

Interestingly, the most common first question I was asked was “What jobs do you have?”  This may seem like an acceptable question – it is a job fair with companies trying to fill jobs, after all.  The problem is that it demonstrates that the job seeker is focused solely on their needs.  This goes to the heart of the biggest mistake you can make in your job search.

Who is the Customer?

In a job search, who is the customer and who is the sales person?  Companies advertise jobs, market themselves to generate interest and traffic and need to persuade job seekers to work for them.  Based on this, most people consider the company as the party that is selling and the job seeker is the buyer.

This is wrong.  The company is the one with the money, and the job seeker is the one that has the “product” to sell.  The “product” the job seeker is offering is the contribution they will provide the company.  How can you make a good impression and get a hiring manager excited about you if you are focused on “what’s in it for you.”

The other problem with asking about jobs is that it is almost impossible to answer.  A company that goes to a job fair usually has multiple needs.  For large companies, this could be hundreds, or even thousands of jobs.  The company representative then has to pick what job they think is most appropriate for the job seeker based only on what they see.  Do you want to be categorized and stereotyped based on your appearance?  Leading off with this question is asking to be stereotyped. 

For some people, how they look will not create the right impression.

Job Seeker Example

Although the job fair was designed for transitioning military personnel, it covered a much broader range.  In fact, there were a number of entry level job seekers, particularly in administrative roles.  Because the event had a military focus, there were less women than men. 

There was a point midway during the day, when I had talked with a series of young women that were all looking for administrative positions.  Then, a woman I remember walked up that looked especially young and had a similar image to the others I met. 

If she had led off with “What jobs do you have,” I would then have to guess what career field and the level of the position would interest her.  Essentially, by asking about jobs first, she would be requesting that I stereotype her based on the other job seekers I had met that day. 

Instead, this woman started off by saying, “Hi, I’m <name>.  I have been working in the <industry> for the last eight years and just completed my MBA.  I’m interested in learning about your firm.”

By framing her background, she ensured that I got the right impression of her from the start. 

What Should You Do at a Job Fair

Your goal at a job fair should be to build a relationship with a number of companies.  Talk to as many people as you can.  Learn a little about each company.  Make sure you take away information that will allow you to follow up with the person you met. 

I talked with well over one hundred people.  I can only a recall a few.  The ones that I will end up working with are the ones that are proactive and follow up with me.  This demonstrates both initiative and organization. 

If you have attended job fairs in the past and didn’t get the results you wanted from them, change your approach.  Focus on building a relationship with the recruiters that are there (both corporate and agency), and follow up after the event.

Additional Resources

I’m going to start working on a guide to help job seekers get better results from job fairs.  On the way home yesterday, I mapped out the organization for the guide and some of the tools I’m going to include.  It should help you make job fairs much more effective for you in the future.

I’m hoping to make this available in the next few weeks and will announce its availability here on the blog. Check back for more information.

How to Start Building an Industry Presence

Yesterday, I wrote 10 Ways to Get Employers to Find You.  Today, I want to give you a simple, easy to follow plan to get started utilizing a few of these techniques.

You’re probably thinking that this isn’t going to be easy, no matter what I say.  The truth is, it can be easy if you make it easy.  Despite this, very few people will do what is necessary.  This isn’t because the techniques are difficult to implement.  The reason that few people will do these things is that they are slow to work.

Most people want a quick solution.  A slow, methodical plan, no matter how effective, just isn’t appealing.  If you want employers to seek you out, you need to do two things, and neither can be achieved overnight.  You need to become a recognized expert in your field and you need to build a huge network of professionals that know and respect you.

The Step-by-Step Plan

  • Step 1: Setup a LinkedIn account and build a profile.  This will give people a place to learn about you and your career.
  • Step 2: On LinkedIn each week, invite one or two people in your industry that you don’t know to connect to you on LinkedIn.  To do this, consider getting a premium account on LinkedIn. It will make the process much easier.
  • Step 3: Start following the LinkedIn Answers or Yahoo Answers for topics in your field.  Participate by answering a few questions a week.
  • Step 4: Search for blogs and forums related to your industry and pick one or more to follow.  Participate in the discussions by posting comments.
  • Step 5: Write one or two articles per month and post them on an article marketing site.
  • Step 6: As you build a library of articles you have written, begin referencing these in you Answers, blog and forum postings. This will reinforce with your network that you are an expert and that you actively contribute to the field.

Time Commitment

Building a network is not something that will happen over night.  It will take work and time.  Fortunately, the time commitment isn’t huge.

  • LinkedIn Profile Setup – 5 Hours – One-Time: Setting up a profile can be done very quickly, but to do this right, it will take a few hours.  The more time you put in writing about your background the more effective the profile will be.
  • Invitations – 10 min/wk: Sending one or two invites per week will only take a minute or two.  What may take time is conversing with your new connections.  Some will accept your invites without a response.  Others will send a personal email and start a discussion to get to know you.
  • Answers – 30 min/wk: The time commitment here is up to you. 30 minutes a week to read and answer questions can be very effective.
  • Blog Comments – 30 min/wk: Reading and participating in blogs and discussions can be effective with 30 minutes a week.
  • Articles – 1-2 Articles per month – Time Varies: The time commitment here will vary with your writing skill.  Some people can knock out really good articles very quickly.  Others may require 10 or more hours per article.  The key isn’t writing a lot, it’s being consistent over time.  One article per month will develop a significant portfolio over next couple years.  Expect the first few articles to take some time, but you will get faster and it will get easier with time.

If you follow these steps, you will build relationships and propel your career forward.  Because this is a slow process, few people will take the time to do this.  If you do this, you will differentiate yourself from your competition.  Don’t give up if you can’t devote this much time – just scale back to what you can do.

The Results

Now, fast forward a couple years.  You decide you want to make a career change, and start the process by contacting people in your network and ask them for help.  Some of the individuals you have developed a relationship with will be happy to recommend you to their companies.  Their referral will be more than just passing your resume to HR.  They will be able (and probably very willing) to share with key managers that you are an expert in the field, have published a number of industry articles and are a resource others in the industry turn to with questions.  In most cases, you’re going to get a very close look and have a great chance of getting hired.

10 Ways to Get Employers to Find You

In life, it is not what you know or who you know that counts — it is both!
Anthony J. D'Angelo, The College Blue Book

Becoming a recognized expert in your industry and developing a large network are two steps that can propel your career.  Very few people devote much if any time to either of these tasks.  The ones that do, are often sought out by employers. 

Both of these goals may seem extremely difficult to achieve.  The truth is that they are much easier to reach than they appear.  I'm going share 10 ways to improve your industry standing and build your network.  These techniques will help employers find you when they need to fill a key position.

The benefits are simple:

  • You will learn more and develop faster as a professional
  • You will build relationships that will expose you to opportunities, often before you decide to make a career change
  • You will have a network to tap into for opportunities if you find you need to make a career move
  • You will meet potential employees you can hire

Most of these steps require very little time on a weekly basis.  What they do require is a commitment to consistently work on them.  If you do this, a few minutes each day, you can make a huge impact on your career.

The Plan

To become an industry expert, recognized by your peers, it is important to study your industry.  Find resources that publish good content in your field and follow them.  Google Reader, RSS Feeds and other free services make this easy.  If you are not familiar with these, check them out – they're really easy to use and can save a lot of time.

Once you are comfortable that you understand your field (you are probably already at this point), start contributing.  Share your expertise, either by writing articles and white papers, or by participating in online discussions.  In either case, you will begin interacting with people in you field you would not otherwise know. 

As your presence in the field grows, your expertise will continue to increase and you will build your network. 

10 Ways to Build Your Presence

  1. LinkedIn – Create a profile on LinkedIn and link to people in your industry.  Try to add one or two new contacts every week.  In a couple years, you will have 200 people in your field that you know and can help you.  Remember, networking is always most effective when you look for ways to help others, not just yourself.
  2. Personal Website – Create a personal website outlining your background and professional interests.  This gives people a chance to find you and understand your career.
  3. Facebook – Create a Facebook page (or Myspace or one of the other Social Networking sites) and share you career background and interests. The social networking pages are designed to be places for social interaction, but this doesn't mean they can't be used to help your career.  Obama and McCain both have Facebook pages.  In fact, Obama has over 40 different Facebook accounts (Virignia for Obama, NY for Obama, etc.).  Janis Joplin, the singer who died in 1970, has a Facebook page.   There's a book store in the UK with a page, a number of charities and a bunch of Arts festivals with Facebook pages. 
  4. Industry Forums – Most fields have industry associations that sponsor online forums where people can post questions or participate in discussions.  Join one or more of these and contribution to the group.  In the IT field, searching forums has been a very effective way for recruiters to find talented candidates. If you are in an industry without an effective forum, you can start one, although this is much more time consuming.
  5. Article Marketing – Write articles and post them on article databases.  EzineArticles.com is the biggest.  By posting an article you authorize publishers to reprint your article on their websites or in print as long as they credit you as the author. 
  6. Answers – LinkedIn Answers and Yahoo Answers both have very active communities.  You can post a question on any topic if you need information.  By answering questions, you can develop a reputation as an expert. 
  7. Blog Comments – Visit blogs in your industry and post comments.  Add additional information to a post or pose a question for the author. 
  8. Hub Pages/Lens – Set up an account on Squidoo or Hubpages and create a resource page for your industry.
  9. Knol – This is a new article posting site on Google.  Post some articles in your field.
  10. Blog – Start writing a blog about your industry.  One or two posts a week will grow and become a significant online presence.  This a bigger commitment, both in time and effort, but can be very effective.  If you can't write consistently, look to the article databases like EzineArticles and publish articles from other authors to supplement what you write. 

If you commit to a few of these activities on a routine, consistent basis, you will build a very effective network that will provide significant benefits to your career.

Generation Y: The Next Lesson to Learn

Over the last five years, there has been a lot written about Generation Y – the generation that is currently in their 20’s.  One of the topics that is most prominent about the Y’s is the development of helicopter parents.

If you haven’t heard about this it will probably come as a shock.  Helicopter parents refer to the parents of college students and recent graduates that take an extremely active role in managing the lives of their children.  This management typically involves the parent(s) attending meetings with the student and teachers and job interviews.  This can include the parent questioning hiring managers and even negotiating the job offer for their child.

For many people, the idea that a person would take a parent with them to a job interview is tough to grasp.  Other generations were taught to demonstrate independence.  This new generation is comfortable seeking the advice and guidance of others.

In recent years, much of the writing on Gen Y has focused on helping hiring managers from other generations understand and attract Gen Y candidates.  We had a significant labor shortage in many areas of our economy, and companies had to change to get the best people.

As our economy slows, this labor shortage is changing into a job shortage.  The job seekers won’t be in driver’s seat. 

In some companies, this could lead to a shift in their expectations of job seekers.  Hiring managers may not cater to Gen Y candidates that maintain a visible helicopter parent the way they did.  They know that there will be other candidates that fit the hiring manager’s expectations better.

Does this mean that Gen Y needs to stop listening to their parent regarding career decisions?  Of course not – a mentor in your career is very helpful.  What it does mean is that it is very important in a tight job market to meet the expectations of a hiring manager.  Don’t expect to be able to be a rebel or maverick (it’s a little weird referring to a person, that listens their parents to an exceptional degree, as a rebel). 

This economic crisis could be the defining time for an entire generation.  Gen Y will grow from this and become the leaders of tomorrow.  They will bring both an openness to the advice and guidance of others and an independence and work ethic that will drive success. 

Unrelated Work Experience on a Resume

I ran into a resume of a person that organized their work experience well. The job seeker had made a very significant career change 12 years ago. The prior career was a technical trade and the current career is sales role.

The resume was organized with the two different careers separated into a professional experience section and an additional experience section. Here's how he structured his resume:

Executive Summary

<One paragraph – four sentences>

Core Competencies

<List of a dozen skill keywords>

Professional Experience

<List of positions with descriptions and accomplishments – over the last twelve years – included employment dates>

Additional Experience

<List of positions with descriptions and accomplishments – did not include employment dates>

Education

<College degree and industry certifications>

I like to have detailed employment dates on a resume, and yet found this presentation, without dates for some positions, very compelling. The reason I like this presentation is it focuses the resume on the current career.  Additionally, I don't feel that the employment dates from this prior career add much value to understanding the job seker's background.

If the job seeker had changed careers more recently, I would want the dates. Employment dates give an indication of stability – they don't tell the whole story but do add valuable information. Further back in a person's career, they are less relevant.

If the job seeker had stayed in the same career, I'd also be more interested in the dates from further back. Understanding the progression and experience of a job seeker is important. Part of this is knowing how they got their start. Did they start at the bottom and work their way up slowly, or did they reach a high level without working in the trenches? There are advantages and disadvantages of both. Knowing how someone got started in a career is important for this reason.

In this case, the prior experience wasn't relevant and was more than 10 years ago. Separating it into a different section and providing less information was fine. It drew more attention to what was important – the experience of the last twelve years.

Consultant Objective Statement

I reviewed a resume that had an objective statement that illustrates several mistakes. The job seeker was an experienced consultant. I can't tell you the exact experience level because their resume didn't have employment dates (a major problem). I would guess the person had close to 10 years of experience.

Below is the objective statement:

<University Name> MBA seeks Contract Possitions anywhere in the US or Internationally will travel anywhere as long as per diem is provided. Will consider permanent/direct hire possitions in the <Metro Area> area only.

The first problem is the spelling of “Possitions.” This doesn't bother me much. The job seeker is from a non-english speaking country and spent a portion of their career in that country. Additionally, the job seeker is a technical consultant, making communications skills less important than in other roles.

Another problem is way the candidate states the value they offer. The job seeker makes their MBA the only feature important enough to highlight in their objective. For a recent graduate, this would be ok, but this candidate has significant experience. They should emphasize their experience, skills or accomplishments instead of their education.

The biggest problem with the objective is that it doesn't say what the job seeker wants to do. There is a goal regarding geography – they won't relocate permanently, but they will travel anywhere for a contract position. This doesn't narrow the possibilities that much. The objective doesn't say what type of job the person wants. From their resume, I can make an educated guess based on their experience, but you don't want to make a hiring manager have to work to figure out what you want.

Finally, your objective statement should not specify your compensation or benefits requirements. The statement that per diem is required doesn't help the impression. Although this is a very reasonable expectation, stating it this prominently in the resume objective gives me the impression that this person is going to be very demanding and difficult to manage.

Dates for Each Job on Your Resume

I read a resume today that grouped the employment history in such a way that it obscured the job seeker's experience.  This person has spent the last 20 years with the same company in the auto industry and recently lost their job.  With such a long career with one company, it’s not surprising this individual held a number of different positions in different areas of the company.

The problem with this resume was how the work experience was presented.  The job seeker provided the years they worked for the company, but they didn’t list any detail for each position.  Here’s the format of their work experience:

Company Name – City, State   198x to 2008
Job Title One:  <short list of responsibilities>
Job Title Two:  <short list of responsibilities>
Job Title Three:  <short list of responsibilities>
Job Title Four:  <short list of responsibilities>
Job Title Five:  <short list of responsibilities>
Job Title Six:  <short list of responsibilities>

In another section of the resume, the job seeker lists a number of accomplishments, but doesn’t related the accomplishments to specific roles.

The problem with this is that it is very difficult to understand what the job seeker did.  The six job were actually in five different functional areas of the company, and have significant differences in skills and experiences. 

Knowing how many years were spent in each position would really help.  Plus, it’s impossible to tell which of the roles was the best fit for the job seeker.  The resume didn’t have an objective, so I have to guess which position is the best fit.  I would assume it's the most recent role – but I honestly don’t know and could be completely wrong.

It is important for your resume to tell your story.  A resume is more than a collection of facts – it’s a picture of your career and potential.  This resume gave me some facts, but did not show me the potential of this candidate.