Career Archives - Page 5 of 7 - Palladian Career Resources

How to Fail at a Job Fair

A month ago, I attended a job fair. As an executive recruiter, my primary goal at job fairs is to build my database. I can never be sure what my clients are going to want in the future, so I need to cover all the bases.

My database is electronic. I doubt I have more than half a dozen resumes printed at any point in time. There are just too many candidates to try to keep track of everything with hard copies. This makes it critical for me to get an electronic version of each resume to upload into my database. I don’t have the time to type a resume into the system.

I am explaining my motivation and process so you can understand the mistake a lot of job seekers made at the job fair. When I talked with a candidate that impressed me, I would give them my business card and ask them to email me their resume. I did this with at least thirty or forty different people. After the job fair I received emails following up on the conversations from two people. Two candidates out of thirty or forty took the time to email their resume after a recruiter requested it.

There are a variety of reasons why the candidates didn’t follow up. I expect the most common was they forgot who I was. After meeting with a hundred companies, the job seekers couldn’t remember most of the conversations. All they had was a pocket full of business cards.

I was disappointed so few candidates followed up, but I wasn’t too upset. If a person can’t follow a simple instruction like “email me your resume,” then how successful do you think they are in their career?

I did have a number of job seekers give me paper copies of their resume. A paper copy doesn’t do much for me though. I can’t load the resume into my system without retyping it, and that is too time consuming. When I got home I reviewed the resumes. If someone fit a job we were working right now, they got a call. All the other resumes ended up in a stack and will ultimately be shredded. I could take a job order tomorrow that is ideal for one of the people in the stack, but I have no way of finding the resume.

Bottom line: If you want to maximize your success at a job fair, take notes when speaking with each company and follow up after the job fair.

Spam and Your Job Search

In an active job search, you will send and post your resume a number of places. Some of these may be publicly accessible, allowing anyone to obtain your email address. This can lead to a tremendous amount of spam. There are ways you can control the spam you receive.

In an active job search, you will send and post your resume to a number of places. Some of these may be publicly accessible, allowing anyone to obtain your email address. This can lead to a tremendous amount of spam. There are ways you can control the spam you receive.

One of the best solutions for a job seeker is to use a different email address for your job search. Create a free email account on a service like Gmail. This will keep your personal email address confidential and only lead spammers to your new account.

When creating an email address for you job search, make it professional. Do not borrow someone else’s account for your search. This can make a bad impression. Using the email of a spouse or child raises the question of whether you have a personal email and why you didn’t create one for your search. Using someone else’s email will not prevent spam. It will just send it to them instead of you.

A good format for your email address will include a variation on your name. For example:

First initial and last name – jdoe @ emaildomain . com
First and middle initial and last name – jjdoe @ emaildomain . com
First name and last initial – johnd @ emaildomain . com
First and last name – johndoe @ emaildomain . com
First and last name with hyphen – john-doe @ emaildomain .com

You may find some or all of these choices are unavailable from a free email service. Gmail has millions of accounts, making it more difficult to find a unique name. Adding numbers can be an effective solution. A two digit number added to the end of your name will often be available.

Once you have an account for your email, you need to decide how to deal with the spam you get. Setting up a job search specific account will not stop the spam, it will just keep it our of your regular email inbox. There are options for dealing with spam.

Spam Filters: Most email services have some type of spam filter included. You may have the choice of setting how the filter works. The challenge is weeding out the right emails and not losing important ones. I prefer to let more in and delete the junk manually with my email. I’d rather deal with some extra spam than miss an important email, but this is personal preference.

Anti-Spam Software: If you aren’t happy with the spam filter included with your email service, you can find software that will screen your emails.

Spam Prevention: There are services that require someone sending an email to you to validate that they are a real person. This is great for preventing spam, but I strongly discourage using a service like this in your job search. If someone reads your resume and wants to contact you, you should make it easy for them. Requiring them to complete a validation step so their email will reach you may cause them to pass you over. I have done this with borderline candidates. For someone that I don’t think is especially strong, I’m more likely to email than call. If the candidate has a validation step, I usually will not compete it since the candidate wasn’t an especially strong fit in the first place. With the number of resumes I receive, I just don’t have time. There’s a good change the person screening your resume will be equally busy.

The bottom line is that you will receive some spam. When you get spam, delete it. Never respond (that will just encourage the spammer to send more). Some spam will include offers that sound too good to be true. They are. Thousands of people are taken advantage of every year. Be careful.

Inbound Marketing for a Job Search

I ran into a great article about Inbound Marketing for a job search. Inbound Marketing is a type of marketing that focuses on allowing customers to find you. Most marketing is outbound in nature. Post ads, cold call, send direct mail are all outbound marketing techniques. They rely on the company contacting the prospect. Inbound marketing relies on positioning the company to get found by prospects that are looking to buy.

I’ve written several articles about creating an online presence that you can leverage in your job search. The idea is to develop a brand that leads hiring managers to you, rather than try to get their attention sending out resumes. You can do this through blogs, webpages, social media sites, LinkedIn, and numerous other tools.

Building a brand that can help your job search can’t be done overnight. It requires work over a period of months to be effective. Fortunately, it doesn’t require much time on a daily basis.

I bring this topic up again because I ran into a great article about Inbound Marketing for a job search. Inbound Marketing is a type of marketing that focuses on allowing customers to find you. Most marketing is outbound in nature. Advertising, cold calls, and direct mail are all outbound marketing techniques. They rely on the company contacting the prospect. Inbound marketing relies on positioning the company to get found by prospects that are looking to buy.

In a job search, hiring managers actively look to find the best candidate. Most candidates market themselves by sending resumes in response to job posting – an active marketing technique. This technique puts your resume in a stack with everyone else.

An inbound approach would be to author a blog or website on your industry so that hiring managers find you when they look for industry experts. This technique also allows you to build relationships with people that can influence your search by recommending you to hiring managers.

A key reason why this approach works is that it is difficult to execute. Most people will not take the time to build an online presence. The effort required might only be a few minutes a day, but few will commit to this. Those that do will standout from their competition.

Take a look at the Inbound Marketing article for your job search. I’ve run into several people recently that landed jobs directly as a result of these techniques. They work, but they take time and effort to implement.

How Blogs Can Help Your Job Search

Blogging allows job seekers to connect with industry professionals, hiring managers and recruiters. There a number of ways to use blogs to get noticed and find a job.

Write a Blog About Your Search

There are a large number of blogs that focus on the activities of a job seeker in their search. These blogs give advice and describe the experiences of the job seeker. As this type of blog proliferates, the effectiveness will decline, but it can still be a benefit.

The advantage of a blog like this is to generate traffic on the hope that someone that visits can help you. The problem with a blog focused on your search is that the bulk of the traffic will be other job seekers. Few of these individuals will be in a hiring position. There are still two benefits to this, though. First, other job seekers can give advice and tips on where to find leads on jobs. Second, there are a lot of recruiters and HR professionals that search and visit blogs within their industry. One of these visitors may be a position to help you.

I found a blog recently from a student, Germaine Paul, majoring in public relations at Oklahoma State. The blog details the job search experiences and lessons learned as the student approaches graduation. I found this blog while surfing stories about career advice. This is something I do on a regular basis as I'm always looking to stay current on new trends.

Writing a Blog About Your Industry

You can write a blog about topics within your industry. This can set you up as a thought leader and attract the interest of hiring authorities in your field. Many professionals routinely search the web for stories on their industry.

This effort takes time to be effective. You cannot post a few articles and generate attention and respect as an industry expert. To develop a following my take months or years. If you are currently unemployed, this is a much slower technique than others available. If you are employed but worried about your job security, starting a blog may be a great tactic to prepare for a possible layoff. You can build relationships that you can leverage down the road.

Participate in Blog Discussions

One important element of blogging is the dialog between the author and the readers through comments. Some blogs generate very active discussions, with readers contributing additional thoughts, questions or answers to individual posts. You can build relationships with others in your field by posting comments on blogs.

Remember to add value to the blog. Posting a comment that is poorly written or of little value to the community will make an impression, but not one that will help your search.

One benefit to participating in a blog is to meet professionals in your field. You may find contributors that work for companies you are targeting in your job search. These individuals can become resources and advocates for you. Consider participating in blogs from industry trade groups, industry thought leaders and trend setting companies.

If a firm you are targeting has a corporate blog, participate in the discussions there. The technical experts writing on the blog will notice the active contributors and may assist you in your search.

Mistakes to Avoid

If you are posting comments on a blog, make sure you are presenting a professional image. It is unlikely that the blog comment form will have spell check. After you write your comment, copy it over into Word and spell check it. This will help identify obvious mistakes.

Provide quality not quantity. One good comment a week is much better than a dozen poor quality comments. Don't write comments just to comment. If you don't have something to contribute, wait for another post. You want to make an impression of being very thoughtful and experienced in your field.

Soft Skills in Global Sourcing Roles

Technical expertise is critical to landing a global sourcing position, but the most successful candidates will demonstrate combination of technical expertise and soft skills.

Technical expertise is critical to landing a global sourcing position. The challenges in sourcing roles require skill and experience to be successful. These challenges constantly change with new economic and international opportunities and pitfalls. In this environment, as critical as technical skills are to global sourcing, professional more than just technical skills to be successful. Roles in global sourcing require a balance of technical expertise and soft skills.

Soft skills form the foundation of a person’s career, driving the ability to apply technical expertise. The most critical soft skills include:

Communications Skills
Interpersonal Skills
Teamwork
Work Ethic/Attitude
Organization Skills
Flexibility
Problem Solving Skills

All of these attributes play a significant role in every career. In global sourcing, soft skills are critically important. Sourcing touches almost every functional area of a company, and requires coordinating and supporting these functional areas. Sourcing also requires extensive interaction with people and organizations outside of the company.

Making the soft skills requirements even more important, global sourcing professionals need to work with international suppliers. Navigating differences in communication styles and cultural values can be especially challenging.

To be successful in a global sourcing role, an individual needs to be able to apply their technical expertise with their soft skills to reach the desired outcome. Communicating effectively, by phone, in written correspondence, one-on-one in person and before groups will affect the success of a sourcing professional. Additionally, being cognizant of culture issues can make or break a vendor relationship. Adapting to changing market conditions and solving problems are constant challenges and require an individual flexible enough to stay in front of the marketplace.

As you prepare your resume and get ready to interview, include how your soft skills have helped you succeed in the past. For example, you may write on your resume how you developed a sourcing plan for a new product rollout, and this plan required coordinating sourcing activities in a number of countries. The technical requirements of such a project could be substantial. Within the presentation, a little information on soft skills required to pull off this project can help. Mentioning the communications requirements, the relationship building with new suppliers, the organization and time management challenges and the ability to execute this project so that it supports the efforts of other functional areas are all topics that will help with the overall presentation.

As you move forward in your career search, remember to include your soft skills in your presentation. A good balance of soft skills and technical expertise can help set you apart.

Job References For Your Search

Reference checks are an important step in the hiring process of many companies. They are extremely common, and it is likely you will be asked for the names of several references before you are made a job offer. There are a few mistakes job seekers make with their references that are easily avoidable.

References on Your Resume

Some job seekers list their references directly on their resume. These can be included at the end in a reference section, of throughout the resume under each job. In either case, this is a mistake.

You should not list your references on your resume. By placing your references on your resume, you are inviting anyone that reads your resume to contact the people you list. As an executive recruiter, I’ve read articles from several sources that advise recruiters to search resumes for references to recruit. If you are posting your resume on online, with references attached, there’s a good chance a recruiter will use the information you give them.

There isn’t a benefit to listing your references on your resume. To land an interview, you need to demonstrate your skills, experience and track record of success. Listing a former supervisor will not help in this capacity. The hiring manager will make their decision to interview you long before they invest the time to contact a reference.

References Available Upon Request

It is common to see the phrase “References Available Upon Request” at the bottom of a resume. This isn’t a bad thing, but it’s completely unnecessary. If a company requires reference checks in its process, it is going to ask for them whether you write this or not. A company will expect you to be able to provide references.

Go ahead and leave the “References Available Upon Request” off your resume. Save the space for information that will make a difference in landing an interview.

Choice of References

When you provide references, try to select former supervisors and try to select individuals from your recent work history. The best reference is your most recent direct supervisor. This individual should have a similar perspective as the manager hiring you. After this, past supervisors, make good references. References from more recent positions are more valuable than older ones.

After direct supervisors, individuals at the same level as your direct supervisor, but in a different functional area, can provide helpful references. A senior executive several levels above you is also a good reference, but usually not as good as a direct supervisor. A direct supervisor has much more contact and time directly observing your performance than senior level people. This allows the supervisor to describe your performance in more detail.

Peer references are also good to have, but are less valued by employers. It is easier to pick and choose a peer that you are friends with that you know will give a very positive reference. Hiring managers often discount these references.

Personal references are rarely valuable. Friends, neighbors, ministers, teachers and other individuals may be able to describe your personality, values and background. They rarely can provide an assessment of your performance and potential in a specific job.

Notifying Your References

When you select your references, you should let the reference know that you would like to use them as a reference. Let them know you are interviewing for a job and they may be contacted. Describe to them why you are looking for a job, the type of positions you are seeking and the type of companies you are pursuing.

Information to Provide With Each
Reference

Full Name
Current Title and Employer
Title and Employer when the reference
worked with you
Your title and reporting relationship to the reference when you worked with them
Phone Number (preferably a cell phone)
Best Time to Call
Email Address

Number of References

You should have at a minimum three references. Don’t expect a company to check every reference. They may only check a few. The company may request additional references, especially if you do not include any former supervisors.

A great selection of references would include two direct supervisors, a exec above the level of your supervisor and a couple peers. A list of five references like this should satisfy an employer.

Letters of Recommendation

A letter of recommendation is a reference that is written and given to you so that you can provide it to a prospective employer. Recommendations are good to have, but do not eliminate the desire of companies to speak with your references directly. They may have questions that the letter does not address, or just want to hear from the reference directly. In either case, you may still be asked for contact information of someone that provided a recommendation.

An option for recommendations that is becoming more common is to obtain recommendations on LinkedIn. When a former boss or coworker writes a recommendation on LinkedIn, it can be viewed by anyone (if you have your profile set to a public status), and can be beneficial in your search.

Other Considerations

If you are employed and your employer does not know you are considering a change, you many not want your current employer to be contacted. This is usually not a problem and is understood by companies. Make sure you provide references from the position immediately prior to your current position. If you have been with the same company for a long time, you should try to get one or more references from your current employer. In this case, it is easier to get peers and this should be ok. Just try to get a supervisor from sometime in your work history.

References are usually requested around the time of the first face-to-face interview, often immediately following the interview.

You may have a past employer that will only verify employment dates. Companies do this to avoid any legal liability that may arise from providing a negative reference. They decide to avoid references all together. If this is an employer’s policy, there is little you can do to change their stance. A prospective employer should understand. Just make sure you have selection of references from other employers.

The Perfect Job

Finding the perfect job is a goal we all have. Many people find great jobs, that are rewarding and enjoyable, but perfection is elusive. There’s a simple reason for this. For almost every job, there’s a reason employers pay people to do the work. If an employer didn’t pay anything, they wouldn’t be able to persuade anyone to take the position.

There is an exception available right now. A job that most people would pay to do. The job is to live on the beach at resort for six months. The “work” required includes:

Going to the beach
Visiting a luxury spa
Snorkelling
Swiming in the pool
Touring the island by plane
Hiking the island
Sailing
Taking lots of photos
Sharing your trip by writing on blog

Does this sound like difficult, stressful, tedious work? How much would you need to be paid to do this? The salary for this position is AUD$150,000 for six months work… Australian dollars since the position is in Australia on Hamilton Island on the Great Barrier Reef. Accommodations are provided.

The downside of the position is the duration – it’s only a six month contract, then you have to go home.

My first reaction to hearing about this was to think that it had to be a joke. It isn’t. The job is being offered by the Tourism Queensland. An important component of the job is to write a weekly blog showing the range of activities and your overall impression of the location. The person that gets the job will help promote the resort by showing the world how perfect being there is.

The deadline to apply is February 22^nd. Now, get working on your application (you need to submit a video), and good luck.

10 Job Search Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Making these 10 mistakes in your job search will limit your success and hold you back.

In good economic times, a job search can be difficult. In tough times, the challenge is even greater. To be successful in a search, you need to market your potential effectively. Unfortunately, many job seekers make mistakes that hold them back. Below are ten of the biggest mistakes you can make in your search:

1. WIIFM – The biggest mistake job seekers make is focusing on “What’s In It For Me” and not what is important to the employer. When you look for a job, you are trying to persuade a company to spend tens of thousands of dollars on you. They need a good reason to do that and helping your career or satisfying your needs isn’t a priority for them.

Focus on the goals of the company and hiring manager – not your goals.

2. No Cover Letter – Sending a resume to a company introduces you to the employer. Without a cover letter, the impression you make will be less personal and less effective. The main goal of the cover letter is to motivate the hiring manager to want to read your resume. Just sending a resume usually won’t create this motivation. You need something to get them excited.

Always send a cover letter that highlights your skills and accomplishments.

3. No Objective – To many job seekers submit resumes without indicating the type of position they want. A hiring manager is not going to spend time trying to determine what the best job for you is. You need to point them in the right direction. Either in your cover letter or in your resume, indicate the type of position you are seeking.

Clearly show what type of position you should be considered for.

4. No Accomplishments – To make a good impression, you need to show what you have done. Most job seekers focus on detailing their responsibilities. Being responsible for something doesn’t make a person any good at it. You need to show your performance.

Demonstrate your potential by including specific accomplishments.

5. Missing Information – Your resume needs to convey certain information. Failing to include details that are commonly expected will make a poor impression. Employment dates, names of employers and job titles need to be included.

Ensure your resume clearly shows your employment history.

6. Overly General Applications – With the ease of sending resumes to hundreds of employers with only a few clicks, some job seekers generalize their resume. The goal is to make it as broad as possible. The result is the resume ends up looking like everyone else’s and they get passed over.

Customize your resume for each position, emphasizing your skills, abilities and accomplishments related to the job.

7. Not Networking – The most effective way to find a job is through networking, and yet, many job seekers do very little networking. Getting a contact in a company to refer you to a hiring manager will greatly improve your chances of getting hired. This is a job search strategy that you need to use.

Find someone in each target company that can help you.

8. Not Preparing for an Interview – It is essential that you research the company and position before going to an interview. This is expected by hiring managers. If you don’t do this, you will make a poor impression.

Prepare thoroughly for each interview and complete at least two or three mock interviews before your first real interview.

9. Not Proofreading – Spelling mistakes and grammatical errors need to be minimized in your resume. Your resume is the primary sales document for you. Hiring managers review resumes with the expectation that it is the highest quality work you can produce. If it is poorly written, with spelling errors, grammatical errors, inconsistent sentence structure and awkward writing, it will hurt your chances.

Read your resume slowly out loud to catch mistakes, and find a good writer to proofread your resume.

10. Not Getting Help – Most job seekers avoid getting help from experts. Some fear the negative feedback and others just think they can do it all themselves. Your resume and interviewing are too important to try a DIY approach. Get an expert to help. Their advice and assistance can be invaluable.

Get help from friends and hire expert coaches improve your resume and interview skills.

JibberJobber Review

JibberJobber effectively organizes a job search. If you commit to using it, it will help you. The free version is great and provides significant value. The premium version is even better, adding a number of useful features.

I’ve been to the JibberJobber site a number of times – the blog has some great job search articles. Despite this, I never really understood how useful JibberJobber is to a job seeker. Last week, I decided to do some research… I created an account and tried it out. I was very impressed.

How It Works

JibberJobber is a contact management system for job seekers. It provides a systematic approach for organizing and working your search. The core of the system is the contact database. You can add companies, recruiting firms and job boards, and you can add specific contacts at each organization. I like the flexibility database offers. There is a field for categories that allows you to create specific groupings for your companies. This is helpful if you are pursuing opportunities in multiple industries. The system also allows the attachment of documents – resumes and cover letters submitted, job descriptions, research on the company and any other files you want to tie to the company.

Once a company is entered, you can add contacts, events and jobs. Adding an event is easy and allows you to create past events or schedule future appointments.

Why It’s Effective

In a job search, staying organized is essential. You may apply for a position but not hear from the company for several weeks. It is likely you will forget some details by that point. Having a database that tracks the information will make you more effective.

The system can also help you in your networking. You have the ability to add contacts for each opportunity. A little research online, with social media sites, LinkedIn and other tools, will help you identify people within a company you can contact to learn about the opportunity and employer. It is likely that your contacts will know someone at each of your target companies. Contact these individuals and try to learn about the culture of the company, the types of qualities the organization prioritizes when hiring, and details of the position. Even if the person you speak with doesn’t know anything about the position you want, they will be able to help you understand the culture and hiring priorities.

By building a relationship with someone in the company, there is a chance that individual will offer to refer you to the hiring manager. The odds of getting an interview from an employee referral are dramatically higher than from an internet application.

Maintaining a tracking system for the contacts you develop will help you leverage each contact effectively.

Problems with JibberJobber

JibberJobber is a data management system. This requires entering information each time you do something with your search. Many people will find this a great strength of the system. The challenge for some will be maintaining consistency. If you don’t stick with it, it won’t help. This really isn’t a problem or limitation of the system. More of a caution that discipline is require… of course, if your job search isn’t organized and disciplined, you may have bigger problems than using JibberJobber ineffectively.

My only real reservation about the system is that getting started is a little confusing. The system is great, but there are so many features it is a little overwhelming. JibberJobber could use a lot more tooltip popups and a clearer roadmap for how to use the system. Much of the benefit of JibberJobber is organizing your job search so that you are efficient and effective. This requires knowing what information you need to log and what information is optional. If you don’t get off to a good start, the system will be less efficient. Hopefully, the team at JibberJobber will add more instructions, tutorials and tips to make it easier to get started.

Bottom Line: JibberJobber effectively organizes a job search. If you commit to using it, it will help you. The free version is great and provides significant value. The premium version is even better, adding a number of useful features.

No Sales Metrics to Discuss

What do you do if your employer does not have established sales metrics you can discuss in a job interview or put on your resume?

Goals, metrics, performance measures and results are extremely common in sales. Companies track sales performance closely and the data is easily quantifiable. When you interview for a sales position, you can expect to be asked about your performance, and the interviewer will expect specific answers.

In some cases, this can pose a challenge. Although rare, some companies do not provide specific goals and metrics for every sales position. Without specific metrics provided, job seekers struggle with discussing their past performance. They just don’t have the data.

If you are this situation, it is likely you will be passed over for most sales positions. It isn’t the lack of information that is the biggest problem. Companies that measure sales performance closely develop a culture that reflects this. One of the management axioms I’ve heard throughout my career is, “if you measure it, it will improve.” This philosophy focuses on the motivation that develops from publicizing performance measures… No one wants to be last and no one wants see their performance below expectations.

If you have not worked in a culture with detailed metrics, adjusting can be difficult. A hiring manager may select another candidate that has demonstrated success in this type of environment.

Your chances in this situation are not dead, though. There are ways you can demonstrate you ability to adapt to this type of culture.

Start by looking at your performance reviews. Your annual reviews will tell you your expectations and performance relative to these expectations. Hopefully, these are specific. If they are not, look at the activities that were required to be successful. For example, one of your expectations may have been “provide excellent customer service,” and had the rating “meets expectations.” This really doesn’t tell us much. We don’t know what “excellent customer service” looks like in the mind of the reviewer, how “meets expectations” falls into the continuum of performance, or how significant this was to the position.

If you develop specific examples of your performance in each review area, you will interview much better. These examples should show clearly what the goal of the activity was, what you did and what your results were. Quantifiable examples are good, but if you don’t have metrics, qualitative examples will have to do.

Without an annual review to use as a starting point, you have a greater challenge. If you did not have clear expectations set for you, what expectations did you set for yourself? If the answer was none, you have a problem. A hiring manager looking for a candidate that is self-motivated and very goal oriented is not going to favor someone that does not set goals. If you never set goals, a metric driven position might be a bad fit. If you do set goals and assess your performance, prepare to discuss examples. A job seeker that individually sets and measures goals for themselves in a culture that does not promote goal setting could make a very strong impression.

Another approach to consider is to discuss the organization’s performance. Your company or department may have goals collectively, but not measure these for individuals. If this is the case, discuss the collective goal. To make this effective be very specific about your activity contributing to the collective goal. For example, you could be part of a sales team that prepares large proposals for government contracts. Your efforts contribute to the winning of the contract, but winning is a collective effort. Discussing the success of your team lays the foundation. The question that goes unanswered when you focus on team performance is whether you were a strong contributor, the weak link on the team or somewhere in between. Giving specific examples of your activity and work you did can create a picture of your individual contributions.

As with all sales, you need to show the value you will provide if the hiring manager “buys.” The more specific you are about the activity and contribution you have provided, the easier it will be for the interviewer to picture how you will perform for them.