Posts Tagged ‘job search’

Dump the PJs and Re-Engage: To-Do List for the Unemployed

Posted: 11/11/2010 in Job Search
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Here is a guest post from Lindsey Donner, Lifestyle Editor for http://igrad.com, “the College Student to College Graduate Resource.” She also blogs regularly on writing as a career at http://lindseydonner.com.

Few things in life are more mind-numbing than an extended job hunt. Even if your downtime between jobs peaks at just a few weeks of unemployment, you’re liable to feel quickly diminished, dehumanized, and exhausted within the first week.

There is also the added insult of the career blogs’ intimation that your failure is due, at least in part, to your inability to leave the house and network, network, network. But who wants to network when you could be in your bed, face ablaze with the glare from your laptop, eating cereal with your hands? Exactly: the kind of people who are already employed.

But it’s possible to improve your odds of joining that exclusive club while also rebuilding your dangerously low levels of self-esteem, even when you’re in a slump and seemingly prospect-less. In fact, the worst thing you can do is remain completely disengaged; everything’s harder when you’re rusty and out of the loop.

If you’re reading this in bed right now, I suggest you get up, brush your teeth, and start tackling this list. At best, it’ll help you get a job. At worst, it’ll make you feel better about yourself. What’s to lose?

  • Create a job portfolio. If you’re a designer, you have already done this. But writers, marketers, programmers, and others can benefit from an on- or offline collection of their biggest professional hits. Hints: marketers will want to include numbers and case studies; programmers, a code repository.
  • Find a volunteer gig that matches your skills (or improves them). Volunteering: it makes you feel good. It makes other people feel good. It gets you out of the house. But for the unemployed, it can be a life raft: you might meet your next boss, or find your true calling, or decide to switch career paths, or learn a new skill (like software that the local arts council asks you, their office volunteer, to work with). You will almost certainly have a new resume bullet and renewed confidence.
  • Clean your (virtual) house. You “never” use LinkedIn. (Really? It’s a great tool for targeted job searching.) Or maybe you “never” update your blog, or your Twitter account. And you definitely “never” thought of revamping your resume. Do me a favor: make a list of all of your online accounts, and then work down the list, with the most professional profiles at the top. Then, go through and improve each and every one. Update your resume on LinkedIn. Recommend a colleague.
  • Go back to school, this time for free. Or almost free. There are several obvious, awesome, FREE or low-cost ways for the jobless to acquire new skills. Let me name a few: (1) internships; (2) industry blogs; (3) online skill-building webinars; (4) community colleges; (5) other local venues, like libraries and community centers, churches, etc. Pick up a local newspaper and get involved. If you can’t part with your laptop, find out what other people know that you don’t: how to use InDesign? How to write a press release? What? There’s a blog, course, or webinar with your name on it.

The bottom line, folks? Do something, and do it well, focusing not on your current situation but where you want to be in the next year—when the search finally ends and you climb out of bed.


 

Interview Haiku

Posted: 11/07/2010 in Interviewing
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Preparing is key
Think accomplishment stories
Don’t forget breath mints

A group interview
Look everyone in the eye
Or at least the nose

Speak confidently
Don’t jiggle your leg non-stop
They’ll think you’re crazy

Well, that one’s over
Send thank-yous to everyone
On to the next one!

Guest post on igrad.com

Posted: 10/29/2010 in Interviewing
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Guest post on igrad.com (great site for recent grads): Interview Fashion Police – What Not to Wear – http://www.igrad.com/articles/?interview-wear-job-interview-fashion

Don’t Do a Phone Interview Naked

Posted: 10/20/2010 in Interviewing
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Phone interviews can be tricky. You may think they’re easier than interviewing in person and you can just lounge on the couch in your jockstrap and read off your resume, but guess what? You can’t. Not if you want to get a job.

Here are some tips for phone interviewing:

  • Dress in at least business casual attire. Yeah, I know they can’t see you, but that doesn’t matter. You’re likely to feel — and consequently, interact — less professionally if you’re talking to a recruiter in your jammies.
  • Make sure you’re in a quiet place; turn the TV and music off. If you have a noisy co-habitor, chase them out. If that’s not possible, gag them. Unless it’s a child, in which case you could have Child Services after you.
  • Bullet key accomplishments in each recent position relevant to what the employer needs, as talking points. Keep these notes and a copy of your resume, with these key accomplishments and skills highlighted, handy during the interview. And don’t use your resume as a coaster for your latte.
  • Prepare as you would for a face-to-face interview. Remember this is a screening interview, so if you don’t pass the screen (or they don’t; remember it’s a mutual thing), the face-to-face interview won’t happen, and you’ll be forever plagued by curiosity as to the physical attributes of the forever-faceless recruiter. Or not.
  • Smile. You really can tell over the phone. Don’t smile for the entire interview without stopping, as this might make you sound crazy. But smile when you normally would in an in-person conversation.
  • Move around if you want to. You don’t have to sit motionless the whole time. But be careful if you have an old phone with a cord. A deafening crash could be disconcerting to both you and the interviewer.
  • It sounds obvious, but make sure you know if you’re supposed to call them, or they’re supposed to call you. If it’s you, call on time; if it’s them, be ready and answer the call promptly (not on the first ring, of course).
  • Make sure you get the correct contact info, including accurate spelling of the name, for the person (or persons, if it’s a conference call) who’s interviewing you, and email thank you letters to them within a day or two just as you would for a face-to-face interview.
  • And last but not least, never do a phone interview in the bathroom, for reasons that should really be obvious to everyone, but apparently aren’t. And yes, I have been in a ladies’ room and actually heard someone clearly talking to an employer. I confess I flushed.

Excerpt from, “What Color Is Your Straitjacket?” coming soon: Can I Make a Living Bungee-Jumping While Eating an Ice Cream Cone?

Posted: 10/03/2010 in Humor
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Probably not, unless of course, you’re a circus clown. But you can often find creative ways to combine your talents. Or you may leave one of your passions as a part-time endeavor, while pursuing something else as your “day job.” Love ice cream? There are actually jobs as ice-cream testers. Of course, if the ice cream has in fact been poisoned by a sociopathic factory worker, you’re out of luck. And you will probably become morbidly obese and keel over from a heart attack in a few years. But hey, go to town.

If you can’t think of any careers offhand that connect with your passions, make a list of them. After you have the Passion List, then write down all the skills used in partaking of your passions. When that’s done, find a few job search sites and plug those skills into the “keywords” search function, and see what comes up. A lot of stuff will likely be vomited up that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with anything you’re interested in, but just ignore that and focus on careers that sound exciting. Look at the Occupational Outlook Handbook and other resources such as the aforementioned informational interviewing to do a reality check on those careers, and off you go!

You can also check out some online career interest assessments, such as:  free-career-test.com, the Personal-Style Indicator at crgleader.com, the Myers-Briggs and the Strong Interest Inventory at discoveryourpersonality.com, the Campbell Interest and Skill Survey at profiler.com, or careerpath.com, to name a few. Some of these assessments are free, some are not. Some include consultations with certified career counselors, which is always a good idea, especially if you’re floundering around like a spastic fish.

The assessments are mostly about interests, but some also include self-identified skills (yeah, we talked about this earlier) and work values. Work values refers to the most important stuff you have to have in your work to, you know, make you feel whole and all that crap. Like, do you know you need to be creative in a job? Do you know you need structure, so that you don’t panic and wander off into another dimension, never to be heard from again? Do you know that you couldn’t do a job that would require you to write materials that referred to “kill fields?” Do you know that you would feel in constant need of a shower if you were part of advertising products that claimed to make elderly men sexually attractive to twenty-year-old models? You get the idea.

Bad Interviewing Answers

Posted: 09/24/2010 in Interviewing
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To some extent, you want to be yourself in an interview (unless you’re totally bonkers. If you are, good luck). And even though it’s not particularly effective to just give answers you think the interviewer wants, and there isn’t usually one right answer to a question you’re asked, there are some answers that are just plain wrong. Here are some:

  • If asked, “What do you know about us?” don’t answer “I read on my buddy Mike’s Facebook page that your CEO’s a total perv.” Best to relay positive info about the company.
  • When asked, “How does this position fit with your future goals?” don’t respond with “I have no idea. I just go where the wind takes me.” Now, it’s not always a bad idea to follow your instincts, unless your instincts tell you to hop up on the interviewer’s desk, piss on his keyboard and shout “I’m freeeeeeeee!” However, an employer wants to get a general idea of whether or not the position for which you’re interviewing makes sense in terms of where you want to go professionally. Also, being goal-oriented is generally seen as more desirable than subscribing to the Wind Approach to Career Planning.
  • When asked, “What’s your understanding of the position?” don’t say, “Not much – the job description on your site was pretty confusing.” First of all, this answer wouldn’t make you sound very bright. Second, you don’t want to criticize the employer’s job description-writing ability or anything else in an interview. Third, if you haven’t been able to figure out what the job is, and you have no idea whether or not it’s a good fit with your talents and desires, why are you even there?
  • When asked, “Why did you leave your last job?” don’t say, “They canned me for ogling my boss’s boobs.” Even if you were fired for embezzlement, you don’t need to give specific details about what it was like to be led out of the office in handcuffs. “It wasn’t a good fit” is a better answer – think of a reason why it wasn’t a good fit that sounds positive in terms of your strengths and preferred environment. Only give  contact info for references you know will say good stuff about you.
  • If asked, “What would you say are your primary strengths?” don’t respond with “TV wrestling trivia.” Think about what you’re strong in that will make you a success in the position.
  • When asked, “What salary are you looking for?” don’t say “Whatever you think – I’m easy.” Even in a tight job market, you have value; don’t undersell yourself. It’s best to ask what the range is, then say it’s in your range. Don’t give a specific number before you have an offer, ‘cuz that would be like pulling out a condom when you first meet your blind date.
  • If asked, “Can you give me an example of a time when you handled a conflict with a colleague?” don’t answer “There were so many of those, I’ll need a couple of minutes to pick one.” Even if it’s true and it wasn’t you (yeah, we know – it was them, all them), that’s not going to sound too good. The employer’ll either think that you’re an irritating asshole who can’t get along with anyone, or that you’re an irritating asshole who makes snide remarks about his former co-workers. Think of an example that focuses on a problem that needed to be solved, rather than a personal kind of conflict. And of course, how you resolved it successfully.

Coming Soon — “What Color is Your Straitjacket?”

Posted: 09/17/2010 in Resumes
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Here is an excerpt from What Color is Your Straitjacket? A Pocket Guide to Getting and Keeping a Job Without Going Wacko, soon to be available as an e-book.

Resumes — The Good, the Bad and the Ridiculous

Your resume needs to demonstrate your skills and how they can assist an organization in achieving their wet dreams. Here is a sample:

BEELZEBUB SATANOSKY
145 Fire Avenue, Underworld Village, TX
666-666-6666     reallyreallybad@aol.com

SKILLS

·    Branding
·    Speaking in tongues
·    Recruiting politicians
·    Creating and using torture devices
·    Stoking fires
·    Turning into a black pillar of smoke and killing people

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

·    Initiated red and black as a fashion statement
·    Generated fear in otherwise rational humans
·    Developed torture management system, resulting in 95% torture rate
·    Successfully bargained with former U.S. leaders to f*ck up the country

PROFESSIONAL HISTORY

President, Washington, D.C.                            2000-2008
·    Almost singlehandedly flushed an entire nation down the toilet
·    Pretended to look for bad-ass weapons
·    Vacationed
·    Developed strategy for invading all countries starting with “I”
·    Successfully maintained focus on golf game during national crises
·    Delegated intellectually challenging tasks
·    Mangled the English language, causing linguists throughout the world
to cringe in horror
·    Waited for retroactive popularity to kick in

Senator, Washington, D.C.                            1947-1957
·    Created lists of thinking people and arrested them
·    Encouraged grownups to tattle on each other to get out of trouble
·    Caused massive unemployment among aforementioned thinking people
·    Threw liberals in jail

EDUCATION

B.S. in Pitchfork Probing, University of Torture

Job Search Freakout — Five Ways to Avoid Letting Fear Rule Your Job Hunt

Posted: 09/03/2010 in Job Search
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Job search can be scary. Especially when your last unemployment extension is running out, you just used your last bit of savings to buy underwear because you don’t want to be picking your jockey shorts up off the floor when the elastic breaks in the middle of a job interview, and your Plan B has been blown to hell.

But no matter what your situation, it doesn’t work to operate from a place of fear, and let it make your decisions. The only time fear-based decision-making is a good idea is if a psycho starts shooting in the food court in the mall, and you make the decision to dive under the table instead of continuing to sit there and eat your mushroom omelette. Otherwise, letting fear rule your job search isn’t going to help you. Here are a few ways to avoid it:

  • Focus on the goals you’re shooting for. When you focus on your anxieties, they’re going to loom bigger and bigger until they crush you like a Brazil nut. Instead, dwell on what you want, where you want your career to go, and what you want to accomplish along the way, and allow yourself to believe it’s all attainable — because it is. Well, unless you want to be a Victoria’s Secret model and you look like Danny DeVito.
  • Brainstorm alternatives. If Plan B is dead in the water, then get creative. Without allowing yourself to analyze or censor your ideas, jot down a slew of options. I bet you’ll surprise yourself.
  • Be aware of when you’re scaring yourself. You know, all that negative stuff you say in your head that keeps the fear alive, like “No one is hiring now,” “If I don’t take just any crappy job, I’ll be unemployed forever,” “If I try to get what I want, I’ll end up homeless,” etc. Instead of collecting shopping carts and picking out your street corner …
  • … Replace your fear-based thoughts with power-based ones. Like, “I am in charge of my career,” “I have a lot of skills and experience that the right employer (for me) will value,” “I have the tools to succeed, and I will.” Come on, you can think of some more.
  • Practice visualization. Visualization is very powerful. As often as possible without crashing your car, picture yourself moving through your day in the job you want, doing the stuff you want to spend your time doing, interacting with terrific people, etc. Fill in as many details as you can — what specific projects you’d be working on, what your office or cube would look like, what you’d be wearing, the smell of fish on your co-worker’s breath after lunch — wait, maybe that’s a little too much detail. But you know what I’m saying. Allow yourself to feel the excitement and satisfaction you’ll feel when you’re in that job, and you’ll get there.

Bad Job Fair Behavior

Posted: 08/27/2010 in Job Fairs
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Is it me, or do these people look really pissed off? Way to wow the employer...NOT.

Job fairs can be helpful to you in your job search. While you can’t expect to go to a job fair and meet the Magic Job Search Genie who will grant you all your employment wishes, job fairs can be useful for networking (with other job seekers as well as employers), shmoozing with employers to get info on opportunities, and yes, even getting actual job leads.

However, as in any other professional and/or social situation in this life, there are some inappropriate job fair moves that will likely give you a bad rep. Here are some of them:

  • Dressing for a day at the beach. Even though you’re not actually at a job interview, if you don’t dress as though you are, no one will be impressed. I don’t care if it’s 95 degrees out and hailing stones the size of Rotweilers. You need to dress professionally for a job fair. Bring your job fair clothes in a (professional-looking) tote and change into them before you walk in, if you must.
  • Butting in line. It was rude in grade school, and it’s rude now. There are going to be lines before the employer tables, especially for the more popular companies. Deal with it.
  • Rambling on until the employer’s eyes glaze over. This is bad for several reasons (in addition to the eye-glazing). One, it’s much more effective to be focused on what you have to offer, and opportunities the company may have that fit what you have to offer. So practice your elevator pitch before you chat with employers. Two, it’s rude to take up too much time when there’s a line of other job seekers. Three, you don’t want the employer to think you’re a boring bag o’ wind. Being a boring bag o’ wind won’t help you get a job.
  • Accosting employers in the bathroom. Especially if they’re in a stall. Although come to think of it, standing next to you at a urinal is just as bad. I mean, come on. Let the poor guy piss in peace. You may think only a mentally challenged person would do this, but I’ve actually seen it, and the person who did it was clearly not mentally challenged. Horrifyingly clueless, surely, but not mentally challenged.
  • Ignoring your fellow job seekers. You’re not competing for the Stanley Cup. Every last one of you is unique in what you have to offer, and even if some of you are looking for similar positions, you’ll be much better off helping each other. That’s often how job seekers get good leads. You know, networking.
  • Being unprepared. Just as you would for an interview (yeah, I know you would), research each employer whose table you’re visiting. The company list and available positions are almost always available via whomever’s hosting the job fair, at least a few days prior to the event. Peer at the companies’ websites, look at the positions they’re trying to fill, and mention something specific about the company when you talk with the employer (you can prepare a cheat sheet beforehand). And of course, have your elevator pitch ready to go.
  • Ask dumb questions. This follows from the previous point – if you’ve done some research on the companies you’re interested in and you’re prepared, you’re not going to be asking questions like, “What does your company do?” or “Do you have any jobs that don’t require a criminal check?”

Are We Stuck?! Your Job Search Elevator Pitch

Posted: 08/22/2010 in Networking
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The elevator pitch, sometimes known as the 30-second infomercial, is one of the most important tools in your job search along with your resume, self-esteem and breath mints.

The elevator pitch is your (short) spiel about yourself professionally; how you market yourself verbally. That doesn’t mean you just spit it out to anyone and everyone you meet, including people in an actual elevator. The guy on the stretcher next to you in the emergency room, where you’ve landed after tripping over your dog’s foot and banging your nose on the coffee table, may not want to hear it. You do, however, want to say it when it’s appropriate, like when you’re asked the question in an interview, “Tell me about yourself.” Or in the formal portion of a networking event when you’re asked to stand up and introduce yourself for a minute or less. Or when you’re chatting with someone and you give them the first sentence or two of your “pitch” and they ask for more details. You want it to sound conversational, and you want to tailor it to your audience – if you’re a techie and you’re talking to other techies, you can use techie terms, whereas non-techies won’t know what the hell you’re talking about.

So what do you say in the elevator speech? Well, here’s the pitch (hey, felt like I was a Red Sox commentator for a minute there.  Anyway).  The pitch is essentially made up of four parts:

  • I am… as in, your name. I’m going to assume you don’t have any trouble with that one.
  • I do…a job title that accurately describes what you want to do; how you want to market your area of expertise. Or if a job title would leave too much room for perplexity, some detail that clarifies what you want to focus on. For example, “I run a pet waste elimination company” kinda says what you do, but it’s not as clear as, “I run a company that scoops your dog’s poop.”
  • I help…a little more detail about how your skills would benefit a company, your clients, and/or the world at large. To add to the example above, “We come to your house and clean your pet’s waste from the yard, and sprinkle fragrant organic herb particles that get rid of the odor, so your yard smells great.”
  • I need…Not as in, “I need a job,” but the idea is to say what you’re looking for, and where: “I’m looking to expand my business to pet-owners in the North Shore area.” Or more specifically for those looking for a job in a company, “I’m looking to use my blah blah skills in a small or medium-sized pet-related business.”

Make sure to put it all in a positive light; don’t just say, “I’m unemployed.” Even in your description of what you have to offer, it’s better to say, “…so your yard smells great….” than, “…so your yard doesn’t smell like shit.”

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