Month: January 2015

Does Your Boss Hate You?

Does your boss hate you or is your boss just cranky?  What are the signs?  What are your options?  Should you just ignore the situation?  Should you take action?

What are the signs?

Your boss focuses on problems with you.  Your boss criticizes you more than your boss criticizes anyone else.  Other people get glowing performance reviews. Can you discuss the situation with your boss? Your performance review is full of criticism.  Other people are getting pay raises.  You are not.  Other people are getting promotions.  You are not.  Your boss has begun to give more of your work to your coworkers.

Can you discuss the situation with your boss?

If you can talk with your boss about the situation, explain that you want to do a great job.  Ask for advice on how you can do a better job.

When the problem is real, what should you do?

Document your work.  Build a record of your daily performance to show that you are doing a great job.  List the tasks your boss gives you.  List the results of your work on these tasks.  Communicate with your boss in writing.

What are your job options?

Can you find a job at your current company working for a different supervisor?  Should you start looking for another job?  Is you resume polished and ready to go?  Have you explored the jobs that look like a fit for you at other companies?

What do your confidants tell to you to do?

Turn to the people you trust and ask for their advice.  Ask the people you trust about what they think about your situation.  Ask these people for their ideas on job options and confidential referrals.  Get their advice on the best way to protect yourself in your current situation.

Subscribe to career newsletters.

Most career websites, including this one, have newsletters that can help you with advice and information on how to deal with your current situation.  Subscribe to those newsletters.  Search these websites for additional articles on dealing with a difficult boss.

4 Job Search Myths

There are 4 job search myths that can prevent you from finding the perfect job.

Myth #1 Interview Skills

Let’s debunk the myth that interview skills are not important.  If you believe that you only need to show that you are qualified to get a job offer, you are going to lose job offers to the competitive field of qualified applicants who also have job interview skills.

Interview skills are similar to negotiation skills.  Effective negotiators know how to present their material.  They know how to listen to and understand questions and objections from the buyer or hiring manager.  They know how to ask for the order or the job offer.

Developing and practicing interview skills can help you get jobs offers that more qualified applicants may miss out on.

I have additional articles on developing interview skills under the topic heading Interviewing.

Developing and strengthening skills is important to becoming more effective at doing nearly anything.  Developing mental skills strengthens the effectiveness of a person to learn and perform mental tasks (Scholarly Journals on Skills Development).

Myth #2 Job Boards and Job Search Websites

The belief that job boards and job search websites are useless is a myth.  It is intuitively obvious that job boards and job search engines work.  If they did not work, hiring companies would stop using them.  If they did not work, job boards and search engines would have disappeared.

Some Statistics: People who say that there are no statistics to support the value of job website are not looking very hard.

  • Indeed.com gets 150 million unique visitors a month, Alexa traffic rank: U.S. 80th, 23, 128 sites linking in.
  • Monster.com gets 100 million unique visitors a month, Alexa traffic rank: U.S.  319th, 18669 sites linking in.
  • CareerBuilding.com gets 100 million unique visitors a month, Alexa traffic rank: U.S. 458th, 15,003 sites linking in.

Myth #3 Resumes

The myth that resumes are no longer necessary is simply not true.

There is a popular notion that you can replace your resume with a case study of the business of each company for which you apply.  A case study of a company’s business is terrific for a presentation at a job interview.  However, if you want to get an interview, you need a resume.  Hiring managers and recruiters do not want to deal with a nonconformist when they are trying to tie job experience and employment qualification.

Myth #4 Income

The myth that you should never disclose your income can ensure that you never get a job interview.  Nearly every hiring manager in any company in the country has a pay range in mind before the manager posts a job.  People who are going to try to be clever and not share their income are going to reduce the number of companies that will read their resume.

Does your company have a policy about your keeping your income private?  That same company required that you disclose your income before they granted you an interview.

Employment Gaps on Your Resume

If you have employment gaps on your resume, you are not alone.  It is not usual for job seekers to have employment gaps.  People take a year off work to travel.  Some people have these employment gaps from periods of recession.  In other cases, job seekers have been in a situation where the need for their skills was very low.

In other cases, job seekers have taken off to take care of their family.  In some cases, job seekers have gone through personal problems, such as depression or drug addiction.

There is no way to know how an employer will view gaps in your employment.  Each employer may view gaps in experience differently.

When you write your resume, you might omit the dates of the unemployment and omit the explanation for a gap in your employment.  If the question comes up in an interview, simply say in a short statement why you have the gap in your employment.  Write and rehearse giving an answer that is true, believable, and completely provides an explanation for your absence.  For example, if you took a year off to travel, you might simply say, “I had the money and the opportunity to travel places I would not likely be able to see if I waited to visit them.”

Effective employer recruiters will notice the omission of the dates of unemployment and will often not ask you about these gaps until you have an interview.

Qualifications

Typically, the first thing that an employer looks for are your qualifications.  If you have strong qualifications for a job, an employer might disregard the gap in your employment on your resume and invite you in for an interview.

You will find greater success by being selective about the jobs for which you apply.  If you send out hundreds of resumes to companies that have no need for your experience, you will have few interviews relative to the number of jobs for which you apply.  The fact that you have a gap in your experience will have little bearing on your getting a job when you are not qualified for that job in the first place.

Therefore, write your resume to show how your qualifications fit the job opening.

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