Month: October 2018

Stay Flexible: Career Assessment is an Ongoing Process

Stay Flexible: Becoming established in your career gives you success and security.  But the world changes. Industries change. Career opportunities change.  What should you be doing in a world of career uncertainty?

Stay Curious and Aware

Remain curious. Accept the realities of an ever-changing world of business.  You might need to return to college or obtain new credentials or certifications.  Continue to read to stay current with events of the day.  Strengthen your professional skills to become more effective in working with other people and to grow into greater responsibility. Furthermore, if you find that you are in a job where you are overqualified, you can begin to explore new jobs that match your skills and pay you for those skills.

Allow your curiosity to grow to become more marketable and more secure throughout your career.

Network Before You Need a Network

Don’t just build a network.  As your contacts move into related fields, stay in touch with them.  If their careers offered them opportunities beyond their job type, keeping these people in your network can lead you to similar opportunities.

For example, as a recruiter, I started recruiting consumer products sales people.  Over time, new sectors began to develop in consumer products industry.  As these new sectors evolved, these salespeople found that they had the skills to move into companies that offered services to consumer products companies.

Stay Flexible. Adjust.

During football, baseball, and basketball games, teams adjust their team’s strategy for the team they are playing.  As the game progresses, they adjust their game plans to be more competitive.  Additionally, as the season progresses, teams trade players and adjust game strategy to the changing strengths and weakness of their team.

You are Your Greatest Asset

Most important part of your career plan is that you take care of yourself, mentally and emotionally. You are your greatest asset. Staying healthy and living with a clear mind will make your career plans practical and more achievable.

Personal Chemistry: Creating Bonds in Job Interviews

Personal Chemistry: Are you finding that your interviews are not landing you jobs where you have solid qualifications? Could it be that you are not developing personal chemistry with the hiring managers?

Chemistry over Qualifications

For some hiring managers, the chemistry they feel with the applicant influences their hiring decisions as much the applicant’s skills, experience, and education.  Think about it.  The interviewer has read your resume.  They know to a large degree that you are qualified for the job.  That’s why they are interviewing you.  What they are measuring, perhaps subconsciously, whether you have the chemistry to fit within the company. If they don’t like you, they won’t hire you.

I have heard more than one hiring manager say that they have made their decision within the first five minutes.  They spend the rest of the time confirming their decision.

So, what can happen in the first five minutes of a job interview? The hiring manager gets a gut feeling about whether they like you.

Elements of an Interview

During the interview, hiring managers do—or at least they should—confirm these four things.

    1. The accuracy of the details in your resume
    2. Whether you can successfully apply your skills to the job you are seeking
    3. Your interests in the job and whether the job is a fit for you
    4. Your reliability and your potential

Personal Feelings Matter

But throughout the interview, the hiring manager is becoming more comfortable or less comfortable about you as a person.  Their emotions are telling them whether they want you in their company.

Furthermore, during an hour of interviewing, the hiring manager is measuring your chemistry against the chemistry of other people they have interviewed. Subconsciously, their emotions guide them to overlook which candidates have the best qualifications. They are deciding which qualified candidates the like the best.

How to Develop Personal Chemistry

Therefore, make every effort into making a great first impression.  When you meet the interviewers, smile.  Give them a firm handshake.  Listen to what interviewers are saying.  Especially, listen closely to what the interviewer is asking you to discuss. Nothing is more annoying or frustrating to an interviewing than the feeling that you are not answering their questions.

State your interest in the job. Show an interest in the interviewer and in the hiring company.  Use open gestures.  Sit up straight and comfortably.  Show the interviewer you have prepared for the interview by talking about the things that interest you about the company.  Have a meaningful list of questions and ask these questions as the interview progresses.

A little preparation, along with a few positive gestures and statements, can prepare you to develop the personal chemistry that will land you the job offer.

Winning Resumes that will Land You a Job Interview

Winning Resumes: Working through stacks of resumes, hiring managers and recruiters only spend seconds deciding whether to save you resume or delete it.  You need to know how to write resumes employers will want to read.

The best resumes show why you are the most qualified candidate for the job. ~ www.jaywren.com

Thirty Years of Reading Resumes

I based the following information on feedback I have received from hiring managers, staffing managers, and other recruiters.  I have also discussed resumes with hundreds of applicants.  These are suggestions only, but the layout is a working format.

A resume is a job application.  You list the jobs you have had. Additionally, you list where you performed those jobs and when you had those jobs.

If you replace the information below with your information, you will have written a resume.

Sample Resume

CONTACT INFORMATION

Your name
Street address City, State Zip
Phone
Email address

OBJECTIVE AND SUMMARY

Stating an objective or a giving a summary at the beginning of the resume is common practice. However, stating an objective or providing a summary is optional.

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY

There is no sentence structure in a resume. The wording in a resume is simply a series of statements of actions and accomplishments.

For example, this is a sentence: “I doubled the company’s sales in 6 months.” However, this is resume wording: “Doubled company’s sales in 6 months.”

The history in a resume includes more than employment periods. Additionally, you must show that you have the skills, education, and experience to qualify you as a leading candidate.

(Most recent job first)

Company Name, company Location, From–To

Most recent title, location, From–To

Use bullet format.

•        List things you have accomplished. Do not waste space on your just giving a job description. List things that showed that you made a difference in the positions you held.

•        Use facts—for example, exceeded assigned sales goal by 30%, reduced costs, promoted people, saved time, increased productivity, etc.

•        Employers and recruiters search their databases for specific words, so list successes with specific industry words or functions. Include the actual name of your product categories, product names, sales accounts, functions (e.g., Profit & Loss, Market Research or Software Names, New Product Development, Market Insights, Innovation), etc.

Next list previous titles at this company and again list successes and accomplishments in bullet format.

Then include Previous Companies going back in time from most recent.

EDUCATION

Normally, education goes at the bottom of the resume. However, people who have recently received a degree or a credential might consider putting education at the top of the resume.

Here are other items that might go at the bottom of the resume:

  • Awards
  • Extra skills
  • Volunteer work
  • Relevant college employment.

How to Shorten Winning Resumes

Avoiding the following items will shorten your resume. Additionally, omitting these items will make the focus on why you are the leading candidate.

  • Objective
  • Summary
  • Hobbies
  • References or References Available on Request
  • Compensation
  • Long paragraph formats
  • Long-winded discussions of core responsibilities
  • Too many details on jobs with well-known functions
  • Details on jobs that date too far back in time
  • Paragraph formatting
  • Third person reference

More Career Article

Resumes for Managers
Resumes for Recent College Graduates
Building Professional Relationships Everywhere
Are you a card collector?

Hardest Interview Question: “Why Were You Fired?”

Hardest Interview Question: “Why were you fired?” How do you handle the most difficult question in interviewing?  How do you prepare your answer?  How do you deliver it?

There are several difficult Interview questions. Explaining why you lost your job is the hardest.  However, preparation can help.

Write down and rehearse your answer.

Do not let a bad case of the nerves and poor interview preparation allow you to trip over your words.  Rehearse your answer so that you can give a short, clear reply.  Test your answer with people you trust.  Get comfortable with your answer so that it makes you look confident in your ability to go forward with success in your next job.

Discuss your answer with your references.

Discussing your answer with your references is helpful in at least two ways.  First, you want your references to give an answer that is consistently with your answer to this question.  Second, your references may help you prepare an answer that is honest, unemotional, and make your firing nothing that should prevent you from getting a new job.

Stick to the truth.

Telling lies can catch up with you through reference checks and backgrounds checks.  Even worse, if the hiring company does not discover that you lied until after you have started to work for the new company, you might find that you are being fired again.

Structure your answer to show how you will be a great hire at your next company.

Being fired from a job does not mean that you do not deserve to get a job where you are interviewing.  If you were fired, because your last company was laying people off, you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Understandable Reasons

  • A new boss came in and replaced everyone with people from his or her previous company.
  • The company shifted its business model and eliminated jobs for your skills.
  • Your boss was highly skilled but had high turnover, because he or she is a micromanager.

Career Plan: Tailored and Flexible for Your Success

Picking A Career

In picking a career, start with an understanding of what you want to do and what you need to do to have that type of career. First, answer these questions.

    1. What Do You Want to Do?
    2. How Important is Income?
    3. How Well Do You Tolerate Risk?
    4. Where Do You Want to Live?
    5. What Education Do You Need?
    6. What Experience Do You Need?
    7. How Do You Relate to Other People?
    8. Should You Take an Aptitude Test?
    9. Who Hires People Who Match Your Goals and Abilities?

Be Detailed and Specific in Your Answers

Write down your answers to these questions.  Compare one against the other in terms of importance.  Reshuffle the order to match your priorities. Be as specific as possible.  For example, preferences on location can range from one neighborhood to one city to anywhere across the country. Write down whether you want to work from home or work in a place outside of your home.  Write down whether you want to work for yourself or for someone else. Notice how your interests in one of these options can limit or increase your opportunity in others.

Grow and Stay Flexible to Adjust Your Career Plan to Match Changing Conditions

You should use this process or a similar process every time you evaluate the progress of your career. A career is a process of continuous growth.

For example, as a recruiter, I started with a file card system. Additionally, I used postal mail. Over time, I added a fax to my office. Then I converted my file card system to a computer contact manager system.  Email replaced postal mail. Instead of making calls to reach people, I emailed people who were in meetings and seldom could get to their phone.

In Conclusion

Remain curious. Accept the realities of an ever-changing world of business.  You might need to return to college or obtain new credentials or certifications.  Continue to read to stay current with events of the day.  Strengthen your professional skills to become more effective in working with other people and to grow into greater responsibility.

Image Marketing: How to Leverage Social Media for Success

Image Marketing: High-powered social media and mass media create an image of how they want you to see them. They are consistent with their message and their image creates loyalty among their followers.

Align Your Image with a Cause

More than establishing a theme for your social media, create a cause: political, charitable, social, career, personal growth, and educational causes show depth in your message. They help you develop your image with a consistent message.

Caveat: The cause must be consistent with the image you are creating in your marketing theme. Politics, religion, even education can trigger people.  And that is fine as long as the triggers draw the audience you are developing.

Dress for Your Audience

If you follow social media czars, you know that they dress for their audience. Gary Vaynerchuk, author, entrepreneur, best-selling author, social media guru owns a tie, but there aren’t many pictures of him wearing it.  Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson wears clothes for his Instagram feed (@therock) and Twitter feed #dwaynejohnson that display the images of the characters he plays in his movies: large, powerful, smiling, and approachable. Nearly always in a gym, he is the sweatiest man on the Internet!

Puncher or Counter Puncher?

On the other hand, are you a counter puncher? Leading political media figures are counter punchers. They take issue with their opposition. Television, radio, and Internet counter punchers are very effective in the political arena. They use anger and fear to trigger intense emotions in their audience.

Image Marketing Needs Consistency

In closing, as you develop your image, choose messages that you believe in. This choice ensures that you can consistently create a message that is genuine. You create faithful followers who identify with your image. Additionally, as you create content, you gain experience and knowledge that makes you more effective in building a credible image.

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