Category: relationship

Six Crucial Job Search Tactics

With so many job search options, where do you start? That was a question I received from a client yesterday, and one that’s worth a few lines of digital ink. After all, with the many job search sites showing duplicate content, often the same jobs scraped from other sites, it can be confusing and frustrating. Here is what I offered him, and I hope it helps you.

First, start with people you know. If you have a new résumé, you have a terrific reason to contact everyone in your network. Try this: “Hi Mary! I just reworked my résumé and I was hoping that you could take a moment to look at it. I respect your opinion and will appreciate any feedback you have. Thanks!” You can do that by email or phone. If your contact in your network is real, she probably won’t mind doing this for you. Follow up with a thank you and ask her to keep you in mind or pass your résumé along to anyone she thinks would be appropriate.

Identify target companies. Pick some companies that you want to work for. Make a list. Follow them through LinkedIn, Twitter and their corporate sites. Work your LinkedIn network to find someone inside the company you know, or a 2nd level connection to whom you could be introduced. Use Glassdoor and news searches to learn as much about the company as possible. Expand your list as you consider similar companies that you come to learn about in your research.

Pick a single search site, and work it. This is probably going to be your least productive tool, but an effective job search is like our national energy policy: All of the above. Decide which site you like best (See Resu-mazing’s useful sites: http://www.resu-mazing.com/Useful_Sites.html) and get to know it well. Set up search agents. If you are not currently employed, consider posting your résumé to make it searchable and findable by recruiters.

Don’t forget your LinkedIn profile. When your résumé is fresh and new, use it to update your LinkedIn profile. Set your privacy settings to allow you to be found by recruiters.

[See my LinkedIn e-booklet for tons of useful information to create a better profile.]

Remember keywords. As you search and read job postings, you will see the same words and phrases in the descriptions and qualifications. Do your LI profile and résumé reflect what employers need? If not, tune it up. Find different ways to describe your work and results, incorporating the key words that you identify.

Identify recruiters in your field. Remember that recruiters are paid by the employers, not by the candidates, so they are not going to work hard to find you a job. It is up to you to monitor their web sites and establish relationships so that you can present your résumé when they are working on a placement for which you are a credible candidate.

Here’s the straight story. Jobs can come from any of the channels described above. While it is true that personal connections and networking (social recruiting) will produce the best results, companies still find and hire people coming to them from advertising. If they didn’t, why would they spend the time and money doing it? I see good things happen all the time.

Work hard at your search, keep your activities going in each of the areas and stay positive. The interviews and opportunities will come.

Bill Florin, CPRW, is President of Resu-mazing Services Company in Monroe, Connecticut USA.

Accountability Time: Maybe it is You

“I am working as hard as I can, and my goals stay just out of reach.”

“The economy is so tough. There just aren’t any jobs.”

“Everybody wants perfection, and they just won’t give me a chance.”

Have you ever found yourself saying these things, or something similar? I hear them a lot.

There can be truth in each of these statements. There is more competition for jobs than ever before. Employers are very picky and careful in their hiring processes. Sometimes working hard just isn’t enough. But is that all there is to it? As someone who is very self-critical, let me suggest that the problem could be you. Before you get mad at me, I am not suggesting that you or anyone else has some intrinsic defect that can’t be addressed. I am suggesting that there are things that you can examine and act upon that could make a difference in the trajectory of your life. Here are a few.

Your Work Quality. Whether you are employed or between jobs, the quality of your work is more important than ever. A single spelling mistake on a résumé or LinkedIn profile could mean the difference between an interview or rejection. The quality (and quantity) of your work on the job must be great. If you can’t or won’t do it well, there is someone else who will.

Your Relationships. As you network in professional settings and engage in relationships with those around you – in your home, with your friends, in your faith community and other organizations – are you giving more than you get? Are you willing to and actually giving everything you can to these relationships, creating bonds that will last, or something less? If you could be giving more, do it. Self-centeredness will lead to a very lonely place.

Your Goals. When you get up in the morning and head out the door, are you doing it for the right reasons? Is your work something that energizes and engages you, something that allows you to use your skills in a meaningful way? Do you look forward to seeing your co-workers and telling your friends and family about your accomplishments? If yes, it sounds like you are in a great place. If no, if your reason for going is just for the paycheck, it may be time to make a change.

Your Environment. What fills the world around you? Do you spend time on activities that build you up, or waste it in pass times that break you down? Some time spent in self-development, through reading, education, faith activities and other pursuits will pay dividends that won’t come from another hour of reality TV.

How Badly Do You Want It? In the end, nobody can want you to succeed more than you. Your family, friends and mentors certainly want you to do well, but you must want it more. You are responsible for yourself and your performance.

So, how badly do you want it? What does success look like in your life? What will you do in the next few minutes, hours and days to move towards that vision? You are accountable to yourself, like it or not. Think about these ideas, and give yourself that uncomfortable but crucial conversation that is a necessary part of change. Do it today!

Happy Thoughts

Actually, it’s not just thoughts, but our actions and our relationships that make us truly happy. According to the premise of the documentary Happy, a film that has (here it goes) happily made its way to Netflix streaming, our happiness is determined according to this mix: 50% genetics (you’re born that way), 10% circumstances (that new Rolex won’t make much difference) and 40% our own choices. In other words, our actions and decisions play a huge role in determining if we are walking around with a frown or grinning with glee.

As the film explains, the man pulling the rickshaw in India is as happy as the average American living in relative splendor. The Himba tribe people in Namibia have no physical wealth, but have the deep connections of family and culture that have endured millennia. They love their lives. Everyone is family, and when one is hurting, they all feel the pain. These examples and others make the film’s case.

The flip side of the coin is brutal, ugly and bleak. Illustrating unhappy is the profile of the Japanese career man who dies of karoshi, literally working himself to death, dropping dead upon receiving news of a quality problem back at the plant. Sudden cardiac arrest and instant death have become all too common in a culture that expects 3,000+ hour work years (Do the math. It’s a lot of time.) and the smallest number of vacation days in the industrialized world. (Incidently, karoshi is most common on Sundays and at the beginning of the Japanese fiscal year in April. Apparently, the thought of returning to the office on Monday morning or facing tough new quotas can kill a guy, and it’s mostly guys.)

Happiness, ultimately, is a choice. We can choose to connect with and nurture healthy, meaningful relationships with others. Family and community that act like family make all the difference.

We can play. Or we can work ourselves to death.

We can enjoy the intrinsic pleasures of activities and relationships. Or we can chase the latest brands and get ourselves into debt trying to impress the world with our bling (until we find that nobody cares).

We can care for each other, serve each other, and build a life that matters. Or we can focus solely on ourselves, wondering why that 10% isn’t making us truly happy.

Do something for yourself that could change the way you see the world, your work, your relationships, your spirituality and everything else important. See the film.

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Also see this: Thank Your Way to Happiness

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Bill Florin is the President and Owner of Resu-mazing Services Company in Monroe, Connecticut.

Stationary + Stamp = Standout

thank you noteEvery time one of my children goes to a birthday party, we get a thank you card in the mail. Over the last weeks, as teachers have finished the past year and gotten ready for the next, we have received notes and cards thanking us for the end-of-year teacher gifts. Each time we get one, it brings a smile, a comment about the sender’s thoughtfulness, and some excitement for our kids. What child doesn’t like to receive mail?

The thank you note should not just belong to teachers and kids. I received an email from a client over the weekend. He had been on an interview late in the week and was asking for some advice on follow up. His question: “Should I send an email or a letter?” Definitely go with the letter or a card. Here’s why.

Just as the cards we have received in our home tend to stick around for a while, the same thing will happen with your thank you card or letter. It is a tangible thing that will sit on the receiver’s desk. She might share it with others. If it is nice stationary, he may hesitate to discard it. Can any of us say the same about an email? It could be vaporized on a Blackberry or trashed on an iPad and forgotten, if it is even read at all. The extra effort will make you a standout among your candidate competition.

Your challenge: Visit a store that sells stationary (Staples, Target, CVS, etc.) and buy a package of professional-looking cards. Get some stamps. Over the coming weeks, use the entire package. Are you up to it? You get extra credit if you report back your results to this blog as a comment.

Here are some practical tips on using them.

  • Keep your message concise and clear.
  • Express why you are grateful. Example: “Thank you for the time you spent with me today. I enjoyed getting to know you and I hope that we will be working together soon.”
  • Challenge yourself to send them as soon as possible. We all get busy and the opportunity becomes forgotten and lost.
  • Get creative about to whom you will send them. The people who interview you are the easy ones. How about these people: The person who told you about the job opportunity. People who have helped by reading, reviewing and commenting on your résumé. The person who sold you your interview suit and did such a great job. That person who gave you some encouragement and a pep talk when you were feeling down.

Your gratitude, expressed in writing, will brighten the recipient’s day and make you more memorable. The very act of thinking about what and why you are grateful will lift your mood, too. Have some fun and tell us all how it goes.

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Here are two other articles about less-common tactics that should be part of your career management strategy starting today.

Pocket-Size Resume: The essentials on a card.

3x5x30: Create your elevator speech now.

And a reminder of what can go wrong with a poorly written thank you letter.

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Bill Florin, CPRW is President of Resu-mazing Services Company. Contact Bill for help with your job search, career management and personal brand questions.

Unplug. Live.

Your life is more than your Facebook page. The same is true for your LinkedIn profile, your Twitter feed and any other social media that you use. Your life and mine are defined by our relationships with real people that we see, hear and touch. Family, friends, colleagues, customers, clients, and partners in volunteer and civic work all make up our lives. Social media is a side dish, not the main course.

The Atlantic ran a story in May 2012, posing the question, “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” A response printed in the July/August issue stopped me mid-sentence and prompted this blog article. Here is an excerpt: “I spend a lot of time on Facebook but have essentially zero in-person friends… (I’m) lonely. I need to figure out how I’ve let my personal life become almost solely defined as an online activity.” How sad!

The social media play a role in our lives. Like anything else, the many sites we use and devices enabled to access them should be seen as tools, a means to an end, not an end themselves. We can have fun, maintain connections, joke, gossip and do so many things with the technology, but in the end it is an empty pursuit. Unless we jump from virtual friendship to real relationships – a shared meal, a round of golf, help painting a room or caring for a friend’s pet during a vacation – the constant tweets, updates, check-ins and the rest all just suck up time and leave us feeling like Lonely Reader. We ask ourselves, “Where did the time go and why is my life empty of meaning and real relationships?”

The self-centered ME, ME, ME of Facebook can lead to a world in which we are constantly broadcasting, sending updates about our lives, to nobody in particular and sometimes nobody at all. If your latest post isn’t funny, inflammatory or interesting enough, if it doesn’t include a picture or link that gets others talking (or at least clicking), it is the existential tree crashing to the ground without a sound. So what could Lonely Reader do to get a life and maybe a few real friends, someone to share lunch with or a walk through the park?

It’s simple, really. Pick up the phone and call some of those friends. Make a date to meet and do something fun. Get involved in civic, volunteer or religious organizations. As someone involved in leadership roles in both a service organization (Rotary) and my faith community, I assure you that you will be welcome. What are you good at? Volunteer. VolunteerMatch.org is a site that will give you options in your area. Do something to help someone else, moving your focus from yourself onto another.

When we come together and work together towards a common goal or interest, real relationships take root and flourish. And that will be something to tweet about.

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Bill Florin, CPRW is President of Resu-mazing Services Company. Contact Bill for help with your job search, career management and personal brand questions.