People in transition are at different stops along the “finding work again” route. What stage are you: denial, anger, why me, who cares, yikes I need money, holy smokes why didn’t keep up my network, this is cool, etc. Do you think of this as an opportunity or are you fighting it? You have a chance to learn many new things, so go for it!
Interviewing is a skill, like cooking or swinging a golf club. To be good at it you need to practice. So whether you’re in an active search or not, you need to practice interviewing.
At your next interview think about:
Asking, ‘why this is a great place to work?’ Watching body language for signs of discomfort from the interviewer? Asking about culture? technology?
Are you leading the conversation in a way that is to your advantage or are you letting the HR person/hiring manager set the agenda?
Here’s another great question to ask:
“Are there any skills that you would have liked for me to have but we haven’t discussed yet?” (Seems a little risky right?) When my contact (thanks Jason!) asked this question in a recent interview… the person mentioned business writing skills. He had a chance to send a writing sample along with the thank you note. By the way, they scheduled his next interview before he left the first. How’s that for results?
Oh my but the world of job search is changing in so many ways, I feel like my head is going to explode. This article, “How Real Time Web Changes Job Search,”is jammed full of ideas, websites and concepts relating to job search.
If you are in HR or looking for work; you need to read this article. Here are just few of the highlights:
- On Twitter alone “more than a million tweets about job openings go out every month from 6,000+ employers and 7,700+ job channels via TweetMyJOBS.com
- The traditional job board is disappearing and being replaced by ‘direct sourcing’ which is when hiring decision-makers “identify, reach out to, engage, and convert” only the highly desirable candidates. Passive candidates become the new gold. The better your digital footprint, the easier you’ll be to find.
- Job sites are adding “Who do I know”? buttons to their sites so you can see who you know at a company without going to Linked In.
And one of my favorites… Paid Interviews.com. It actually pays candidates when they successfully interview (read: get hired) and has a virtual water cooler feature which is “a place for candidates to talk about their past employment experiences, it’s like Amazon product ratings, but for companies. It’s a place where you can get unbiased answers about employers around the world.”
If you’re a company with a lousy culture… the good old days might be evaporating before your very eyes. Between sites like paidinterviews.com and glassdoor.com and social networking; hiding is going to get tougher. Ahhh, transparency. Welcome.
Last week I was speaking at a big event and had the pleasure of meeting many people. I was, however, unhappily struck by the number of people who don’t realize the negative impression of their fishy handshake.
What do I mean by a ‘fishy’ handshake? Well, when you offer just the fingers of your hand or when you fail to grasp the other person’s hand and shake it with confidence; you run the risk of having people think you are weak. This especially goes for men shaking hands with women. It is disrespectful to barely shake hands with a woman. It makes them think that you don’t think of them as equals.
You’ve probably heard the story about why we shake hands, i.e., to show that we have no weapons in our hands. Aside from the way we dress and eye contact, our handshake is another very important signal of our confidence.
When you shake hands, please, oh please I’m begging you, look the person in the eye and give them a gentle but firm handshake. This isn’t a strength contest but it is a chance to make the other person sit up and take notice of your positive manner. So ladies, put your hand out there and shake firmly. Guys, do the same. it’s so important!
You’re pretty cool. You’ve worked hard, you’re a nice person. So, are you where you want to be?
Sometimes we get so caught up in day to day living that we forget that we have the power to change ourselves. We have everything justified in our minds about why we can’t change, why things aren’t going our way, blah, blah, blah.
Practice one of these and it will change you…forever:
Promote someone else. When was the last time you helped to promote someone else? Not yourself; someone else. A person who you think is great. Talk about him/her to your connections. This will require you to know them well enough to help promote them. (No promoting your son, daughter– doesn’t count!)
Be brave. My favorite poet is Mary Oliver. I know you’re thinking, oh no, not poetry. Yuck. Well, I get that. I like poetry and I don’t understand most it. (Maybe that’s because it’s bad poetry!) Anyway, Mary wrote this poem titled The Journey. She talks to us about listening to our inner voice and having the courage to be ourselves. Not easy but the most worthwhile of life’s adventures.
Be here now. During your day, be fully present when you are talking to someone. Look them in the eye, smile, listen as if you were going to have to repeat back to them what they just told you. Practice this with your children, spouse, friends, parents, etc. You’ll be surprised at how much fun it is, how much it is appreciated and the joy of being in the moment.
Change is good, timing is everything, patience is the key. I’m in your corner!
I talk to job seekers who think that job boards are useless. I tell them that for years I have had an automated job search running; whether I had a job or not. Why? Because:
- You never know when you might need a job OR help someone else find a job.
- You can learn a lot about a company from what they are posting and how they describe open positions.
- You might learn the name of a hiring manager or HR person who could help you with that company.
- If you see the same skills required for job postings; it could tell you that you need to update your skills.
So if you don’t have one, start an automated job search. I like Indeed.com as it aggregates jobs from other job boards. By the way, if you post your resume on job boards you open yourself up to all kinds of spammers. They troll job boards looking for contacts to sell ‘stuff’ to. Just be careful out there.
There are a growing number of career development communities. Check out this article that highlights 5 different sites. Four of them I am familiar with: Linked In, Beyond.com, Monster Career Advice Forum and Glassdoor. Beyond and Monster can be particularly helpful if you are looking to switch careers.
I really like glassdoor because you can get the inside scoop on a company. The site consists of reviews by employees who rate their job, the organization, their salary and the CEO. Of course you need to take each review with a grain of salt. I scanned through the company reviews of those listed in Rochester and I have to say that I agree with the overall ratings of the CEO’s where some are as low as 17% and others as high as 86%.
But the one that made me write this post is Branchout.com. Here’ s how the article describes it, “BranchOut is a new career networking site that integrates with Facebook, so it’s very easy to set up. You can also import your LinkedIn profile, which eliminates the need to double-enter information….it’s an option for people trying to utilize Facebook in both a personal as well as professional way — just make sure your Facebook profile is well-maintained.”
Here’s my concern. First of all, I can’t look at the site unless I give them access to my Facebook information. Remember, every time you give another site permission to access your Facebook data; the site gains access to all your information and cam potentially expose things that are posted to your wall. The next issue I have is; make sure your ‘”Facebook profile is well-maintained.” The article then links to an article from summer 2010. This is very outdated information for keeping your Facebook information private. If they really cared, they’d at least make sure to give us up to date information on such an important issue. I can only say, beware. A little research reveals a problematic situation. Do what you think is best, but please be careful.
There was a blog called “In 3 words” that would pose a question and then ask people to submit their three word response. A typical question was: “What’s the last thing that made you want to tear your hair out? ” – which elicited responses like, ‘my older daughter’ and ‘bosses bad day’.
One of my favorite bloggers, Chris Brogan, took the concept and suggested that people use the idea to come up with 3 words that will be their guiding pillars for the year. Yes, I know it’s March, but it’s never too late to get a new lease on personal and professional growth. For 2011 — his 3 words are: package, reinvest, flow. Not inspiring to me personally but I’ll bet they are helping Chris focus. Here are some of the submissions this post elicited:
Smile, Fight, Create
JUICY SO WHAT? WORTHY
Get OUT There!
Challenge, Empower, Collaborate
Passion, Confidence, Balance
Pleasure, People, Publish, Practice (Louise can’t seem to follow rules!)
Integrity, Wisdom, Patience
My 3 words are: This One Day. My goal for 2011 is to conscious of the day, every day as I live it. That includes paying attention to my surroundings and the people I come in contact with as well as accomplishing my daily work. Looking forward to hearing about your 3 words.
There are 3 types of job seekers that scare recruiters (oh yeah, and clients/customers too). Maybe you are one of these and don’t realize it. Maybe you are:
- The Tasmanian Devil (The Stalker): over zealous applier to jobs and obsessive ‘check on the position that I applied for’ person
- The Lion (The Ego): thinks that the level of their previous position means that the rules don’t apply to them and yes, they think they’re better than everyone else
- The “Poor Me” Possum (The Victim): blames everyone and everything else
Each of these types are carrying forward thoughts and ideas about themselves that are not helping them adjust to the reality of the new job market.
Finding a job is not easy, but sometimes we add to the problem by acting in ways that do not help others see the best in us. Note these additional types:
- The Ostrich: often due to poor choices or avoidance behaviors; this person keeps doing the same things they’ve always done but does not understand why they’re not making more progress
- The Hog: talks endlessly about themselves and what they’ve done. If people are telling you to listen; you’re a hog
- The Cat: spends lots of time chatting, resting and thinking but doesn’t really want to work and acts really busy but never accomplishes anything of value (except what gratifies them). They borrow money and make excuses for not being able to ‘close’ the deal.
If you’re a person who’s been out of work for while, try talking to a mentor. Ask someone you trust to level with you, try to accept what they are telling you with grace. Or maybe you need to just listen to what the people currently in your life are telling you. Do you know some other types? Please share. Remember don’t try harder, try different!
I enjoy meeting new people and helping them succeed. I understand the importance of networking and when I ask someone to meet me; I offer to buy them a cup of coffee. Two dollars is a small investment to show someone that I appreciate their time.
I am grateful that I have the time and ability to volunteer and help as many people as I can.
When people ask to meet me, say they want to ‘pick my brain’ or ask me to make introductions to my contacts and don’t even offer to buy me a cup of coffee; I take note. What kind of employee will this person make if they don’t understand common courtesy? I am taking this post to heart. I resolve to buy more coffees in 2011 to thank all those who help me.
At Reputation.com you can pay the company to ‘manage’ your online reputation. Hmmm. This strikes me as very odd. Now I realize that there can be circumstances when a person may need to have some help in “fixing” things online. Everything from an old school photo to an errant rant might need to be managed.
But as a rule, the idea of paying someone to change, improve or alter your digital reputation or “digital footprint” sounds crazy to me.
I know a lot of people don’t like Google but the reality is that Google’s search algorithms (their own self interest notwithstanding) are designed to give real people who are creating real content the best chance possible of being found by other real people.
Before I came across this article, A Primer on Online Reputation Management, I didn’t even know these companies existed. While I appreciate the entrepreneurial spirit, I question whether this is a viable alternative for 99% of the population. Here is one of the tactics employed by such organizations; they “include things like “astroturfing,” or the creation of anonymous commenter accounts to buttress a positive piece of content or lash out against a negative one.” Another tactic is to “sneak a client’s name into a site with a lot of rank with Google, such as IMDB.com.”
The whole point of a reputation is that it be a true reflection of who you are. Trust is built by being consistent and ethical. What many of us love about ‘social’ networking/media/business/commerce is the transparency. You can manage your own online presence by paying attention, reading and commenting on blogs, posting to Linked In and so forth. For heaven’s sake be genuine because if you get exposed as a fraud– you WILL need to pay someone to help you get rid of that and good luck doing so!
People in transition are at different stops along the “finding work again” route. What stage are you: denial, anger, why me, who cares, yikes I need money, holy smokes why didn’t keep up my network, this is cool, etc. Do you think of this as an opportunity or are you fighting it? You have a chance to learn many new things, so go for it!
job search, Life Transitions | Deborah | 
June 22, 2011 9:14 am | 
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