Tweet That Job: Recruiters Love Twitter, Do You?

If you are a job hunter and you are not using twitter, perhaps you want to think again. Why? Check out this article, Top 5 Twitter Apps for Recruiters.  If you’re one of those people who still thinks twitter is stupid, then skip this post. If your mind is open, keep reading.

If recruiters need automated tools to help them post their jobs to twitter… then it must be worth checking out.

Let’s run through a few of the reasons WHY recruiters use twitter:

1. It’s free
2. It’s easy
3. It has broad reach
4. It separates out the ‘dinosaurs’ from the people who get it

I hear this from some job seekers.. ‘but I have all this experience… they should want to hire me for that, not for whether it tweet or not.”

This is true… you do have excellent experience… but so do lots of other people. And those people have updated their skills, are engaged with the world and want to be connected and learn new things. Argue with me all you want. It doesn’t change the facts.

My friend Charlene Kingston has an fantastic eBook to help you get started. Twitter for Beginners. She also has awesome tools, eBooks and online sessions for small business people. Check it out. She rocks.

How Fair is Your Pay? 5 Steps to Getting Your Share

This pretty picture has nothing to do with fair pay… but it is an inspiring, life affirming photo. I want to inspire you to make sure you get what you want from your life. Not tomorrow, not next week, not next year. Today. It is, after all, all we have.

When I read this article about Whole Foods compensation structure — I was amazed and wondered why more companies don’t follow suit. Here’s the bottom line:

“Execs can’t earn more than 19 times the company average, the co-founder gets $1 a year, and non-execs get 93% of company stock options. The result is 7% turnover — among the lowest in the industry. Says co-CEO Walter Robb: ‘[We] really make love to the company values.’” I would say they put their money where their mouth is. Most companies SAY that employees are their most valuable asset but how do they demonstrate it?

Not all of us can work for Whole Foods so what can we do?

1) Mean what we say and say what we mean. Be a person of integrity. You will never regret it.

2) Keep your skills current. When you do that, you give yourself the opportunity to change… jobs, organizations, fields, etc.

3) Pay it forward. The more aware you are of helping others achieve their goals, the better.

4) Be nice. Organizations look to hire people who can get along. Being nice never hurt anyone’s career. Don’t be a doormat but the most successful people I know are generally described by others as ‘one of the nicest people I have ever met.”

5) Work for yourself. You don’t always make the most money this way… but you’ll make sure you get your fair share!

Checkout these online salary resources:

My favorite is Glassdoor.com where employees post the real skinny on salary, work and culture. Also try salaryexpert.com, jobstar.org (links to over 300 professional salary surveys) and salary.com.  It’s not all about money… but getting comparative data can give you strength in negotiating. By the way, if you don’t ask for the money you deserve… you’ll probably never get it.

Photo credit: mmtzjr69out  Double Bubble Rainbow

The Facebook Nightmare – Lost Job Opportunities…

Anyone who reads my blog knows that I have a very healthy skepticism of Facebook. I am not alone. We have 3 grandchildren under the age of 5; 2 are “on” Facebook, 1 is not. I support a parent’s right either way.

But I also know how much joy and connection Facebook brings to so many people and I respect and appreciate that.

When I read, Facebook’s Generation Y Nightmare,  the article put into words what I sometimes feel is the dilemma of sharing your ‘present’ on Facebook and illustrating it with photos.  The author of the article imagines a young lady, Tina, at 18 in 2012. The items she posts now will effect not only her future career opportunities but also her alternatives for health care.

Yes, it’s imagined and yes, this assumes that ‘nothing changes”, but it’s not hard to imagine judgements/decisions being made based on incomplete or ‘what’s readily available’ data.

So, I encourage you to review your Facebook ‘timeline’ – assuming that privacy settings didn’t work… (which I think is the reasonable thing to do these days)  — what would your future employer or insurer learn about you might prefer that the whole world NOT know.

I know a young man who lost his job as a student teacher because of his ‘drinking a beers with his buddies’ photos on his Facebook page. He was over 21 and the pictures were harmless and yet the school district’s policy on ‘public comportment’ took away his future career. You may think this is unfair but the truth is… this is happening. The nightmare hasn’t even begun yet.. for those who can’t tell their parents… please don’t put me on Facebook!

Thoughts?

Photo credit: Jack Skellington-O-Lantern  randysonofrobert

9 Deadly Sins of Job Hunting

Ok, these may not be deadly but they can slow down your search. Take care of these and your search will go smoothly because you’ll be building relationships and learning during your entire search.

You may not want to address these issues… but you’ll be glad you did.

I borrowed some of these from 7 Deadly Sales Sins.

1. You don’t know who you are so you can’t concisely tell others. Seems simple enough but trust me, if it’s been a while since you’ve looked for a job… you probably don’t know yourself as well as you need to. Look into those dark corners, root out your foibles and shortcomings and learn to say great things about yourself and your capabilities.

2. You don’t know what you want. If you don’t know where you’re going; any road will take you there. How can others help you if you don’t know what you need or want. I know it’s easier to define what you don’t want. Start there.

3. You don’t know how to easily help others (or worse you don’t understand why it’s important.) Being of service, listening, making referrals, introducing like-minded folks, etc. it’s not hard but you do have to stop thinking about yourself long enough to consider what to do.

4. You don’t understand what recruiters, hiring managers or human resource people need. If you put yourself in their shoes for a minute, you’ll be much more effective at getting their attention.

5. You’re afraid. We all are, you are not alone. Some of us just “fake it ’til we make it.” Take a page from that book.

6. You stay in your house and tell people you can’t network because you’re: shy, introverted, technical, a geek, blah, blah, blah. Get over it. Most of us don’t want to meet a bunch of strangers, but we do it.

7. You don’t follow up. You know, thank you notes you talk yourself out of.

8. You don’t have a process for your search. Do you have a spreadsheet of your contacts, companies and connections? Do you have a plan to meet 7-10 new people a week? Do you have a job search ‘buddy’ who can help you? Are you learning new skills?

9. You don’t ask for the job or you ask for every job. Be clear about what you want, who you are and when the time is right, be sure to be clear that you believe this is the job for you and why.

Bonus: You don’t have a complete LinkedIn profile with at least 200 contacts. sigh… what are you waiting for?

I believe in you. Go!

Photo Credit: MelB Handovermouth

The “Skate to Where the Puck’s Going To Be” Career Management Philosophy

Recently I came across an article titled, “7 Jobs You Never Heard of and Why They’re Awesome,” e.g. futurist, greensman (not keeping the putting green nice..) and parabolic expert. Do you think these sounds silly? Think again.

It might seem odd to remember elevator or telephone operators, but what about travel agents, department store clerks (try to find one these days) or assembly line workers. Ten years ago a fair number of people held these jobs.

Today a lot of people have titles that didn’t exist 10 years ago, e.g. Director of Inbound Marketing, Content Marketer, Java Developer, .net Developer or Internet Security expert, etc.. If you believe what Wayne Gretsky (aka the great one… hockey player) said, “Skate to where the puck’s going to be, not to where it has been…” and apply that to your career,  it’s possible that your next job could be something you’ve never even heard of.

If you were born after 1980… it’s very likely you will have a job that hasn’t even been invented yet (not to mention being actively engaged in creating new companies.)

When I speak to educators I remind them that it is their responsibility… along with business leaders… to find out what skills will be needed and to start today to create programs to prepare our future employees. And this is not just for young people! Boomers and Gen Xer’s need to change too.

Because if we, as Americans, don’t figure this out…someone else in the world will and if we think the economy is ugly now…

This is not the ‘responsibility’ of politicians and/or ‘someone else’. Each of us must be prepared. Consider the shark or crocodile– they’ve been around a long time while many other creatures have become extinct. Adapt or die.

Image credit:  Oldster’s view

Seek and You Shall Find

People often ask me about my career. The details are not as important as my attitude towards work. I believed I could shape my career to what I wanted and what my family needed. The “rules” were meant to be bent…

Background — started out as a French and German teacher, earned an MLS (yes, I’m a librarian), moved to Rochester, worked 17 years at Kodak. I’ve had jobs in government, non profits, small business and I’ve started 2 companies.

I never had a job that someone had before me. I am good at making order out of chaos.

I was a single parent and raised my children alone from when they two and four, so money and time were equally important to me. This meant that I needed to find part time work that paid well.

I was one of the few part time managers at Kodak in the early 1980′s. My approach was to find something I wanted to do, find a place in the organization to do it, convince the person to hire me and THEN talk about doing the job on a part time schedule. No boss ever said no because I made it a “no brainer” for them. I said, “I will do the job… you can pay me less.”  In return I got the flexibility that was so important to me.

The last time I took a ‘regular’ job — as part of the hiring negotiations — I told my employer I would work there for one year and then I’d leave. I ended up staying almost two, but I had planned my exit and it worked out great for me.

In case you’re wondering,  my gig today is part time college professor (grad school), speaker, consultant and oh yeah, a blogger.

Are you getting what you want? Do not be afraid. Go for it.

Guerrilla Hiring (Not Hiring Guerillas)

I often talk with job hunters, HR folks and recruiters about how hiring continues to evolve; think mobile/social recruiting.

When I read this post about a woman who recently applied to,  interviewed for and landed a job in less than a week; I was amazed (job on east coast and she lived on the west coast!)

Here’s her story…

“So, on a fluke, I emailed them my resume. By the next afternoon, I had already done a Skype™ interview with HR and they assigned me a project so they could see my work. I emailed my project, they loved it and offered me a job. I was on an airplane that Sunday and started work on Monday!” What’s on Karen’s Plate

Let’s examine this. She…

1) Wasn’t even looking for a job., she ‘stumbled’ across this posting and decided it was her dream job

2) Sent a resume and someone actually looked at it (wow)

3) Interviewed via Skype™  (candidate and hiring manager actually saw each other, felt the mutual energy, etc.)

4) Completed an assignment (wow again). (So this means that the company actually knew enough about the job to have an assignment that an interviewee could complete and then they made it easy for her to submit it.)

5) Evaluated the organization – I wonder what they did to help her understand their culture? (Made interviewing completely painless!)

Of course all interviews can’t happen like this but imagine streamlining the process to even vaguely resemble something like this. What if you Skype interviewed several candidates? If they don’t know how to use Skype — do you want to hire them? and… can you use Skype?

As a hiring manager, do you have an ‘assignment’ for your short list of candidates?

As someone how waited months for a job to — ‘get approved’, ‘open up’, have a new ‘description/classification written’, etc., this whole thing blows me away. In a good way!

Image credit: Philhill.net

6 seconds = How Long Your Resume Gets Looked At…

Have you ever been on the hiring side of a resume? It’s not fun.

You often feel like this guy. Overwhelmed by ‘paper’ and buzzwords that don’t tell you anything.

Before you spend more time and get more opinions about your resume, check out this article, “How Recruiters See Your Resume…” Take a look at the heat map associated with this article.

It tells us that the more structured your resume, the easier it is for those 6 seconds to be productive and get you into the consideration pile vs. the no way pile.

The goal of the resume is to… wait for it… get you an interview! Be sure to think of it that way. It’s not to document your entire work history.

By the way, how’s your Linked In profile? Do you have 300 connections? Do you belong to several groups? Have you uploaded your PowerPoint presentations? Do you answer questions? Make sure you include a live link to your Linked In profile from your resume.

Now go forth and streamline that resume!

Image credit: Career Insider

Shopping for a New Boss

About 15 years into my career I figured out that WHO I worked for was as important as what I was doing for work. So when it came to looking for a new job, my search became about looking for a great person to work for.

This may sound crazy; particularly in this tight job market. It takes a lot of confidence (and some money in the bank) to alter our perception of how to find a new job by figuring out who we want to learn from.

My approach was pretty simple. I looked for great places to work; places that were growing and had a focus on customers and building trust. During the interview process, I would pay close attention to the person I would work for. I asked a lot of questions and thought about:

- Would I learn from this person? Do they have skills I want?

- Are they happy and growing in their work?

In an interesting blog post called, “Get Hired, No Resume, No Interview, No Joke,” the author suggests that you “go to good managers you’d like to work for.” Talk to them, understand their issues and see how you might fit into their organization. I’m not suggesting that you abandon networking or applying for work. But author Corcodilos’ suggestion that we pick  “three companies or managers you really, really want to work for because they are shining lights in their industry.”

Like any good sales effort, you may pick 3 and find out that 2 won’t work. So pick two more. If you are not sure how to identify these excellent managers? Ask other people! They will tell you. But you won’t find out unless you ask.

It always worked out for me. I learned a great deal and respected the people I worked for.  It may not be easy but I can assure you it is very worthwhile. Happy shopping!

Photo credit: Icanhazcheezburger.com

I’m Telling Mom…No One Likes a TattleTale

No one likes a tattletale. Well, unless the information is valuable. So when you are looking for a new job (exciting and terrifying), information about a prospective employer can be priceless.

The way it used to be -Do you remember the old boys network’? I do. Because I’m a girl (and an old one at that) – the boys network wasn’t really open to me. Yes, I had excellent experience and yes, I had a Master’s Degree but… I was still a girl.

But I never let anything stop me. I just kept trying, learning, sharing, being myself. And I’m happy to report that due to circumstances beyond their control, the network (while still alive and well) isn’t what it used to be.

I also had a little help from my friends, kind and generous mentors and the great equalizer, the internet and it’s child – social media came along.

The way it is now – When you want information about a company, you can turn to sites like Glassdoor.com. This site allows real people to give information about their employer. The good news is that it’s anonymous. That’s also the bad news. The site has input by company, job type, salary and even interview questions.

Like any other ‘crowd-sourced’ site, you need to be careful. One disgruntled person can make the numbers look bad so it’s important thing is to read all the comments. Check out all the data. Particularly around salary. (there are so many helpful sites!) I know it’s an ‘employer’s’ market right now, but that won’t last and this probably isn’t the last job you’ll negotiate a salary for. (booyah!)

Image credit – This child’s mother and father… and LoveAmourLove.com