5 Typical Job Search Leaks

Tim Tyrell-Smith wrote that there are 5 leaks in your job search strategy. You can find the original article here. Tim wrote this for [JobMob]

5 typical job search problems

Hole #1 leaks Time: Inefficient Strategy

If you wake up every morning, hop on the computer and search for jobs (via Monster or AllJobs) for hours, there’s a hole in your bucket.

You are losing valuable time every day.

Time that could be spent meeting with real people, completing informational interviews, and using Linkedin, Plaxo or Xing to find contacts at your target companies. Since you cannot and should not search for work 12 hours a day, focus your key search hours on the right efforts.

Hole #2 leaks Opportunity: Uninspired Elevator or Introductory Speech

So you stand up at the big networking event when it is your turn to speak in front of 50 other people, some of whom might be able to influence your job search.

You speak too softly, don’t make eye contact, don’t deliver a compelling message and forget to share your job search objectives. When will you be able to fix that one? You’ve just left a forgettable impression on 50 people.

Fix this leak by learning to speak with a powerful voice, find at least 10 people to reach with your eyes and work hard to develop a compelling story for your career. Be interesting.

Hole #3 leaks Credibility and Friendship: Ineffective and Self-Focused Networker

If you are uncomfortable meeting new people. If you stumble in conversations. If your focus in networking is to solve your own problems.

Leak, leak, leak.

Networking is about giving and getting. In that order. No matter your stage in job search. Even if just beginning, there is always someone worse off than you. Someone you can help. And, of course, word gets around. If you are a giver, you will get from others. If you are a taker… well, the leak will get worse.

Hole #4 leaks Interview Potential: Poor or Incomplete Marketing Materials

When your resume or CV is too long, unstructured or lacking measurable accomplishments, you give little option to a hiring manager or recruiter. You give them a reason to filter your candidacy to the “HOLD” or “NO” folder.

If you do not create a significant impact in two pages, you will miss out on phone interviews and you will be less likely to be invited into HQ.

Also, make sure you have materials prepared for all occasions. Going to an event where the search is performed more informally? Have a “one sheet” version of your resume and carry networking business cards that include your contact information, key strengths, a clear positioning statement and your specific job search objectives.

Hole #5 leaks Energy: Random Acts of Desperation

Sometimes in job search a little bit of frustration sneaks into your mind. Perhaps that interview that you thought went so well… didn’t. But you feel a need to reinforce your skills via a phone message, e-mail and a hand-delivered note in the hopes that the company will realize they made a mistake by not offering you the job.

Not only is this damaging to your psychology, it does not endear you to the hiring manager. If they want you, they will call.

Really.

Make sure you have lots of irons in the fire to prevent a hyper-focus on one position - even if you think it is your dream job.

Follow up

So now it’s time to inspect your bucket. Are you seeing any leaks?

Hiring Consultant Warns: "No Connection Between Credit History And Job Performance"

Hiring Consultant Warns: "No Connection Between Credit History And Job Performance" [Discrimination]: "

Almost half of all employers use credit reports to judge job applicants, even though credit histories have no relation to job performance. Personal finance goofs are only relevant for jobs that deal directly with money—cashiers, account managers, and the like. For everyone else, negative credit reports keep otherwise capable people from securing a job to help avoid further financial problems. So why do so many companies still ask for credit reports?

Hiring consultant Nancy Schuman explains:

Some companies believe they can deduce how a person will handle their job responsibilities based on how they handle their personal finances. Others use the information to gauge how long a person might stay in a position if their debt load is higher than a position pays. It is also used to verify employment history and a social security number.

There is no clear connection between a credit history and job performance, and many job seekers consider it to be an unfair way of screening candidates, however, no Federal discrimination law specifically prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of a bad credit report. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and state credit laws help to regulate how an employer can obtain and use their findings. An employer must gain your consent in writing to do a credit check and the report they receive is different than one viewed by a credit agency or an individual. Full account numbers are not revealed and they won't see a credit score, but they will be able to see late payments, collections and bankruptcies. If you are actually denied employment because of your credit report, the company must notify you so that you may view the report on which the decision was based.

An accurate credit report is best defense against a discriminating employer. Every year, consumers find 13 million errors staining their credit reports. Request a copy of your report from each of the three credit reporting agencies at AnnualCreditReport.com (not FreeCreditReport.com!) Challenge anything that looks like an error. If you can't scrape strikes from your report, talk to your potential employer clearly and honestly and help them understand what led to financial transgression, and explain how it is completely unrelated to your future job performance.

Does Bad Credit = A Bad Candidate [Long Island Press via Fair Credit Reporting Act]
PREVIOUSLY: Repair Your Credit By Disputing
Check Your Credit History Year-Round, For Free
(Photo: ninjapoodles)

Why Resisting Change is Boring

Why Resisting Change is Boring: "

In recent posts (here and here), I’ve been sharing about some of the powerful life skills and lessons I’ve been gleaning from impro story-telling. Impro is a form of theatre where the story is made up by the team of actors as they act it out. Nobody knows where the story will go, because they’re creating it together on the spot, often in collaboration with the audience. The context of uncertainty that’s created within the impro games and story-telling sessions is in many ways similar to the fast-paced, high-change, unpredictable environments that many of us are living and working in these days, so I’ve found a lot of the impro perspectives and skills are highly relevant to thriving in this era - particularly the perspectives on embracing, rather than resisting, uncertainty and change.

Why we resist change

You’ve probably realized this yourself: on a deep level, we guard ourselves against change. From a survival point of view, our bodies are designed to avoid change and keep returning to homeostasis. And there’s a good reason for this - the body can only tolerate a small amount of change at a time, and when it comes to integral systems such as blood pressure and body temperature, the body can tolerate very little variance. So the body instinctively resists change, in order to survive. And when we’re living our lives automatically, rather than consciously, the mind becomes a servant to the body, and we’ll find ourselves fearing and resisting change in all areas of our lives. But, while the body is concerned with survival, and avoiding change will probably ensure your survival (until you die at least… it’s gonna happen in the end), our hearts, minds and spirits need change and growth in order to thrive. One of the impro mantras that we learned in the impro workshop really affirmed this idea for me:

“When you’re changing, you’re interesting…”

When you’re changing, you’re interesting

As with all entertainment, impro is interesting and entertaining when there’s something happening, and since you rarely have props on the stage, the interest and entertainment is all in the individual actors, their characters and how they relate to each other. Think of your favorite movies or books - one of the things that makes the main characters interesting is that they are in some way changed by the events or interactions in the story.

For me, this is so true in life. On some level, we’re all perceiving a story in each other, and we’re all putting out stories about ourselves. And the reason why some people attract more attention and interest (and fame/ money, etc) is that they’re putting out interesting stories - stories in which they’re changing. It’s the reason why people like Madonna have remained interesting over the years. She’s reinvented herself regularly, because she knows that she has to keep changing if she wants to remain interesting to her audience. And it’s the reason why actors like Hugh Grant have faded into the distance - he hasn’t changed and so he’s no longer interesting and we’ve moved on. I think this is a powerful idea to consider when it comes to relationships and leadership. If you want to be successful at relationships and leadership, you’re going to need to be committed to your life-long learning, change and growth.

What about the times when people reject us when we change?

I know that some people will say that they think that relationships can be shaken up and damaged by change, and I think this confirms the idea that, “When you’re changing, you’re interesting.” Often the reason the relationship ends is because one person was changing and the other person wasn’t, so somebody outgrew the relationship. I’ve seen this in my relationship with Andy. We got married when I was twenty and there were people who said that I was too young, that I wasn’t old enough to have “found myself” yet, and that we were taking a risk because we could still both change a lot and outgrow each other. While a lot of people see marriage as a limiting institution, when we got married, our vows were pretty much that we were committing ourselves to helping each other be more, and to live and expand our potential. And that’s what we’ve done. Andy is not the man I married, and I’m not the woman he married. And thank God for that! We’ve both been continuously changing, and that’s one of the things that’s kept us interesting to each other over the past 11 years we’ve been together.

So, I’m interested… how have you experienced the impact of change on your relationships? How has changing made your relationships (and your life) more interesting?

Photo by Wok

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MineYourResources/~3/bCcMS4UfS5E/

The Future of Work: Future-proof Your Career With Scenario Planning

Original Post: The Future of Work: Future-proof Your Career With Scenario Planning: "

Rounding off our week of features on the Future of Work, I thought it appropriate to consider methods of exploring the future, in particular ways to help you think about your career trajectory.

Perhaps one of the most well-known and used mechanisms for understanding possible futures is scenario planning. Scenario planning essentially helps construct “storylines” that draw together factors from various overlapping domains — politics, technology, culture, demographics — into narratives that can sometimes yield surprising, serendipitous insights.

Scenario planning has a long history of use as a predictive tool in the military and large organizations, but it’s also surprisingly applicable to individuals who wish to model, simulate and explore their own personal future.

A recent piece in Wired outlines a method for personal scenario planning to help workers consider and imagine their career future, and model the factors that might influence it.

Conveniently, Wired’s artilce distills scenario planning into five easy steps:

1. List driving forces. Which events, trends and variables affect your career? Categorize them under “uncertainties” and “relative certainties,” ranked by importance. These are essentially the determining factors in your career.
2. Make a scenario grid. Map your possible futures by selecting the most important uncertainties (from above) as axes of a 2×2 grid, you can then begin to populate each section of the grid with the description of a “potential future,” based on your chosen factors.
3. Imagine possible futures. Rewrite your potential futures as fictional, but plausible, news stories to make each scenario more tangible and real.
   
4. Brainstorm implications and actions. Here you begin to strategize how each possible future could be navigated. Begin with the implications of each scenario, followed by discrete actions. Some actions might work in multiple scenarios, indicating that these are the most secure paths forward.
5. Track the indicators. The scenarios you’ve established prepares you to absorb what’s ahead and recognize events and developments which signal if elements of particular scenarios are in play. Testing your actions against these indicators regularly helps you anticipate your reaction to various futures.

Wired’s article uses the example of an aerospace engineer seeking to future-proof his career over the next five years. There’s no reason the same methodology couldn’t be applied to the world of a designer, developer, consultant, journalist or any of the multitude of web working disciplines.

I recently took part in an Arup-hosted scenario planning session at TED Global 2009, in Oxford. Over the course of two hours, around seventy people teased out a set of priorities for addressing global problems, using Arup’s own Drivers Of Change scenario planning tools. It was a fascinating exercise in anticipating future developments, and something that I’m certain would work well on a personal and individual scale for managing a career.

I’d love to see an enterprising and imaginative group create a crowdsourcing-driven application for personal scenario planning. Perhaps we might even see the evolution of scenario coaches to assist freelancers, in particular.

Read more at “Your Future in 5 Easy Steps: Wired Guide to Personal Scenario Planning.”

UpMo.com Offers Uber Personalized Job Searches And Counseling

UpMo.com Offers Uber Personalized Job Searches And Counseling: "

With unemployment rates still high, the competition among online job boards is heating up. One startup is hoping to take a piece of the pie by offering a highly-personalized job search feature. UpMo.com has launched the Intelligent Job Hunt, a tool that determines a job hunter’s ideal career path and job opportunities based on an algorithm.

Intelligent Job Hunt’s algorithm identifies and prioritizes job matches based upon certain aspects of a user’s career, including past, present and future jobs, network (i.e. LinkedIn) connections, professionals they’d like to emulate and personality attributes. UpMo also attempts to pinpoints the activities you should be doing and the specific job opportunities you should be pursuing to increase your chances of getting the job you want.

Of course, the bells and whistles that accompany UpMo’s job search platform aren’t free. UpMo’s membership fee is $6.99 per month, whereas CareerBuilder and other job search engines are free. The algorithm itself sounds impressive and perhaps could be a powerful tool for those looking to get highly personalized job guidance, but needs to be tested further to prove its success in the space. And it’s a competitive space chock full of job search engines, including the fast-growing Indeed, Yahoo’s HotJobs (Which Yahoo may be abandoning) and Monster.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

7 Quick Rules for Networking To Your Next Job

7 Quick Rules for Networking To Your Next Job: "

Network your way to your next job by following these rules.

This a guest post by Yvette Francino.

1) Become familiar with the social networking tools like LinkedIn, FaceBook, and Twitter

Networking has always been the most important strategy in finding a job.

Before we had social networking tools, we dug out our list of contacts and blindly went out trying to find people that might be able to help us with our job search. There are “leads meetings” where people exchange business cards and give their elevator pitches. These methods are still useful ways to network. However, by using tools such as LinkedIn, FaceBook, and Twitter we are able to be much more intelligent with how we network.

Social media tools allow us an easy way for keeping in touch and expanding our networks, finding mutually beneficial relationships. These tools, particularly LinkedIn, are absolutely essential in the modern day job search.

There are also many tips and tricks that are particularly geared towards helping job seekers.

2) Don’t wait until you need something

The best time to network is before you need anything.

Networks can help with a lot more than a job search. A community of people can help each other in many ways. Building up a strong network when you are happily employed can help you progress in your career and build lifelong professional friendships. Don’t wait until you’ve been laid off to connect with your colleagues in LinkedIn and Facebook.

However, if you’re new to the social networking scene and are in need of a job, it’s not too late. Go ahead and get start building your networks using social networking tools and by getting involved in communities of interest. Invite all the friends from your email address book (not just those that you think will help you with your job search) to join your networks.

3) Seek to help and support others

Participate in your networks, looking for ways to help others.

Join networks aimed at job search and pass along tips and tricks. Help your contacts find leads to companies they’re interested in by searching your own network. Pass along what you learn from others. By helping other people you are also helping yourself become established in the community as a resource.

But don’t limit your help and support only to job seekers.

Look for opportunities to help people in your area of expertise. Connecting with friends on Facebook or Twitter allows an easy way for you to stay up-to-date on what’s going on in your friends’ lives. Simply giving them a quick message of friendship can spread a feeling of happiness.

4) Be personal and genuine

I’ve heard advice from several people that when you’re networking you shouldn’t tell people directly that you’re looking for a job. You befriend them, find out more about them, help them with something, and then in the course of the conversation they will find out your in the job market. I understand that this should be the philosophy in sales.

Build the relationship first before you start selling.

However if you’re meeting someone specifically because of a job search, I think it’s important to be upfront. Let people know that you are looking for a job, but don’t “sell” yourself. Enjoy the friendship and support you receive and give it willingly and genuinely to others. And don’t limit yourself simply to email or social networking tools. Meet new people often – not with the sole purpose of finding a job, but with the purpose of meeting new friends and getting to know people with shared interests.

5) Have a confident attitude

One of the hardest things I ever had to do was fundraising for Leukemia and Lymphoma.

I had committed to raising $4000 which meant I had to ask a lot of people for money. I hated putting them on the spot until one man – someone I barely knew whose son was in remission– donated $500. The next time I was raising money, I asked him again, but told him I didn’t want him to think I was taking advantage of his generosity. He gave me another $500 and said, “I would be hurt if you DIDN’T ask me. Be proud of what you’re doing.”

Though not everyone has this generous attititude about giving, I realized that when we are asking people for help, our attitude makes a world of difference.

When we ask someone to meet so we can talk to them about a job opportunity, we shouldn’t be apologetic or feel that we’re imposing. Certainly we want to be grateful for the meeting, but we are not only learning from them, but sharing of ourselves. Initiating a new relationship, whether or not it results in a job, is something to feel good about. Don’t go about networking as though you’re a charity case.

Go in being proud of what you can offer to others.

6) Thank those who help you

An attitude of gratefulness is one that helps keeps your community strong.

When someone helps you in your job search, make sure they realize how grateful you are. Social networking tools can help you keep in touch and keep up with your friendships. Of course, for people that have gone out of their way to help you, personal contact is better than an email or Wall message.

Treat your biggest supporters to lunch or surprise them with a gift in thanks for their efforts. And certainly offer to return the favor of help in any way you can.

7) Pay it forward

When someone helps us, we know how good it feels and we naturally want to spread that feeling to others that might need it.

One of the best things about community is the contagious feelings of happiness it can bring to pass on to others the support that we’ve received. Social networking tools have made it simple by allowing us to easily share advice or information that we find useful. With Twitter, we simply have to “Retweet” to pass along information. With FaceBook and LinkedIn we can easily post links to our status pages of helpful information passing along to our own networks.

If you found this article useful, you can help me by spreading the word through your networks. Additional articles about social networking and the job search can be found on my blog. My contact information and connection information for LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter can be found there. Looking forward to having you in my network!

About the Author

Yvette Francino blogs about social media at geekgal-yvette.blogspot.com.

This article is part of the 3rd Annual JobMob Guest Blogging Contest. If you want Yvette Francino to win, share this article with your friends.

Subscribe to JobMob via RSS or email and follow me on Twitter for more ideas on job search networking with social media.

-- Jacob Share, Job Search Expert and Professional Blogging Consultant

How Many Resumes do You Have?

Jul 29th, 2009 by Nut

If your answer is "one," then you're missing out.

Having one resume means that you're most likely to apply to just one type of job, and going to limit how many open jobs you apply to. Which means you probably won't find a job as quickly as someone who has four or five.

The reason is obvious: you'll have more options if you have several different types of skills so you can apply to different types of jobs.

So can you just fire up a word processor and create five different versions of your existing resume? Nope, that would be pointless.

Instead, try to get more experience at your current work. Freelance on the side. Blog. Get "another job" in the sense that you're still with your current company but you wear different hats and see what you're good at. You'll make yourself a more valuable employee and you'll get the experience you need to open up all kinds of different jobs when you decide to move on.

Take myself, for example. I was hired to do one thing and one thing only.

That was over a year and a half ago and now I'm not even doing that original job. Things have changed and because I was able to wear many different types of hats, I'm now doing several different things. Which is good because my time isn't spent doing just one thing (a little variety is always nice) and I'm expanding my skill set even further by adding experience.

Right now I could probably create at least four completely unique resumes. Almost like four totally different people.

So I don't have five or six…but I'm working on it.

Having several resumes is a good way to make sure you're expanding your skills and it will also help you when you go job hunting. You won't ever have to feel like you "have" to get a job in just one specific field. You'll have your choice as long as you have the skills to apply to several different types of jobs.

Image by woodleywonderworks