Call Human Resources

I know this sounds like heresy but there’s method in my madness.  Call the personnel department of the companies on your target list. Ask their manager or recruiter what outside agency or third party recruiting firm they use.  Why?  For two strategic reasons, First, any personnel person will immediately ask why you want to know.  To which you answer, “I’ve been to your web site and I understand that you’re not looking for someone with my skill set right now but the agency you use may be dealing with other firms who could use my skill set --- so I guess I’m looking for a recommendation from you.”  After they get over the compliment they will likely ask you about your skill set etc., in which case you should tell them that, “I didn’t call you looking for a back door into your company but if you want to have a cup of coffee sometime I’d be happy to share my accomplishments with you.”  If they push you be prepared to sell yourself shamelessly.  Second, if they don’t press you for an interview, insist on knowing whom they use and why.

Personnel Managers love saving money on fees, so they may try to hire you directly.

Personnel Managers tend to group together by industry and make referrals to each other.

Getting a referral from one of their customers will insure the agency treats you with kid gloves.

Always ask for the name of a specific person and their direct dial number.

Get permission to use the Personnel Manager’s name as a reference.

Ask if they personally know of any other companies that could make appropriate use of your skills.

Send them a thank you note with a copy of your resume to keep on file for their future requirements.

Compliments of David Perry and Kevin Donlin

Grab your Free Guerrilla Job Search Audio here.

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Your Job Search: The Little Things

Big things are important, little things have the power to distract from, or reinforce, your message.

Little things, like your shoelace untied.

Or your hair messed up.

Or a stain on your shirt.

Or a resume that is folded in half, or a business card that is dog-earred, or facial hair that just seems out of place, or …

The list can go on and on.  I’m not saying that people can’t be unusual, or be independent, or go against any grain, etc.

I’m not saying it’s right for people to judge us for little indiscretions, although they do it anyway (so do you).

What I’m saying is, pay attention to the little things and perhaps you’ll come across as more professional, or the better candidate, or a strong networker, or something similar.

Don’t solely focus on the big things – make sure you pay attention to the little things.

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My Global Career: Eight Steps to Make Communication a Vital Skill

The art of everyday communications should be every executive’s number one priority. Every statement and every communication must contain the elements connected to company success, including its values, motivation, goals and objectives. However, successful communication is not just about idea, it’s also about how it is said.

These eight steps will help you turn communication into a hot skill, pivotal to advancing both your career and your company’s agenda:

The first step for leaders is to constantly keep internal and external communication lines open. Quick and responsive replies to all queries will ensure that everybody is on top of the game and keeping evolving situations transparent.

The second step for leaders is to be their staff’s most valuable resource. This is done by having a constant open door so staff can feel comfortable to ask for help, share issues and problems and get advice in relation to their personalized tasks and roles.

The second step is about leaders being able to respond to all communications without interfering in their daily responsibilities. This can be done by prioritizing situations expressed in communications and practicing effective time management through vetting each communication on its individual merits.

The third step is enforcing corporate values and acceptable behaviors. This powerful tool cannot only address concerns but recognize the value of the communication and the person communicating it. It’s also a means of expressing appreciation and confidence in staff.

The fourth step is to remain focused on company/client communications through the feedback loop. This works by maintaning constant and open communications with each and every client. This level of communication accounts for the individual differences between clients. Its personalized nature improves retention and sustains the company’s advantage over competitors.

The fifth step is for companies to support their leaders in learning to communicate effectively. Not all leaders have fine-tuned communication skills. Some may need a coach or specialized training. Others may not feel comfortable making presentations, therefore requiring help in overcoming stage fright. However, if company leaders are not given the support they need, then the messages from the top can be lost or not communicated clearly to other staff.

The sixth step is overcoming resistance to communications improvement. It’s fundamental that every leader hones hiss/her skills in effective communications. Failure to do so will result in miscommunications, missed opportunitiies, customer/client/staff dissatisfaction and failure to meet objectives. If a leader refuses to cooperate, it may be become necessary to replace this leader with a new one.

The seventh step is providing communications training. Varied levels can be made available beyond the basics. This can include motivational speaking, public speakikng, media relations and effective listening/persuasion/influence. It mahy also be necessary to hire a communications specialist who will evaluate presentations and all other types of communications to see where the strengths and weaknesses lie. In turn, this person can advise, mentor and propose both changes and needed training.

The eighth step is to have a tam of communicators that can represent that company. They should be actively involved within the company and visible to others at all times.

Monster.com’s and Eons’ founder and CEO Jeff Taylor is very much aware of art daily communications. He accepted that communicating clearly so that all staff undersand the purpose and vision are critical to company success and continued profitability. Most improtantly, he recognized that the only way to pass on company messages is through all company leaders learning to communicate properly. In fact his understanding of my eight important steps in the art ofcommunications has helped him and his satff insure that this business clearly succeed.

Communications with any company is not only critical to the company’s success but an art form that cannot be ignored. Communicating daily is a top priority. Statements and other forms of communications must be directly linked to company objectives, goal, staff motivation and company values.

However, successful communications cannot be achieved simply by expressing an idea. How ideas are communicated can make or break a company. Open lines of communications must exist between leaders, staff, clients and customers. Leaders must also act as a resource for all staff, and enforce acceptable behaviors and transmit company values, and focusing on feedback from within and without the company must be maintained.

Most critically, companies must support leaders and staff in developing their communication skills. Such support has to include training, confidence in their abilities, effective communications and clearing out communications resistance. However, the best stratewgy is to create a confident team of well-trained communicators who can act as positive representatives for the company, both publicly and within company walls. With all these elements in place, success and communications become permanently linked.

Suzanne Bates, CEO of Bates Communications, is author of “Motivate Like a CEO: Communicate Your Stategic Vision and Inspire People to Act!” (McGraw Hill 2009) and the best-seller “Speak Like a CEO: Secrets for Commanding Attention and Getting Results.”  She also writes The Power Speaker Blog.

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Secrets of the Job Hunt: Why CVs online are more trustworthy

Do you know that many written CVs are fake or have been changed?

www.laurentbrouat.com

On your CV is everything true?

Your on-line CV is much more accurate than your written CV. Why?

Because on Linkedin or Viadeo, you are in touch with your ex colleagues, ex bosses or ex clients…and they know your position and what you were doing. So you can’t pretend being a marketing director
whereas you were working as a Marketing manager. When connecting with
you, they will look at your profile.

People would spot you are cheating on your CV straight away…what kind of credibility or trust would you have?

CVs online are ruled by peer pressure which means CVs are under the eye of your ex colleagues and you can’t lie too much. Your lies could be seen by everybody.

Especially if you google your name, your linkedin/viadeo profile appears in the first page!

In that context, CVs online tend to be more accurate than the written ones which are only seen by the recruiter or the hiring manager.

Written CVs can be slightly changed or even faked…as long as only one person looks at it…but if it is a whole bunch of people, the risk of being uncovered is much larger.

Conclusion: recruiters use more and more Linkedin and Viadeo to find candidates as it is a free and trustworthy source of candidates.

What do you wait for?

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Distribute a Booklet

Do a booklet relevant to your industry with helpful information and give it away.  Everyone loves a freebie so give away something that demonstrates your expertise.  In my case, for example, I designed, wrote and distributed a free booklet on how to do a reference check correctly, called Don’t Hire a Liar. The booklet subtly points out the benefits of using a professional – like myself – to do their hiring.  The booklet hot-links to a supplemental software program for reference checking which my firm sells.  You could embed a hot link to your web site, resume or bio. 

Give the booklet away everywhere you can.

If you send a printed version to someone make sure you indicate where they can get extra copies for their colleagues. 

Ideally give a web site address people can pass on to others.

Advertise it on your web site and through those newsgroups frequented that hiring mangers in your target market and their recruiters frequent.

If you print your own business cards, put the URL for link to the booklet on the back.

A War Story

A methodical strategy paid off for this ExecuNet member who was very active in her local human resources groups. She contacted the national headquarters for the names of local chapter presidents, and mounted a campaign of contacting each one every two months. Her persistence paid off when she received an offer.

Compliments of Lauryn Franzoni, ExecuNet www.execunet.com

Compliments of David Perry and Kevin Donlin

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Interviews: How to Answer the Job References Question

Your job references are important to your job search success.  They’re the last step in the interview process, and you have to take just as much care with them as you do with anything else–like your resume, your interview skills, your brag book, or your 30/60/90-day plan.  A great reference could easily be what convinces a hiring manager who’s on the fence about you to go ahead and hire you.  And a bad one can knock you out of the running faster than you can blink.  Recommendations carry a lot of weight.

When you are asked in a job interview about your references, don’t lead off your answer with a list of names. Get to the meat of what the hiring manager or recruiter wants to know by talking about what kind of references you have:  titles, positions, and so on.   Which references are the best ones?  Former managers are always at the top of the list of desirable references for any job seeker. If your last job situation was less-than-ideal, you might have to get a little more creative to get a good reference.  For instance, you could ask a high-level client, a colleague, or a manager you didn’t directly work for but who knows your work.

But it’s not just job titles that come into play when choosing a reference that will make you look good.  You have to choose someone you know thinks a lot of you, someone who knows about the job you’re going for so that they can speak to your strengths, and someone who can express himself or herself well.

If you’ve got a lineup of good references, you need to know some job-reference etiquette:  (1)  Keep your references updated with regular e-mails about your career and pass on things that might be helpful to them, just like you do with the rest of your network;   (2)  give them a heads-up when they are about to be called for a reference, and use that time to tell them about the job and what skills they might focus on; and (3) be sure to thank them for helping you out.

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Career Transition Confusion? 7 Types of Psychological Motivation

• Are you in Career Transition and confused about your career direction?
• What career will make you happy?
• What are your extrinsic and intrinsic needs, your unmet needs?

• Have you ever had a high paying job, where you were miserable?
• Have you had a less prestigious or lower paying job, where you were happy?

Most career tests only access your extrinsic needs and ignore intrinsic needs. Read on to learn about career motivation factors which impact your career transition.

As a business career counselor, I help clients explore their career choices and uncover career paths which meet their needs. Career testing is an important part of the process. Choosing the correct assessment tool and having it interpreted by a qualified person is essential. This process will help you uncover career options and expand the range of potential careers which you can consider. Most people do not even know the entire range of jobs or job titles which they are qualified for. They may only apply to a limited number of jobs and may be stuck in a rut. A thougthful approach to career transtions can help you determine your industry, sector, job category, functional role and job titles.

Career Testing: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly http://tinyurl.com/yfaa964

If you are confused or unclear about your career direction, this confusion can ruin your chances in an interview. A counselor who is experienced in your business sector, can also tell you if your career choice is realistic and help you explore labor market trends. You do not want to jump into a new career sector, only to have it go belly up in the next six months. When considering what would make you happy at work, consider what motivates you and what your needs are. What will motivate one individual, may not work with another.

Virtual Counseling, Choosing a Qualified Counselor http://tinyurl.com/yeny8of

In graduate school, my professor always said “Career Counseling is Personal Counseling.” You cannot help someone with the intimate details of their career without knowing who they are as a person. In addition to testing, a skilled counselor will also access your lifestyle needs, personality, motivators, family responsibilities etc. These are factors which are not usually included in most career tests. Our social, emotional and psychological needs will impact our happiness and satisfaction with a particular work role. Your career path and career needs are unique.

I’d like to share a story about friend of mine from University. We both studied Psychology at the University of British Columbia, and then went on to graduate school. We completed our Clinical Psychology internships at a Drop in Addictions Clinic, for the Canadian Federal government. Our job titles and job duties were identical. We were both assigned roles as junior counselors had to counsel clients suffering with addictions, provide relapse prevention workshops and conduct clinical and psychometric testing. What I loved the most about my job was meeting with clients, talking through their issues and helping them problem solve. What I liked the least about my job was completing all of the government paperwork in triplicate and the bureaucracy associated with a Federal job. In contrast, my friend dreaded meeting with clients and she preferred working with the clinical data and doing research. She would get incredibly anxious before meeting with a client or before presenting and would endlessly rehearse what to say. As much as possible, she avoided meeting with clients and did as little of this as she could.

We both completed our internships and then proceeded to our first, job search. My friend realized that she didn’t want to work with clients directly; she wanted to do psychological or gerontology research in a laboratory. She was much more comfortable working with data and devices than people. To avoid going into a counseling practice, she immediately went on to do her PhD. I couldn’t wait to begin my first job and work with real clients. I loved counseling, teaching and writing. You couldn’t pay me enough, to work alone in a lab and sift through reams of statistical data. You couldn’t pay my friend enough, to present lectures to 500+ students and counsel individuals on a daily basis. Our education and experience is similar; yet our career paths are quite divergent.

When considering your career needs, you will need to differentiate between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is internally driven and comes from inside an individual rather than from any external or outside rewards. The motivation comes from the pleasure one gets from the task itself or from the sense of satisfaction in completing or even working on a task. Extrinsic motivation refers to the tangible rewards you receive from your work such as salary, compensation etc. 

The chart below was created for clinical, counseling work. To see the original chart go to http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/motivation/motivate.html  However, I have adapted it for use in a career counseling context. I use this chart in client sessions and together we sort through these motivators. Each of us will have different different balance of variables which can make us happy. There isn’t a right or wrong answer when it comes to career exploration. If you are in career transition, I’d encourage you to explore the relevance and strength of each of these motivators below.

SWOT Analysis of your Competitive Advantage http://tinyurl.com/yzbj8p5

Sources of Motivational Needs
How can each category of needs affect your happiness at work?

Behavioral
• Push vs Pull. Is it your goal to obtain desired, pleasant consequences (rewards, salary, bonus’)? Is it your goal to escape/avoid undesired, unpleasant consequences (angry boss, unhappy customers, failed projects)?
• Are you just running away from your current profession or are you genuinely attracted to a new profession?

Social
• Are there positive role models or people who you can emulate?
• How important is it for you to be a part of a group or a valued member of the work team?

Biological
• How important is your actual work environment: do you prefer a lively or sedate work environment?
• What do you like in your office? Does your décor impact the senses (taste, touch, smell, etc. decrease hunger, thirst, discomfort)?

Cognitive
• In your work tasks, do you like a low key or high stress environment? (ie: book-keeper versus air traffic controller)
• Is it important for you to do meaningful work or to understand why your contribution is important?
• How comfortable are you with uncertainty, changes and/or cognitive disequilibrium?
• Do you enjoy solving problems or making decisions, or would you prefer others do this for you?
• Do you like calculations or figuring something out?
• Do you prefer to eliminate threat or risks?

Affective
• How comfortable are you with conflict (increase/decrease affective dissonance)?
• Are you drawn to activities which increase good feelings?
• Are you drawn to activities which decrease bad feelings?
• Do you need a high level of work security? Do you attempt to decrease any threats to your self-esteem?
• Can you typically, maintain high levels of optimism and enthusiasm?

Conative
• Do you like to choose your own performance goals? Do you like to strive towards company-selected goals?
• Is your career choice related to your dream job?
• Do you strive to develop or maintain self-efficacy at work?
• Do you prefer to take control of your work life?
• Do you prefer to eliminate threats which impede attainment of your dream job?
• How much control would you like others’ to have over your career?

Spiritual
• How does your work relate to your life’s purpose?
• How does your work connect you to your spiritual or religious self?

If you are in a career transition, I'd encourage you to spend some time on accessing your career needs, before diving into a job search. Your career happiness is at stake...

Author:

© 2010 - All Rights Reserved - Sharon B. Cohen, MA, Counseling Psychology, CPRP. Licensed Counselor. Career Counselor and Career Transition Specialist. Atlanta, GA. "Helping business professionals, reach their career potential!"

Complete Archive  of my articles  My Career Manager http://www.mycareermanager.blogspot.com/
On LinkedIn: "Sharon B. Cohen"
On Twitter: "Mycareermanager"

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