Career Advice by Career Experts J.T. O’Donnell & Dale Dauten : CAREEREALISM

‘JT & Dale Talk Jobs’ is the largest nationally syndicated career advice column in the country and can be found at JTandDale.com.

Dear J.T. & Dale: Everything I’ve read about job searching lately says you should be very specific about the type of job you want so you can focus on the best opportunities. Well, I have a clear idea of what I want to do next, but can’t seem to find any job postings for it. What should I do? — Amanda

Dale: What you should NOT do is focus solely on yourself. I’ve always been skeptical of the “do what you love, the money will follow” philosophy — ask any poet. The advantage in narrowing your job search is to jump out of the long line of applicants for generalist positions and jump into the shorter lines where companies are looking for specialists. To do that, you have to understand your target market — not just what you’re selling, but who’s buying.

J.T.: I recently worked with a woman who had such a detailed description of the job she wanted that when we looked at all the local companies that could possibly hire her, guess how many we could find? Three! I persuaded her to redefine her target, making sure she had a sufficient base of employers in order to have a realistic chance of getting hired. Then there’s the bigger issue, and it’s a hot subject these days: employability. It comes down to basic supply and demand. It’s hard enough to figure out what demand you want to supply, but guess what? The market fluctuates over time, and demand changes. To get employed, you’ve got to figure out which skills are most marketable right now; then, to stay employed, you’ve got to figure out what new skills will be in demand.

Dale: So instead of searching only for jobs that are “what you want to do,” also include in your search all the jobs that will get you closer to that ideal position. See yourself as evolving toward one of the places in the job market where you can say, “This is the work I’d love to do,” while meanwhile, you pay attention to where the jobs are evolving, looking for the spot where there are employers saying, “I’d love to hire someone who loves doing that job.”

J.T.: The beauty of this approach, Amanda, is that working on your evolving career takes away the pressure of finding The Perfect Job. There’s nothing wrong with landing a job that will keep you employed while you search for a better one, and then a better one, and eventually the best one.

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Jeanine “J.T.” Tanner O’Donnell is a professional development specialist and the founder of the consulting firm, jtodonnell.com, and of the blog, CAREEREALISM.com. Dale Dauten resolves employment and other business disputes as a mediator with AgreementHouse.com.

Please visit them at jtanddale.com, where you can send questions via e-mail, or write to them in care of King Features Syndicate, 300 W. 57th St, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10019.

© 2010 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.

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Resume Basics from Grade School? | Career Rocketeer - Career Search and Personal Branding Blog

Remember back in school, when you had to diagram sentences and outline term papers? While these exercises often seemed boring and pointless, they were designed to teach you to write a well-structured, easily readable document. Those skills really come in handy when it comes time to write your resume. Your resume needs to have a clearly definable structure so that its reader can immediately find the information they’re seeking. Generally, the experience section of your resume should include the following for your previous positions:

Title
General summary of the job
Achievements at that position

Many people write their resumes without including a summary component explaining what their job entailed. They simply stack numerous bullets for each position. When a document includes an overwhelming number of bullets, the bullets lose their desired effect of highlighting specific details on each topic. So it is important to summarize your previous position in paragraph form first.

Likewise, resumes that only include paragraphs of text immediately overwhelm the reader. A paragraph-filled resume without any bullets is essentially a short story about the candidate’s life. It is difficult for the reader to find specific information in such a text-heavy document. I personally have a hard time even keeping my place when reading such a resume.

Once you’ve written out your previous positions in this format, each job description will essentially serve as a bullet point for the overall summary section at the beginning of your resume. The summary offers an overall glance of who you are as an employee and a candidate, with each previous position supporting your point. The summaries and bullets beneath each job then detail how you provided value to each of your previous employers.

When you look at your completed resume, you may be surprised to see that those outlining skills came in handy after all!

For other job search, resume and career related articles visit http://www.greatresumesfast.com

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Author:

Jessica Holbrook Hernandez is an expert resume writer, career and personal branding strategist, author, speaker and President/CEO of Great Resumes Fast. She creates high-impact, best-in-class, resumes and cover letters that win interviews.

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Simplify Your Job Search - Careers Articles

Do you feel like your job search is full of activity but you aren't getting anywhere? There's a lot of job search advice out there -- and if you keep doing what you read and hear, you might have a very convoluted strategy right now. Here are three do's and three don'ts to simplify your job search:

DO make a significant or difficult call, or send a significant e-mail, every day.

This is part of "networking." Putting off these types of communications only add to the list of "I really need to do this" clutter in your brain. Get through that list and free yourself so you can focus on other things you need to do.

DO go to face-to-face network events.

I know it takes time to get ready and drive there and back, and it takes energy to get in front of people and represent yourself well. It's not as easy as sitting at home on the computer with the TV on. But this is an activity that pays back in many ways. Meeting other people, learning from them, helping them move forward and getting your name/brand out there are all very beneficial.

DO practice your 30-second elevator pitch on everyone you can, every day.

As you practice you'll accomplish a few things: You'll get to a point where you deliver it more naturally. You'll polish the pitch and add a word here or take out a word there to make it stronger. You'll remind yourself of your self worth regularly as you say what you can do (and not focus on the negative in the job search). Best of all, you'll spread your brand to people who want to help you and let them understand how they can help.

DON'T spend more than 10 minutes a day on job boards, or sending out resumes.

Really, you should have set up job alerts on the job boards you are on so new opportunities come to your e-mail. Don't get stuck in the trap I was in, thinking "if I'm there when a new job is posted then I could be the first to apply," or "maybe there are jobs I didn't see the first time." You can spend hours doing this and wasting your time. Use job boards as a tool, not a crutch.

Job Search Leads

Health Care Jobs

HR Jobs

Finance Jobs

Part-Time Jobs

Search All Job Listings

DON'T sift through all of your e-mails and worry about getting to everything.

Some things take priority over getting back to someone, especially when it's not important or urgent. I hate e-mails cluttering my inbox too; but don't spend hours pushing your job search aside while you send off a "thanks, me too" e-mail.

DON'T organize all of your contacts, to-do's and notes all day long.

I remember I had a job where I was bored out of my mind. I spent time organizing and reorganizing my file cabinet. I'm a strong advocate of having an organized and well-managed job search, and yes, there are huge amounts of data to sift through; but don't hide behind "I'm organizing my job search" when you should be doing a job search!

The don'ts focus on minimizing time spent on stuff that has low return, while the do's focus on making sure you are doing important things to move your job search forward. What don'ts or do's are on your list? Leave a comment...

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How To Write A Great Accomplishment Statement

If you are regular reader, you may notice that another recent post showed someone similarly posed.  That post was about signaling strength during job interviews.  So it pictured a young boy flexing his muscles.

Today’s photo shows someone who has just accomplished something great.  In her case, the completion of her 365 day self portrait project that she shared on flickr.

I used this picture because writing a great accomplishment statement is just the beginning of the conversation about you.  It is the result of a story you should be telling in your marketing documents.  Stories that illustrate your impact in the world.

So there’s a bigger story.  And there’s an element of passion.  An energy about your great works in prior companies.  And the better you do this, the better a hiring manager can envision you doing similar things for their department or company.

And the accomplishment statements you write are your way to engage the reader.  So that you will be granted an interview.  An audience to tell your stories and share your energy.

So they have to be good.  Well written.  They also have to be relevant and measurable.

Also remember not to mix them up with your responsibilities.  I shared this and other tips as part of the tutorial introducing my favorite resume and CV template.

So to help you think about how to write a great accomplishment statement, I thought I would illustrate an example for you.  And then walk you through each part.  Here it is:

So now to take you through it step by step:

1.  Action: There’s a great list of action verbs at Quint Careers. You can use a few of those or think up your own.  But make sure that your leading words suggest movement, ownership and leadership.

2.  Relevant Topic: What does your target company care about?  What do you know about the role this person will play?  With a solid knowledge of your likely audience, you can focus on the right topics.

3.  Impact: You need a word here that clearly states what happened.  In this case, something got reduced. And that is a good thing.  Make sure the positive impact you had is clearly stated.

4. Key Metric: What was impacted?  Make sure that metric is also relevant and measurable in the way your industry defines it.  In an economy where budgets are heavily scrutinized, your ability to measure and report will be important.  No matter what your role is in the company.

5.  Benefit: Accomplishment statements need numbers.  Something tangible like a % increase/decrease, $ revenue up or $ cost down.  And you can strengthen the benefit by adding a second short sentence to answer the “so what” question.  In this case, you could add: “BENEFIT: Delivered new revenues 6 months sooner than expected.”  That’s a nice surprise. 

So what if you charted out your key accomplishments like this?  Sound like a lot of work?  I’ll bet if you do it for a few, you’ll get the idea.  And have this structure in your mind as you write or re-write the rest.

What are your favorite action words?

Or better yet.

Share (via a comment below) your best accomplishment statement and I’ll give it a review.

Want to really take your materials up a notch?  Consider a professional resume writer. You can find writers I’ve approved and listed here on the site. Or find one on my Twitter list.

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Am I really a Project Manager? | JibberJobber Blog

When I started my job search I was looking for opportunities with a few titles, including:

• Project Manager
• Business Analyst

I don’t have  a PMP but I had enough hours that I could have taken the test… just didn’t want to put the time into it, even though most of the job postings talked about getting the certification.

A funny thing happened in my job search, though… when doing searches on a particular job board for “project manager” I came across, just by chance, a title that was totally new to me: PRODUCT manager.

As I dug deeper I found that a product manager more appropriately described my experience, and what I loved to do.  I defined a product manager as the “mini CEO”… that is, the person who had P&L responsbility for a particular product, or product line.  This was the person who had somewhat complete control over the product and had to have their fingers in many pots (development, project management, strategic planning, competitive analysis, customer and delivery aspects, etc.).

This was what I really wanted, but I hadn’t known it beforehand.

I enjoy project management and have a lot of respect for project managers.  I can say the same thing about business analysis.

But I was more of a product manager than anything else (haven’t you seen that in my own business ventures?).

Thank goodness I learned that, eventually, from a job board (of all places!).

How about you? Have you been focused on a handful of job titles to the point where you are not thinking about what you really should be looking at? (of course, if you haven’t thought of it yet, the answer is probably NO, unless you feel like the titles you are looking at are incomplete or, for some reason, off).

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Social Media Strategy: Why Coworkers Don’t Make Good Facebook Friends | Brand-Yourself.com Blog

Work life and Facebook – it seems like a never-ending discussion topic nowadays.  There are many things to consider in regards to your personal and career brand. Yet so many people are either unaware of them or do not fully understand the ramifications of the content they might share online. For millions of people, this includes sharing their page and their personal lives with their coworkers. Many people feel that coworkers are just “buddies from work” and all is well as long as the bosses aren’t their Facebook friends.  If this describes your thoughts about coworkers as Facebook friends, you may be in for a rude awakening.

As a general rule of thumb, I advise people to not invite or accept coworkers as Facebook friends unless their posts, pictures, and videos are not deeply personal and are always clean, upbeat, and in good taste. Some people do choose to invite coworkers, managers, and other professionals because they are intentionally using Facebook to leverage their career brand. This is a great way to use Facebook and I highly encourage it.

However, my general rule applies to those who use Facebook moreso for personal use – which seems to be the majority of people. It is for those who typically friend their coworkers without much thought. I recognize that your best friend and someone you trust with your life might be your coworker and Facebook friend. I am not necessarily talking about those people but moreso any coworker who does not fall in that “best friend” category. People who friend coworkers should be aware of the serious issues that could arise.

Does Your Facebook Content Look Like This?

*“I hate Mondays!”, “Why am I at work when I would rather be somewhere else?”, “What a long day… wish it was over”, “Not looking forward to going back to the grind tomorrow”, “Can’t wait to the head to the bar to get my drunk on!” “Sometimes I just want to beat the crap out of people”, “I swear my life sucks”, “Why is everyone a backstabber?” (or anything even remotely similar).

*Drama related content – telling the world about your arguments with others or sharing details about all the different problems you might have.

*Arguing or using profane language.

*Videos, photos and articles that are in bad taste (profane or sexually explicit content).

*“Liking” pages that are in bad taste (ex: “yourname likes I hate my job!”)

Consider the Ramifications:

*Many employees talk and gossip on a regular basis.  They can’t help themselves.  Who are they sharing your content with? Your boss?  Another coworker who might share it with your boss? Maybe. How do you know they aren’t?

*A coworker might not intentionally share what you post but it gets out anyway due to frustration. Typical scenario: Boss asks your coworker to stay late to work on a project and to ask for your help.  Coworker inadvertently says, “She won’t help, she’s been posting all over Facebook how she can’t wait to get out of here”. The boss makes a mental note of it and considers that and other things he might have heard when evaluating your potential for advancement in the company. Potential leaders in a company should not be posting statements like that on Facebook! It gives the impression that they don’t really like their job.

*A coworker Facebook friend gets promoted and now is your boss or is a manager elsewhere in the company – a person who might now have a say about your future potential with the company.  The facts are, you can be a model employee at work but people typically cannot separate what they learn about on you on Facebook from your great work on the job. Careless postings on Facebook can shatter your strong career brand no matter how great your performance is at work.

*You take a sick day. You go out to lunch and then check in at the restaurant on Foursquare, which subsequently posts on your Facebook page. Or maybe you just mention your lunch in an unrelated Facebook conversation that evening.  Either way, your integrity is now in question. Situations like this can also cause you to be fired!

*You are at work “doing your job”.  But throughout the day, your Facebook page is somehow publishing a stream of updates from Farmville, Mafia Wars, Frontierville and results from a few random quizzes. Your coworker Facebook friend notices this and talks about it at the water cooler. It eventually gets back to your boss.  These kinds of things really do happen and this is another example of a situation that can cause you to be terminated from employment.

It’s Time for Damage Control

I can’t stress enough how important it is to be cautious about adding coworkers to your Facebook page.  Consider how much easier and less stressful it would be to separate your personal life from your professional life!

If you have not been careful about the quality of your content and you have coworkers as Facebook friends, you should start doing a bit of damage repair.

It is not necessary to go in and “unfriend” your coworkers as they have already read your content. Your best course of action is to completely change your online image and work hard at reversing the damage for at least a month or two. Leverage yourself and post only high-level content that will change the perception that others (specifically, your coworkers!) have of you.

I do recommend deleting controversial content that already exists on your page. But spend the majority of your time concentrating on building a strong, positive image of you. Your coworkers will notice the change and their image of you will start to change. After a month or two, I would remove all your coworkers from your page and simply explain that you want to keep your personal and professional life separate. Trust me, having your coworkers trust and respect you is far more important than having them as Facebook friends!

Jessica Simko is a seasoned senior level Human Resources professional with over 15 years of experience in all facets of Human Resources Management. She is a Career Coach and Consultant specializing in helping all levels of career professionals create, build, and maintain a strong career brand in the corporate work culture. She strives to help people connect their passions with their jobs and then to leverage their brand to maximize their potential throughout their careers. She offers a wide variety of career branding articles and tips at Career Branding Guide where she also offers coaching and consulting services based on the Career Branding Guide model. Feel free to connect with her on:

Twitter
Linked In

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3 Unique Ways for Executives to Build Their Network » Blog | Great Resumes Fast

At the executive level, you are always burdened with the task of trying to get more people to know you so that one day they might be able to help you. In other words, you’re faced with the job of having to build your executive network. Nothing wrong with this in theory, but sometimes the job can get a bit tedious, especially when you feel that you’ve used up all of your options.

Well now’s the time to get some fresh ideas to help you continue to build that network. So let’s look at some unique ways of getting this done.

Create Your Own Networking Group
Often times, we think that the only real way to grow our network is to join an existing networking group. But we forget that we could also build our own.

One great benefit of starting your own group is that you get to have control over when it gets together and what activities you will take part in. Also, it can center more specifically around your interests, thus guaranteeing you will feel passionate about it.

If you want to start your own group, you could create a strictly-online environment to include people from out of town, only work with your offline contacts, or mix it up a bit. By taking this route, you give yourself the opportunity to not only create more networking opportunities for yourself, but many others.

Bond with Online Contacts Offline
Sometimes people don’t realize that they’re online networking contacts are real people, especially if they meet them online. But they are very real and able to make a significant difference in your career if you let them. A good way to make the best use of your online contacts is to make them a part of your offline networking circle. This way, you have a face to place with the name and they do as well.

So how can you get this done if you are living in different cities? You could consider having a nice lunch meeting if you take a trip out to their city. If this is not likely to happen, you could even find out what activities they take part in outside of work to see where you have common ground. If you both love to ski, for instance, maybe you could schedule yearly ski trips on the same weekend and at the same resort to make sure you connect.

Create Exciting Business Cards
One way to get noticed is to create exciting business cards – some that tell a little bit more of your story with a unique flair. This means, instead of creating the standard business card with bland text on a white background, consider trying different colors that reflect your personality and brand. You could also include your picture on the card so people won’t forget your face after they meet you. And consider having yours cut into a unique shape – one that prompts people to ask questions yet still is able to fit neatly into a wallet or business card rolodex.

When building your executive network, don’t simply rely on the “tried and true” to get the best results. If you step out of your box and try unique options, you could see your network grow faster than ever.

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