Career Coaching: Getting Help Is for Wimps?
I just finished working with a client who landed a new job that better utilizes her talents while offering greatly improved income, promotional opportunity, and company environment/culture. At the end of our multi-month journey together, she said to me without prompting “I couldn’t have done it without you.” Her comment was personally flattering and reaffirmed …
Seven Tips for Acing Your Interviews
In today’s competitive job market, face-to-face job interviews are like gold. Once you get one, you need to do everything you can to perform your best and come out on top. And job interview skills have become even more important when you consider that you will probably need to change jobs more often in the …
Your Online Brand: LinkedIn, or Just another Pretty Facebook?
Social media is all the rage. Even Fortune500 companies, who are always on the trailing edge of technology, are getting into it. How about you? Is your personal brand supported well by your social media footprint and activities, or not? There are dozens of social media sites, but I will be limiting this post to …
Four Strategies for Your Job Search Networking
Various studies have found that 45% to 70% of job seekers got their jobs through networking. More recently, a survey by Lou Adler discovered that 60% of the job seekers he surveyed found their jobs through networking. In a recent article titled Hire Economics: Why Applying to Jobs Is a Waste of Time, Mr. Adler …
Beware the Outplacement Cookie Cutters!
Outplacement is a service intended to provide support for people who have lost their corporate jobs. Since the former employer pays for such services, job seekers are sometimes confounded by the actions of their outplacement provider…especially the larger ones. This confusion can be eliminated by reading a 2009 Wall Street Journal article titled Outplacement Firms …
Your Next Employer: Larger or Smaller?
Your personal brand is, directly or indirectly, tied to your employer’s brand. Work for Google? You must be sharp and highly motivated. Work for AT&T? You must be willing to trade job security for bureaucracy and tedium. Such snap judgments may be inaccurate and unfair, but they happen every day. Once you choose your next …
Why Your Job Search Needs a Targeted Employer List
Successful salespeople target specific clients by developing a prospects list of companies or individuals. As a job seeker, you will be far more successful if you think and act more like a salesperson. YOU are the product…and, you are also the product being sold. One critical question you have to ask yourself is, “Who are …
Why Recruiters Ignore You (and What to Do Differently)
Are you a job seeker who is contacting recruiters and being ignored? Have you called and left messages, applied for their jobs, or submitted resumes on their web sites … only to be left wondering if they got them? You are not alone. This is normal. It is what MOST people should expect. In this …
The Internet Black Hole
It seems logical, doesn’t it, to focus your job search effort toward applying for jobs online? With millions of jobs posted on over 10,000 job boards, you could apply 24/7/365. You could even apply without having to brush your teeth or change out of your pajamas!
Unfortunately, over 99% of online job applications do not …
Five Tips for Improving Your Resume
When seeking a new job, your resume is likely to be the primary tool for conveying your personal brand in written form. Unfortunately, many resumes are similar and get lost in the “resume shuffle” of online job applications.
I am not a fan of online job applications, having met many a job seeker who spent …