As if looking for employment didn’t pose enough of a challenge, here is an entirely new problem for those seeking employment – the effective use of social media. No, no, no…not how to use it for networking or job search, but how not to use it. It seems many job candidates torpedo their chances with some employers because of the inappropriate things they post on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites.

Is that fair to job candidates? Apparently so, according to this article:

Four years ago, Stacy Snyder, then a 25-year-old teacher in training at Conestoga Valley High School in Lancaster, Pa., posted a photo on her MySpace page that showed her at a party wearing a pirate hat and drinking from a plastic cup, with the caption “Drunken Pirate.” After discovering the page, her supervisor at the high school told her the photo was “unprofessional,” and the dean of Millersville University School of Education, where Snyder was enrolled, said she was promoting drinking in virtual view of her under-age students. As a result, days before Snyder’s scheduled graduation, the university denied her a teaching degree. Snyder sued, arguing that the university had violated her First Amendment rights by penalizing her for her (perfectly legal) after-hours behavior. But in 2008, a federal district judge rejected the claim, saying that because Snyder was a public employee whose photo didn’t relate to matters of public concern, her “Drunken Pirate” post was not protected speech.

Since Facebook and other sites are public domain sites, it looks like they are fair game for assessing your common sense and discretion. So, next time you get in one of those “drunken pirate” moods, you might want to hold off on posting the pics. I’m just sayin’…

This article further points out that 75 percent of recruiters and HR professionals scrutinize online sites for information about job candidates, and 70 percent of those individuals have actually rejected a candidate based on information obtained from these sites. As companies seek to acquire the best talent they can find, they have been given the golden opportunity to not only assess that talent, but to assess the character of that talent as well.

Formerly, employers were limited to a credit check, a background check, and all those stellar references you put on your resume. Now, however, you have willingly opened up your entire world for them to examine – which, by the way, can be a good thing just as much as a potential risk. After all, your Facebook page could just as easily reveal a solid citizen as much as it could reveal a scalawag.

With recruiters and HR professionals on the prowl, consider this “Word to the Wise:” You might want to check out your Facebook page and analyze it from an employer’s point-of-view. Does your online persona reveal someone that might be considered a huge hiring risk?

The NFL draft is right around the corner. In case you don’t care – or don’t have a clue – this is the process in which thirty-two National Football League teams take turns selecting players for their respective teams over the course of seven rounds. When it is all said and done, 224 players will have been selected to compete for the 1,696 starting positions available at the start of next season.

Of those that are drafted, some will make it and some won’t. Which also means that some of last year’s 1,696 starters will get replaced. The NFL is tough and unforgiving. The bottom line is you have to develop your skills and be good enough to contribute on Sundays, or you will be looking for another line of work.

Sound familiar?

If you are looking for a job, you have to develop a skill-set that is compelling to an employer, and you have to convince prospective employers that you are better than other candidates. In the NFL, potential draftees spend months preparing for the draft – improving their performance both in critical positions skills and in raw physical performance (40-yard dash, vertical jump, shuttle run, and so forth).

What exactly are you doing to improve your “draft position?”

Tim Tebow, a high-profile star from the University of Florida, has been widely criticized because of his skills as a quarterback. Despite two national championships and a Heismann Trophy to his credit, Tebow’s skills were seen as marginal to play QB at the pro level so he has been projected as a late-round draft pick at best, perhaps even at a different position.

Tebow, however, wants to play quarterback – so he got help. Former NFL coach Jon Gruden, among others, worked with Tebow to change his throwing motion and improve his footwork. The new, improved Tebow is now projected as a likely second-round pick. The difference in salary? About $1.5 million. A second-round pick will make an average of nearly $2 million while a late round pick will average less than $500,000.

It is time to take a critical look at your skills. Are you better than everyone else, or are you just middle-of-the-road? Do you have specialized or highly-developed skills that ensure you will be a first-rounder, or do you have to hope that somebody takes a chance on you? Candidates that get hired not only have good skills, they typically have demonstrated the willingness to work hard and improve their skills on their own time. Employers love this initiative because it demonstrates accountability – a critical factor in workplace performance.

Work on improving your critical “position skills” – attend classes or workshops, get certified, become an expert. Make yourself indispensable.

You don’t want the draft to end and a team never called.

Cover letters can be almost as important as a resume when it comes to landing you that job you’ve been searching for. Often they are overlooked, but a well crafted cover letter can set you and your resume apart from the hundreds of other applicants you’re competing with.

Just like a good story, cover letters should start with a bang, hooking your reader and reeling them in, making them want to read on to see what you have to offer. Then, as quickly as possible, get to the point of the letter, why you’re writing, and what position you’re interested in.

Plainly present your qualifications for the position. Here’s where you can really shine by speaking directly to the qualifications specific to the position advertised. You should be specific and, if possible, list some cold hard facts and/or  figures that back up your claims. You say you’re good at coming in under budget? Tell them how you saved your company(past or present) that one million dollars last quarter. But don’t tell them everything, you want to make sure they pick up your resume so they can find out what happens next in the story of you.

End with a thank you for the reader’s time and always include a statement on the time frame in which you will contact the reader to follow up, or even better, to discuss the possibility of setting up an interview.

As with your resume, your cover letter should be flawless and presented in a format that is easy on the eyes and also similar to your resume. Using the same font and/or layout and headers can really tie the two documents together and lend your correspondence a certain cohesion, and it might just be one more way to make you and your resume stand out.

Being unemployed might not make you think of the housing market, but maybe it should. After all, there are  plenty more connections between the two than just the payments. In fact, the modern history of the housing market can tell us a lot about getting a job and dealing with unemployment.

Determining an Asking Price

When selling a home, we examine the surrounding market, determine what other similar houses are selling for, and examine the one we’re selling. Then, we set the asking price as high as we think we can in the hopes of turning a decent profit.

Job hunting works much the same way. We assess and tally up our skills. Then, we look around to see what kind of salary others in our respective industries are getting before comparing our skills to theirs. This gives us the chance to set an expected salary that we’ll give to prospective employers. The idea of this is that we’ll make the most money per year possible. It’s not just our per hour rates either. Benefits, holidays, bonuses, commission — they all come into play here.

Dealing With Multiple Offers

Ideally, homeowners looking to sell their home want to bring in multiple offers fairly soon after putting it on the market. This could set off a bidding war and drive up the price until it climbs higher than the asking price. The sellers can then look at all the variables for each contract and choose the one that best suits their needs.

In a perfect world, we like our quest for a new job to end much the same way. We receive multiple job offers with various set salaries, holidays, and other stipulations. Then, we can play one against the other to get the best deal or simply leave it before choosing the deal that suits us best. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen. Not even frequently, and particularly not in today’s market.

What Happens When We Don’t ‘Sell’

It’s no secret that the housing market has staled. Homes that would have sold in a matter of a couple months are now sitting for a year or more, and some aren’t even getting any interest. This has caused sellers to drop their asking prices in an effort to target a larger market and generate the increased attention necessary to sell.

The job market has experienced a similar problem. Millions of people have been forced out of work, lost hours, or taken pay cuts in the last few years. Follow that up by the fact that there are very few good paying jobs available, and you have the kind of job market employers salivate over.

When a position opens, particularly a good paying one, employers receive hundreds of applications. They can afford to be extremely picky about who they hire and they can take their time doing it. And, if you don’t take the job or try fighting for a better deal, chances are pretty good the employer isn’t going to be worried. After all, there is an entire stack of applicants willing to take your place.

While this has done away with job security in many instances, it’s also done something to salaries.

You see, when a home doesn’t sell after a certain period of time, the seller will bring down the price in order to get new interest and hopefully sell it. Otherwise, the length of time a house has been on the market becomes a negative selling point. In fact, buyers will often skip these homes altogether, often with the thought that there are reasons the home has been on the market for such a long time.

Job seekers who have been out of work for a significant amount of time experience the same thing. Employers don’t like to see large gaps in employment history, nor does the thought of someone being unemployed for a long period of time seem appealing.

It’s sort of like a tray of desserts. If everyone leaves one certain kind of treat in favor of the others, eventually you’ll ask yourself what’s wrong with that one dessert that would cause everyone to avoid it. This doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it. Not in the least. It could just be that the other kinds appear more appetizing at first.

So, if you’ve been unemployed for a long time and want to get back to work, you’ll want to consider accepting a smaller salary. Of course, you’d be making less than you want, but something is better than nothing. And, after you get the chance to prove yourself, you can use the opportunity to show your true worth and become an indispensable member of the team. You’ll see your salary increase and you might even be making more than you asked for initially.

Image Credits: 1, 2, 3

Our jobs, or whatever it is we call what we do to make a living, take up a great portion of our lives; we would be wise to ensure that this is something we enjoy. We spend eight hours or more a day at work, and if this work does not engage us or fulfill us, it can significantly affect all aspects of our lives in a negative and potentially unhealthy way. According to several studies cited in US News and World Report, happier people live longer and get sick less often.

An article from cnn.com earlier this week reported an all-time low in happiness for workers in the UK. And an article posted yesterday in The Wall Street Journal’s blog section cites a survey which indicates job satisfaction is at a 22-year low. This is a tough economy, and unemployment rates are high, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we must settle for less when it comes to employment. It may not be wise–or even realistically possible– to leave your present job, but by realizing your situation is not permanent you can begin taking steps to improve your employment situation. Here is a  piece that presents 12 steps to improving your outlook and relationship to your present job should you find it unrealistic to make a switch at this point in your career.

If you do find yourself unable to make a change for the better as quickly as you’d like, do not despair. It’s important to keep a positive outlook, even in the face of severe dissatisfaction, unhappiness at your present plight, or, as discussed in this post, misfortune.

A  little work and a lot of soul-searching can take you far in your quest to find more enjoyable employment, or maybe even the job you’ve always dreamed of. Contrary to popular opinion, work and happiness are not mutually exclusive. If you set your mind to making a positive change, you can have your cake—and ice cream for that matter—and eat it too.

You take the time to write up your resume; you search for the job you want; you submit your resume to various organizations. No response. It’s as if you did nothing. Why? What can you do to ensure your resumes are ‘heard?’ How can you guarantee that your resume lands you interviews and ultimately a job offer?

To begin with, be sure to distinguish your resume and application from the other candidates. A hiring manager is simply looking for the best person who can become immediately productive for their organization. Your resume is their first impression of you, it is therefore important to:

• Tailor your resume to suit each job you are applying for; adjust your objective.
• Avoid turning your resume into a boring list of job duties and responsibilities.
• Information should be relevant to the position, and show how your experience fit the job criteria.
• Include strong active verbs like “directed,” “conceived,” and “calculated,” to give your qualifications power.
• Make your resume more tangible by quantifying your efforts as much as possible. This directly shows how your potential contributions can benefit the company.

It is best to have a professional review your resume to ensure you provide all of the above and to give it polish.

Get Noticed. Get Hired.

Now that your resume is up to par, some proactive work is necessary in order to procure an interview:

• Contact the hiring manager and ask when he/she would like to meet you for an interview.
• Suggest that you will be in the neighborhood and would like to hand-deliver your resume.
• Contact the recruiting manager to discuss how you can benefit the organization.
• Next, propose possible dates for an interview.
• Be sure to show respect for the manager’s time.
• Research the company you are interested in. Suggest improvements and possible solutions to a problem you may be aware of.

Remember, no one is going to find you; you have to go out there and present yourself!

“I’ve found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances. Be more active. Show up more often.” – Brian Tracy

In our last post we were introduced to the classic job hunting guide, What Color is Your Parachute, and discussed how it can be an invaluable tool in your search for new employment when utilized in conjunction with other job search methods. Now, let’s continue our exploration of this handy title.

The Job Search

The methods discussed in Parachute resemble a multi-front attack on the specter of unemployment, involving more than just updating your old resume and posting on a job site such as Monster or Careerbuilder. Bolles cautions that your resume’s primary purpose is to land you that interview, but it can’t do that job by itself. Your resume may be flawless but it can also give you a false sense of security — a feeling that you’re doing all you can do to find a job at the moment — and all that’s required is to sit back and wait. ¹

By all means, make sure you have a great resume; there are many online resources that can help you with polishing your present resume, or writing a shiny new one. But while you have your resume out there doing its small bit, you can help your cause along by hitting the streets, resume in hand, talking to businesses and leaving a copy of your shiny one-pager behind. Do your research! Something many job hunters fail to do enough of. Find out as much as you can about the company you’re looking at — sound advice in anybody’s book — and, if possible, find out who has the power to hire you. Then find a way to talk to that very person.²

Networking, networking, networking. It seems to be the watchword of the day. Expanding your pool of contacts not only has the potential to expand your base of friends but can most certainly lead to potential job opportunities. Bolles praises the virtues of exploring and expanding your network of contacts and using them, which is another tactic even experienced job hunters under-utilize.³ Talk to people you know, then talk to the people they know; find out if anyone can help you get your foot in the door.

Parachute not only covers the basics of job hunting, it also takes those hard, fast rules and concepts we’ve all heard time and time again — some of which we’ve discussed here, and in our first post on this subject — then expands upon them, adding twists and fresh new ways of looking at the job hunting process and how to go about it. If you still doubt this book is a must have for every savvy job seeker, keep an eye out for our next post in this series, where we’ll be discussing how Parachute really shines: in helping you figure out what kind of work you really want to do, work you may even love.

Notes

1.  Bolles, Richard N., What Color is Your Parachute (Berkeley, New York: Ten Speed Press, 2010), 52-53.

2.  Ibid., 53.

3.  Ibid., 63-62.

Pace University COOP and Career Services Partners with myWorkster to Produce a Multi-school MBA Career Fair

Back in January, 2009 the economic downturn was in full blast. Many of the alumni and graduate students that I had been seeing were losing their jobs and many financial firms large and small were significantly downsizing or going out of business. Doug Baruchin the Director of Operations of myWorkster a vendor that listed jobs from their organizational clients and had university students create profiles had asked to have a meeting with me to discuss some upgrades to their web site. I bluntly exclaimed to Doug that I had very little interest in his web site upgrades, but that I noticed that he had a number of schools listed on their web site that did business with myWorkster. Wouldn’t it be great if we could get normally competitive schools to cooperate for the benefit of their collective alumni by doing a multi-school job fair. Doug responded enthusiastically.

Doug and I got to work. He canvassed the schools that had affiliated with myWorkster and I pitch the proposal to the members of a group I belong to the Alumni Career Services Network. Essentially for the privilege of participating in the fair they would be required to ask employers who recruit at their school to participate. The result was our first Multischool Job Fair for Alumni at Baruch College, in June 2009. 25 schools, including Pace, Fordham, Baruch, NYU, NYIT and Hofstra locally and Notre Dame, Miami and University of Southern California nationally. 76 companies and over 2000 alumni attended. Other fairs planned and implemented were in Chicago and at St. John’s University successfully.

During a staff meeting of COOP and Career Services last spring we discussed how difficult the job market was going to be for our MBA graduates. I suggested as a response, maybe we could be a collaborative MBA fair similar to our alumni fairs for current MBAs looking for internships through those looking for experienced professionals. We pitched this fair to schools that offer MBAs and received a strong response. We again got a strong response from local schools, but also added such nationally recognized schools as DePaul, Indiana, Virginia Tech, Dartmouth and Cornell to our impressive list of schools.

I definitely believe that collaborate job fairs is a way of helping employers meet candidates from targeted schools in an efficient and cost effective way. It is a win-win situation for everybody concerned. Better candidates for employers and more opportunities for students and alumni to get a face to face with employers.

To find out more about this event whether you are an employer or job search candidate go to www.myworkster.com/jobfair. You can also look for 360JobInterview to be in attendance. Stop by and say hello. We’d love to meet you!

This is the first in a series of posts detailing conversations with actual hiring managers from different industries. We’ll be highlighting their concerns, requirements, and the things they might not be seeing in candidates that they wish were there. We hope that in picking their brains we make your job–getting hired–a bit easier.

The competition is stiff and growing stiffer as the economic downturn continues. It doesn’t take a degree in rocket science to know that times are tough; it’s hard to ignore actually, what with unemployment numbers being thrown at us in a nearly constant stream. A press release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released last week states that approximately 15 million people are without work, putting the unemployment rate at around 10 percent, and this of course means the competition is going to be tougher and the openings fewer. The news is not all bad though; with the right preparation you can set yourself apart from the pack, and we aim to help you do just that.

While it’s true the job market isn’t as hospitable as in previous years, it’s not bad everywhere; there are jobs out there to be had. There might be an overall strain on the job market, but there are variations in industries. Our first conversation was with a manager representing the defense sector which, contrary to prevailing trends, has seen some increase in hiring.

A few things were made quite clear in our conversation. Recent candidates have been reported as seeming rushed and ultimately unprepared in not only their interviewing efforts, but resumes as well. This is thought to be a direct result of the increased competition level in the job hunt; the hunters are getting sloppy. It cannot be stressed enough, however, that one must master the basics, at least of the interview process, and have a flawless resume leading the way for them. Our hiring manager friend revealed that recent candidates have been lacking in the fundamentals of the interview process: dress, punctuality, and preparedness. Though this individual reported some increases for 2009, the outlook for 2010 doesn’t warrant excessive enthusiasm. Things might improve in the coming year, but this is no time to rest on your laurels.

Competition in today’s job market, as we’ve already said, is going to be fiercer than usual and where seemingly tiny imperfections in your job-hunter facade might have escaped notice before, the greater scrutiny each candidate will be subjected to might reveal opportunity-killing flaws.

A wonderful idea to help those struggling in today’s economy, Plaza Cleaners in Portland, Oregon, offers a unique promotion for unemployed customers. We’re not sure how long this special offer will be running, but with Americans struggling to make ends meet and seemingly everyone looking for work, examples of such creative PR should be on the rise. You can find the establishment’s website here: PlazaCleaners.

via Reddit & Applicant