“Great hiring isn’t an instant process, and many companies would benefit from developing more-structured internship programs, in which success and proof of a good fit are measured over time,” says Mary Ellen Slayter in her recent article entitled Bring Strategic Rigor to Your Internship Program.

In the current economy, companies can afford to take more time with, and put more effort into, the hiring process. In fact, smart companies should be doing exactly that. When the labor market is slow, more talent is available and companies should tighten up hiring procedures, improve job descriptions, and focus on hiring quality people instead of hiring a resume. Internships are a great way to take a look at job candidates and determine – in real time – if they have the skills and attitude to flourish in the company.

Over the last several posts, I have tried to make it clear that finding a good job is about much more than polishing up your resume and checking out a few websites. Candidates have to work diligently at improving their value to employers. They have to find ways to increase the ways in which they can contribute to the success of an organization. In a nutshell, you simply cannot rest on your laurels; you have to be improving, growing, and constantly learning.

Need more proof? Read this excerpt from Slayter’s article:

Scare B-list candidates away upfront. General, fluffy job listings create more work for your HR team in the long run than a sharply focused one would. First, too many random candidates respond. Second, HR must then sift through a mountain of lackluster or insincere applicants. Third, these are short-term applicants that need any job they can get, as opposed to A-list candidates interested in a long-term career path with you. There’s a much better way: Sit down with key managers to carefully draft the most challenging, rigorous, mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive job description write-ups as possible –– with zero fluff. Include a roster of advanced role requirements and high cover letter expectations that invite only the keenest and most accomplished to apply. In short, scare the heck out of flaky applicants. Shotgun-blast resume slingers and well-dressed slackers won’t bother applying.

At first glance, this might be pretty intimidating. As you look at your situation and your resume, you might worry that you have little chance to secure that “perfect job.” My suggestion is to change your perspective: to move out of the realm of “resume slinger” or “well-dressed slacker,” you have to make every single job interview a learning experience. Failure to get an offer is not FAILURE – it’s an opportunity to learn where you need to improve. If you don’t get the job, you need to get as much information as you can that will help you in the next opportunity.

Always thank your interviewer and ask if you might ask a couple of questions regarding your interview. Most HR professionals will give you the opportunity, so make the best of it:

“I want to learn from this experience, so…”

“If you were in my shoes, what one thing would you work on to improve my ability to get hired?”

“What is the weakest part of my resume?”

“As an HR professional, what advice would you give me regarding my interview with you?”

At the same time, if you are serious about working for a particular company, you should consider an internship. They may or may not pay, but you could gain valuable experience inside an organization and potentially work yourself into a nice opportunity. If you don’t get an offer, and you’re fairly certain you were a final candidate, don’t be afraid to ask your interviewer if an internship is an option.

Years ago, Robert Schuller wrote a book entitled “Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do.” Here is what Amazon says about the book:

Dr. Schuller shows you how to build a positive self-image, no matter what your problem. Whether it’s unemployment, poor health, loneliness, fear or anything else that blocks your success, you can turn your negative into a positive. No matter how tough times get, you have the potential to achieve the best of life.

I’m wondering if that particular book is enjoying a revival? I suspect there are more than just a few who are currently struggling with unemployment and success issues, and times are plenty tough. A more current equivalent of Schuller’s best-seller is Larry Winget’s 2005 book, “Shut Up, Stop Whining, and Get a Life: A Kick-Butt Approach to a Better Life.” If Shuller’s group-hug-style of envisioning a more successful future isn’t your cup of tea, maybe Winget (like Curly) can help you discover that “one thing” that will revive your success drive:

…this book will make you uncomfortable. Winget won’t let you escape to the excuses that we all find so comforting. The only place you are allowed to go to place the blame for everything that has ever happened to you is to the mirror. The last place most of us want to go.

You probably won’t agree with all Larry Winget says in this one-of-a-kind book. You may not like the concepts and ideas he believes will change your life. Winget doesn’t care. His ideas aren’t for everyone and he readily admits that.

Or maybe he could just kick the crap out of you. Whatever.

Two different thought processes, but one common idea – don’t allow circumstances to keep you from achieving what you capable of. No question, job hunting can damage your psyche and erode your self-confidence. The key is to stay focused and network like crazy. Talk to the local Chamber of Commerce to find out about job opportunities; attend Rotary or Civitan meetings and talk business with people; get active and join volunteer organizations; visit college campuses in your area to look for new connections and additional training opportunities; visit every recruiter you can find. You get the idea.

Among everything else, keep things in perspective – and try to keep your sense of humor. Like Schuller said, tough times never last.

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“Sometimes, life is going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.”

For job seekers, this is something akin to a Mission Statement, but these words of wisdom were addressed to a Stanford University graduating class by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple (you can see the entirety of his message in the video below).

Losing a job can certainly feel like you’ve been hit in the head with a brick, and the inability to quickly find a replacement job just prolongs the pain. What Jobs suggests in his speech is that the difficulties one faces, in any area of life, will ultimately pay dividends in the future – in terms of lessons learned or wisdom created by those experiences. This small insight can be an encouragement when you’ve just been laid off and your job hunting efforts have gone unrewarded.

Unfortunately, many people tend to look at successful people (like Jobs) and surmise that they have no idea what it means to struggle or find a job or get fired. The truth is usually far different. Jobs, for example, was adopted, never finished college, and struggled early in his career. He talks about his very public dismissal from the very company he founded. Yet he later recognized that getting fired ultimately payed huge dividends in terms of his current success. As we discussed previously, failure can be very instructive – even essential to long-term success.

I have recently watched a family member struggle to find a job. He has met with little success despite a college education, a good resume, and plenty of talent. The toughest part is watching him deal with rejection and self-doubt. I have watched as the luster has faded from his self-confidence. This is really where the rubber meets the road – to paraphrase the late Yogi Berra: 90 percent of job hunting is half mental. You can choose to let the process be corrosive, or, as Job suggests, you can keep the faith.

Your struggles are not a commentary on your value. How you handle those struggles, however, is a commentary on your character.

“You’ve got to find what you love…the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work…love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking.”  Steve Jobs

I knew a guy that was always complaining about his (current) wife. “Women,” he would say. “Can’t live with ‘em. Can’t shoot ‘em.” A bit harsh. Can’t imagine why his marriage(s) resembled a train wreck. I understand he is currently out looking for his next future ex-wife.

The funny thing is that you probably never would’ve known that he had marriage issues. Nice guy. Fun to hang out with. Behind the scenes, however, there were things going on – I don’t know what kind of things, but they were enough to keep his personal life in shambles.

The truth is you are much the same way. No, not from the negative standpoint; in fact, just the opposite. What I’m really concerned here about are the GREAT things about you that employers can’t divine from your resume. For example, how will your resume communicate that you are a positive person rather than a negative one? Or enthusiastic rather than pessimistic? Mature rather than a drama queen (or king)? How can we tell if you are a peacemaker or a polarizer? A “git-er-done” kinda guy or a “find-something-else-to-do-while-others-carry-the-load” kinda guy? See my point?

The answer is the employer has no idea. Which means your resume has serious limitations. Everybody knows that a resume is designed to put your best foot forward, but there are still many things that cannot be communicated by a sterile piece of paper. That is exactly why proactive job candidates make it a point to get in front of prospective employers. They take the initiative to make face-to-face contact with prospective employers, because sitting back, waiting on the phone to ring, is a very bad plan when there are too many applicants for too few jobs. If you are sitting at home, plugging career websites and answering newspaper ads, then you are already down in the count (hey, it’s baseball season).

Make no mistake, getting a job is exactly like making sales calls. You have to overcome call reluctance. You have to overcome the fear of rejection. You have to be willing to get back up 801 times if you get knocked down 800 times. So, if you hate salespeople, you probably need to get over it – at least for the time being. How would you like to earn your living that way?!?

I hear you screaming. “SO WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?” Here is a great start: Make a list of the top forty or fifty local companies you would like to work for. Do your homework – websites, Google, LinkIn, the whole nine yards. Get contact names, look for connections, learn everything you can – including who your potential boss would be. Then make a personal call – resume and personalized cover letter in hand. If you don’t know who your boss might be, identify the H.R. Manager and call on him/her instead.

Did I say do your homework? That bears repeating. It’s a big deal because you need to know about the company’s culture, philosophy, mission, vision, and so forth. You want to be able to have an intelligent conversation after you introduce yourself. Here is your opening: “I wanted to introduce myself and find out more about [the company] because I think it would be an excellent place to go to work.”

No matter what the outcome, you will have communicated some key traits: initiative, courage, and resourcefulness. Trust me, if you are any good at all, you won’t make it through your list before you get hired.

The Basics

A job interview is a chance for you and your potential employer to become acquainted.  Both the employer and the interviewee are trying to determine if the other is going to be a good fit.  It goes without saying that the interview process can be stressful, and you should do your homework on the industry and the potential employer well ahead of time, but it can also help to be aware of the types of interviews you might encounter.

The Interview

There are aspects common to all types of interviews, however, and a smart job hunter will be prepared ahead of time.  Do you’re research on the position you’re applying for and find out as much as you can on the potential employer prior to the interview.  You may be asked about the company and it’s mission and you will likely win some points if you can show that you have some knowledge on what the company is all about. Not only does it show initiative, it proves that you know where to find information.

There are several standard questions that tend to show up in interviews across the board, and plenty of books on the market that help interviewees prepare for them, you might want to check one out.  Try to be ready for those questions, do practice interviews at home with a spouse or a friend.  Ask questions yourself.   Don’t let your interview turn into a one way conversation, you’ll find that most interviews go smoother when you have several well placed questions for the interviewer.

And as discussed in this post, be sure to follow up with the potential employer by writing thank you letters.  Not only does it show that you are courteous, it proves that you can follow through.

Some Job Interview Types

1. The Traditional Interview – this is probably what everyone first thinks of when they are going for a job interview.  Generally the interviewee meets with one individual and the interview is conducted one-on-one.  Generally a broad range of questions will be asked, and success or failure will depend on one’s ability to communicate, and an impression of how they would fit into the work environment.
2. Panel or Committee Interviews – these are also relatively common.  The candidate meets with several individuals associated with the potential position either in series, or all at once. Probably slightly more difficult than a one-one-one interview in that one will encounter several different personalities during the course of the interview.
3. Behavioral Interviews – during a behavioral interview a candidate will likely be asked to demonstrate their knowledge and abilities using specific examples and/or stories from their past in order to gauge how the candidate responds to certain situations and how they handle themselves in general.
4. Stress Interviews – are aggressive and confrontational.  Perhaps designed to see how applicants perform under pressure and to gauge character.   One should tread carefully if they are subjected to an interview of this type and ask themselves if this type of company would be an environment in which they could work.
5. Screening Interview – an initial meeting or possibly the first segment in a traditional interview is usually quicker and can be used by the employer to eliminate as many candidates as possible.

Further Reading

This is just a handful of the several types of job interviews you might come across.   Read more here and here.   If you have an interesting interview story to relate, share it with us in the comments section!

We’ve heard it for years, we grew up with it being pounded into our heads: Education, education, education.  Stay in school, go to college so you can get a degree and get a good job.  These were the words from our youth, and they can still be heard today.  The world is changing at a fast pace thanks to technology so the question remains: do you really need a college degree?

Historically, those with more education have seen less unemployment. According to statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor, unemployment rates for individuals with a college education has ranged from 2% to about 5% since 2008, compared to a range of 4.7% to 11% for those with only a high school diploma.  However, this trend has worsened in the current job market. According to this article published last summer, only about 19.7% who graduated from college were able to find a job, down from a whopping 51% in 2007.

Common sense dictates that, no you do not always need a college degree to get a good, well-paying job, or to be considered successful.  And not everyone is cut out for college.  Check out this list of 100 entrepreneurs who, for one reason or another did not receive a college degree.  Some very successful, and influential names—past and present—can be found there.

The people listed above followed their hearts, seemingly abandoning the conventional wisdom, and look where that got them. Author Ray Bradbury, in Zen in the Art of Writing, counsels a person to “look to his zest, to see his gusto…” in order to “rush him along the road to where he wants to go…”. Though he was speaking to writers, it is sound advice to anyone seeking real fulfillment in life instead of simply a paycheck.

Throughout human history it has often been those individuals who buck the trends that leave the deepest impressions on the future. At the end of the day if one is following their heart, who is to say they are on the wrong path?

Everyone should carefully observe which way his heart draws him, and then choose that way with all his strength.

Hasidic Saying

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

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

Most job-hunters who fail to find their dream job, fail not because they lack information about the job-market, but because they lack information about themselves.

—Richard N. Bolles

That’s quite a statement, and to borrow from Stephen Colbert, you can see the truthiness of it. Can’t you? How many times have you been in the market for a new job and told yourself that this time it would be different, this time you would find work you could love? And that’s the trick isn’t it? To get paid to do something you actually enjoy doing. Many people scoff at the idea, saying that work isn’t meant to be fun, it’s work.

Bolles disagrees, he feels that a person can find work they actually enjoy; call it your life’s mission, your purpose, your dream job, it doesn’t really matter what name it goes by, it’s your life and it’s time to start living it they way you want to live it.¹ The entire second part of Parachute is devoted to examining yourself, finding out what it is you really want from life and applying that knowledge in finding your next job, work that is exciting and enticing instead of numbing and boring.

Be warned, The Parachute Workbook is one of the more thorough personal inventories to be found in a mere job hunting book, and you should be prepared to do some serious soul searching. Various areas of the self are examined, including the tried and true, such as transferable skills and what kind of work you prefer. But Parachute goes a step or two further: what kind of people do you prefer working with, where would you really like to live, who are you and what skills do you really prefer to use and what are you really good at?  Even if the whole exercise doesn’t help you find your life’s work, the information you gain about yourself will be invaluable in the future, drawing you ever closer to that dream job you’ve envisioned.

There are many books on the market that claim they’ll help you find your next job, and they may work swimmingly for you or someone you know, but if you’ve found the plethora of job hunting titles somewhat lacking and impersonal, you owe it to yourself to check out Richard Bolles’ What Color is Your Parachute; used in conjunction with the vast job hunting resources of the web, like 360jobinterview.com, you just might stumble upon the work you’ve always dreamed of.

There are many excellent online resources aimed toward helping you land your perfect job — this site included. However, I’d like to take a look at an excellent analog resource: What Color is Your Parachute, by author Richard Bolles. A perennial favorite and a go-to classic for job hunters of any age or skill level, the advice given by the author is well researched and presented in a friendly lighthearted manner, making it both easy to digest and an enjoyable read. You may even forget you’re reading a book about finding a job. The book is readily available from most well-stocked bookstores and, of course, Amazon. As a job hunter you would be doing yourself no small disservice by not including this book  in your job search library.

Parachute is chock-full of information that you might not find anywhere else; there are several chapters devoted to indispensable information that, because they were never taught, most job hunters are completely unaware of.  We’ll be discussing some of these concepts in upcoming posts here.

For instance, did you know that if you employ more than four of the many methods of searching for employment, your chances of success actually begin to decrease? And how many methods are there exactly? According to Bolles, there are around 18 job hunting methods one can employ effectively, and many are not what we’ve come to think of as conventional. That’s the beauty of Parachute; it teaches you to think outside the job hunting box. In today’s economy, anything we can add to our bag of tools is a welcome addition.¹

Bolles goes on to characterize the several methods of landing a job by listing the five worst and five best methods of job hunting, listing percentage of success rates for each.

Here are the five worst methods:

• Scouring the internet for job-postings
• Mailing untargeted resumes
• Answering ads in magazines or trades related to your field
• Answering ads in newspapers
• Utilizing private employment agencies

And the five best methods:

• Researching job leads from your pool of contacts, friends, family, and/or career counseling service of your former school
• Visiting prospective employers directly
• Using the Yellow Pages or other reference to find companies involved in subjects of interest and contacting them
• Job-clubs
• A Life-Changing Job Hunt²

Some of these methods are employed exclusively by job hunters, in isolation of others, and when their singular methods  fail to produce results, they become discouraged. Notice the distinct lack of emphasis on the resume alone. Your resume is one tool among many in your bag of tricks for breaking out of unemployment. Bolles counsels to supplement your stellar resume’s solitary efforts by taking a more active role in the hunt.

In the next post or two (or three) we’ll continue to explore this gold mine of job-hunter advice, and maybe even explore his final eye-catching method:  ‘A Life Changing Job Hunt,’ something Bolles devotes the entire second half of his book to.

Footnotes

1.  Bolles, Richard N. What Color is Your Parachute (Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 2010), p. 26-27.

2. Bolles,  28-34 .