HAPPY HOLIDAYS JOB SEEKERS!

Most, if not all job seekers, assume the Holidays are an unproductive to look for a job – that little can be accomplished from Thanksgiving week until the week after New Year’s (6 weeks!); as if the job openings that existed the Friday before Thanksgiving do not still exist the week of Thanksgiving! Obviously, that is not true. Employers do advertise less during the holidays but that is not because they do not have needs but because they have found job seekers stop looking during that period and it is a waste of their employment advertising budget to post during that time.

It is unlikely that interviews will take place on holiday weeks but the period can be highly productive and I would argue there is more to do, not less. So what should you be doing?

 Holiday Greetings – send out more Holiday Cards than ever before! People who are aware of your job search may come across a perfect opportunity for you but not having heard from you for a time (out of sight, out of mind) will have forgotten that you are looking. A Holiday Greeting will remind them of you and they will remember to contact you. If your budget is limited, send electronic cards, easily sent to a large number of people simultaneously. If you can afford to, buy professional looking cards than can be sent to everyone regardless of religion. Create an extensive list in Excel and then print address labels. Hand sign each card with a personal note wherever possible.

 Networking – the Holidays are a time for family gatherings and parties. No, you are not going to ask about jobs at a party but you can say to several friends and relatives, “I have an idea I would like to discuss with you. May I call you Monday?” They will say, "of course"; then call Monday and share your list of target companies and see if they can help you connect to any of your targets.

 News Research – the headlines in the big daily newspapers are discouraging; but in the local press there is news everyday of companies moving into larger quarters, of acquisitions, of executive personnel changes, of startups. I recently came across a list of about 70 products made in New Jersey. I never heard of two-thirds of the companies and I have lived in New Jersey for decades. For these companies no one has heard of, there is a struggle to attract applicants while the well-known companies attract thousands. You may have a job offer by December 30th if you can successfully network to the appropriate companies or write a Value Proposition letter to the President telling him or her specifically how you can help their company grow.

 Read – if your family asks what you would like as gifts for the Holiday, include some of the Business Best Sellers. Busy CEOs read these books, often on planes, and you will have much to discuss in an interview if you have read them as well. You will also impress the CEO that you have a similar long-term strategic view as he does.

I assume I have convinced you there is a lot to accomplish over the next 6 weeks. Most importantly, if every other job seeker is taking the holidays off, you will have much less competition and will stand out from others as one of the very few job seekers working hard at your search 7 days per week every week of the year!

Last, there is much you can do to launch a much more effective campaign after the first of the year. Consult with ExecuJobs, www.ExecuJobs.net, to discuss using the next few weeks to launch a new and improved marketing campaign in the New Year. Give them an opportunity to help you. Contact them @ PR@ExecuJobs.net or go to www.ExecuJobs.net today!

INTELLIGENT JOB SEEKING (JQ)

I am a big fan of spy and detective movies. Spies and detectives are portrayed as having unusually well-developed powers of observation … they see things we overlook and are able to make deductions from what they observe … and in the movies, they are always correct.

But, spies and detectives are good at observing things and not very good relating to people, that is observing social cues and understanding people and their emotional, often irrational, needs; what is now called Emotional Intelligence or EQ.

Likewise, many job seekers make mistakes reading cues from recruiters, HR people and hiring managers and position themselves in ways they perceive will strengthen their position when what they are really doing is acting counter-productively to their best interests; they are lacking JQ or Job Seeking Intelligence.

Some examples:

 Other Interviews – stating you have several other interviews therefore limiting your availability for a phone interview with a recruiter rather than doing everything possible to talk to the recruiter as soon as possible and at her available times.

 Post Interview Follow-Up – not taking steps following an interview to indicate a great deal of interest in the opportunity.

 Salary – stating your current/recent salary and that you have no interest in anything equal to or below that figure.

Interviewing for a job is a lot like courtship. If after a first date, a guy says to his date, “I had a wonderful time and would like to see you again” and she says, “I would like that very much” - saying you would like another date does not commit you marriage but imagine how happy both parties are following the date versus the silly Seinfeld rules of the guy doing nothing for 3 days and the woman not knowing where she stands.

Just as the dating scene is full of minefields and attempts to read the mind of the other party, the job seeking scene is more challenging – far more competitive, far more at stake if you have been unemployed a number of months and a far more complicated decision for a company to make than a woman deciding to go on another date.

Don’t listen to your buddies when dating nor when searching for a job - consult a professional. ExecuJobs has helped thousands of job seekers gain JQ and achieve their goals – not simply a job but a great match. Give them an opportunity to help you. To start on the path to the solution to your career questions, contact us @ PR@ExecuJobs.net or go to www.ExecuJobs.net today!

JOB HUNTING IN THE 21ST CENTURY – ARE YOU BEING FOUND?

There is more and more evidence that the secret of successful job seeking in the 21^st century is to be found. In other words, if Recruiters and Companies have needs, they are not putting up job postings, which get an overwhelming response; they are out looking for talent on the web.

So how do you become the person they will find?

§ Content – the age-old issues associated with creating a resume are magnified a million times over when you are creating your web presence: Does your resume differentiate you? Does show the appropriate keywords? Does it mask your age? How does it handle lengthy current unemployment or gaps in previous employment?

§ Platform – since there is only so much content you can put on a LinkedIn Profile for example, you need a multi-page website, a Career Web Portfolio, to highlight your Proficiencies, Results, Achievements, Experience, Education, Recommendations; and interested parties should be able to download your resume for this site in Word or PDF.

§ Social Media Profiles – you need to have a brief but robust profile on LinkedIn, Plaxo, XING and Facebook if you choose to use Facebook professionally (don’t mix the professional with personal use). Other sites for profiles are ZoomInfo, Twitter and Gist.

§ Connections – effective users of Social Media sites have hundreds of connections (I have over 1,000). Research indicates if one has 500 or more connections on LinkedIn, one will be found in 90% of the searches that match your skills and experience.

§ Dynamic – last, effective users of Social Media are always doing things that bring attention to themselves within their network by adding connections, joining Groups, making changes to their Profiles, Tweeting or Blogging.

Fortunately, there are professional career management and marketing firms that are expert in every component of effective Social Networking and have all the necessary tools and resources. So, consult a professional. ExecuJobs has helped thousands of job seekers achieve their goals – not simply a job but a great match. Give them an opportunity to help you. To start on the path to the solution to your career questions, contact us @ PR@ExecuJobs.net or go to www.ExecuJobs.net today!

HOW DO I TELL IF A COMPANY IS A GOOD FIT FOR ME? - PART THREE

The third and final part of this series refers you to a few books listed on my LinkedIn Profile and cover topics such as Leadership, Emotional Intelligence, and the books of Jim Collins which clearly define the characteristics of successful and unsuccessful companies.

The most contemporary of the books is How The Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In. To quote one of the reviews, “Amidst the desolate landscape of fallen great companies, Jim Collins began to wonder: How do the mighty fall? Can decline be detected early and avoided? How far can a company fall before the path toward doom becomes inevitable and unshakable? How can companies reverse course? Collins confronts these questions, offering leaders the well-founded hope that they can learn how to stave off decline and, if they find themselves falling, reverse their course.”

In his prior book, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't, only 11 companies met the criteria of great. Though these are all large public companies, I don’t think they have room for all of us!

So, if we can’t all work for a great company, how do we know if a company is a good fit?

The answer is to be clear about our top values. Once we know what they are, it is not difficult to tell if our boss and the corporate culture are a match.

For example, I spent the first 20 years of my career in demanding cultures with little regard for the impact of work on family life. When my children were young, I decided it was time to change to one where people worked 9 – 5 versus the 9 – 7 I was used to. It was great – no one stopped at my office at 5:00 pm and expected a report before I left. No meetings were scheduled before 10:00 am and none ended close to 5:00 pm. For several months of the year, versus several weeks, I was home in daylight and could play outside with my kids.

But, when I desperately needed information or a decision at the end of the day, I could not get it. When I needed to meet with someone, I had to wait a week because there was no elasticity to anyone’s schedule. It was very difficult to make progress with so many bottlenecks! There were times I could literally not do a thing to move any of my projects forward.

I then began to re-think my values and recognized I seek autonomy (a boss who delegates versus micromanages), variety, and an opportunity to work from home some of the time. With a home office and autonomy, I could put in a lot of time but make it around my children’s schedules; and with variety, if one project was stalled; I had many others to work on … I now had the best fit of my career!

So the secret is to go through an assessment process to determine YOUR values and the rest is easy. Fortunately, there are professional career management firms that can help you to assess and prioritize your values and then help you to determine their presence as you go through the interview process.

So, consult a professional. ExecuJobs has helped thousands of job seekers achieve their goals – not simply a job but a great fit. Give them an opportunity to help you. To start on the path to a successful job search, contact us @ PR@ExecuJobs.net or go to www.ExecuJobs.net today!

HOW DO I TELL IF A COMPANY IS A GOOD FIT FOR ME? - PART TWO

If you used the employment process as a determinant to whether a company was a good fit, you would probably not accept any offer of employment because the process is very broken in almost every company.

The purpose of this blog post is to understand the process – what it is and why – so that with realistic expectations, you can ignore it as an indicator of whether a company is a good fit.

I am going to use a real person’s (false name) recent experiences to make my points:

§ Joe saw a job posting in April that appeared a perfect match. He applied with a cover letter customizing his skills and experience to the requirements.

§ Three months later he received a message scheduling him for interviews in early August. He knew who his competition was having seen and recognized his name on the sign-in sheet – not a good move if either was employed!

§ He was told the decision would be made within 10 days but he heard nothing for 3 weeks so he assumed his competitor was getting the position. Finally they left a message – that they “hoped to make an offer within the next 2 weeks”.

§ After 3 weeks had passed, he was again sure his competitor, not he, was receiving the offer. I continued to assure him that was not necessarily the case – just the usual slow process with no effort on the part of the company to keep him “warm”.

§ Finally, 5 weeks after interviewing - he received a call with an offer.

§ The initial offer was 20% less than he had been earning but, rather than walk away, he stayed “cool-headed” and made a counter-proposal with my assistance, and one week later he received and accepted an offer that met his requirements. This process took 5 months!

He has now been on the job for several weeks and could not be happier. There was nothing about the broken process described above that predicted anything but a perfect fit to the role and organization.

Fortunately, there are professional career management and marketing firms that can guide and coach throughout the interviewing and negotiating process. So, consult a professional. ExecuJobs has helped thousands of job seekers achieve their goals – not simply a job but a great fit. Give them an opportunity to help you. To start on the path to a successful job search, contact us @ PR@ExecuJobs.net or go to www.ExecuJobs.net today!

CAREER PLANNING FOR TEENAGERS (and their parents and all job seekers)

If I was a teenager planning my career in a totally rational way like Spock or Data, the below would be my checklist:

ÿ If at all possible, I will attend a top-notch Prep School.

ÿ I will work hard and achieve excellent grades.

ÿ I will take as many Advanced Classes as possible.

ÿ I will play varsity sports and be involved in extracurricular activities aspiring to be Team Captain and Student Body President.

ÿ I will take an SAT Prep Course and take the PSATs and SATs as many times as possible to improve my scores.

ÿ I will apply to Ivy League Universities ... or Penn State, U. of Michigan, U. Maryland, or Carnegie Mellon because they are top corporate recruiting locations as they have been found to develop well-rounded students.

ÿ I will excel in college as described above.

ÿ I will be totally current on all technologies relevant to my field and utilized for business communications (e.g., PowerPoint, Excel).

ÿ I will be as fit, well-groomed, well-mannered, well-dressed, and well-spoken as if I was Brian Williams or Katie Couric.

ÿ My summer jobs will be internships in my field.

ÿ I will interview with as many Corporations as possible on campus and select the one with the best record of developing management talent.

ÿ At the appropriate time for my field, I will go to Graduate School full-time and at one of best universities for my field. If those at the top of my field have a PhD, I will earn a PhD.

ÿ I will gain additional appropriate certifications, e.g., CPA.

Now I am not going to tell you that I have followed this path, nor convinced many young people in my life to follow this path, but we do need to recognize that an overwhelming percentage of the leaders in every endeavor - Business, Law, Medicine, Education, Government, Broadcasting, etc., etc., have largely followed a plan such as this one to achieve their ambitious goals.

Most of the rest of us have made different choices for a variety of reasons; but those who are competing best in this difficult marketplace, followed this path; those who chose a very different path, are having a much more difficult time. So,

• If you are a young person, consider this advice.
• If you are a parent, offer this advice.
• If you are an adult job-seeker, you are not going to attend Prep School in your 50s, but you can, for example, enroll in graduate school and take courses at a comfortable pace towards a degree.

Fortunately, there are professional career management and marketing firms that can assist you by overcoming the “credential gap” by differentiating you in terms of the value you do add, and by marketing you with sophisticated technology tools that will help you to appear more “cutting edge” that your credentials would suggest.

So, consult a professional. ExecuJobs has helped thousands of job seekers, including recent college graduates, achieve their goals – not simply a job but a great fit. Give them an opportunity to help you. To start on the path to a successful job search, contact us @ PR@ExecuJobs.net or go to www.ExecuJobs.net today!

HOW DO I TELL IF A COMPANY IS A GOOD FIT FOR ME? - PART ONE

This is a great question but not a short, easy answer; therefore a three-part series. This first part will deal with what you control … which is letting the company determine if you are a good fit for them - that really is the best way to achieve a great fit.

The second part will deal with what not to use as a determinant … which is the employment process … because it is really broken in almost every company.

The third part will refer you to a few books listed on my LinkedIn Profile and cover the topics of: Authentic Leadership, Emotional Intelligence, Data-driven (internal metrics and external benchmarking), and the books of Jim Dixon which clearly define the characteristics of successful and unsuccessful companies.

Now how do you “let a company determine if you’re a good fit”?

YOUR RESUME

Most interviews are “exploratory” meaning the interviewer is not clear regarding your competencies, achievements, skills and potential fit. That is often because the candidate has attempted to write a resume trying to be “everything for everybody” vs. differentiating themselves by describing with clarity what they do offer. The initial phone or in-person interview is therefore utilized to gather information regarding each of these and the odds are high, that as each is “uncovered”, you will not be a suitable candidate. Thus, these interviews are a frustrating experience rarely resulting in a call-back for a second interview.

A resume that differentiates you by being crystal clear regarding competencies, achievements and skills means the interviewer knows you have exactly what the job is requires and therefore has a high degree of interest in you. The interview is then just to determine personality fit. The odds of this interview resulting in a callback and ultimately an offer are quite high.

YOUR ANSWERS TO INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

If you are self-aware and able to articulate your value proposition to the company, your strengths and, yes, your weaknesses, you will again differentiate yourself and either be a match to the culture or not. If you are perceived to be a match, i.e., they want you for exactly who you are, then the company is in fact a good fit for you. In other words, you will avoid the “honeymoon” phenomenon - which is not a good thing – that is we thought you were one type of person based on your behavior during the courtship period but found out you were quite different once married. If that occurs, your tenure will be short, but if you describe yourself accurately, and that is what the company seeks, there is no better predictor of a secure job.

Fortunately, there are professional career management and marketing firms that can assist you by developing a resume that differentiates you with crystal clarity and can prepare you to interview by assessing you and preparing you to speak to your strengths and weaknesses.

So, consult a professional. ExecuJobs has helped thousands of job seekers achieve their goals – not simply a job but a great fit. Give them an opportunity to help you. To start on the path to a successful job search, contact us @ PR@ExecuJobs.net or go to www.ExecuJobs.net today!