I recently had the opportunity to meet with Casey Hamar from Right Management and before we got together, she suggested the topic of “What works in Job search?” It got me thinking about that. Like most folks doing this kind of coaching, I get pretty focused on a variety of components to the job-search process: interviewing, resumes, internet tools, etc. This question with its elegant simplicity got me thinking about the big picture again. Is there one single central element that will always get you a job? I think there is. In a word, “persistence.”
What we teach at NFJS can make it simpler, reduce the emotional toll, and reduce the length of time spent looking. Heck we can even help you focus on what is most satisfying, but if you keep at it long enough, most processes work. Sooner or later, you’ll find a job. Even the most efficient, successful job search requires it today. One of our folks had ten interviews with a single company without getting an offer!
The point is that job search is hard, sometimes it’s as hard as any job I know of. It is normal for a job search to take six months or a year or even a year and a half and that requires persistence. It used to be that we could figure on one month of looking for every $10,000 of annual salary, in today’s economy it can easily be twice that number. So understand that if you are looking, you are not alone, commit to being as effective as possible in the process and persevere. If you want some help, call us.
To quote Ray Kroc (founder of McDonald’s Corporation) “Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get.”
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Schedule change
NFJS has been meeting every Wednesday at 3:00 for more than a year and we've decided to tweek that just a bit. Make it 2:00. Still at the Green Bean/Sip N'Ship in North Seattle. Hopefully make it easier for folks to get to.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Interview Training
About a month a ago I mentioned on Linkedin how I had developed an “Interview preparation” module that took three hours and how excited I was about it then one of my contacts noted that they were looking forward to a blog entry. So this is that entry; if you can hire us, it will be more effective, and in every case working with someone else will help.
Our outline is pretty straight forward:
Hour 1 – Preparation:. Does the resume you sent in highlight the right experience? Have you researched the company? Have you researched the opportunity? Do you have a connection that can get your resume in front of the hiring influence? How qualified are you for this position and have you done a good job setting up that story?
Hour 2 – Interview 1: 30 minutes of interview, 30 minutes of feedback. Are you prepared? Do you know enough about this opportunity to ask relevant questions? How does your body language work? Do you walk into the room standing up straight, look the interviewer in the eye? Shake hands? Is your dress appropriate for this opportunity?
Hour 3 – Interview 2: 40 minutes of interview, 20 of feedback. Have you learned from the first practice? If you said “mmm” 14 times on the first try is that under control? Have you integrated questions into the answers you are providing?
In many ways the most important hour of this training is the first. It starts with finding a specific job that you are interested in. This should not be theoretical! The job description will have the key requirements in their hierarchy. That’s the outline for the resume and for preparation. If it says “Seeking team building sales executive” then the resume better include a history of building teams. If it says C# developer, then the resume better include a history of C# development. One of the consequences of this exercise is refreshing your memory of your past success. Another consequence is developing high levels of alignment with the opportunity.
I’ve written previously about “OGOOALS” and “Five Questions that Matter” those are important here because they are key to this preparation hour. The “G” in OGOOALS stands for Gather information and the five questions are just that, five questions that both you and the company need to answer in order decide that you have a good fit. During the Interview Training Module this first hour is all about translating those into specific questions, answers and research into the company, the hiring influence, etc.
Interviewing is a skill, plain and simple. Learning it isn’t that much different than learning our addition tables. The key to success is practice and feedback. That's the idea behind this module.
Our outline is pretty straight forward:
Hour 1 – Preparation:. Does the resume you sent in highlight the right experience? Have you researched the company? Have you researched the opportunity? Do you have a connection that can get your resume in front of the hiring influence? How qualified are you for this position and have you done a good job setting up that story?
Hour 2 – Interview 1: 30 minutes of interview, 30 minutes of feedback. Are you prepared? Do you know enough about this opportunity to ask relevant questions? How does your body language work? Do you walk into the room standing up straight, look the interviewer in the eye? Shake hands? Is your dress appropriate for this opportunity?
Hour 3 – Interview 2: 40 minutes of interview, 20 of feedback. Have you learned from the first practice? If you said “mmm” 14 times on the first try is that under control? Have you integrated questions into the answers you are providing?
In many ways the most important hour of this training is the first. It starts with finding a specific job that you are interested in. This should not be theoretical! The job description will have the key requirements in their hierarchy. That’s the outline for the resume and for preparation. If it says “Seeking team building sales executive” then the resume better include a history of building teams. If it says C# developer, then the resume better include a history of C# development. One of the consequences of this exercise is refreshing your memory of your past success. Another consequence is developing high levels of alignment with the opportunity.
I’ve written previously about “OGOOALS” and “Five Questions that Matter” those are important here because they are key to this preparation hour. The “G” in OGOOALS stands for Gather information and the five questions are just that, five questions that both you and the company need to answer in order decide that you have a good fit. During the Interview Training Module this first hour is all about translating those into specific questions, answers and research into the company, the hiring influence, etc.
Interviewing is a skill, plain and simple. Learning it isn’t that much different than learning our addition tables. The key to success is practice and feedback. That's the idea behind this module.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Microsoft
I had the opportunity this afternoon to spend about an hour with Kenji Yamaguchi, a recruiter in the Windows group at Microsoft. It's pretty much impossible for me to provide a complete synopsis, but the blog he contributes to is something that every job seeker should be following. I've added it to the list of blogs I follow and strongly recommend you check it out. It is a lot like the conversation was, very wide ranging and informative. http://www.jobsblog.com/.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Resume construction part 2
Mike will finish his discussion of resume development soon, but in the meantime, one of the regulars at Notes from the Job Search sent me an analysis of how to create an entry or bullet point on your resume and I wanted to share it with you.
She starts with the idea that in the custom resume you deliver to a prospective employer, each role you held should have no more than five bullets. That is different than our Work-Life Database™. The Work-Life Database™ is the source document and as such it doesn’t have a limit. What goes on the resume sent to a some company, comes from the DB. At any rate, here’s what Deborah Arline has to say.
“The first paragraph of a job experience within the resume starts with a statement describing the scope of duties, level of responsibility, number of staff supervised, budget amounts managed, etc. This statement is followed by short sentences describing responsibilities, using words like “Managed”, “Led”, “Facilitated”, “Oversaw”, “Initiated”, “Planned”, “Provided”, “Performed”, “Created”, “Analyzed”, “Designed”, “Developed”, “Achieved”, etc.
“This paragraph is followed by “Significant Achievements”, no more than 5 bulleted items that:
• Identify an Action, USE A VERB, that demonstrates the value I added or contribution I made; i.e. “Saved money”, “Increased profits”, “Developed staff”, “Decreased response time”, etc
• Then, the sentence continues to show how I achieved them: “…by deploying”, “…by initiating”, “…by upgrading”, “…by migrating”, “…by implementing”, etc.
• And may conclude by showing the result of my efforts: “…that enhanced”, “… that improved”, “…that reduced”, “…that decreased”.
• Then try to quantify the value added; answer the question “By how much?”
Deborah provides a couple of examples:
1. “Delivered $1.2 million annual savings by cutting call handling time 40 seconds per call across all centers.
2. “Improved operational efficiency by designing continuous learning process that provided call centers with structured approach to process improvement and data sharing.”
As you can see Deborah has broken this down to very specific small pieces. When she creates the actual bullet, she positions the element with the biggest value ("$1.2 million annual savings") where it will be seen most easily and have the most impact. It’s almost like we had a bunch of refrigerator magnets, only in this case we are using them to effectively tell real stories and actions we really took.
She starts with the idea that in the custom resume you deliver to a prospective employer, each role you held should have no more than five bullets. That is different than our Work-Life Database™. The Work-Life Database™ is the source document and as such it doesn’t have a limit. What goes on the resume sent to a some company, comes from the DB. At any rate, here’s what Deborah Arline has to say.
“The first paragraph of a job experience within the resume starts with a statement describing the scope of duties, level of responsibility, number of staff supervised, budget amounts managed, etc. This statement is followed by short sentences describing responsibilities, using words like “Managed”, “Led”, “Facilitated”, “Oversaw”, “Initiated”, “Planned”, “Provided”, “Performed”, “Created”, “Analyzed”, “Designed”, “Developed”, “Achieved”, etc.
“This paragraph is followed by “Significant Achievements”, no more than 5 bulleted items that:
• Identify an Action, USE A VERB, that demonstrates the value I added or contribution I made; i.e. “Saved money”, “Increased profits”, “Developed staff”, “Decreased response time”, etc
• Then, the sentence continues to show how I achieved them: “…by deploying”, “…by initiating”, “…by upgrading”, “…by migrating”, “…by implementing”, etc.
• And may conclude by showing the result of my efforts: “…that enhanced”, “… that improved”, “…that reduced”, “…that decreased”.
• Then try to quantify the value added; answer the question “By how much?”
Deborah provides a couple of examples:
1. “Delivered $1.2 million annual savings by cutting call handling time 40 seconds per call across all centers.
2. “Improved operational efficiency by designing continuous learning process that provided call centers with structured approach to process improvement and data sharing.”
As you can see Deborah has broken this down to very specific small pieces. When she creates the actual bullet, she positions the element with the biggest value ("$1.2 million annual savings") where it will be seen most easily and have the most impact. It’s almost like we had a bunch of refrigerator magnets, only in this case we are using them to effectively tell real stories and actions we really took.
Friday, March 26, 2010
I hate customizing a resume
Hi blog followers. This is my first entry in our Notes from the Job Search Blog. I'm a career counselor, but also a technical writer of many years experience, so I’ll try to not write like I’m creating a Help topic. I'll make the writing more conversational. Not an easy feat for a guy trained in Journalism and spending most of his working life writing in a terse “just the facts” style.
I thought I’d start off writing about how much I use to hate writing a customized resume and how much easier it is to do one with our Work-Life Database™.
I hate customizing a resume
As an unemployed technical writer, I want to get my next job very much. But what is weird is that I dreaded getting a hot job prospect. What was that? I dreaded having an opportunity to get a good job? And I’m not alone. In our job-search groups, we hear this all the time. The dread comes from knowing that soon I’ll have to go through the painful process of creating a customized resume specific to the job description. Write a few customized resumes and you’ll know what I mean. It is a long, emotionally-draining, frustrating exercise. After 4-5 hours, I produce a resume and send it off to an email address or web site. I call this sending it into the Black Hole because, as often as not, I get no acknowledgement that I submitted the damn thing.
But I no longer dread getting a hot job prospect. I can now produce a customized resume in about a half hour. And it is far less painful. Follow our process as explained below and you’ll only have to go through the pain once.
We still use resumes
Knowing that the best resume is one that is dropped off at HR after you’ve been hired, and that the best way to get to a hiring influence is through an introduction, submitting a resume to a company is still a way that many people get hired. It is still effective.
But the generic resume has gone the way of the typewriter. It won’t get you by the HR Department and it won’t get you an interview. But a customized or tailored resume has a much better chance of getting to that hiring influence. It is what is expected and is much more likely to get you that interview.
Most of us have gone through the painful process of creating a one-off customized resume for a specific job. We have reports of people taking up to eight hours to produce one. 3-4 hours is not uncommon. It is then sent off to a web site never to be seen again and is very frustrating to go through that process just to have no one notice or care. A process most people are only willing to do 3-4 times at most. Many just start sending off a generic resume that has no chance of competing for that job. Others quietly retreat to their caves and hope the world will present them with a decent job.
What is a better way to do this painful, but necessary step? Develop a Work-Life Database™.
Only feel the pain once with the Work-Life Database™
With a Work-Life Database™, you go through the pain only once. Using the Excel template we make available to our participants, go back through your whole working life and start documenting the good things, the accomplishments in the many different roles and jobs you’ve had over the years. In the accomplishments’ column write a one or two sentence description of some accomplishment you had in that role. Write it in a manner that can be used in a resume. Start with an action verb, don’t use personal pronouns and detail the accomplishment.
I think you’ll find that this task will gain momentum and that you’ll find that as you travel back through your history you’ll remember more and more and start adding whole jobs that you had forgotten. I went all the way back to my paperboy days delivering PI newspapers in the Wedgewood neighborhood of Seattle.
My next blog entry will be about how to write the Work-Life Database™ in a simple and quick manner.
I thought I’d start off writing about how much I use to hate writing a customized resume and how much easier it is to do one with our Work-Life Database™.
I hate customizing a resume
As an unemployed technical writer, I want to get my next job very much. But what is weird is that I dreaded getting a hot job prospect. What was that? I dreaded having an opportunity to get a good job? And I’m not alone. In our job-search groups, we hear this all the time. The dread comes from knowing that soon I’ll have to go through the painful process of creating a customized resume specific to the job description. Write a few customized resumes and you’ll know what I mean. It is a long, emotionally-draining, frustrating exercise. After 4-5 hours, I produce a resume and send it off to an email address or web site. I call this sending it into the Black Hole because, as often as not, I get no acknowledgement that I submitted the damn thing.
But I no longer dread getting a hot job prospect. I can now produce a customized resume in about a half hour. And it is far less painful. Follow our process as explained below and you’ll only have to go through the pain once.
We still use resumes
Knowing that the best resume is one that is dropped off at HR after you’ve been hired, and that the best way to get to a hiring influence is through an introduction, submitting a resume to a company is still a way that many people get hired. It is still effective.
But the generic resume has gone the way of the typewriter. It won’t get you by the HR Department and it won’t get you an interview. But a customized or tailored resume has a much better chance of getting to that hiring influence. It is what is expected and is much more likely to get you that interview.
Most of us have gone through the painful process of creating a one-off customized resume for a specific job. We have reports of people taking up to eight hours to produce one. 3-4 hours is not uncommon. It is then sent off to a web site never to be seen again and is very frustrating to go through that process just to have no one notice or care. A process most people are only willing to do 3-4 times at most. Many just start sending off a generic resume that has no chance of competing for that job. Others quietly retreat to their caves and hope the world will present them with a decent job.
What is a better way to do this painful, but necessary step? Develop a Work-Life Database™.
Only feel the pain once with the Work-Life Database™
With a Work-Life Database™, you go through the pain only once. Using the Excel template we make available to our participants, go back through your whole working life and start documenting the good things, the accomplishments in the many different roles and jobs you’ve had over the years. In the accomplishments’ column write a one or two sentence description of some accomplishment you had in that role. Write it in a manner that can be used in a resume. Start with an action verb, don’t use personal pronouns and detail the accomplishment.
I think you’ll find that this task will gain momentum and that you’ll find that as you travel back through your history you’ll remember more and more and start adding whole jobs that you had forgotten. I went all the way back to my paperboy days delivering PI newspapers in the Wedgewood neighborhood of Seattle.
My next blog entry will be about how to write the Work-Life Database™ in a simple and quick manner.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Introduction
One of the joys that the last year has brought is the chance work with a very dynamic and diverse group of professionals, one of whom is also my brother Mike. Mike has been participating since last June and over the last six months has become more and more of a full partner. Well it looks like he's about to take one more step in that direction as he now has permissions to add to this: the Notes from the Job Search Blog. I could spend a lot of time telling you about him, but, I'll let him do that himself. He has some things to say about resume's so that should be coming right away.
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