Job Search Tips

I just read a recent Harvard Business Review article which discusses the “Power of Positive Failure.” The author (David Simms) had hosted a panel of non-profit leaders and had asked each panelist to share a failure from which they had learned a valuable lesson. They did, and the article goes on to share with us what each one learned from that experience.  I highly recommend you go read it NOW, especially if you are searching for a new job.  More than one of the respondents gave examples that fit the job search.  This is certainly NOT an area you want to make mistakes because you haven’t done your due diligence.

It got me thinking. . . what can I share with YOU, so that YOU can learn from my past mistakes that will make THIS job search better for YOU?

1) If it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. I remember taking a job that I felt wasn’t right from the day I started.  However, I was too stubborn to quit, so I “stuck it out” for several weeks.  At which point I was frustrated and my boss was frustrated with me because he knew I didn’t want to be there.  When I left that position there were hurt feelings and some negative experiences all around.  I don’t want to do that again.

2) Negotiate up front. I once took a job with substandard pay and a promise that my salary would increase after a certain amount of time in the position.  Needless to say, the time for a big raise never came.  I should have negotiated a better compensation package going in.

3) Don’t take any job for granted. Most of us live in “employment at will” states, which means that we can be terminated for any (or no) reason at any time. There is no longer any such thing as a “social contract for life” when it comes to the employer/employee relationship. That may be good, or bad, or just the way it is.  At any rate, once you have a job you need to work hard and show your supervisors that they have done the right thing in hiring you.  If work slows down, you don’t want to give them any reason to allow you the opportunity to be the first out the door.  In other words, show up and work hard.  Hey, your employer is paying you to do your best, so give it to him/her.

4) If you lose your job go find another one. I have a good friend who worked for me a while back.  When business slowed down and I had to let him go.  I was very apologetic and felt bad, but my friend said, “I was doing something else when this job came along.  Now I’ll go do something else.”  It was a great attitude! I appreciated it and it helped him find his next job in nothing flat.

What about you?  What have you learned from your previous jobs that will help you in your current job search?

“Did you ever wonder???”

Yesterday, Andy Rooney had the following to say about our current job situation.  It’s so true when he says, “there is so much to do everywhere in the world that there should never be any unemployment.” And yet, unemployment is the highest it has ever been in my lifetime — probably highest it’s ever been in HIS lifetime too!

What do YOU think  about his comments?  Are you one of the Executives that is not willing to pick up garbage along the road?  Are you a recent college graduateDo you agree or disagree with Mr. Rooney?  I’d like to know what you think.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

There is an old saying that goes like this, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”

I tell my clients, “You MUST have a target, because if you shoot at nothing you will absolutely hit it . . . NOTHING.”

One of the things job seekers today do most often to sabotage their job search is to be unclear about their perfect job.  When asked what kind of job they are looking for, many will answer, “Any job. Any shift. Anywhere.”  I understand about keeping your options open, but the truth is that you will not be happy in just ANY JOB.  Unless you are specific about what you can and will do in your next position, other people can’t help you find opportunities.  If your job search does not have a clear target you are very likely to hit that target . . . which is NO JOB.

Here are the 4 key ingredients you MUST be clear about in order to define a target for your job search:

1. Job Satisfaction. What do you do well that you would like to do in your next job?  What skills, knowledge and abilities would you like to use in your next career position?  What gives you energy on the job, and what sucks the life out of you?  What are you good at, and why?  These are key questions, because if you don’t have job satisfaction you will not be happy or productive in your next career — which ultimately will lead to looking for another job soon.  More than 2,500 years ago Confucius said, “Do what you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.”  Some things never change!
2. Growth Opportunities. What kinds of growth opportunities will keep you engaged in your next job?  Is it important for you to have the opportunity to move up the corporate ladder?  Or are you more satisfied by doing work that is physically engaging or mentally challenging?  Without opportunities for growth you will, sooner or later, become disengaged from your job . . . which leads you back to the job hunt (see above).  It’s important to know yourself and what learning, development, growth opportunities you need in order to stay engaged.
3. Work Environment. Do you work best in a large company or a small one?  Do you need to have a team of people working along side of you or would you rather work alone?  Are you willing to travel or do you prefer to have a routine schedule every day?  Is relocation an option?  To where?  What kind of corporate culture fits with your personal values? Do you like a fast paced environment or one that is slow and relaxed?  What kind of boss or manager do you work best with? These are questions that you need to research before you agree to your next job. The wrong environment can be deadly to you and your career!  Do your homework BEFORE you start looking for your next job.
4. Salary Requirements. What do you need to make in order to be satisfied?  What is your target salary?  Do you need health insurance, or are you covered under your spouse’s plan?  Are retirement benefits important? How about vacation, training, etc.  One problem I see too many times is that people put the salary question first.  That’s a BAD idea!  As we have discovered above, if you aren’t satisfied on your job, don’t have opportunity for growth, and are working in the wrong environment you will not be happy.  If you are not happy in your career it doesn’t really matter how much money you make, because you are not likely to stay there long.  Salary considerations are important, but only so far as they fit in with the other three keys to your perfect career.

Identify these 4 keys to your perfect career and your job search will start to move along quickly.  By being clear on what you are looking for, you will see more opportunities and you will help others (i.e. your network) help you find potential jobs.  Get a clear target and you will have something to aim at!

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“This may be the BEST day of my life . . . I just got fired!”

That’s not what you feel like saying on the day you lose your job, but it may be true!

As for me, well I’ve been fired twice in my life.

The first time I got fired I had been absent from work due to a flu bug that had worked it’s way through the office. The boss called me and told me not to come in to work the next day. Half delirious I thought, “how nice of him to be concerned about my well being.” When I finally awoke from my stuper I realized he meant, “or the day after that, or the day after that, or ever. . . ” Boy was I pissed! What a whimp to call me on a sick day and fire me! He didn’t even have the stones to tell me to my face!

However, as it turned out, that firing led to an opportunity for me to return to school and complete a degree I needed in order to move to the next level of my career.  Little did that whimpy boss know, he actually did me a favor!

The second time I got fired I had been working on it for several months. I was making good money, but the company I worked for had no soul. In fact, they went out of their way to suck the soul out of their employees. Clearly, the company had some ethics problems, and after 2 solid years of enduring them I decided I had to go. They were good at getting rid of people! The company had a nearly 200% annual employee turnover rate.

I wanted out, but couldn’t justify leaving. If I was going to go, they needed to provide me with the safety net of a severance package.One day responded to an email from the site manager — although some might say  I picked a fight with him.  He was clearly breaking his own “office computer use policy” by sending inane and meaningless emails to the entire staff. I sent a “reply to all” indicating the violation and 10 minutes later I found myself in his office. This was my chance. . .

Unfortunately, he was willing to let me off with a warning. Bummer! When I got back to my cubicle my supervisor said, “what do you think you are doing? Are you trying to get fired?” I answered, “Yes. But the site manager didn’t take the bait. I guess you are stuck with me a little while longer.” He replied, “Go home, I’ll take care of it.” The next day I came in to find my cubicle cleaned out, a moving box full of my stuff, a pink slip with my name on it and a severance package that helped me bridge the gap between jobs. That was one of the happiest day of my life! As it turns out, both of those days were!

So you’ve been fired? Join the club.

It may feel a bit devistating, but in reality it could be the best thing that ever happened to you.  The key is to learn from you experience and move on.  Here’s my simple formula for doing that without taking the poison from one position into the job search with me.

1. make a list of what you did well at you job.  Be specific.  Give numbers whenever possible. You will use this list when you create your resume, interview, and negotiate for your next salary.
2. make a second list of what you did not do well, and what went wrong.  You are going to use this list in your next job search when researching company culture.
3. purge yourself of the poison feelings you have about getting fired.  Talk to a friend, a counselor, a career coach or someone who can help you get the venom out of your system.
4. develop a statement about why you left your last position that allows both you and your former employer to be seen in the best light.  Le me be clear here — DO NOT LIE!  EVER!  On the other hand, you don’t have to “bleed” all over the place either.  Something like, “After 7 years things had changed, and we came to an agreement that it was time for me to look for other opportunities.”  You don’t really need to say much more than that.  You former employer won’t, in fact, they have probably already forgotten about you.

I hope these tips for getting past getting fired are helpful to you.  I’d love to hear some of your experiences.  Feel free to share them with us below.

In the mean time, happy hunting!

After watching the winter Olympics and marveling at the level of athletic excellence displayed by the athletes over the past few weeks, I got to thinking about what job seekers can learn from these amazing athletes. Time after time the difference between earning a metal or not ranking came down to superb coaching, practice and finely honed technique.

In today’s highly competitive job market the same holds true for job seekers. It is not enough to be good, you need to be great to get placed with an employer. Let’s take a closer look what that means for your job search strategy.

Olympic athletes leave nothing to chance. They have a clearly defined winning strategy. They choreograph every stage of their event. By that I mean they have a clear sense of how they will begin, how they will proceed and how they will finish their performance. They have a clear and strong winning strategy in place. How solid are you in all the elements of your career search strategy? Do you have a clear sense of every step of your job search process? If you don’t, you are going to be passed by other job seekers who know what they are doing.

Olympians use coaches to mentor and correct potentially costly mistakes. Are you using a career expert to advise you in your career search strategy? If not you are not getting vital help to give you a competitive advantage.

Olympians rely on cutting edge methodology and technology to give themselves every advantage in their performance. You are relying on yesterday’s career methodologies to compete in today’s job search? Are you hanging on old ways of doing a job search because it is comfortable instead of stretching and pushing yourself to be more up to date? If you want to be noticed and get interviews you need to adopt new methods for doing an effective job search.

And finally, are you practicing like an Olympian? Are you fully engaged and committed to investing the time and energy it takes to place? Good enough will not cut it. It takes hours and hours to come up with clear and compelling SAR (Situation-Action-Result) stories that will showcase your strengths and achievements.

I hope you enjoyed watching the winter Olympics as much as I did.  Now it’s time to remember the lessons from the athletes for top performance and apply them to your career strategy job search.

Gary Prehn is a Career Management Solutions Career Advisor in Southern California.

Just one more thing — Peter Clayton of Total Picture Radio believes recruiter confidence is picking up.  He writes, “According to the latest ExecuNet Recruiter Confidence Index, a growing number of companies are adding new executive jobs, and fewer are eliminating them, leading executive recruiters to confirm economic recovery is beginning to take hold.” You can listen to the podcast at: Total Picture Radio (with Peter Clayton).

One of the things I hear the most from job seekers is how difficult it is to quantify results form their past work experience. Everyone agrees that doing so is helpful, if not critical, to the job search. However, most find it difficult to show a measurement for something they have done in the past. They didn’t keep track of the numbers, or they cant remember them now, or they “were just doing their job” and don’t really know what measurable impact their impact had on the end result. Or, and this is really most often the case, they are confused and scared as to how to do this important work.

If you are one of the people who has had trouble quantifying results, then I’d like to invite you to join me in this week’s challenge – “One CAR Statement per day.” Writing one a day will help you get past the fear and confusion to take a giant leap forward in your career search. Here’s how it works.

1) Go to the section on “Writing CARS” in Careers 2.0. Here’s a link (you will have to log in to Careers 2.0)
2) Work on one (just one) CAR Statement each day.
3) Post it here in the comments of this blog post to share with others and get their feedback.

You can use these on your resume, in your networking, as part of an interview, and in negotiating for a higher salary! It’s simple. I’ll start.

CONDITION: In the fall of 2001 five denominations were planning their joint summer camp curriculum for the next summer.

ACTIVITY: They brought a group of us together to brainstorm themes and activities based on a topic that would be used nationwide by more than 200 camp programs. I was assigned to write the curriculum for the older children (grades 4-6). I had to research both the topic and the learning styles/needs of this age group.

RESULT: I wrote a curriculum and it was well received. I turned in my curriculum on time. One Camp Director even said that it was the best in the series (in her opinion). Curriculum titled: “Under God’s Roof: Daily Discoveries for Older Children”, Summer Camp Curriculum, published by the Cooperative Publication Association, March 2002.

STATEMENT: Researched topic and learning needs and wrote a curriculum that was used by over 200 summer camp programs nationwide in 2002.

Will you join me in this week’s challenge? Post your CARS Statements in the comments and let us all know what you have accomplished.

Companies are beginning to hire, and that means they will actually be at the Job Fairs this year.  If you want to get the most our of your time at a job fair, some helpful tips are in order.  Here are my top 7 “DO’s and DON’Ts”:

1. DON’T go to a Job Fair expecting to get a job.  Very few people actually get a job from a Job Fair.  If you are putting all your eggs into this basket, you will be very disappointed.
2. DO go to a Job Fair expecting to gain information about several companies – one of them MAY become your next employer.  Ask lots of questions related to the company, industry, and how a person with your background might fit in.
3. If you attend a Job Fair with others, DON’T “cluster.”  Spread out.  Meet new people (employers AND Job Seekers). Make sure that you do not spend all of your time talking to people you already know, that defeats one of the most important reasons for attending a Job Fair – to meet new people and grow your network.
4. DO be clear about the kind of position you are seeking.  Have a career objective in mind, and stick with it.  This will help you and the recruiters find a better “fit” for you and the company.
5. DO keep your eyes open for opportunities to help connect others in your network.  If you can connect a potential employee with a potential employer, you will build credibility with both parties!  (Of course, this “DO” assumes that you have a network to share information with.  If not, build one NOW!)
6. DO have plenty of business cards and resumes to hand out.  Distribute the business cards liberally, and give a copy of your resume directly to a potential employer.  (In other words, don’t just set it on a pile, or it will probably go directly into a recycling bin!)
7. DO plan to meet 2 or 3 new people, get their business card, and ask if you can follow up with them for a cup of coffee within the next week . . . then DO follow up!  Remember, “the money is in the follow up!”

Have fun at these fairs.  They can be a great place to meet new people and learn about a company or two that you may have some interest in.  Just don’t expect to come away with a job, or you may be very disappointed.

People are pursuing jobs today like fisherman going after fish at a popular lake with a local reputation for lots of big fish. The trouble is that the fishing today at this lake isn’t what it used to be. In the past everyone was confident of getting plenty of strikes and landing at least one or two decent keepers. Those days are gone, yet fisherman keep hoping it will get better again.

Today the lake shore is crowded with fisherman (job seekers) desperately waiting for a bite. They are flailing the water with different lures and baits trying to find a tactic that will produce fish — a job, any job.

The problem is that most of the fish are gone and the few that are still in the lake are small. So what are the fisherman doing? They try harder and long. They change tactics. They move around to different spots on the lake hoping to get a hit. Just changing up your resume or improving your interviewing techniques isn’t going to make much difference in the outcome. Those methods will only work if there are fish to be caught.

Some job seekers are even demanding that the government should do something to create new jobs. That is like saying the fisheries department should stock more hatchery raised fish in the lake. Think about it, stocked fish are usually minimum catchable size, translate that into “low paying jobs.” There is a limited quantity dumped into the lake, people rush to catch them and they are soon fished out. Are more government created jobs what we are really fishing for?

It’s time to rethink your strategy. What is it that you are after? Is it a job or is it rewarding work? There is a shortage of jobs today but there is not a shortage of work. To find work you need to change your strategy and stop wasting time where the jobs and the crowds of fisherman are. It’s time to stop chasing after small number of minimum size jobs that are being pursued by the crowds.

Finding meaningful work in today’s climate will take a new strategy. It means turning away from the overfished lake and seeking out the less accessible but better populated ponds and streams. A new strategy means risking and trying a whole new approach that focuses on targeting rewarding work and not a job. There is meaningful work out there, it looks different than a job but it will take a new strategy to find it and catch it.

Next Tuesday I will go into more detail about the difference between a “job” and “meaningful work” and will focus on the strategy to use for landing the latter.

Gary Prehn is a career management professional living and working in Southern California.  His specialty is in helping people over 50 find meaningful work.  He writes this column every Tuesday.

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A while back I attended an event at which three recruiters from large companies told us what they look for in job candidates. It was interesting to get “the inside scoop” on the hiring process. VERY interesting! Here are some of the things I learned [peppered with my own HINTS]:

1) When a company posts an opening they usually get 500 or more applications. The ONLY way they can sort through that kind of volume is to use a piece of software to do it for them. Guess what means to you.  If your resume doesn’t exactly fit the key words for the specific job posting it probably won’t make it through the initial screening. [HINT: If you are going to apply for an online posting, be sure your resume fits as closely as possible with the job description in the posting -- and NEVER lie about your experience!]

2) Recruiters KNOW that this process screens out dozens of candidates who are more qualified than the ones they are actually interviewing, but they simply have no choice. [HINT: Get to the recruiter BEFORE they put the posting online -- we have some helpful ways to do that!]

3) Recruiters would rather view their job as a strategic effort of the organization, than simply a “position filling” service. In that regard, the BEST recruiters are looking to fill positions down the line as well as the one in front of them. [HINT: Upsell yourself by helping the recruiter see your potential to get promoted through the ranks of their organization. That way you will help them fill both the current job for which they are interviewing AND the one they will need to fill in a year or two.]

Perhaps the most important thing to remember when working with recruiters is that less than 15% of people find their job this way.  You can increase your odds by treating the recruiter as a networking partner.  Follow the rules of networking, and recruiters can become a helpful tool for helping you find a job.

Happy Hunting!

Related Posts

• How To Work With A Recruiter In Your Job Search
• Are You Ready To Get Hired?
• Are You Sick And Tired of Being Sick and Tired?
• What is a Personal Brand and Why Do You Need One?
• 7 Key Ways to Promote Your Personal Brand

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