Keep It Confidential?

Maybe you’re an employed job seeker? You’re actually in a prime situation and position to seek gainful employment, no matter how dismal your situation may seem. How do you keep your employer from finding out about your job search?

1. Start by making your number 1 objective keeping your current job, no matter how much you dislike it… At least until you secure a new employment opportunity.
2. Be aware of the fact that you have a third job (in addition to keeping your current job and searching for another one)… Keeping your job search to yourself. It is your job to keep your job search to yourself and under the radar of your current employer. Secrets generally aren’t good things, especially when it comes to your employer. However, this is one of the very few times we suggest keeping a secret from your employer.
3. Make sure to do a social network cleanup. Your LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook profiles are all relevant to and an important part of your job search, given the fact that recruiting has now become social and employers frequently reference these profiles when researching you as a quality, qualified candidate. You must strike a subtle balance with your profiles. Let recruiters and hiring managers know, via your profiles, that you’re open to the right opportunities, but remember that your current employer and coworkers more than likely have access to your profiles as well. Words to the wise: Privacy Settings. Or, reconsider all together the friending and/or following of your boss and coworkers.  Networking, both on and off line is part of the job search experience, but there is a right and a wrong way to do it.
4. For whatever reason you wish to depart from your current employer, make sure to never bad mouth them. This is a guaranteed way to have word get out that you’re not only seeking employment elsewhere, but it’s also a way to make sure you violate and work against the attainment of your first objective, keeping your current job until you find a new one.
5. Know where your resume and information is going before you send them. If you’re applying to a position, where the company is unidentifiable, you should reexamine sending your information. Who’s to say it’s not your current employer or someone else real close to home?

Contemplate the 5 points above and remember that the only person you can truly trust is yourself.

Sleep with one eye closed. Apply with both eyes opened.

 

Recommended:

1. Career Planning Course | Learn how to plan for your career and your life – even with all things unpredictable in mind. 
2. Employment Law Course | This course focuses on salary information, employment law, employee benefits and legal resources.

Get The Executive Gig: Tips

Ready to land that new executive gig? If so, you need to be prepared to stand up and stand out. There is no other way, especially in the market of today, that you will accomplish this objective. Securing an executive gig takes a lot of time, so we’ve put together a short list of tips, to help you land the executive gig:

• Make sure you have a killer resume. You might even consider utilizing a resume writing service, more specifically, an executive resume writing service.
• When applying for an executive gig, more so than usual, seek to truly understand the institution as a whole, the hr/recruiting department, the opportunity and your competition. Use all of this information to better understand and articulate your alignment with the institution and opportunity.
• Be prepared to communicate, written and verbally, your overall affect [as it relates to your previous position(s)], on corporate earnings, market share, cost effectiveness (in various capacities) and overall value.

Take the above quick tips and use them to finally land the executive gig you desire!

Recommended:

1. The 5 Day Career Success Course | This is a 5 day, online, self-paced course, that includes 5 downloadable workbooks and online streaming audio. 
2. Use A Cover Letter? | How do you use your cover letter?

Hunting

Looking for a job?

Securing employment is not the task it once was. Job hunting is not the best its ever been, nor is it the worst.

We’ve compiled a list of the things to do, and not to do, when job hunting.

Check it out.

 

DO…

• Google yourself. Find out what Google is saying about you… Because employers will be doing this exact thing and this could disqualify you, depending on the message.
• Make your social networking sites private. Employers will check these out as well (should come up in your Google Search), you want to have as much control as possible over the access employers have to your personal networks.
• Create a LinkedIn Profile. Recommend this profile to employers if asked for your social networking information, especially if they want access to your Facebook Account
• Add the social networks that you want employers to see, to your resume. Then cross your fingers and hope that they don’t find the others.
• Remember that comments made on message boards, and other things not on a profile you have access to, are available to appear in searches done by employers as well. While you don’t want to mask your real self, based on someone who doesn’t support the same rights or social issues that you do (and the like); remember that a hiring manager may be on the opposite side of the issue as you, and may disqualify you, based on their personal inability to differentiate personal best interest from professional best interest.
• Remember that other applicants are most likely just as qualified for the job, or more, than you. The small, personal things will set you apart and sell your potential added value.
• Remember that you are ALWAYS being watched, from the time you enter the parking lot to the time you exit the parking lot. Be on your best behavior.
• Remember your manners. At all times, with all people.
• Research the companies and hiring manager you are looking to work with. Do this both before applying to the position and before an interview.
• Realize that you are qualifying the company just as much a they are qualifying you. You rock and are super talented – Don’t waste your skills and time with the wrong company.
• Check out a company, such as Glassdoor, to find out information about the company. Sites like this will give you information from both the company AND people who have worked there (current and past).
• Make your resume brief. The longer your resume, the shorter the chance of it being read.
• Make the skills and accomplishments in your resume directly related to the position you want. All the other skills and accomplishments are extra crud, weighing your resume down – Take them out, they don’t matter.

 

 

DO NOT …

• Assume that because you are “qualified” for jobs that things will be easy. They won’t be.
• Give your Facebook account access information to anyone, including employers. You will be assisting them in violating the Facebook Terms of Use.
• Get discouraged if you are no longer considered for a position after refusing to give your personal account access information to employers. Would you really want to work for such an intrusive company anyways?
• Forget to do an image search when you Google yourself. Pictures are just as important as profiles.
• Use any technical toy (phone, music player, tablet, etc.) while waiting to be interviewed.
• Drink alcohol at least 6 hours before a potential job interview.
• Have a boring interview where you just sit and answer questions. Remember to qualify the employer and ask questions.
• Answer your cell phone, AT ALL, regardless of the reason, during an interview. If the call is THAT important, you probably needn’t be at the interview.
• Chew gum… Or eat a candy bar… Or eat a mint… Or eat a cough drop… Or chew something fruity and chewy… During an interview.
• Go to an interview if you have an outstanding federal warrant and the company does background checks. Just turn yourself in.
• Lie. simple.

The Showcase

Your cover letter is a showcase of you. It’s important to note that all hiring managers don’t pay attention to the showcase. For these hiring managers, your cover letter never can and never will interest them. For other hiring managers, the showcase, your cover letter, is the main event. In some cases, your cover letter can be more important than your actual resume. All things considered, because you never know how the hiring manager reviewing your resume will feel about cover letters, always be prepared. Always have a cover letter.

 

One benefit that you get from cover letter that you can’t get from resumes, is the ability to showcase your personality and communication skills. Accomplishing this is infinitely easier to achieve via a cover letter, compared to a resume. Neither your resume or cover letter will get you hired. They will simply get your foot in the door. They are the showcase that will lead to the interview.

 

Um… About Your Resume

Everyday, we go through a LOT of resumes… REALLY, a LOT of resumes! We see the good resumes, the bad resumes and the downright ugly resumes. Because our aim is to assist you in your efforts to secure gainful employment, we have complied a few pointers for your resume…

The End Of Resumes?

Have you ever received confirmation of a company receiving your resume? Chances are, you haven’t. Resumes have become just as much a hassle for candidates as they have for employers.

Some companies are getting rid of the hassle of resumes all together and substituting them with candidate web content. Don’t be surprised if the next employer you reach out to  in your efforts to secure employment, asks you to send a video about yourself and your qualifications.

Some of the applications being utilized as a substitute for resumes are LinkedIn profiles, video resumes and online assessments. Many employers feel that resumes don’t provide in depth information about you and are not personal. Employers want to know what you are like. They want to know about your personality and if it will fit with their corporate culture. They want to know how creative you are, how you think.

Because applications such as online assessments can be tailored to specific positions, employers can get a better feel, compared with a resume, about a candidates true qualifications for the position.

This change in the acceptance of resumes may actually benefit 3 groups of candidates, those that didn’t attend college, those that have too little work experience and those who don’t know how to present their resume in a manner that presents them as a quality candidate (a wide group of applicants). For most individuals in these groups, if an employer relied only on a resume, they wouldn’t stand a chance! An online assessment, video resume and/or LinkedIn profile may be to their benefit.

Your Emails To Employers

Are you following the instructions of the employer when submitting your resume and cover letter? 

Are your resume and cover letter written well?

Are you listing the position in the subject line of the email?

Does your signature contain your contact information? 

Are you spell and grammar checking your correspondence before sending it?