Job Search Tips 2011

Best Job Search Tips 2011
Here are Bizzable’s Job Search Tips for 2011.

1. Set goals and map out your day.

How many emails? How many phone calls? How much time networking online? Face to Face?

2. Research the companies that you want to work for, don’t be afraid to propose a position that can help them.

It’s a gutsy move but a well thought out, attainable and lucrative business plan will intrigue an prospective employer.

3. Write a targeted resume for each company, each position.

Never send a blanket resume and cover letter to every employer. It shows through and gets passed up in a nano second.

4. Look under free hidden rocks.

Bizzable’s staff searches 24/7 for hidden jobs and gives you centralized access in the free job search section.

5. Network, network, network.

Don’t underestimate the power of social media, the phone and face to face.

6. If you are not employed, volunteer at companies so that you retain a professional presence. Get out of the house every day.

7. Stay on track and don’t give up.Don’t expect results immediately.

8. Be prepared for the call back.

Many a job is lost by the poorly prepared. Give out the right contact info, answer your phone, walk with a cheat sheet on your strengths, be ready for an impromptu video conference call. Step outside if the dog is barking. Turn the TV off.

MY THOUGHTS

if you're not looking for a job, forward this to someone who is. I don't understand why you need to get out of the house everyday. i guess, maybe you might like it too much you'd want to remain unemployed for life.

Job Hunting in Secret

Job Hunting in Secret: 6 Smart Tips
By Farnoosh Torabi | Jan 12, 2011

After two years of wage cuts, slashed bonuses and watching co-workers get laid off, American workers have finally built up enough frustration to tell their bosses, “I quit.” According to a survey last month by Right Management, 84% of workers plan to actively seek a new position in 2011, up from 60% in 2008. That might explain the dozen or so LinkedIn requests I received this week alone.

Job hunting now is certainly an ambitious task, especially after last week’s underwhelming jobs report. And as the saying goes, it’s often easier to find a job when you already have one - so don’t start packing up your cubicle just yet. Meanwhile, you want to be discreet. Here are some suggestions on how to secretly hunt for a new job as you dream of the day you hand in your two weeks’ notice.

1. Keep Communication Private

Printing out your resume at work and faxing it to another company’s HR department is like playing with fire. Avoid potentially compromising situations by keeping all job hunting-related communication away from your 9 to 5; if you don’t have a printer at home, find a friend with one, or use a nearby Kinko’s. Keep email discussions with prospective employers on a personal account. And if you must take a call from a prospective employer during work hours, do it on your cell and outside the building where you can speak freely.

2. Submit Your Online Resume Carefully

If you submit your resume to a public site, be careful. Your boss could come across it since many times your resume gets blasted to hundreds of companies, perhaps even your own. Instead, post on job sites where you have the option of keeping your company name and contact information hidden. Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com and SimplyHired are a few major job listing sites that offer confidential resume postings.

3. Watch What You Wear

Got a lunchtime meeting with a prospective boss? Unless everyone at your job wears suits, that interview suit will give you away. Men, if your attire is typically business casual, keep your interview tie in the car. Women, think about adding a jacket over a dress or keeping a pair of heels in your purse (or both) to take your outfit up a notch professionally.

4. Take Vacation or Personal Days for Interviews

Avoid taking sick days to interview. What happens if you actually do get the flu and need time off? Instead, take personal time off or a vacation day to schedule interviews. Book several in one day to maximize your time off and still have vacation time left for relaxing.

5. Video-Interview from Home

If a potential new job is out of town or out of state and you can’t take time off for the initial interview, ask if you can meet via a webcam-enabled service like Skype. A growing number of companies are doing this to save money and time. Make the appointment during a time when you are home - early, before you head into the office, or at lunch time or after work. My friend is actually going to a “speed interviewing” session one night this month, where she’ll meet a dozen or so prospective employers in an hour. They group is holding the session via Skype: It’s not only convenient, but it eliminates the risk of running into a co-worker.

6. Interview After Hours

Don’t be hesitant to suggest a time to meet beyond the 9 to 5 schedule. Meeting up after work or on the weekends is not unusual if you have a current job. Suggest a nice bookstore or coffee shop that is convenient for the interviewer.

MY THOUGHTS

i call this professional job hunting. don't you get amazed with those guys who are finding ways to leave the company but using the same company's resources? doesn't say much about them, right?

Do You Need a New Job?

Think You Need a New Job? You’re Probably Wrong
By Penelope Trunk | January 6, 2011

If landing a new job is on your resolution list, I’m encouraging you to scratch it off. Most people want to change jobs for the wrong reasons-namely, to solve non-work problems. Here’s why that’s faulty thinking:

When it comes to careers, there is not a right answer.

There is not one, certain kind of job that is right for you. There are lots of jobs that are a good fit for your personality, and it’s likely that you are doing one of those jobs already. The problem is that many people think they should be doing something else with their life - people often have an idea of who they should be that is different than who they are. And this is what makes people think they should change careers.

My favorite career guide is Do What Your Are, by Paul Tieger. Tieger is a psychologist who specializes in matching people’s personalities with jobs. He says you should spend the effort figuring out who you really are and what drives you so that you can land a job that let’s you use your strengths. This book taught me that every job is fulfilling to someone; it’s just a matter of proper matching. And what makes a job fulfilling is not about the company you’re at, or the perceived quality of your career path.

I bet you are thinking, “Well, some jobs are definitely bad: coal mining would be too much for me.” That might be true, but the same is true with being a lawyer: Both jobs totally suck. The reason is that you need only three things to make any job good:

* Control over your work environment
* Control over your workload
* Challenging goals you can meet

If you have these three things then your job will not prevent you from being happy. Coal mining does not give you control over your environment, so you constantly fear for your safety. Lawyering does not give you control over your workload, so you have to cater at your client’s whim if you want to keep your income stream.

So why do people continue to talk about the perfect job, the best job, the most successful, and on and on? I think it’s because it’s so hard to turn inward, and to admit our limitations. Isn’t it easier just to chase a new job?

So what will make you happier?

If you’re not married, refocus your search from jobs to a spouse. Sound crazy? It’s not. The biggest factor we can change to improve our lives is our relationships with other adults. I know this is not politically correct, but married people are happier, by a long shot, than unmarried people. Sure, this might be self-fulfilling: people who are happier find a mate; people who are more optimistic get married. But whatever the reason, your happiness will go up significantly if you get married.

If you are married, instead of dumping your job, dump your plans to have kids. I know, I know….but here’s the deal: Kids do not make parents happier. Really. There is research to show this. It’s not that they make you unhappy, but on balance, they take up all your time and energy and make marriage more difficult.

Changing a career is so time consuming and emotionally challenging. Maybe you’ll get a job, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll like the new career, maybe you won’t. What about taking all that energy you were going to expend on your work life, and teach yourself to meditate. The research behind meditation is so overwhelmingly positive that meditation is now mandatory for marines. So much of life is playing the odds: I say, gamble on meditation, not your job.

MY THOUGHTS

sometimes you come across an article that makes you completely speechless. i want to argue. but i have no one to argue with. so, consider me speechless at this time.

Is There Hope for a Job-Hopper?

Is There Hope for a Job-Hopper?
By Suzanne Lucas | November 12, 2010

Dear Evil HR Lady,

I am 48 years old with an MBA in business management from a non-traditional university. In my younger years, I would skip around from job to job as boredom would quickly overtake the excitement of a new career path. Today, I find myself unemployed after being part of a department-wide downsizing a year and a half ago.

For the past year and a half, I have been self-employed and have worked to build name recognition, but now I want to go back to being an employee. My broad and diverse background is a gentle way to express the many things I’ve done in life. I have been that front desk person, the admin person, the HR recruiter, the holistic wellness expert, the emergency room clerk, the DJ, the newspaper reporter, the entrepreneur, the tradeshow consultant, the non-profit employee, the sales rep, the disaster response worker, the staffing specialist … I even spent some time attempting to build the next QVC (obviously, that was a dismal failure!).

I have been released from, or asked to leave, five different positions. Why? Because each time I was told that since I could do the job of the CEO, the HR Director, the Business Manager, and/or the Regional Manager … there simply “wasn’t room for the two of us”. From my perspective, all I did with each position was the job I was hired to do (I hope this statement doesn’t make me a jerk).

Today I am gun-shy, so to speak. Have you come across others with this same dilemma? It is my experience that companies want their prospective employees to be an expert at one thing only; they do not want a “jack of all trades” such as I on their payroll. Am I a hopeless case, or is there light at the end of the tunnel?

There’s always light at the end of the tunnel. The problem is that it is sometimes a train.

As you’ve surmised, your “broad” background looks an awful lot like job-hopping to those of us who figured out what we wanted to be when we were 7 and stuck with it for the rest of our lives. (Okay, when I was 7 I wanted to be a nurse, but then I found out that you had to deal with bodily fluids, and well, ick.) It’s true that people are far more likely to move from company to company and from career to career now than they were years ago, but it’s also true that we like to hire people who know what they are doing in the particular job we are hiring for.

I’m going to give you what I hope is a bit of insight into your firings. I have no doubt that you’re a fabulous worker and that you’re bright and that you have great ideas. But, I also have no doubt that you overstep boundaries.

Being told, “There isn’t room for the two of us” isn’t a compliment on your abilities, but a “nice” way of saying, “you are doing things way outside your job description, making decisions you shouldn’t be making, and attempting to manage people and processes that you should not be managing. Meanwhile, you’re neglecting the tasks you should be managing.” They don’t need two people in the lead job because what they do need is one person doing the job you were hired to do.

Of course, as you know, getting the job in the first place is going to be hard. Here are some tips:

You cannot go into the job search with the idea that you are a hopeless case. That will show through in the interview.

You’ve obviously got some talent interviewing or you wouldn’t have been able to make so many career moves. Use that to your advantage.

Your best bet is to network with your former coworkers. They know your skills and may be able to spot positions you’d be good at.

When you find out about a job through networking, try to speak to the hiring manager before presenting your resume. Convince him that you’re the right person before he sees your job-hopping past.

Pick out what you want to do, and rewrite your resume to reflect the skills you have that apply to the new job. For instance, if you decide you want to go back to being a tradeshow consultant, you’ll need to demonstrate your organizational skills. So, under the “disaster response worker” portion of your resume, don’t write “responded to disasters” (duh!) write about how you organized the other workers, managed the relief supplies, or whatever it is that you did.

Don’t spread a wide net in your job search, hoping for anything. Job searches almost always go better when they are targeted.

Be prepared to answer why you want to be an employee. Really prepared, because you’ll be grilled on it.

You also should do some introspection and decide if you really want to be an employee again. I suppose you aren’t doing fabulously well at your current venture or you wouldn’t be looking for a job, but perhaps you should try a different line of business. If you have issues with overstepping your manager’s boundaries, it might be best for you to be the boss. (But of course, you’ll have to learn how to delegate and trust that the work will get done once you have people working for you.)

And keep in mind, even if that light is coming from a train, just move to the side a little bit, and hop on it as it passes.

MY THOUGHTS

what else can i say. sometimes you get to a point where the only door that opens is the oddor opened through a friend. what does it matter? you need that open door. get your foot in and show your new employer that your friend is not lying when he said you're the best. you owe that much to your friend. and to yourself. then stop hopping.

Finding a Job: Know the Interview Questions

The 7 Interview Questions You Must Ask
By Brian Libby | February 27, 2007

There are no magic bullets when it comes to job interview questions, but the way you structure your queries is important: It's the interviewer's job to create a framework for the discussion and prevent it from running off the rails. Every company's needs are different, but a good basic strategy is to ground the interview in questions about past job performance. Then throw in some situational questions to evaluate practical decision making, and learn a little bit about how the job fits in with a candidate's biography.

Question #1: "How about those Yankees?"
Purpose: Develop the rapport needed to get the interview off the ground.

Every interview should begin with an icebreaker. It helps nervous applicants calm down and builds a sense of trust. If you have a 45-minute interview, you should spend at least the first five minutes trying to connect on a neutral topic. Make the person feel at ease and you'll solicit better information—and much more honest responses.

Alternate Version 1: "Did you go to the industry conference last week?"

Alternate Version 2: "Were you affected by the heat wave/cold snap?"

Alternate Version 3: "Did you have a good holiday?"

Question #2: "Talk about a time when you had to overcome major obstacles."
Purpose: Get a clear picture of the candidate's past performance.

Variations on this question should actually comprise your next several questions. Don't hesitate to guide the candidate through the variety of tasks (both tangible and theoretical) necessary to perform the job, and listen carefully to how he or she has handled such challenges. Pay attention to intangibles: some people are better at performing in interviews than on the job. If your candidate continually plays the role of hero or victim, that's a red flag that you're probably not getting the whole story.

Alternate Version 1: "Tell me about a time when you wrote a report that was well received. Why do you think it was successful?"

Alternate Version 2: "Describe a time when you hired (or fired) the wrong person."

Alternate Version 3: "If you had to do that activity again, how would you do it differently?"


See Also: How to Conduct a Job Interview

Question #3: "What interests you about this position?"
Purpose: Find out how the candidate feels about the job and the company.

People apply for jobs for plenty reasons besides the obvious ones. Asking a candidate why he or she wants the position gives insight into their motivation. The answer may be personal (such as a narrative about what spurred them to seek a new job), or it may connect the candidate to the company: her experience with the brand, the mission statement, or the organization's role in the community. Any of these answers (or some combination) are acceptable—a personal answer can communicate trust, and a connection to the business indicates loyalty and a sense of ownership.

Alternate Version 1: "Where does this job fit into your career path?"

Alternate Version 2: "If you had to convince a friend or colleague to apply for this job, what might you tell them?"

Alternate Version 3: "What motivated you to apply for this job?"

Question #4: "Is there intelligent life in outer space?"
Purpose: Find out what kind of thinker the candidate is and how he deals with surprises.

This is your curveball, designed to make the candidate ad-lib instead of just reciting well-rehearsed answers. How much will he or she play along? As long as it's not too short or too long, virtually any response is a good one. But pay attention to attitude, the way the candidate approaches the problem, and the ease or difficulty they have in coming up with a response.

Alternate Version 1: "How many phone books are there in New York City?"

Alternate Version 2: "How do they get the cream filling inside a Twinkie?"

Alternate Version 3: "Why do people climb mountains?"

Question #5: "Imagine we've just hired you. What's the most important thing on your to-do list on the first day of work?"
Purpose: Learn about the candidate's judgment and decision-making skills.

This is an example of a situational question, which is like a behavioral question in that it's designed to assess judgment, but it's also like a curveball question because it illuminates the candidate's thought process. You want to see whether he demonstrates the competencies and priorities that are important to the job.

Alternate Version 1: "Say a coworker tells you that he submitted phony expense account receipts. Do you tell your boss?"

Alternate Version 2: "How would you handle an employee whose performance is fine but who you know has the potential to do better?"

Alternate Version 3: "What would you do if you got behind schedule with your part of a project?"

See Also: 10 Mistakes You’re Probably Making in Job Interviews

Question #6: "Why did you get into this line of work?"
Purpose: Measure the fit between the candidate's values and the culture of your company.

It risks a long, drawn-out answer, but this type of question will help you select candidates that fit your company's culture. It's not about finding people like you, or people with similar backgrounds that led them to your company, but about getting a sense of their values and motivations. Concepts like values and culture can be subjective and difficult to define, but you should be looking for someone whose work ethic, motivations, and methods match the company's. This isn't a quantitative measurement so much as a qualitative one. Coke and Pepsi may seem the same to people outside the soft-drink industry, but each houses people with different approaches to making cola and running a business.

Alternate Version 1: "What do you like best about your current job?"

Alternate Version 2: "When did you realize this would be your career?"

Alternate Version 3: "What keeps you coming to work besides the paycheck?"

Question #7: "But enough about you. What about us?"
Purpose: Find out if the candidate has done his or her homework.

It's a cliché to end an interview with the standard, 'So, any questions?' But the fact remains that you really do want to let the candidate ask a few things of you. Reversing roles communicates that the company seeks an open a dialogue, and it helps you ascertain just how curious and knowledgeable a candidate is about your company. If he doesn't ask any questions about the job or the business, it's a safe bet his heart isn't in it. Listen for insightful questions that demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of the circumstances of the job, the company, the competitive landscape, or the industry.

Alternate Version 1: "Where do you think the company should be in ten years?"

Alternate Version 2: "What's your opinion of our new product?"

Alternate Version 3: "Have you seen the company's new ad campaign?"

MY THOUGHTS

people looking for jobs should read this article. it tells them what a good company is looking for and how a really good interviewer would throw the questions to make a most objective assessment.i read somewhere that most decisions are made during the first few minutes of the interview.i've learned as much from experience. of the hundreds of people i've interviewed my decision not to hire came after 1 or 2 questions. so,if you're not going to make it, you probably won't makeit past question #2.