NotesFromTheJobSearchSeattle

Notes From The Job Search

2011-09-27T09:07:00.000-07:00

www.NotesFromTheJobSearch.com is now up and running. I just added a post that is a note from one of the grads who is now working at a terrific job. Take a look.

Boring Resumes

2011-09-06T14:21:00.000-07:00

I had a fascinating discussion with one of my clients last week. It helped me understand in a new way one of the pieces in the resume selection process. This particular client (he’s a “ C” level guy) had at one point used someone from The Ladder's to evaluate his resume. The feedback he got included a variety of things. The piece that caught my attention was a complaint about using the word “developed” on his resume, as in, “Developed and implemented yada yada yada”. Apparently this particular reviewer has seen that word more than they want. Actually, my guy reported that he had received a rant advocating the removal of this word from the English language. What I got from this wasn't so much that the word doesn't belong on resumes, but that this reviewer had seen it a lot and it had started to bug him.

Remembering that the primary purpose of a resume is getting an interview and how very convoluted the path to that has become, it caused me to add another wrinkle. Your resume can’t be boring. Isn’t that just crazy? How the heck are you supposed to do that? How can you know that you’ve achieved it? Of course you know that I wouldn’t be writing a blog post if I didn’t have some ideas.

Part one is to find a variety of ways to describe your accomplishments and your behavior. For example, if you are a writer, then you are (of course) paid to write, and the temptation to start most of your bullet points with the word “Wrote” will be substantial. What this feedback tells us is that we need to find synonyms. How about, “composed” or “created” or “developed” or “built”? Each of these has a slightly different meaning than “wrote”, but each would be appropriate in its own situation. Instead of, “Wrote help documentation for health care related web system.” Use “Built and deployed help documentation for a health care related web system.”

Part two is building your own semi-formal “style guide” and starting with a rigid requirement to limit the use of any single word to two iterations. This means when you find yourself using some specific word more than two times, you search out a synonym.

Part three is recognizing that the highest percentage play in job search is networking, not internet applications. If a friend passes your resume to a hiring influence, then that bored “screener” never sees it. It also changes the focus of the whole hiring process from “How can we screen this person out?” to “How well can this person do the job?”

Three accountant positions available.

2011-08-30T16:55:00.000-07:00

Steve and I are part Native American. The different Native American organizations we belong to send us help wanted notices periodically. Sealaska, a native organization, sent a notice that there are three staff accountant positions available. They give preference to natives, but do hire non-natives routinely. Go to www.sealaska.com career section to apply.

Notes From the Job Search

2011-08-24T17:12:00.000-07:00

"The time has come the walrus said, to speak of many things" As in the blog is moving and will be evolving into a real web page. You can find us at NotesFromtheJobSearch.com

Branding

2011-08-05T08:57:00.000-07:00

I’ve talked about StrengthsFinder and branding a couple of times before and how they interact and how they can help your career. Recently, I’ve had a couple of my clients who demonstrated what can happen if you ignore them.

Person "A" is a tech writer whose number one strength is “Connectedness” and number two is “Communication.” His last few gigs have been contracts with increasing levels of isolation, eventually working for a virtual company. (You know the deal, a “virtual” company is one that has no office.) In his personal life, this person is completely plugged into his community. He volunteers with troubled kids, he’s a Veteran and volunteers at VA, etc, etc. His personal life also works great. His professional life has slowly been spiraling down with increasing problems and decreasing effectiveness and no explanations; just random non-directed anger. When he took Strengths Finder, he looked at his strengths and for the first time started to understand what his real needs were. He recognized that as much as he loves writing (and he does love writing), he needed more in order to be effective.

Person “B” is an engineer. He worked for the same company for 10 years coming out of college. The first two were doing new projects and he was terrific. Great reviews, bonuses, etc. His whole team got re-orged into a test role and his performance slowly spiraled down (along with his morale) until he eventually went on a “performance improvement plan”, then finally he quit; with absolutely no plan and no idea how to get one. When he took the Strengthsfinder test, his number one strength turned out to be “Harmony”. So in this case we have someone who is all about peacemaking/peace keeping being required to tell people how badly they did.

I find myself talking more and more about “brand” in my practice and these are a couple of examples of why. For humans, our brand is that set of work behaviors we do just because we got up. Not the stuff we try to do, not the stuff we learned. It is the stuff we always do. In the two examples above, Person A will be fabulous if he has the kind of contact he needs with the rest of the team. His last boss got pretty abusive, but even that could well have worked if they had been in the same office. Person B demonstrated his value doing new projects, and is terrific if he is in a place to build others up. Both need to understand their brands and make sure that they put themselves in situations that allow them to exercise that “Brand.”

Now that you got the job

2011-07-12T20:27:00.000-07:00

Matt Youngquist just published a "Brag" post on his blog and he said some things that are so spot on. Career Horizons does a terrific job and it's important to recognize that and thank them. This post takes a minute to ask the newly employed clients of Career Horizons to say thank you and to use their search as a source of growth. I am hereby forwarding these thoughts to the folks from NFJS that have recently gone to work as well. The following thoughts are paraphrased from Matt's post:

· Say "Thank you" to all of the people who have helped you through an amazingly difficult process and time. Even if the individual was simply an encouraging informational interview.

· Follow up on all of the opportunities you were pursuing and let them know you are off of the market. Say "Thank you." for whatever level of consideration they have given you. Think about the number of times some employer simply dropped off of the map part way through the process and remember not to be like that.

· Create a "Lessons Learned" document, maybe just notes, but whatever it is, make it something you can refer to over time and use in the future.

· Remember all of the bad behavior you experienced and make a very focused effort to not repeat any of it. If you are a hiring manager, work hard to create a process that is respectful of both the candidates and your company and actually addresses the questions that matter to you, your team and your company.

· Take a breath. Take a few minutes to be thankful. If you can take some time off, do so.

Most importantly, congratulate yourself and give the next person the same respect you were looking for when you were on the market.

BeKnown

2011-07-11T11:02:00.000-07:00

Watching the various “social networking” sites as they compete with each other is fascinating. I don’t understand some of it, but then I’m used to some level of confusion much of the time anyway….

Linkedin is now positioning itself as a place to put your best case resume so you will be miraculously found by the employer of your dreams (and live happily after).

Facebook has added “BeKnown” as the place to do your business networking and where you can post your resume and then have the employer of your dreams discover you, so you can live happily ever after….

Does anyone actually know someone that got recruited off of Linkedin? I’m a Career Coach and work with between 150 to 200 people a year and have yet to encounter someone who had that happen. I know that it does occur, it’s just not all that common.

The challenge is that all of us bring a lot to the table and it is very unusual for all of it to apply to a particular job we’re interested in. I’m an old guy, so I’ve had a lot of time to wear different hats, including Teacher, Salesman, Developer, IT Manager and now Career Coach and that doesn’t begin to capture my volunteer work. Turns out I’m not all that unusual in today’s market. I was told when I was in college that I would likely have 3 distinct careers, my kids were told to expect 7! So back to Linkedin, Which of those skill sets do I represent? Which set of accomplishments? How do I represent them? How do I capture 50 years of work history in 400 words or less? For that matter, how would I capture 4 years of college in 400 words or less?

Linkedin works great for claiming a set of experiences that demonstrate your brand, your core strengths, those things you always do. It works really well for connecting to your business friends. It is truly amazing for allowing us to know what those friends are doing today. I’m not so sure about how good it does as an advertisement.

Facebook is fabulous at helping us know what our personal friends are doing. It also has some semi-serious security issues and it includes a connection to that cousin/friend we all have who has a few “boundary issues” and has been known to post the pics from his last trip to BurningMan….. My point here is that BeKnown becomes a very hard sell, just because Facebook is so successful at creating/documenting personal and family communities. Job-Hunt.org had some additional thoughts and took the time to post them here.

An additional consideration is the amount of time spent on the computer. We have all heard that “networking” is the key to your next job, whatever your profession is. While Linkedin and Facebook (and Biznik and ….) are fabulous at documenting and tracking our network, the primary source of new connections is getting out and meeting people. I have certainly heard and read about people getting jobs via connections they have made and only made electronically, it just is not been the case for people I have worked with. I also have yet to meet someone who has told me about this as something that happened to them, so hoping that it will work seems like a very bad percentage play.

There are tools that we know work: custom resumes, Linkedin connections, letting your friends know you’re looking, volunteering, researching companies and following what they’re doing, etc. Focusing on these is a full time job, adding a tool with very uncertain value doesn’t look all that exciting.

Networking revisited

2011-06-16T21:32:00.000-07:00

We’ve all heard at least one rant about the importance of “networking” and had at least one friend complain about some “insider” getting a job the friend coveted. What to make of that?

Matthew Powell shared a great post from Harvard Business School (HBS) on the NFtJS Linkedin group recently and when combined with the number of NFtJS participants going back to work, it got me thinking about this process again. Both of these demonstrate that networking works. The challenge is to make it work for us. The Harvard article does about as good a job as we’re likely to encounter laying out the basic technology of networking and who to network with.

It’s a business school, so they ignore personal values and ethics, but in our lives these are critical. Attempting to establish a warm relationship with someone you don’t respect is just plain a bad idea. The number of problems it generates are very difficult to overstate and normally will drive bad outcomes. So don’t even attempt.

They also miss what is the single most important element: How to start the conversation, how to initiate the connection.

How do we (you) start these conversations? Obviously, there is no single magic question or line that will always get something useful started, anymore than there is a single line that will initiate great relationships with potential life partners. What I can suggest is an approach:

· Make the call. Waiting for someone else to create relationships that your livelihood is dependent on is risky at best and a disaster at worst. Nothing happens until you pick up the phone and make the call.

· Prepare! Learn what you can about the person, their role and what they are responsible for, then write out your questions ahead of time

· Pay it forward. A bit of a cliché, I know, but it works. While starting a conversation with, “How can I help?” has gotten pretty tired, there are an infinite number of variations and the more research you do, the more relevant and focused your questions can be. Here’s some examples:

o How long have you been in this position?

o What successful events occurred that gained you (the promotion, getting hired)?

o What do you like best about your job?

o What are your biggest challenges?

o Where do you think your job function is going in the future?

· Practice. There are people for whom this is natural, but that isn’t most of us. For most of us, we need a lot of practice.

One of the primary points the HBS post makes is that when networking, not all people are created equal. Through position or personality, some folks do count more than others. Some people connect more naturally and more often. In every case of networking for business, we want the biggest bang for our buck and that starts by recognizing that the CEO has more clout than the receptionist. Don’t discount the receptionist; they can be great resources for understanding a company and great allies in your career, they just aren't the CEO.

One of my clients is an Urban Planner, who had relocated to Seattle from Colorado about three years ago. When she got here, she didn’t know anyone. She was following her husband. She applied to every job she was qualified for and just got no traction. Eventually she started working with me and we came up with a networking strategy designed to create the local professional relationships she needed, and she started implementing the plan. She also connected with her network from Colorado, assuming it might pass something back into the Seattle area. What happened was that her Colorado network did what networks normally do, what every network normally does--they found an opening with someone they knew well; then they passed a resume to this person along with a recommendation, etc. etc. in Colorado. Guess what happened next… She got the job. She got the interview because she used to work with someone who used to work with someone who was hiring. She got the job because she was qualified AND she had been vouched for by someone the hiring influence knew and trusted.

The point is that “networks” are personal and local and by far the most important part of your job search. The more you work on them, the more they will work for you.

Job Search as Competition

2011-05-31T10:42:00.000-07:00

I was driving in my car and heard the Police song, “I can’t Stand Losing You”. I’m sure you remember it, there is a section where Sting repeats the line, “I can’t stand losing” about 20 times, might be 30. Then talks about he’s going to kill himself because he “lost” his girlfriend.

It got me thinking of how obsessed we have become as a society with “winning” and “losing”. Everything we do is described in those terms, we even have TV shows that are contests about who can “win” the heart of another. (Somebody has to watch The Bachelor).

I have also long understood job search in terms of creating relationships such that the job seeker can reasonably assess whether this is a good situation for them…. A process that echoes courting our future life partners waayyy too closely; simultaneously, we tend to think of a job interview in terms of “winning” or “losing”, rather than identifying a good “fit”.

Two stories come to mind: 1) One of the folks in NFJS was devastated recently because she didn’t even get an interview at a company she had previously worked with and from whom she had glowing reviews. 2) A very senior resource who was in an interview at Boeing where she had been given the full “Inquisition” style interview. There were five interviewers, each had specific questions and for this interview at least, there was no interaction allowed. Every time the candidate asked a question that was even vaguely job related she was rebuked. Not only was the question not answered, but she was genuinely scolded. At the end of the interview, they asked, “Do you have any questions?” then, when she started to ask about the job, she was once again reprimanded! Wow!

In both of these cases, there was this normal but weird mentality that missed a couple of core parts of what creates a good job: The attraction has to be mutual and it’s not a contest. Make no mistake, I’m as likely to compete as anyone. I see something that looks like a fit on paper and I feel like a failure if I don’t get that job! Never mind that the job description isn’t (or is) related to the actual job; I read 2 paragraphs on Craig’s List and I now “know” that this is “the” job for me! In the cold light of day it seems pretty silly, kind of like knowing that your “soul mate” is someone you watched as they walked by the coffee shop you were sitting in.

In his classic book, What Color is Your Parachute, Richard Bolles states that there are five questions that count for the employer and five questions that count for the employee. Interestingly, only one question relates to skills and both the employer and the employee have the same five questions.

Thinking about the two people mentioned earlier, the first person assumed the courtship was over because she had worked with them previously. The second one has absolutely no idea if she would be successful in this Boeing role – actually, Boeing doesn’t either, no matter how proud of their system they might be. At the end of their interview, there process will allow them to assess is the candidates technical skill set. Of the five questions, it is the second and it is an exceptionally poor predictor of success.

The point is that job search isn’t about winning and losing. It’s about creating sustainable relationships based on several personal attributes as well as job skills. Finding a good job is about understanding and evaluating those. For both sides.

Social Networking Tools

2011-05-18T11:29:00.000-07:00

I have to admit I personally have a mixed relationship with these tools. I am a blogger, have an active presence on Linkedin, at least a minimum presence on Facebook and have had a twitter account for a few years, but haven’t created my own web page, and while I set up a twitter account 3 years ago, I doubt that I’ve posted a dozen tweets. My Facebook is family facing, not business. Well, you get the idea I think. One of the participants in NFJS is a Social Media Coach/Mentor (Cheryl Richmond) and just an incredible resource and talent. She is starting to get me focused on this and provided some basic guidelines that make a lot of sense.

Let’s start with an inventory:

● Linkedin – Must have for a job seeker, this is the key location for defining your “Brand”. It is a hub for business contacts and activities built around that brand.

● Facebook – Might be very important for a job seeker about half a step down from Linkedin. Primarily set up to connect people with each other on a personal level. With that in mind, it still needs to reflect your brand. Can be a huge time suck and there are privacy and security issues.

● Twitter – Optional. It is an “in-real-time” communications tool that can extend your network while making it much more responsive. It can also be an amazing time suck.

● Blog – Optional. Works great if you have ideas that are relevant to your brand, but can kill you if you drift.

● Biznik – Useful if you are an independent contractor looking at getting some level of b2b stuff going.

● “MyPersonalDomain” Whatever you choose this to be, from a web page to a blog to some kind of store.

● Geolocation sites like Foursquare or Gowalla: These provide physical location information with the goal of connecting people in a location. There are specific situations where these can be useful, but they come with additional cautions

● Etc. – there are a huge number of other tools that fall under this category from MySpace to Picasa to Yelp to Meetup. Any one of these can provide value and that value will vary on an almost infinite array of things. The challenge with some of these (think MySpace) is that you create a permanent presence with them whether you intend it or not. That Frat Party you went to in the 90s and that you friends posted on MySpace? It’s still out there.

I’m sure I’m missing a ton of stuff, but even if I knew what they all were, as of May 2011, this is a great list to start with.

There are also some principles that need to be implemented across your internet profile:

● As much as possible, create one consistent brand. So use the same picture for every profile you own, represent yourself as the same person with the same skills in every profile.

● Be prudent. If you are looking for a job as the Pastor of a church, work as hard as you can to eliminate the pictures of you at the Atheist Convention.

● Be safe, or at least try. Control your permissions on all of these tools, organize your contacts/friends into relevant groups. The Rugby Team and the Rose Garden Club will probably not understand each other or how you could belong to both, so keep them separate.

● Set up your public profile to reinforce itself from every window. If you claim to be a “Team Builder” in Linkedin, then your Facebook should feature people beyond yourself.

In very general terms each has a primary purpose (in the context of job search), so what are they?

● Linkedin is central. Define your brand here, get a good picture that you recognize, fill out a complete profile. Focus of your contacts is business connections, but the line is not rigid.

● Facebook, this is almost as important, but the focus is more towards family and friends. Use the same picture as Linkedin and consider your brand as you build out your network and fill out your profile. Be respectful of your contacts when playing the various games. Don’t spam; accidentally or on purpose!

● Twitter, use the same consideration when creating your profile, but then remember that this is a real time communication tool. While Linkedin and Facebook are fundamentally static, there is nothing static about Twitter. This provides extraordinary resources for researching companies, opportunities and people in real time.

A key to understanding these resources is understanding that we really have only one network, and while we categorize it for a variety of reasons and in a variety of ways, there is far more overlap than separation, so we need to treat it with that in mind. The tools we have today for the organizing our network and mining information about it are truly amazing. So far beyond what we’ve ever had, but the central fact remains that “Network” is still just a fancy word describing our circle of friends.

By the way, Consumer Reports published a terrific article on how to effectively stay safe in their June 2011 issue. It should be read by pretty much everyone that spends time online.

Value Proposition Part 2

2011-04-27T18:37:00.000-07:00

At this point, you have written out your value proposition, outlined a “target” market or company profile and you have identified specific companies you are interested in. I’m assuming your list has more than 10 entries when you start. Remember that while you will need something like a hundred to guarantee success, you can start with as few as one.
Your next step is to choose one to start with. Don’t over think your choice, you have done your primary screening, so any one of them will work. In order to make this effective, your research really starts now. Let’s assume you got your info from D&B (Dunn & Bradstreet), it will probably include the name of one contact at least, research the individual, then research the company.

On the company side try to create a mini “org chart”.
Who is the CEO, CTO, CFO, COO, etc? How long have they been at the company?
What has been the company’s history?
Is the company profitable?
How many locations?
Where would you fit?
What does the company do?
Everything else you can think of.

Your goal is to identify an individual that has hiring authority, budget authority and is likely to benefit from the services you provide. When in doubt, move up. If you are technical project manager and you can’t find an identified CTO, look for the COO. If they don’t exist, then it’s the CEO.

Dig out as much info as possible on each. Your initial letter will be stock, but when you call, you will need to know who to ask for and as much as possible about them and their company.

When you call, you will be asking for an appointment, but you need to be prepared for anything. Write out your questions and have them in front of you. Script your open, literally. Write it out word for word and read it when you call. Rehearse it before hand so it doesn’t sound like you’re reading it, but read it.

Your expectations need to be appropriate for the process as well. Unfortunately, most of the time, you’ll get some variation of “don’t call me, I’ll call you.” If they send you to HR, it’s the same thing. You may want to follow up with HR, but that will be the exception. Your goal is having a personal conversation with someone with both budget and hiring authority, anything else and move to the next one.

Part of the reason for starting with 10 or so companies is because of how often “No” will be your outcome and you’ll need to have that next one to focus on.

What will happen at this point is you will genuinely be in a numbers game. If you can do this 100 times, then you will get at least one offer. You could get as many as 10. You should get 30 to 40 interviews.

A possible script might go:
“Hi Bob, my name is Steve Paul, I sent you a note a week ago introducing myself. I build extremely resilient, high performance IT teams. The reason for my call is to follow up on the letter and ask you if there is a time we could talk about how I might be able to help. Is now a good time or should we set an appointment for later?”

The reason for having your questions written out now is that the success of the interview will be directly related to the quality of your questions and if “Bob” says, “Actually I do have a couple minutes, what are you thinking?” you need to be able to ask a good question. Something that relates to your value prop. In the example above, I would start asking about how complicated there IT needs are. I would start by citing something I had found through my research, then turn it into a question. “I see you have 13 offices in Western Washington, how many IT people does it currently take to support them? How effective do you think the team is?"

The point is to be ready. Really ready. This is a way to create opportunity, and when that opportunity is developed, turning it into something that you can grow with over time.

Value Proposition revisited

2011-04-07T10:20:00.000-07:00

What is the hard part of implementing a “value proposition” approach to job search?

Really, there are two: Distilling your skill set to a single succinct sentence and identifying companies to target.

The one sentence version of your elevator pitch is a terrific exercise under every set of circumstances. It means you are working through your history with discipline and thought and sorting out the one, two or three highest value skills you have. It allows, heck, it requires you to state publicly that you can do “xxxx” and that companies will benefit, and “yyyy” is how they will benefit. This is so very powerful. Examples:

· I’ve had the opportunity to transform the market presence of 2 companies I have worked for, increasing their size by more than 30% and profitability by more than 7%

· I have been able to re-invent a corporate electronic infrastructure, delivering more than 99% uptime at the desktop across 20 locations

· As a writer whose specialty is making technology accessible and understandable, I’ve been able to deliver documentation that consistently reduces calls to help desks and increases customer satisfaction.

· As a career coach I help people identify the job of their dreams, then achieve it.

In essence, we can all make a statement similar to the ones above. Most of us will also talk ourselves out of it. Honestly, there are some very powerful requirements to it. Emotionally, we are making a very public bet on our skills and we are consciously committing to this bet.

After we state this value proposition, we will identify, first the kind of company that can benefit from these services and then, the specific companies.

How do we do that? There are tool requirements, and there is the requirement of defining who uses your particular skill set.

Technically, we need access to search tools including Google/Bing, but going beyond that. In King County, Washington, our County Library systems provide free access to some of the very best tools available for researching businesses; Dunn & Bradstreet Million Dollar Database, ReferenceUSA, Value Line, etc. I posted a tutorial on how to use D&B last August that can lead you through using this one. The others aren’t much different. Next writing out criteria to be used is required. How big? What industry? Headquarters? How many branches? What kind of ownership? Do you know the name of one such company?

Plugging your answers into the search tools provided by these databases is pretty straight forward and will net you some number of possibilities. Unfortunately, it is probably just the first step in your process. Remember the goal is between 50 and 100 companies to approach. What you’ll get from your search is probably too high or too low. The name of 1 company is a start, but we all remember the cliché about putting all of our eggs in one basket, so it is only a start. Who does it compete with? Who does it sell to? What is it’s “SIC Code”?

Job search is a sales process. If you’ve read my previous posts, you have probably noticed that assumption woven throughout. Sales can be “inside” or “outside”. “Inside” is a description of sales where the salesperson waits for a customer to come in. Think retail; Nordstrom’s or Costco. “Outside” means the salesperson goes out and finds customers; Boeing, IBM, etc.

In job search, applying for jobs that are advertised is the equivalent of “inside” sales. For those who have been banging their heads against this particular wall, they know in personal detail how effective it is. The process being described here takes control of the process and allows the job seeker to be in charge of it. It’s “outside” sales. Do a search on “value proposition” and you will see all sorts of posts about how it is core to a business’s chance of success, if you want to understand it in terms of job search, then you are going to need to add “job search” to your search because the relevant web sites will be too buried.

The business ones are very instructive however. The process described and the values identified are completely parallel to what goes on in job search and will only help you as you start down this path.

Remember to expect this to be a time consuming process. Once you have the name of your first company, then your first 3, 10, etc. you have only started. I’ll cover more of this process in my next post.

Scams

2011-03-31T22:02:00.000-07:00

Had a cautionary tale passed back to us in one of the groups. I’m going to eliminate names, but you’ll get the idea.

First, let’s be honest about the situation of someone who’s unemployed. I’m pretty disciplined about avoiding talking about how bad things can be, but we all know it can be very very scary. That fear is the lever scam artists use. This is the second real scam I’ve seen in the last couple of years and they have some stuff in common:

· The hook for both is money fears.

o The first one promised to “reduce your debt and your payments”

o The second one promised “easy money”

· Both offered significant (bogus) testimonials

In one case, it was all about refinancing your house and using that as collateral. When we investigated, what we found were lots of complaints, people losing their homes and no one getting any money from the scam except the artist. My guess is that this is even illegal, but given how fast the perpetrators move, I doubt anyone is getting their money back and I doubt anyone has gone to jail.

The other case promises to make you a “professional model” and that you will be paid “thousands” within xxx amount of time. This one is legal, after all they really will take your picture.

Both require you pay them first. Guess what happens next….

Nothing.

At least nothing that will benefit you in any way shape or form.

Without belaboring the point, remember that if it seems too good to be true, it is.

Lessons Learned from Charlie Sheen

2011-03-28T10:46:00.000-07:00

First, I have to say thank you to Christopher Poreda for a great post by the same name. I’ll also steal his lessons:

"1) Be an original. Copies can be replicated and as such are cheaper the more you make.

"2) Be honest, regardless of the ramifications. You'll sleep better and be more respected.

"3) Having the best product will always supersede having the best service. Think Soup Nazi!

"4) The squeaky wheel gets the grease. These sayings were made up for a reason.

"5) Any press is good press. See #4

"6) Focus on "Winning". It appears that CBS is courting Charlie to bring him back."

Make no mistake, Charlie has some issues as well, but he does have these six things right. When thinking about job search, let’s see how they apply.

“Be an original” Your combination of strengths and skills and talents are unique. If someone hires you for these, you have an amazingly good chance of success and for that success to be ongoing. If you are trying to copy someone or be the person you imagine some person or company wants, sooner or later, you’ll falter. It won’t be pretty.

“Be honest” The ability to deliver what you promise is very closely related to how honest you are. If you tell people honestly what you have done and what can do, doing it again will be easy; heck, exceeding expectations will be easy.

“Having the best product will always supersede the having the best service” See item 1. If you are the best “you” there simply isn’t any competition.

“The squeaky wheel gets the grease”. You won’t get a job if no one knows you’re looking. Your friends, neighbors etc. need to know you're looking. When you identify something you want, you need to make absolutely certain the hiring influence knows who you are and that you want this job and you will be the best answer.

“Any press is good press” All is fair in love, war and job search!

“Focus on winning” When you find a job you want, focus, focus, focus.

Changes and Growth

2011-02-18T11:23:00.000-08:00

If you read this at all regularly, you know that the heart of this blog is the people who come to the three groups known as Notes from the Job Search (NFJS). As they have become successful, they have continually shared their success with friends, which has led to very steady growth for NFJS. Starting with one group 2 years ago, we’ve added two more along with the many private clients I have had the privilege to help.

Our Bellevue Group started just a year ago with approximately 6 people and is now normally over 18. The consequence is that we have outgrown Jitters Coffee House and starting March 3rd, we’re moving. The new location will be Panera Bread in Redmond. 17262 Redmond Way. We will also be changing times from 1:00 to 1:30!

What we’re working on won’t change, but where we work on it will, it’s going to be great!

Salary Negotiations

2011-02-17T20:35:00.000-08:00

Salary Negotiations. In response to some questions and answers on Linkedin Career Horizon’s blog has posted a couple of very good entries on salary negotiations and while I agree with much of what they are saying, In particular, the research being suggested is required. That said, I guess I have at least a different spin.

Job search is sales. It is. Most of us dislike this, we dislike thinking of ourselves as a product and we dislike the idea that we need to approach this like a salesperson. Still, there is just so much that we can and frequently need to learn from the sales process and price/salary negotiations is one of the critical areas for us to look at. Using “car buying” as a model (it’s something we all do and we all negotiate) let’s break the process down.

When we walk into a dealership, one of the first things we do is look at the sticker price on the windows of the various cars in the show room. If there isn't a sticker on the window, then we will most likely saunter back out the door and not come back. When HR asks us what our salary requirements are, they are looking for “window stickers”. If they can’t afford you they want to know early, just like you do when you shop for a car. If we don't answer, if we don't show them the sticker price, then we can expect them to "saunter back out the door and not come back." If what you can afford is $30,000, and you go to a BMW dealership, you find yourself in the “Used” lot very quickly. Either that or you head for Toyota dealership. The employer has the same problem. They have a budget. You need to give them enough of an answer so they can know that you are both on the same page.
Establishing a price is based on “market value”. There are a variety of tools for you to use to investigate this, I recommend Payscale.com, but it’s one of many. These will give you a reasonable understanding of what the market for your job title/skill set is and where you should be on price.
Develop an understanding of your requirements as well. Remember it’s not the same as what you are asking for. Go over your budget and figure out what you need to spend every month. This allows you to understand what you can live with and sometimes a job has non-financial benefits that justify the investment, so know what you need, separately from you used to make and what you hope to make. Thinking of the car buying analogy, it’s what the dealer pays: The cost of the vehicle plus the commission of the salesperson plus the cost of the building plus the cost of financing the car while it’s waiting to be sold. So what are all of your costs?
Review real offers the way a car salesman reviews your offer.

Is the offer for your asking price? If you were the car salesperson you would go get a contract, so what’s the equivelant? Say, “Thank you, when do I start?”
Is it below that? Now you need to think through this carefully. What is your real need? Where are you in the range you’ve researched? Is it a respectful offer? If you are the car salesperson you would be evaluating if it was close enough to accept, assuming the buyer wasn’t going to budge.
Understand that their offer has roughly the same force as your first offer for that new car. The car salesperson would now ask something like, “If I say ‘Yes’, will you sign right now?”
If you are at 75k and they offer 50k, then try to understand why the two of you are so far apart and think about a counter-offer. The car guy would be grimacing and asking why your offer was so low and thinking about what he could live with. In this case, his likely minimum is 65k, so he would need to understand why you made an offer that far below the sticker. As that discussion occurred, he would be going through an inventory of actual costs to see if there was some way for him to be open to a number closer to yours.
Is there a benefit that offsets some of the differential? Do they pay a bonus? Do they provide stock? Will they give you extra vacation?

Negotiating your salary requirements respectfully is important. The company is hiring you because they think you can solve a problem, not because you are cheap. Once they make an offer, then it is appropriate to assume that you are perceived as the best available solution, not the cheapest attempt at a solution.

Resilience

2011-01-24T10:54:00.000-08:00

One of the aspects of job search that I occasionally talk about is resilience: The ability to continue in the face of very significant resistance. One of our newer members, Curt Jacobson, has struggled with this as well and shared the story of one of the tools he has and is using to deal with it. Here's Curt's story:

"An open letter to those of us “in transition”:

"One of the challenges those of “in transition” are confronted with is the psychological, emotional impact of being unemployed. In addition to the financial hardship one has to endure, one’s self-esteem is severely challenged during this period. You apply for jobs, many jobs, that you are more than qualified; yet you get no response. As times progresses, the savings and retirement funds that you so diligently built over the years dwindle and the bills continue to grow. You are jeopardizing your future to live in the present. Inevitability you get down and despair settles in your psyche. You are dancing with the demons of despair.

"Society, however, tells us that we are to put on a happy face and to project a positive image. If, and when, you get an interview you have to be positive, up-beat, and show enthusiasm for the company and the position. This is a challenge though, because you know from experience that the competition is keen and you may not get the job. You do not want to get your hopes up too high just to have them thrashed when you do not get the call back. Been there, done that. Too many times.
"So how to get out of this downward cycle of doom? Working out, staying active definitely helps. One thing that I did last year that really helped me was I did my first triathlon. I successfully completed my tri with the assistance, coaching of Team In Training (TNT). Awesome organization with an honorable objective – to help those afflicted with LLS (Leukemia & Lymphoma).
"The team I trained with raised over $142K to support LLS. The participants were all shapes and sizes and the age range was from 20 to 65. A friend of mine could not even swim before she started but successfully swam a ½ mile during the tri. It can be done!
"The attached provides details of an invitational meeting that TNT will be hosting. I plan to attend and hope to see others there. Make a difference – help those in need, get in great shape, and defeat the demons of despair.

"Sincerely,

"Curt Jacobson"

On the email, Curt attached a specific invite, unfortunately, attachments don't work in Blogger, so I can't include that, but you can reach out to Curt through me and he really would love to have you join him, or check here for the Team-in-Training web page to signup on your own.

Tools

2011-01-19T12:13:00.000-08:00

For all of the cautions I throw out regarding internet use and getting lost in it etc. it brings some amazing resources into our homes/offices. Here are two that are new to me and that I’m really appreciating. I wish I could tell you that my amazing incisive research identified them, but in truth, it is the companies themselves and the people working there that brought these to my attention.

ActiveWords and Gist are a couple of excellent tools. ActiveWords will grow a lot more slowly than Gist, but I’m guessing it will continue to grow for a longer time. What it does is allow for the development of shortcuts. Lots of them. Do you have a blog? Working in Word and want to jump? Type in your shortcut name and – boom, you’re there. What about opening a new Word doc? Same thing. Email? Same. Do you have a bunch of stock language you use? Shortcut! This is a developers fantasy! There are programs that are as much as 50% stock code, well this eliminates the need for even something as uncomplicated as cut and paste. NFJS strongly recommends a custom resume for every opportunity, sure, but with this your template is brought up ready for modification in a few simple strokes on your keyboard. Beyond the product, I have to say the people are exceptional. They tracked me down and have put on a special training for NFJS, simply so they can help! Pretty cool.

Gist is the other part of this: One of the themes in my work with people is “Preparation”. No matter what part of the job search you are in and no matter what kind of job you want, your opportunity for success goes up in direct proportion to the amount of preparation you put in. Gist is an email plug-in and it makes that easier. Actually, quite a bit easier and it provides info that is very difficult to gather in one place. It works with Outlook or Gmail and provides an ongoing updates from a variety of sources as you communicate with you connections. It’s a “dashboard” sort of review. Covers blogs, twitter, facebook, Linkedin as well as several other tools.

The value to a job hunter is substantial. When we network and as we network, we build what can become a fairly substantial group of folks we’re connected to… Heck, if we simply connect to all of our friends it quickly becomes a fairly big number. Before I started Notes From the Job Search, before I joined Linkedin, before I went to my first “networking event, I had over 500 names on my email list! Of course, not all of those people are friends, heck I’ll bet there are 100 that I couldn’t put a face to if my life depended on it, but there are more than 200 who I do think of as friends or at the very least warm acquaintances. Do I know what those folks are doing? Heck no! Have I spoken with them in the last month? 6 months? Year? What Gist does is give a summary of the public profile of the people you are connected to.

So here are two products that are very cool and can have substantial value: ActiveWords and Gist.

Caveat Emptor

2011-01-12T11:21:00.000-08:00

Seize the Day. Amazing how important that is and how often we don’t. Fundamentally, job search is about researching the world around us until we find a problem we can help with. At every step of this process, caveat emptor applies. When we are introduced to someone, do we hide or do we ask them about themselves and their work? When we find that this is someone we could genuinely connect with, do we meet once and then bail? Or do we actively find ways to increase the connection? When a connection offers a new opportunity or an introduction, what do we do? Follow up?

When we hear about an opportunity, do we get intimidated by a title, or dig in to find out if we can actually help?

So Caveat Emptor. Seize the day. If there is an opportunity, follow up, find out. Trust yourself to evaluate honestly whether this is something you can help with.

Top Ten Job Search Tools

2010-12-28T12:40:00.000-08:00

Bruce’s Top Ten List got me thinking along similar lines, so here are the 10 things I think are the best tools in job search.

1. Friends; Kind of weird to put our friends in the category of tools, but they are the single most important piece of your job search. Study after study and anecdote after anecdote tell us the same thing, The precise numbers vary, but they all say, “More than 80% of all jobs come with some level of personal introduction.” In other words, a friend introducing you to someone who introduces you to ….. So your friends are your most important tool in job search.

2. Pay-it-forward networking. This is a direct corollary to 1. We make friends by helping people we genuinely like and the people we like are those very friends reviewed in 1. Look at the book “I’m at a Networking Event, Now What” by Sandy Jones-Kaminsky, it provides simple clear tools for effective networking. Its all based on the idea of helping first. Useful networking starts with relationships that go beyond a simple business card and elevator pitch. That comes from trust and common values etc. There simply isn’t a better, faster way of doing this then helping.

3. Linkedin. Speaking of our friends or “network”, Linkedin is the best tool for documenting and mining that network. It’s work related social networking and allows us to understand how to help our friends and allow our friends to help us.

4. Internet “aggregators” . Tools that allow us to set up one search that covers a bunch of web pages on a regular basis. For example, Indeed.com covers several hundred job boards, so we can set up a single search that routinely sends the results to your email, or on an RSS feed. Another one is Linkup.com, it searches company pages with opportunities. Google Alerts does the same thing with information, so if you are focused on a particular company or job title, virtually anything, it will give you a daily list of updates

5. Work-Life DB™. This is a tool we created (and trademarked) and I haven’t found anything as effective or as complete in helping a person document their success and their history. We all know and pay at least lip service to the idea that job search is a sales position. The first step in effective, ethical sales is product knowledge, in this case that translates to the history of our success.

6. Strengths Finder. A corollary to 6. This is an outstanding test/process that helps us refocus our heads on our strengths, those things we naturally do very well… which is the same list of the things we do in a non-voluntary way. Check out my earlier post on this, it’s very cools stuff.

7. Public Libraries. Given that research is one of the crucial steps in job search, there simply isn’t a better place to do research. Locally, King County Library has this amazing list of research tools for job search and researching companies.

8. GIST. If research is one of the keys to success in the job search, then this add-in to either Gmail or Outlook is an amazing shortcut in that process. It automatically collects basic info, actually more than basic, about our contact list. Once someone is set up as a contact, Gist will provide you with an ongoing way of staying current. Is someone on Twitter? It will give you their last 5 tweets each week, Blogger? Their last posting. Linkedin? Any changes.

9. Bing/Google. Our old friends the basic search engines. What can I say that hasn’t been said? I include both because Bing has become a very useful tool and isn’t a clone of Google, so running searches in both tools provides additional information and both are very helpful.

10. Job Clubs. Groups like Notes From the Job Search (check out our schedule in the right column) provide support as we go through job search. So much of job search is incredibly difficult simply because of the isolation inherent in spending time looking for opportunities. Even the most qualified candidates can spend weeks and months sending off 10’s, 20’s even 100s of resumes without any response, so how the dickens can we remember that much of the craziness isn’t personal. Heck, it’s not even related to the quality of your applications. Finding a peer group going through this makes it much much easier.

Bruces Top 10 Tips

2010-12-21T20:43:00.000-08:00

If you are a regular reader then you know that occasionally one of the participants of Notes from the Job Search writes something to be posted on the blog and this is one of those. It comes from Bruce Menzies, a network admin type who is in the habit of approaching life as a "learner" and who is also very articulate. There are a couple of points here I quibble with (you'll notice I use Hotmail, not Gmail) but that's as close as I get to disagreeing with any of it and there are a couple that are incredibly wise!

Bruce's 10 tips and tricks for Internet and Job Tool Success 2011

1. Get Google accounts (Choose something with your real name) + (another without your real name/ID..its your junk account). Learn to use folders and docs in Google Mail and Docs.

2. Get a Google Voice account with the zip code of your target job city/area. Forward that number to the device (cellphone, land line etc) of your choice. Customize it so it says your first name.

3. Learn Blogging (Google: 'How to use blogger' or use the teachparentstech.org website). Please read the wikipedia.org entry for 'Blog' to understand the implications of blogging. Consider the 'Legal and Social Consequences' section along with the last 4 sections of the wikipedia entry for 'Blog'. This is only for those interested in Blogging.

4. Get a WA state business license (Google: Washington Master Business License) $15 + $5 for each DBA name. Get an EIN tax number. This actually is a good thing. Read up on 'why having a business license is a good thing'....and its cheap!!

5. Research employment/temping trends. Find the skills (which compliment yours) that employers are looking to add. Don't assume you have these already. You don't...really. Use Temp/Contract companies as a resource to query for the most asked for skills. (Get a Temp-Company contacts name. Go to them. Query them in person. Don't ask these questions over the phone). You can show, but don't give them a resume....not just yet. Unless they have 3 possible positions for you that you like.

6. Get a library card...USE the library and its digital media. (This cannot be over emphasised. If you are a King County resident -- Seattle counts -- the you can get one via kcls.org. Steve)

7. Information is power and it makes you smarter!!! Chill-out at Barnes and Nobles/Borders bookstores. You don't need to buy anything. READ up on new relevant skills while there. Take notes!!

8. Use posted jobs descriptions as a template for your personal functional resume. (ADD THE MISSING SKILL SETS which appear as common). Use Indeed.com to get notifications of Jobs. Get the latest demo/trialware of new software for improving your tech skills and practice.

9. Network in person: Informal meetings, interviews and using Linkedin. Starting with our Job Search group. Linkedin is not a social network. It is for business and resource networking. Join and use it!!! (Facebook is NOT for personal business or their connections...really).

10. You should not expect a new job/position with exactly the same previous title, responsibility, tasks, etc. Be flexible like a willow tree. (Google: Lessons from a willow tree)

Happy New Year 2011,
-Bruce

Buzzwords

2010-12-15T10:19:00.000-08:00

It’s amazing how persistent generalizations are. Recently, Manu Sharma posted a blog entry detailing the 10 most overused buzzwords in Linkedin Profiles in 2010.
In early 2009 Squawk Fox posted a great article titled “Six Words that Make Your Resume Suck”

What I find especially interesting is how much the two have in common. Both are spot on, but I do admit I think Squawk Fox’s is better, it is crystal clear, funny, and he provides useful alternatives to the clichés.

Start with the bad words… No, not four letter words, just meaningless ones. Manu Sharma’s list:

1. Extensive experience
2. Innovative
3. Motivated
4. Results-oriented
5. Dynamic
6. Proven track record
7. Team player
8. Fast-paced
9. Problem solver
10. Entrepreneurial

Now from Squawk Fox:

1. Responsible for
2. Experienced
3. Excellent written communication skills
4. Team Player
5. Detail Oriented
6. Successful

Notice the overlap? What do they have in common? I think it’s reasonable obvious, The words on these two lists claim characteristics, rather than demonstrating them.

There is a place on your resume where these are acceptable, even desirable. Using a “Core Competencies” section on your resume, you are telling the reader that you are claiming certain characteristics and/or skills. The rest of your resume is all about demonstrating them.

Linkedin doesn’t really have a “Core Competencies” section, so we aren’t going to be able to set up that kind of a section, and sometimes, the words/phrases above are part of likely “key words” that hiring managers may look for. So how do we balance?

Take “Team Player” which is on both lists, does that mean you were on your high school volleyball team? How about telling us about a team you were on? Plagiarizing from Squawk Fox, let’s replace “Team Player” with specifics:

Worked with clients, software developers, technical writers, and interface designers to deliver financial reporting software three months before deadline.

In Linkedin, we could do:

Demonstrated Team Player, having worked with clients, software developers, technical writers, and interface designers to deliver financial reporting software three months before deadline.

These are sooo much more powerful! As a hiring manager, these bullets jump off of the page and tell me why I want the guy/gal who wrote it.

So here are a couple of great links and some outstanding advice. Take a look at your profile, take a look at your resume and see if you can implement it.

Web mistakes

2010-12-09T21:33:00.000-08:00

One of the results of the article in the Seattle Times has been that I’ve been contacted (out of the Blue) by folks with useful stuff they want to share. One of those is a group/web page named OnlineTraining.org. What they do is help people evaluate various online training resources. What specifically caused them to reach out (I suspect at least) was a desire to get a new blog post noticed.

The title is “The 10 Worst Web Mistakes to Keep You from Finding a Job” and it is worth noticing. Their choice of mistakes is spot on and goes well beyond the obvious. We all know that pictures of someone having too good a time can kill an opportunity, even if the good time was years ago, but how thoughtful are we with the contents of our Tweets?

At any rate, it’s one of those that should be required reading for all of us involved with job search.

Resumes that Resume Careers

2010-12-06T17:34:00.000-08:00

It’s interesting, every time I go to Deborah Drake’s group for reluctant bloggers, I seem to come back with something worth blogging about. This time, I met another career coach, one who is an author as well. His name is Don Burrows and the book I’m referring to is “Resumes that Resume Careers”. Don’s background is HR, where he spent 30 years of his career and where he was able to function at levels varying from recruiter to Director. The book is packed with wisdom, and while I would love to recap most it, I would really need to copy the whole thing to do it justice. So I’ll suggest you find a copy.

It does have a central theme and that is to write “functional” resumes. It’s an unusual choice as this is the first place I’ve seen the recommendation in a while. As a manager, and as an applicant, it’s what I wanted and what I usually used. However, as a Coach, my normal recommendation has become a “hybrid” format: One that looks like a reverse historical resume, but focuses on accomplishments/functions/functionality and if someone is looking for work in their current profession, I’ll continue to recommend it. The primary reason is that it has the added value of avoiding HR’s filters.

If you are making any kind of break from what you last did, then Don’s suggestion is something you should consider very carefully. His premise is that companies and recruiters care about what you can do for them. He’s right. The person most likely to be pleased with the format is a “hiring manager”. If you have problems that need to be solved, then the easier it is to visualize someone doing so, the easier it is to hire them.

One of the interesting things about the increased use of electronic DBs to store and retrieve candidates is that they aren’t going to care about format. We care, and HR cares. As Don says, “The goal of a resume is to get a recruiter to call YOU for an interview.” In other words, we want to be found when a recruiter is running a search and we want to give this recruiter enough pertinent information so they see us as close enough to a solution to talk to. A functional resume is very specifically designed to do that.

A little later in his book Don writes, “Please don’t ever forget: the company is not in business to satisfy your wants and needs. YOU are the product and before they will “buy” YOU, they want to know what YOU have accomplished elsewhere and what you’ll do for THEM.” Your resume isn’t really about you at all. It’s about some job and how you will be able to perform it.

Beyond this, Don and I have lots of disagreements about a bunch of little things, like whether to include an objective and how to develop it etc. but those really boil down to style. If you read Don's book and follow his suggestions, you will come up with an excellent resume, one that looks a lot like the ones NFJS recommends.

Thanksgiving

2010-11-24T10:41:00.000-08:00

It’s Thanksgiving Week, and while I only write about attitude once in a while (I think this is the third time), now is a very good time. This is one of my favorite holidays because it is about attitude and choosing to look at all we have to be thankful for. It’s simply a day to focus on what’s working. When we’re looking for work, this is one of the most important choices we can make every day and it’s incredibly easy to get overwhelmed by the challenge facing us and to allow that single item to become our center and focus. So having a day that focuses on what’s good, is a terrific moment.

It’s well documented how hard job search is, after all what other activity do we have that only has one possible complete success and what other activity is there when this event only occurs once? But if we just change our perspective a little bit, it’s amazing how much we have. For example, look here to see how you stack up against the rest of the world.

The real point is that there are always things we can be thankful for, and focusing on those puts us in a much better position for pretty much everything in our lives. Thinking specifically about job search, we know that we are hired because we can help some company or person, not because we need a job. Well, how do we help, if our focus is only on what we need?

Seattle Times Article

2010-11-18T12:37:00.000-08:00

Looks like an article that has been worked on for the last several months will finally appear this weekend! Check out Sunday's Pacific Magazine in the Seattle Times. It's sad in a lot of ways, because there is a human toll and the author documents that. The reality is that NFJS is in the business of selling hope, no matter the environment, so we're a lot more positive than the article, but being featured is very flattering.

Guidelins for an Elevator Pitch

2010-11-12T11:36:00.000-08:00

One of my clients recently asked me for guidelines for the development of an elevator pitch. I had gone through them with her orally, but she’s one of those that likes stuff written down, and I hadn’t written it down. Our version of an elevator pitch is one of those things that has evolved over time. Having read about them a great deal, there were portions of many of them that are strong, but none of them fit our goals. I actually wrote about this in March of ’09 and while what we were working on then is similar to where we are now, our concept of this is much more clear.

The key to this version of the pitch is recognition that a "network" is not some foreign thing that people go and "get" when they need help. Your network is actually your current suite of friends and acquaintances. The people you do Yoga with, go to Church with, play music with, etc. Your work network does focus more on, well, .. work. :) That doesn't mean you should start hanging out with creeps because they might get you ahead, just that there is an awareness of work items when building this group of friends (the same as there was a bias of same age children when our kids were young).

We mostly see networking as a “pay it forward” process. In other words, we interact with our network by focusing on how we can help others. As that happens, people normally want to help us as well, so the pitch should be sufficiently clear to provide direction, but should never de-rail the conversation or work being done.

Given that our fist goal is to help others, it is reasonable to assume than when we state our pitch we are talking with people who are predisposed to helping us and who have enough experience with us so they know we are in fact reasonably competent and conscientious. When we talk with these folks, they want to help, mostly they don't know how. So our pitch is aimed at giving them direction. We aren't trying to prove something, nor are we explaining, nor are we introducing ourselves, we are just giving them some direction. We are letting them know how they can help. We also don't want to get stuck talking about things that aren't especially relevant to whatever activity is going on, be it church or whatever.

With that as background, an elevator pitch should be:

short (15 to 30 seconds)
direct
clear
jargon free
include elements of you that separate you from the competition.
flexible

My pitch goes something like this, “My name is Steve Paul, I’m a career coach: Founder and Director of Notes from the Job Search. I have had the honor of helping people identify the job of their dreams and then get it. Even in a down market.”

In real life, I almost never quote it completely, but I will use pretty much every element which are:

Name. This is the most frequently dropped portion. I don’t introduce myself to people who already know me.
Professional Role. This is the most likely part to be stated, it states how I work and gives people an idea of how I can help them and/or their friends
Introduces Notes from the Job Search. This is an extension of my role and increases the number of ways I can help. It’s very likely to be included.
What makes me (and NFJS) special. This part is included when I think there is an audience for it, which is probably just half of the time.

So that’s it.

Tuning Linkedin

2010-11-03T15:47:00.000-07:00

Recently I ran into a really terrific video focusing on how a recruiter should use LinkedIn. This video is a blog post on http://www.booleanblackbelt.com/. The author is Glen Cathey who at least at the time this video was made was VP of Recruiting for KForce, and this is very clearly intended for KForce’srecruiting staff. This video is a whole five minutes long, so without overthinking it, this is great for job seekers as well.

So what is the magic? What does Mr.Cathey teach his troops?

There are (of course) several points to extract:

When we have worked on tuning our profiles so we can be found, we have been somewhat mystified by the order of who is actually returned—why am I on page two when yesterday I was on page one?. A minor part of his presentation explains it. The default is a combination of “key word” and “connections”. He doesn’t go into the full equation and he tells us how to change it, but it starts with the combination that LinkedIn labels “Relevance”.
He tells his workers how to develop complex searches, which translates to us as needing to tune our profiles beyond a single word.

So what do we take out of this as job seekers? The most important thing is understanding the recruiter’s point of view and not just when we build our profile in LinkedIn. In this context, LinkedIn represents any resume database and if we are to be found any of them, then we need to make it easy.

NFJS is committed to custom resume’s for every job applied for, and this is probably the most elegant argument I have seen as to why. Recruiting databases, whether it be LinkedIn or some custom DB created internally, Microsoft or GE or Apple provide recruiters the capability of identifying a pretty specific set of skills. If we are going to find the job we want and our tool is online applications, then we need to thread that needle.

The Story of George

2010-10-29T10:37:00.000-07:00

This is the story of George (as usual, not his real name) and how taking the application process seriously can be effective.

There is a lot of information both documented and anecdotal that the way to get a job is through networking. And it’s pretty much true: approximately 4 out of 5 jobs are a product of networking… Of course that leaves 1 out of 5 being a product of all the application stuff. You know what I mean, find an ad on one of the job boards, send in an application etc.

This is the story of one of those. George is an engineer, laid off in the spring of 2009, he joined NFJS that summer. Engineers are pretty consistent in that do tend to be organized and George definitely fits that mold. He is also a good guy and someone who approached his search very seriously. Normally that means he is a great candidate for a networking referral and he definitely worked that angle.

He also needed to do his three contacts a week to qualify for unemployment. This he did with genuine diligence. It wasn’t going through the motions. He had set up a daily email on www.Indeed.com sending him a list of potential opportunities, and every Monday morning he scoured through these to find the best three from the weekend, mostly the ads were less than optimal, but he found the best three. With each of these he would first go through the job description, then do some basic research on the company. Assuming the company came up as a real thing and not a scam, he would then customize his resume using his Work-Life DB™ and submit it the way asked for by the ad. By the time this story took place he had been honing his process for a while. He had done a complete job on his Work-Life DB™ and knew how to cut and paste up a new resume very quickly. Normal for an application was about a half hour. He also had very low expectations. After all he had been doing some variation of this process for 8 months and at best would get a personal turn down a couple of times a month. In spite of the very low response he got, he continued to go through this process with commitment and respect.

There is a process in psychology called “extinction”. Basically this is the term used to describe the elimination of a behavior. It occurs when a behavior is completely ignored: In other words, exactly what happens with the online job application process. If you are applying for jobs online, you know what I’m talking about. It is normal for people to get one response of any kind for every 10 or 15 applications they send in, and of those 75 or 80% are automated. So actually turning in 3 applications a week for six or seven months is one of the most difficult things in the job search. A key element in sustaining that effort is efficiency, so are you spending 20 hours a week to get your 3 applications in? I’ve been helping people with job search for more than 30 years, I’ve been doing it professionally for most of the last two and I have not found anyone who takes that long to turn in their three applications a week and who is still doing it after about four months. Their behavior has been “extinguished”.

What George did was find a way to contain this part of his job search to Monday mornings. Using the tools built through NFJS, he found a way to work past this very powerful psychological block and continue month after month. In his case, in the end it worked. In March of this year, he came to our West Seattle group Tuesday Morning at 11:00 and with a dazed expression reported that he had applied Monday (the previous day) and they had already called!! It did take another six weeks, but that is where he went to work.

Here’s how George was able to be successful:

· The Work-Life DB™ is a tool that allows you to collect all of your business success and documentation in one place. Where you worked, who you worked for, what your accomplishments were, all of the recommendations that grew out of the job, etc.
· “Job board aggregators” are a class of web site that allow you to set up an automated search of some very large number of job boards and have the results sent to you either through an RSS feed, or via email. These tools largely eliminate the need to scour the various boards for opportunities. George set up a search on www.indeed.com that dropped opportunities into his email every morning. One other worth mentioning is www.linkup.com (not related to Linkedin). It’s value is that it goes through company web pages and posts new openings as they occur.
· Reading an advertisement to identify what matters to a company for a position is a very particular skill and George mastered it. In other words, (and in George’s case) when he saw an ad that asked for an engineer who could “design widgets” he would go through his history and pull all of the proof he had that he could “design widgets”, then he would include it on his custom resume and using the words “design widgets” every time he had some experience demonstrating he would be great at designing widgets.
· Promptness is important as well and George had this part down. In addition to his Monday Morning ritual of getting out his three weekly, he checked his email feed from Indeed every morning and any time he identified something interesting he responded.
· Persistence is also necessary and George had this part down as well. He had eight months of futility in this process before he connected, but he did not quit! Every Monday he got his 3 applications out and every other morning, he tracked what was going on, responding to every good opportunity he found.

The point is that it can work. It always requires persistence and it requires adequate luck combined with a lot of work.

Do what you love and the money will follow

2010-10-13T11:49:00.000-07:00

One of my clients recently forwarded an article from a group named “Recourses” about work-life balance and following your passion.

It’s very interesting but actually comes across as a bit of a rant suggesting that following your passion is a great way to starvation…. The article isn’t signed, but my guess is that the company is small enough so that if you are a regular, you pretty much know who the author is.

I think my client sent it to me because I have asked her several times, “What would you do for free?” as we have focused her career search. So here comes someone with a dramatically different point of view, or it sure looks that way to begin with.

The first clue is that he frankly acknowledges that he personally “loves his work”. So how does that fit with the idea that we shouldn’t follow our passions?

I think the part he is actually objecting to isn't that people want "to love what they do", but that many times people don't include market realities. I love music... really really love it, but making a living at it would be more than a stretch.

The challenge isn't so much identifying things that we are passionate about, but things that we are passionate about and that people will pay us to do. He's also ranting about people wanting their job to be all of the good and none of the rest. He's right about this as well, heck even musicians need to practice. The man who invented classical guitar as a legitimate discipline, Andres Segovia would practice a new piece for 2 years before he performed it. When the great Seattle Sonics point guard, Gary Payton entered the NBA, he was amazing at getting to the basket, passing and controlling a game, but he had no outside shot. He spent the next several years shooting 500 shots 4 days a week and 300 on the other 3. He did this on his own time. Was it his favorite part of the day? Probably not, but it was necessary if he was going to be as good as he hoped and it was necessary if he was going to be able to lead his team. I love being a Career Coach, but part of being a coach is writing, which I actually hate, I also know that I need to continuously research the job market to stay current and to have deep enough pockets to last long enough for it to become a viable business.

The point is that every job has both good and bad. The author uses his own childhood, growing up on a coffee plantation as an example of what it means to work hard at something you don’t care much about. In fact his example of the coffee farming is in many ways apropos, as I do know people who are passionate about coffee and who grow coffee because of this. They know exactly how hard it is and bust their tails doing it. The consequence of this passion is their coffee regularly wins awards, sells for $36 a pound and sells out every year.

Another piece not being acknowledged is what the job market is like right now. Employers have choices. A consequence of this is that they are choosing the very cream at every opportunity and frankly, if you aren’t passionate about what you do, it’s much harder to be part of that cream.

I repeatedly ask my clients “What would you do for free?” The reason is that in today’s market place, if we hope to keep up, then we are studying our profession on our time and our nickel. No one does this when they aren’t passionate.

Going back to the coffee plantation analogy. My guess that his farm was moderately successful, but the people making more than a simple living are the ones continuously learning and improving their product.

So will the money follow just because you are doing what you love? Maybe…. Will the money follow if you are doing things you don’t like? Probably not. The key in both cases is what you do or don’t do to prepare and doing what you love makes that preparation much much easier.

Stories from NFJS -- Fred’s Story

2010-10-04T09:42:00.000-07:00

This one is about Fred (not his real name). He joined NFJS as our Work-Life Data Base™ was maturing and he embraced it. What makes his story interesting is the consequence of this process.

Fred’s profession is software and hardware testing, with a strong element of audio technology thrown in. He joined us at the very bottom of the recession when more than half of the jobs being advertised were bogus and at least half of the rest required that you walk on water without looking for the rocks. One job description asked for a web developer who could answer phones, run purchasing and pick the laundry… and the only part I’m making up is the purchasing. Microsoft had just cut what they would pay contractors 10% across the board and was routinely demanding skills that were a full step above the pay they were willing to provide. I don’t ever remember a time when the economy was worse or when finding a job was tougher.

Fred sounded very realistic about his situation. He said that he was hoping for a new contract where his pay would be at least 80% of the last one. I’m very familiar with the skills he described and with the employment environment in that area having recently left the industry myself. When I reviewed his original resume, it sounded like that was a reasonable hope, but he better be capable of making more than a few house payments with his unemployment.

NFJS was just at the beginning of our resume section at that time. We spend four weeks of meetings going over the “How to”. It starts with the basic fundamentals of resume writing and ends with our Work-Life DB™. This is a tool that allows people to document their success and put it in a format that easily translates into a custom resume.

By far the most important part of all this is the Work-Life DB™. The first thing it does is highlight the most powerful stories in their work history. It helps the writer understand that they are not asking for charity. Great candidates are not asking for handouts, they are offering to help a company solve specific problems.

Back to Fred.

He understood all of this immediately, then he did the work. There are three parts that matter in this story. Number one: documenting your success. Fred went back through his history and wrote down what he was responsible for and what he accomplished at each of his previous positions. Number two: putting this information in structures that communicate effectively what he accomplished. And three: Using the language that companies expect and understand.

The result was dramatic: “Executed weekly test passes of more than 5,000 tests (Tux and Tuxnet) generating more than 100,000 results.” Became “Lead the XXXXX automation test lab for the development of XXXXX, maintaining more than 5,000 tests cases and managing the execution of test passes generating more than 100,000 results.” The first one is ok… the second one is excellent. The second one highlights the context in which his work occurred and claimed all of the responsibility Fred had. The first one names tools that are important to Microsoft, but only Microsoft. If Fred wanted to work somewhere else, then the hiring company would either scramble for Wikipedia or eliminate (this is the kind of thing Fred would have included when applying at Microsoft.)

Fred got the job!

The new resume has energy and it has relevance and it has the language that was being looked for by companies that do the kind of testing Fred does and is responsible for. The result of this work was that he got an interview for an FTE position at another company, then got the job! His new role is leading automated testing for both hardware and software for one of the products this organization produces and he got a 20% raise!!!

Yes, Fred is highly skilled and yes, he is in a role that is always looking for quality people, but when he joined NFJS, that was not clear, especially to Fred. As he dug into his experience, he developed an understanding that allowed him to identify, apply for and win a position he had been preparing for, for most of his professional career…. Even while the “economy” totally tanked.

Stories from NFJS

2010-09-24T13:00:00.000-07:00

My desperate hunting for blog ideas has been solved!

I mentioned that I joined a “support group for reluctant bloggers” in an earlier blog and this week I was able to get to there for the second time. While participating, I had an epiphany as another member talked about the stories of her clients and their success, I realized that I haven't written a single story about the participants from NFJS and what's happened to them. Once that penetrated my thick skull, the hard part is choosing. While I’ve been doing Notes from the Job Search for a little more than a year and a half, the principles I use evolved over 30 years, so the stories end up going back a long time.

Here’s a story about a young soldier reentering the civilian world

Somewhere along the line I learned the value of separating the activity a candidate does from the product they work on. About 3 years ago a young friend of mine sent me an email asking for help. This young man (I’ll call him “Jim”) went to college majoring in Computer Science on an ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corp) scholarship, graduating in 2002. Well surprise, surprise, he was immediately activated and spent the next four years on active duty with the last two being in Iraq as a transportation officer. He mustered out in 2006, took a year off and had been looking for work for six months prior to reaching out to me. In those months, he had received nothing more than an automated response while submitting more than 100 resumes for various jobs in the IT industry. His goal company was Microsoft and he hadn’t even gotten an automated response from them.

I asked him to send me a copy of his resume and upon reading it understood the problem immediately. His resume was completely built around his experience in Iraq and he was applying for jobs as a project manager in IT.

We got on the phone together and I had him describe what he was responsible for. As he was doing this I kept asking him to avoid talking about trucks or transportation and spend more time focusing on his personal responsibilities. So when he said something like, “I had to get trucks filled with medical supplies from town A to town B on a weekly basis while making sure that we had supplies coming in from the States that would allow us to meet our schedules.” I helped him transform that into “developed schedules for multiple teams, coordinating multiple interdependent projects to deliver requirements on time and on budget.” Which is in fact a description of what he did, minus the references to Iraq and the Army and trucks. It is also describing his behavior in IT terms rather than Army terms.

One of the many great things Jim brought to this was an openness and ability to learn very quickly so the time necessary for him to completely re-write his resume was less than a week. When he submitted this new resume he started getting personal responses within the first week, interviews within a month and he received a Microsoft offer (that he took) within 3 months.

The principle Jim implemented was simply describing his experience in terms of what he personally did, not what he did it on, using terms his target audience understood. He did not drive or load trucks, he did plan, develop “critical path analysis”, and coordinate multiple interdependent projects. When put in terms that automated systems expect and that IT recruiters understand, the quality of his experience became obvious, as did Jim’s desirability as an employee. It also helped him understand how to communicate his experience during interviews in terms understood by the people interviewing him.

Most important, it got him the job!

The Recession is Over!!

2010-09-23T11:35:00.000-07:00

Really? Then why do I have so many clients?
This is one of those times when the economists prove how very silly they can be while being technically correct. We’ve all heard the joke about the Dr who comes out of surgery gloating about what a success the operation was and only at the last moment does he acknowledge that the patient also died. That’s kind of what the economists are saying/doing. The economy hit it’s bottom sometime last summer, and given that what they measure isn’t current health, just relative health, what they are really saying is that the Fall of 2009 was better than in the Spring. Talk about damning something with faint praise!!

I’ve actually never heard of a way to measure economic health. We live in a world where what matters is our ability to pay the rent/mortgage and grocery bills, and while economists live in same world, what they study has some very serious disconnects. So while the “Recession” is over, that isn’t the same as saying the economy is healthy and if we include all of the people out of work and underemployed, then the economy is seriously struggling.

So when I read that the “Recession” over, I’m sure it’s true, it’s just not very meaningful.

Stereotypes, Prejudice and Job Search

2010-09-17T11:05:00.000-07:00

One of the challenges we face during our job hunt is the unstated beliefs or stereotypes the hiring person/organization have about some group we are part of. An ugly word for this is “prejudice” and we all have them. We all think we can guess what’s inside the book by looking at the cover; at least a little. In my case, when I turned fifty, I realized my view of “old” was completely haywire. My opinion was based on my five uncles, all of whom were pretty much worn out by their 50th birthdays, so when I turned 50, I expected to look in the mirror at an old man. You know the drill: smoker’s cough, balding, gray hair, pot belly, weak back, bad eye sight, maybe some hearing problems....

But I didn’t fit that stereotype

The guy I saw in the mirror had a full head of dark -brown hair, a dark -brown beard, ran 20 or more miles every week and who was just beginning to gain real traction with his career. I found I needed to completely reinvent my understanding of age and aging! I had no idea I was prejudiced, I thought I was right and that “old” men looked and acted certain ways. It wasn’t until I was a member of this group that I understood how completely I had characterized other men based on the people in my past, not on the people I was dealing with.

Unfortunately, this is how all prejudice develops. We know, or have some experience with people who are categorized by their membership in some larger group and we confuse the path their lives took with some predefined/predetermined trajectory that is assigned to everyone in the group.

How does this impact job search?

Pretty simple, we all belong to groups and we don’t know what the hiring influence thinks about these groups. The challenge is dealing with it. My brother talks of “tribes”, meaning a group of people that identify with each other. Our goal is to portray ourselves as belonging to the tribe of people working at this office.

The first part of “dealing” with it is in our written communications: resume, cover letter, email, on-line presence, etc. The second part is in person, when, for the most part, the groups we are part of become pretty obvious. We have a visual presence: short, tall, black, white, fat, thin, old, young, etc., and those characteristics are pretty obvious in person. As soon as we open our mouths, we communicate what other groups we belong to. It is at this point that our interviewer determines, skills notwithstanding, whether you are someone s/he wants to work with. Of course this might take seven seconds or it might take the whole interview. But ultimately, s/he is determining if you are a member of his/her tribe.

Our written profile is reasonably easy to deal with: Things like a professional “head shot” allow us to choose the physical image we project, then when we write our resumes we portray our real experience with the energy and strength we really have. It is key to play to our own strengths. Check out my earlier posts about writing resumes, I’ve been fairly explicit about how to communicate your experience and current skills. A well done resume allows for a pretty complete focus on how you work and the value you can bring to a company.

Picking up new tools is an additional way to demonstrate your energy, commitment, etc. If you are currently unemployed, it’s an even better idea. Communicating that you continue to be committed to maintaining your currency is a challenge and there are precious few more effective ways than taking classes.

When you get an interview, do your homework about dress. After our physical presence, how we dress is the most important indicator of the “tribe” we belong to. Find a way to spend an evening watching the door to the company’s office – the place you’ll be working. What are people wearing? Is it shorts and t-shirts? Khakis and golf shirts? Sport jackets? Think “plus 1” for your interview clothes. If it’s “shorts and t-shirts” then nice jeans or khakis and a golf shirt or sport shirt, “sports jackets” would drive a suit, etc. If we do this right, we should immediately be perceived (at least physically) as potential members of the tribe of this company.

The point of all of this is to say that effectively countering someone’s possible stereotypes of you can only be dealt with via demonstration. My telling you I’m not like my uncles doesn’t mean anything to you. My describing the creation of Notes From the Job Search at the age of 61 creates the image of someone who continues to be passionate, committed to growth, learning and service… much more interesting.

NFJS; North Seattle

2010-09-14T09:12:00.000-07:00

The Green Bean Coffeehouse has been through an interesting year, but has definitely come out the other side looking very good. They moved again, hopefully for the last time, into the old McDonalds location across the street. The new address is 8533Greenwood Ave N. This matters to NFJS because we are restarting the group that was meeting there with some changes. It will now be Monday's at 11:00 AM. They have an actual room that is large enough to hold us and they are making that available! Starting next Monday Sep 20, 2010!

Creating the "Value Proposition" letter

2010-09-01T14:16:00.000-07:00

Coming back to the Value Proposition process.

You’ve gone through Dunn and Bradstreet, identifying target companies. For each of these you have the name and address of the “Principal”. The titles vary a lot, but D&B has a primary contact. For each company you target, more research will be required to get the most current info. Start with the company web page, then look it up on Google/Bing. Do a LinkedIn search as well. After you have done this, your list should be a bit smaller as some of the companies may have moved out of the area, gone out of business, changed businesses, etc., but you’ll know a lot about the companies that interest you.

Separately, you’ve done your research on what you provide for that company and can very succinctly state how your skill set provides exceptional value. When I look at my own history, I’ve done a lot of stuff and while my design and planning skills are completely competitive, what separates me from my peers is my ability to create very high performance teams that are stable and have exceptional durability.

The next step is to create a letter of five or fewer sentences that highlight what you can do and what the positive consequences have previously been and how those might apply to their company. This letter ends with a sentence stating that you will follow up on a specific date.

Using myself as an example, here’s how I might write a value-proposition letter:

Dear Ms Smith,

Over the last ten years I have had the opportunity to create three teams that support information technology and that have consistent, extraordinary results. In each of these cases, my team exceeded expectations significantly, built exceptionally robust systems and high levels of customer/user satisfaction, while remaining under budget. One of these teams rebuilt a corporate technology infrastructure including development of standards -based computing, increased uptime to more than 99%, and implemented a common “Electronic Client Health Record” across six distinct departments.

I would love to provide a similar level of support for your company and will call you to chat about how I can help on xxxx the xx of xxxx.

Regards,

Stephen M. Paul

www.linkedin.com/stephenmpaul

Call on the date and time specified. Say to the receptionist (or whoever answers the phone), “May I speak with Ms. Smith? She is expecting my phone call”. When Ms. Smith answers, say, “Hi, I’m Steve Paul. I sent you a note last week and am following up to see if you would like to chat about how I might be able to help XXX company obtain greater results in (here have a succinct version of what you are good at) testing blah de blah, or developing a larger customer database, or educating your customers on how to use your product.”

Whatever it is, this is the point where Ms. Smith has gone back through the 7,000 emails and letters she’s received and finally remembers that yes (or no) she is interested in talking about what you might be able to do. She does have a problem that you addressed in your letter. So she says, “Yes, Steve, nice to meet you. And yes, I would like to talk about fixing (something). I’m busy right now, but could you drop by tomorrow at 10 in the morning?”

Or she says, “No, we have a very well oiled testing system (or whatever it is) here and don’t need any help. Thanks for calling.” And hangs up.

Remember that if you get one out of 10 to be a positive contact, you are hitting a good sales percentage.

Selling is what you are doing, so learn to sell the fine brand that you are, so you can get a good job.

Featured in Seattle Weekly!

2010-08-24T18:21:00.000-07:00

We are featured in this weeks copy of Seattle Weekly!! :)

A better link is here: Seattle Weekly Article

Dunn & Bradstreet's Million Dollar Database

2010-08-20T10:05:00.000-07:00

This post was written by Michael Casey. He is one of the folks working with NFJS and a salesman with a terrific track record who has committed to moving into a role that allows him to drive resource sustainability within a company.Note that the rest of this blog would look a lot better if Blogspot supported imbeded tables or allowed me to simply attach a document, etc. but it doesn't. I'm going to try to be as clear as I can without them. If you follow carefully, it will work. When you go to D&B/KCLS you will find it much more user friendly.

From Michael:
Assuming that you have decided to develop a “value proposition” based job search, one of the first steps is identifying potential employers. What companies look like good potential employers?

If you allow yourself to approach this in a disorganized way, it is pretty darn intimidating. One tool that can greatly reduce this is the Dunn & Bradstreet Million Dollar Database. Normally access to this is very expensive, fortunately there are some very convenient ways to avoid the expense. If you are local to the Seattle area, the King County Library (www.kcls.org) provides this as one of their normal services. My assumption is that in other areas, the first place to check is your local library as well. The following description assumes you have a King County Library Card then becomes a “how to” for accessing via the King County Library. Most of this is how to use the DB.

• Go to www.kcls.org

• Click on "DataBases" (top of page, left side)

• Go to "Subject List of Databases" scroll down to

• Click on "Business Economics and Investing" (Note that under this tab, you will see more than a dozen options which may be helpful to you. This is a very comprehensive list of the best tools available for researching companies, so explore!)

• Click on "D & B Million Dollar Database"

Congratulations! You are in.....now go get a cup of coffee or a beer, walk outside and get some fresh air, then return to your JOB SEARCH.

We are going to look for some companies that might help someone who is a CAD designer with considerable talent, and look for metal fabrication companies, who have clients that design and then send their product to be fabricated--they obviously have or need to have CAD people designing their stuff.

____________________________________________________

• Find a company, then put it in the fields and search.
• We will choose a company we know, entering Name, City & State

Company Name:    Magic Metals
City:                       Union Gap
State:                    Washington

This is what is returned:

Magic Metals Inc

SIC Code:       7692
City:                Union Gap
State:              WA USA
Locations:       Single Location
Annual Sales:  $11,887,260
Number Emp   146

We see that the SIC code is 7692....but we want more information, so click on the "Magic Metals Inc". What comes back is more than a page of information specific to Magic Metals including what their DUNS Number is, what they do, who the President is, how many locations, etc.

Now look at their SIC codes, they are listed as 7692 welding repair but also 3440 sheet metal work.

“Sheet Metal Work” is also known as “Metal Fabrication” so we have found the SIC code we will use in the next step.

Now we want to go and look for other companies with the 3440 SIC code, because that may lead us to companies that are similar and these are companies we know will use CAD drafting.

Go back to the top of the page, yellow box, and click on SIC and then type in 3444, then eliminate the city, or keep it local, then put your state name in and hit search...: and we come up with !!!!!! 254 companies. Too many for practical reasons, so let's limit the search and just put a city back in, like Seattle Wa for the search, see what we come up with---i.e., re-enter SIC code 3444, Seattle for city, Washington for state, then hit search and voila; 34 companies, much more manageable.

1: Lighthouse For The Blind Inc
8331 Seattle WA USA Headquarters $37,597,000 350

2: Ellstrom Manufacturing Inc
2431 Seattle WA USA Single Location $11,500,000 85

3: Pioneer Human Services
8331 Seattle WA USA Branch $9,487,600 200

4: Qual Fab Inc
3444 Seattle WA USA Single Location $6,600,000 45

5: Pacific Aircraft Welders
3581 Seattle WA USA Single Location $5,000,000 10

6: Queen City Sheet Metal
1761 Seattle WA USA Single Location $4,345,596 25

7: David Gulassa & Co Inc
2514 Seattle WA USA Single Location $3,200,000 26

8: Ballard Sheet Metal Works Inc
3444 Seattle WA USA Single Location $3,000,000 20

9: Pacific Sheet Metal Inc
1761 Seattle WA USA Single Location $2,900,000 20

10: Park North Heating Co Inc
1711 Seattle WA USA Single Location $2,200,000 16

11: Global Inc
3443 Seattle WA USA Single Location $2,000,000 15

12: Central Fabricators Inc
5051 Seattle WA USA Single Location $900,000 10

13: Williams Form Engineering Corp
3444 Seattle WA USA Branch $737,508 6

14: All Metals Fabricators Inc
1791 Seattle WA USA Single Location $730,000 6

15: Precision Fabricators LLC
3444 Seattle WA USA Headquarters $625,000 8

16: B & D Sheet Metal LLC
3444 Seattle WA USA Single Location $610,000 6

17: Decorative Metal Arts
3444 Seattle WA USA Single Location $570,000 8

18: Apex Metal Fabricators Inc
3444 Seattle WA USA Single Location $550,000 5

19: Canopy World Inc
3444 Seattle WA USA Branch $491,672 4

20: Mutual Industries Inc
3444 Seattle WA USA Single Location $480,000 5

21: North Industries Inc
3444 Seattle WA USA Single Location $410,000 3

22: A Quality Sheet Metal Co
3444 Seattle WA USA Single Location $270,000 4

23: Whitehead Manufacturing
3444 Seattle WA USA Single Location $250,000 3

24: Form Factor Inc
3444 Seattle WA USA Single Location $210,000 2

25: Kenneth A Edleman
3444 Seattle WA USA Single Location $200,000 2

26: Pacific Northwest
3444 Seattle WA USA Single Location $160,000 2

27: J R Grantham Inc
3444 Seattle WA USA Single Location $140,000 1

28: DK Works
3444 Seattle WA USA Single Location $130,000 2

29: Dockside Repair
3449 Seattle WA USA Single Location $100,000 18

30: McKinstry Co LLC
1711 Seattle WA USA Headquarters 500

Choosing one, say #4, Qual Fab Inc., click on that and once again, we have tons of information: Location, Sales, CEO, start date, etc.

This tool works for any industry and location. in addition, Dunn & Bradstreet is the tool companies use to check out each other, so it is the most up-to-date available (although it can be as much as six months out of date). It will normally provide the name of at least one senior executive; probably the CEO. What you end up with is the address of the company, the name of a senior exec, a clear idea of what the company makes, etc. This is a great start.

Value Proposition Campaigns

2010-08-13T14:52:00.000-07:00

Pretty much all of my posts so far have been about how to get a “job”, as in an existing, defined role in an existing, defined company. You know the drill, create resume, find an opportunity, then apply or try to identify who the hiring influence is etc. A second process would be to work your network until someone tells you about an opportunity that hasn’t been advertised and follow up with the person who needs the new help. Both of these can work and for many roles those are the two most effective ways for finding a new job. There is another approach and for some kinds of opportunities it’s especially useful.

Smaller companies, say less than $20m in yearly revenue, simply can’t afford hiring one of the big search firms to find their most senior executives, and frankly putting an ad on Craig’s List for a new Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is pretty tacky and simply not going to net an interesting candidate. So how is this new CFO found?

There are a few ways, but only one of them is the subject of this post. This isn’t especially original, but it seems difficult for people to do; it’s the creation of a “value proposition campaign”. Using the above example, you are a Stanford MBA, CPA and have the requisite experience. For whatever reason you are now looking for your next opportunity and your target is CFO of a medical manufacturing company with between $5m and $20m in revenue.

The theory is very straight forward: Identify the 2 or 3 things you are sure will be needed by every company in this sector and that you have done well and look forward to doing again, write them down (on paper) and snail mail them to the CEO. Follow up 2 or 3 days later asking the CEO if you can sit down over coffee to discuss how this might benefit his/her company. Pretty simple, right? Unfortunately, the devil is in the details.

Trying to cover the various parts of this process in a single post is pretty hopeless, so I’ll break it into parts:

• This is the intro (of course) and covers the concept and what to expect the next few entries to entail.

• Market research/identification, how do you find the companies you want to send these letters to? What about the name of the CEO? What about whether a company even has a CFO currently?

• Creating the letter

• Getting the interview

• Asking for the sale

This is going to be interesting.

Sustaining your job search

2010-08-09T19:11:00.000-07:00

What does it take to continue something when you get no feedback? No complaints, no compliments, no objections, no heckling, nothing. I ask this because that’s what happens with 90% of your job search. It is also true if you are a blogger. So while I’m not looking for a job, the thing I’m most responsible for (this blog) has at least one element that is the same. I have to admit that I struggle with it. I want someone to comment and tell me how effective and smart I am and how my blog is the very best on the whole web. Having a PBS crew show up to do a special on my blog writing would be pretty cool, too. And it makes no difference at all that intellectually and emotionally I know my wish is both based on false assumptions and impossible.

When you are looking for a job, the problem is really similar. You send out one or two or three applications a week, you set up one or two informational interviews a week, you go to the “networking” events, but no job offer ever seems to appear. Heck, it’s like there is no reaction at all. Most weeks you don’t even get an automated response from the applications. And then the “informationals” feel mostly like you’re just talking to people and the “networking” feels more like a middle school mixer than anything else you can remember!...

How to sustain? What I finally did was join a group of reluctant bloggers. We meet once a week and exchange ideas and support each other’s efforts. It’s a way to get feedback. A little skepticism would be fine to go with this, I get better faster when people tell me what isn’t working as well as what is, but at least I get feedback.

If you are in the Seattle area, there are a variety of groups around. We have the two NFJS groups, look up Job Club at http://www.meetup.com/ etc. The point is to find some support. I really don't know of a tougher job than Job Search, so allow youself to find that support. Allow yourself to learn how to get better.

How to answer (sometimes dumb) questions in an interview

2010-08-02T10:08:00.000-07:00

Seems pretty straightforward and simple, but there is art here. Ask any successful salesperson. I’ve quoted Richard Bolles (What Color is Your Parachute) as saying there are only five questions that count, yet somehow interviewers seem to ask a lot more than that! Why?
Most interviewers haven’t articulated in nearly as concise a way what’s important. For example: In technology, we can get totally focused on knowledge around some particular tool and forget about everything else. That doesn’t mean the other information is less useful or important, just that we’ve failed to develop questions that appropriately address everything that matters.

The five questions are:

1. Why are you here? (Why are you applying for this job rather than somewhere else.)
2. What can you do for us? (Will you be able to solve this problem?)
3. What kind of person are you? (Will you fit with us?)
4. What makes you special? (What distinguishes you from the other xxxx people lined up to apply for this job?)
5. Can I afford you? (just what it says)

Mapping those to questions that are commonly asked is not especially straightforward. The only one you are likely to be asked in a clear way is, “Can I afford you?” And even that one can get murky in practice. At some point, though, there will be a discussion of salary and that will answer their question.

Seems like a dumb question, but it has hidden value

So the answers they are looking for are often hidden in seeming innocuous (sometimes called dumb) questions such as, “Tell me about yourself?” I’ve asked that question and here is why.

• Partly I was stalling for time (I just wanted to hear the candidate talk and to get some emotional reaction to them).
• Partly I wanted them to focus on themselves and not on the job description.
• Partly I wanted to see if they understood the job description and if they could translate that into language describing their experience.

In terms of the five questions, it was a starting attempt to answer questions 2, 3 and 4. If I asked, “What is your greatest strength?” then I probably wanted the candidate to tell me how his/her strengths might solve my problem (question 2). If I asked about weaknesses (“What is your greatest weakness?”), then I wanted to know whether the weakness would impact the rest of the team or the project (question 3).

The important take away from this is that I wasn’t especially interested in you “the person”. I wanted to know how you would help me. If you think that is unfair to ask you how you might fit without telling you what you need to fit into, I agree. But for that to happen, you need to ask me about the position/company. As a hiring manager, I actively created questions that didn’t include sufficient information for some definitive answer to be provided because I wanted you to ask.

My point here is that the questions you bring to the interview are just as important as the questions the potential employer brings. In fact if you have done a good job with yours, then translating these into a focused, productive interview is much easier.

Have your stories well practiced

Equally important in your prep is identifying and practicing stories that address the specifics of common questions and illustrate how you can help a company. Stories give you a much better shot in the interview. It is very possible that when you get to the interview, none of the stories apply, yet simply having them ready reminds you of the stories you might use.

I’ll use myself as an example again. If I am interviewing for a job as an IT Director, there are many stories I can tell. If I know their problem is high turnover, I provide one set of stories. If their problem is unstable infrastructure, it’s a different set.

If they ask me what my greatest strength is, then pretty much the worst answer I can think of is “Ideation”. It is my greatest strength but in every interview context I can think of, it would be a show stopper. Telling a story about how my penchant for understanding the underlying theory of network design allowed me to design a new network using tools I had not previously worked with, and how that design was economical and extensible, yada yada, now that’s a good story.

Key to choosing an applicable story is asking enough questions so I know what matters to my audience. One way to do this is simply asking more questions. If you are asked, “What is your greatest strength?” Rather than blurting out the first story that comes to mind (which I have done in the past), pause and ask specifically what kinds of problems they are working on. Something like, “I can provide a variety of stories that illustrate my strengths, perhaps if I understood more about what you are working on, I could choose an appropriate one. So what is it that you expect this new person to do? What is a key problem that you hope to solve?”

The point of all of this:
• Preparation is key.
• Use stories (well practiced stories) to illustrate your answer, rather than just blurting out an answer.
• Ask questions throughout the interview.
• Cliche questions are our friends because they allow us to prepare.

Linkedin and "key words"

2010-07-07T18:30:00.000-07:00

Every now and then someone passes something on to me that I really think is worth sharing and one of those was sent to me yesterday. I've been coaching folks for years to make sure the keywords that matter are repeated early and often (provided that all of the information is true) in their resume. One of my contacts, Selena Rushton, sent me a link for a 15-minute overview on how to optimize LinkedIn with keywords. I had thought about doing this, but hadn't quite gotten around to it. My profile had been based on what I set up when I was still looking for work as an IT Manager/Director.

Well I decided to put it to the test. First I did a search of "People" in LinkedIn for "career coach" and got 51,115 results. I got bored trying to find me after about the 40th page. Then I spent most of an hour reworking my profile to reflect what I'm doing now and optimizing my experience to reflect my real experience as a coach. Then I searched for career coach again and boom—I was entry number 10—last entry on the first page. This occurred by changing a very few things. I just replaced words like mentoring with coaching. On my summary I led with the fact that I'm a career coach and did the same with my profile. And I expanded my profile to focus more on how I have coached folks for years.

Worth noting, when I searched for "career coach" two hours later, I had already slipped to 12th, so lots of people are optimizing along with me, but I only invested an hour and I became visible. This is something that I will continue.

So here's the link again:

http://www.linkedstrategies.com/linkedin-keyword-optimization.htm

Internet Tools

2010-06-28T18:01:00.000-07:00

The longer I work in the area of job search and the more I learn about the various tools available to a job seeker, the more I realize how confusing it is.

Perhaps the biggest challenge is figuring out an appropriate balance. At NFJS, everything we’ve learned strongly reinforces that networking is the key to a successful job search. So it should be obvious, we think networking sites are much more important than any others, heck more important than all of the others combined.

There are really four kinds of web sites that we care about in job search.

Social Networking
The most useful type of web page is a social networking site: Linkedin or Facebook. Each of these provides tools to connect with your existing network. Linkedin is really optimized for your career and is almost required for an effective job search. There is lots to love here, but my favorite is what Linkedin does for allowing you to create intelligence around your network. As in, when you are interested in a particular company, a simple search in of “people” for the company will return how you are connected to the company. Linkedin is a place worth checking every day. Even here though it’s important not to get carried away. The focus of Facebook is your social network, but given that it is still your network, there are lots of ways to use this effectively. Spending time each day on these tools helps. Linkedin will get more results in job search than Facebook, but given that your network is your greatest resource, anything that nurtures your network is a good thing.

Be careful with your posts…. Everywhere. Remember that all of this stuff is permanent and the vast majority of what is posted is visible to a potential employer. You may have been at a great party over the weekend, heck it may have been your wedding, but don’t post a picture of you or any of your friends that got a little bit too happy. What has context with you and your friends doesn’t have context to a stranger.

Job Boards and listing aggregators.
One type not on the list, but very tempting and not very rewarding is job boards. You know their names. Monster.com, Dice.com, Careerbuilder.com etc. Each portrays itself as your one necessary stop on your career search, and frankly they mostly suck time without a return. Of course they actually do have real jobs being advertised…. The solution to this is the next type I do recommend: An “aggregator”. What they do is search through other pages to save you the time. The first of these that I recommend is Indeed.com. What Indeed does is search a large number (200? 300?) of job boards and report the findings back to the searcher. In addition it can be set up to redo a particular search daily then drop the findings into your email. Another one in this group is Linkup.com. It is similar to Indeed, but searches corporate boards instead. Lots of companies are less than excited to advertise on job boards, for lots of reasons, starting with cost. Linkup finds those jobs.

About Companies (as the company sees it)
The third are pages that describe a company. So it starts with the company web page, but also include things like Dunn and Bradstreet. For publicly traded companies, the web page will almost certainly have the most recent annual report and these truly are a gold mine of information. The “President’s report?” (or whatever passes for that) is usually quite accessible and will provide some great information about where the company is going and how it’s dealing with publicly known adversity. Dunn and Bradstreet is the tool companies use to check on each other, so pretty much every company that purchases anything is in here. It may be a little out of date, but never more than a few months, so it’s a resource that can be very useful.

About Companies (as others see it)
Start with Glass Door. It’s sort of rumor central, but take away the flames and the PR and you can get a pretty good idea of what a company is about. Then check stock analysts, business reporters, etc. Go to the library and ask a librarian. These people are amazing researchers and they love to help.

Resilience revisited

2010-06-11T13:04:00.000-07:00

I don't usually talk about resilience, but every once in a while, something captures my attention and is worth passing on. This is the case with the book, "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin.

There are several reasons:

• She owns her problems/challenges/etc. There are an infinite number of things we don't control and a relatively small number that we do. Chief among the things we control is ourselves; our attitudes and behavior. If we blame the stuff we don't control, then our lives tend to suck. If, instead, we focus on what we can control, we have a chance to make things better and she does that. It actually becomes a theme of the book. Everything she identifies as making her unhappy she addresses as her problem, not someone else's.

• There is real scholarship being practiced. Not the theoretical stuff that happens in schools, but the real stuff that has evolved over time and has solid practical research at its core.

• Her research and experience points out that her attitude is what makes her more or less happy.

As an example, one of the topics she researches is the old belief that if we "vent our anger" we release it and are "happier because of it." Turns out that's just not true. Being angry will make us more angry. Being happy will make us more happy. What a powerful idea that is.

When we are looking for jobs, all of the stuff she is saying is put into bold relief. There is even less that we can control than during times of employment. There are more reasons to be angry than when employed. There are fewer good things that penetrate our psyche than when employed. One of Ms. Rubin's points is that by finding those positives, those good things and focusing on them, the rest of our lives actually get better.

Back to the idea of "Resilience". When I copied the paper my wife wrote on resilience into the blog a year or so ago, the points it addressed very briefly are many of the same areas as in "The Happiness Project." Ms. Rubin just does a much better job of it.

Networking revisited

2010-06-03T13:02:00.000-07:00

I went to a couple of networking events recently, intent on working them in “pay it forward (PIF)” mode and I have to admit that I liked the results. The part I liked the most is there were people I actually could help.

My process was pretty much what Sandy Jones-Kaminski suggests in her book “I’m at a Networking Event, Now What???” I simply walked up to people asking some variation on the question, “How can I help?” and found a variety of folks that I actually could provide some help. For a few it was simply asking the question, “How can I help?” and they relaxed and started talking about why they were there. For one person it was direct useful feedback about his elevator pitch; for others it was a variety of other things. One person has become a client. She’s looking for a new job and that is, of course, what I do.

The point is that using this simple approach allowed me to have a very productive couple of hours. It’s so simple. It’s so easy to be intimidated at a networking event, or have expectations that are uncomfortable or a million other things. My first experience of one of these left me very cold as my regular readers might recall, but simply turning the process into a “PIF” event and it totally takes that pressure off.

Success is measured by the number of cards I get, not the number I give. Afterwards, my tasks are pretty straight forward; short intro/thank you/follow up notes to the people who gave me a card. If something more develops, perfect, if not, I did my part. I did what I could do.

How to flesh out your Work-Life Database™

2010-05-23T18:03:00.000-07:00

Keep it simple

You can keep this pretty simple. Stick with the first eight columns and just start adding all the major jobs you’ve had over the years. Write down the title of your job and start identifying the roles you had in that job. All jobs break down into components often called roles. Those components or roles for a job such as technical writer, might be team lead, peer reviewer, help writer, user interface designer and writer, white paper writer, team member, new writer mentor, usage resource, etc. There are usually a lot of different hats that we wear in any job.

So what does this get you? It gets you a quick and easy way to write a customized resume. Once the database is completed (or even partially completed), it is easy to copy and paste the appropriate pieces of your work life into a resume that is responsive to the requirements as stated in job description. In my case, being a writer, I have to fuss with it, but even so, I routinely produce one-off, customized resumes specific to a job description in under a half hour. Much better than the 3-4 hours I use to take.

You’ll see in the template that there are additional columns. “Job type to apply for” column is where I place a job title (such as technical writer) that tells me that this line is suitable for applying for a tech writer position.

Tracking your strengths

For many of us who go through the process of fleshing out a Work-Life Database™, a surprising result often occurs: We start to see what we are good at and what we are lousy at. Trends appear in what we write about in our accomplishments column. And since most of us are unemployed (or underemployed), we often are questioning whether we’ve chosen the right career. But how do we articulate the trends we see in the database? We see them, but what sort of a job might they work well in?

Learn to articulate your strengths

What we recommend to help you articulate your strengths and to help you more clearly see what you are good at is to take a test by the Gallup organization that will help you identify your strengths. This online test is available to you when you purchase one of the Gallup Organization’s Strength Finder books. You can also pay a fee on their website to take the test without buying the book. It is a 177-question test that determines what your top-five strengths are and produces a report that shows your top-five strengths (out of 37 available strengths). It gives you a detailed description of what you are good at. What sort of work you might be good at. And what roles in a job you might do the best.

In our Work-Life Database™ template there is a Top Five Strengths section. After taking the test, place your top five strengths in the column headings. Using your new-found insight into your strengths, start describing how an accomplishment was aided by a strength. Go through your whole history and describe how a strength has aided you on the job. As you do this, you’ll soon see where you’ve been successful because of your natural strengths. This is highly likely to help you more clearly see who you are and where your career possibly should go.

Persistence

2010-05-12T12:47:00.000-07:00

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.”

Schedule change

2010-04-28T21:38:00.000-07:00

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.

Interview Training

2010-04-26T15:06:00.000-07:00

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.

Microsoft

2010-04-20T19:44:00.000-07:00

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/.

Resume construction part 2

2010-04-02T10:12:00.000-07:00

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.

I hate customizing a resume

2010-03-26T11:18:00.000-07:00

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.

Introduction

2010-03-22T16:54:00.000-07:00

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.

Networking Workshop

2010-03-19T10:49:00.000-07:00

I never said how our networking workshop went. In an earlier blog, I compared "networking events" to Jr. High dances with everyone circling the other side and no one being completely comfortable. People dropping resumes into boxes and hoping someone might contact them. The goal of our event was to eliminate that.

We were lucky enough to have Sandy Jones-Kaminski volunteer to help. I've written about her book (I'm at a Networking Event, Now What?) previously. It's a terrific little book, so pick it up if you get a chance. Sandy brought the wisdom of that book to the event. She debunked the "Four Great Myths of Networking" and then gave us very specific words to use, and they worked. Among other things, all of the resumes disappeared, then people engaged with each other. The conversations were distinctly appropriate as well. People spent enough time to understand if they could genuinely help someone, exchanged enough information to know if they had something worth finding more about, then found the next person to chat with. It was great.

Matt Youngquist of Career Horizons was our co-host and he just brings terrific value. If you don't already follow his blog, it's worth the time.

We are doing this again. Next time is May 11th and while there will be some changes, the basic format worked. We will work on adding additional value, but being able to help people get better at networking is still the goal. I'm excited about it and hope you can join us. www.meetup.com/notes-from-the-job-search.

Interviewing

2010-03-16T10:42:00.000-07:00

Interviewing.

I’ve been trying to write a blog entry on interviewing for about a month. It’s not that I don’t have a lot to say on the subject, we spend three weeks talking about them in our groups as we go through our interviewing module and we have a three session private process that doesn’t include any of the same stuff. Maybe that’s the problem… Too much to say. :)

I guess the key is thinking of this as a sales process. We’re selling our work and time in exchange for the means to feed our families, buy our houses and cars. The best sales is all about listening, finding out what someone really needs then helping them solve the problem.

When we look for information on the web about interviewing, it’s totally intimidating the number of resources. There are millions of them(12.5 million on Google). Many, probably most, of those have some level of useful information. "Interview Questions",“The 50 most Common Mistakes”, “Five Questions you must Ask”, “How to Nail Every Interview!” etc. Honestly I’m as happy to break the process into it’s component parts as the next blogger, but this post is about the overall process and the idea is to keep it simple.

The best interviews look and act like conversations between two people trying to get to know each other and how to solve a problem. That’s it. One person asks some questions, the other one answers, realizes they don’t fully understand something, so they ask some questions, then the first is back at it. Etc. If it works right, both sides know a lot more about the opportunity and how the candidate would address it.

Strengths (again)

2010-02-11T17:20:00.000-08:00

My last entry was on the book Now Discover Your Strengths so obviously it’s a key element in the Notes From the Job Search (NFJS) approach to job search. Another component of NFJS is our suite of weekly support groups for professionals looking for new jobs. What these groups provide is a continuing reality check for ideas and strategies in general. This includes the ideas expressed in Now Discover Your Strengths. (http://www.strengthstest.com/)

This book, as well as the others in the series, positions our strengths as tools we have choices regarding. Which isn’t the experience NFJS has of them, or at least isn’t a complete description of our experience with strengths. The Top Five Strengths, which is the report we get when we take the test, look far more like a description of how we approach the world. One friend of mine took the test last summer and found her number one strength is “woo”. This means she always finds ways to embrace the people around her and have them embrace her. This is who she is. One example of this is she has never been in a job interview without getting a job offer. She is certainly smart and hard working and other good things, but so are lots of other folks. Her consistent approach to relationships—all relationships—is to find ways for people to align with each other.

As I mentioned in my last entry, my greatest strength is “ideation” and my second greatest is “strategic.” I also wrote about how those have played out in my career. Turns out that is a darn good description of how I function. I always want to understand the ideas that drive how something works and I always approach it strategically first. When working on new development, this can be a huge advantage. It allows me to create clear coherent programs that do what they are supposed to do and that can be changed over time, etc, etc.

When working on maintenance (fixing/modifying something someone else created), I still approach it looking for the ideas behind the whole, and then how a particular piece fits. That doesn’t work—essentially it’s as big a problem as it was an asset for new development.

There is just very little that is as much fun for me as a discussion of how something works. It’s part of what drives me at NFJS. What is the suite of tools, the process that allows people to identify and achieve their dream job? That’s what I can build on. It’s a strength; it’s also not especially negotiable. I can acknowledge it and build on it, or I can frustrate myself and everyone around me by ignoring it and trying to be what someone else wants.

I can give lots of examples: A “learner” I know is always investigating new ideas and new areas of knowledge and new ways to do his current job. He is partially motivated by the enjoyment of solving problems, but mostly he is simply trying to learn something new.

Where taking the “strengths test” helps in the job search is by giving us words to describe what we do and why we are special. Then as we examine our work history, it helps us identify more easily where we were successful and how that success occurred. It gives us a coherent set of characteristics to build our “brand” around. What is it that makes you special? Looking back at your career through the filter of your strengths will help you identify those characteristics and help you identify the proof required to make you stand out in this market.

Now Discover your Strengths

2010-01-27T12:58:00.000-08:00

If you read this regularly, you will have noticed that I try to focus on the positive and help people build on their strengths. A piece of this comes from Now Discover your Strengths, and somehow I've missed writing the book up. What this book does is validate things most of us know intuitively, but may be afraid to commit to.

In my case, math and science are noticeably easier for me than reading and writing, or at least it started out that way. :) Unfortunately, I was 32 before I allowed myself to use that information in relationship to my career. I also have a need to understand how things work and while that’s useful in lots of areas, I didn’t nurture that as part of my career until about the same time. This combination led to changing careers and embracing computers and systems development... More accurately, my previous careers hadn’t been all that successful, so when I chose a new path, I actually included this information in the equation. The result was a career in computers and development that lasted most of 30 years and that was very successful.

The point is not about me, but what happens when building a career based on strengths, which leads back to Now Discover your Strengths. One element in their process is an online test that can provide a view of your natural strengths. You can go straight to the test via http://www.strengthstest.com , but context helps, so maybe you borrow the book and take the test. What you will get back from the test will be a list of the five areas of how you approach life and problem solving that are your strongest tools. For example my first one in “Ideation”, in this case it means I need to understand stuff, there’s more to it of course and you can look that up if you care, but the real point is that when I took the test 20 odd years after I switched into computers systems, I found something that actually had language around why my choice worked. Very powerful stuff.

When you take the test, it will not tell you what your career should be, “ideation” doesn’t tell me I should be a developer, but when I look at an opportunity, it allows me to evaluate my chances for success much more clearly and with significantly better tools. It will also help you understand the styles of work that will facilitate your success.

In Now Discover your Strengths Marcus Buckingham defines a strength as “consistent near perfect performance in an activity.” The level of performance must be consistent, which means you’ve done it before and can expect this when you do it again. One of Buckingham’s examples is Tiger Woods. Woods drives are amazing and consistent and he can (and does) rely on them. Realistically, there isn’t anyone who drives like Tiger, but driving is a strength for a lot of golfers and many of them build their games around their drives. In other words, “near perfect” is relative. What the test will give you isn’t a description of your drives, just a description of how you can optimize your approach to many things.

Using my own example again, “ideation” is my first strength, and “strategic” is my second. As a developer, I found I did a great job on new development and honestly struggled with maintenance work. My strengths translate to someone who is almost exclusively a top down thinker, and if I don’t understand context I struggle until I get the context. The strengths of a good new system developer includes an ability to understand the whole and to get the details right inside that whole. A maintenance developer works best if they don’t need the whole, just the three or four details required to fit the new code into a program/system etc. Prior to taking the test, I understood that my performance was distinctly different in maintenance mode vs development mode and I just could not figure out why. Taking the test made the reasons very clear and really drives me to focusing on one vs the other. What the test did for me was give me vocabulary to understand why one function was relatively easy and very satisfying while what seems to be a very similar track was just a major challenge and nothing but frustrating.

Equally important, the test results help me understand what would be a successful future choice. Moving from IT to career coaching, it’s clear to me that I need to base my coaching on my strengths… Actually it’s clear that I will base it on my strengths because I don’t know how to do it any other way. If that way is incompatible with career coaching then I need to come up with a plan B. Your particulars are different than mine, but you do work from your strengths or you struggle, just like me. Knowing what these are allows you to avoid a lot of frustration.

Start by reading the book and taking the test. The words it will come back with might not be all that familiar so read the descriptions. Think about how those apply to your work life. The descriptions will be describing things you did when you were successful, how can you build on these? How can you use more of these in your life? Your work?

Networking Workshop

2010-01-22T09:12:00.000-08:00

After reading Sandy Jones-Kaminski's book, I had an opportunity to meet her recently and became even more impressed. The result is that along with Career Horizons and Bella Domain, we will be hosting a PIF Networking workshop on March 2 and I couldn't be more excited. One of my earlier posts characterizes "Job Socials" as wayyy to similar to a Jr High School Dance, just swap the boys and girls with recruiters and job seekers and the picture is complete. What we will be doing at this event is teaching a way skip that whole thing and providing an opportunity to networks with a variety of folks.

Pay it Forward Networking Workshop, March 2. RSVP at the Meetup group Notes From the Job Search.

More to follow.

Changes

2010-01-11T13:57:00.000-08:00

Changes

I started Notes from the Job Search (NFJS) last winter in response to my need to support my job search and it has evolved into a full-service career-coaching organization focusing on re-employment. The part of this is that our participants are going back to work and they are going to jobs they want. The number of stories about people identifying what their passions are, then getting those jobs just keeps growing and makes NFJS very rewarding.

We currently host two free weekly support groups and are adding a third this week. The new group will meet at Jitters Cafe in Overlake (15010 NE 20th Bellevue) Thursday's at 1:00. This blog has been reasonably successful, and more importantly, the number of people following it continues to grow.

My last post was on Sandy Jones-Kaminski's book I'm at a Networking Event, Now What? and this book is inspiring us to co-host something called a "Pay it Forward" (PIF) event as a way of putting into practice some of what we are learning about networking. We are preparing classes that focus on individual skills within the job search process.

My brother Mike Paul joined me in this endeavor last summer and has become a full partner in developing and presenting solutions to the job search challenge. His help and support are critical and amazing!

My background (as many of you know) is Information Systems/Technology: First as a developer, then as several kinds of manager, including a stint as Director of IT for a large non-profit. The most important consequence of that for NFJS is that it is normal for me to analyze problems, break them down into component parts, and then develop solutions that included all of the necessary steps. I also spent four years as a Resource Manager at Excell Data managing 75+ contract employees. They worked at a variety of locations from Microsoft to the City of Seattle to Boeing, to two-person “ma & pa” startups. While I spent a lot of time mentoring people in technology in this role, the real value was mentoring/coaching them to success within complex political environments. So this change in careers isn't nearly as large as it mightn seem on the surface.

My brother’s career is in writing first as a newspaper reporter, then as technical writer. In this role he’s developed trainings, written countless documents translating the complex into the understandable and has become something of a “networking maven” within the tech-writing community. He has also been an adjunct instructor at Bellevue College in tech writing for more than five years.

While we have learned an amazing amount from the participants and volunteers with Notes From the Job Search, the learning has refined our core concepts rather than replaced them. What are those?

Focus on what works, rather than what doesn’t, and build on that.
Networking will normally find you a better job than anything published on the Internet, and find it quicker.
Custom resumes work better than a generic resume, but custom resumes are also extremely hard to do without a lot of preparation.
You know more about yourself than any consultant/coach can ever know… although it may be very hard for you to articulate it.
The Internet is now a key and required component of job search.
The Internet is a great way to avoid real job search while convincing yourself that you’re trying.
Networking is an ongoing part of life. It’s just another name for what occurs when you talk with someone. And if you only do it between jobs it means you misunderstand what it is. This is like trying to harvest wheat without planting any.
Interviewing works better when you practice.

Our offerings are evolving and growing. We started with the support groups, have added individual coaching and are in the process of putting together classes that take the components of job search and address them individually.

So 2010 is an exciting year, I'm looking forward to it.

Pay it Forward

2010-01-05T19:45:00.000-08:00

One of the members of our Tuesday group brought a book to our group last week that brought a bunch of ideas together for me and added some new ones that fundamentally change how I think networking should be done. It’s stuff that I’ve vaguely thought, and haphazardly tried, but have always thought was what I shouldn’t do.

Networking events have always felt like middle school dances. You know the ones, the boys are on one side and the girls are on the other, (substitute recruiters and job seekers) and each side spends pretty much the entire night talking about how much success they always have with the other side, just not venturing forth and testing those waters. ;)

I'm starting to follow a new blog, it's on my list: Bella Domain. This is by the person who wrote I’m at a Networking Event, Now What? -- Sandy Jones-Kaminski. In the book, she postulates that the focus of networking events should not be “What can you do for me?” She proposes that every networking event be approached as an opportunity to ask, “What can I do for you?” Things like passing out business cards aggressively are strongly discouraged, instead, listen to the answers people provide and only share your card with people you actually might be able to help. She suggests an attitude of “Pay it Forward” for the event. For those that missed the book and movie, pay it forward is the idea of doing something for someone else as a way of saying thank you for things that others have already done for you. Instead of paying back what you owe, pay it forward to the next person. Turns out there is even research suggesting that this is a more effective strategy when approaching others in a networking mode. Immediately, it allows for a focus on what others are doing, rather than prattling on about how great we are when we probably aren’t all that convinced of our value to begin with. Most of us can get very convinced of our ability to solve problems within our area, so when someone says, “I need help with…. And describes what we know about, we can get into problem solving mode in a heartbeat, and then we don’t need to tell people we’re super, we just demonstrate it. Way more fun!

At any rate, Sandy’s book is outstanding. It’s one of those books that brings together a bunch of well known information and comes up with a new conclusion that feels much better than what I thought previously and completely demystifies what was a very intimidating event.

Thanks

2009-12-30T14:32:00.000-08:00

Thank you 2009! yeah, right. Well, this is either a half full or half empty choice. On the half empty side, 2009 was very frustrating when it came to job search. The number of incredibly well qualified people out of work is very disheartening. Some companies have become incredibly disrespectful of potential employees. etc. etc.

On the half full side, I started Notes From the Job Search. I've met some amazing people! I have my first paying customer as a career coach, roughly 90 people on my mailing list, many of whom choose to remain on the list after going back to work. This blog is up and running! (Thank you to my 23 stalkers! :)

I've also been given some amazing help. Col Bob Jackson (USAF Ret) has been instrumental. He has a resume building process that is extraordinary and that he has shared with NFJS. Using his system as a key component, we now know how to help people create custom resumes very quickly and directly connected to opportunities. Kevin McClintic has been the unofficial sales manager for NFJS and been tireless in letting people know about the groups and the blog and how we can support each other. Shari Fox was an enormous help early in this process keeping us grounded in the realities of the hiring process and focused on how people can negotiate that. Gayle Rose has been terrific in sharing leads and ideas. When she's gone to trainings, she has been most gracious in sharing. Monica Cavagnaro for her eagerness to share. Stacia Polhonka and her willingness to be an example. Mike Montgomery for his the same reasons. Kerrie Schurr shared her training in "Dependable Strengths" which strongly reinforced where we are going with resume's. My brother Mike Paul, who has now joined me as part of the NFJS team. He has been incredibly generous with his time and ideas. His experience with Networking is a paradigm in how to make this work.

Matt Youngquist for his encouragement -- and one of the best blogs out there on job search and career success!

So we could surely look at the problems and declare the glass half empty, but there is just too much good that is going on to get stuck there. So goodbye to 2009, it's been a very good year, 2010 is looking even better!

Resume path part 2

2009-12-13T10:37:00.000-08:00

In my last post, I discussed how a job posting showed up on an advertisement/job board etc. and that by the time it reached a job board, it had been worked into a set of criteria. What happens next is why we spend so much time on resumes.

The result of posting an opportunity is that the recruiter will be bombarded with resumes. It has become common for me to be told that as many as 1,000 resumes can be submitted to a single posting. So when I say that a recruiter can be bombarded, that is really close to what they experience. And honestly, no one can review 1,000 resumes and no company wants them to.

For smaller companies that do things manually, the person will start at the top of the pile and go through resume’s until they find some pre-determined number of resumes that might be good fits, then files the rest and deals with the selected ones. Maybe it’s 50, maybe as much as 100, it’s just very hard to imagine the number getting much bigger than that. So lots of resumes aren’t even reviewed. Frequently not even logged in.

Larger organizations use some kind of software that allows them to do “key word” searches. A key word that is popular currently in IT is “Scrum”. It’s a development project management methodology. So the recruiter has all of the resumes entered into a database then scans them for “Scrum”. If your resume doesn’t use that word, then it is eliminated. If the number of resume’s left after this is too large, then the recruiter will add some other word, perhaps it will be C#. Still too many? Check to see if Scrum appears two or more times, check if C# appears more than two times, then three, etc.

There is almost no chance a human will look at more than 50 resumes for an opening. Even then, the first human scan will probably take less than 10 seconds, probably closer to 3. The recruiter will now have 20 to 25 resumes that are read in any kind of depth at all. Their job is to deliver between 3 and 10 resumes to a hiring influence. Worst case scenario, has 10 screening interviews extracted from 1000 resumes submitted. That is a 1% chance of a screening interview, let alone an interview for a job.

The result of this maze, from the applicant’s point of view is that resume needs to be built specifically for the opportunity. What are the key words? What is the emphasis? What is the required experience? Assuming you have them, then they have to be on the resume the way the job description describes them.

I am painting a couple of worst case scenarios here, that’s true and there certainly are exceptions. There are companies that commit to reviewing every resume, and there are recruiters that commit to that as well. Unfortunately, it is way too common for the scenario's I'm describing to be real, so even if your resume isn’t going through half of these hoops, and even if the number of resumes submitted is only 100, the resume itself must be prepared.

Why do resume's matter?

2009-12-07T09:29:00.000-08:00

At Notes from the Job Search, we spend a lot of time teaching that the perfect resume is the one you drop off after your first day of work and that the job you want is one that you get through a referral from a friend. We also spend a lot of time working on making our resumes the very best possible; which seems like a contradiction. Why spend time perfecting something you shouldn’t be letting anybody see? Unfortunately, we normally need to work both ends of a job identification/recruitment process in order to get the job we want.

What makes writing a resume such a tough problem? Heck, there is a whole industry built up around writing them and it’s easy to spend 2 or 3 thousand dollars on one. Is that a good use of money?

The answer is tied up in the other end of the process, specifically the recruitment process. What does the hiring company go through in order to hire a new employee?

The hiring process works best for the potential employer at the same time it works best for the potential employee: When a potential opening and a potential employee meet up before HR gets involved. Sorry HR folks, but it does. The hiring influence and the job seeker talk about the problems that need to be solved, the job seeker is identified as compatible through mutual experience and common friends and interests, the quality of the work can be reviewed based on relevant criteria.

Bringing HR into the process requires that a fundamentally subjective process become objective. Step one is a “job description”. My background is IT and in IT terms, that is a “solution” or a “specification”. Solutions that are separated from problems probably represent the largest number of failed projects in IT and that is what’s required when hiring is turned over to HR. HR has a specification and then does it’s level best to fill it. They interview the hiring influence, get that person’s best guess as to what they need, translate into a series of questions, etc. etc. In the end they have a rigid set of criteria, questions with a rigid set of answers.

The reason for all of the time worked on resume’s is to negotiate that rigid path… In competition with some ridiculous number of other people doing the same thing. The resume is the first step down that path.

Branding redux

2009-11-30T12:35:00.000-08:00

I’ve been thinking about “Branding” a lot the last couple of weeks. What is a core skill set? What is a “core strength”? How do I (or anyone else) use those to stay relevant in a world that is changing at the speed of light?

As near as I can tell, all of us have lots of strengths. I have certainly met people who didn’t recognize theirs, but they still had strengths. Equally, pretty much all of us have a wide variety of skills, unfortunately, these have a habit of becoming outdated, so it’s easy to feel like we don’t have much to offer, or what we have to offer isn’t what people are willing to pay for. So how do we build from current to future, using our strengths as a guide? How do we avoid being sidetracked, yet continue to move in a direction that keeps us employable?

The premise here is that in order to identify the ongoing strengths that we want to depend on, that we want to be hired to use, we need to look at our work history and our successes. As we identify those successes and identify the patterns of success, we also identify our “brand”. This allows us to recreate our resumes, profiles etc to emphasize what we are passionate about. This allows us to look at jobs where we will be able to build on our strengths. It also helps us understand the idea that we are creating a partnership with a potential employer.

Let’s face it, we all want a job where we can pretty much guarantee success, where we normally create high expectations that we then exceed. It’s just fun to do. The key is knowing enough about our own strengths and skills so we apply for work that fits that profile. Understanding and documenting a brand that allows us to focus our search and get the job we want.

Opportunities

2009-11-19T15:11:00.000-08:00

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” or so wrote Charles Dickens 150 years ago, although I’ve certainly heard people quoting one half or the other recently. There was an article in the Seattle Times recently about how tough the market is and how current job descriptions include everything and then throw in “personal assistant tasks” whatever the heck that means. If we include “discouraged” workers along with people still looking for work, unemployment pencils out as 15% or more. We’ve all been impacted by an economy that is the worst since the Great Depression. At the same time, people are going to work. Some of the folks working with NFJS are getting their dream jobs. Some are looking at their careers and saying, “I need to do what I love!”

One woman who has been a participant started out completely desperate for work. While coming to NFJS we helped her articulate what her dream job was and how to accomplish it: Creating an Art School. Eventually her desperation won out (or so we thought) and she took an admin job for the Feds. Within one month, she quit, rented some space and started her school. It’s been about a month since I’ve heard from her, but at that point, she had four classes going and was paying herself enough to stay afloat. It took her about four months to create her dream job at a level that supports her minimum requirements. She won’t buy a BMW this year, but then she doesn’t want one. What she wants is to teach art, and what she’s doing is teaching art. For her this is the “best of times”.

Another member of NFJS came to us looking for manual testing contract at Microsoft, testing hardware or software and complaining about how Microsoft has cut the compensation for contractors. This man did his homework while with us and developed a much better understanding of his own experience, his capabilities and his passions. What he got was an FTE position for AT&T at about 1/5th more than he thought he would be able to ask for as a contractor and doing precisely what he wanted: Leading a team doing automated hardware and software testing of devices.

The point of these two stories is to recognize that we have opportunities in spite of what we might read or hear. It always requires work to become what we want to become, but if we can articulate it and the steps necessary completely, if we can imagine it and the steps to get there completely, then we can do it. For most purposes, we get to choose if this is “the best of times” or “the worst of times”. Creating “the best of times” is hard work, but so is creating “the worst of times”.

Amazingly, the Green Bean Coffee house has been resurrected! Wayward Coffee House has been a great answer for the last month, Thank you, thank you Wayward Coffee House!
The Green Bean is now housed in the “Sip N Ship” on Greenwood Ave. 8560 Greenwood Ave N. Being back at the Bean will be great.

Networking

2009-11-12T12:06:00.000-08:00

I had the opportunity to meet and chat with Matt Youngquist, owner of Career Horizons, recently and I was impressed. I’ve been receiving his newsletter for a couple of years and have to say he consistently has great information. His blog is also excellent and on the list of blogs I follow. Career Horizons is a career coaching organization. They help while you’re working as well as in between. Their approach reinforces the idea that job search needs to be a continuous process – whether or not you are looking! This is just one more instance.

Living Life Opportunities Speaking of parts of the job search that are really on-going, networking is a process that requires continuous nurturing. Fortunately, it’s also a completely normal, integral part of our lives. At least two of the members of NFJS have gone back to work through contacts developed in their children’s sports. They weren’t doing something strange, like shouting “I NEED A JOB”. They were volunteering, being themselves and consistently providing the kind of quality that is their norm. They also worked on their elevator pitch hard enough so that when someone asked what they are doing, they responded easily and naturally with the pitch. Sooner or later conversations about work led to understanding, combined with watching how these people conduct themselves as volunteers and “voila” a job offer materialized.

Networking Opportunities There are also times when we have specific opportunities to meet people who might be especially important in our search. These are “networking” opportunities. Maybe it’s a Job Search Social, or maybe it’s a Job Fair. Who we are isn’t going to change, and what we’re looking for isn’t changing. These events may seem to be pretty artificial and when you meet someone there, it is difficult to develop a lot of enthusiasm for them. We don’t really know them, and we don’t really understand what they are doing, or the quality of it. So it’s easy to dismiss these as quixotic – a waste of time.

They don’t have to be though. In order to make one of these events useful, the key is focus on yourself, what you bring; then, how well you follow up.

For instance, there’s a local job fair you see advertised for next week. Preparation includes investigating the firms being advertised as participating. Do they recruit for your industry? If not, then don’t go. If they do, then do they ever have openings for someone with yours skill set? It’s a job fair, then it better be a current opening, or don’t waste your time. If it’s a job social, then current is good, but go either way. Job fairs are a grind, what you want is the card of the person recruiting for your position. It allows you to follow up and separate yourself from the stack they got at the fair. Job socials are better, but the goal is still the card of someone who will be recruiting for your position.

Follow Through What you have now is an opportunity to create a relationship with someone who might be able to help. If there is a current position, then start with an email, then follow up with snail mail. Include in your initial communications an invite to meet and a time when you’ll follow up. Something like, “I appreciated meeting you at the job social last night and would love to follow up in a less frenzied atmosphere. I’ll call you Thursday morning to set up a time for a brief meeting.” Do some more research on the company and then call Thursday Morning.

I understand that this kind of socializing is hard. It’s hard for me too, but the job social/fair isn’t a time when you can get the other person’s undivided attention, nor can you give them yours. Finding a way to represent yourself as you are is your real goal. It’s also an opportunity we won’t get without asking. We may not get it then either, but we at least have a chance this way.

Thank you Green Bean

2009-10-24T00:46:00.000-07:00

One of the coffee shops where NFJS meets burned down last night, and I feel the need to say "Thank you!" It was the Green Bean Coffee House and it was a terrific place. A non-profit of it's own, part of a church (Sanctuary), but mostly a place of acceptance and welcome. We have been meeting there since April, but I've known them since they opened in 2004. One of the key volunteers for NFJS is Colonel Bob Jackson (USAF Ret) whom I met through the Green Bean. Turns out his daughter is the Manager of the Green Bean along with being one of the ministers at Sanctuary. These people and the place they created will be missed.

Until further notice, the Wednesday Meeting of Notes from the Job Search will be meeting at the Wayward Coffeehouse Around the corner and half a block further north. (8570 Greenwood Ave N).

Job Search sales

2009-10-13T10:43:00.000-07:00

My last post was on “branding” and creating a consistent message or “brand” when talking about your work skills and talents. This post takes the concept of approaching job search as a sales job a bit further.

I distinguish between good sales and bad sales. “Good sales” is when we identify real problems and offer a solution that addresses it successfully. We’ve all experienced it, and we tend to remember the person or people that helped us with it. It’s amazing how many processes look like this, for example: In IT, a good job of analysis and development fits. It is also what we’re doing in job search.

A tool I use to organize this process is “OGOOALS”.

OGOOALS system for thinking about job search (and sales)
Orientation: “Hi, How are you” portion. Very short, especially the first time you meet. Standard pleasantries… you know the things, weather, Mariners, Seahawks, stuff like this. Meaningless, mostly used to initiate the conversation and cover the ourselves as we measure each other physically

Gather: Asking about the company, the job, the environment, the tools, etc. This is the meat of the time and the meat of your approach. Orientation only happens in person, Gather starts way before you meet. It’s reading the job description, the web page, etc. The purpose is to find out what problem is being solved. Are they expanding? Did they just fire someone? Are they changing direction? Why are they looking?

Offer a solution: Once you understand the problem, look at your history and provide a way to solve the problem based on your experience and your strengths. If they advertised for a Java developer, but the problem is a poorly designed web page, address the Java, but focus on the problem. What of your strengths will allow you to redesign this web page so that it solves whatever problem it was intended for.

Offer proof: You proposed a solution, now show them proof that you can implement the solution. What in your work history qualifies you to do this? How can they be certain that you are the one who really can implement this solution.

Ask for the sale: “I would love to work here, what’s the next step in that process?” or “I would love to be the person that tackles this problem for you. What needs to happen for that to occur?” Then listen. Let them tell you how to move forward. Wait. If they need to think their answer through, respect that silence.

Leave the premises. You know you have the job or you know the next step, so say “Thank you” , and leave. Don’t ask about the wife/husband or the Mariners or the weather. The interview is complete, Leave.

Send a thank you note. Hand written. Email works as an add-on, but the hand written is what counts. If you can walk it in, do so. It’s another touch. People are hired, not resume’s and not skill sets, so as you become more of a person, you are more likely to be hired.

Branding

2009-10-01T14:28:00.000-07:00

It’s my premise that job search is very much like sales. The product in job search is your skill set and your work persona; note that your product isn’t “you”, just that part of yourself that creates value for companies. At any rate, when selling a product, one of the first steps is establishing a “brand” for the product. Translating this to job search, we need to look at our skill set and our work experience as the tools with which to build this brand. Your response to the job description will be to tailor your brand.

Early in NFJS one of our groups had 3 high level IT folks. All of us had been in IT for a while, we had managed teams and all of us have experienced success with projects. At the simplest level, it would be very easy to see us as competitors. When you dig just a bit deeper, we all have very different strengths that have led to our success, and each of us has a very different focus going forward. The key to each of our brands are those strengths. My brand is focused on my team building and moving a team forward to complete projects, “D” is exceptional at developing solutions to problems that seem intractable, “V” will bring a focus on communication between the various stakeholders.

The marketing folks tell us that a brand starts by looking at a product from the customer’s point of view. Looking at the skill sets of the three program managers this suggests each of us should think about the problem a company is trying to solve that will give us that ideal opportunity. I’m the guy when a team has become rudderless, or is experiencing conflict. “D” will be the person for a situation with serious technical problems and “V” will be a great choice for a company that wants to focus on understanding between its users and its development team. Each of us needs to build our brand around these problems, and if we find ourselves competing for a position, we should look a lot deeper into the problem the company hiring us is trying to address.

Networking

2009-09-16T08:47:00.000-07:00

Early on in my blogging, I wrote a piece on "Resilience". Actually I copied something my wife wrote. That's important, because her expertise is mental health, while mine is mostly IT management, and lately I've learned a lot about job search. At any rate, I mention this because of how much networking supports resilience and resilience supports networking. If you go back to that article, you find a key component is building and maintaining relationships, and that pretty much is networking. With that intro:

Networking:

• Definition: Targeted (around career) making of friends.
• When: Throughout our careers. While we are working may be more important than when looking. That's when the foundation is laid.
• Where: Pretty much everywhere. Sometimes it's about handing out a business card, sometimes not, it is pretty much always about getting names and following up
---- Note that the purpose of a business card is at least as much about getting theirs as it is giving ours. It allows us to initiate the follow up. -----
• Who: People connected with our profession and the businesses that might employ people like us.

In simple terms, we network pretty much everywhere and all the time. It's not about becoming somehow different, but about being ourselves. The hard part is emotional, not skill or technique, it requires that we start things and we follow up. Someone compared it to being a high school boy asking for a 1st date and it's apt. The risk though is pretty much all in our heads and somehow, we still need to drive through. We need to remember that as hard as it was for the boy who did ask, he had a date that weekend, the boy who didn't ask, didn't.

Resumes (more)

2009-08-26T10:43:00.000-07:00

I’ve blogged about resume’s previously and covered a lot of the basics. You know the stuff:
· Use bullets,
· Start each bullet with one or more active verbs
· Leave lots of white space
· Use numerals unless there is some specific reason to use the number names
· Use your spell checker
· etc
Others have added unknown billions of bytes about what to say as well. Frequently they recommend that each job being applied for requires a different resume. When we look at a job description, we should line our experience up with their requirements then submit this unique resume.

At Notes From the Job Search we agree with most of that, but we also recognize that it’s much easier said than done. Who has the time to rewrite their resume 3 or 4 times a week? Who remembers all that stuff we did 5 or 10 years ago? If I tell someone that I wrote an inventory system for a company that maintained inventory for about 100 smaller companies, do I also tell them it was in Cobol? That I did it 15 years ago? How about the fact that it was for a logging company?

One of the volunteers at NFJS is Bob Jackson (Colonel, USAF ret) and he came up with a process for making those individualized resume’s possible. It starts by separating the resume build process from the application process, so when an interesting opportunity surfaces, we’re ready. It’s still a challenging process and takes time. First to figure out what to include, then to figure out how to phrase it, then to figure out what to extract for a specific opportunity.
So what is this magic process?
· Create a resume database including: everything.
· Phrase accomplishments such they can be cut and pasted into a new resume.
· Include all of your recommendations
· Cherry pick the good stuff out of evaluations
· Write short (2 line max) descriptions of jobs held.
· Focus on what you did, not what you did it on. (in the example above, what I did was write the “inventory system”, what I did it on was “logging”)

The place to start is a simple chronological list of jobs you’ve had. If you are just entering the job market, then add an entry for every year of school from your freshman year in high school.

Next take your resume as it stands now and cut and past them into the list aligned with the job where they took place.

Add the stuff back in that you took out because it happened too long ago.

Add all of the recommendations you’ve received. If they are in hard copy, type them in.

There are people who can do this without a support system, Bob did it that way, but most of us need someone to check in with and compare notes with, so if you’re in the Seattle area, check out the NFJS schedule and join us. If you are outside the area, find some kind of support system. Maybe just a friend you can get together with every week, maybe it’s your spouse, maybe it’s a support group like NFJS, but getting support is very important. Perhaps the best part is the mutual re-enforcement, but there are amazing numbers of benefits.

Elevator Pitch

2009-08-05T23:22:00.000-07:00

My brother suggested that the various bits of information that we use in our job search are really part of "branding" our work. It's a great concept and a great way to think of the parts. It suggests that the message is consistent and that while the format changes, and the words change and even the examples used, we understand our work as a product and that we understand that getting a job is really selling that product. So our elevator pitch is the first and shortest description of our brand

Elevator pitches:

Basics
o Short 30 seconds
o Part A, what are you looking for
o Part B, What makes you special (with specifics)

Key is to focus on your audience and to think out expectations before starting
o The neighborhood block party has one presentation
o A corporate CEO has a different presentation
o Core elements need to remain -- the brand is still the brand

When describing your history, describe what you did, not what you did it on.

Example:
o Your job in the Army was "Supply Officer". What you did your work on would be scheduling trucks and truck drivers and munitions and rations.
o What you did was work task breakdown, schedule coordination, critical path analysis...

Summary:
Be specific about your role (thinking of what you did, not what you did it on) the example above might include:
o Trained and Managed crew of 24 working round the clock under adverse conditions
o Designed, wrote and implemented policies that provided for the safety of full crew

It needs to be developed with the audience in mind and it changes based on the audience
It does not answer all questions, better if it generates questions/discussion

In other words, our "brand" is always our "brand" but it can be expressed lots of ways.

Curricula

2009-07-28T17:59:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while since I posted, and I apologize to my reader(s?). I’ve been thinking about how to approach this whole process and how to add value to people’s job search. To do that, I’m going to formalize the curricula used by NFJS. Also will be organizing it around a standard point of view, so all of the parts fit together.

The point of view is pretty easy to state: All of our job search materials will be informed by the statement, “How does this appear from the point of view of a hiring manager?”

The curricula will include work on:
· Elevator pitch
· Resume
· Networking sites
· Networking
· Interviewing

Next post will be Elevator Pitch

Networking

2009-07-06T18:57:00.000-07:00

There is little question that the surest method for finding a new job is networking. I'm guessing most of us know that, at least at some level. So what is it? How do you do it?

Simply stated, it's engaging others in your job search: Getting other people (your friends, family and associates) to be your eyes and ears, to be your advertising campaign. We all understand the definition, unfortunately, "understanding" is different than actually doing it.

What are the tools of networking? There is no definitive list, and there is no limit. One friend of mine moved the needle a lot. When she found out she was going to be laid off, before she left work for the last time, she found all of the people she had shared the elevator with over the previous 10 years and let them know her change in status and engaged them in her search.

A partial list of networking tools includes:
· An elevator pitch – 30 second description of what you are looking for and what you bring that is special, what you bring that adds value to a prospective employer.
· Interviews for Information
· Social Networking sites
o LinkedIn – this is probably the most important tool in this category.
o Plaxo, Biznik, Spoke, etc. These are also business oriented internet networking sites. Each has value and is worth considering
o Facebook
o Twitter
· Affinity groups (professional organizations, church groups, soccer team, workout locations, etc). This is any group you spend time with that you aren’t being paid for. Your best ones are the ones you spent time with before you started looking for a new job.
· Volunteer work

In other words, your primary network is everyone you know. Your secondary network is everyone they know.

Social Networking sites are ways to document your network, mine your network for opportunities and facilitate ongoing communication.

Your “elevator pitch” is your intro to new people and a way to update people you know. An “Interview for Information” is a tool to find deep knowledge about a profession or a company or a particular stage in a profession or maybe just more about an individual; it can have the consequence of moving someone from your secondary network to your primary network, and that is normally one of the goals.

Given the simple number of places to spend time (including the myriad of job boards etc.) one of the great challenges in job search is spending time efficiently and effectively. So while every contact is networking, it is necessary to evaluate your networking time for usefulness. I’m not suggesting that you stop spending time with your in-laws, or that you only spend time with them as it relates to job search, I am suggesting you are honest with them regarding your situation (update them with your elevator pitch) and that you make time for the former boss you haven’t seen in the last few years, but that you enjoyed when you worked for him/her.
There is an especially important question to ask with every contact, “Who else should I talk to?” Write down the name and contact info you are given, then follow up. If you get the opportunity to meet, the meeting is an Interview for Information and at the end, you should have an additional member of your primary network.

One last thought: Always thank the people that help.

2009-06-25T15:43:00.000-07:00

NJFS keeps coming back to internet tools. It’s pretty clear that the tool of choice for job search is Linkedin. While it has some competitors (Plaxo, Biznik, Spoke. Etc) and they all have reasonable value propositions, Linkedin is the one that has market penetration. It’s the one that recruiters scan first, the one that hiring influences check and the one your business contacts are most likely to be part of. There are also some great resources on the net to help us optimize our use of it. Check out Rita Ashley’s free white paper here.

Some things that seem sure:
· Be complete. Fill out the whole thing, including a good picture. If you need to have a pro take the photo, do it.
· In the “current” field, be honest. If what you are doing is volunteer work, put it down. If you left your last gig 4 months ago, be honest. It will be noted and you are not fooling anyone.
· Connect with everyone that seems appropriate. Becoming a Linkedin ”lion” is great for the Marketing Manager, but if you are a developer, then 1000 plus connections is probably not a good idea. Everyone does have more than 25 real connections and most of us can break over 100 while including only people we really do know.
· Recommend folks that you believe in and ask them for recommendations in return. Recommending others extends your visibility and being recommended provides you with credibility. Both need to be honest and both are important.
· Your connections are your network. If you have connected with people that you are comfortable forwarding an introduction for, then you can assume they feel the same. Understanding that you can’t recommend everyone on the list, you are not asking that of them. You are asking what you are willing to give.

A couple of great sites for volunteering: WWW.idealist.org and www.volunteermatch.org.

resume writing

2009-06-13T10:39:00.000-07:00

Just ran into a great resume writing resource. http://toptenresumetips.blogspot.com/
I'm adding it to the list of blogs I follow.

Internet tools

2009-06-11T13:33:00.000-07:00

Internet tools are critical for job search. They break down into:
· Job Boards
· Bots/RSS feeds
· Social Networking sites
· Email
· Web pages
· Blogs

There are more than a hundred job boards, a few that are worth special note:
· Monster
· Dice (especially for tech jobs)
· https://fortress.wa.gov/esd/worksource/
· http://marketplace.nwsource.com/jobs/
· www.idealist.com
· Craigslist

bots of note:
· www.indeed.com
· http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en

Social Networking sites
· www.linkedin.com
· www.facebook.com
· www.myspace.com
· www.twitter.com

Obviously there are lots more in all categories. The question is how to be efficient and how to use the tools effectively. In particular, how can you use them to drive networking? The bots and feeds are key to efficiency. They allow you to set up a search of the boards that runs automatically and gives you a daily feed of opportunities. Once you have that, the social networking sites are the tool of choice with Linkedin being the most important. Linkedin is designed to be a business focused social networking site. As you set it up for yourself, this business focus becomes totally apparent. It all but requires an historical resume, and it doesn’t have nearly the friend focus that Facebook or Myspace has. I’m don’t believe you even can enter a slideshow/gallery. What it does provide is a bunch of ways to connect with folks. The key is their search We explored a few. Most notably how to find someone you know or can be introduced to in a company you are interested in. It's also a tool that rewards exploration, so fuss with it and you'll find multiple ways to do pretty much everything. :)

It’s easy at this point to ignore Facebook etc. but your friends are the people who know you and want to help, so the rest of the social networking sites should be on the list. I know that my cousin who lives in Bolivia won’t be much help, neither will the one in Melbourne, but my niece who works for the Downtown YMCA here in Seattle could very well be. The point is our networks need to extend as far as possible, and while there will be lots of folks that can’t/won’t help, our success will be from the person that does.

I’ll work on Web Pages next entry.

Notes from the Job Search

2009-05-28T11:46:00.000-07:00

What is Notes from the Job Search (NFJS)? Obviously, it's a blog, but mostly, it's peer support groups for professionals seeking work. Currently there is a group meeting in West Seattle and one in North Seattle. The qualifications for joining are: You are looking for work and you need a resume to get the job you want. That's the list. Well coming counts too. :)

We focus on what's working for us and our strengths as people, beyond that our agenda is:
> A high from the week and your elevator pitch
> A work item
> Goals for the week and feedback on the mtg

The work items are iterative:
> Elevator Pitch
> Strengths identification (based on Now Discover your Strengths)
> Resumes
> Online Tools
---- Job Boards (and programmable bots such as http://www.indeed.com/)
---- Networking sites (focus is LinkedIn)
---- Research
> Interviewing
---- Interviewing for information
---- Screening interviews
---- Job interviews
All of the above get very specific and include questions to ask and ways to answer, how to figure out what clothes are appropriate, etc.
> Networking
- Job Fairs
- Job Socials
- Friends and neighbors

The premise is that collectively, we as job seekers know more about job search than pretty much anyone. Not to dismiss the many books and online tools etc, just to acknowledge it’s more important to us. We’re the ones that need to do it and as such the ones who know what’s working today. All of our work is collaborative, while NJS leads these discussions and frequently will provide resources to help people in the group bet started, we work as a group. We share leads, we share our networks and we share knowledge.

So that’s Notes from the Job Search.

Job Fairs and socials

2009-05-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

The last job fair I went to had approximately 30 employers and 10,000 applicants. Not a good ratio. Last night I went to a “job social” and it had approximately the same number of employers. It was much better on the applicant side, but it felt a lot like those bullet trains in Japan that have people with the job of pushing people inside the doors so they can close. It was crowded!! As much as anything, it felt like an old fashioned “mixer” from high school.
I got there early, which seemed to be a pretty good strategy as it gave me an opportunity to identify the recruiters and chat with a couple in a non-pressured way. Find out what they were looking for and how their businesses were doing.

In the end, I went away thinking that expectations and goals were the critical element in getting value from the social. From the job fairs as well.

From a strategy point of view, finding a time when a conversation can be had with a recruiter has to be the goal. I’m going to guess that very few people were hired from the job fair I went to. Too many folks! The recruiters didn’t have a chance to even screen, let alone evaluate. The job social had ebbs and flows. Getting there early was useful. I didn’t stay late, but it might have had opportunities as well. Being fashionably late would eliminate the opportunity for value…. At least as far as the recruiters is concerned.

Which leads to another possible set of goals for the social and that’s networking. Just meeting others on the job search. Connecting with them and developing enough of a relationship to reduce our isolation. Maybe it’s getting their card at the social and following up. Maybe it’s migrating the conversation out of the social. Whatever it is, we all need to understand our own competence and a very important part of that is the reflection we see when we meet others going through this craziness called a job hunt. Increasing your network has so many benefits, it’s just amazing. My current understanding of the job market is that something like 3/4s of all hires come through networking. My guess is that when we talk about good fits, jobs we want to keep for a long time, then the number is much higher.

Back to the “mixer” metaphor, when I went to those, on a good night, I would make a few friends. Some of those might become more, but it sure didn’t happen at the mixer, it happened because of the follow up.

New Links

2009-05-15T10:46:00.000-07:00

I've added a couple of links. Seattle Job Search Social and C & P coffee.

The Job Search Social is a straight networking gig, that I've been hearing about. They schedule something every month. At a minimum it's a chance to connect with other professionals, increasing your network. Bring business cards.

C & P coffee is where the West Seattle Pink Slips meet, and is the 2nd group bing led by Notes from the Job Search. So it's an additional chance every week to work on job search skills as well as another chance to increase the size of your network. Besides they sell great coffee. :)

Internet risk

2009-05-11T11:38:00.000-07:00

The new Consumer Reports is out and has several pages on the risks posed by the internet, including what can happen when your resume is posted on one of the job boards (Monster, Dice, Craigslist, etc). Some of the numbers are pretty scary: 13% of the Facebook users have been “abused”, 25% of job board users have been subject to phishing attacks, etc. When I read about this stuff, it seems so scary! My 84 year old Aunt is sure that someone is going to come through her computer and steal her credit cards. It’s also easy to think that we’re powerless to stop it.

Most of the fear is hype. We personally need to be prudent and we need to be skeptical, but we do not need to be especially frightened by this. We live in a capitalist country and world, and one of the first rules of capitalism is “Caveat emptor”…. Let the buyer beware. If it seems to be too good to be true, then it is. Many of the scams floating around the net are just about as old as the net. We have all been offered opportunities by “African Generals” to make lots of money if we just send them quite a bit of money now. I first saw this scam in the early 90’s and while it’s changed from country to country and I recall it as an Asian prince and a South American family, it’s always been the same offer, send X dollars now and it will allow us to withdraw our fortune from some bank and we will pay you 10X dollars back in 6 months. What I have never heard of is someone actually getting 10X dollars, or even X dollars returned. Then of course there are offers to refinance your mortgage and jobs that will pay you 6 figures for 3 hours a day at home and….

The key to all of these is that we need to respond. Don’t respond and you are not at risk. Phishing is a bit more subtle, but has the same defense: Your “bank” asks you to “confirm” your credit card number or social security number or something else, just so they can verify their records. Don’t respond. Companies you have a relationship with (your bank, your credit card company, etc ) already have the information they need. They do not now, never have and never will send you an email asking you to “confirm”.

Years ago, I was IT Director at a company and there was a virus being sent out in a picture of a popular tennis star. One of the Department heads in this company opened it and it took roughly 200 staff hours to un-infect all of the computers that it impacted. This “picture” came to him from an unknown email address, to his business email. If it wasn’t infected, it would have been inappropriate, and clearly unsafe. In fact he knew better. He was very publicly humiliated and he put his company and job at risk because his fingers moved faster than his brain. He wasn’t safe because he didn’t apply “let the buyer beware”. This is a man that would never buy a used car without having it checked out first, he just didn’t think it applied on the internet. It does.

Of course there are still risks, so keep your anti-virus software current, use the firewall(s) that you have. When you set up Facebook, set your privacy settings to only allow established “friends & family” to have full view, same thing with Linkedin. On Monster you can set it up similarly, although I’ve forgotten what they call these settings. Think of all of these services as parts of your house. We are all more than happy to allow others to see the outside of our house, we are very selective about who we invite in.

COBRA

2009-05-06T11:30:00.000-07:00

This is a quick update on COBRA. The Feds are now (depending on whether you qualify) subsidizing up to 65% of the cost. This has been published lots, but bears repeating. Something I missed previously is that “If you were laid off before Feb 17, 2009 and you did not initially choose COBRA continuation coverage or dropped it because it was unaffordable, you now have a second opportunity to enroll and receive the subsidy.”

Research

2009-04-23T07:18:00.000-07:00

Wikipedia defines research as, "Research is defined as human activity based on intellectual application in the investigation of matter. The primary purpose for applied research is discovering, interpreting, and the development of methods and systems for the advancement of human knowledge on a wide variety of scientific matters of our world and the universe. Research can use the scientific method, but need not do so."

In other words, research is finding out stuff we don't currently know in a focused, disciplined way. For those of us looking for work, it's our life blood.

We all know that the job boards are less than rewarding route for getting interviews, at least in today's economy, so what's our alternative? That's what and why we research. A couple of tools that are important in this are http://www.indeed.com/ and Google Alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en ).

Indeed allows you to search a ton of job boards without spending 12 hours a day. I know, I know, I just said that job boards aren't the answer, but they are due diligence, and they are a constant source of information. It is very possible to find something where you do have a connection, and that connection will help you get to the interview, and something more than 25% of the people being hired, do go through job boards, so they count. Indeed is a tool for this to be an efficient process.

So what do you have Indeed search for? A particular job title? maybe. How about a company? That might work as well. How about using a key word search? That’s my suggestion. For example: I’m looking for a job as the Director of IT for a moderately sized company, say 500+/- employees. What my search is set up for is “information systems” and “information technology” (with quotes) and within 25 miles of zip code 98117. The reason is that there are at least a dozen titles that translate to Director of IT, but pretty much all of them will have one of those two phrases written out in them. I was sent two emails this morning that in combination identified 63 new jobs posted that fit my criteria. Of those, at least 60 don’t matter to me, but a few do. Today there was a position titled: “Data Center Operations Lead”, a title I never would have thought of, but which I do want to investigate.

The question becomes what would you look up that will point you to relevant opportunities? What word or phrase will highlight potential opportunities for you?

Now for something that is even less direct, but has more potential. Google Alerts . There’s an earlier post on Google Alerts, Adam Green commented on it and added a URL to his Google Alerts tutorial.

Google Alerts searches the web for new posts that meet the criteria you set up. The key question you need to establish criteria for your search is having enough stuff to make it useful, but not so much that nothing is found. Think of it as a google search run every day for new stuff based on your criteria. For example, if I search for my name, “Steve Paul”, I get almost 100,000 hits. If I add Seattle, it’s down to 2600, add 98117 and it’s down to 19 hits, all of them about a local divorce attorney (not me). Using “Stephen Paul” Seattle 98117 – I get 117 and several are about me.

My point is that using google alerts is likely to be a bit of a trial and error process. It is very easy to be overwhelmed, so as too much info comes in be prepared to cut back and modify until there is a useful result.

Richard Bolles

2009-04-16T11:19:00.000-07:00

Short interview with Richard Bolles, the author of What Color is your Parachute was in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer. Great stuff. He also has a website named The Job Hunters Bible, which is also a great resource.

Best Practices in job search

2009-04-13T09:37:00.000-07:00

One of my goals in starting this blog is the documentation of "best practices" in job search as they are discovered by people looking for work. One of those just popped up.

As previously mentioned, we have a weekly group that meets every Wednesday (3:00 at the Green Bean coffee shop). One of the participants came in a week ago with report of a phone conversation with a potential employer who is considering opening a new office in the Seattle area. As you may well guess, we wanted to understand how that happened and so got him to describe his process. It went like this
· He started by setting up a Google Alert on his industry with results delivered to his email daily.
· While reading through this about a month ago, he discovered an article from a Kansas City Paper that documented a company from KC that was considering opening an office in Seattle.
· He followed up with an email to the company
· And added an Alert on the company to his Google Alerts

The email was followed up with first one and then a second extended phone conversation, then a product demo and this week he’s scheduled to have coffee with the individual responsible for opening the Seattle Office.

Our guy does not know for a fact that he is the only person talking about a Seattle office, but he is one of the very few, and there has not been any kind of advertisement yet about a potential position or asking people to apply. Instead, he is developing the kind of trust relationship that great jobs are built on.

I’ve set up my own Google Alert on job search and a couple of great sites were identified.

· Discover your Winning Ways – Handling your emotions
· Let’s Get Going – this is a group in North Carolina doing stuff similar to what we do. Been at it longer, so has some great learnings to share.

Take care
Steve

Training Post

2009-04-10T14:14:00.000-07:00

Vanya sent a link to the SPEAR program that provides free training to IT folks that have been laid off. I just put it on the Links list. Could be a great resource.

Health Care

2009-04-10T10:56:00.000-07:00

My last post was on finances and I didn’t include health care, which can be such a large part of financial stability. Today, some resources and thoughts on health care and health care insurance.

Start with a recognition of risks. Stress is one of the biggest challenges we face while we job search, in many ways it could be or become the biggest. The consequence of stress is the body breaking down. There’s an article on resilience that I posted in March on the blog, and it has several ideas about managing stress, but stress always take a toll. There is a “stress point scale”, designed in the 60’s and refined since that assigns points for various life events. The events vary from Death of a Spouse (100 points) to Christmas (10 points and now referred to as “Winter Holiday Season”). Add yours up and it gives at least some indication of how likely you are to get sick. 300 points apparently gives something like a 95% chance you’ll go to the hospital.

Another risk is “pre-existing conditions”. These are the things that are ongoing, and Insurance Companies really hate inheriting them. So if they can disqualify one of these they will. The law stipulates that if you have continuous coverage (“catastrophic insurance” doesn’t count as insurance here) then a new employers health coverage can’t exclude the condition. Maybe you have a bad kidney, it was diagnosed while working for Mega Computers Inc. You are laid off, then 2 months later get a job and Mega-Temps Inc. If you kept your Cobra or you were covered by a spouse/partner for the two months, then no problem; you will still be covered. If you went without for the two months, then Mega-Temps health carrier can exclude your kidney problems.

The point is that maintaining coverage is critical; it can also be ridiculously expensive.

Surprise, surprise, there is a major pot full of information on the net and everything is incredibly dynamic. COBRA is being subsidized by the feds right now, Washington State has its Basic Health Care plans (which will change with the state budget) and there are individual insurance plans.

Cobra is (as we all know) the continuation of insurance that our employers used to pay for. When we are laid off/fired/quit it is critical that we at least evaluate this option. The current bail-out legislation allows for as much as a 65% subsidy. I’m sure there are a ton of resources that will give you the 411, this one seems very clear and with a minimum of extraneous junk.

Washington Basic Health Plan info is here. We all know how to do a Google Search on “Individual Health Care Washington State”, which will give you something close to 4000 responses. Remove the quotes and the number balloons over 21 million. There are lots of choices, they just get expensive in a hurry.

One last choice to bring up is the Alliance for Affordable Services. This is focused on very small businesses, so if you are doing even a minimum of freelancing, it’s an option to check as well.

Finances

2009-04-08T10:15:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine was looking at the blog and asked if I had plans to include info about finances and surviving long term with significantly reduced income. The reality is that money is a very big deal for those of us who are out of work, so my friend is asking the right question. There is also no magic; spending less is what it’s all about. Doing so thoughtfully and effectively is the challenge. And let’s face it; nobody will hire us because we “need a job”, they hire us because we can provide value to their company, so if our finances are overwhelming us, it will be a lot harder to be effective in our job search.

A terrific resource is Consumer Credit Counseling Service. It’s a non-profit that’s been around for a while and has tools that are effective and time tested. There are a bunch of pretenders and even a bunch of scams talking about how they will “Fix your credit problems!!!” When you see these, quote Nancy Reagan and “Just say “No.”” Call Consumer Credit Counseling Service.

One of the pages on the CCCS site is a long list of ideas about the mechanics of reducing costs while keeping your life under control. Talks about budgeting, entertainment, travel… even has a section on throwing a wedding on a budget! All of the ideas start with being conscious about how you spend money and what you spend it on. Good luck to all of us.

CCCS web page is now added to my link list.

More resources

2009-04-07T14:15:00.001-07:00

Amazing the amount of noise is being made about job search and loss etc. KPLU had an interesting report on this morning about “job clubs”, one in Tacoma in particular. It seems especially pertinent for this week as we start focusing on networking. You can find these on Meetup.com, just search for Job Club with your zip code.

Fortune Magazine has an interesting article as well on job search and how to find a job. They have a vested interest in saying things aren’t as bad as they seem, but, they also have a point: “Some people are getting hired”. We need to keep working on this till we find ours. J

2009-04-06T11:31:00.000-07:00

I don’t know if you think of job search as a job, but that’s how I’m approaching it. Specifically as an entrepreneurship. The reason I bring this up is an organization I’m just becoming aware of that supports startups, named (wait for it): www.Startup.org. This is a very specific web site that really does focus on people starting their own businesses; talks about funding, accounting, etc. It also hosts classes and seminars and even business fairs. The classes and fairs are outstanding opportunities to learn, and to network. Remember that 75% of the job growth in the country, year in and year out is in small companies, and there simply isn’t a better opportunity to connect with the folks that will be building those businesses than seminars for new startups.

Looks like Craigslistwatch is at least temporarily non-functional so dropping from the link list. Unfortunately, that means this is one place that we still need review manually.

I didn’t include the link to the King 5 story on folks looking for work. Primary focus is kids looking for summer jobs, but Kevin got some airtime as did Keri Robinson of Ladies and Lords of Leisure.

networking and the LadiesandLordsofLeisure

2009-04-03T09:53:00.000-07:00

Keri Robinson is starting a complementary group she's calling Ladies and Lords of Leisure (hence the name of her blog) and came to the Wednesday group. extended invite. I went to it (it's Thursday's) as did Kevin and Vanya. Seemed like it was successful. I am constantly surprised by the number and quality of people that are looking and the LOLL sure re-inforce that (as does our group on Wednesdays). There are some exceptional people looking for work right now.

Mostly it reinforces the focus on getting better at the hunt. We're smart people. We can figure this out. We're not going to change the statistics, but we will figure out how to get jobs.

Examples, updates

2009-04-02T09:24:00.000-07:00

As you will undoubtedly see, I continue to fuss with the format of the blog. I've added a couple of blogs that I follow on the right side of the page, and links that I think can be especially useful. The links will probably change from time to time to stay fresh.

The group on Wednesday has been working elevator pitches for a couple of weeks now and we actually read examples to each other yesterday. My last post had our definition, I think there's more to it. A clear tight elevator pitch becomes the organizing subject for a resume. Everyone over the age of about 20 has more experience than can possibly be captured in writing, some of it relates to work, and some of it has nothing to do with it. The older we get, the more work experience we have making it even more difficult to choose and edit what we include on a resume.

For example, I've been in IT for more than 25 years. In that time, I've been a developer, analyst, resource manager, director, etc, etc. Just describing each role would take at least a couple pages, before I got to experience that is specific to me. All that will do is bore everyone who sees it and threaten an additional forest every time it's printed. Not a useful exercise.

My elevator pitch for jobs in IT is, "Every organization struggles with getting what they need from their IT department at a price they can afford. I've been building teams that deliver on this for more than eight years and would love to have the opportunity to continue." This tells me what events and roles and accomplishments to include. Time as a dev? it's a footnote. Time as an architect? it's abreviated, but bigger than the dev stuff. What I focus on is experience where I have built teams and the team has delivered.

The point here is not that mine is the only kind of pitch, but that by being clear with my pitch, I can write a cooherent resume that supports my goals and my pitch. If I have other parallel goals, then I can write other pitches and focus the experience in my resume around those goals and that pitch.

Elevator Pitch Part 3

2009-03-30T15:13:00.000-07:00

This blog is at least partly the outgrowth of a group of 10 folks that get together every Wednesday and tralk about the job search. We're talking about Elevator pitches just now and as we have done that our understanding is evolving. The concept of elevator pitches comes from start ups looking for capital. The needs of that overlap with job hunters but aren't identical, so we came up with our own definition.

An elevator pitch for a job hunter has two parts:

Problem statement
solution as it will be implemented by the job seeker.

Resilience

2009-03-27T08:56:00.000-07:00

I haven't introduced my wife (Jan) on this, she's an EAP in private practice and working for Washington State. That's important to this post because some of her work seems especially timely. What an EAP is, in very general terms, is a mental health professional that specializes in work related issues and how to help people be the most effective they can be at work. The economy that is making it difficult to find work is also making work more difficult, and she is doing quite a bit of work helping people deal with that. One of the articles she's written in this focus is titled:

Resilience

Do you bounce back? What happens when something goes wrong? Do you collapse? Do you hide? Do you find a way to deal with it? Resilient people find a way to deal with it. They find a way to work through problems, whether it’s the loss of a loved one, a job, illness or any of the many other challenges that life confronts us all with. Resilience doesn’t make the problems go away, it is simply the ability to work through them and find the things in life that help us handle the next stressor. If you aren't as resilient as you'd like, you can teach yourself.

§ Resilience is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, tragedy, threats or even significant sources of stress, such as family and relationship problems, health problems, workplace stress, and financial stress. Resilience is “bouncing back” from difficult experiences. It is a skill, something that can be learned.
§ Being resilient does not exempt someone from problems and challenges, it simply is the skills necessary to continue through them and to minimize the amount of time they take out of life.
§ Resilience isn’t about “toughing it out” or living by clichés such as “making lemonade out of lemons.” It is not ignoring your feelings of sadness over a loss. It does not mean that you always have to be strong and can’t ask others for support. In fact, reaching out to others is a key component of developing resilience.
§ Resilience is not a “trait” that people either have or don’t have; it’s a “skill”. It involves behaviors, thoughts and actions that can be learned and developed in anyone.

Factors that promote Resilience
§ Connectedness; Caring and supportive relationships inside and outside of the family. Relationships that include love and trust, and that provide role models, offer encouragement and reassurance thus bolstering one’s confidence and resilience.
§ Planfulness; The ability to make realistic plans and act to carry them out.
§ Self-confidence; positive view of yourself and belief in your strengths and abilities.
§ Skills in communication and problem solving.
§ The capacity to manage strong feelings and impulses.

Become more Resilient

§ Get connected. Build strong, positive relationships with family and friends, who can listen to your concerns and offer support. Share with these people. Being connected means that you share with your friends and they share with you. When things are tough, your friends and family help, if you are connected. Get involved in civic groups, faith groups or volunteer organizations that give you an opportunity to help others. Relationships like these can also fulfill your need for a sense of belonging and help banish loneliness. "A sense of connectedness can sustain you in more difficult times.
§ Use humor and laughter. Remaining positive or finding humor in distressing or stressful situations doesn't mean you're in denial. Humor is a helpful coping mechanism. If you simply can't find humor in your situation, turn to other sources for a laugh, such as a funny book or movie.
§ Learn from your experiences. Recall how you've coped with hardships in the past, What worked? What didn’t? Build on what helped you through those rough times and don't repeat actions that didn't help. Figure out what lessons you learned and how you'll apply them when faced with similar situations.
§ Remain hopeful and optimistic. When you're in the middle of a crisis, use the resources (your friends and family, your humor, your strengths) to remain hopeful and optimistic. It will allow you to remember what’s working. It may seem as though things will never get better and while you can't change the events, look toward the future, even if it's just a glimmer of how things might improve. Find something in each day that is working. Find something each day that signals a change for the better. Expect good results. Believing things happen for a reason may help sustain you.
§ Take care of yourself. Tend to your own needs and feelings, both physically and emotionally. This includes participating in activities and hobbies you enjoy, exercising regularly, getting plenty of sleep, and eating a well-balanced diet.
§ Accept and anticipate change. Be flexible. Change and uncertainty are part of life. Try not to be so rigid that even minor changes upset you or that you become anxious in the face of uncertainty. Expecting changes to occur makes it easier to adapt to them, tolerate them, and even welcome them.
§ Work toward goals. Do something every day that gives you a sense of accomplishment. It doesn't have to be a major goal, such as getting the college degree you've been meaning to pursue. Even small, everyday goals are important, such as finishing a work project or making a difficult phone call. Having goals helps direct you toward the future. Accomplishing them builds your self confidence and feeds your optimism.
§ Take action. Don't just wish your problems would go away or try to ignore them. Chances are, they won't disappear on their own. Instead, figure out what needs to be done, make a plan to do it, and then take action to resolve your problems.
§ Learn new things about yourself. Look back on past experiences and think about how you've changed as a result. You may be stronger than you thought. You may have gained a new appreciation for life. If you feel worse as a result of your experiences, think about what changes could help. Also explore new interests, such as taking a cooking class or visiting a museum.
§ Nurture your strengths. Identify and congratulate yourself for your real successes, no matter how small. Be proud of yourself and your success. Trust yourself to solve problems and make sound decisions. Think positive thoughts about yourself. Nurture your self-confidence and self-esteem so that you feel you're a strong, capable and self-reliant person who can withstand hardships and criticism.
§ Maintain perspective. Look at your life. Recognize that you have had better times, and worse. Recognize that you made it through the worse times before and you will make it through this. Comparing yourself to others is self defeating. There are always good things in the world and always bad things. There is always someone doing better than you and someone else that is having more problems. Comparing your events with others in the world doesn’t change what happened, it simply allows you to reinforce whatever you choose. If you want to feel poor, then compare yourself with Bill Gates, if you want to feel rich, then head off to Africa and find someplace that doesn’t have drinkable water. Both are meaningless. Your situation is what you must deal with and that’s enough.

Becoming resilient is something each of us learns in our own way. These tips provide simple tools, or really just the pointers to tools that can help you become more resilient..

Elevator Pitch redux

2009-03-23T11:05:00.000-07:00

A couple fo sites that do a great job describing "elevator pitch" and how to write one.

Both of these come are very entrepreneur oriented. That's because I think finding a job is an entrepreneurial job. That said:
http://theclosetentrepreneur.com/elevator-pitch-101-intro-to-writing-a-30-second-elevator-pitch
http://www.dumblittleman.com/2007/08/how-to-craft-killer-elevator-pitch-that.html

There's lots of these on the net, for examples look at this:
http://pitches.techcrunch.com/

Steve

Elevator pitch

2009-03-22T10:16:00.000-07:00

How about we post samples of elevator pitches or resources for building them as comments to this entry?

Steve

More resources

2009-03-20T08:29:00.000-07:00

There are a bunch of tools/groups etc that are intended to provide support for job seekers. WWW.Career-horizons.com has some excellent advice and resources. For accounting types, check out www.feng.org. (Financial Executives Networking Group). A straight networking play is available through www.meetup.com and search for "job club", these meet all over the place. Seattle area has several.

AARP sponsors seminars through the Washington Employment Security Department, multiple churches have groups. The Seattle Times has a "jobs calendar" every Sunday. The online version (www.seattletimes.com) is kept current. The column "ask the Headhunter" sites a web page and study of particular interest. http:\\CareerXroads.com.

At any rate, lots of things to look at.

Resources

2009-03-19T10:51:00.000-07:00

The internet is incredibly rich with resources and some of them are almost certainly worth it. :) We all know that there are lots of job boards out there, some of them are better than others, but almost any one of them can claim more time than is available. A way to avoid that, while still reviewing potential jobs is a seach engine that will provide a daily feed. I recommend www.indeed.com. It will scour something like a hundred of them and drop the results into your inbox. If you think non-profits are important and something you might want to work for look at www.idealist.org.

What should this become?

2009-03-11T10:24:00.000-07:00

The organizing event for this blog will be a weekly meeting of people looking for work in Seattle and sharing effective things they/we've done over the last week. The outline I have going in has two parts:

What was done in the last week?
What had a positive outcome (no matter how small)?

As part of 2. diving into a particular area/skill/tool each week to understand how to use it and how to optimize it. Some things are really intended to allow us to spend more months looking without loosing our homes, and some things are designed to get us in the door and some things are designed to identify the right doors, so which of these should be considered and how often?

The first meeting is intended to validate this and start to create a list of specific topics inside of part 2.

First Post

2009-03-10T16:31:00.000-07:00

So this is the beginning of a blog on jobsearch. Next Wednesday (March 18th, 2009) the first group will sit down and start working together to become more effective individual job seekers. I'll post something after every meeting, at leas to start. The purpose of this is to create a group of job seekers who provide mutual support and join together to become better at it. In order for that to work, I'll try to bring the information back here.