How Long Should A Job Search Take?

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Liz Ryan has a great article over on the Forbes website entitled, “How Long Should A Job Search Take?”.

Liz writes:

“I hate to think about the number of times I’ve sat on a panel and heard a fellow panelist say “As a job-seeker, you have to prepare for the long haul. It could take months and months to find the right job.”

Every time I heard that I kept the fake plastic smile pasted on my face, because I’m an actress. I was raging inside.

I am sick and tired of hearing standard brainless job-search advice repeated like it was gospel, including the line ‘Expect to spend months looking for your next job.’ “

She goes on to say:

“When you teach people to be passive and wait patiently for a broken system to grind its way along, you disempower them.”

Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Jan Ramroth http://ow.ly/TVvvF
Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Jan Ramroth http://ow.ly/TVvvF

Liz is absolutely right.

It’s funny how we routinely defer to the advice of the so-called ‘experts’ – and often to our own determent.

I learned early in my career not to listen to the ‘experts’.

At the first Recruiting Firm I worked at, I remember returning to the office after the long Thanksgiving Holiday Weekend.  I was surprised that the office lacked its usual buzz.  It seemed like no one was on the phones.  The office was quiet.

I walked over to Dan, one of the Sr. Recruiters and asked him what was going on.  Dan looked up from the newspaper he was reading and said to me, “Kid, it’s the Holiday Season.  No one is going to be hiring between now and New Year’s Day.  Everything is going to be quiet. You’ll just have to sit tight and wait for hiring to pick up again after the Holidays.”

Unfortunately, at that time I was broke and had a young family to support. I did not have the luxury to sit around and wait.  So I did the only thing I knew how to do – I got on the phone and just “smiled & dialed”.  And you know what – that December was my best month billing as a Recruiter.

And – going forward – for every year thereafter – I found that December is always one of my strongest months for the year.

After that experience, I decided that I would ignore the advice of the so-called experts. I wasn’t going to sit around and wait for business to pick up. I was always going to go out and make something happen.

And my experience as a Recruiter mirrors Liz Ryan’s advice to job seekers.

In the article, Liz advises job seekers that they should not just sit around and expect their job search to last a certain predetermined amount of months because some so-called expert claims that is the case.

As Liz writes:

“You have way more influence on your marketability, your job search and your career than you think you have.“

Humans Are Underrated – Geoff Colvin’s new book

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I read an article this morning on Fortune magazine’s website entitled, “Humans Are Underrated”.  The article is adapted from Geoff Colvin’s upcoming book by the same title.

The article discusses Geoff’s premise that technology continues to grow at an incredible pace.  Computers are able to perform increasingly complicated tasks that no one ever anticipated them having the ability to perform.  Computers are beating Grandmasters in Chess.  Computers are starting to drive cars. It seems everywhere we turn – computers are replacing human.

Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Kumar’s Edit http://ow.ly/Q4ztT
Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Kumar’s Edit http://ow.ly/Q4ztT

But there is definitely hope…

According to Geoff – humans should stop trying to beat the machines at the tasks that machines are designed to do. Instead humans should focus on developing the skills and abilities that are distinctly human.

He goes into more detail in the article regarding what are the specific skills and abilities that we need to develop to not only survive but to thrive in the future.

It is an incredible read….

I am waiting to get a copy of the book – and I will blog about it in more detail at a later date.

But if you have time – wander over to Fortune’s website and read the article.

You’ll be glad you did….

Facing Challenges

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I was interviewing a candidate of mine recently – and during the course of the interview – it became apparent that she had faced a number of challenges during the course of both her career and her personal life.

I asked her about her approach to facing the various challenges / obstacles that we all inevitably face in life.

She replied simply that; “Challenges are where experiences are born.”

Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Daniel Wetzel http://ow.ly/OSCHj
Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Daniel Wetzel http://ow.ly/OSCHj

What a great answer – and what a great approach to life. Most of us prefer to take the “easy road” and prefer a path where we are most likely to avoid any obstacles.  And when we are faced with an obstacle – we mutter and curse our “bad luck”.

However, the person I had interviewed has a much different approach. She does not shy away from obstacles – in fact she relishes them.  She saw the various challenges she encounters not as a negative or a thing to avoid. Rather she sees them as opportunities to learn, grow and get better.

With a philosophy like that – it is easy to see why she has been so successful.

Refuse to Fail

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Last week I was speaking to a VP R&D who I have known for over 20 years.

We were discussing a search that I was working on for him.  One of the things that he stressed was that he preferred someone with direct experience in his specific industry segment as opposed to someone coming from outside of the industry.

I thought this was an interesting request especially because he himself had actually made a similar type of transition years ago.  I asked him why he was reluctant to hire someone from the outside – especially given the fact that he himself had made the exact same transition.

He replied that his own industry transition had been extremely difficult.  No one thought he would make it. (He said that he found out years later that his own co-workers had started an office pool betting that he would not make the transition and be fired.  The question to his co-workers wasn’t if he would be fired – it was simply a matter of when.)

So I asked him to what reasons did he attribute his successful transition.  Was it a helpful mentor reaching out to him? Was it his co-workers pitching in to show him the ropes?

He simply replied: “I refused to fail.”

Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by ©Tim Hipps, FMWRC Public Affairs http://ow.ly/O5cwe
Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by ©Tim Hipps, FMWRC Public Affairs http://ow.ly/O5cwe

He went on to say: “I would stay late – often to 10pm at night.  I would work weekends.  I knew that I would only get one good nights sleep during the course of a week – on Saturday night – because every other night I was either at work late – or thinking about work.  I had decided that failure was not an option and I would do whatever it took to be successful.”

Refusing to fail.

How many of us make that same level of commitment in our own lives?  How many of us are willing to “burn the proverbial bridges” and leave no way to turn back when we embark on a new career, new project etc.

Many times it takes that type of drive – that level of commitment to achieve any degree of success in life.

We are powerful when we decide that some goal is so important to us that no matter what we have to do – we will accomplish that goal.

We are powerful when simply refuse to fail.

 

 

 

People Without Facebook Accounts Are ‘Suspicious’

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I had written an earlier post about How To Clean Up Your Social Media During The Job Search.

And this is still a good idea…

But while cleaning up those ‘crazy party photos’, some job seekers may be tempted to take their clean-up to the next level and simply delete their Facebook account and shut down their entire social media presence.

That however, may not be such a good idea….

Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Marco Paköeningrat http://ow.ly/MZBVs
Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Marco Paköeningrat http://ow.ly/MZBVs

According to author Kashmir Hill in her Forbes magazine article entitled, Beware, Tech Abandoners. People Without Facebook Accounts Are ‘Suspicious’.

In the article, Kashmir writes:

Anecdotally, I’ve heard both job seekers and employers wonder aloud about what it means if a job candidate doesn’t have a Facebook account. Does it mean they deactivated it because it was full of red flags? Are they hiding something?

While she admits that people may be avoiding social media for any number of valid reasons (e.g. the person finds social media too addictive and prefers to avoid it), she goes on to write:

But it does seem that increasingly, it’s expected that everyone is on Facebook in some capacity, and that a negative assumption is starting to arise about those who reject the Big Blue Giant’s siren call. Continuing to navigate life without having this digital form of identification may be like trying to get into a bar without a driver’s license.

So job seekers not only should not shut down their Social Media presence – they should continue to maintain their various Social Media accounts.

And in fact – in this day and age – not having a Social Media presence may actually hinder you during your job search.

 

The Perfect LinkedIn Profile

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Neil Patel is an expert in Online Marketing.  His blogs and websites are wildly successful.  But not only is he successful, but Neil routinely provides a wealth of information for anyone looking to market themselves online.

Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Sheila Scarborough http://ow.ly/MAU1H
Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Sheila Scarborough http://ow.ly/MAU1H

He wrote a brief blog post on How to Structure a Perfect LinkedIn Profile.  While the post is targeted towards people who are building on-line businesses, the principles of building and maintaining a strong LinkedIn profile apply to anyone in business, including job seekers.

You can read the post here.

How to Clean Up Your Social Media During the Job Search

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Very interesting post by Lily Herman over at The Muse entitled: How to Clean Up Your Social Media During the Job Search.

Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © go_greener_oz http://ow.ly/IMqpS
Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © go_greener_oz http://ow.ly/IMqpS

Lily writes:

Think the whole “future employers checking your social media accounts” thing is just an annoying urban legend? Think again.

It turns out that one in three employers have rejected candidates based on something they found out about them online.

Lily’s post is spot on – and the infographic in the post contains a number of great suggestions regarding how to “spring clean” your Social Media presence.

Bottom line – it really is a good idea to follow the suggestions in the post in order to ensure that a “social media” snafu does not cost you your “ideal” job.

 

 

7 Signs You Should Leave Your Job

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As we enter a New Year, now is a good time to review your current job situation.

Time Magazine’s website has a great article on this very topic entitled: 7 Signs You Should Leave Your Job (Sooner Rather Than Later).

The article’s author – Camillo Cho – lists the following signs:

  1. You’re Living the Status Quo
  2. You Don’t Get Feedback
  3. You’re Not Learning
  4. There’s a Constant Exodus
  5. There’s Regular Re-structuring
  6. Headhunters Want You
  7. It Feels Like Time to Go

You can read more detailed explanations regarding the 7 signs in  the complete article on Time’s website here.

If none of the above listed signs apply to you, then you should definitely stay where you are.

But if you find yourself nodding in agreement as you read down the list, it may be time to polish up the old resume…

The Resume Black Hole – Part 2

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I posted about the Resume Black Hole a few weeks ago – but I found another article that I had saved on this topic – so I thought I would revisit it.

Candidates always tell me that they often feel when they apply on-line that their submissions get lost in the Resume Black Hole.

Well – this article from the Wall Street Journal by Lauren Webber will do little to alleviate their fears.

The article is from 2012 – but based on comments I have received from candidates recently – the figures quoted in the article appear to still be pretty accurate.
You can read the article here.

Lauren writes:

Résumé overload isn’t just a big-company problem. Job seekers often are surprised when they don’t hear back from small businesses. These businesses rarely hire enough people to make an applicant-tracking system cost-effective, but even a one-time posting on a well-trafficked job board like Monster.com can garner hundreds of responses.
 
Only 19% of hiring managers at small companies look at a majority of the résumés they receive, and 47% say they review just a few, according to a recent survey by Information Strategies Inc., publisher of Your HR Digest, an online newsletter.

These are pretty daunting statistics for job seekers….

Bottom line – Networking – whether using your own contacts or the contacts of a 3rd Party (e.g. a Recruiter) remains by far the most effective way to get an interview.

Monkeys Reading Resumes

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A couple of years ago, I read a very interesting post over on the Executive Career Coaching blog.  The post is still online.  You can read it here.

In the post, Carl Schumacher writes that you should write your resume as if a monkey was going to read it.

Carl writes,

“If you were driving down the street and you saw a Billboard but you couldn’t make out what it said because the worlds were too small and the message was hidden in a thousand words, you would probably not understand it or crash your car trying to figure it out.
But on the other hand, if it said “EAT AT JOE’S” there would be no mistaking the message.

So is my message when referring to your resume. If you were trying to show something to a monkey you wouldn’t do it quietly or subtlety. You would be obvious about what you were doing. You’d talk simple to a monkey — Monkey want a Banana? Monkey want a toy? — straight forward and obvious.”

Carl makes an excellent point.

Too often I have had tremendously qualified candidates write resumes that are vague or do not spell out in detail what their accomplishments are. The candidates try to be subtle in their approach. When I ask them to provide more detail or be more direct in their resume, the candidates will literally reply….”Well, the Hiring Manager will know what I mean.” or ” Any one who is in the industry will know that I have that type of instrumentation experience. I don’t have to spell it out on the resume.”

But that type of thinking is just plain wrong.

When you are writing a resume, you do have to be specific.
You do have to provide details.
You have to be simple and direct.

Or, as Carl Schumacher so aptly puts it….you gotta assume the person reading your resume is a monkey!!