| How To Organize & Structure Your Job Search Your Resume To begin an effective job
search, you must have an effective resume on hand to sell yourself to hiring
managers that sets you above the competition.
In this current economy, it’s no secret that your competition is great. The moment an employer puts out an ad to
search for a candidate, the inbox begins flooding with applicants almost
immediately. Your challenge is to move
yourself to the top of that list and convince the hiring manager that you’re
the one to call because you have the experience and expertise that the other
applicants don’t have. You have your
work cut out for you. It’s not going to
be a quick process of slapping something together to send out in reply to the
ad. If it is, it will likewise be
quickly slapped aside in the “don’t call” pile as the recruiter decides to see
who else is available and interested.
Depending on what industry you’re trying to get in and your level of
skills, there may be 70 to over 1000 applicants for every job opening. Before you write your resume,
take a good look at yourself and write down all your strengths. Include your experiences, things you are
better at than many other people, specific equipment or machinery that you can
operate, how well you work together with other people, and things you
accomplished. Now work on crafting a
document that puts these outstanding achievements in the spotlight. Then go for it! When you find a job opening that has your
name written all over it, tell your hiring manager in the cover letter who you
are, what you are applying for, and why he or she simply must read your resume
to discover the greatest, most qualified applicant for the job. What’s Your Perfect Job? Let’s start by asking “What
do you want to do?” What really excites
you and makes you want to do this every day?
Money alone shouldn’t be you motivation for picking a career. Even though a good paying job can motivate
you initially, people have become complacent after awhile with their pay. A job in demand is also another area of
caution, because today’s demand can become tomorrow’s surplus almost overnight
as employers tend to go whichever way the wind blows. Take a career assessment test if you’re not
really sure what you might be good at or make you happy. If you are properly trained and qualified for
such a career, then you are ready to approach hiring managers and convince them
they can’t do without your services and expertise. If there’s something you
would love to do, but need more training, then you need to research how you can
get that training. That’s a topic all
its own, but in a nutshell, your best recourse is to find a scholarship to fund
your education if you can’t afford the training or find a work/study program
for an institution that specializes in the training you need. Avoid student loans if at all possible
because you don’t need the headache of dealing with repayment plans for $10,000
to $100,000+ when you graduate. Who’s Hiring and What Are They Looking
For? Networking is one of the most
powerful tools to getting the job you want.
You have probably already heard this, but it’s so true that most good
jobs are never advertised. Especially in
this Great Recession (or Depression II) depending on your locality and
circumstances, salary budgets are tight.
Job postings are accused of being formalities as openings are already
filled by friends and family before the general public has a shot at them. Your challenge is to be the friend or family
member of these hiring companies. They
place such a high value on hiring somebody outside the company that somebody
inside already knows and vouches for.
Companies are also very willing to do a favor for somebody within the
company whom they like. Befriend
yourself with one of these likeable people and propel yourself around the
hundreds of job applicants nobody knows.
Unless a company has a very highly specialized need, you would be
surprised at how many jobs get created and filled by somebody who may not be
the most qualified candidate. If you’re
the right person, companies take the time and expense to train you into a
position. Most medium to large
companies have a website with a link labeled “Careers”, “Employment”,
“Employment Opportunities”, or something similar. These are the places and links you want to
visit and browse to determine if there are any openings of interest to
you. Many larger companies may have
several postings which you may be qualified for and interested in. Local newspapers still
advertise job openings in a printed publication. Do not forget to include your search efforts
using this media. Many newspapers have a
website with a classified ads link which you can consult to find out what
opportunities are available. Some
newspapers partner with job search engines that list job postings on these
sites instead of the newspaper’s own website. The Internet has quite a few
job search websites that you can consult to look for your optimal career
choice. Some are very popular and well
known while others specialize in certain industries. This is probably the most popular method
among the computer savvy job hunters because it lays out many choices at the
site visitor’s side. When using this
method, the searcher generally picks a career field from a list box, a
geographical area to narrow the search down to, and some keywords that bring up
jobs with “must-haves” incorporated into them.
Many search sites offer additional search features like full/part time
jobs, educational level, salary limits, and professional level options. There’s no telling just how
an employer listed the job opportunity, or whether it would be of interest to
you or not. Putting in keywords in the
search brings back results that should probably fit what you’re looking for,
but being too restrictive can cause the search engine to leave out other
opportunities that you apply for if you knew about them. For example, what keywords should somebody
put in who wants to browse everything available in the non-technical arena and
no college education. Putting in a
keyword like “high school” or “high school diploma” tends to bring up many
entry level opportunities without specific skill levels that would otherwise be
overlooked if one merely entered occupations like “waiter” or “waitress”. Be sure and try many different things in your
keyword search. When you do find a job you
apply for, be sure and save a copy of the ad for future reference in the event
you get called in for an interview. If
the employer decides to call you in six weeks after running the ad, you may not
remember every detail about what they were looking for. In addition, record the company name,
address, and website. If the employer
doesn’t list the address and phone numbers, you can generally find this
information by researching the company on Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other fine
search engines on the Internet. Now you can submit your
resume and cover letter in custom-tailored fashion to this employer using all
the buzzwords their job ad was asking for to make it an extremely close match
as their technical software scans your resume for their keywords and places you
on the call list. Now They’re Ready to Talk At this point, you got put on
the call list and they phoned or emailed you for an interview. If you haven’t already researched the
company, you need to play catch-up at this point to quickly get up to speed for
the interview. Before going into the
interview, know what the company is all about, who their competitors are, how
much business they do, and how their operations work. The more you know, the more you’ll speak
their language at the interview. Make
the preparation for the interview the most burdensome part of the job search;
not the interview process itself. They
more you know, the faster the time will fly at the interview and the more
intelligently you’ll be able to talk to your interviewer. If you haven’t already done
so, record the name, phone numbers, email addresses, and other pertinent
contact information of hiring managers and support staff who you have or will
be coming into contact with at the interview. Retrieve a copy of the ad,
the resume, and the cover letter you submitted for the job application. Put your selling points together now to
convince the hiring manager and other interviewers you’re the one for the
job. Be ready to back up everything on
your resume with a concrete example. Don’t
lie or stretch to truth about anything. There’s
no sense in getting eliminated or disqualified over lies. Prepare to tell the interviewer in detail how
you will meet each point in the job ad and solve the company’s need or issues. Know how to get to the
employer’s address and how long it takes to get there. Know alternate routes in case your primary
route gets choked off by some misfortunate event. Leave early enough to be able to take the
most time consuming alternate route and still get there on time. You should be walking into the office about
five minutes before your scheduled interview time. If your interviewer is on the 12th
floor, that’s where you need to be five minutes prior to your interview; not
the front lobby of the ground floor frantically searching for and trying to get
into a busy and crowded elevator system. Bring a copy of the ad and
several copies of your resume in case you’re put before other staff members in
the interview which you haven’t planned for.
If the interviewers don’t bring up the key points in the ad (usually
they do), steer the interview in that direction and sell yourself in the small
timeframe they allotted to spending with you.
Oftentimes they can be just as nervous as you in the interview process
and may even be less prepared than you about the right questions and topics to
talk about. You challenge here is to put
them at ease. If you can put them at
ease, they will like being around you.
They will become comfortable with the idea that you will make their
lives smooth and that issues will begin to disappear if they bring you aboard
the company. You can generally get the
feel when you have reached this plateau by their body language and their rapport. You must constantly strive to reach this
point during your interviews. Have a notebook with you or
some method of recording notes. Take
down key information gained during the interview as well as new people you meet
and their job titles. Immediately after
the interview, you will want to record important points that you didn’t get to
record during the interview. Do this
right away before you forget. You’ll
only get one chance to get it right. You’ll
need this information for follow up letters and contacts after the interview,
as well as follow up interviews. Your Job Search Bookkeeping Your job search bookkeeping
efforts is key to being on top of your job search campaign. Your competition will most likely do the most
common things that job hunters do. Those
people visit job search sites, zap off a resume and wait for a phone call,
probably not really even expecting to get one.
If by chance they do win an interview, they tend to rely on memory and
anticipation on what the interview will be like. They will field the interview questions with
about the same performance as showing up for final exams without studying or
showing up for a baseball game without having attended any practices. This is where you will shine if you do your
homework. To greatly simply your bookkeeping
tasks, Goldmount Enterprises developed the Employment Scout software package to
serve as a repository for collecting information on your job search efforts so
that you can quickly access and use them for future reference in job interviews
and get that job offer. Goldmount Enterprises wishes
you the very best in locating, applying, preparing, and landing a job better
than any you have ever had, and one you will want to spend a good portion of
your day and life working at.
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