Career Hub

Networking and Don't Know Where to Start?

Recently I was asked this question..."So who do I network with when I am trying to find a job?" I offered my client a few ideas and have since expanded the list. Listed below are a few people, places, and things that you may wish to consider in building (and sustaining) a vibrant network. Feel free to add to this list what has worked for you in your quest for a new opportunity:

Accountant, advisors, alumni, advocates, attorneys, associations, athletic events

Bankers, barbers, books, blogs, Bing, bookstores, bloggers, brokers, business professionals

Career fairs, consultants, counselors, coaches, clergy, Chambers, conferences, community members, causes, contractors, councils, classrooms, career advisors, colleagues, co-workers, consultants

Directories, doctors, dentists, decision-makers, designers, developers

Entrepreneurs, educators, experts, executives, events, economic development centers

Fraternity, family, friends, Facebook, franchisors, former bosses/supervisors

Google, 'Greek' community, golf & country clubs, gyms, gurus

Headhunters, health clubs, human resources representatives, hair designers

Industry publications, Internet, investors, instructors

Journals, job banks, judges, job clubs, job fairs, job sites

Keynote speakers, key leaders

Libraries, leaders, LinkedIn

Men's groups, meetings, martial arts, meet-ups, musicians, magazines

Neighbors, newspapers, networking events

Organizations

Peers, professional groups, politicians, professors, public officials, periodicals, professional/personal references, programs, publications

Quarterly newsletters

Relatives, recruiters, reference librarians, representatives, roommates, reading, referrals, radio, retailers 

Support groups, stockbrokers, stockholders, stakeholders, S.C.O.R.E, sorority, social clubs, speakers, schools, seminars, specialists

Trade conventions, teachers, television, Twitter, trusted team members, Toastmasters International, travel groups, tours, trainers, technicians 

University career centers, unions

Visits, vacations

Workforce centers, Web, women's groups, webinars, writers, wholesalers

Xtra-curricular activities

Yellow Pages, Young Professionals

Zoning boards

cross-posted billiesucherblog

Product U, Brand U

"Until you mentioned it, I had not considered myself a product for sale in a highly competitive market" said the caller...."and I am not familiar with the concept of 'personal branding."

As you proceed with your job search, consider the following pairs of words. Beside each pair, assign a number 1 through 10 (1=poor; 10=superior) to represent how you 'think' you are doing with each of these words that play a part in the career/job search business. Are you facilitating a job search and representing Product U (Brand U) in a way that is...

Ordinary..........extraordinary

Fragmented..........focused

Unbelievable..........credible

Disingenuous..........convincing

Insincere..........sincere

Undependable..........dependable

Same..........different

Common..........uncommon

Regular..........remarkable

Average..........amazing

Irresolute..........resolute

Disinterested..........interested

Obstacles..........opportunities

Disengaged..........engaged

Unrealistic..........realistic

Pessimism..........optimism

Past..........present/future

Narrow-minded..........open-minded

Inflexible..........flexible

Ruffled..........unruffled

Opaque..........transparent

Give up..........persevere

Inconsistent..........consistent

Helpless..........helpful

Indifferent..........passionate

Uncaring..........caring

Unfeeling..........compassionate

Thankless..........thankful

Ungrateful..........grateful

Uncommitted..........committed

Uninspired..........inspired

Stuck..........unstuck

unhappy..........happy

demotivated..........motivated

unwilling..........willing

negative..........positive

can't..........can

won't..........will

talker..........doer

How many 8s, 9s and 10s did you give yourself? What needs some work? What, if anything, needs your immediate attention?

posted by: billiesucher

Top Lists of Job Search Bloggers and Twitter Users

With tons of data on the Web, it can be overwhelming to research and try to follow all the advice given about job search, personal branding, and career management. You would likely need to have more than 24 hours in your day! How can you judge whose advice to heed?

In an effort to make your information-gathering more streamlined and efficient, I have compiled the following lists of top-rated blogs, personal branding consultants, and Tweeters who have best-of-the-best recognition:

• Top 100 Career Advice Blogs – OnlineDegrees.org
• The Top 50 Job Hunting Blogs – GuidetoCareerEducation.com
• Top 101 English-Language Career Blogs – Risesmart.com
• 100+ Career Blogs ALL Professionals MUST Read – CareerRocketeer.com
• 50 Personal Branding Consultants Worth Working With – SmartLifeBlog.com
• 100 Best Blogs for Your Job Search – JobProfiles.org
• 50 People on Twitter Job Seekers Should Follow – ResumeBear.com
• The 101 Top Twitter Job Search / Career Experts plus 6 - Job-Hunt.org

You will see a lot of overlap on these lists. It makes sense that many of the top-quality job search / career coaches and consultants would also be tweeting up a storm! I am honored that my Career Goddess Blog is included on many of these lists, along with CareerHub, JobHunt.org, The Personal Branding Blog and College Recruiter Blog, for whom I write blog posts or articles.

Tap into this readily available knowledge from top-notch professionals. Advance your job hunt quickly. Don’t re-invent the wheel! Start following these career industry leaders on Twitter. Sign up for their blog feeds. Make the best use of your precious time – there is much to learn in the new world of Job Search 2.0!

Cross-posted at Career Goddess Blog

5 Summer Career Tips

The phrase “Nothing happens in the summer months” is all a bit of a myth.

Yes, key decision makers may be on holiday and things may slow down – but it doesn’t mean that you have to as well.

Here are 5 ways for you to get more proactive this summer:

1. Get working on the new career or business idea

You know that great idea you have for changing careers or starting / expanding the home based business? Well now is a good time to work on it.

Instead of taking the summer off, invest time in researching, meeting or speaking to relevant contacts and actually test driving the new career or business idea (i.e. go and spend a day or two doing the thing you are thinking about starting). The “busy people” who usually haven’t the time, may well have some spare time this summer to help you get the idea off the ground.

2.  Keep sowing the seeds

For job searchers, there is a time lag between marketing activity (calls, networking meetings, job applications, sending CVs/resumes) and results (interviews and job offers). You have to sow the seeds before you can reap the results of your efforts.

So if you’re currently looking for a job (either internally or in the open market place), taking your foot off the gas in the summer months is not a good idea. Doing very little for the next few weeks because “no one recruits in the summer” (another myth) will simply result in an interview-less September and October for you. Whereas being consistently active and visible over the summer months maximises the chances of securing interviews in September and job offers in quarter 4.

3. Strengthen your relationships

The quality and depth of your relationships with people has a direct correlation to your career success. Your boss, your line manager’s boss, ex-boss, stakeholders, clients, suppliers, recruiters, peers and friends all play a big part – and this is a good time to reconnect.

Yes, some will be on holidays, but not everyone is away all summer. In fact, many people will have more time than usual to catch up over a beer, coffee, lunch, dinner – or even a ‘virtual coffee’ if you’re speaking to someone in another city or country.

4. Reflect and refocus

Give yourself 60 minutes at some point this summer to reflect on your professional life and ask yourself a few questions:

What’s gone well so far this year? What hasn’t gone so well?  What lessons have I learned?  How do I want my professional life to look by December 31st this year? What do I need to do differently from September onwards to ensure I get there?

Don’t over complicate this into a big task or project. Just put aside an hour and get scribbling – you may get some great insights.

5. Do some experimenting

What could you experiment with this summer?

A new schedule or new way of managing your workload? A new way of managing your professional relationships? A new way to manage your career? A new way of finding your next job?

If it doesn’t work, you can change back in September. No big deal.

It’s easy to see the summer months as a time when “nothing happens.”

But as you can see from the points above, that doesn’t mean you don’t do anything. In fact, if you use the time wisely you’ll find yourself living out that awful cliche by “hitting the ground running” come September!

By Sital Ruparelia

Are You Ready To Run With the Big Dogs?

Are you...

C onfident and competent as a job searcher with a comprehensive knowledge of the career transition process? Does your resume deliver compelling content that will wow the most discerning reader?

O ptimistic about opportunities / options and believe that you can move mountains to overcome obstacles / objections?

M arketing your brand with professionalism, excellence and motivation to maximize results?

P lanning with purpose, a positive perspective and power-packed perseverance?

E nergized and enthusiastic when speaking about your experience, education and employee traits?

T hinking 'tweet' in all things job hunt (resume, interviewing, networking, communications, etc.) and taking the job search seriously, treating it with the toughness, tenderness, timeliness, and tenacity it so deserves?

I nvested fully in the transition process, integrating best practices into your search?

T racking tools and tactics to best serve you during this period of transition?

I nterviewing with interest and integrity?

V oicing value to validate your candidacy for the job?

E ngaging employers and employers' brand extensions?

Are you ready to play with the big dogs ? (pdf file)

posted by: billiesucher

Job Searchers: Stop Kidding Yourself

So what did you do last week as part of your job search?

•    Spent about 30 hours at my desk busily searching

•    Tidied up my resume / CV

•    Took part in an online forum

•    Did research on some companies I’d like to target

•    Emailed a few people

•    Trawled through job sites looking for jobs

•    Spent 5 hours on an application form

•    Read some interesting articles about job searching

You sound like you’ve been working hard. Okay, let’s get specific:

1. How many real jobs did you apply for last week? How many CVs/resumes did you send out?

2. How many follow up calls did you make to chase up jobs or leads that you have already applied for?

3. How many real people (contacts, clients, colleagues etc) did you have a real conversation with on the phone in relation to your search?

4. How many informal one-to-one meetings (breakfast, coffee, lunch etc) did you book in the diary during last week with networking contacts?

5. How many informal one-to-one meetings did you attend last week with contacts?

6. How many face-to-face meetings did you have with recruiters last week?

7. How many interviews did you secure last week?

8. How many follow-up emails or notes did you send to contacts who you have met or spoken to in recent weeks?

Your answers to these 8 questions tell me what you accomplished last week instead of the paper shuffling and web surfing that that you did.  These are the real performance indicators that give an accurate view of how effective you were last week.

If you’ve nothing significant in the pipeline, the activities at the top of the page are just fluff.  Whilst some of them are relevant ways to spend your time,  they are not the best way to spend your time – particularly if you haven’t many open opportunities.

If all you are doing is spending most weeks doing the things at the top of the page, then you are quite probably:

- Kidding yourself

- Wasting lots of time and energy

- Afraid to get out of the door and have real conversations

- Playing safe

- Missing lots of opportunities

If you’re like many people who think sitting in front of a laptop for 7 hours a day is job searching, please stop kidding yourself.

Start judging your effectiveness based on what you achieved (outputs) instead of how many hours you put in (inputs).

When you do that, you can easily spend just 10 hours a week job searching whilst spending the remaining time with your family and your hobbies without guilt. And still you’d be more effective than most people who spend 30 hours a week at their just desk shuffling paper and surfing randomly on the web.

So let me ask you, are you kidding yourself?

By Sital Ruparelia

Why Should I Hire You?

Imagine you're at the interview and that the interview is comprised of one question and one question alone. Here's the question:

"Why should I hire you?" to which you happily communicate the following:

"Well, I am very honest, loyal, and hardworking -- and also, very dependable and responsible."

Insert period.

You offer no example.

You provide no explanation or detail.

You deliver zero direct evidence.

You convey no support of the qualities (adjectives) you just stated.

And you hope like crazy that the Hiring Manager will like (love) what you had to say and that you will make a great first impression...and maybe, even get a job offer!

Now, let's imagine for a moment that YOU are the Hiring Manager and that this is the 23rd candidate you have interviewed this week alone....and then, imagine that you (the Hiring Manager) are exhausted, overworked, and secretly thinking about that vacation you'll be taking next week.

Along comes Job Candidate 23 who anxiously sits in the 'hot seat' waiting for the question and you (the Hiring Manager) say, for the 23rd time this week...."Why should I hire you?" and very predictably, just like the 22 before, and possibly the 22 after....you hear the job candidate utter something similar to this:

"Well, I am very hard-working, honest, and responsible.....and also loyal and dependable."

Continuing in your imaginary Hiring Manager role, from your perspective did Candidate #23 'wow' you with their response? Did they distinguish themselves with their descriptors? Did the adjectives they chose to describe their brand knock you off your seat? Did the candidate make a great first impression? Are you going to invite them back for a second interview?

Yes?

No?

Maybe so?

Why?

Why not?

cross-posted billiesucherblog

 

Going to the Country, Don't You Want to Go? or 12 Things My Road Trip Taught Me About Careers

One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. Which road do I take? she asked. Where do you want to go? was his response. I don't know, Alice answered. Then, said the cat, it doesn't matter.' -- Lewis Carroll

I love nature; over the fourth of July holiday weekend, I had a chance to get away from the city and spend some time in the rural parts of the Midwest. As per usual, camera in hand, I took these photos as I cruised about the back roads and by ways. As 'they' say, a picture is worth a thousand words; hopefully, you can figure out the 'answers' via the photo and the hint. I will post answers in the comments section, just in case my clues are clear as mud! :)

If you speak before you think at an interview, you may run yourself into one of these:

If you stay in a job you don't like or accept a job you don't want, you may find yourself stuck in one of these: 

Before you make important career (life) decisions, proceed with this:

If you take time to notice, this will reveal itself everywhere you turn -- in people, places, nature and things:

Take the right (or wrong) one of these and you may end up, wind up in a place better (or worse) than you thought:

When one of these confronts you, what is your strategy for moving through, up, on, beyond, in or around this in your job search:   

Every once in a while in your career, you will want to do this and make sure the coast is clear before proceeding:

It is my hope that you will never find yourself up one of these without a paddle:

Whether we like it or not, these need to be dealt with before we move on to the next thing:

Worth paying attention to as you move through your career (or job hunt) regardless of age, experience or education.  

Wherever you go in your career (life), you leave these behind...what do yours look like?

No matter which one of these you are on, you can never know, with certainty, what's around the bend:  

At the recommendation of my client, I am including a 'Bonus Question for Zero Points': Can you name (without doing a Google search) the musical group who sang: 'Going to the Country, Don't You Want to Go'? Correct answer is also included in comments.

Taking Your Career Dreams from Fantasy to Fulfillment

Despite an economic downturn, the opportunities for a midlife career change are available. Is a career change hard work? Yes. However, it can transform your life in thrilling new ways. Four strategies you can take for recareering are:

 

1-Recognize your reasons for making a change

 

Are you tired of your work and need something that provides greater stimulation and challenge? Or, are you seeking social interaction and personal reward that your present occupation doesn’t offer? For example, I coached a client who became an executive director for a nonprofit organization in order to give back to the community.

 

2-Determine your commitment

 

Decide if you want to work full time or part time; if you want to job share or telecommute at least part of the time. Are you attracted to seasonal or cyclical work? Depending on your career choice, it may mean starting out at an entry level.

 

3-Consider a hobby or a passion

 

Many people find successful new careers and businesses based on their hobbies … love of antiques, outdoors, environment, animals, fitness, etc. Sometimes it isn’t so obvious. For example, one person converted her passion for organizing and strengths in negotiating into a career as an a meeting and events planner.

 

4-Know your limitations

 

You may be great at arranging things, but dislike dealing with customers. You may enjoy talking to your pet, but have little patience for cleaning kitty litter pans. Although it’s important to know what you like, pay attention to your head. Conduct a thorough self assessment or seek career coaching before you pull the plug on your current career. Take ownership of your career and life plans; resist the temptation to follow someone else’s dream for you. After all, it’s your life.

Stop Comparing Yourself To Others

‘Sarah’s got a great job, look how well she has done for herself’

‘Sanjay is so smart. I wish I’d applied myself to my studies like he has’

‘Sandy has done really well for herself – just look at that great house and exotic holidays she goes on’

‘Marco and Tina have the perfect family life. I’m so jealous’

‘Brian’s so ballsy. Just look at how he reinvented himself and started that business of his’

‘Emma is so damn organised. I wish had the kind of work-life balance she’s achieved’

Stop Comparing

Comparing yourself to others is drilled into us from childhood and school. But it’s completely misplaced and irrelevant when most of us get into adulthood and are in charge of managing our careers.

Here are 3 reasons why:

1. Everyone has different objectives

We all have a different definition of success based on our own needs and outlook. We consequently have different objectives and priorities. 

So it’s futile comparing your results to those of people who have probably had different priorities and focussed on different areas to yourself. 

2. No one is doing quite as well as you think they are

Most people put their best foot forward and so we only ever see the best of them in public.

But when you get closer to people and get to know the real person, you realise that Emma isn’t as organised as she seems – she’s constantly stressed and actually feels she has no work-life balance whatsoever.

That Brian may seem to be doing well, but has huge cashflow issues which means he struggles to sleep at night.

That Sanjay may seem smart, but his poor people skills constantly stop him progressing his career and personal life.

That Sandy isn’t doing as well as you think.  She’s just racking up lots of credit card debt.

That Marco and Tina haven’t really got the perfect life because Marco’s having an affair with a colleague and Tina is addicted to prescription drugs.

And whilst Sarah’s job may look great from a distance, she hates it. She wants to change careers – but doesn’t know what and doesn’t know how. She’s just stuck on the treadmill whilst trying to look like she’s enjoying it.

Get the picture?

Everyone has problems – they’re just different ones to yours.  So by comparing your true self (with all your shortcomings and insecurities) to the best version of others - you’re making false assumptions about yourself and how you’re doing.

And in doing so, you damage your confidence and ability to realise your potential.

3.  You’re only competing with yourself

If you’ve ever run a marathon,  a 10km race or even taken part in a charity walk, you’ll know that the only person you’re ever competing against is YOU.

You’re competing against your personal best time (i.e. looking to improve) and competing against your true potential. And that is exactly what you should be doing in your career:

a)      Judge yourself against past performance (i.e. are you improving and growing?)

b)      Judge how well your career and life stack up to your true potential (i.e. how well are you doing at being the real you? Your authentic self?)

Comparing yourself to others is a mug’s game.

It inflates your view of the outside world and the achievements of others, stops you looking to improve yourself and damages your self esteem.

Don’t do it.

By Sital Ruparelia