5 SECRETS OF EFFECTIVE RESUME WRITING

Posted: 27th April 2011 by Lucy in HOW DO I GET THERE
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SECRET #1. WRITE A  RESUME  YOURSELF – its your strength-builder!

Resume writing is not just your practice in an epistolary genre, even though it is an official document, presenting your work history to a prospective employer.  Many people do not believe in their abilities to create such document themselves and ask other professionals to do it for them. ..and they lose.  Why?  By definition a resume is your marketing tool to get you to “the door”  for an interview.   Its less obvious, but not less important  function  is being your strength-builder! In fact, you mentally preparing yourself for future winning job interviews.  Behind  each concise  statement of your resume has to be  a short 2-3 minute story, convincing enough for your employer to decide that you are the best candidate for a current position.

SECRET #2.  START FROM CREATING AN UNLIMITED DRAFT – to be able to match yourself to the best career opportunity!

Believe me – it is not a waste of time. In fact – sending out hundreds and hundreds resumes hoping for a miracle is a waste of time. Sit back and invest your time in self-assessment  – create your life /career profile first. It can take 2,3,4, and more pages – it does not matter, but it supposed to be about every your life and career experience starting from the time, when your first said – I can do it…yes, that deep in your personal development history!  It is what makes you who you are – your values, aptitudes, interests, preferences…and learned skills – small and big victories over life/work challenges, achievements in schools, work places, volunteering, hobbies. Include both soft/or people skills, and your hard/ or technical and academic skills. Write down every experience and learned skill in short statements, shedding more lights on your achievements, activities, which kept your energized and were easy and enjoyable to perform, describe the environment, in which you were the most productive etc. This step is important not only as a preparation for the final tailored version of your resume. It will help you to focus only on the market that fits you perfectly and you will not waste your time applying for jobs, which you would be unsatisfied with.  Sadly,  Statistics shows that only 20 % of people are currently satisfied with their jobs. Thus this stage of resume writing is so important.

SECRET #3. TAILOR YOUR RESUME FOR EACH NEW POSITIONresume kiosk

As previously mentioned, you better send 3 well tailored and adjusted to employer’s frame of mind resumes and get 1 response, than send hundreds without any reply. Finally we got to the point, where the marketing part of your resume will play a good deal for you. Now, our strategy is changing toward thinking from your prospective employer frame of mind. You have to do a research on each company you  applying for, read carefully job posting, select so named Key Words, learn about your employer’s industry language and requirements. Now its time to squeeze out from your draft resume only relevant points and experience and edit it, using lots of action words, Buzz Words for the  industry, emphasize accomplishments and specific results. Be as concise as possible! At this level, you can and even should use help of professional career counsellor…  it is matching time! One of the most important criteria for your successful effective resume – to be a perfect match for the job description. It does not mean – word by word relevance – you still need to be creative and even pro-active to get to a competitive  advantage point or as professional say, to create an adding value to your resume. For example, if you a facilitator – your ability to create a presentation using  modern software will be an adding value for many employers.

SECRET #4. YOU HAVE ONLY 15 SECONDS TO CREATE A FIRST IMPRESSION

Now it is a turn of  resume formatting.  You can not overestimate the importance of the visual impression of your resume, because you have only 15 seconds to grasp an attention of the HR representative. You have to organize the most important part of your content on the first, sometimes the only page of your resume. There are several approaches, described in many sources, to do that:

1. apply the formats, emphasizing

  • your experience – Chronological type;
  • your skills – Functional type,
  • or mix of both

2. keep  formats clean, organized and consistent

  • equal page margins (1-1.25 inches)
  • common, easy-to-read fonts
  • do not overuse paragraphs and bullets
  • do not overuse text enhancements (bold, uppercase are preferable)
  • if using graphics, not overpower the overall message of resume

3. always proofread your resume

SECRET #5.  RESUME ALONG DOES NOT GUARANTEE  YOU A  DREAM JOB

You have to remember that the whole job  search process is your full-time employment and consist of the series of actions, which you have to perform along with the writing and sending out your resume: networking,  job leads search, portfolio building, self-management/ self-image support,  research on labour market information and upgrading your skills to stay up-to-date!  Always stay active with all possible business contacts –  through your friends, or Linkedin connections, volunteering activities, participation in various meetings and job fairs…

Nonetheless, a resume has a usefulness to both: you and your prospective employer. To you, it is helping organize your thoughts about yourself, your training, your experiences, your uniqueness. To an employer, it is a possibility to remember you and a prove of hiring.

EXCELLENCE IS TO DO A COMMON THING

IN AN UNCOMMON WAY

 Let your resume reflect that excellence!

YOU CAN DO IT

Posted: 21st April 2011 by Lucy in WHO AM I
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If you watched the “Sicko” of M.Moore, you
have to agree that something’s wrong with
the health system, which raise multibillion profits of
pharmaceutical and health insurance companies,
while people even with good health insurance
are getting less and less healthy.

     Most of us not only take health for granted, but think that if you feel good, you are healthy. Most of us are wrong! This is the reason why we successfully collect and carry aches and pains in our bodies till “middle age”, and then unsuccessfully try to battle them with multiple expensive treatments, ending up in our senior years with such degenerative diseases like arthritis, high blood pressure, heart disease, and in many cases, unfortunately, die untimely deaths.

We’ve all heard stories of a “healthy” middle-aged executive who drops dead of a massive heart attack just out of blue, doing his regular chores in his garage. Cancer often takes its victims by surprise, developing unnoticed from seven to fifteen years in their bodies. Moreover, statistics data show that one in four will develop heart disease; one in five will die of cancer. The most appalling fact is that young people today are less healthy than at any time since the turn of the century. Obesity epidemic, high blood pressure, failure to meet minimum fitness standards among children are facts that nobody going to argue with.

Such commonplace stories shock us, slapping in the face with a simple fact: a pain-free body isn’t necessarily healthy. They also reveal the basic truth that also feeling good is benefit of health – it is not what health is. But if health isn’t feeling good, what is it?

The answer, actually, in the root word of “health” – “heal”.

         A big part of health is your body’s ability to heal itself. We have symptoms reflect the body’s attempts to self-healing. These symptoms ironically are: sneezing and coughing; diarrhea and vomiting; fatigue; loss of appetite; pain, and fever. All these symptoms are either warning that something is wrong or signs of the body’s attempt to heal itself. For example, the body has a reason for creating fevers: it acts to speed up the action of our immune system! When you touch a hot kettle, pain in your finger tips immediately stops you from continuing of unsafe action. So you know that something’s wrong and you do not hurt yourself further. Our body has a built-in mechanism that wants wounds to heal as fast as possible to prevent infection or destruction.

Health is also how well your body functions. In other words, a person whose liver, heart, spleen, lungs, gallbladder, and every other organ functions at 100% efficiency is much healthier than someone who has the same parts functioning at 60, 70, 80, or even 90%. So our new view of health must recognize that to get healthier we must allow our bodies to function better.

     We often hear from our doctors that self-healing can be dangerous for our health and we need to help our bodies with medications to fight pain and fever, in other words, to fight the symptoms of the disease. But symptoms aren’t the problem. They only point to underlying problem. Unless the true cause is corrected, symptoms come back. Most medications only mask pain while circulating in your blood. Once drugs get flushed from your body, the stage is set for more pain. (Plus drugs themselves have some side-effects, we have to deal with. Plus, multiple drug-resistance has been developed in the microbial word ) We can not rely on drugs as a panacea.  Thus, we have to hold the “golden middle” and trust ourselves not less than to health professionals and pharmaceutical commercials, trust in our ability to treat our diseases even before they are happening to us. There are multiple techniques and strategies to achieve that important condition we call healthy and happy body and mind.

Optimally, it consists of

The key is to make health a life style. You may not be able to cram more activities in your present life. Instead, start replacing some of the things you doing now with the activities, described in these pages. If you do, there’s no way health can keep away from you.

WORTHY OF LOVE AND JOY

Posted: 24th January 2011 by Lucy in WHO AM I
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It does not take long to realize that  your career is all about your life experiences and your connections with other people. We are all social creatures and wired to be connected to each other.  The way we organize our social life is not about making money,believe it or not!  It is more about self-actualization, acceptance and understanding of our survival as an entity.

What moves us, what makes us happy, what brings us satisfaction while we perform our duties no matter on what scale  – maybe we are going to understand more after  watching the TED talk of  Dr. Brené Brown.

She is a researcher professor at the University of Houston, Graduate College of Social Work, where she has spent the past ten years studying a concept that she calls Wholeheartedness, posing the questions: How do we engage in our lives from a place of authenticity and worthiness? How do we cultivate the courage, compassion, and connection that we need to embrace our imperfections and to recognize that we are enough — that we are worthy of love, belonging and joy?

Happiness Makes Your Brain Work Better

Posted: 25th March 2013 by Lucy in WHO AM I
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A Harvard psychology researcher explains that rather than thinking of success as the source of happiness, we should think of happiness as a source of success–and one that’s more under our control than we imagine.

 

ADVANTAGE ONTARIO: A CALL TO ACTION

Posted: 20th January 2013 by Lucy in WHAT'S OUT THERE
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Jobs and Prosperity Council Report (Excerpts)

GOING GLOBAL

Recommendation 1: Ontario needs to both increase its overall export activity and to strategically target new markets in dynamic emerging economies. Government, business, educational institutions, labour, financial institutions and other organizations must work together to develop concrete action plans to maximize opportunities and lay out what it will take to achieve them in key tradable sectors in the changing global economy. These include: agri-food, advanced manufacturing, tourism, health care, education, housing, infrastructure, financial services, natural resources, information communications technology and life sciences.

Leadership Roles:• Business to increase overall export activity, including targeting new markets in dynamic emerging economies; and• Provincial government to convene key stakeholders to develop concrete action plans for Ontario’s tradable sectors in emerging economies.

Recommendation 2: SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) are a key source of growth and job creation in Ontario, and their growth opportunities increasingly lie in tradable sectors. Ontario needs to leverage, align and enhance public and private sector resources to improve the export capacity of SMEs: • Create a one-window online portal for SMEs to access government export information and supports; • Develop a series of large “reverse trade missions” focused on key emerging markets; • Further integrate and link export assistance to SMEs, including co-location of federal, provincial and non-governmental organizations; • Increase partnerships programs, such as the Global Growth Fund, with key business organizations, including ethno-cultural business organizations, that help SMEs access and export to foreign markets, and implement international business strategies; and • Successful exporters should mentor and share expertise with less experienced SMEs.

Leadership Roles:• Provincial government to lead development of more integrated information and resources to support increased SME export capacity;• Provincial government to work with business organizations to develop reverse trade missions; • Provincial government to increase partnerships with business organizations that help SMEs access and export to foreign markets; and• Businesses to take leadership to mentor and share their export expertise with less experienced SMEs.

 DRIVING PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH

Recommendation 3: The Council recognizes the critical importance of the manufacturing sector to Ontario. We call upon the federal and provincial governments to work with stakeholders to develop a manufacturing strategy that will increase productivity and innovation and support increased scale, improved competitiveness and greater exports. The strategy should include: • A call to the federal government, as part of its next budget, to increase the existing accelerated capital cost allowance (ACCA) rate to 100 per cent for a limited time to incent substantial incremental investment in manufacturing machinery and equipment. Ontario would automatically parallel the federal rate. Contingent upon sufficient business uptake, the government should consider making the current 50 per cent rate permanent. • A plan to expand opportunities for Ontario manufacturers in the growing natural resources and energy sectors in Western Canada. Ontario firms have complementary skills to offer, and should view this more as a growth opportunity, beneficial to both economies. • Measures to align education and training programs, including experiential learning, with the skills manufacturers need for the markets of today and tomorrow. • Improved connections between manufacturers and research institutions to solve problems specific to the manufacturing sector through, for example, more applied research collaborations.• A communications strategy that informs the public about the importance of Ontario’s manufacturing sector, the global opportunities open to it, and what it will take to be competitive in the changing global economy.

Leadership Roles:• Business to invest more in manufacturing machinery and equipment and scale up.• Business and government to develop and execute a plan to capitalize on opportunities in Western Canadian resource projects.• Provincial government, with federal government, to lead the development of a manufacturing strategy working in partnership with business, labour and other key stakeholders:  Federal government to increase current ACCA and Ontario to automatically parallel; Key stakeholders to work together to better align education and training programs and to improve connections between manufacturers and research institutions; and Business, government and other key stakeholders to work together to develop a modern manufacturing communications strategy.

Recommendation 4: The Council believes that modern infrastructure, particularly in transportation, can form part of Ontario’s competitive advantage. We need new approaches that engage public and private sources of capital and new revenue models if we are to build the leading edge infrastructure that we need now and in the future.

Leadership Roles:• Provincial government to explore new approaches to engage public and private sources of capital and new revenue models. • All three levels of government to work together to ensure that infrastructure dollars are invested in the most important projects and to improve asset management.

Recommendation 5: The Council believes that Ontario needs a comprehensive plan for developing the Ring of Fire and other natural resources in northern Ontario. We recommend establishing a panel of distinguished Ontarians to develop a playbook for realizing our northern resource potential and report back within one year.

Leadership Roles: • Provincial government to lead the establishment of a panel for northern Ontario comprising of leaders from across the province.

UNLEASHING INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Recommendation 6: We need to accelerate the commercialization of new products, ideas and services in Ontario that can compete globally by:• Working in partnership with the federal government and the private sector to create a venture capital initiative to improve the quality and levels of risk capital funding in Ontario; • Introducing a business-led commercialization voucher to better link research to business needs; • Enhancing the collaboration between research institutions and the Ontario Network of Excellence (ONE) to meet the research needs of business and to improve the commercialization of the work of faculty and students; • Rigorously reviewing the results of commercialization programs to ensure strategic outcomes are met while continuing to explore other measures that could increase the risk capital pool; and • Examining modifications to security and investment rules to facilitate crowd-funding and access to capital for new and emerging ventures, while still providing appropriate protection to investors.

Leadership Roles: • Private sector to increase investment in research and development; • Provincial and federal governments to work together on venture capital initiatives with institutional investors and the private sector. with business sector; • Provincial government to work with business, education sector and others to ensure collaborative research is more industry-driven and better aligned with the research and innovation needs of sectors and regional clusters with the highest potential for growth; and • Provincial government to work with business, education sector and others to track the success of these programs.

Recommendation 7: The Council believes that public sector procurement can be better mobilized to support innovation and the growth of firms that are producing new and innovative tradable goods and services.The government of Ontario should implement a strategic procurement policy to accelerate the growth of firms producing innovative goods and services in tradable sectors.

Leadership Roles: • Provincial government to implement a strategic procurement policy to accelerate the growth of firms producing innovative goods and services in tradable sectors.

Recommendation 8: We need a stronger culture of entrepreneurship in Ontario. The education sector and the private sector should work together to introduce youth to entrepreneurship as a viable career option by:• Creating entrepreneurship high schools; • Building an entrepreneurship focus in the Specialist High Skills Major program curricula in Ontario; • Providing all teachers and guidance counselors with an entrepreneur “toolkit” to assist youth in their entrepreneurial ideas and aspirations; and • Including an entrepreneurship section in the Grade 10 Career Studies course.

Leadership Roles: • Provincial government, working with the educational sector and business, to introduce initiatives that will help youth explore entrepreneurship as a viable career option.• Business to demonstrate leadership by developing and participating in initiatives where students can learn entrepreneurship skills directly from them.

CAPITALIZING ON STRENGTH IN TALENT

Recommendation 9:The Council believes that a diversified and dynamic Ontario economy needs a greater emphasis on skilled trades:          • Expand the Specialist High Skills Major program; • Increase the effectiveness of local Business-Education Councils so that more students better understand the option of choosing a career in the skilled trades; and • Develop up-to-date information on labour market opportunities working cooperatively with business, government and the education sectors, and make it available to students and parents to help inform decisions about career choices.

Leadership Roles: • Provincial government and education sector to introduce programming that will increase exposure to the skilled trades; and • Business to take leadership role in becoming more involved in partnerships with the education sector that will help raise students’ awareness and understanding of employment opportunities in skilled trades.

Recommendation 10:Experiential learning is important for equipping students with up-to-date workplace skills, and the Council believes that business must play a bigger role in offering placements for Ontario students.The private sector must increase the number of experiential learning opportunities for high school and postsecondary students by providing more co-ops, work placements, and apprenticeships.

Leadership Roles: • Business to take leadership role and strong action to increase the number of experiential learning opportunities for high school and post-secondary students.

Recommendation 11: With an aging population, Ontario needs more skilled workers.The Council believes that increasing the number of newcomers with the skills needed by Ontario employers will be an essential element in ensuring Ontario has a talented, world-class work-force. It will require:• Increasing the number and proportion of economic-class immigrants to Ontario; • Improving labour market integration for newcomers; • Improving recognition and assessment of international qualifications; • Increasing the number of spaces for international students and expanding pathways to immigration for international students after completion of post-secondary education; • Leveraging immigrant global connections to promote and grow international exports; and • Better aligning federal and provincial immigration objectives, policies and programs.

Leadership Roles: • Provincial government to work with federal government to increase number and proportion of economic-class immigrants; • Provincial government to work with the business, education and not-for-profit sectors to improve labour market integration for newcomers; • Business and not-for-profit sectors to improve recognition and assessment of international qualifications; • Provincial government to work with education sector to increase the number of spaces for international students; • Business to work with not-for-profits and others to leverage immigrant global connections; and • Provincial government to work with federal government to better align immigration policies.

DELIVERING SMART, EFFICIENT GOVERNMENT

Recommendation 12: The Council believes that the myriad of business support programs in Ontario should be combined into a single Jobs and Prosperity Fund for business supports. Potential investments under the Fund would be evaluated, consistently and rigor­ously, through three policy filters: Ontario firms “going global,” innovation and productivity.

• The Fund should include an integrated, one-window delivery model; strengthened accountability and transparency; regular review of outcome effectiveness; and performance measurement and benchmarking. • The government has announced it will reduce funding for business supports by $250 million. To identify those savings, government should look to the broadest range of business supports, including all direct program funding and both refundable and non-refundable tax credits, and apply the three policy filters when evaluating where to reduce funding. • The Jobs and Prosperity Fund should be seeded with at least $150 million annually through reallocation from the base of the broad range of business support programs, net of the $250 million in reductions. The Fund would grow as existing commitments are fulfilled and uncommitted program funds become available. (For example, existing commitments total $300 million.) • The policy filters should also be applied to regional/rural programs that were deemed by the government to be out of scope for the review. The filters should also apply to all strategic investments made by the government.

Leadership Roles: • Provincial government to lead the development of a single Jobs and Prosperity Fund.

Recommendation 13: The government of Ontario should introduce a job-creation and investment weighting of 15-25 per cent for development project permit approvals.

Leadership Roles: • Provincial government to introduce job-creation weight­ing to its permitting process.

Recommendation 14: The government of Ontario should establish a Major Projects Office to co-ordinate and expedite regulatory approvals for larger projects with high job-creation and growth potential.

Leadership Roles: • Provincial government to establish a Major Projects Office.

Experience more important than paycheck…Debatable or makes sense?

Posted: 10th December 2012 by Lucy in HOW DO I GET THERE, WHO AM I
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Experience more important than paycheck, internships keep skills sharp:

http://www.pbn.com/detail.html?sub_id=cb9216b8ae8c&page=1

This article helps to realize that what we are going through is a global tendency. Training “on a job” during volunteering or internships time is the most popular way to get into the industry, avoid work gaps on a resume, add to the skills, keep up with industry trends or forge connections with potential employers.

New name for this tendency in Canada is CSL experience – community service learning that you can do during your college and university years. Learn about yourself and industry you are getting in…before you pay 5-6 digit figure for your post-secondary education…

Debatable or makes sense?

By Chris Barrett
PBN Staff Writer

Posted 1/24/11

Many workers look forward to Friday both as the last workday of the week and for the paycheck. But for some workers, Friday delivers little or no pay.

In an effort to keep their skills sharp, some unemployed or career-changing people are taking unpaid positions at companies, hoping they turn into paid jobs or that the skills and connections they gain land them jobs elsewhere.

“I think because of the economy today and because of the length of time people are out of work, they need to find every way they can to stay in touch with people in the field,” said Marie R. Geary, an alumni career adviser at the University of Rhode Island.

Geary and other career counselors report that a small contingent of the unemployed is seriously considering – and accepting – professional-type positions without a paycheck. And while internships are typically associated with college students or recent graduates, the difficult job market is leading former professionals into the positions as well.

 

Geary said the reasons vary but generally her clients hope the positions will avoid work gaps on their resume, add to their skills, let them keep up with industry trends or forge connections with potential employers.

Such a position may also smooth the way to a new industry by providing base experience, said Alex Vilner, the owner of Lincoln-based Sinoma Consulting, which provides career advice.

“In the modern day and age the market situation is fairly tough,” he said. “For somebody with no experience whatsoever to just blindly go and change their field of expertise – it’s just not going to happen.”

Some are so anxious to change career fields that they swap paying jobs for opportunities to garner experience.

Carolyn Frangos quit her job as a teacher’s aide in Cranston making $7.50 an hour last fall for an AmeriCorps position that pays about $3.60 an hour via a scholarship. But Frangos, 47, said the experience of volunteering at Women & Infants Hospital in Providence more than offsets the pay cut.

Job Search – Look for the Circumstances You Want…

Posted: 5th November 2012 by Lucy in HOW DO I GET THERE
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“The people who get on in this world

are the people who get up and look for

the circumstances they want, and if

they can’t find them – make them.”

Bernard Show

Have you ever seen an executive desperately sending out resumes or begging for an interview?  Probably not and there’s good reason for that.  Great leadership and management is always in demand and sought after.  So you may not be upper management (yet) or you’re starting over in your career—that doesn’t mean you can’t take control of your job search and become an in-demand candidate!

Think like a Boss of the new venture “Getting a New Job”

Become a  pro at your job search: start with working on your Confidence.

All you need to have a voice and presence that others want to follow to.  You don’t have to be outspoken or authoritative, you just need a radiating confidence that says, “I can do anything, handle anything, and be anything I need to in order to succeed.”

If you want someone to believe in you, you have to believe in yourself first.  And, confidence can be a great motivator to push you to try things you’ve never done before, think outside of the box, or approach people you didn’t think you could.  It can make all the difference in your job search. Understanding of you short and long term career goals and working on building your new portfolio will be your next step.

Develop a strategic Personal Brand.

Make sure your great work doesn’t go unnoticed.  As you go day-to-day in your work, make sure you are receiving the appropriate recognition from management and clients.  You may be the type to stand back and let others take credit for your work, but this passiveness doesn’t help you in the long-term.  Share the credit, recognize what you’ve accomplished, and document it.

If you’re an expert in something or have great industry insights start a blog and build up your social following and get noticed!  Even if you’re not the most outgoing person face to face, that doesn’t mean you can showcase your knowledge online where the entire world has access to learning about you and your personal brand.

Don’t forget to optimize your online brand.  Pay attention to keywords, SEO, social networks, etc.  Head hunters can’t find what you don’t put it out there.  Do not be afraid to spell things out and say who you are and what you want.  Remember, people can’t read your mind and won’t take the time to read between the lines.  Make it easy on those looking for your talent and yourself and be strategic about where and how you position yourself.

Ask for help.

In the job search, you can’t be afraid to reach out and be a little vulnerable.  Even the best leaders have mentors or coaches to help them prepare for big presentations, job interviews, or even understanding more about working with their teams.

Realize that you do not know everything and reach out to others who can help your job search.  Find a mentor to help you focus on what your next move should be so you can outline the appropriate opportunities to focus on and stop wasting your time on things that don’t matter.

If your resume needs help, hire a professional to re-write it, or at the very least have a friend proofread it.  Get a career coach to aid you in seeing parts of the process that you haven’t exposed yourself to or to brush up on presentation skills or refining your personal brand.

Research some of the best and most solid recruiters & head hunters in your industry and make sure they not only have your resume on file, but know why you’re a great candidate.  While sending your resume to recruiters is usually a very fruitless effort, if you target your approach to those recruiters who fill positions like the ones you are looking for and make sure you stand out as a stellar candidate, you can increase the odds of their remembering you when they have a requisition to fill.

Outside help can help you stay on track and focused and take some of the burden of the search off your shoulders by knowing you have other people on your side looking out for you.  Executives don’t go it alone, and you don’t have to either, build your team of support.

Identify and target opportunities.

To identify opportunities, first you have to put yourself in the places to make them happen, and networking is one of the first steps to that.  This can be online or face to face, but figure out what you can do for others or what makes you interesting and worth knowing before you put yourself out there.

Be intentional in your approach and don’t be afraid to ask for what you want from the appropriate people.    When networking be pleasant and approachable and don’t ask for too much up front.  Wait for the appropriate time when you establish a richer connection to ask for what you want, whether it’s a referral, an introduction, or just to keep you in mind.  And, know that with each person, that amount of time may be different – feel when to use discretion and when to be bold.

Great leaders focus not only on the short-term, but the long-term.  Never dismiss someone just because they can’t help you today because you never know how they might be able to help you tomorrow.  And, don’t burn bridges if you can help it; build relationships that will last beyond your career.

If you  know the career path you want to take –  network within the circles you want to move up in, whether that’s internal or external.  Have a company you want to work for?  Connect with as many employees (and recruiters) there as you can and get to know them and build a relationship to let them get to know you.  When an opening comes up, be a name they remember and refer.

And, while making an online introduction is great, be bold and take the conversation beyond the keyboard.  Coffee may be for closers, but in the job hunt, use a coffee date to secure a relationship with someone who can help you.  If geographically meeting face to face doesn’t work pick up the phone, Skype or chat on Google  hangouts or LinkedIn Group discussions.

The more personal a connection you make and the more people like you, the more you will be remembered and the more likely others are to help you (and want to work with you.)

Learn from those who have already shaped successful careers.  Listen to the stories of your bosses and other leaders to see how they got to the top and what you can learn. And, while you might be in the middle of a job search now, don’t forget these basic principles once you secure a role.

Build on your successes and keep communication going with others because you may need them to secure your next position.  And, always know what you’re working towards. With no direction you can’t choose the appropriate path to move forward.

INTERVIEW STRATEGIES – ALWAYS TWO SIDE STORY

Posted: 30th September 2011 by Lucy in HOW DO I GET THERE
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Interview is the most important component of hiring process an could be a nerve breaking experience for both interviewers and interviewees.  Both groups have a lot to lose if not prepared enough or gain in case of the successful matchmaking!

It got me thinking: when we prepare  for interviews, do we really take the employer’s end goal into consideration?  I know we always consider the job, the needs and the skills involved; but do we sit down and consider the Hiring Manager themselves? Do we use  the insight that we need to help erase someone else’s problems? Are we preparing for  the interview strategy that actually works?

  • Identify the Problem:  When prepping  for an interview, we should pay just as much attention to the potential employer’s situation as they do to some of those fun soft skills we always focus on.  What do I mean?  If you know a Manager is hiring an Admin because he/she is extremely disorganized, then share that with the candidate. Make sure they come right out and tell the Manager that organization and order is a specialty of theirs; that they can bring order and streamline operations for them.  If a Manager is looking to fill a position because they keep having to re-write a faulty piece of software? Make sure you send your candidate in ready to address that problem.  Managers hire because they have problems to solve; sometimes bad ones, sometimes good ones, but problems nonetheless.  Give your employers the tools to make the problem go away.
  • Know What You Want: Sending candidates into interviews ready to help Managers and sell their ability to do a great job is awesome.  It will get you most of the way there.  But candidates can’t be one dimensional; if they are they won’t get the job.  So make sure your guy (or gal) can clearly define what it is they really want to do.  Managers aren’t blind and whether we always like to admit it, they know their business better than we do.  A candidate that can’t clearly define what they want to get out of a job will be seen as disingenuous and static. Make sure your candidates know that they need to be able to share a piece of themselves with the Manager.  They need to be able to speak about their own skills, desires and plans. It will help forge a level of trust as well as detail the candidate’s match for the job.
  • Know the Manager: Not literally!  Of course, I’ve had this happen before.  Once it was good, once it was a disaster.  Yikes.  As a Recruiter, you need to make it your business to know your Hiring Managers.  You need to know their interview style, their personality and how they close interviews. Why? Because Managers aren’t always great interviewers and candidates may need to take a strong hand in driving the interview in the right direction.  Taking the time to understand the manager and the folks doing the hiring is an invaluable tool to successful recruiting.  If you send a candidate in with the fore knowledge that a Manager doesn’t ask questions or won’t really create chances for the candidate to display their skills, the candidate should be able to anticipate that and know to work it in to the conversation.  Also, if you’ve got a Manager that lets interviews slowly and awkwardly grind to a halt…a prepared (and good) candidate will be able to end the interview professionally.

At the end of the day, our job is to give Hiring Managers the candidate that can do the job best….and to give the candidates the ability to showcase that ability for the Managers.  It’s a fun little balance isn’t it?  Interview strategy isn’t all about wearing a suit, bringing a resume and showing up on time; most of the time it’s about being able to anticipate and communicate the precise and individual needs of the hiring team. If you arm your candidates with this knowledge, they will have a full opportunity to demonstrate their skills.

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