I have been headhunting for over 16 years and this is my 3^rd recession in the employment industry. There have been a few things that have concerned me most; the volume of layoffs, duration of the layoffs and how unprepared most of the job seekers are. Everyday I talk to dozens of Technical Job seekers, and one truth has become evident. Most seekers have no job hunting plan, don’t know how to create a sustainable job hunting plan, and thus are suffering because of it.

It is my goal with this article to help anyone who needs to find a job, or is concerned about lousing their job, to proactively build a Career Plan that is sustainable for their future. This plan is no different than the preparation’s you take for investing in your retirement. It takes thought, planning, networking and understanding your positioning in the employment market.  The current employment rate is 8.1% across the US; add the disenfranchisement or population who has given up looking for work, and we are probably closer to 20% unemployment. This mass flood of talent to the market place is causing frustration and competition we have not seen since the Great Depression. In order to separate yourself from the rest of the job seekers, here are some tips to ensure you differentiate yourself from the employment pack.

The Resume:

Tips: Everyone has resume tips; I am not going to comment on presentation and style is your choice. However, I will give some tips on structure of your resume to avoid unnecessary pitfalls.

• Remember not to put your contact information in Headers or Footers. I can not tell you the hundreds of resumes I have received throughout the past five years that have made this simple mistake.

KEY: Most applicant tracking systems that import your resume have challenges striping the data out the headers/footers.  The result is a resume with no contact information.

• Technology: Most recruitment technology and methodology is based off of key words and formulas. When a recruiter searches to find the top 30% or 100 resumes to recruit they use a ranking system of how many key words are found in the resume. Same holds true for the job boards, social networks and search engines.

KEY: Make sure you add a technology section at the bottom of your resume that has all of the technology you are functional in. Even Word, Excel, etc… Do not assume that everyone knows that software.

• Accomplishments: When I look at peoples resumes I see bullet points, or simple sentences like: “I saved the company $500 or increased sales by 38%”. An applicant may think that this is a great accomplishment, and it could be. But, from an outsider’s perspective, we do not have the reference to know if that $500 is a minor or major impact to that company’s bottom line. Lots of questions and assumptions are left up to whoever is reading your resume, and more importantly the whole story was not told.

KEY: Here is a simple formula for you to figure out what your accomplishments are.

Business Challenge + Your Solution = Accomplishments (never change)

                                                                        Make money

                                                                        Save money

                                                                        Reduce cost

                                                                        Improve customer service

                                                                        Improve moral etc…

The key to this formula is that accomplishments (results) never change! What changes are the business challenges you faced, what your recommended solutions were to that challenge, and the result of that solution. (Warning:  An accomplishment should be no longer than 3-4 sentences. You are not writing a dissertation!!)

Formulating your accomplishment like this will allow the employer to get an emotional connection to you and your resume. Most Companies share the same issues and business challenges, and solutions. At the same time your accomplishment will demonstrate your business understanding, and critical thinking skills.

EXAMPLE:

ABC’s recruitment process was incomplete. I proactively designed a phone screen, and in person interview process which led to a reduction of turnover by 50%. As a result of our new hires, we help our internal customer increase productivity and overall profitability by 5%.

Interviewing Mistakes

• Your Interview Pitch: Know your story, know your career progression, and know why. Know why you left your jobs, any gaps, or red flags in your resume. KEY: Know your pitch and practice it. You need to be able to quickly answer the questions asked about your history quickly and concisely. Ask questions about the opportunity. This is the only way you are going to create a dialog and learn more about this potential opportunity. Do not be the person six months down the road saying you did not know the job was going to be like this, or you never told me that. You did not ask, and therefore did not learn enough about the opportunity before you accepted it.
• Salary Confidentiality: Not sharing salary or compensation with the recruiter limits your candidacy.  Why? First, the company is not sure if they can afford you and will spend more time with candidates that fall into their rate range.  Secondly, it could be construed as difficult to work with, or that you have something to hide. When ultimately you are trying not to price yourself out of this opportunity, or leave money on the table. 

KEY: How not sell yourself short when it comes to compensation.

“There are two reasons why I am here today. First, money is important. The second and more important reason is opportunity. I see a lot of opportunity here at ABC Company, and I do not want to price myself out of it. Is that fair? My compensation is, or was X$$ with a bonus program of XX$”

What you did was tell the hiring manager that you are willing to take a short term loss for a long term gain. If you make it to the offer stage they know to make you the best offer they can. Then the ball is in your court!

• Watch Out For The Loaded Interview Question: Make sure when an interviewer prefaces a question by describing a program, or process challenge, that you ask who created the program or process, and why it was created. Ask for a description of the problem they are trying to resolve with this program or process. You want to know who created the program before you assassinate it. The interviewee might have thought it was a great idea, and if you slam it there goes your shot at that job!

Networking:

Controlling your future begins and ends with strategy of developing and building personal and professional networks. Many people give me the excuses, “I do not have time” or “I have too many family commitments”. My response: “You have to make time!” This is a commitment for your future, both personally and professionally. Unfortunately people are learning this lesson the hard way in today’s employment crisis. Now I am seeing people rush to catch up out of desperation, or survival instinct through online resources.  PAUSE-REEVALUATE YOUR PROCESS!!!!

KEY: Take an inventory of where you are at. Look at who you know, what social networking groups you belong to, or should, and what religious or charitable groups you are associated with.

1. Organize your contacts in order of importance to your career. Find those contacts of yours with the most influential network that can be strategically leveraged to your benefit.
2. Make a communication plan to help get the word out about your situation/need.

·         Who do I contact first if I lost my job or if I fear losing my job, second, third, etc...

·         How do I stay in touch (phone, e-mail, face-to-face etc...) with my contacts?

3. Prioritize who or what communication gets sent to your contacts:

·         Primary: Top Tier Business, Family & Social Networks (Linkedin.com, Facebook.com)

·         Secondary: Family & Friends, Other Business Contacts

·         Tertiary: Religious Institutions, Charities etc…

·         Undefined: Transactional Networking

Finally, you need to define the protocols of, who, what, when, where, why and how for each of these groups. Some contacts you can call directly and explain how they can help. Some contacts are needed simply to lend their name, and introduce you to their contacts.

Think of it this way. The contacts closest to you are the most influential to directly helping your career path, and should be your top priority. Establishing a pattern of communication with them is critical. The farther out you go from your network the less you will want to contact. Remember the further from your primary contact list you go the more critical it is that you evaluate each contact, and try to set up some communication with them. You never know how they could help, or who could be the next primary network contact.

KEY: Network Health-now you are starting to feel good about creating a communication plan that will allow you to use your top critical contacts to get the word out for you. Now what you need to do is check the health of your network. It is important to reach out to your network to see how everyone is doing. You need to make a plan and decide who and what the frequency of your contacts will be. You do not want to be a pest, but at the same time you do not want your networks to think that you only call when you need something.

Your Mental State

One of the biggest job searching challenges that you are going to face is keeping your emotions in balance. You are going to be dealing with Hiring Managers, HR, Recruiters and even procurement agents who are going to qualify you for their position. All of a sudden you will get a lot of activity with companies you would be excited to work for. You are sure that they need your skill and want to hire you because you are high impact talent. Furthermore, all of your accomplishments made a difference to the return on investment (ROI) for your past employer/s. All of a sudden you have three to four opportunities in your hopper. Things are great, you tell you significant other; you tell friends or even past associates that you made it through the first screen, you may make it to second or third interview, and all signs are positive.

Then next day you do not hear a thing. No one gets back to you. No one has the stones to tell why you did not get that opportunity you were a fit for. No one tells you why you did not get even a shot at any opportunity within that company. All you remember is that you were told, “I like your style”, or “Your accomplishments would fit right into what we need here at ABC Company.”

All you are left with are questions like, what is wrong with me? Could I have done anything different? What am I going to say to my family or friends that keep asking me how my search is going? Why does this happen to me? How am I going to take care of my responsibilities (family, bills etc…)?

STOP!!!!!!!!

You are not alone this happens to all of us. The “why” is due to most companies recruiting for what their needs are NOW, not what their needs are in the FUTURE. That is why as soon as that company, or agency, gets their needs met everything drops. You are not a priority any more. Right or wrong that’s how things work. As a manager, think back on how relieved you were when you had a critical opening or need that was filled. When was the last time you thought of the 2nd or 3rd place candidate? What was communicated to them? Companies, I feel, are not trying to be mean spirited, hurtful or even malicious. However, they could be short sited.  Either way it can not be taken personally. You do not have anything wrong with you!

• Rules of Job Search Sanity:

1.      Keep your emotions in check, and if people ask how the job search is going, just smile and say “in progress”.

2.      You are looking for the right opportunity, as well as the companies are looking for the right employee. The interview or screen needs to go two ways. I am a firm believer that what separates us from others is our ability to ask intelligent questions. So know your story. Know where you came from, and where you want to go, so you can listen to what is being asked. Answer concisely and quickly. Know the company and/or environment so you can ask intelligent questions to see if this is the right company for you.

3.      For every $10K you want to add 1 month to your search. Prepare yourself mentally that this could take a long time for you to find the right opportunity. Are mentally prepared for this? If you were a Director or VP, there are not a lot of positions floating around, and most likely you were making more then $40K a year. So be patient! If you need cash, talk to a contract or temporary help agency to do some work to bring home the bacon in the mean time.

4.      Run your job search like your own business. You will need to manage your contacts, interviews, thank you letters, and resume submittals like you are in sales. You will have to identify which contacts and companies you want to keep in touch with, and which websites you will choose to look at for opportunities. I would not rely on the company, or recruiter, to remember you for all of their opportunities. The people who stay top of mind get the first opportunities. You do not want to be a stalker though.  You will need to find out how they prefer to be contacted.

5.      Networking is like cash, it is KING... Keep networking even after you land your job. In a current market like this you could potentially be laid off more then once. Also, you should want to pay-forward the kindness you received from other people that helped you out.

With gratitude I am happy to share these nuggets of knowledge that has translated to real life results. I have seen each of these tactics be implemented first hand by job seekers right now. All though I can not guarantee you a job what I can guarantee is immediate results from these proven tips and techniques.

Remember to know your pitch, prepare for your interview and constantly network you will not fail.

Joel Abraham

Division Director

WiseChoice IT

Work:  414.773.0679

JoelA@WiseChoiceIT.com

LinkedIn:  http://www.linkedin.com/in/talentmining