Q. I’ve been looking for a position for just over a year. Many have recommended a career change, but I don’t know if that is even practical. What have you seen with regards to people making career changes? I have a lot of skills after 25 years in my current career.
Jumping into a career change is tough enough, but not knowing what skills you bring to the party and how you can leverage these skills will make the transition even tougher. Many candidates believe that just because they have a skill it makes them marketable. This is not necessarily true. You are only marketable if a need exists for that skill. You can’t assume that there is a market, and that the market is willing to pay what you are asking.
Also, others may have the same skills, and some additional experience using those skills, which makes them more desirable.
A suggestion would be to first conduct a skills assessment (download a free Skills Assessment at www.bradremillardcareercoach.com). I suggest that you complete this, but also have others complete it for you too. Those that know you the best will see your skills from a different perspective.
Next you will have to determine if there is a market for these skills, where the market is, and the value of these skills in the market. It will be important to leverage these skills on your resume and when you interview. You can’t forget that others have these same skills. If they have some additional or unique experiences that you don’t, then your market and value in that market is decreased.
To download the free chapter on Conducting an Effective Phone Interview from our book “This Is NOT The Position I Accepted” CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
How effective is your job search? If you are not sure, download our free 8 Matrix Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
I was meeting with a candidate today, we will call him Andy, who recently landed. He had been on the market for about 5 months. He did all the right things, went to the networking meetings, drank more coffee than he should have, reworked his resume over and over, all for nothing. He would get interviews but never make the cut. He had sent out lots of resumes with moderate success.
About 2 months ago I met with Andy and a group of financial professionals, mainly CFOs, to do a resume review exercise. You might try this exercise. Everyone brings their current resume and passes them face down to the person next to them. Then at the same time everyone turns the resume over and for 10 seconds reviews them. After 10 seconds all resumes go face down again. The next step gets to the real purpose for the exercise. The person that read the resume for 10 seconds gives feedback on exactly what they learned about the person’s background, companies, position, location and any other information they took away in that short period of time. Why you ask? That is about how long most people first look at a resume, so the purpose is to find out if the person reading the resume for 10 seconds captures from the resume what the owner of the resume wanted them to. If not, then they need to change the resume.
After the meeting I started working with Andy as part of our Job Search Coaching program. The first thing I noticed was Andy’s resume had him as a CFO. The reality was that compared to other CFOs in the group Andy could not compete. He was really a controller. Andy was trying to play at a level that he wasn’t competitive. He lost out every time, either when the resume was submitted, or during the interview.
We made a small tweak to his resume by taking off all references to CFO and changed them to controller. Everything else remained the same. Within two weeks Andy started getting interviews and within 6 weeks he was working. He credits all of the activity and the job to this one tweak of his resume.
Sometimes one small change can make all the difference. Make sure you are playing in the right league. Andy wasn’t, and his resume clearly communicated that. Like most candidates I coach, candidates think only about themselves and not the competition. Andy had clearly done this. He would have been working months earlier had he thought about this.
To download the free chapter on Conducting an Effective Phone Interview from our book “This Is NOT The Position I Accepted” CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
If you would like to know if your job search is fully utilized and you are doing the right things, download our free 8 Matrix Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resource link.
A job search is much like a cable news show, you have to get your point across in sound bites. You often don’t have time to give a detailed answer. Candidates need to get comfortable with doing this.
Think about all the times during your job search when you are required to give the famous, “30 second talk.” Many times during the interview process you have a short period of time to answer the question or give your introduction, you use bullet points on your resume and even your business card, and all of these require you to express yourself in just a few words.
This is one reason why a job search is so difficult. Not only is it very difficult to speak in sound bites, most candidates are not prepared on how to do it. This technique takes practice and fore thought. This is not a case where you can just wing it. How many times have you left a meeting, only to realize you didn’t give a great answer to a question, didn’t get your point across as well as you would have liked to or thought, “OOPS I forgot to say ___.” This happens mainly because the candidate hasn’t taken the time to really get prepared.
A job search is not the time for on-the-job-training.
It is our experience that candidates wait too long to understand this point. You can’t wait and hope you will do just fine. First off, “just fine” in this economy doesn’t cut it. Secondly, in this economy, there may not be a second chance for months.
As part of our job search coaching programs, we spend a lot of time preparing candidates for these short sound bites. Although frustrating for candidates, we have seen these sound bites pay off so many times, we have to continually reassure the candidates of the need to prepare for them.
Candidates need to spend more time preparing and less time running to networking meetings, coffees, and one-on-ones until they are completely prepared. We find that candidates waste excellent opportunities because they were not prepared on how to communicate in sound bites. I get calls weekly asking how best to do a do-over because the candidate believes they missed an opportunity.
There are rarely do-overs in a job search.
To learn how to speak in sound bites consider:
Write out what you want to say. Then wordsmith it until it is less than one minute.
Get help. This is a difficult task that takes experience. Don’t be afraid to invest in some professional help.
Take the known items and the comments or questions, such as your introduction, elevator talk, the question,”Tell me about yourself,” or “So, what do you do?” Most of you know these, after all you have been asked them many times during your search, and convert them into short sentences that get the point out in less than one minute.
Practice them. Go to people in your network and test them. This is like any marketing campaign.
Once you have the answers for these then add one more set of comments and answers. Having two different sound bites is always a good thing.
Take some time to step back and get prepared. I know every candidate wants to jump into a job search as soon as possible. The problem is this jump is often in the wrong direction.
Like most things in life, if you do the ground work, get prepared, and do some planning things go a lot better.
To download the free chapter on Conducting an Effective Phone Interview from our book “This Is NOT The Position I Accepted” CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
If you would like to know if your job search is fully utilized and you are doing the right things, download our free 8 Matrix Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resource link.
Our job search coaching and facilitation programs for candidates take us down many different paths. Every program has to be unique to the needs of the candidate. No two job searches are alike and there is never a one-size-fits-all approach to a job search. Customizing our coaching programs is the hallmark of our success.
One example of this happened towards the end of the process with one of our sales and marketing executives.
The candidate had been interviewing with a small, very entrepreneurial company for a VP of Sales and Marketing position. We had been working together, all along the way, to ensure he was properly preparing for every interview. It was now down to the final two candidates and the company asked each candidate to put together a short presentation on how they would market and sell the products to new customers. Nothing elaborate, just a half hour presentation.
Some background information is important. The CEO and founder of the company was a cigar chewer, speak your mind, no B.S. type of person. Some might say very rough around the edges. He wore as a badge of honor that he never graduated from high school and still had built a very successful business from scratch. The company was a plastic injection molding company that made custom plastic parts for a variety of industries. The CEO may not have graduated from high school and was rough around the edges, but he had a lot of common sense.
The other candidate was from Xerox and put together a very nice PowerPoint presentation that identified markets, market shares, potential customers in a 30 mile radius with charts/graphs and a lot of detail. I was later told it was a very polished presentation.
In discussions with our candidate, we talked about the company’s culture, the personality of the CEO, and the other people on the management team. Many on the team were well educated and from well know companies. However, as we discussed these issues, it became clear they all really liked working with the CEO for the simple reason that he was blunt, called it like it was, wasn’t one for a lot of staff meetings, liked blunt and direct people, and most said he was a very, “get to the point type person.” The candidate was told by the team if he wanted to be successful, he needed to be able to work in that culture.
After all of this, we decided to take a completely different approach. The candidate scrapped the PowerPoint and instead simply started researching the market for potential customers and why the company would be a potential target. The day of the presentation my candidate walked in with a stack of magazines, business journals and trade publications. Every publication was dog eared, had stickers on pages and highlights on different pages. The candidate sat in front of the CEO and for his presentation all he did was start opening each periodical to a page and said, “see the company here, this should be our customer, here is why, here is how I would approach them, and here is how we can benefit them.” He did this for almost 20 minutes. That was his marketing and sales plan.
Which one do you think adapted to the company’s culture and the CEO’s style?
Needless to say, if the candidate we were working with didn’t get the job, I wouldn’t have written this article. Although the person from Xerox did a great job, he didn’t adapt to the style of the company. My candidate took all of this into consideration before going in. He also demonstrated to the CEO that he understood how to adjust to the unique styles and cultures of the customer. One type of sales pitch doesn’t work for every customer.
Have you ever had a situation where you could have adapted?
Never forget the importance of the company’s culture and management style you are interviewing with. The better you can adapt to their style and culture, the better you will fit in during the hiring process and after going to work for the company.
To download the free chapter on Conducting an Effective Phone Interview from our book “This Is NOT The Position I Accepted” CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
If you would like to know if your job search is fully utilized and you are doing the right things, download our free 8 Matrix Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resource link.
First impressions are so important in the initial meeting that one would not be too far off base if they argued the most important part of the interview. First impressions set the tone for the interview and often determine the types of questions, length of the interview, and ultimately the outcome. Making a strong first impression is often the deciding factor in who makes it to the next round. If the candidate makes a strong first impression they are immediately liked by the interviewer. This candidate just moved up the point scale towards the next round and they haven’t even been asked one question. On the other hand, if the candidate makes a weak first impression, the candidate starts out in the hole. This hole if often so deep that no matter how well they answer the questions, the interviewer cannot overcome their first impression. In fact, they may have decided right in the lobby that this person isn’t getting the job.
Tips to making a strong first impression:
· Good eye contact.
· Remain a comfortable distance from the person.
· Firm handshake – even if you think you have one ask someone who will be open and honest. Many don’t, so don’t assume you do.
· Strong introduction coupled with a smile, a strong handshake and eye contact. Practice this introduction.
· Have a couple of conversational questions prepared in advance to engage the interviewer.
· The most important of all are the four “A’s.” A VP of HR at Rockwell Corporation gave us these. They are so important more than 25 years later we still remember them.
Appearance
Articulate
Assertive
Affable
Bring these four to the first impression and you will move up the scale – not down.
Study after study reveals that likability is the single most important factor used when determining who ultimately gets the job. Underestimating this is a failure of many candidates. Those that make a strong first impression will often do better in an interview than candidates with better experience.
To download the free chapter on Conducting an Effective Phone Interview from our book “This Is NOT The Position I Accepted” CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
If you would like to know if your job search is fully utilized and you are doing the right things, download our free 8 Matrix Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resource link.
Like most recruiters, I attend too many networking events. Once a person hears that I’m a recruiter, they generally want to engage me in some conversation that usually ends up with giving me a business card or resume. WRONG TOOLS.
Even when I meet candidates, not for an interview, but just to help them in their search they give me a business card and a resume. WRONG TOOLS.
Most candidates don’t have the right tools for the right purpose or they have one set of tools for every aspect of their job search. WRONG AGAIN.
When one is trying to fix anything, they need the right tools to do the job correctly. Would you try to hang a picture on your wall using a 16 pound sledge hammer? One tool does not fix all problems – it’s the same with a job search.
At a minimum, there are two types of tools you need to use during a job search. One set is for networking, and the other set is for use when applying for a position, interview, responding to ads, or anything directly related to a specific position.
Networking tools are designed to accomplish a couple of specific goals:
1) Assist the person or contact in remembering you and something about you. The contact needs a tool to identify you from all of the other contacts in their stack of business cards. This is so they can refer you. In two weeks, most contacts don’t know which Pat you are in the stack, if Pat is male or female, or what industry Pat has experience in. Not a good way to get a referral.
2) Assist with referrals and introductions. How many times have you had a networking meeting with anyone and walked away with a specific referral to a hiring manager, HR person, lead directly into a company that fits your background, or someone other than a service provider or recruiter. It happens, but this is less often.
These two things happen because most candidates don’t have the correct networking tools. They too often just hand the person their resume and a general business card. THESE ARE NOT NETWORKING TOOLS. Stop using them. They are the wrong tools.
Get the right tools.
1) Use networking business cards. These cards use the back of the card. On the back is a list of industry experiences, titles, target companies or anything that will help the person remember you from all the rest in their stack of cards.
2) Use a bio not a resume. Don’t just use a generic bio. Use a targeted and focused bio on what introductions and referrals you are seeking. The bottom third of the bio should list the specific company names and people you want to meet. This way when the contact is looking at your bio they can easily identify if they know the company or person. Then right there on the spot they will often indicate they can facilitate an introduction.
There are other tools you need, but these are the most important. Good networking tools help people help you by remembering who you are and what connections you are seeking.
To download the free chapter on Conducting an Effective Phone Interview from our book “This Is NOT The Position I Accepted” CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
If you would like to know if your job search is fully utilized and you are doing the right things, download our free 8 Matrix Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resource link.
Q. Too often candidates aren’t focused on the same issues as the company.
I recently asked approximately 30 people in transition what candidates mean when they say, “I’m qualified for the position.” The answers were, experiences, skills, can do the job, etc. All hard skills listed on the resume. Then I asked what they think a hiring authority means when they say, “I think this is a good candidate.” The answers were, fit, liked the person, work well with others, etc. All soft skills, which are not visible on a resume. So in reality, candidates and hiring managers are measuring different things in the interview. This is why someone might be a great candidate, but not the right candidate.
I don’t believe candidates spend enough time researching and understanding the soft skills required to get the job. They walk into an interview prepared to talk about all of their skills and experiences, yet the interviewer is not only listening to those but also evaluating the soft skills. Chances are they already know you have some level of hard skills or you wouldn’t be there to begin with.
This is an area I believe candidates should focus on more as they prepare during their job search. Understanding how they present themselves from the moment they walk in the door, how they sit in the chair, use their hand motions, the speed at which they talk, how they listen to the questions and answer them, including how they mirror the interviewer should not be taken for granted. These are all relatively easy things to do and learn. There are many helpful books, videos, and webinars available for candidates to learn. Just fine tuning a few things in your presentation can give you the edge you may need to beat out the competition.
To download the free chapter on Conducting an Effective Phone Interview from our book “This Is NOT The Position I Accepted” CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
If you would like to know if your job search is fully utilized and you are doing the right things, download our free 8 Matrix Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resource link.
Q. I have been contacted by a firm that promises to market my skills to companies. They claim to have many contacts with local companies. I’m not sure it is worth the cost. Any recommendations regarding using someone to market me?
I have two words for you, BUYER BEWARE. Too often these firms claim a lot and deliver very little. Since they contacted you, that is a red flag and you need to do your research. These firms always spring up in times of high unemployment.
Some things to consider before writing a check include: Are they claiming or even implying they will find you a job? If this is even implied, run and run fast. Do they claim to have access to the “hidden job market?” Have them provide references of other candidates they have worked with that are now working due to their help. If they are as good as they claim to be, they should have a list of raving fans. You should speak with people currently in the program. Contact the Better Business Bureau to check for any complaints. If they claim they have companies they work with regularly ask to speak to someone at the company. Don’t accept any excuses for not being able to do this. Do they offer a money back guarantee? Ask to speak to someone they actually refunded the money to. Don’t accept that they have never had to give a refund. No one is that perfect. Is the full fee paid up front? Finally, you should write out a list of expected results you want them to deliver and over what period of time they will deliver these results. Make them very specific. If they don’t meet them then they need to agree in writing to refund your money.
I know too many candidates that have fallen prey to these firms. There are good ones and many excellent professionals, but be careful. Remember, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.
To download the free chapter on Conducting an Effective Phone Interview from our book “This Is NOT The Position I Accepted” CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
If you would like to know if your job search is fully utilized and you are doing the right things, download our free 8 Matrix Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resource link.
Q. Is it acceptable to have a resume longer than two pages?
Withrare exception two pages is still the generally accepted maximum length. I have helped thousands with their resume and I can’t think of a time when we couldn’t fit all of the relevant information on two pages.
Remember, the purpose of a resume is to demonstrate to the reader that your experience and background aligns with the position. It isn’t an autobiography. It doesn’t have to include everything you have done in 25 years. It is a summary, usually in a bullet point format. All a resume really needs is the right information necessary to get an interview. It isn’t designed to get a job.
Generally, your experience from 20 years ago or more is no longer critical. If it is one might wonder if it is the right job in the first place. So I recommend summarizing this by simply indicating the name of the company, your position title and the years you worked there. Save the space to make sure that you list the important accomplishments that align with the company’s needs and will catch the reader’s eye.
I find that if more candidates would customize their resumes to the needs of the position they would get more interviews. Too often candidates make a one size fits all generic resume. Instead of a long resume covering every aspect of your career consider having a two page resume that is specific to the position. This might require more than one resume, but as long as everything is honest there is nothing wrong with this.
To download the free chapter on Conducting an Effective Phone Interview from our book “This Is NOT The Position I Accepted” CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
If you would like to know if your job search is fully utilized and you are doing the right things, download our free 8 Matrix Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resource link.
Q. Are keywords on a resume as critical as everyone claims? I know the job boards use them, but I have had a lot of different experiences so I’m not sure what keywords I should be using.
There is no doubt that keywords on a resume play an important role for the job boards and for companies with sophisticated resume tracking systems. Too often candidates focus their keywords exclusively for the electronic system scanning their resume and completely miss the most important scanner – the human scanner.
The vast majority of companies don’t have sophisticated resume scanning software. As resumes come in the door they are reviewed by a person. So from a candidate’s perspective the question should be, “Do I have the keywords that will stand out and catch the eye of the reader?” Often the person scanning or reading your resume has certain words or terms they are looking for on the resume. So your resume has to have these keywords properly positioned so the reader’s eye catches them. It is little help having a bunch of keywords for the computer to catch if they aren’t the correct words the human scanner is seeking.
In your specific case, since you have had a lot of different experiences this becomes even more important, as the wrong set of keywords could rule you out. So it is important for you that when you send in a resume, especially to a small to mid-size company, to think about the keywords and terms the human will want to see as they read your resume and make sure those words are positioned to catch their eye.
To download the free chapter on Conducting an Effective Phone Interview from our book “This Is NOT The Position I Accepted” CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resources link.
If you would like to know if your job search is fully utilized and you are doing the right things, download our free 8 Matrix Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE and then click on the Free Search Resource link.
