Starting a Job Search? Start By Knowing The Three Required “P’s”

Q. I’m just starting my job search after working for the same company for the last 20 years. What tips can you give me to help me get started and do it right?

I would start by knowing the three P’s required for an effective job search.

1) Presentation. I speak on this all the time. Candidates so often down play this or take it for granted. For some reason candidates just don’t focus enough energy here.  This is the most basic of basics. Remember, the most qualified person doesn’t always get the job. The person with the best presentation and some minimum level of qualification will often get the job.

2) Preparation. If the presentation is working, now it is time to start preparing. This is a big job and again so often taken for granted by candidates.

Prepare your marketing plan. Are you in the right networking groups? Maybe it is time to change the groups you are attending. Are you meeting the right people? Look back over the people you met within the last 3 months and evaluate who and what types of people have been helpful and those that didn’t provide any assistance. Identify companies and people you want to meet. Set up a plan to meet them. If you contacted a company 6–8 months ago things may have changed, so consider reconnecting or finding another way into the company.

3) Practice. This is probably the most important of the three “P’s.” Everyone has heard, “Practice makes perfect.” Well this applies in a job search. Practice your body language, how you use your voice to stress points, answering succinctly, and the important questions you want ask.

Practice exactly how you are going to answer the standard questions asked in just about every interview. I always have the candidates I coach write out complete answers to these. Then we practice them until the candidate has succinct answers. These should be so well rehearsed that they come off as if it is the first time you answered the question.

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 welcome your thoughts and comments.

Brad Remillard

LinkedIn Profiles Are Worthless, If People Can’t Find You

I firmly believe that most LinkedIn profiles are worthless, even the really good ones. I even teach a webinar on building a compelling LinkedIn profile. This is not to say that profiles on LinkedIn are not important. They are definitely important. Most are just worthless not only because they leave out valuable information, but also because they are not optimized so you  show up during a LinkedIn search.

I know this because recently for a search I’m doing I spent hours using LinkedIn to search for potential candidates. Then I received a resume from a person and looked him up on LinkedIn. I couldn’t understand why I didn’t find him during my search process. He was on LinkedIn but his profile was poor and clearly not optimized for someone searching on LinkedIn.

• He lacked key words in  his profile.
• He didn’t have the right key words that people will search on.
• The information was not placed in the right locations on the profile.
• He had not done any research or even thought about optimizing his profile.
• His profile lacked or completely missed how LinkedIn prioritizes profiles results from a search.
• He wasn’t optimizing his connections and groups so as to leverage his profile for a person searching for his profile type.

As a result of these and other issues I missed him. This almost cost him a job lead, an interview and potentially a job.  He is still in the hiring process so don’t know whether or not he will get the job. Yet,  all this stuff is easy to fix.  It doesn’t require a lot of time, but it does require understanding how to optimize  your profile and how LinkedIn works when conducting a search for people.

Even a great profile that can’t be found is like having a great website that nobody visits. Not a lot of value.

Is  your profile optimized? If not think seriously about doing it. I would recommend doing two things.

1. First develop a great profile. Make it compelling, identify the key words, have it complete including your work history, groups, education, interests, specialties and contact information. This has to be done first so you can optimize it for a LinkedIn profile search. Plus when someone views your profile, you want them to call you.
2. Only after you complete and compelling profile is it time to optimize it. I say after because it is almost impossible to optimize your profile if it isn’t complete. Identify key words, include them in the right locations, test your profile by searching for yourself and ask others to search for you. What page do you show up on? Keep playing with it until you are at least on the first 5 pages. Change the words, move the locations, add more words, re-test and have others re-test. It may take a little time but it is worth it.

Taking a little extra time to optimize  your profile will pay off. I’m glad this person found me through his network, but I wonder how many other opportunities he might have missed because he wasn’t findable on LinkedIn. I believe this is one of the most overlooked aspects to LinkedIn. Candidates just assume they will put up a profile and people will come. Not true. You must bring them to you.

To help  you create a complete and compelling profile download our free 8 Point LinkedIn Profile Assessment. It will help  guide you with the first step. CLICK HERE to get  your free copy.

Check out our audio library. There are many recordings there about using LinkedIn and they are all free to download. CLICK HERE to review the audio files.

Join our LinkedIn Job Search Networking Group. Over 5400 members with active discussion, news and information to help you in your job search and your LinkedIn profile. CLICK HERE to join it is free on LinkedIn to join groups.

WARNING: Those and many other resources on our website are 100% free. I’m conducting a webinar on Thursday, July 21, on ADVANCED LINKEDIN – MAKING YOURSELF FINDABLE. This webinar will show you exactly how step-by-step to get your profile on page one when people are searching for you.This is not theoretical it will show exactly how to do it.  If you are interested in getting your profile on page one then CLICK HERE to learn more.

I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Brad Remillard

2 Types Of Resume Key Word Searches You Must Get Past

There are two types of resume key word searches. It is my opinion after having spoken with hundreds or maybe thousands of candidates that the vast majority focus on the wrong type. The result  is they rarely get a call back.

The two types of resume key word searches are (starting with in my opinion the least important):

1) The automated key word search. The most commonly thought of when most people think of key word searches. It is used by resume management systems. This is the type used by most job boards like Monster and Careerbuilder.

Although these play an important role, for the most part they play a much smaller role than most think. Granted for those screening resumes using the resume databases on one of the job boards, the key word search is important. But how many hiring managers, HR execs, CEOs actually spend a lot of time doing this? I have asked hundreds of these and very few claim they even use the resume databases. They are just too expensive. Most just run an ad and wait for the responses. Third party recruiters  and those companies that can afford on-site recruiters will spend time searching the databases, however, this is a small percentage.

The majority of  hiring is not done by large or Fortune 500 companies. Iit is done by the mid and small size companies.  The fact is most mid and small size companies can’t afford a sophisticated resume management system. This  then eliminates the importance of the automated key word search in the vast majority of hiring.

It is for this reason, coupled with the fact that most hiring managers don’t spend hours sorting resumes on the job boards, that I believe this is the least important of the two.

The hands down most important resume key word search is done 100% of the time by every CEO, HR person, hiring manager or recruiter. This is why it is so important. Yet, most candidates show complete surprise when in our coaching session I mention it.

2) The human eye key word search. This  is done with the eyes of the person scanning your resume. That person is looking for key words or phrases to jump off the page. They want their eyes to latch on to these as they move down the page. Most have trained their eyes to be on the lookout for these key words.

This is the key word search candidates should focus on. Yet so many candidates have a generic, one-size-fits-all resume that the key words are either missing,  buried so deep in a paragraph or are mentioned only once on page two of the resume, the key words or phrases are never noticed.

Here are a few suggestions to get past the human eye key word search.

Do you:

1) have the key words or phrases embedded multiple times in the body of the resume. Not just at the top of your resume.

2) have quantifiable results associated with your accomplishments. Don’t write out numbers. Actual numbers stand out more to the eye.

3) have the key words or phrases listed under multiple positions or companies.

4) have these words or phrases at the beginning of  the sentence or bullet point so the eye catches them. We read left to right. Don’t bury them in a long paragraph where it is hard for the eye to catch.

5) have them aligned with the advertisement or job description.

6) have them listed in your cover letter. You can download a sample cover letter for free that will show you how to do this. CLICK HERE to download.

7) have them re-enforced in your thank you letter. You can download for free a sample thank you letter that will show you how to do this. CLICK HERE to get yours.

These are just a few things you can do to get past the most important key word search – the person reading your resume.

In summary, if you do all the things necessary to get past the human key word search, I firmly believe you will by default have the proper  key words to get past the automated search.

For more information on building a resume that will get noticed and get you the call back, take a look at our job search workbook. It provides solutions to the most common mistakes candidates make during a job search.   Like this one. We will send it to you for just the cost of shipping ($5 USA only). CLICK HERE to learn more.

Join our Linkedin Job Search Networking group. Over 4200 people have. There is a wealth of articles and other resources for you in this group. CLICK HERE to join.

I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Brad Remillard