Four Things Candidates Do To Shoot Themselves In The Foot While Conducting A Job Search

As the job market begins to pick up, more opportunities for candidates will arise. For those candidates who have been looking for some time this may be your chance to land the job you really want. Here are the four things that I find that candidates continually do to mess up a good opportunity:

1)    Conducting your search the same way you did it the last time. Candidates  seem to think this is 2006 or 2007 and all they have to do is the same things they did back then to find a job. WRONG. It’s not only 2012, but the market and the tools are completely different than they were back then. Candidates need to come up to speed quickly. It is not unusual for me to meet candidates that wasted the first three months of their search.

To adapt to 2012 you must embrace social media. You must become an expert on LinkedIn and then leverage this tool, with groups, updates, postings and connections. Instead of sitting in your pajamas searching the job boards you now should be leveraging LinkedIn.

2)    Resumes and cover letters are another problem area. A one size fits all resume will not cut it. Companies are seeking very specific skills and experiences that more often than not a generic resume doesn’t address. It is acceptable to use this generic resume to post on the job boards, but if you are targeting a company, responding to an ad or attempting to connect with a recruiter for a search, you must redo the resume so it targets the specific issues they are seeking like a laser beam.

A cover letter is not a resume. You cannot just write a nice cover letter with these updates and attach it to the generic resume. What will happen if your cover letter gets separated from the resume? Then what? Take the time to update your resume.

3)    Interviewing is much more than explaining your background. It is about connecting with the interviewer. For most interviews, you wouldn’t even be there if the interviewer didn’t believe you met the basic skills and experience. So rule number one is listen, hear and answer the question asked. Do it in a way that connects with the company’s culture and the interviewer. For example, if your background is in very large companies and you are interviewing at a small company, constantly emphasizing how you managed a large staff and had a budget that was more than the sales of the company, is probably the best way to communicate that you need a large staff and a lot of resources to be effective. This is something a small company doesn’t have. You made the fatal error of not adapting your experience to the company. Think about your audience and what they want and need.

4)    Networking too often burns people out because they aren’t focused on the purpose of networking. Over the years people, especially candidates, have come to believe that networking is all about meeting a lot of people. Get a lot of first level contacts on LinkedIn. The one with the most contacts wins. Nonsense. Networking is about the right contacts not the number of contacts. The one that has the ability to take a contact and turn it into a connection generally wins. It is far better to have one hundred strong connections, than it is to have 1,000 contacts that don’t know you and forget you within twenty-four hours of meeting them.

Stop going to every networking meeting in Orange County. Instead, target three or four that really make sense for you. I suggest one in your functional area, one in your industry, one at a peer level, and one with the types of advisors that connect with the people who will hire you. Build strong relationships with the members of these four groups and it will do more good than running to all the other networking groups.

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

New Poll Shows Over 50% Unemployed For Over A Year

I recently conducted a  non-scientific poll using LinkedIn. 912 people responded to the poll and the results follow with some commentary on the results.

The only question asked was, “How long have you been unemployed and looking for a job?” Since most of the people on LinkedIn tend to be professionals, one can draw the conclusion that the majority of the people responding have a college degree, include all functional departments within a company, and that the respondents range from entry level professionals to the CEO suite.

Overall results are:

9% under 60 days

18%  3-6 months

12%  7-9 months

9%  9-12 months

51%  over one year

Many of the comments from the respondents would indicate that some have been unemployed for more than 2 years.

Breaking these numbers down further, 39% of the respondents were female and 61% were male according to LinkedIn. There was almost no difference between females and males out of work for more than a year with 52% for females and 51% for males. The other lengths of time were also very similar between females and males.

The most controversial part of the poll was how LinkedIn broke the number down by age. Of all of the comments received, this was the topic that received the most discussion. For the most part, people commenting clearly thought age discrimination was alive and well. As a recruiter for the last 30 years I’m not sure this is accurate.

Of those 18-24 years old, 50% have been unemployed for more than a year, 22% for 3-6 months, 17% for less than 60 days and the balance of 11%  between 7-12 months.

Of those 25-34 years old,  41% were more than one year, 19% for 3 -6 months, 18% for less than 60 days, and the remainder of 22% between 7 – 12 months.

Of those 35-54 years old,  49% were more than one year, 19% for 3-6 months, 11% for less than 60 days and 21% between 7 -12 months.

Of those 55 and older, 55% were more than one year, 16% 3 -6 months, 6% less than 60 days and 23% between 7-12 months.

It doesn’t surprise me that the largest number of people unemployed for more than a year are in the over 55 age group. I would expect this to be the case. Granted, there may be some age discrimination going on, but for the most part this age group is the highest paid group and the most senior on the corporate ladder. It is for these reasons I believe this is the largest group. Our recruiting business is primarily mid-sized company executives. Generally these executives take the longest amount of time to come back from a recession. I started recruiting in 1980, so this is my 4th or 5th recession as a recruiter, and in all previous recessions this is the last group companies hire. Not the oldest, but the most experienced and most highly compensated. In today’s world, a new phenomenon is taking over with companies bringing on interim or temporary executives instead of out right hiring them.

I don’t see age discrimination when the age group of 18-24 has only 5% less looking for more than one year than the 55+ group and a 1% difference for 34-54 group. In most cases this would be within the margin of error.  I think it has more to do with experience. The 18-24 age group typically has the least amount of experience and those 55+ typically have the most. Companies tend first to hire in the middle of the bell curve before moving to the outer extremes.

Regardless of how one wants to view the results, the fact is that the largest group in every age group is more than one year. To me this is the most important information coming from this poll. I wonder how much longer than a year have possibly many been looking and how many have just given up?

Unemployment is alive and thriving at all age levels. Unemployment doesn’t appear to care about your age all that much.

If you would like to see the results of this poll for yourself CLICK HERE.

If you would like some free tools to help you get out of  your job search regardless of how long you have been looking CLICK HERE to download our LinkedIn Profile Assessment and CLICK HERE to download our Job Search Self- Assessment Scorecard. Both of these tools will help you to identify key areas to improve your job search.

I welcome your comments and thoughts.

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