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Your #Career : 5 Reasons You’re Not Hearing Back from #Recruiters (Prospective Company)……There is So Much About the Recruitment Process that is Beyond Any of your Control. Control the Parts of the Process that you Can, and Take the Rest in Stride!

March 23, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Not hearing back from recruiters can chip away at our confidence and motivation to continue a job search.

Rather than getting discouraged, let’s look at some common reasons recruiters might not be calling you back and discuss your possible course of action to see better results.

1. Your Resume

Your resume is the first critical step to getting you through the door. Some common resume mistakes include:

Format: Color, pictures, funky fonts, wasted white space, misaligned paragraphs, and inconsistency all create an unfriendly experience for a recruiter

Grammar: 58% of recruiters will automatically dismiss a candidate over typos. Make sure to always print your resume out and have someone read it over!

Content: Your professional story and accomplishments should stand out immediately on your resume. If the bullet points are not relevant to the job, it will serve as a distraction.

Consider your resume as a marketing piece that is constantly evolving. Don’t wait until you are unemployed to build your rockstar resume, as this should be a continuous practice.

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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2. Your LinkedIn Profile

Think of your LinkedIn profile as an extension of your resume, and landing page for recruiters to see what you’re all about. When it comes to LinkedIn, two red flags for recruiters include:

Having an incomplete or unprofessional LinkedIn page: Your profile is a reflection of your personal brand. Having a sloppy, incomplete, or unprofessional page will leave a bad first impression with a recruiter.
When your resume and LinkedIn don’t align: If the dates and titles on your LinkedIn don’t match up, this will raise concerns with recruiters and make them question your level of detail, or how truthful you’ve been about your work experiences.

Make sure your LinkedIn profile has a dynamic headline with up to date and accurate information. Like your resume, it must be perfectly formatted, with a professional headshot, and no typos! Highlight your achievements and make sure your skills are listed. There are so many ways to up your LinkedIn game, so don’t miss out on this low hanging fruit!

3. You’re not qualified

Unfortunately, you simply might not be qualified for the job you’ve applied to. It’s possible that not all the criteria required for the job was not listed, or the needs of the job have changed. Take the time to properly evaluate the position and consider if there is a strong enough alignment between your credentials and job requirements.

If you’re not qualified on paper, but know you could still add value to the organization through this position, you can always try bypassing the recruiter by reaching out directly to the hiring manager through LinkedIn. This way, you can sell yourself directly to the decision makers and demonstrate how your work has consistently led to successful outcomes.

4. The job was put on hold

Candidates can often make it far down the interview process before the organization decides to put the job on hold. Reasons for this can vary from lack of internal agreement about the role, hiring freezes, or changing needs of the organization.

Ideally, the recruiter should communicate any changes, but unfortunately, this is not always the case. There is not much you can do besides follow up with the recruiter and tactfully ask for an update.

5. An offer was made to another candidate

The competition for most jobs is fierce! Typically, a recruiter will consider a handful of candidates before narrowing it down to one person. Additionally, an internal applicant might have appeared and been given preference for the role.

6. Your interview didn’t go as well as you thought

Evaluating ourselves and our performance objectively is quite challenging, even for the best and the brightest of us. Think back to your interview, and really reflect on how things went.

The only way to really make sure you’re performing at your best is to prepare, prepare, and prepare! Ask for feedback whenever possible or consider having a friend do a mock-interview with you. Constructive criticism is important and the sooner you understand where you’re going wrong, the sooner you can make improvements!

There is so much about the recruitment process that is beyond any of our control. Though it can feel like a personal hit when a recruiter ignores your efforts, remember that a big organization can receive up to 900 applications for a single job posting. Control the parts of the process that you can, and take the rest in stride!

Stacy Pollack is a Learning Specialist with an MA in educational technology. She is passionate about building leadership programs that engage and contribute to the success of her organization. She loves to share her perspective on job hunting, career building, and networking for success. Connect with her onLinkedIn or Twitter.

GlassDoor.com | March 20, 2018 | Stacy Pollack

Your #Career : 7 Ways To Make It Easier For #Recruiters To Skim Your #Resume …Recruiters Rarely Read your Resume from Start to Finish. Follow these Tips in Order to Grab their Attention Right Away.

March 22, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

It’s easy to think that after all the work you’ve put into perfecting your resume, recruiters will at least spend the time thoroughly reading it from start to finish. Unfortunately, this is usually not the case. Recruiters are generally very busy.

Resume-writing blogger and long-time recruiter Steve Wang says, “During my more busy weeks, sometimes I have to fill as many as 15 positions at once, and when each position gets over 100 applicants, I can only afford to spend a minute or two on each resume.”

So, like anyone faced with a whole lot to do, recruiters take shortcuts. Instead of looking through every single application carefully, they’ll simply skim through each resume to see which ones might be worth taking a closer look at. Because of this, it’s crucial that even a quick glance at your resume will leave readers awestruck. With this in mind, here are some techniques you can dish out to make your resume super easy for recruiters to skim through and understand.

USE STANDARD HEADINGS

I get it, you want to get fancy with your headings to stand out from the pack, but doing so can have the unintended consequence of making your resume way harder to skim. Recruiters are used to reading the same old headers over and over again. If you change “Work Experience” to “Work Background,” that can throw off a recruiter’s rhythm–even by just a little. So when it comes to resume headings, stick with what is tried and true.

DIGITIZE YOUR NUMBERS

When it’s time to decide whether to spell out numbers on your resume, you might find yourself in a dilemma where you’re unsure whether to use APA or MLA style rules to approach this common concern. While it’s great that you’re paying attention to this type of detail, it’s a lot simpler than you think. Just write your numbers as digits to make information like numerical achievements nice and easy to spot. Whether you follow APA or MLA protocol is the least of anyone’s concerns here.

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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LIST ALL YOUR SKILLS SEPARATELY

Some job applicants like to intertwine their skills with their job experience. If they used skills A, B, and C while working for Job X, they’ll mention those skills in the same section of the resume that describes the job. While this is certainly a fine way to format your resume, it’s still important to have a separate section that lists out all your skills in their entirety.

USE SHORT BULLET POINTS

One to two lines is an okay length for bullet points. If they get any longer, not only will your resume become more difficult to understand, but it can also hint that you’re trying to get at too many different things at once. Instead, keep your bullet points short, sweet, and to the point.

CHOOSE THE RIGHT TEMPLATE

Some resume templates do a far better job than others at making your content aesthetically pleasing and easy to understand. Make sure that the template you use is taking full advantage of techniques like bolding, USING ALL CAPS, italics, underlining, and even colors to make information like job titles, company names, and dates more distinguishable from one another.

Here’s what I mean:

Job title, Company Name, New York, NY May 2016–Present

This would be considered hard to read. While everything is bolded and italicized to differentiate the entire line from the rest of the resume, individually, the job title, company name, location, and date are hard to distinguish.

Job title, Company Name, NEW YORK, NY May 2016–Present

Here the formatting is far superior. The job title, company name, location, and date all have their own unique style, which makes everything much easier to discern.

If you’re ever unsure about whether a particular resume template might be easier to skim than another, simply test them out by skimming them yourself.

ALIGN DATES TO THE RIGHT

Keeping all your dates to the right allows you to create a clear timeline of your resume. If a recruiter wants to check to see if you have any work gaps, all the recruiter needs to do is look over to the right and all the dates will be lined up as clear as day.

BEGIN EACH JOB DESCRIPTION WITH A SUMMARY

In some cases, even though each individual bullet point on a resume may be easy to comprehend, sometimes they don’t paint a clear picture of the job applicant collectively when put together. This difficulty is exacerbated when bullet points describe assorted one-off achievements at a particular job. To alleviate this issue, it’s often a good idea to use your first bullet point to give a short summary describing what the core of your job is all about. This way, recruiters can better contextualize how your later bullet points fit into the bigger picture of what you do.

Getting recruiters to thoroughly read your resume is a luxury you have to earn. By making your resume more skimmable for recruiters, you’ll position yourself as a strong candidate worthy of being taken seriously.

This post originally appeared on Glassdoor and is reprinted with permission.

FastCompany.com | March 22, 2018 | BY PETER YANG—GLASSDOOR 4 MINUTE READ

#Leadership : #WorkBalance – I Did a 30-Day Decluttering of my Online Life — and It Made me Much More #Productive ….The Three most Important Lessons I Learned & some Brief, Practical Tips for How to Apply Them to your Own Life.

March 21, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Over the last 30 days, I participated in Cal Newport’s 30-Day Digital Declutter Experiment.

Nick Wignall attempted to cut back on his phone usage for 30 days.
The experiment led to higher productivity and more creative thoughts.
By deleting certain apps off his phone, Nick realized that he didn’t miss social media.

The aim was to omit all optional digital distractions in your life in order to clarify the things that truly matter, afterward intentionally adding the truly valuable ones back in and letting the others go. You can read more about the details of how I implemented the experiment here.

This is where — finally — my digital declutter experiment comes in: Having spent a month mostly avoiding any kind of distracting or optional digital technology use outside of a few select times during the work day, I’m realizing that there’s a large psychological cost associated with keeping our minds in perpetual work mode: creativity and unconscious insights.

In addition to the values angle, I was interested in how a digital declutter might affect my productivity and work life.

Below are the three most important lessons I learned and some brief, practical tips for how to apply them to your own life.

Lesson 1: A little less distracted can mean a lot more productive.

As Cal Newport talks about in Deep Work, our ability to do meaningful, cognitively demanding work requires an almost neurotic level of distraction elimination or resistance.

Every weekday morning I try to spend at least an hour writing. No research, editing, or reading. Just writing.

Here’s how my “writing hour” really looks:

Write for 20 minutes.
Feel tired, check Twitter for four or five minutes.
Feel guilty about being on Twitter and start writing again.
Write for 15 minutes.
Feel thirsty, decide “it’s time for a break,” and go get a glass of water or make a cup of tea.
Start writing again.
Look at the clock and realize there’s only five minutes to go and decide, “close enough.”
Check Instagram, email, them skim that interesting article.

In other words, I maybe got 45 minutes of actual writing done, fragmented by multiple breaks.

Okay, so you lose 15 minutes of writing to distraction. But writing for 45 minutes every day is still pretty good, right?

Sure. It’s not bad. But here’s how my writing hour looked during week 1 of the digital declutter experiment:

Write for 20 minutes.
Feel tired and think to check Twitter but remind myself that I can’t because it’s not even on my phone any more and start writing again.
Write for 30 minutes.
Get stuck expressing an idea, feel frustrated, my finger moves to jump out of my writing app and into email to see if there’s anything interesting.
I catch myself, return to my writing, and finish the hour out strong.

Cool! By eliminating distractions you were able to stick with the writing and actually get a full hour’s worth in each day.

Yeah, not bad. Pretty good even. That’s a whole hour and 15 minutes more writing each week. But look what happened in Week 2:

Write for 40 minutes.
Look up at the clock, a cool idea for the opening of the next paragraph pops into my head, back to writing.
Hit the final period on a section of the article, look up and realize that I’ve been writing for 70 minutes.

I’m skeptical, but if that’s really true maybe this whole digital distraction thing is more significant than I thought.

Of course! Don’t take my word — try it yourself! In my experience, as a direct result of the digital declutter, I’m writing much more than I used to and I don’t feel as tired or distracted while writing.

But the biggest change was Weeks 3-4: While my writing hour looked pretty similar to Week 2, I started to notice that the amount of time I spent editing my articles afterward was getting much shorter.

Normally it takes several rounds of editing and reorganizing to get an article as concise and coherent as I like. But after just a couple of weeks eliminating digital distractions and practicing resisting the temptation to take breaks by checking social media or email, the initial quality of my writing seemed to be improving as well as the quantity.

That was unexpected.

Takeaway: Even if the total time lost to digital distraction is modest, there are often subtle costs in terms of quality. By training ourselves to resist the temptation of digital distraction, both the quantity and quality of our work can improve considerably.

Action step: Pick one important or challenging activity or aspect of your work that you’d like to be more productive on. For a week, try to work straight through on it for 30 minutes without taking even a small break or giving into a short temptation to distract. Then bump it up to 45 minutes the next week. Then 60 the following week. Within a month, you’ll have a established aDeep Work habit.

Lesson 2: Just because you enjoy something doesn’t mean you’ll miss it when it’s gone.

If even small distractions like checking Twitter for a few minutes while we work can have such negative effects on our productivity, maybe we should do some more hunting for distractions we could eliminate or reign in more.

I’ve never been the kind of person who was constantly checking in on Facebook or Snapchat, or plugged into the Twitter news cycle 24/7. But I do spend a not-insignificant amount of time checking Instagram and ESPN. On an average day, I probably “check in” 10 or 15 times between the those two apps, maybe spending a total of 20 minutes a day on them.

I rationalize this to myself because neither one seemed as addictive or negative as, say, Facebook or Twitter. In my mind, they were small pleasures that didn’t lead to lots of outrage and negativity.

They also didn’t seem like excessive wastes of time. I just browsed photos of my friends’ kids and checked in on how unreal Tom Brady and LeBron James were each week. Harmless, right?

But during my 30-day digital declutter, I completely abstained from both. I deleted both apps from my phone and didn’t check either one once (I also don’t have TV and didn’t watch any sports). I didn’t even know who was in the final round of the NFL playoffs until I happened to see a clip of a halftime show on a TV at the bowling alley.

Now, uber sports fan I am not, but for me to not even know who the final four teams in the NFL playoffs were was pretty unusual. That probably hasn’t been the case since I was in early elementary school!

The strange thing is, I realized I didn’t miss either of them. At all. I basically never thought about Instagram or ESPN (or sports generally) once they were off my phone’s home screen.

Which made me wonder: If I don’t miss something when it’s gone for a month, how valuable can it really be?

Takeaway: We often decide to include or maintain activities in our lives because they’re enjoyable. But a better selection criteria might be, only keep those things that you truly miss when they’re gone.

Lesson 1 and 2 combined illustrate how many seemingly small pleasures or distractions we maintain hurt our productivity more than we realize and aren’t nearly as valuable or essential as they seem at first blush.

Action step: Make a list of 12 activities in your life that you enjoy or find mildly useful but are not truly necessary. Then, once a month, abstain from one of them completely and see if you miss it. If not, let it go.

man, working, focused, concentration, fanbridge, office tour, bi, dng

Lesson 3: Placing deliberate constraints on our work leads to increased creativity and insight.

By setting explicit limits on our “work mode mind” we become more sensitive to creative insights offered up by our unconscious mind.

I was always the kind of person who enjoyed school. I started full-time preschool at 3 years old and graduated college when I was 21. I then took two years and taught middle school, followed by another two years getting a masters, then four years getting my PhD. If you count my two years teaching, I’ve spent 27 of my 32 years of life in school.

And while I’ve largely enjoyed that time (and benefited hugely from it), there was one part of school I consistently despised: There was always more work you could (and probably should) be doing.

Whether it was studying more, getting started on that term paper, or collecting more data for a research project, I always had that nagging, guilty feeling that I could — and therefore should— be doing something more. Even weekends, holidays, and summer vacations weren’t immune (seemed like there was always a standardized test I had to start studying for or a CV to update, etc.).

Through all this, I often had this itch in the back of my brain that if I didn’t constantly have a 20-item to-do list I was frantically working through, I would be able to think more deeply and carefully about things. But despite what they claim in their marketing material, most schools prioritize just getting stuff done over getting stuff done well.

Finally at age 30, I found myself working and not in a school. And my job was (and is) one of those rare, true 9-to-5s. With extremely infrequent exceptions, I never have to think about work or feel guilty about not doing a little bit more before 9:00 am and after 5:00 pm. I certainly don’t have to think about it on the weekends or holidays. And let me say, it feels glorious!

But here’s the thing: Even though I don’t have to think about my job after work, my mind has been conditioned by 25 plus years of school to be always on: thinking, analyzing, predicting, problem-solving, comparing and contrasting, summarizing, etc.

All those mental habits that make us good at school and in our jobs are surprisingly hard to switch off after 5:00pm, even if we have the luxury of not being in school anymore or having a job that encourages work-life balance.

By deliberately putting boundaries around when and how I use technology, I found myself having a lot more novel and creative ideas.

I think one of the reasons we find it hard to completely unplug after work and in our down time is that the internet — aided by our smart phones which keep us constantly connected to it — encourages us to remain in that mindset.

Having easy access to email, Twitter, Facebook, CNN, and Reddit means we have a steady supply of novel and interesting things for our minds to chew on intellectually. And while browsing Facebook seems like a much different activity than organizing a meeting agenda, putting together a lesson plan, analyzing financial models in Excel, or whatever it is you do in your day job, to your mind it’s not that different.

Because of the ubiquity of smartphones and other digital technologies, our minds spend an increasingly high proportion of our waking lives in work mode. Which is problematic when you consider the psychological opportunity cost of always being in connected and in work mode.

This is where — finally — my digital declutter experiment comes in: Having spent a month mostly avoiding any kind of distracting or optional digital technology use outside of a few select times during the work day, I’m realizing that there’s a large psychological cost associated with keeping our minds in perpetual work mode: creativity and unconscious insights.

By deliberately putting boundaries around when and how I use technology and the internet (basically not at all on the weekends and not between 5:00pm and 9:00am on weekdays), I found myself having a lot more novel and creative ideas.

One simplistic measure of this: I keep a notes file on my phone for potential article or book ideas that occur to me throughout the day. Since beginning my digital declutter, it has literally quadrupled in size compared to where it was a month ago (I went back and looked at my iCloud backup of the notes file to check).

Whether my mind is literally generating more ideas or I’m simply more aware of them because I’m not so distracted by “work mode mind,” I’m not sure. But I know that I like it. A lot.

Takeaway: By putting explicit boundaries on “work mode mind” — especially by limiting or fencing in our digital technology usage — we allow ourselves to be more receptive to creative insights from our non-conscious mind.

Action step: To experiment with this in a small way, try not doing anything on your commute. No radio, podcasts, phone calls, etc. Don’t try and think about anything in particular — no work mode mind for the brief 20 or 30 minutes each way to and from work. Commit to trying it for at least a week and see if you notice anything.

Businessinsider.com | March 21, 2018 | Nick Wignall, Medium

#Leadership : How I Learned To Worry Productively ….You’re Not Going to Stop Worrying, So you Might as Well Learn How to Make it Work for You.

March 20, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

We’re in a golden age of tracking: We track our steps, our sleep, our time on Facebook, and other sites we deem “productivity killers” (looking at you, Instagram). But one thing we still don’t track or think about much: the amount of time we spend worrying.

It makes sense–it’s not like a wrist tracker or Google Chrome extension could measure or sense the time we spend worrying about the future. But if we had something that could track our worry time? I know I’d probably end each day with the 10,000-step equivalent.

Congrats, you worried for a solid 3 hours total today!

We spend a lot of time worrying. A 2017 survey of 2,000 millennials showed that the average respondent spent the equivalent of 63 full days a year worried and stressed out. That’s like June and July–all lost to worry.

There are many reasons why we worry, but one of the main reasons is simply because we can. Unlike all other animals on the planet, we have the power to look into the future–with all its uncertainty and fuzziness–and reflect. And that stirs up the worry machine as we try to figure out what’s going to happen and how we’ll react.

It can feel productive, and studies show that we often believe worrying helps prevent negative outcomes or helps us find a better way of doing things.

But here’s the thing: Most of what we worry about never happens. A study from the University of Cincinnati showed that 85% of what we worry about never actually happens. And the 15% of things that do happen? The study showed we’re typically able to handle it better than expected or it teaches us an important lesson, according to the Huffington Post.

This paradox of worry–so all-consuming yet unproductive–is summed up best by Mark Twain, who famously said: “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”

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EASE THE WORRY

So, let’s all just stop worrying, okay?

Just kidding–I know firsthand it’s not that easy. I’ve been told to just “stop worrying” for years and, well, it just doesn’t happen like that. And reaching inbox zero with our worries is actually impossible. We’re wired to have some level of worry to protect ourselves–it’s why we look both ways before crossing the streets.

But the constant worrying about things that haven’t happened or things that aren’t even on the menu for the near future? We can take steps to curb overthinking.

Through trial and error, many late-night Google searches of “how to actually stop worrying,” and talking to other worry-inclined people, I’ve found a few techniques that help me ease worry and cut back on those 63 full days of dread.

Before we get into tips, it’s important to recognize that “worry” and “anxiety” are close friends but very different psychological states. Psychology Today offers a great breakdown of the differences. If you feel overwhelmed by your worries or in anxiety territory, it might be time to seek help from a professional. As someone who worries and has anxiety, I can’t recommend therapy enough.

But now, some tips for the casual worry wart:

TURN YOUR “WHAT IF” INTO “I CAN”

Even if we know most of our worries won’t come to fruition, it still can feel hard to let go of our “what if” scenarios. What can help: Refocusing from the “what if” to the “I can.” By that, I mean “I can problem solve” or “I can handle it.”

Dwelling on issues isn’t productive–but problem solving is. “Ask yourself what steps you can take to learn from a mistake or avoid a future problem,” Amy Morin, LCSW, a psychotherapist, explains in Psychology Today. “Ask yourself what you can do about it.”

But some slippery worries don’t come with a solution–they’re so far in the future, we can’t even take steps in the now. In those cases, it’s helpful to release a little control and focus on, “I can handle it.”

It’s a method that works for Joymarie Parker, 30, the cohost of the Joblogues podcast and a self-proclaimed worrier. Parker says when she switches from trying to control the future to trusting she can handle whatever comes, it helps her redirect her thoughts.

“When you can release the need for things to happen one way and accept however they happen, you’ll thrive and you’ll survive in that,” Parker says. “I like to think, ‘This can go really well or not so well, but I’m okay with both of those outcomes.’ And a lot of times when we worry, it turns out to be nothing or it was manageable. Whatever happens, we always come out of it on the other side.”

SET A TIME TO WORRY

Setting a designated time to worry can help you cut back on overthinking and recognize how much time you give those might-happen-but-probably-won’t-but-here’s-what-I’d-do-if-it-did thoughts. It’s a great way to ease into cutting back on worrying without forcing yourself to go cold turkey.

“Stewing on problems for long periods of time isn’t productive, but brief reflection can be helpful,” Morin explains.

Morin recommends setting aside 20 minutes of “thinking time” each day. “During this time, let yourself worry, ruminate, or mull over whatever you want,” she writes. “Then, when the time is up, move onto something more productive.”

I’ve found having a confined time to worry makes me prioritize my worries. It helps me weed out the highly irrational (What if I broke my leg tomorrow?) and focus on the worries that I can act on (What if I don’t finish that project by tomorrow?).

A set time to think also helps me stay “worry-lite” throughout the rest of the day. If a worry pops up outside of my scheduled time, I swipe it aside like a bad push notification and tell myself to “revisit during thinking time.” And when I do get to my thinking time? Half the time I find myself forgetting what nagged at me earlier in the day–another cue it wasn’t important to begin with.

CALL YOUR WORRIES OUT

Like I said earlier, we tend to love tracking our habits and finding ways to optimize our time. But worrying essentially goes against that goal to get more done in less time. Reminding myself of how unproductive it is to worry actually helps me calm it down.

As much as it can feel like worry is motivating me, or it shows that I care about something, I know 99% of the time it’s stopping me from actually living my life. When a worry pops up, I like to challenge it with a “Is this useful?” It helps me connect back to the present me–the “me” who actually has things to do and people to see–and it helps me dismiss the worries that don’t serve me.

I’ve accepted that I’ll never “stop worrying”–I’m a proud worry wart for life. But like my FitBit shows me how much time I spend sitting, noticing my worries helps me see the time I lose to irrational “what ifs.” Now, I’m starting to reclaim that time.

This piece originally appeared on Shine and is reprinted with permission. Shine Text is a free, daily motivational text service. To sign up, text “SHINE” to 759-85 or go to www.shinetext.com to learn more.

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FastCompany.com | March 20, 2018 | BY HALEY GOLDBERG—SHINE 6 MINUTE READ

Your #Career : 4 Things Every #JobSeeker Worries About (And What To Do About Them)…Every #JobSearch is Different, but Most are Stressful for the same Reasons. Here’s How to Keep your Cool and Think Strategically No Matter What.

March 20, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Kicking off a job search? Or still slogging through one? Until you’ve got an offer in hand, you’ll probably be nursing a few worries and concerns. Dealing with uncertainty is one of the main challenges of any job search, and sometimes it can even derail one. Knowing how to cope with some of the most persistent sources of anxiety is crucial for making sure your job search goes well.

Here’s how to handle these four common fears:

FEAR #1: YOU AREN’T SURE HOW TO POSITION YOURSELF

The most difficult person to market is yourself. Maybe you don’t understand what you bring to the table. Maybe you do, but you just aren’t certain how to formulate a compelling story about it. Or you just don’t like to brag. Whatever the reason is, you need to become an expert at crafting and articulating a career narrative that will interest employers.

Of course, that’s sometimes easier said than done. The best way to start this process is to find out from others what differentiates you. Get outside your own head. Ask a few coworkers what they think you’re good at. Ask some former colleagues for a coffee and get their opinion, too. Then use this information as the basis of your story–it’s more likely to be both compelling and truthful. But if you’re still stuck, consider hiring a recruiter or career coach to help you position yourself. They can often see your strengths in a light you can’t.

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FEAR #2: YOUR RESUME WILL DISAPPEAR INTO A BLACK HOLE

Candidates like searching job sites because it’s easy to feel like they’re moving forward: You can sort by date posted and catch up on the latest openings that way. It’s after you apply to a listing, though, that the anxiety typically seeps in–with disappointment following in its wake when you don’t hear back.

The fact is that applying to openings on job sites does have value, but it’s only one part of a successful job search. If you only do that, you’re in for a long, demoralizing experience. Since many jobs are found by networking, one of the most productive ways to allay the fear that you’ll never hear back is by reconnecting with friends and work associates on social media. This might feel like a distraction from actually applying to jobs, but it isn’t.

Be just as specific and targeted in your outreach as you’d be about your fit for a role in a cover letter. Ask your network for referrals to people in similar roles to the ones you’re gunning for. Stick with it, and your path toward a new job will be speedier and shorter if you keep networking.

FEAR #3: TRYING TO CHANGE CAREERS MIGHT BE HOPELESS

After spending time in the job you have now, you may feel ready to move on but aren’t sure exactly how. Should you make a slight adjustment or a radical shift into a totally new industry? Try not to worry about how hard it might be to change careers dramatically. Your first step is to decide for sure what type of move you actually want, and to do that, ask yourself this simple question: Can you see yourself in your industry five years down the road?

If the answer is a solid “yes,” stop entertaining thoughts about a dramatic career change–at least for right now. Focus your game plan on jumping to the next level at a better company in your industry. If the answer is “maybe,” that’s fine, too. You don’t have to know exactly what you want, but you still have to think just as strategically about your search: Take an inventory of what you like about your job and seek out positions–no matter the industry–where you can spend more time on the type of work you like. This approach will help you zero in on any “transferrable skills” that can help you make the leap into another field if it comes to that.

If you can’t see yourself in your current career path five years from now, it’s time to widen your lens even further. Consider going back to school or picking up some new training. These tips can help you handle the uncertainty plotting a new course.

FEAR #4: YOU’LL NEVER GET THE SALARY YOU WANT

Money is at the back of most folks’ heads even at the very start of a job search, and it can be a nagging source of concern. Your first step for dealing with it is to figure out what the market is paying for your current position, so you can use that as your base. (Yes, you’ll also want to determine market rates for the jobs you’re applying for, but that’s step two.) Check out the usual sites like PayScale and Glassdoor, and consult with a few recruiters in your field.

Once you nail down a salary range for your current role–no matter what you’re actually earning right now–aim for any new offer to leave you with a 10–20% salary increase. Less than that just isn’t worth it unless the new job has really crucial benefits you desire. When it comes time to negotiate your salary, aim for the higher end of your target. This way you can make sure changing jobs is financially worthwhile.

But in the meantime, try not to worry too much about compensation. Once an employer has decided they want you enough to extend an offer, you’ll have more leverage than you did as an applicant.

FastCompany.com |March 20, 2018 | BY DON RASKIN 4 MINUTE READ

Your #Career : Do This To Write A More #EmotionallyIntelligent #LinkedInProfile ….Don’t just List Out Skills Associated with Emotional Intelligence. Here’s How to Adapt a Technique from Psychology to appear More Approachable on LinkedIn.

March 19, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

LinkedIn is a great place to network and look for jobs, but a lot of people’s profiles feel stiff and standoffish–at least compared with other social media platforms. We talk all the time about the rising value of emotional intelligence in the workforce, and there’s lots of advice on how to show it off on a job interview.

But that doesn’t often carry over to LinkedIn, which often just presents a litany of information about people’s accomplishments: what they’ve done, which jobs they’ve worked, the schools they’ve attended. It’s hard to get a sense of who they are. Ideally, your LinkedIn account should be just as good at making interpersonal connections as you are in real life. Here’s how to get that to happen.

TWO WAYS TO DESCRIBE YOURSELF

Some of the challenge here is LinkedIn’s format. The easiest things to add to your profile are straightforward data like your employment and education history. Sections like your “Headline” and “Summary” are harder to fill in, because it’s not always clear what you’re supposed to say about yourself.

It’s true that you’ll want to use keywords so recruiters and hiring managers can find you, but it’s also crucial to simply appear personable. And to do that, it helps to understand some of the psychology around how people define themselves. Researchers on self-concept have found that we typically use two distinct modes, called “self-construals.”

An “independent self-construal” involves defining your sense of self in terms of the qualities you possess without reference to other people. If you describe yourself as smart, a hard worker, or someone who gets things done, then you’re focusing on independent properties–the stuff that has to do with just you. With an “interdependent self-construal,” on the other hand, you define yourself according to the qualities that do refer to others. If your self-concept prominently includes your role as a parent, then you’re prioritizing your relationship with your kids. If you describe yourself as a mentor, then your sense of self arises from your experiences interacting with them.

If you look at many LinkedIn profiles (my own included), some will be heavier on independent self-construals than interdependent ones, and vice versa. One isn’t necessarily “better” than the other in every context; some cultures (both within a given organization and across entire societies) lean more individualist than collectivist, so what flies in one environment may weigh you down in another. And in a more in individualistic culture, researchers have found that people are more prone to independent self-construals. Generally speaking, though, if you describe yourself in more interdependent terms, then other people will likely feel more welcomed by you.

It’s pretty intuitive, really: If you include your reader in part of the self-construal you present on LinkedIn, they’ll have a better chance of seeing how they can relate to you.

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REVERSE-ENGINEERING AN EMOTIONALLY INTELLIGENT LINKEDIN PROFILE

How do you actually put this into practice? Work backwards.

For decades, psychologists have used the so-called “Twenty Statements Test,” one of a few leading instruments to assessing people’s self-concepts. It’s extremely simple: The test requires you to come up with 20 different answers to the question, “Who am I?” Instead of answering this question generally, though, answer it for your work-self–that is, “Who am I at work?”

Chances are many of the descriptions you come up with for yourself are independent, but you’ll probably also hit upon a few that are interdependent as well. Now go back through your list and see if there are ways of turning some of the independent descriptors you used into interdependent ones: How does this skill or attribute you possess help or relate to that other person?

This exercise can leave you with a richer, more conversational means of describing yourself than just listing out the job skills associated with emotional intelligence. As you rewrite your headline, summary, and other sections on LinkedIn, hang onto that interdependent mind-set. It’ll make you seem more approachable and worth connecting with.

FastCompany.com | March 19, 2018 | BY ART MARKMAN 3 MINUTE READ

Your #Career : The Emotionally Intelligent Way To Cold-Email People (If You Must)…People Don’t Love being Contacted Out of the Blue. So you Need an Opening Line that Puts your Recipient Front and Center. Here are Five Ways to Craft One.

March 18, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

I get about 10 cold emails a day. Most are from PR firms who know I’m a Fast Company contributor and want me to write about their clients. If the first line fails to draw me in, I hit delete; if I like the sound of it, I’ll read on. Same goes for cold phone calls from organizations pitching financial advice or seeking money for a charity: That opening statement is everything.

How do you create an opening–whether for an email or a phone call–that makes the person at the other end want to hear more? The answer is simple: flip your focus from yourself (or whatever it is you’re offering or asking for) to the person you’re reaching out to.

The fact is that nobody particularly likes to field cold emails or cold calls. But with a more emotionally intelligent opening, you can at least get them to listen. Here’s how.

NEVER DIVE RIGHT IN

It’s understandable that you want to get to the point–and explain why you’re writing or calling. But an opening line focused on your own agenda is likely a turnoff to the other person.

“The past six months has changed the way we talk about and understand gender equality in the workplace,” one recent PR pitch began. Okay, I thought, but why are you sharing this with me?Another publicity email opened with, “As we all know, millennials have grown up surrounded by technology, iPhones practically glued to their hands.” If “we all know” it already, what’s new here? Plus, I’m not a millennial, so why are you contacting me? (My editor, who is a millennial, isn’t too keen on millennial trend pieces, by the way.)

Some writers open with surprising facts about their subject, hoping the reader will care. One recent email began: “$46 billion a year is spent on leadership training, but a recent Gallup survey showed that 82% of employees find their leaders ‘uninspiring.’” Another began with a whopping 58-word sentence about the app the writer wanted me to profile (not something I do), but I’d had enough of that topic by the time I’d reached the end of the line.

The point here isn’t to complain about the bad practices of the PR industry. It’s that introductions to people you don’t know should never launch right into something abstract, newsy, or conceptual. Think about it: If you were at a networking event, would you begin a conversation with a content-rich disquisition on your area of expertise? Not if you wanted to engage your listener! The same wisdom applies to cold emails and phone calls.

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BEGIN WITH YOUR AUDIENCE

Instead, open with a focus on your reader or listener. Make it personal, so they’ll feel you’re really are talking to them–rather than delivering a generic pitch. These are five emotionally intelligent ways to do that in your very first line:

1. Mention a mutual interest. You might begin your email, “Good morning, Frank. I’m writing to you because I know you’re interested in the way leaders communicate, and that’s a focus that my client’s company shares.”

2. Refer to a shared contact. Our working lives are built on relationships, so if there’s a network connection you share, point that out to the stranger you’re reaching out to–you’ll seem a little less unfamiliar. Suppose you’re the head of a consulting business, and you are calling a potential CEO client. You might begin: “Good morning, Barbara. I’m calling because Ashanti Masterton told me you have an ambitious speaking agenda, and she thought you’d be interested in how my firm might support you.” These mutual ties will often get your foot in the door.

3. Show you know something about them. My antennae would go up if I got a letter that began: “I know your work as a columnist for Fast Company, and I’m fascinated by your writing on emotional intelligence in the workplace.” Likewise, if you’re extending a speaking invitation, you might begin, “I heard your recent talk on team building, and I can’t think of a better message for my team. Would you join us for our annual retreat, and share that same message?”

4. Convey respect or appreciation for what they’ve accomplished. Suppose you’ve decided you want to be mentored by a senior coworker who doesn’t know you. Your first step might be to send an email that opens with, “I’ve admired you from a distance for your ability to break through the ‘glass ceiling’ in our industry, and I’d love to grab coffee to hear a little more about your career experiences.”

5. Say what’s in it for them. Maybe you’re job searching and want to talk with the head of HR about opportunities. Cold pitching about job opportunities is always a crapshoot (it may work better for informational interviews), but you stand the best chance with an opening like, “I know your firm hires some of the best talent around, and I wonder if you’d be interested in the strong communications experience I’d bring.” I tried this approach early in my career when I cold-called the HR chief for a large telecom company; it landed me a job.

The way you open will determine how things conclude. So always start by referring directly to your listener or reader–their needs, interests, and priorities. Yes, that may mean getting to your point a moment or two later, but it’s the only way you’ll be granted the opportunity to do so in the first place.

FastCompany.com | March 18, 2018 | BY JUDITH HUMPHREY 4 MINUTE READ

Your #Career : How To Ask Someone To Refer You For A Job (And Not Irritate Them)…Sometimes you Don’t Have any Insider Connections to your Dream Company. Don’t Let that Stop You from Asking for a Referral.

March 16, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

You probably know that referrals are the best way to get jobs.

As someone who works with a lot of students going through the job search, I’ve collected more data points on what types of messages work well, and what messages don’t when you’re asking for a referral.

Let’s talk about the cold message–when you contact someone you don’t know who works at a company you’re interested in. This is the toughest message to send. You’re literally reaching out to a stranger who is probably busy and not expecting someone they don’t know to ask them for help on getting a job. Not only that, you also don’t want to come off as annoying.

But keep this in mind: Anyone who’s held a corporate job for more than a year, and especially for those in the tech industry, know that cold emails or LinkedIn messages with a request to “set up a phone call to learn more about [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][company x]” is normal. In fact, they’ve probably done it themselves.

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However, cold messages can be annoying. To avoid irritating the person on the other side of your message, use the following templates when you’re cold contacting someone with the intention of asking for a referral.

COLD MESSAGE TEMPLATE

Hey [Name],

My name is [Your name] and I saw this [name or role and insert link to the job posting] opening. I’m really interested in this role and all that is going on at [Company]. I read about [mention some positive news about the company from their blog or press article], it sounds like it’s an exciting time and there’s a lot going on! I’d love to chat with you more about [Company].

A little bit about me:

I’m currently a [your role at your company]. I’m responsible for [describe what you do].

Previously, I was a [role at previous company]. In my time there I [describe what you did]

I’ve attached my resume for detailed context.

Would you be for up for a phone call in the next couple of weeks? If so, I can send over a handful of time slots.

Thank you!

– Your name

This is a good cold message because it shows you’ve done research on the company, introduced yourself without overwhelming a stranger with your life story, and specified a request. As an added bonus, you’ve agreed to take on the hassle of coordinating times to chat.

The template is in email format, but you may not have someone’s email address for a cold message. If that’s the case, reach out with this message through LinkedIn. If you do, break up the template message into a few messages so you’re not sending a wall of text over LinkedIn.

If someone writes back to your cold message, they may or may not be willing to talk to you on the phone. If they’re open to a call, send over a handful of time slots to try to make it easy for them to find a time that works for them. Make sure you do some research to ask good questions about the role and company before you get on the phone. After the call, send a follow up email to thank them for the call and ask for a referral.

Here’s a good way to craft the sentence to directly ask for a referral:

If you have time and are willing, can you help submit my resume for the [role–include link to job post]?

If after the first cold message you get a response, but a phone call doesn’t work for them, they may reply back with, “What questions can I answer for you?” If this happens, send over a few, specific questions over email. Once you get a response to your questions, send a follow-up thank you email, and ask directly for a referral.

If you aren’t at a company right now, mention the productive things you are doing that are relevant to the role you’re going after. This could be an online course you’re taking, volunteer/consulting work, side project, etc.

DON’T BE AFRAID TO ASK, YOU’RE ONLY HOLDING YOURSELF BACK

If you’re getting gun-shy about sending a cold email because you don’t want to come off as an intrusive nuisance, don’t be. It’s common practice, particularly for those working in tech.

I’ve always been surprised by how helpful people who I don’t even know have been in my career. It all started out with a cold message. So don’t be afraid to take the first step to reach out to someone–as long as you’re not annoying. You’re only getting in your own way of the job you want if you don’t ask.

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FastCompany.com | March 16, 2018 | BY DJ CHUNG—HACK CAREER 4 MINUTE READ

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Your #Career : 3 Signs It’s Time To Ask Your #Boss For That #Promotion …The Timing of your Ask is as Important as How you Ask. Here’s a Checklist to Know if the Moment is Ripe.

March 16, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

You already know why you want a promotion: It will confirm what you’ve already accomplished in your role, validate your work and work ethic, and open paths for bigger and better projects. Ideally, it’ll also mean more pay.

But there’s a difference between wanting a promotion and being ready for it. In order to put your best foot forward with your manager, you need to be confident that the time is right. How can you ensure you’re not jumping the gun?

This three-part checklist can help you identify when you’re ready to make the most compelling pitch you possibly can.

1. YOU’VE BEEN DOING THE JOB YOU WANT TO BE PROMOTED TO FOR SIX MONTHS

This means you’ve been taking on more than what’s expected of your current role or level and performing well in that new scope. If you’re not sure where you stand, it’s a good time to have a check-in with your manager about her expectations for the level you’re hoping to reach, and the types of projects and impact you eventually want to make in a more senior role.

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2. YOUR WORK HAS HAD A VISIBLE IMPACT ON THE BUSINESS

It goes without saying that you should be making an impact at the team level, that’s part and parcel of your job. But the strongest cases for moving up a level at work rest on the contributions you make to projects that have a measurable impact on the business.

Looking at the work you’ve done in the past six months, identify the impact you’ve made for your team as well as for the business. That impact can be measurable (think revenue impact) or fuzzier (strategic impact)–so long as it’s visible and provable. For example, what part did you play to make sure that your team (and the company) met their sales target for the year? Did you propose a new idea to the higher-ups that they turned into company policy? To make your case, outline not just the business impact your work has driven, but also the alternate paths the team or company might have gone down without your work.

If you’re struggling to identify how your work fits into big-picture company goals, you might need to postpone your promotion request and instead work with your manager on a strategy to make your work more impactful.

3. YOU’VE MADE PROGRESS ON PREVIOUSLY IDENTIFIED DEVELOPMENT AREAS

If you’ve been in your role for at least six months, you should have gotten feedback by now on what you can to do improve. (If you haven’t, you should drop everything and ask for feedback now.) Have you made progress in the development areas your manager raised to you? Are some of these areas prerequisites for getting to the next level? If you’re excelling in them, it’s a great sign that now’s the time to make your case for a promotion.

Nodded your head to all these scenarios? You’re almost ready. Before approaching your manager, make sure you’ve gathered comprehensive documentation of your progress and performance. This should include specifics. Come armed with plenty of examples of how you’ve exceeded expectations, the measurable impact you’ve had on the business, and the progress you’ve made in the last six months.

At the same time, you’ll want to keep an open mind: Your manager will inevitably have a different perspective on your performance, impact, and progress. So take the time to compare notes in good faith and respectfully advocate for yourself. If you disagree, don’t be afraid to push back politely with concrete examples of your progress. By the end of the conversation, you and your boss should be able to arrive at a game plan you both feel comfortable with.

And yes, that may mean accepting a “not yet” to your promotion request. But you’ve at least laid out a reasonable timetable for getting to the next level.

FastCompany.com | March 16, 2018 | BY XIMENA VENGOECHEA 3 MINUTE READ

Your #Career : How To Update Your #LinkedIn Without Making Your Boss Suspicious…Updating your #LinkedInProfile is something you should be doing regularly. Here’s how you can do it without raising alarm bells at work.

March 15, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Updating your LinkedIn profile can be a major stress point if you feel like it could alarm your boss or cause tension at work. However, the truth of the matter is that you should never feel guilty about updating your professional profile.

It’s common to feel like your boss might know or think that you’re looking for a new job, but there are simple ways to get around that issue. Here are some tips to help you update your LinkedIn profile without alarming your boss or sending out the wrong message.

UPDATING YOUR PROFILE DOESN’T MEAN YOU’RE UNHAPPY AT YOUR JOB

The first thing to realize is that updating your LinkedIn profile or revamping your resume doesn’t automatically mean you’re unhappy in your current role. You might have recently taken on a big project that you want to acknowledge, or maybe it’s just been a while since you’ve freshened things up. Regardless of your reasoning, you have every right to update your professional documents and LinkedIn profile without feeling guilty or scared that a manager or boss might be unhappy.

If your boss gets that upset over a LinkedIn update (updating your LinkedIn can be considered professional development), you probably aren’t working for someone who wants to see you succeed. If anything, your manager or boss should be thrilled that you want to highlight all that you’ve accomplished while working for them. Your success can reflect well on them and their leadership techniques.

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BE TRANSPARENT AND ACKNOWLEDGE THE UPDATE

If you’re concerned that a manager or boss might feel like you’re going behind their back, let them know that you’re updating your profile. By coming out and telling them that you’re planning on doing an update or revamp, there’s no way for them to feel like you were being dishonest or trying to hide it.

Swing by your boss’s desk or shoot them an email saying something along the lines of, “I was looking at my LinkedIn profile, and I noticed that there are a lot of projects and responsibilities that I haven’t included, so I’m going to be adding some additional information in the next few days. I wanted to let you know, because I don’t want any updates or changes to catch you by surprise.” This shows that you’re open and respecting your boss by giving them a head’s up for what they can expect.

You can even add something in about how they’ve made great opportunities available to you, and you want to reflect that on your LinkedIn profile.

IF ALL ELSE FAILS

If you still feel like the update might raise red flags to your boss, put it into perspective for them. A great way to phrase it is, “I always want our clients/candidates/partners to have the most updated information on their LinkedIn profiles so I can learn more about them, therefore I feel like I need to do the same in order to reflect that standard.”

Another great way to frame the LinkedIn update is this: “I’ve been afforded so many great opportunities in this role, and I want others to see that and be aware of the great opportunities that this company provides.”

Both of these statements articulate that you want to hold yourself to the same standard that you hold others to, and that you want to highlight the benefits of working for the company. This highlights how it will benefit you as well as benefit your clients/candidates/partners, which will in turn benefit your boss/company.

At the end of the day, you have control of the information you put out there, and you shouldn’t feel guilty or scared about updating your LinkedIn profile. If your superior is that upset about it, you may want to look into a new role where your boss/manager wants to actually see you succeed. If you are trying to update your LinkedIn profile without alarming your boss, be transparent about it, and frame it in a way that will benefit everyone. At that point you’ve made a conscious effort to be respectful of your peers and authority figures, and if they’re still upset, that’s on them.

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