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Your #Career : Need a Job? 5 Ways to Get Employed Faster…Searching for a New Job, you’re Not Alone. 71% of workers are workers are Either Actively Looking or Interested in Finding a New Position

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The hunt for the perfect position can take months. One rule of thumb says that you should expect to spend at least one month of job searching for every $10,000 you earn. So, if your currently salary is $70,000 per year, you can expect to spend at least seven months hunting for work.

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Few people want to wait that long to find a new job. If your current position is unbearable (you hate your boss, your company is massively dysfunctional, your commute is killing you), feeling that you’re at the mercy of the job market can be incredibly frustrating. If you’re out of work, waiting months to find a job may not even be an option. In either case, you need a new job, and you needed it yesterday.

Fortunately, there are some steps you can take to accelerate your job search. Here are five things you can do that will help you get hired faster, so that you can get your career – and your life – back on the right track.

1. Time your search right

Some seasons are more favorable for job searchers than others. Obviously, if you need work right away, you don’t have the luxury of waiting to look for a job. But if you’re itching for a change, you might want to start your search at a time of year when companies are more likely to be looking for new employees.

“The big months for hiring are January and February, and late September and October,” Scott Testa, chief operating officer of Mindbridge Software, told Monster. “Job seekers who make contact right at the start of these cycles have the best chance of being hired.”

Hiring often slows down in the summer, since many people are out of the office. If you’re thinking about looking for a new job now, consider spending the next month or two fine-tuning your resume, updating your LinkedIn profile, and building your network. Then, you can hit the ground running when hiring kicks into high gear around Labor Day.

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2. Let people know you’re looking

If you’re only looking for jobs online, you’re missing out. Forty-one percent of people surveyed by staffing company Manpower reported that networking was the key to landing their latest job, as reported in Forbes. Many open positions are never posted online.

Don’t hesitate to make your job search public. Personally reach out to former co-workers and others in your network (both online and in real life) and ask for a favor that might help move your job search along.

“[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”][P]eople are much more likely to help if you give them something concrete they can do,” wrote Alison Green for U.S. News & World Report’s Ask A Manager blog. “For instance, you might ask your neighbor if she can connect you with a hiring manager at her former company, or you might ask your old manager if she’d advise you on the companies you’re considering.

3. Show employers what you’ve done

You know that “goals and objectives” statement at the top of your resume? Skip it, say experts. Your goal is obvious, after all – you want a job. Instead, use a summary statement that focuses on your past accomplishments. Show hiring managers and interviewers what you’ve done in the past and how that will make you a better employee for them.

“Even if you’re a recent college grad just joining a new industry, you’ve got a sentence or two you could put in that paragraph that might generate questions, interest and maybe even a job interview,” wrote Jon Acuff, author of Start, on Brazen Careerist.

In short, you need to brag a little (or maybe a lot). And whenever possible, it’s helpful to quantify your accomplishments. Don’t just say you recruited volunteers for a cause, say you recruited 50 volunteers and helped raise $50,000. Don’t just say that you managed a big project, say that you managed a big project and completed it two weeks early and $20,000 under budget.

4. Volunteer

Dedicating some of your time to helping others could make it much easier to find a job, according to a 2015 study published in the Journal of Career Assessment. The study looked at 265 unemployed twentysomethings and found that those who volunteered were more likely to have a job after six months than those who didn’t. Even volunteering for just an hour a week was associated with a greater chance of finding a job.

One reason that volunteering may so useful for young people looking for a job is that it demonstrates to employers that they have specific job-related skills – skills they may not be developing in college.

“Employers are no longer interested in training potential applicants who may do an outstanding job based on academic promise,” noted the study’s authors. “Volunteering activities provide opportunities for emerging adults to master specific skillsets and to demonstrate proof of competency and value.”

5. Clean up your social media

You should really know this by now, but here’s a reminder just in case you forgot: There’s a very good chance your potential employer is checking out your social media profiles. Forty-three percent of employers are researching candidates on social media, according to a CareerBuilder survey. If they don’t like what they see, it could cost you the job.

What social media behaviors turn off employers? Nearly half said they’d pass on an applicant who posted “provocative or inappropriate photographs or information.” Other social media no-no’s included:

  • Sharing information about drinking or using drugs
  • Bad-mouthing an employer or co-worker
  • Making racist, sexist, or other discriminatory comments
  • Sharing confidential information
  • Having an unprofessional screen name

Just as social media blunders can harm your job search, so can not having any online presence at all. A LinkedIn profile is a must at this point – 94% of recruiters used the site to find candidates, a 2014 survey by Jobvite found. Overall, 73% of recruiters said they had hired a candidate through social media.

CheatSheet.com |  February 9, 2016 | Megan Elliott 

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Your #Career : 3 Ways to Deal With Job Search Anxiety…This Anxiety can Spill Over into the Interview Process & Cause you to Come Across as a Nervous Wreck who Doesn’t have the Right Skills for the Job.

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Searching for a new job can be an anxiety-provoking activity. This is especially true if you were suddenly laid off or fired. You likely feel pressure to find a job quickly so you can pay your bills and sustain your current level of living.  However, this anxiety can spill over into the interview process and cause you to come across as a nervous wreck who doesn’t have the right skills for the job.

Free- Business Man in Beach Surf

If you want to make a good first impression, you’ll need to get a handle on your anxiety. Here’s how.

1. Understand what’s happening

Psychologist James Pann says when faced with a stressful situation, our body goes into overdrive. We immediately enter into “panic mode,” and our body prepares to fight or run away from a perceived threat. Consequently, we may start to sweat, get the shakes, and feel our heart pounding before and during a job interview. Pann said:

 When it is comes to networking, interviewing, and other stressful job search events, many of us experience at least some of these signs and symptoms. When faced with significant physical or psychological stress, your body reacts with what is termed the “fight or flight response.” The response prepares your body for physical action through sympathetic nervous system arousal and an increased release of corticoids, which are stress hormones. Virtually all the systems in your body are affected, including the circulatory, pulmonary, immune, and nervous systems. The physical symptoms associated with this state include quickened and shallow breathing, stomach disturbance, muscle tension and increased pulse rate.

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2. Visualize

Instead of worrying about everything that could go wrong during your interview, visualize a positive outcome. Imagine yourself making a great first impression and being offered the job. See yourself in a relaxed, happy state. If you can create a vision of yourself as confident and knowledgeable, you will appear more relaxed during your interview. It may also help to use a career vision board. One of the images could be a picture representing the job you want.

“By visualizing yourself as calm, using creative visualization techniques to relax, you can remove nagging anxiety, lower your blood pressure and overcome fears and phobias … If you’re lacking in self-belief and, for example, feel incapable of passing exams or overcoming obstacles in your life, you can call on creative visualization to strengthen your self-image and your belief in yourself. As you grow, you’ll naturally achieve the things you previously thought were impossible,” said author Robin Nixon.

3. Hire a career coach

A career coach can help you identify the right career track, polish interview skills, and offer resume advice. All you may need is a bit of coaching to push you in the right direction and ease your nerves.

“A coach gives you help tailored to you…and will help you develop new strategies and methods as you go along in the search…your coach is your personal sounding board and part of your unofficial board of directors,” said career development coach Joanne Meehl.

However, if you find that your anxiety is overwhelming and is starting to negatively affect other areas of your life, you may also want to talk to a mental health professional. Your difficulties could partly be due to an underlying anxiety disorder.

 

CheatSheet.com | Januray 26, 2016 | 

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Your #Career : How To Wow A Job Interviewer When Changing Careers…The Trick is to Convince an Employer that your “Old” Skills/Experiences Can be Just as or even More Valuable in a New Industry or Role.

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According to a new AARP survey, four out of 10 experienced workers will be looking for a job this year, and of those, a quarter are considering a complete career change. If you’re one of those eager to change careers in 2016, what can you do to improve your odds of success?

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The trick is to convince an employer that your “old” skills and experiences can be just as — or even more — valuable in a new industry or role. Or, as my colleague Kathryn Sollmann, founder of the career advisory firm 9 Lives for Women (and an expert on women’s career change issues), puts it: “You can change industries when you connect the dots.”

The Connect the Dots Approach
I find Sollmann’s “connect the dots” approach spot-on (pardon the pun).

Once you thoroughly research your desired field, learn its lingo and identify commonalities between your previous experiences and your target employer’s needs, you’ll know which accomplishments and experiences to highlight during the interview process and on your resumé. In turn, you’ll be more likely to convince prospective hiring managers that your skills really do transfer well.

“The fact is that it’s easier for employers to settle into default mode and hire cookie-cutter candidates who all have the same background and experience. The trick is to remind employers that quick studies can learn the language of a new industry. Then through research and networking, prove you know the very specific ways your skills can be transferred to get the job done.”

In her instructive blog post detailing this “connect the dots” method, Sollmann shared the steps she took early in her career to progress from being a newly minted college grad with an English degree (aka Unemployment 101) to a job editing and writing training programs for a Big 8 accounting firm to tripling her salary in a job as a conference organizer for an investment publication.

 

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To summarize, Sollmann successfully made the leap between industries by doing two key things:

She thoroughly researched the specific needs of employers in her target industry.

She carefully reframed her experience in a way that proved to employers that her skills and experiences were relevant to their industry.

In other words, she made it really easy for employers to understand why they needed her.Continued from page 1

“I didn’t just say that I had the research, writing and event planning skills to do the job. I connected the dots, showing that the way I applied skills to responsibilities X, Y and Z for the training job would be applied the same way to do A, B and C in the conference-planning job,” writes Sollmann.

How to Research and Network Well

Research and networking are especially critical before you enter a job interview to change careers; they’ll help you know what to say to convince the interviewer that your seemingly inappropriate background is actually a great fit.

So I asked Sollmann how to dig up what you need to persuade an employer in another field to hire you. Here’s her advice:

Identify through LinkedIn, school alumni networks, and elsewhere a few people who work in the field you want to switch into. Then, ask for a 15-minute phone appointment with each to help you understand how you can prove that your skills are transferable.

 Before you meet for this informational interview, distill your expertise into three or four major skill areas. Then, during your talk, bring up a major project or initiative you worked on that exemplified these skills and ask about parallels to the initiatives where these contacts work.

Some questions you might want to ask during your phone calls:

  • How is your type of expertise used where they work?
  • Did most of the employees “grow up” at this employer?
  • Does the firm or nonprofit value having employees with varying professional backgrounds and perspectives?
  • Can you connect me with someone who was hired from an entirely different industry so I can find out how they adapted?

Cutting Through the Cookie Cutter Mentality

If this sounds like a lot of work, well, it is. But this informational-interview research will increase your likelihood of finding appropriate job opportunities and help you make your strongest case to hiring managers.

As Sollmann concludes in her post: “The fact is that it’s easier for employers to settle into default mode and hire cookie-cutter candidates who all have the same background and experience. The trick is to remind employers that quick studies can learn the language of a new industry. Then through research and networking, prove you know the very specific ways your skills can be transferred to get the job done.”

Good luck with your career switch in 2016!

 

Forbes.com |  January 25, 2016 | Nancy Collamer, CONTRIBUTOR

 

You #Career : Four Job Search Mistakes College Students Should Stop Making Immediately…The Pressure to Nail Down a Summer Gig starts Early in the Spring Semester. The Best Opportunities often Appear during the Doldrums of Winter & Vanish Quickly.

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If you’re a college student,  For seniors, this final semester brings a blend of relief, nostalgia and, I can imagine, creeping anxiety about how to pay back those tens of thousands in student loans. As someone still young enough to remember my college days and the anxiety-filled post-graduation job hunt, but advanced enough that I’m now reviewing resumes from eager young students and about-to-be-graduates,

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I’ve been taking careful note of the common mistakes I’m seeing from entry-level job seekers and would-be interns. Here are four of the top blunders to avoid:

Guessing vs. playing it safe.

When you’re taking a multiple choice final and come across a question you don’t know the answer to, conventional wisdom says you should guess. By leaving it blank, you’re guaranteed zero points, but with a shot-in-the-dark guess amongst A,B,C and D, you have a 25% chance of being correct. This logic shouldn’t apply to your job hunt. If the posting asks you to email your resume and cover letter toasmith@company.com, incorrectly guessing that the A stands for Alan and not Abby and addressing your letter to ‘Dear Mr. Smith’ (I’ve seen it done) is an easy way to look like you don’t care about details. Comb LinkedIn for all the A. Smiths who work at the company to find the right one. If that doesn’t yield results, “Dear Hiring Manager” is still preferably to being presumptuous.

 

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Focusing on the wrong achievements.

The types of accomplishments that got you into a good college are not necessarily the ones that will land you a good job. Putting your four years of varsity cheerleading ahead of your internships is not the path to success. Include only those extracurriculars that you can reasonably tie to the skills and experience the job posting is asking for or that are extraordinarily impressive. Admissions officers care if you’re well-rounded, employers much less so.

 Assuming a B effort will yield A results.

Being the best of a subpar bunch is not a bad place to be if your biochemistry professor grades on a curve. Unfortunately, for you, most employers don’t. You’re not just competing with other applicants, you’re competing against all the other choices the hiring manager has for getting the chunk of work done that the job description represents. There are few fields with such a labor shortage that companies will willingly hire a mediocre candidate because he or she is less mediocre than the other applicants. Instead, I’ve seen company leave a job posting up for months, outsource to freelancers, reassign job duties to cover the required tasks or simply do without. If a company wants to hire an A employees, they’re unlikely to settle for a B among a sea of Cs.

Saying too much

To the surprise of no one, young people who grew up in the TMI era often lack an intellectual filter when it comes to parsing which of their personal stories are fit for public consumption. See this Frank Bruni piece from 2014 on oversharing in college admissions essays for some choice examples. Youthful TMI or braggadocio isn’t just for admissions essays, as my piece on the world’s worst cover letter (penned by a would-be Wall Street intern) shows. Heed its lessons.

Employers don’t expect you to have a wealth of experience at your age. Instead, they’re looking for growth potential and good judgment. Demonstrate both by keeping your application materials succinct (you don’t need a three-page resume and a 1000-word cover letter),  professional in tone and devoid of all references to your squat weight. Put another way, if there’s significant overlap between your Tinder bio, your resume and your new therapist’s intake form, re-think your choices.

Learn more about my work and connect with me on Twitter.

 

Forbes.com | January 25, 2016 | J. Maureen Henderson

Your #Career : New Year, New Strategy, New Job…So the Good News for Job Seekers is that Many People are Looking & Planning to Leave their Current Positions, which in Turn Creates Turnover

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Whether you are thinking about finding a new job or contemplating a career shift to another field, the start of a new year is actually a good time to embark upon your search. Making a career change ranks high on many people’s list of New Year’s resolutions. A large spike in people searching on-line job boards, reaching out to contacts on various social platforms, and applying for new positions has marked the first week in January during the last three years.

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So the good news for job seekers is that many people are looking and planning to leave their current positions, which in turn creates turnover and an enormous number of openings. The number of people leaving their jobs voluntarily in the U.S. has been increasing steadily. Once the impact of these resignations is felt, many companies will be searching for new talent to fill these vacant slots and it is expected to create a very robust job market in a wide range of industries.

There is also a sense that this year, more young and mid-level professionals will be looking for the “next” job or making a change, faster than previous generations. As Millennials are now the largest generation represented in the work-place, there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that Gen Y professionals get “job restless” quickly, especially if they feel under-valued, perceive that they don’t have enough visibility, and don’t feel that they are challenged and are learning enough from their current employer. Quite frankly, even if they are happy and like the people they work with, Millennials are often seeking to make a change because they have FOMO (fear of missing out) more than any other generation in history.

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Whether you are part of this demographic or not, all of this means an extremely positive outlook for would-be job seekers. So now that the conditions are positive for your job search, how do you make it happen? What will it really take? Here are some tips that should help you land a great new job in the New Year: 

  1. First, even though there are positive conditions for job seekers, don’t be over confident and make the mistake of under preparing or under estimating the amount of time and energy a true job search takes.
  2. Do your research when you are applying for jobs and demonstrate a real interest and knowledge of the employer. Elevate this to an even higher level of preparation for an interview. Recruiters are completely turned off when you don’t even know what the company does.
  3. Make sure that you have “good job search habits”. What I mean by this is that you should view your search as a job that you literally get up for each day of the week, get dressed and get to work. You set goals for the day of applying for positions that aren’t random, but you are truly interested in and qualified for and you keep a record of these and dates to follow up. You reach out to a number of contacts in your network and set up as many calls and “coffees” as possible.
  4. If you haven’t already, establish an email account that is professional and can handle large files. If you have been using your nickname @ AOL AOL +%, it’s time to set up a Gmail or similar large email account with your real name.
  5. Make sure you name your resume with your actual name, not “my resume”. You would be shocked at how many job seekers don’t do this and then wonder why they never hear back on a job they seem qualified for. It’s often because recruiters can’t find them.
  6. Master social. Utilize social media in strategic ways. Find companies and organizations that you are interested in and follow them on Twitter TWTR +0.00% andLinkedIn LNKD +0.00% and comment appropriately. Look out for tweets or job announcements and follow up.
  7. Utilize your college/university connections. The career center, alumni relations, and LinkedIn university pages are fantastic ways to find alumni from your Alma Mater who may be working in companies or industries that you are interested in. They can often offer advice and support as well as help connect you to additional opportunities.
  8. Speaking of networking, do it in person as well as online. Getting in front of people and being able to articulate what you are interested in, and a little about your background in a short amount of time (60-90 seconds), is an important “pitch” strategy to develop.
  9. Always be ready. Whether it’s a phone call, text, or other communication. In other words don’t pick up the phone if you are half asleep or at some loud social gathering. Rather, let the call go to your professional voice mailbox and then call the recruiter back when you have had a cup a coffee and are in a quiet area with strong cell phone reception.
  10. Keep up your energy, determination, and positive attitude. Job searching can be a very humbling experience, but no one wants to hire someone who appears frustrated and desperate.  Demonstrating your genuine interest and enthusiasm are key. Exercise, get plenty of sleep and talk to friends and job search professionals to get encouragement, vent and keep up your spirits.Depending on what positions and organizations you are applying for, your geographic location, and your flexibility, job searches can take a while. The good news is that there is a great deal of movement and opportunity on the horizon, and if you follow these tips, you can land that great new job in 2016.

    Forbes.com | January 13, 2016 | Trudy Steinfeld @nyuwasserboss

Your #Career : 7 Things You Must Do To Maximize The Value Of Your LinkedIn Profile…Your LinkedIn Profile is One of the Most Important Career Marketing Tools you Have.

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You’ve done all the hard work to create a stellar LinkedIn profile. You have a professional headshot, a compelling headline and a complete, authentic summary (if you are still working on this, read this post for guidance). When LinkedIn says your profile is “all-star,” it’s time to turn your hard work into a tool that will advance your career.

Free- Business Desk

Here are seven actions to take (in four categories) to maximize the value of your perfect profile:

1. Make it visible. You don’t want to be the world’s best-kept secret, wasting all that effort you spent building the online representation of the real you. I recommend making every element of your profile visible to everyone. Through the Privacy and Settings option, you can choose to share your entire profile or just a few elements with public viewers. Allow anyone to see your public profile. What’s the value of creating your profile if you don’t showcase it?

 

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2. Keep it current. The more interaction you have with your profile, the more likely it will be seen by others. In fact, according to LinkedIn, you should “update your status at least 20 times per month in order to maximize your reach to approximately 60% of your unique audience.”

Stay connected with your contacts by updating your status regularly – letting others know what you are working on and the events you are attending, along with sharing links to the content you find interesting. 

Direct People to it

Sure, people can find your profile through LinkedIn searches – publishing all the right keywords is essential for attracting people you didn’t even know were looking for you. I call it planned serendipity. But you need to go beyond the random and unplanned connections. You need to send people to your profile so they can learn more about you.

There are two easy ways to get people to check out your profile:

3. Use a QR Code. You want people to learn more about you after meeting you at a networking function. Make it easy for them to get to your profile by creating a QR (quick response) code that links directly to your profile. Add your QR code to business cards, your resume, and your pitch letters. You can also create stickers with your QR code and add them to your name badge at networking functions.

4. Create LinkedIn buttons. Use the LinkedIn buttons to direct people to your profile. Under “Privacy and Settings” you can access your public profile settings (on the right side of the screen). At the bottom of the box, there’s an option to create what LinkedIn calls “your public profile badge.” This lets you choose from a series of button options that you can add to your email signature, Blog, Website, etc.

Repurpose it

LinkedIn provides a valuable, one-stop-shopping resource for people who want to know more about your expertise. But the act of putting your profile together is also a valuable, one-stop-shopping exercise in getting clear about your personal brand message and defining and documenting your career success. Now that you have all that content in one place, leverage that work for other applications. In personal branding, we have a technique we call “being lazy,” which means repurpose and reuse content. This helps ensure consistency and saves time and effort. Here are three ways to maximize the effort you put into build your amazing LinkedIn profile: 

5. Get a copy of it. You can export your profile to Word or PDF document to use in your career marketing activities. Here’s how.

6. Turn it into a resume. LinkedIn Labsprovides an option to turn your LinkedIn profile into your resume. First, you select your resume template, and then you can customize the content that you pull directly from your profile. This helps save time and ensures consistency between your on- and offline career materials.

7. Create your own website. There are a number of services that will let you import your LinkedIn content into their platform so you can create your own custom website. My favorite is branded.me (disclosure: branded.me is a partner of my company, Reach Personal Branding). They allow you to import your profile content into one of a variety of templates. Then you can customize your site with images, colors, fonts, etc.

Your LinkedIn profile is one of the most important career marketing tools you have. Its value is amplified when you get more people to see it, and when you repurpose it to support your personal branding efforts.

Remember, before you maximize your profile, you need to make sure it is compelling and reflects who you are in the real world. Learn how to build a stellar LinkedIn summary in this recorded webinar which you can download here.

 

Forbes.com | January 4, 2015 | William Arruda

 

Your #Career : Do You Need A New Job in 2016? This One Question Will Tell You…So here is the Question. Where is your Career on the Curve?

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Should you stay in your current job, or is it time to move? You will have various ways of dealing with this question, but let me suggest one concept that you may have missed. Or if you are thinking of it, you may not have realised its full ramifications. I’m going to ask you a very pointed question here. The answers might transform your plans for the coming year.

Free- Man on Skateboard with Sign on Ground

The concept is  the simple S-curve. If you have studied marketing, you will recognise it immediately as the product lifecycle, but it applies to everything – businesses, careers, musical genres, empires…

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For a product the stages are introduction-growth-maturity-decline. For a career the stages can be characterised as:

    1. Learning the job – excitement, disorientation, growth;
    2. Proving yourself – producing results, acquiring mastery;
    3. Mastery – quite effortless competence;
    4. Decline – boredom, staleness, beyond your sell-by date.

So here is the question. Where is your career on the curve? How much have you learned in the past year, compared to how much you learned in the first year? What is your level of excitement, relative to past years? If you are still growing, that’s good. It’s probably worth staying, unless there’s something wrong with the organisation. It’s the mastery phase that is dangerous.

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The feeling that you have mastered your job is, for most of us, very pleasant. We feel comfortable, competent, in control (but see my previous post!). Life is good. But here’s the bad news. If you have reached this point, the rot is already setting in. Peak mastery is in fact the beginning of decline. And from this follows something very important; just when you feel on top of things is the moment you need to be looking for the next step. This seems counterintuitive, but think for a moment and you will see why it makes sense.

When is the best time to be looking for a new job? Is it when you are at the top of your powers? Still energised about the job you are doing, still performing strongly, still confident? Or is it better to be looking when you are starting to fade, getting a little bored, maybe not giving of your best, starting to worry? Put that way, it’s obvious, but it is so easy to miss. So often, we don’t start to plan the next move until we start to feel bored or uncomfortable where we are. Then, given the inevitable delays in getting our ideas together and the time waiting for the right thing to come up, we are into the period of decline. Trust me on this – it’s a mistake I’ve made. Probably one of my biggest mistakes.

If this little piece of productive paranoia seems an unwelcome intrusion in the season of peace and goodwill, please believe it’s well intentioned. If it does make you feel uncomfortable, that probably means there’s something you need to attend to as soon as you are back at work.

Forbes.com | December 31, 2015 | Alastair Dryburgh 

Your #Career : Beyond #LinkedIn — Using Social Media For Your Job Search…It’s no Secret that LinkedIn is a Powerful Job Search Tool. It Can Help you Expand your #Network, gain Job Prospects, Grab the Attention of #Recruiters & More.

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It’s no secret that LinkedIn is a powerful job search tool. It can help you expand your network, gain job prospects, grab the attention of recruiters and more. There are many other ways to leverage social media to give your job hunt a boost, though. Try these tips during your job search in 2016, to get a leg up on the competition.

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Scope out Instagram. If a potential employer has a company Instagram account, the photos can offer some serious intel into the day-to-day happenings of its office. The No. 1 question an Instagram account will answer: What is the dress code really like? This helps get rid of any confusion or anxiety over an appropriate interview outfit. Additionally, you might also find that the company is hosting an event, supporting a charity or partaking in fun team-building exercises. These are all great for giving you a better understanding of the culture and helping you make genuine conversation during an interview.

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Read the blog of an insider. Find a list of employees who work within your desired department via LinkedIn to see if any promote themselves as bloggers or keynote speakers. If yes, reading an employee’s industry blog can provide insight into how the people at a potential employer think and work. And if your hiring manager is the one with a blog, it will offer a wealth of information and ideas to discuss during your interview, making you look incredibly smart and tuned in to the company.

Follow on Twitter. A Twitter account can provide an up-to-date feed of important news, trends and even job opportunities. Plus, if the company is small, interacting on Twitter could help provide you with name recognition for when you submit a resume. However, make sure that your Twitter page is squeaky clean and reflects your professional goals before connecting.

Take LinkedIn even further. Many people use LinkedIn as only a digital version of their resume, but there are so many other ways to showcase your skills and experience on the social platform. For example: Ensure you’re getting the most out your LinkedIn recommendations. Upload portfolio examples. Join industry groups. Follow prospective employers and influential people in your industry.

And my final piece of advice: Social media is a quick and easy way to gain information and make connections, but don’t take it too far. You shouldn’t be hounding a hiring manager via Twitter after an interview, sending messages on LinkedIn when it’s not appropriate or stalking employees through Instagram.

Lisa Quast, author of the book, Secrets of a Hiring Manager Turned Career Coach: A Foolproof Guide to Getting the Job You Want. Every Time. Join me on Twitter @careerwomaninc

Forbes.com | December 27, 2015 | Lisa Quast

Your #Career : This One Skill Can Get Your #Résumé to the Top of the Pile… #Networking is One of the Most Valuable Skills that an Individual can Have these Days, in Terms of Getting Where you Want to Go, Be it a Selective School, or Landing a Competitive Job.

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If you’re looking for a job, or simply re-evaluating your current career trajectory, having a coherent and clear strategy is essential. That can include a number of things — getting the perfect résumé put together, knowing the right people, and even having at least some grasp as to what industries are growing or shrinking, or what cities and states are seeing the most economic growth.

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But more than anything, you’ll want to have a solid set of skills and competencies that will win over hiring managers, and show businesses that you can and will be an asset to their growth and long-term strategy. 

Your résumé should include all of the traditional core competencies that businesses are looking for, including punctuality, solid industry experience, and maybe even a college degree. It’s all going to depend on what you’re looking for, of course, but there’s some new insight that is giving job-seekers — that may mean you — a bit of insider information that may put you in the upper echelon of applicants.

Businesses want employees with social skills.

This is the conclusion of a slew of new research into labor economics. The New York Times’ Upshot recently did a story covering the phenomenon, which included diving into a new study from David Deming, associate professor of education and economics at Harvard University. Deming’s paper, The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market, says that social skills and an ability to bring a “human touch” to the workplace is becoming more important as automation and technology render many positions obsolete.

 

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“While computers perform cognitive tasks of rapidly increasing complexity, simple human interaction has proven difficult to automate,” his paper reads. “Since 1980, jobs with high social skill requirements have experienced greater relative growth throughout the wage distribution. Moreover, employment and wage growth has been strongest in jobs that require high levels of both cognitive skill and social skill.”

Networking is one of the most valuable skills that an individual can have these days, in terms of getting where you want to go, be it a selective school, or landing a competitive job.

It’s an interesting development and hypothesis, and the data seems to support Deming’s findings.

As we know, automation is rapidly encroaching on many industries. Over the next few decades, the economy is going to be going through some drastic changes as a good deal of the labor needed across many industries is taken out of human hands, and put into the hands of robots and artificial intelligences. It’s happening at fast food restaurants, and it’s happening in the finance industry. There’s really no stopping it.

That’s what makes social skills so important. We’re going to need people — actual flesh, blood, and the ability to empathize and understand — to work in concert with the metal and circuits doing the heavy lifting. So, all that time you spent screwing around with your buddies instead of paying attention during math class? You may have been polishing the skills that will actually find you work in a rapidly changing economy.

Think about it — one of the most foolproof ways to actually get a job is to have a connection through some sort of social networking. In fact, networking is one of the most valuable skills that an individual can have these days, in terms of getting where you want to go, be it a selective school, or landing a competitive job.

And those networking and social skills are the ones we have learned from an early age. As The New York Times puts it, “what you learned at preschool.”

So, if you were more apt to screw around during your formative years, rather than be a serious student, this might be some good news. Albeit it was hard to see this coming, but still, it’s a silver lining. The bad news is that you’ll still have to couple those social skills with some sort of training or education. The jobs that are disappearing are the ones that require little training or skill, or that can be easily automated. You may be a chatterbox at your jobat the local Taco Bell drive-thru, but that doesn’t mean your position isn’t going to be automated in the near future.

For job seekers — which all of us either are, or will be at some point in the future — don’t forget to take stock of your social skills as an asset. What if you’re not a social person? Make it a point to work on those skills, as they may be more valuable in the future than anyone would’ve imagined a decade or two ago.

Follow Sam on Twitter @SliceOfGinger

 

CheatSheet.com | December 22, 2015 | Sam Becker

Your #Career : How to Figure Out Who the #HiringManager is When it’s not Listed in the Job Post … You’ll Always want to Direct your #CoverLetter to a Specific Individual (unless the posting is anonymous). Otherwise, you Might give the Impression that you Didn’t Put any Effort into your Application or you Don’t Pay Attention to Detail.

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Just because a job posting omits the name of the person in charge of the hiring process doesn’t mean you should address your cover letter “To Whom It May Concern.”

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According to Amanda Augustine,career advice expert forTopResume, you’ll always want to direct your cover letter to a specific individual (unless the posting is anonymous). Otherwise, you might give the impression that you didn’t put any effort into your application or you don’t pay attention to detail.

So how do you figure out who’s doing the hiring? Augustine shares her top strategies:

1. Reread the job description.

Before you panic and conclude that there’s no name listed, go back and reread the job postingvery carefully. There might be a name and email address lurking at the bottom of the posting that you missed the first time.

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2. Use the email address provided to search for a name.

Sometimes companies will direct candidates to send their applications to a specific email address, without providing a name to go along with it.

That’s a big clue. There’s a good chance the email address is the person’s first initial and last name (for example, mine is slebowitz@businessinsider.com), or maybe just their first name. Once you have that information, you can run a Google search for “S Lebowitz Business Insider” or “Shana Business Insider” and see what you come up with.

3. Look for the person who created the posting.

If you found the job posting on LinkedIn, oftentimes you’ll see it was created by a specific recruiter or hiring manager, depending on the size of the company.

In that case, you should address your cover letter to him or her because that person is obviously directly involved in the hiring process.

4. Look for information about who you’d be reporting to.

Maybe the job posting says you’d be reporting to the director of marketing analytics, but doesn’t give that persons’ name. Run an advanced search on LinkedIn for any current directors of marketing analytics at the company and see who comes up.

linkedin advanced search screenshot

LinkedInRun an advanced search on LinkedIn with the title of the person you’d be reporting to.

If that doesn’t work, you can run a standard Google search for “director of marketing analytics” and the company name. You might even find that person’s spoken at a recent conference, for example, which would give you some insight into what interests her and what kinds of information you should include in your cover letter.

5. Search the recruiting agency’s website.

If the job posting was created by a specific recruiting agency, go to that agency’s website and look at the bios of all the recruiters who work there. See which one works primarily with the company you’re applying to.

6. Google part of the job posting.

It’s possible that the website where you spotted the job opening isn’t where it was originally posted.

To find out, take a portion of the job description that describes the specific role or requirements, put it in quotation marks, and hit search. You might find the original posting, which includes the name and/or email address of the person in charge of the hiring process.

7. Leverage your network.

Here’s where a large professional network comes in handy.

Run an advanced search on LinkedIn to see if you have any connections who currently work at the company you’re applying to. Ask that person if he or she a) knows who you should address your cover letter to and b) would be willing to pass your application onto the appropriate person.

You can use the same strategy if there’s a company employee you met once at a networking event. Simply email that person: “I don’t know if you’ll remember me, but…” Express your interest in the position and ask if he or she can direct you to the appropriate person.

This tactic is especially effective, since studies suggest that applicants with someone to vouch for them are more likely to land the job.

Make sure you submit your application through the standard method as well as through your mutual connection. The company may want to track each application that comes in for their records.

Businessinsider.com | December 11, 2015 |