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Your #Career : Four Things You Must Do On #LinkedIn Once A Week…Think of #LinkedInGroups as Online Professional Associations.

April 2, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

It’s been a decade since LinkedIn starting adding features that help you do your job better, but many people still aren’t taking advantage of those features. They only visit LinkedIn when something big happens, like a job promotion or a move to a new company.

To start getting the most out of LinkedIn, here are four things you should do each week.

1. Review what’s happening in your groups.

Think of LinkedIn groups as online professional associations. When you want to know what’s on the minds of the decision makers in your field, groups are a great place to start. You can learn and grow, adopt best practices, and get some fodder for your next meeting. Here’s the best way to do it – so it doesn’t feel overwhelming and so you can zoom ahead to the important stuff. Click on “Work” in the upper right corner of the home page (it looks like a 3×3 box with nine little squares). You’ll get a page with two columns. Use the one on the left to scroll through the latest posts from your groups. Use the one on the right to help you determine which groups are most active. Just like with real-world professional associations, you want to participate in the groups that have the most activity and engagement.

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

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2. Respond to messages

You get notified in your email when someone sends you a LinkedIn message, but should you go to the message right away? Probably not. Save them up and go in once weekly instead – after all, lots of them are “thanks for connecting” messages and others that don’t require a response.

And just because someone is connected to you in LinkedIn does not mean you need to do what they ask in their message or even respond. You shouldn’t feel guilty if you don’t. That might be the protocol with other forms of communication, but it’s just not realistic in LinkedIn – especially if you have a lot of connections. You have limited time. Because of the work I do, I get at least a dozen requests to “please check out my LinkedIn profile and tell me what you think.” And as much as I would love to do that – I love looking at LinkedIn profiles, and I love helping people – I would have to give up my day job to accommodate each request. Even responding to let people know I don’t have the time would take too much time.

3. Check out who has viewed your profile.

When you’re looking at the home page, you can see a snapshot of your profile in the left column on the screen. Right below your headline, you can see “who’s viewed your profile.” If your privacy settings are not set to “private mode,” LinkedIn will show you a subset of the people who have visited your profile during the previous 90 days. This is important because it helps you determine if you are attracting the right people – the decision makers and influencers who can help you expand your success. When you check this out monthly, you start to get a feel for the impact of your activities.

4. Measure your activity.

You spend time updating your network and posting articles, but are they working for you? When you click on “views of your post” in your profile the left column of the LinkedIn home page, you’re brought to a page that shows you the impact of your communications. If you’re using the LinkedIn blogging feature, you can check stats on your articles. You can do the same with your updates. It shows you the number of views, likes, and comments. When you click on the number of views, you get valuable information about the impact of your communications. There are three key pieces of data you receive about the viewers: What company they work for, what their job title is, and where they are located. When you view this, ask yourself: Am I attracting the right people to my profile? Then adjust your communications (both the content and the groups to which you post) accordingly.

To make all four of these actions happen, start the week off by scheduling some time in your calendar so you commit to this, just as you would to any meeting or conference call you have. You only need 15 – 30 minutes a week to start getting the most out of LinkedIn!

William Arruda is the cofounder of CareerBlast and creator of the complete LinkedIn quiz that helps you evaluate your LinkedIn profile and networking strategy.

Forbes.com | March 26, 2018 | William Arruda , CONTRIBUTOR

Your #Career : What #Recruiters Pay Attention To When They Look At Your #SocialMedia …Great REad!

March 26, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

You probably already know recruiters are looking at your LinkedIn page, but what about your other social media platforms? You know, the ones where you post pictures of your latest vacation, share what you had for dinner and occasionally tag your friends in memes. Why, you might wonder, would a recruiter possibly be interested in viewing things like that?

As it turns out, those personal details are precisely why recruiters and hiring managers keep tabs on applicants’ social media accounts, says career coach Hallie Crawford. “It can help them get a more accurate idea about who you are outside of your resume–a more personal view into your life,” she explains. “A resume can tell them your qualifications, but your social media profile can help them determine your personality type and if you would be a good fit for company culture.”

Plus, recruiters are looking for red flags–risqué photos, bad language, signs of drugs use–that would show them you’d be a less than ideal man or woman to have in their offices.

So now that you know why they’re looking, how about knowing what they’re looking at?

FACEBOOK

According to Crawford, recruiters and hiring managers are concentrating their efforts on two sections of your Facebook page–your “about me” section, and your photo albums.

About Me: “They will want to see how you describe yourself and if it matches up [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”][with] how you have described yourself in your cover letter and resume,” Crawford says. Any discrepancies could cost you points pre-interview. What’s more, Crawford says, “they will also be looking for proper spelling and grammar” in this section, to see how seriously you take those skills.

Photos: When it comes to your photos albums, “a hiring manager will be checking not only your photos but also your descriptions,” Crawford warns. “A hiring manager wants to see if you represent yourself in a professional way.” To come off in the most positive pre-meeting light, “you will want to avoid using profanity, sexual or drug references,” Crawford says.

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

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TWITTER

Who You’re Following: “Recruiters like to see if you have any mutual connections and if you are connected with others in your industry,” Crawford explains. Following others in your industry is a smart thing to do no matter what–watching their feeds can give you a scoop on a new job opening, company announcements, the latest tech and much more.

Tweets: “Recruiters will be checking to see if you share useful information, if you share information relevant to your trade or if you just use tweets to fight with others,” Crawford says. If you’re applying for a job, take a look at your tweeting history and consider deleting anything that won’t show your best–and most thoughtful self to a potential employer.

INSTAGRAM

Followers: Recruiters will check out the kind of followers you attract, Crawford says. Plus, they’ll want to see “how friendly and social you seem to be with your followers,” she says. What you say to them and what you say back, she explains, “can also give them insight [into] your personal relationships and if you would be a good cultural fit for the company.”

Pictures: You probably figured this, right? But recruiters are looking to see more than your photography skills (or lack thereof). “They will want to see how you represent yourself,” Crawford says. For example, “if you are at a party, do you represent yourself in a dignified way?” Crawford asks, or, “do you post things that others would consider inappropriate?”

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

FastCompany.com | March 26, 2018 | BY JILLIAN KRAMER—GLASSDOOR 3 MINUTE READ

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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

#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

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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Question: Want the ‘the best/current articles/blogs on the web’ on Job Search, Resume, Advancing/Changing your Career, or simply Managing People?

Answer: Simply go to our FSC Career Blog below & type(#career, #leadership, #life) in Blog Search: https://www.firstsun.com/fsc-career-blog/

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

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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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Your #Career : Five Things To Do When You’ve Exhausted All The #JobBoards …If your #JobHunt has Stalled, Try One of These Tactics to Get Out of your Rut.

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

You’re scanning the job boards daily, but there just aren’t any new listings that catch your eye or fit your experience level. But you don’t have to let your job search grind to a halt just because the pickings seem slim.

There are a few other things you can do to keep things moving, even when there’s not much out there.

1. SET UP AN INFORMATIONAL INTERVIEW

Informational interviews are underrated. The goal is to get a hold of someone who works at a company you’re interested in and just learn the inside scoop. They aren’t the one who’s making any hiring decisions, and maybe there isn’t even an open position there that you’re currently gunning for. It’s purely for research and networking.

After you’ve spent some time trawling job boards like Glassdoor, Indeed, and Monster, you’ve probably assembled a shortlist of employers that appeal to you, even if they aren’t hiring right now. And as career coach Sarah Vermunt put it recently, “If there’s an organization you know you’d like to work for, you’d be crazy not to try for an informational interview with someone who works there.” So, she suggests, “reach out to someone who is doing work that is similar to the work you want to do. That’ll give you a true picture of the work–the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

As you plan your next move, these informal conversations can arm you with crucial intel about where the market needs really lie, which organizations are thriving and which ones might actually be pretty toxic, and a few smart ways to position yourself for openings when they finally do crop up.

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2. UP YOUR LINKEDIN GAME

This one is a no-brainer. When you send out a job application, you’re knocking on employers’ doors; when you optimize your LinkedIn presence, you’re inviting employers to knock on yours. Scan your LinkedIn profile for any incomplete fields, discrepancies, overwritten chunks of text, extremely basic skills, and meaningless industry jargon–all of those things are turn-offs to recruiters and need to go.

Take a little time to personalize your profile so it highlights what’s genuinely unique about your experience. For instance, if you’re a software engineer, your headline should specify what kind, and your skills field should list all the languages and coding tools you know. At the same time, balance out any the human side, too, so you don’t come across as a soulless robot with only great technical chops. Explain what you’re passionate about and what types of problems you’ve solved (and why those wound up helping your team, your organization, or your customers).

Specificity matters, but so do soft skills like emotional intelligence–no matter what your role or industry.

3. GO TO A NETWORKING EVENT

I know–everyone hates hearing advice like this. But when you’re coming up dry in your search for openings, it doesn’t hurt to hit up a networking mixer–even one that you know will be short on leads. The reason? When you’re looking for a job, you need to actively seek out opportunities to practice discussing your experience, professional goals, and passions.

So even if it’s pretty much guaranteed that you aren’t going to meet your next boss at that networking event, the exercise in introducing yourself to strangers and talking articulately about your career is a valuable one. Feeling iffy about it anyway? Grab a friend or coworker and make networking a team sport.

4. CHECK YOUR SOFT SKILLS

Recruiters are interested in your people skills, not just your technical know-how. As Susan Vitale, chief marketing officer for iCIMS, recently told Fast Company, “Hard skills are what you do, and soft skills are how you do it.” And some of the top capabilities in that category, according to Vitale and other talent professionals in the space, include adaptability, problem solving, and verbal communication.

Some job seekers who repeatedly get called in for job interviews but miss out on offers may find that they’re falling short on some of those key soft skills. It’s sometimes easier to nail down a candidates’ technical capabilities before meeting them; soft skills are harder to suss out. So giving recruiters and hiring managers reason to feel confident that you’re emotionally intelligent in addition to being a world-class marketer is one way to get a leg up when new openings finally do get posted. In the meantime, take a few minutes to dial up those soft skills on your resume–here’s a handy formula for figuring out how.

5. CHANGE YOUR THINKING ON JOB-SEARCH DEADLINES

One of the reasons a long, mostly fruitless job search can feel so frustrating is because the outcome you’re looking for–a really great job offer–isn’t something you can bring about all on your own. No matter how badly you might want a new job by next month, there’s nothing you can do single-handedly to guarantee you’ll get one by then. As The Muse’s Alison Cardy explains, “When you tie a deadline to something that’s not within your power, you set yourself up to feel defeated if it falls through.”

Looking out for your mental health is crucial at times like these, when positivity can be in short supply. One trick Cardy suggests is rethinking the way you’re setting goals and deadlines as a job seeker. So commit to sending out 10 job applications over the next two weeks, for example, or to grab coffee with three contacts by the end of the month. “By connecting the deadline to your personal efforts,” Cardy says, “you give yourself the opportunity to feel successful just by meeting it–and that confidence boost can mean a lot during a tough search.”

FastCompany.com | February 22, 2018 | Rich Bellis

Your #Career : Four Reasons Resumes No Longer Work…Today, 87% of #Recruiters use #LinkedIn to Vet #Candidates during the #HiringProcess , & Traditional #Resumes are Becoming Obsolete. According to Experts, “Titles and Years of Experience are No Longer a Person’s Number-One Currency.”

January 5, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

When you’re job-hunting, a resume used to be the quickest way to get your foot in the door, but that’s not necessarily true anymore. Today, 87% of recruiters use LinkedIn to vet candidates during the hiring process, and traditional resumes are becoming obsolete.

Technology has changed the marketplace, and HR is the only vertical that hasn’t seen a rapid transition, says Carisa Miklusak, CEO of the algorithmic hiring platform tilr. “Right now tech isn’t giving people a fair opportunity to compete,” she says. “Before you blame the resume, you need to understand that they’re a byproduct of old employer values. Titles and years of experience are no longer a person’s number-one currency.”

Traditional resumes have four issues that can make it difficult to win a new job:

1. THEY FOCUS ON EXPERIENCE OVER SKILLS

Past generations valued years of experience, and traditional resumes convey this information by offering a chronological snapshot of your employment history. Today, however, candidates are being judged and employed based on their ability to perform–something that doesn’t easily come across on a resume, says Miklusak.

“Employers are interested in skills and the results someone can generate, rather than titles or previous employment,” she says. “Focusing on skills provides a fuller understanding of the candidate’s experience and capabilities, and opens up more opportunities.”

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2. THEY’RE ORGANIZED BY JOB TITLES

Traditional resumes use job titles as headings, but these aren’t always as clear as employers would like. Creative names, like “success ambassador” and “office ninja,” make it difficult to understand what a candidate does, and there is no uniform use of titles.

“When resumes are uploaded into employer databases, crawlers can have a hard time with titles and keywords,” says Miklusak. “New titles are used every day that didn’t exist prior, and they don’t always give a clear picture of someone’s skillset.”

3. THEY’RE STATIC

Candidates have to acquire new skills to stay current, and employers are often purchasing new technology that employees need to master, but resumes are static, requiring frequent revisions.

“Unless you update it each week, a resume becomes outdated by the time you need to submit or forward it,” says Miklusak. While updating your LinkedIn profile provides real-time ease, it’s flawed, too. “You’re still subject to your last job title leading off your experience,” she says.

4. THEY’RE CUMBERSOME IN THE GIG ECONOMY

Using a resume to find workers for on-demand positions is inefficient and costly for companies. “There is a skill gap in the economy, and we don’t have enough workers to fill current jobs,” says Miklusak. “Resumes slow the process down, and we have unemployed people who still can’t find jobs.”

In addition, a lot of qualified workers don’t want to be bothered. “A gig worker isn’t going to create a resume for a $15/hour holiday work,’” she says.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO?

For now, resumes are still the standard way of conducting a job search, so make the most of yours until new technology catches up to hiring. If a company requires that you submit your resume online, it’s a good idea to use traditional methods of putting yourself out there, suggests Miklusak. “Submit your resume online and mail it in, including a short paragraph that describes how you can add an immediate benefit to company,” she says. “Summarize your skillset that is relevant to the role and rate your proficiency.”

You can also cold call the hiring manager or HR department to bring attention to your application. “They might receive thousands of resumes, so do something to help cull yours out of that pile,” says Miklusak. “If you’re interested, you’re forced to do something to set yourself apart.”

For gig work, companies are moving to platforms like Upwork, Shiftgig, and tilr. “They’re a better tool to find new candidates instead of wading through resumes,” says Miklusak.

Finally, get out from behind your resume by expanding your network. “When you meet someone who works for a company that interests you, ask if they’re hiring any more people,” says Miklusak. “You still have to have a resume, but presenting it live or over a phone call can help you cut through the noise.”

Employers are starting to reassess their talent strategy moving forward, says Miklusak. “Based on the type of business and type of workers they need, they are finding new ways to recruit and deciding where resumes are relevant and where they aren’t,” she says.

FastCompany.com | January 5, 2018 | BY STEPHANIE VOZZA 3 MINUTE READ

#Leadership : The Future of Work- LinkedIn Data Shows More Cash-Strapped Millennials Turning To Part-Time Freelancing…The Ranks of Part-Time Freelancers are Swelling, Particularly Among Younger Workers in Expensive Cities.

November 14, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

The number of U.S. workers with full-time jobs who freelance on the side is sharply on the rise.

According to our data here at LinkedIn, the share of those users in our top professional fields has doubled in the past five years. What’s more, the number of people freelancing on the side of their day jobs is growing more than three times faster than the number of full-time freelancers on LinkedIn. Here’s why.

WHO, WHAT, WHERE . . .

Who are all these folks? To find out, we started by examining roughly 9,600 of LinkedIn’s ProFinder professionals. To be sure, that may be a self-selecting sample, and the way those users choose to respond to survey questions can vary based on professional, social, and regional culture, not to mention personal preference. (Not everyone thinks about freelance work the same way, for instance—some don’t even call it “freelancing.”) But because they’re vetted, qualified freelancers who have purposefully chosen to join the platform, they’re among the most committed independent workers in a gig economy that’s still very much in flux—which may make them the trendsetters to watch.

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In any event, we discovered some interesting patterns. For one thing, it’s clear that some people are more inclined than others to add part-time freelancing to their repertoires than others. We’ve noticed, too, that men are doing more part-time freelancing than women, and millennials are doing so more than any other age group.

Of all the users who list freelance work on their LinkedIn profiles, 20% have a full-time job in addition to their freelance business. That means full-time freelancing still dominates, but the side-gig model is quickly catching up. These are the top five industries for full-time professionals who freelance on the side:

Financial services and insurance
Professional services
Technology and software
Entertainment
Staffing

. . . AND WHY

The reason is pretty obvious: extra income.

According to our data, a whopping 47% of professionals who are freelancing while working full-time are concentrated in six states with major urban populations: California, New York, Illinois, Texas, Massachusetts, and Florida. Since these professionals are living in some of the most expensive cities in the country, it’s not a wild hypothesis that they’re motivated, at least in part, by the need to bring in some extra cash.

According to a recent survey from Payoneer polling more than 23,000 freelancers in over 180 countries, the average freelancer charges around $21 an hour for their services. For those freelancing on the side who are able to squeeze in an extra 10–15 hours of client work each week, that can quickly add up to an additional $1,000 or more in discretionary income every month.

So for anyone whose main source of income isn’t keeping pace with their rising costs of living—a situation that describes many Americans yet varies widely from one state or region to the next—part-time freelancing may seem like an appealing option.

OTHER MOTIVATIONS THAT HINT AT WHAT’S COMING

That may not be the only motivation, though. Some other immediate benefits to taking on freelance work in addition to your day job include personal branding and networking. It can widen your exposure to different companies, types of work, and people. So if you’re deliberate about working with the type of clientele that will help push your career where you want it to go, you stand a better shot at gaining the clout—and client rolodex—to become the go-to person within your niche.

47% of professionals who are freelancing while working full-time are concentrated in six states with major urban populations.

Part-time freelancers seem to understand this, especially millennials, many of whom have aspirations of making a full-time living as a freelancer. For many, side gigging, is meant to be a stepping stone. They recognize that it’s best to begin with a handful of clients to build their resumes and bulk up their portfolios before making the leap into full-time independent work at competitive rates.

Looking at the demographics of ProFinder professionals, we see a large proportion of full-time freelancers falling in the 45–59 age range. Those people have likely had long careers and built substantial networks in their industries before leaving their corporate jobs to go freelance full-time.

Faced with these patterns, it’s looking like traditional nine-to-five jobs may soon become relics of the past. As younger professionals enter the workforce, they’re gravitating more toward independent work—in many cases not just out of necessity but deliberately, with an eye toward the types of careers they want to pursue. In the meantime, it seems likely that the ranks of part-time freelancers will continue to swell—even if they don’t stay part-time for good.

FastCompany.com | GYANDA SACHDEVA | 11.14.16 5:00 AM

#CareerAdvice : #JobSearch Tactics That Work… A #MustRead !

October 9, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

In today’s business world, a college degree does not automatically lead to a great job the way it typically did in the past. Today, in addition to that college degree, one has to learn how to find a job — and be good at it. This additional challenge represents a significant barrier to some job seekers and especially to more mature people who have a hard time keeping up with fast-developing technology that requires new skills.

So, the following are a few tips regarding both what to do and how to do it.

Online and in-person networking

Beyond LinkedIn, recruiters use Twitter, Facebook and other social media to find, select and qualify talent. Those new tools — which 10 years ago were either nonexistent or in their infancy stage — are absolutely essential for today’s job seekers to be familiar with. A job seeker who does not show up on recruiters’ screens is simply ignored. This is a huge punishment for those who need a job. To be found and deemed qualified, candidates must learn how to use social media — and then use it extensively — beyond the three mentioned here. Social media are not only the venues for finding jobs but also tools that establish a positive reputation and credibility. Just remember that there are many, many applicants for just a few openings.

In-person networking supplements other social media networking. In-person networking should be considered a business transaction and not just social interaction the way many job seekers practice it. When networking in person, ask for opinions, introductions and referrals. Don’t be bashful; be slightly aggressive but still tactful. Most people are willing to help if asked.

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Tools for job seekers

Because technology has changed the job search system for both employers and job seekers, the latter group needs to quickly catch up. Employers use technology to source for talent. The majority of medium-size companies use some type of recruiting management system. Companies were forced into using such systems so they could become able to deal with larger and larger volumes of applicants, so they could save money, and so they could speed up the process. Most of the different kinds of applicant-tracking systems (ATSs) have become web-based, which extends access to the system by anyone in the organization who’s involved with the hiring process. This means that job seekers need to appeal to those people in the organization and not exclusively to human resources as in the past.

Regardless of which system recruiters use, job seekers need to improve their ranking in order to be found. Think about a Google search. Here are a few tips for improving ranking:

Use TagCrowd.com to visually match your résumé and the job description.
Match your résumé to the keywords used in the job description.
Use Microsoft Word to format your résumé, and avoid textboxes, tables and graphics.
Under the heading “Professional Experience,” list first the name of the company where you most recently worked; then, to the right of that, the dates of your tenure there; and then under the company name, the name of the position you held. Add a line or two of responsibilities or job duties, and then a bulleted list of a few specific and preferably quantifiable accomplishments. Then do the same for the job previous to that one.

The new ATSs incorporate social media tool functionality to reach passive candidates, to advertise job opportunities and to build talent communities for specific industries. Therefore, to generate multiple options for themselves, job seekers must at all times deploy diverse approaches to job seeking. Candidates need to learn how various ATSs work in order to get high enough scores to be found by a particular company’s system. A description of familiarizing oneself with the systems is vaster than can be accomplished here and will be the topic of one of my future articles.

Entrepreneur.com | October 8, 2016 | Alex Freund

#Leadership : LinkedIn’s HR Chief says the Best Managers Exhibit these 7 Behaviors… The Best Managers Exhibit All of the Behaviors they Demand of their Employees.

June 22, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Microsoft may have recently announced that it is acquiring the professional social network LinkedIn for $26.2 billion, but LinkedIn will continue operating independently.

Its management culture has been shaped by its founder and chairman Reid Hoffman, its CEO Jeff Weiner, and its head of HR, SVP of Global Talent Organization Pat Wadors.

Wadors spoke with Business Insider earlier this year, and she told us that there is a set of criteria that every manager at LinkedIn is judged on. They apply to any leader at any organization.

These are the behaviors the best managers at LinkedIn exhibit.

1. They support their employees’ professional development

In his 2014 book “The Alliance,” cowritten with Ben Casnocha and Chris Yeh, Hoffman rethinks the relationship between managers and employees, explaining how employers can attract and retain the best employees through the formation of alliances where everyone wins.

Key to this approach is managers recognizing that the days of lifetime employment are long over, and that their employees won’t stay with them forever. At LinkedIn, Wadors said, the best managers push their employees to constantly grow and develop with new challenges and learning opportunities.

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2. They continually review performance

Rather than waiting for the annual review to reveal insights into an employee’s performance, managers constantly keep a dialogue open with their team members.

“Reviews should not come with any surprises,” Wadors said. “They should be actually quite boring.”

3. They clearly set expectations

The best managers ensure that their employees know what is expected of them, and communicate them through discussions rather than a list of demands.

4. They foster an entrepreneur’s mentality

The best LinkedIn managers empower employees, telling them that they should always be thinking of new and better ways of doing things.

5. They encourage measured risk-taking

Wadors said that all employees should be able to say, “I have the autonomy to use my own judgment in getting the job done, within a framework. I’m encouraged to take intelligent risks for the better of LinkedIn and learn from my mistakes.”

LinkedIn’s culture incorporates the Silicon Valley ethos of not being afraid of failure, in the sense that if an experiment fails, it should be evaluated for lessons that can be immediately acted on, without stopping to mourn the loss.

6. They explain the company’s direction

The best LinkedIn managers are transparent, communicating the direction of the company to their team and explaining how they fit into its overall mission.

7. They walk the talk

And finally, the best managers exhibit all of the behaviors they demand of their employees.

Wadors said that employees have the best possible role model with their CEO Jeff Weiner, who is a strong and supportive presence within LinkedIn.

6. They explain the company’s direction

The best LinkedIn managers are transparent, communicating the direction of the company to their team and explaining how they fit into its overall mission.

7. They walk the talk

And finally, the best managers exhibit all of the behaviors they demand of their employees.

Wadors said that employees have the best possible role model with their CEO Jeff Weiner, who is a strong and supportive presence within LinkedIn.

Businessinsider.com | June 18, 2016 |

Richard Feloni