What are the best ways to find a new job?
Are you still just answering ads on the internet hoping to get an interview? If you are, you are wasting 90% of your time. Only 10% of people get jobs through answering ads on the internet. Here are the five best ways to get a job: 1. Expand your network and work your network – Make a list of everyone you know. Your network consists of all the people in your life including family, friends, alumni, former colleagues, doctors, personal lawyers, accountants, trainers, professional associations, clubs, and gyms. Include all your first degree contacts on LinkedIn. Reach out to each of them and tell them you are looking for a particular position. Ask them for referrals to other people in your field. 2.Write directly to a company.– Make a list of 200 places you would like to work and find out the name of a person two levels above your job title. Write directly to the person you don’t know, not asking for a job, but asking for 15 minutes of their time to learn more about their companies and the challenges they face.. Ask your professional contacts if they know anyone at those companies they can introduce you to. 3. Work with search firms and recruiters -Know that the search firm or recruiter is working for their clients to find them a perfect match to the job description. Get to know one or two specialty recruiters in your field so they think of you when a client comes to them with an opening. By working with recruiters you can get interviews that may or may not get you a job offer. 4. Job Boards – Answer ads on the internet; Do take advantage of many sites that list job openings. This may include, but not be limited to, Monster.com; Indeed, Idealist or professional associations that list openings. Follow up with a phone call to the hiring manager. Just don’t spend all your time on this because only 10% of people get their jobs this way. 5. There is no 5th way…anything else is a subset of the above four methods. If you can think of another method to getting the job of your dreams that does not fall into one of the above categories, let me know, and I will write about it! GEFFEN C A R E E R S www.geffencareers.com www.uspublishingjobs.com
How NOT to get a job!
In a recent op-ed article a recruiter complained about all the mistakes people made in applying for a particular job opening. There were dozens of resumes from people who had absolutely no experience in the field, or they did and were not specific about how they could help the company. He listed his phone number and only two candidates called him! Follow these rules and you are sure not to get asked in for an interview. Follow What Works if you want to get interviews. 1. Use one resume for any job title. What Works: Tailor your resume to a specific job title or function. You may wish to create several resumes if you have different job titles in mind. 2. Apply to any job that sounds interesting, even if you are not qualified. What Works: Apply if you have 70-80% of the qualifications. Most job announcements are wish lists and the hiring manager does not expect to get 100% of the skills and requirements listed. 3. Don’t call after you send a resume. What Works: If a number is listed (rarely) do call. If a number is not listed, do your homework and find a telephone number for the hiring manager and CALL. 4. Use the same cover letter for every job you apply for. What Works: Tailor your cover letter to the specific job using key words from the job description and respond to the challenges the company is facing. 5. Describe every job you have ever had. What Works: Everyone with the same job title has pretty much the same job description. Differentiate yourself with specific accomplishments on the jobs that are relevant to the position you seek. No need to include every single job. To unsubscribe respond to this email with UNSUBCRIBE in the subject line. — GEFFEN C A R E E R S www.geffencareers.com www.uspublishingjobs.com
How to Stay Motivated During a Job Search
You think you are doing all that you can for your job search and then, you hit a brick wall. You just can’t seem to do any more. You are tired of sending out resumes into a black hole. You are tired of not getting responses and you are de-motivated. What to do? Start calling… Here are some things you can do to stay on track and keep on searching: 1. Get some exercise. Go for a long walk every day, or go to a gym to work out. Take a jog, go for a swim. Do something every day to get your adrenaline pumping. 2. Get a job search buddy. It would be great for you if you know someone else looking for a job, but if you don’t that’s okay. Ask a friend to be your job search buddy. Call in once a week and update your friend on what you have done in the past week and what you plan to do in the next week. 3. Plan your day. If you are working you need to spend three hours a day or 15 hours a week on your job search. If you are not working, treat your job search as a job – spend 35 hours a week on your hunt. Plan those hours carefully writing emails, doing internet research, meeting your network, making phone calls, getting meetings, and interviews. 4. Volunteer. – Make sure you have something else to do that feels productive, whether tutoring after school, or helping out at the homeless shelter or food pantry. This takes you out of yourself a couple of hours a week. 5. Get a career coach. As with any behavioral change, it is important to be consistent, and have a neutral third party with special expertise who can help you through the process. When you want to invest your money, you go to a financial advisor, when you want to get fit, you use a personal trainer, and when you want to lose weight you go to a weekly meeting. So, too, with a job search, the best way to get advice and stay motivated is to use a personal career coach. — To unsubscribe, reply to this message with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line. GEFFEN C A R E E R S www.geffencareers.com www.uspublishingjobs.com
What do I do AFTER the Interview?
After the Interview – What next? The interview is really the beginning of your job process – as far as the company is concerned. Your job is to get to the second or third interview and ultimately get an offer. So what should you do after the interview? Reflect on the interview and make some notes about what you learned. What did you learn about the company? About the interviewer? Is there anything you can connect with on any level with the person who interviewed you? What questions could you have answered better? Are there any accomplishments you could have talked about? When are they going to make their decision? Plan your follow up letter. To whom? If you were interviewed by more than one person, you need to write to each person individually. Is this going to be an email, a snail mail, or a phone call? What objections do you need to overcome? What are their key challenges that you want to address? Did they say anything about your competition that is a cause for concern? Is there anything else you can add value to? Follow up with a phone call. Wait a few days to hear from them. If you don’t hear back within two days, call the hiring manager. Say you are extremely interested in the position and are wondering where they are in the decision process. Unsolicited proposal – If their objections seem too strong, or you are lacking in what they perceive as a key skill area, and you know you can do the job, then you may need to write a specific proposal to help solve their problem. Send this to the hiring manager. Plan to stay in touch. Once you have written and sent off your letter or email, plan to stay in touch every 4 to 6 weeks. Mention an article you read, a webinar you attended, or a seminar you participate in that is relevant to the company, the individual or the challenge they face. The interview is just the beginning of the process. Plan to stay in for the long haul. Some companies take weeks or even months to complete their search. — GEFFEN C A R E E R S www.geffencareers.com www.uspublishingjobs.com
How to "Fill the Gap" between jobs
Have you just been laid off? Or have you been out of work for a while? What do you put on your resume? Now is the time to do something about it. Not in 6 months or a year when you rewrite your resume and cannot account for 6 months or a year or more with no paid work. Here are five different ways you may make the best use of your time while you are out of work and job hunting 1) Volunteer – volunteering for a noble cause is good for them and good for you. Volunteering for an organization or using the skills you have is even better for your resume. For example, if you are in finance, you can volunteer to teach financial literacy for the Financial Women’s Association. If you are in marketing or branding or fundraising, you can volunteer for the Taproot Foundation, which offers pro Bono consulting services to non-profits. 2) Consult – With all your expertise in x you can become a consultant either short-term while you pursue full-time employment, or consider doing it full-time. Managers can do strategic planning, board retreats. IT folks can design websites for small businesses. Bookkeepers and accountants can work on short-term projects. 3) Join a professional association and become active – by joining you can build your network of experts in your field who can then alert you to new opportunities. You can work on a committee of the board which gets you more involved and you get to build relationships with the other members. 4) Improve your skills. Take a course or a multi-course certificate program. There are dozens of online courses and low cost alternatives at local community colleges and high schools. Fallen behind with technology? Now is the time to bone up on Excel or Constant Contact or some other application. 5) Work a temporary job – To stay sharp and keep productive and have something on your resume to fill the gap, a temporary job in your field may be just the thing. Choose an agency that specializes in your field and go in with your eyes open for opportunities. Short-term placements are open in many fields. And some of them turn into permanent positions. The point is, why wait? After a few months of job hunting without significant results, your resume will have a gap Make sure you take steps to do something productive with your time NOW that shows you are using your current skills or building new ones. –To unsubscribe please respond to this email with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line. www.geffencareers.com www.uspublishingjobs.com
How to “Fill the Gap” between jobs
Have you just been laid off? Or have you been out of work for a while? What do you put on your resume? Now is the time to do something about it. Not in 6 months or a year when you rewrite your resume and cannot account for 6 months or a year or more with no paid work. Here are five different ways you may make the best use of your time while you are out of work and job hunting 1) Volunteer – volunteering for a noble cause is good for them and good for you. Volunteering for an organization or using the skills you have is even better for your resume. For example, if you are in finance, you can volunteer to teach financial literacy for the Financial Women’s Association. If you are in marketing or branding or fundraising, you can volunteer for the Taproot Foundation, which offers pro Bono consulting services to non-profits. 2) Consult – With all your expertise in x you can become a consultant either short-term while you pursue full-time employment, or consider doing it full-time. Managers can do strategic planning, board retreats. IT folks can design websites for small businesses. Bookkeepers and accountants can work on short-term projects. 3) Join a professional association and become active – by joining you can build your network of experts in your field who can then alert you to new opportunities. You can work on a committee of the board which gets you more involved and you get to build relationships with the other members. 4) Improve your skills. Take a course or a multi-course certificate program. There are dozens of online courses and low cost alternatives at local community colleges and high schools. Fallen behind with technology? Now is the time to bone up on Excel or Constant Contact or some other application. 5) Work a temporary job – To stay sharp and keep productive and have something on your resume to fill the gap, a temporary job in your field may be just the thing. Choose an agency that specializes in your field and go in with your eyes open for opportunities. Short-term placements are open in many fields. And some of them turn into permanent positions. The point is, why wait? After a few months of job hunting without significant results, your resume will have a gap Make sure you take steps to do something productive with your time NOW that shows you are using your current skills or building new ones. –To unsubscribe please respond to this email with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line. www.geffencareers.com www.uspublishingjobs.com
How Do I Follow Up After The Interview?
So, now that you have had an interview and you thought you did pretty well, or, maybe, you thought it went poorly. What do you do next? After every meeting, whether it is for information gathering, career advice, or for an actual open position, you must follow up. This is not simply a thank you letter. This is a reinforcement of what you said, or, in addition to what you said during the meeting. It is also an opportunity to say what you shoulda, woulda, coulda, said but did not. It is an opportunity to overcome any objection they have about your background or skill set. Follow these steps: 1) If you think it went well -Write a letter in which you thank them for their time, you reiterate what you said during the interview that relates to your skill set to the job description. Show you learned something from listening to them that can help solve their problems. Repeat that you are very interested in working for them, if not now, then in the future. 2) If you think you bombed – You can actually use this letter to recover from a poor interview. Write a letter that thanks them for their time. Say you thought about one (or two ) of their questions and here is how you would have answered them. Do some research and write a proposal that could help them solve their problem or increase their customer satisfaction. 3) Follow up in one week if you don’t hear from them – Call the hiring manager or the person who interviewed you to get some time on the phone to reiterate that you remain interested in working for them. 4) Keep following up every 4 to 6 weeks – with a piece of information that you found that might be relevant, an article you read, a seminar you attended, or some other bit of news that is relevant to the individual’s challenges and to the company. 5) Write to the person who originally introduced you and thank them for the opportunity. Remember that the interview is merely the first step in the process, it is not the end. You want to be asked back for the second and third interviews and get the offer. –P.S. “Using LinekdIn for Your Job Search” June 14, 6-7:30 PM at SIBL library, 188 Madison Avenue, between E. 34th and E 35th Streets. GEFFEN C A R E E R S www.geffencareers.com www.uspublishingjobs.com
How to Consider a New Career
Let’s say you want to change careers, not just the same job in a different industry, but a totally different job. How do you make sense of your skills? How do you figure out what job is right for you? Take these 5 steps to find your new job target: 1. Assess your skills. People have skills in six key areas: Verbal, Written, Creative, Mathematical, Organizing & Coordinating, Foreign Language. Think about your achievements in past work, school, volunteering or consulting. What did you do and what resonates for you? Go through your top accomplishments and see what skills seem to come up repeatedly. Which of your top skills are you willing to do in a different job setting? 2. Identify your interests – Do you like sports or travel? Do you like working for a company that has a mission you can believe in or a company that innovates technology? Do you enjoy the outdoors or prefer an urban landscape? Think about your hobbies and what you like to do in your leisure time. 3. Brainstorm – Combine your skills and interests to brainstorm possible job targets. For example, if you are good in accounting and want to work for an organization that has a socially conscious mission, then you may want to work as an accountant or bookkeeper in a non-profit organization. If you are good at organizing and planning projects and like international cultures, perhaps you want to be a project manager for an international bank. If you are a good writer and like fashion, you could write press releases for a fashion house or articles for a newspaper or magazine. 4. Do your research – Look on the internet, talk to people in your field, go back to your alumni directory and contact alumni with job titles you might be interested in. Talk with them on the phone or in person to find out how they got to this stage of their career, what did they do to get there, what skills does one need to succeed? Go to your local library to peruse the Dictionary of Occupational Titles or look at the Occupational Outlook Handbook from the US Department of Labor online to find out job titles. Scan the job descriptions on job sites, such as Monster, Glassdoor, Indeed, Idealist, etc. to find jobs that sound interesting. 5. Select two to three job targets to concentrate on. Make a list of companies, organizations and industries where that job title exists. Then go for it. Remember – June 14 SIBL LIbrary, 6-7:30 PM “How to Use LinkedIn for Your Job Search” — GEFFEN C A R E E R S www.geffencareers.com
TAKING ONE STEP BACK TO GO FORWARD
The conventional wisdom is to go for the next highest position. Don’t take a cut in pay because it will set you back. Don’t take time off or go for part-time work because you will not be able to get back into the workforce. But the fact is, sometimes you have to take one step back to move forward. Each job is not the last one, it is simply another step along the way or another rung of your career ladder. Here are five ways to take a step back in order to move forward: Take a cut in pay! Why would I do that? That will set me back for my next job. Well, if you have been looking for a long time and not getting any offers, maybe you are asking for too much money. Just like a house that sits on the market for a long time because the owner insists on getting his price, if you are asking too much, you may be missing out on oportunities. One of my clients took a 50% cut in pay because he needed to have income to pay the bills and support his family while he continued to look for another higher-paying job. Take a part-time job – If you are changing job functions or industries, it may help to get your foot in the door by taking a part-time or temporary position. You get to learn about the industry and have something to put on your resume. Give up benefits or 401K – Many interim positions are full-time with good salaries but lack the benefits you may be expecting. Medical, dental, vision and a 401K are standard benefits these days, but not if your position is “interim”. Sometimes it helps to get into an interim position which can last from three to six months or sometimes longer, up to a year or more. This keeps your skills sharp and you stay at an appropriate level position while continuing to pursue permanent employment. Move to another city…or go from the city to the suburbs or vice versa. You may be dead set on staying in your current location, but if the jobs are drying up or have moved elsewhere, it is important to take into consideration the possibility of commuting longer or moving. Step out of management back into operations – If you have been a senior manager and are used to having a large staff to do the multi-tasking you may find those jobs are fewer and farther between. Stepping back into a role you are familiar with in terms of operations may be the answer. You will be able to do the job easily and not have to deal with the upper management or the board. Amy Geffen is a Five O’Clock Club Certified Career Coach with over 30 years of experience in management, non-profits and associations. She has worked with finance, insurance and engineering professionals, as well as lawyers, editors, marketers, students, and those over 50 experiencing ageism. She has a Master’s Degree from Harvard University and a PhD from New York University. — GEFFEN C A R E E R S www.geffencareers.com
5 Ways to Use Your Perfect Pitch
Once you have your pitch, which is your carefully crafted, practiced, 2 minute commercial for you, how can you use it in your job search? Here are 5 ways to use your perfect pitch. 1 Networking – When you meet someone for the first time at a networking event, an alumni reunion, a party or get together, use your pitch to introduce yourself and then find out about the other person. A brief intro might include what you do now, your key skills, and one or two accomplishments. No one likes to hear you drone on and on. You need to ask questions to show an interest in the other person. In your cover letter – When you write to a company, whether in answer to an ad, or directly to a hiring manager, use your pitch in the first part of your cover letter to introduce yourself and mention one or two key accomplishments. The object is to use the same words several times during the job process so the hiring manager remembers you. During Your Interview – When you are on an interview for a job, you will frequently hear the question, So, tell me about yourself, or, how did you get to this point in your career? Instead of launching into an autobiography or a chronological account, use your pitch to briefly introduce yourself. Linked In Page – Use the 140 characters at the top of your profile and the summary section of your profile to re-purpose your pitch– key words, your years of experience, two or three key accomplishments. Follow Up – After an informational meeting, or after an interview, use your pitch in the follow-up email to reinforce what you said during the discussion. It doesn’t hurt to repeat yourself. Use what you said during the interview in your follow-up email to remind the hiring manager of your background and your key accomplishments. –Copyright 2017 Amy Geffen All rights reserved. GEFFEN C A R E E R S www.geffencareers.com