True Story:

Last week, I was in a business reception area waiting to be interviewed for a job. I was fully prepared for my interview and very relaxed. Another applicant came in and sat down next to me, so I introduced myself and asked if he was there to meet the same interviewer I was scheduled to see.

He said "I don't know. I'm not even sure what job I'm interviewing for."

I thought "WHAT?? Did I actually just hear that??"

Sadly, I did.

I eventually realized he was meeting the same interviewer and, to make matters worse (for him), we were interviewing for a senior-level consulting position with a high-level consulting firm. We were meeting with an Executive Vice President of the firm who was as sharp and observant as they come. To give you an idea of the type of interview it was, at the end, the Executive Vice President asked me (as well as the other applicants) to write an outline of our conversation and leave it with the recruiter before we left to test how well we listened, retained, and could document the 40 minute discussion we had!

Without being in the room, I can only imagine the "deer-in-the-headlights" interview the applicant who initially sat next to me in the reception area must have had.

How well do you prepared for interviews?

Do you research the company you are applying to work for? You should know as much about the company as you can before ever stepping foot in front of an interviewer. Know the company's strategy, its position in the market, its competitors, its growth and everything else you can find out. Be able to tell an interviewer how you can help them solve one or more of their problems, why you want to work for that company specifically, etc. The last thing you want to do in an interview is throw out a cliché phrase like "I want to work with your company because it is growing and I will have opportunity to grow with you" when the company has actually declined over the past year. To be honest, if you haven't researched the company, what makes you sure you would want to work there in the first place?

Do you ask for the interviewer's name ahead of time and learn as much as you can about them? If not, do so for the same reasons as researching the company. Before my last interview, I spent hours researching the company and the interviewer. I downloaded and read articles he had written. I downloaded an interview he had given and listened to it several times. I walked into the interview feeling like I knew him - and KNOWING I would like to work with him because I learned we shared the same philosophies relating to work, business and customers.

And I learned we had things in common beyond our work philosophies. For example, we were both veterans and served in time of conflict. That allowed me to walk into the interview with something in common beyond an employer/applicant relationship and was actually the beginning of our discussion!

Because I realize interviewers often have little or no time to read through resumes and other supporting documentation prior to the interview, I brought along copies of mine to share as discussion and supporting points during our interview. It was printed on bond paper and professionally bound to make an additional impression. It included 19 references I had gathered- not just names and phone numbers, but actual written references. I opened and shared several of the references to strengthen points about my abilities during the interview. At the end, I gave it to him to keep and referred to it again in my thank you card- prompting him to remember me, the time I took to be the professional he was looking for, and quantity/quality of referrals I came with.

Do I have the job? I don't know yet; the second round of interviews haven't started as of the time I wrote this. There is one thing I can tell you, though- the interviewer knew I was professional, that I cared enough to take the time to prepare, and would better represent his company to clients better than the applicant who didn't know why he was there.

When you go to an interview, make it YOUR zone and not allow it to become an episode from the Twilight Zone!

In February, CareerXroads released their 8th annual Source of Hire Study, a comprehensive report of how 309,600 job openings were filled during 2008. It contained some very interesting information for job hunters!

How did respondents fill open positions?

38.8% - Internal transfers and promotions
27.3% - Referrals
20.1% - Hiring company's web site
12.3% - Job boards (not counting the hiring company's web site)
7.8% - Direct Sourcing
3.6% - College
3.2% - Career Fairs
3.1% - Temp-to-hire
2.7% - Agency
2.4% - Rehires
0.8% - Walk-ins

From the list above, let's break the job board percentave down further by major sites:

3.55% - CareerBuilder
2.82% - Monster
1.23% - Hot Jobs
0.03% - Linkedin
0.01% - The Ladders
4.45% - Niche sites combined (such as Craig's List, etc.)

According to CareerXroads, hiring from job boards has peaked and will begin to diminish. Monster and CareerBuilder represented 50% of job board hires and only a little over 6% of overall hiring combined! Over the past year, Monster has lost ground to CareerBuilder and they both are rapidly losing ground to "niche" job and social sites.

Why is this information so important? It shows you where to concentrate your energy for the greatest impact! I can't tell you how many books and papers I have read telling people to print out resumes and go visit companies to tap part of the "hidden" job market, yet walk-ins represent less than 1% of overall hires! That sure as heck doesn't sound like a good use of your time, energy and gasoline!

On the other hand, referrals represent over 27% of hiring- once again indicating how important networking is. If you combine referrals (networking) and company web site postings, you hit almost 50% of the hiring "sweet spot." Now, there's a good use of your time!

Good luck!

The report can be found at: Report

Treat your resume as your personal advertisement to employers.  Does your resume sell you as the best potential employee in the stack? Does it grab the employer's attention or read like a list of generic resume clichés? Make yours unique to sell yourself! Let me share a powerful marketing tactic with you:

Benefits sell, features support.

What does that mean? Think about car advertisements. For example, airbags are a feature - you and your family surviving a horrific accident is the benefit. Gas mileage is a feature - saving an average of $500.00 a year in gas is the benefit. Features are simply facts while benefits are tangible items that evoke mental images and emotions such as love, joy, surprise, anger, sadness and fear.

"Introduced new products" is a feature-based statement. "Developed, introduced and launched successful new products, which increased market share 5% and contributed $1 million to bottom-line profitability" is benefit-based statement.

What benefits do you offer the employer?

One easy method to make your resume statements benefits-based is to apply the "So, what?" test to them. After reading each achievement on your resume, imagine an interviewing saying "So, what?" Your response to that would be the benefit statement you need to add. It's that easy!

While we're on the topic of using marketing tactics, if you haven't grabbed their attention within the top third of the first page, you have probably made the reader's eyes glaze over and have greatly reduced your odds of making it to the interview.

Make sure it is free of misspellings and grammatical errors. They are resume (and job) killers. Have every family member and friend you know proofread your resume before you send or post it anywhere. Trust me; even the best writers make mistakes. Once an employer receives and reads your resume, it's too late to change the impression it has left on them- so make it good!

Is it written clearly? Your resume should be easy to understand and to the point. When writing clear statements, avoid using industry- and company-specific terms and acronyms. For example, there are over 100 definitions for the acronym "ATM", with more than one just within the financial world. If a Human Resource person has to ask themselves if ATM meant "Asynchronous Transfer Mode", "Automatic Teller Machine", or "At The Money?" on the resume, you've lost ground. Apply the Grandmother rule; if your grandmother wouldn't understand what you've written, you need to clarify it!

Is it written succinctly? Distill your resume to the minimum amount of words needed to get your point across; writing a resume the length of "War and Peace" won't help you much. One rule I apply is hunting and eliminating the word "that" as often as possible. Once I have finished writing, I search for the word "that" and usually can eliminate it without changing the sentence. 

The benefits statement from above:

"Developed, introduced and launched successful new products, which increased market share 5% and contributed $1 million to bottom-line profitability"

Can be distilled to:

"Developed, introduced and launched new products, increasing market share 5% and profits by $1 million"

It didn't need to state the products were successful, that is inherent by the market share and profit increase. Also, stating "bottom-line" profitability is redundant - all profits are "bottom-line" by nature.

In conclusion, make sure your resume is free from errors, clear, concise, and reads like an advertisement full of benefits which would excite a potential employer!

Since posting my resume on numerous job sites such as Monster, CareerBuilder and others, I have received numerous unsolicited offers to sell me "secrets" and other services. Many are wolves in sheep's clothing who prey on the desperation of individuals who are unemployed. When you are unemployed, you are vulnerable and the wolves know it.

Any time I get an offer by email, I look the company name up through a Google search. Often the wolves have unfavorable postings, but I have found they are getting smarter. Some of them will set up additional "review" web sites that tout themselves and rate themselves #1 against their competitors. Those are usually weeded out by the URL, or web address. If it looks weird, it probably is a setup.

Beware of:

•·    Time-limited offers where you must act now or lose this "incredible offer" forever. They probably don't want you to think about or  research them before spending money.

•·    Any site that asks for personal information not needed during a job hunt- they may be "phishing" for identity theft info. Nobody, and I do mean NOBODY needs your social security number, date of birth, or other very personal information to help you hunt for jobs.

•·    "Secrets" for sale in general. There are no secrets. Most "secret" material is re-hashed information freely available on the Internet. Don't confuse this with people (like those on this site) who post "Secrets" for free. They have taken the time to gather material, add their own experience and offer it to you free of charge- that's worth reading and I commend them for doing so!

•·    High-dollar offers that demand full up-front payment. A friend of mine spent over $600 to receive a resume with numerous grammatical and spelling errors. I bet he will never get any his money back from them, only eternal re-writes.

•·    "Too good to be true" offers. Never touch them with a ten-foot pole. One example is on my local cable channel in the morning touting how to become rich using the Internet secrets of a certain guru. It is full of people stating how they now make thousands of dollars a week doing very little because of their magical web sites. Do you really think people making that kind of money really want you competing with them for it? Common sense says no. Save your money! The only easy way to get rich quick is to inherit a boatload of money! (That is without killing somebody, of course!)

There is a ton of information relating to scams targeting job hunters on the internet. I would suggest searching "job scans" and reading the articles to familiarize yourself with them.

Here is a link to one search that will provide many articles:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4WZPA_enUS270US271&q=job+scams

Enjoy, and be careful out there!

There are companies that actually thrive during a bad economy. For example, there is a food corporation just south of where I live that grew over 20% last year and is still growing and hiring! How do they do that? They provide quality chicken and other cost-effective foods. During an economic downturn, people start eating less expensive foods.

In your job hunting, follow the money! Look for organizations that are growing despite the economy. Think they are hard to find? Just Google "growing companies." The 100 fastest growing companies of 2008 can be found at:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortunefastestgrowing/2008/full_list/

Call your state's Department of Labor and ask them what businesses are growing in your state. Call the local Better Business Bureau, Chamber of Commerce, and every other business-centered organizations and simply ask!

Follow the money and you will find the jobs!

In the past 25 years, I have experienced and survived corporate closings, department layoffs, weekly reorganizations and just about everything else imaginable. Throughout the good and downright ugly, I survived and thrived. I grew. I became a stronger person and ended up better off after each.

Those who worked in the 80s recognize the same economic challenges we now see in 2009. Yet, I see major differences this go-around. Job hunting is harder. Why?

People are working later in life - often into their retirement age to supplement stock market-based retirement funds that have vanished or a lack of retirement savings altogether.

The job market is changing - manufacturing and professional jobs are going offshore or near-shore, creating more competition for remaining jobs.

There are more predators touting the jobless with "secrets" and services that are often overpriced and worthless in the job hunt.

Politicians are hurting us through rhetorical grandstanding - actually stagnating an economy that could be recovering already. Now, before you get angry at me, tell me how today's 8% unemployment is comparable to the 24% unemployment of the Great Depression the current politicians compare today's environment with. It doesn't add up, but does enable them to scare people, grow the government's presence and pass spending bills full of add-ons unrelated to the economy. I spoke with my 92 year-old grandfather who lived through the depression and he laughs at the thought of comparing today to it.

Economists are hurting the economy through self-fulfilling, sensationalistic predictions that are more designed to make the news than predict the future. Even when signs of recovery are showing, we still get "doom and gloom" reports from them. Ever wonder why? That's easy - it makes the evening news and they make money at our expense. They scare people out of spending money and then stand back and say "I told you so!" when the economy dips as a result.

Why do I bring this up? Certainly not to anger you. I want you to stop allowing them to scare or depress you. I have seen people give up in despair because the prophets of doom keep blowing their trumpets and pounding their chests.

Work is out there. Yes, you heard me right- WORK IS OUT THERE!

It may not be the same work you were doing before. It may pay a little less. You might even have to move to get to it, but it is there. Many people want to remain in their comfort zone, doing what they've done for years. That doesn't necessarily work anymore. If you've been laid off, you may have to re-invent yourself, try another line of work, and go where the money is.

Just remember - along the way, don't listen to the doom and gloom folks. The work is out there.