Lake County IL Jobs

By Elizabeth Medina on April 25th, 2013

Craigslist: The Lowdown

What Every Job Seeker Should Know

There’s no doubt about it. Craigslist has become a popular online venue for job seekers. It’s the most trafficked site when it comes to searching for a job. Craigslist is also in a class by itself with jobs from small and medium-sized employers. Because it‘s managed to build a reputation of being a great source for free and low-cost classified job postings, it works for those employers — ESPECIALLY if they’re on a really tight budget.

So what exactly is the lowdown you, as the job seeker, need to know when it comes to making use of Craigslist to search for a job?

If you’re okay working for or like working for a small or medium-sized employer, then, by all means, make aggressive use of it. Bookmark Craigslist and check job postings religiously several times a day. While the job postings can be rather vague as to who is exactly doing the hiring, these small and medium-sized employers are serious about finding the right employees. Most respond to applicants and will conduct phone screens in the very least.
Not all Craigslist jobs are legit. You’ll need to sort out some scam ads during your browsing sessions. If you have common sense and a brain, you can weed out the B.S. and find some great jobs on it.
There are more part-time jobs on Craigslist than full-time jobs. If full-time work is a sticking point for you, you may want to re-consider utilizing Craigslist so you’re not searching for that proverbial needle in a haystack.
Craigslist is a good site for freelancers, contractors and those who’d like to seek an internship. If you fall into one of those categories, your odds of landing a job on Craigslist dramatically increase.
Craigslist works better if you live in a larger city people have actually heard of and not so much in smaller town. It doesn’t hurt to look, but unless you live in a larger city or close to larger cities don’t be surprised if you don’t find anything.
Craigslist is a lot like a thrift store in terms of being very hit or miss. It really depends on the area you’re looking in as well as the type of job you’re looking for. But just know that there may be more misses than hits. But just because Craigslist is more often miss than hit doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make use of it. After all, there’s this old saying: “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
Pay attention to what you are applying for. Figure out what they‘re really saying in the ad. Ads that go into a lot of details so the applicant knows exactly who and what they’re applying for ensures that the employer can cut down on wasted time shifting through inappropriate applicants. It also allows you, the applicant, to cut down on wasted time applying for an employer you don’t want to work for or a job you’re really not qualified for.
Companies asking applicants to sell a product or service, engage in door to door sales, work from home, purchase gift cards, and participate in focus groups and studies for cash and other incentives are prevalent on Craigslist.
If the employer states they want someone fluent in English, don’t send an E-Mail with the following: “My inglish is good so pleese hire me.” Employers get far too many E-Mails with that response. It looks bad, really bad, and it won’t get you hired let alone an interview or phone screen.
Avoid responses like the following: “Hi my name is Claudia I’m interesty to job…how to do for apply…thank” or Hi my name is Greg and I’m excited about this opportunity… call me at (555) 555-5555…I’m highly qualified for the job” Again, employers get far too many E-Mails with that response. It looks bad, really bad, and it won’t get you hired let alone an interview or phone screen.
Treat the job ad like an interview for your ideal job. Imagine that you are about to get interviewed for a position in a company that you really want work for. Spend some time preparing what you want to say and customize your E-Mail to the job that is posted. If you’re applying to get a position as a web designer, don’t send your resume full of glowing references to your past as an IT technician. It’s unbelievable how many “IT guys” apply for a job as a “web guy.” They are completely separate positions and require different skill sets and personality traits. Again, it goes back to the point of paying attention to what you’re applying for and figuring out what they’re really saying in the ad. Please don’t look like a fool all because you failed to do that.
Many applicants send a blank E-Mail with an attached resume. Avoid that and utilize the body of the E-Mail as a cover letter. Make sure your cover letter conveys the right message, is grammatically correct and, of course, free of spelling errors. If you utilize the body of the E-Mail as a cover letter, you’ll definitely stand out among employers.
Don’t be vague with the employer. If you’re applying for a web designer position, don’t say you’re familiar with all the designing software and leave it at that. Tell the employer what software you’re familiar with and in what context. Have you just heard of that software or have you actually utilized it at some point? Give them specifics of what you can do with that software and provide samples, if possible, unless they ask for them outright. Again, it goes back to the point of conveying the right message.
Upload your resume as an attachment. Make sure your resume is in the form of a Word file. PDF is even better. (PrimoPDF is a freeware program that creates a PDF from Word documents and I highly recommend it.)
Don’t customize the reply title. Utilize the title of the job posting in your E-Mail. Don’t change it to something as generic as “Craigslist Job,” as the employer may have multiple job postings listed. This just confuses matters where the employer is concerned. Feel free to add, in parentheses, extra words such as “This is PERFECT for me,” “Over 7 years of healthcare experience” or “I’m an ideal candidate for this job.” This is fine and most employers will not have a problem with it.
If the job’s being posted repeatedly posted, watch out. Ask yourself why this employer is posting the job every 2 or 3 weeks or every 3 or 4 months. With so many unemployed people, this shouldn’t be happening.
If employer advertises every single day or the job sounds too good to be true, don’t apply.

Remember, Craigslist was never set up as a job search site. Its job listings have both pros and cons. While it’s possible to find legitimate jobs on Craigslist, you’ve got to know how to spot the red flags in order to sort the good from the bad. That’s why I’ve gone ahead and have given you the lowdown on Craigslist. I want to make it safer and easier for you to make use of it if you choose to do so.

Job Search

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By Elizabeth Medina on February 11th, 2013

Should You Send a Recent Photo With Your Resume?

To Send or Not To Send

While it’s expected of job applicants to submit a cover letter, résumé, and their salary requirement, history or expectations, it’s not expected of job applicants to have to provide a recent photo. While some employers add that the photo is optional, others actually require it in order to review your résumé and offer you an interview.

Call me crazy, but even as a determined job seeker, I think it’s a bit sketchy to send a picture of myself to a potential employer, unless you’re applying for an entertainment-related position where head shots are the norm. I can understand the whole concept of wanting to put a face to a name, but this growing trend is just odd and it seems really common with local employers who choose to advertise on Craigslist.

So, is this hiring practice even legal?

Not according to Dan Eaton, an employment attorney at Seltzer, Caplan, McMahon, and Vitek in San Diego. Eaton says that it’s illegal to ask for a photo in connection with a job application, as it could disclose, for example, race and ethnicity, and act as an unlawful screening mechanism.

Furthermore, the EEOC says that photograph may be obtained after an offer of employment is made and accepted, but only if needed for identification purposes.

Since requests for recent photos of applicants could well offend anti-discrimination legislation and has no relevancy to employment suitability, I’d highly suggest avoiding applying to job ads that solicit recent photos. If you MUST apply, then omit the recent photo no matter how much the potential employer wants you to submit one. Just because they’re not doing the right thing doesn’t mean you have to either. Have the integrity they don’t have and protect yourself from an unfair hiring practice.

Your Resume

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By Rick Biederer on January 28th, 2013

Top 5 Interview Blunders

Recently, I had the opportunity to help conduct interviews for an online marketing position. The company asked me to help because of my background in IT and social media. They needed me to weed out the resumes that did not meet the job requirements and then conduct a short phone interview to determine the technical capability of the applicants.

It was a great experience and I learned a lot during the process. Once a candidate made it past the resume review, a phone interview was scheduled so I could better judge their ability to perform the job. If they made it past the phone interview, a live interview was scheduled.

The live interviews all went very well. All of the candidates were qualified for the position and any one of them would have been successful fit. However, during the phone interviews, I noticed that many of the job candidates were making some very basic mistakes. This was the first chance for the candidates to make a lasting impression and quite a few shot themselves in the foot (some more than once).

If you are currently looking for a job, pay close attention to the following mistakes made by my interviewees during our phone interviews and make sure not to duplicate their errors.

5 Phone Interview Mistakes Real People Made

1. Come Prepared – “But it’s a phone interview, what could I possibly have besides my voice?” First, have samples of your work ready to be viewed online or sent over in an email, especially if you are applying for a tech savvy position. Since the position I was hiring for involved a lot of online content writing, I expected to be able to view some writing samples while conducting the phone interview.

While some candidates did have some samples, others had no writing samples or very outdated writing samples. Also, make it as easy as possible for the interviewer. One person submitted writing samples but they were all in picture format. This was not a deal killer but it was a step in the wrong direction.

Not only could the candidates have had writing samples online, they could have prepared ahead of time by creating a simple Word document that contained all their job related content such as links to social networking profiles (not usernames and passwords which is now illegal in Illinois), social media campaigns they have managed in the past and a list of websites they currently own or manage. At any point in the interview the candidate could have asked for my email and sent me the information.

2. Show Some Personality – If you have made it to the phone interview, please, for the love of God, do not speak in monotone voice the entire conversation. Show some personality. If you can connect with the interviewer and create a good conversational flow that draws your interviewer in, you are going to leave them with a positive impression. Droning on relentlessly will only leave your interviewer bored, causing them to miss how great of an employee you would be.

Fortunately, I only had one person who spoke in a monotone voice. While this was not an instant deal killer, it left a negative impression that did not help their chances to receive an in-person interview.

3. Mind The Time – You know what’s worse than speaking with a person who speaks in a monotone voice the whole time? A person who speaks to you in a monotone voice for 15 minute stretches without pause. Unfortunately for me, the monotone interview also ended up being the person who talked for 15 minutes at a time for each answer.

When your interviewer tells you that this should be a short 15 to 20 minute interview, please keep that in mind when giving your answers. Talking for 15 minutes in response to the first question is not going to earn brownie points. In fact, your interviewer just may be struggling to keep their eyes open after the first minute or so.

Try and keep your answers to under 90 seconds. Ninety seconds is about the limit of a person’s attention span. Any longer and you risk losing your interviewer. Keep your answers concise but make sure to include everything the interviewer is looking for. If the interviewer wants more clarification on a particular point, they will ask you.

4. Imma Let You Finish But… – I think everyone remembers the issue Taylor Swift had with another entertainer interrupting her acceptance speech at the VMA awards back in 2009. Well it doesn’t just happen to country singers, it happens to interviewers too.

Interviews are give and take. The interviewer asks a question, the interviewee responds and the interviewer asks a follow up question if needed. Rinse, repeat. It has the ebb and flow of a natural conversation. Unless, like one of my interviewees, you don’t let the interviewer get a word in edgewise and interrupt whenever they try and speak. Not only is it rude but the interviewer will not be able to determine if you are the best candidate for the job. If they cannot direct the interview to the topics that are important to the employer, how will they know if you are able to handle the job functions?

Luckily, the interrupting interviewee was very qualified and they were usually answering the follow up question I was about to ask before I was able to finish the question. I chalked it up to mostly nervousness on their part.

5. Psst…Did You Hear What So-and-so Did? – I saved the best for last. Badmouthing your former employer is never a good idea. No matter what the situation, do not talk about your past employers mistakes and shortcomings. It only reflects negatively on you.

My final candidate managed to bring up how poorly their previous employer was managing their business in nearly all of their answers. In fact, they felt the owners were doing so poorly, that they decided it was a good idea to band together with other employees and former employees to create a forum on the internet about how incompetent the business owner was and what they should do to improve the business. It was bad enough that they had taken these actions, but they also decided to share this information throughout the entire interview. They did not make it to the in-person interview.

The last thing an interviewer wants to hear about is how bad your former employer was. The first thing that crosses their mind is, “Well what is this person going to say about us the minute they do not like something our company does?” If you are harboring ill feelings toward your last employer, just keep it to yourself.

Lessons

While searching for interview advice online, you will run into the same generic interviewing guidelines over and over again: Come prepared, Engage the interviewer, Keep your answers under 90 seconds, Be polite and Don’t badmouth past employers. There is a reason this advice is constantly being repeated. It’s because people are still making these same mistakes over and over again. During my interviewing experience I witnessed all of these mistakes first hand.

There is a certain amount of leeway that employers are going to give job applicants during the interview process. When interviewing a person, you expect a certain amount of nervousness and you expect that nervousness to surface in different ways for different people. Your job as the interviewee is to be aware of these mistakes so that you can prepare ahead of time and avoid making them. The more you prepare and practice for your interviews, the less likely you will be to blunder.

Interviewing

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By Rick Biederer on November 01st, 2012

The Education Difference

Finding Employment

There are many factors that impact your ability to find employment. Everything from your field of work to your location will have some effect on your job search and how successful it will be. For example, if you are in Illinois, which has an unemployment rate of 8.8%*, you will have to compete with a higher number of people than you would if you lived in Wisconsin with an unemployment rate of 7.3%*.

While you don’t necessarily have the ability to get up and move at a moments notice, there is another area of your life that you can change that will make an impact on your employability. Your education.

Education and Unemployment

If you take a look at the statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics image above, it becomes clear that the higher your education level, the better chance you have to remain employed. Compare, for example, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of a person who did not finish high school (11.3%) to the unemployment rate of a person who did finish high school (8.7%). There is a difference of 2.6% just for finishing high school.

Now compare the unemployment percentage of those that have a Bachelors degree or higher (4.1%) to the lowest unemployment numbers for the last 10 years (4.4%). That tells you that with a Bachelors degree or better you have a relatively high chance of keeping your job or being able to find a new one relatively quickly.

What to do?

Given the gaps in unemployment rates by education, if you do not have a Bachelors degree, you will become more employable by increasing your education level. If you do not yet have your high school diploma, find the GED Testing centers near you and find out what the requirements and costs are to complete your GED.

A Bachelors degree may not be readily attainable in the time frame you have available to you. If this is the case, you can take bite sized chunks out of it by completing individual classes, certifications, your Associates degree and then finish with your Bachelors degree. Go for your quickest attainable milestone if time is of the essence. The most important thing is that you take action now, not later.

What About the Costs?

One of the biggest hurdles to getting higher education is the cost. College tuition has increased an average of 6.75% each year over the last 10 years (See the chart above). One way to combat these rising costs is to take as many classes as you can at your local community college and transfer the credits over to a 4 year college when you are ready to finish up your Bachelors degree.

Creating a budget will help you to determine how much additional money you will need to pursue your degree. If you have a budget deficit and need additional money for college, talk to the people at IDES (or your local Department of Employment Services) for more information on receiving grants to finish school.

Another option that may be available to you is to apply for help under the Trade Adjustment Act (TAA). The Department of Labor Employment & Training Administration has a nice brochure explaining what the TAA is. You should also be able to get information and apply at the IDES office. When I was laid off in 2001, I took advantage of the TAA and it was of tremendous value. Without their assistance I would not have been able to complete my Bachelors degree.

Unemployment Gap Discrimination

If you do go back to school for any length of time, you may find that employers are hesitant to employ you simply because you have been out of work for so long. There are many ways to try and deal with this issue. One way I have not seen discussed very often is starting your own business.

I’ve talked about starting your own website previously in the Personal Branding article. Before you create a website and start an LLC or S Corp, be aware of the unemployment insurance implications. Talk to your unemployment office before jumping in and starting a business. You may end up becoming ineligible for future and current unemployment benefits by starting your own LLC or S Corp.

If you’ve already run out of unemployment benefits or you’re just ready to give it a try anyway, read on.

The cost of running a website is relatively inexpensive. A domain name should cost about $15 per year and hosting can be purchased for as little as $3.96 per month. If you buy a Hostgator domain name and hosting account through the links on FindIllinoisJobs.com, I will earn an affiliate commission and it will help support this website. I also highly recommend them. I run this website and several other websites on Hostgator’s shared hosting servers and I have yet to run into any issues with them.

If you choose to start a website and have little experience with running a website, there is a fantastic e-book called WP Starter Guide by Lisa Irby that does a great job helping people just starting out with WordPress Websites. Purchasing WP Starter Guide through the links on FindIllinoisJobs.com also helps support this site. I have personally bought this book and know from experience that it can help people who are just starting out with WordPress.

There are a lot of websites that can help you run a successful website so I’m going to give you the short version what you need to do.

Purchase a domain name and hosting account.
Write tons of high quality articles about your area of expertise.
Join affiliate programs and promote their products through banners and links.
Form an LLC / S-Corp.
Use this business as your current employment on your resume.

You do not want to lie about anything on your resume. So make sure it is clear that you own the business. Your intent is not to deceive. Your intent is to show that you are still active in the workforce and to demonstrate your ability.

One of the purposes of starting your own web business is to address your employment gap. How you address questions related to the formation of the business and your reasons for returning to the workforce is important. Here is an example of a possible interview question and response:

Interviewer: I see that you have your own business. Why is it that you have decided to come back to the workforce instead of continuing your business?

You: When I started working toward finishing my Bachelors degree three years ago, I decided to start a website to practice what I was learning and put the knowledge to use in a real work environment. My initial intent was to do this for myself as a way to keep active in my field and keep what I learned fresh in my mind. After a while I noticed that other people were finding the website helpful and were willing to pay for additional help. So I decided to form an LLC to help offset the costs of running the website and I had hopes of earning a full time living through it. While I have been successful, I believe this business model has plateaued for me. I decided to return to the workforce because I prefer the stability of a 9 to 5 job over the uncertain nature of running my own business.

How you address the interviewers question is going to depend entirely on your situation, of course.

Whether or not you decide to start your own website and business, it’s clear that attaining a higher level of education will positively affect your ability to find a job. As you achieve higher education levels, your chances of becoming unemployed and staying unemployed will decrease. While you may not be able to take four years out of the workforce to complete your four year degree, achieving one education goal at a time will steadily increase your chances of finding a job.

* – Unemployment rates for September 2012

Preparing For Change

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By Rick Biederer on October 22nd, 2012

Developing Your Personal Brand

The average duration of unemployment is currently (September 2012) sitting at 39.8 weeks. That means, if you were to be laid off today, you would most likely be out of work for nearly ten months. While part of the blame for such a long average unemployment duration can be attributed to the economy, another part is the result of the current high unemployment rate of 7.8 percent.

Quit frankly, employers can afford to be extra diligent due to the increased pool of unemployed workers to choose from. This does not mean that you have no hope. It does mean that extra work is required to show that you are the right candidate for the job. You will need to stand out for your abilities rather than what you did Friday night five weeks ago.

Assessing Your Reputation

According to a 2012 Jobvite Survey, 86% of recruiters are likely to look at social profiles. This means you need to look at your profile before recruiters have a chance and remove any questionable content. Listed below are the top issues recruiters in the Jobvite survey identified negatively with:

References to doing illegal drugs—78 percent reacted negatively.

Posts/tweets of a sexual nature—66 percent reacted negatively.

Profanity in posts/tweets—61 percent reacted negatively.

Spelling/grammar errors in posts/tweets—54 percent reacted negatively.

Pictures of consumption of alcohol—47 percent reacted negatively.

Overtly religious posts/tweets — 26 percent reacted negatively.

Political posts/tweets — 18 percent reacted negatively.

Your first step should be to go through your Facebook / Twitter / Social Media accounts and view your most recent posts to determine if any of your posts contain any of the content listed above. Don’t forget to vet any pictures you’ve added or shared.

Next, you will need to Google yourself. To do this, simply open up Google in your browser and search for your name in quotes. While this can be tedious, you should review the first ten pages of the search results for any inconsistent branding issues. Do any of the search results fall into the seven categories above? If so, you will need to take action.

While doing this Google search will catch most issues appearing on Google with your personal brand, you may want to go a step further. Especially if you know that you have consistently made any posts in the past that recruiters will view negatively. To be on the safe side you can do a specialized Google search for each social media site that you use. For example, to search for all of your Facebook posts on Google you would type the following in the Google search bar: site:facebook.com “your name“

Perform this search for each social network you participate on.

Taking the Appropriate Actions

Once you have found one or more potentially hazardous posts (i.e. personal posts) on your social media accounts, you need to take action. Understand that it is important to take action as early as possible. While you may have removed all your personal posts from their respective social media sites, Google may take much longer to remove the cached content (Google’s backup of your posts) from the search results. An example of Google’s cached content link can be seen below.

If you click the “cached” link on the right hand side in the Google search results, you will see the ‘picture’ that Google last took of your post. This is how employers can see the things you have already removed from your social media accounts but Google has kept.

Since Facebook is the most popular social networking platform I will show you how to control the visibility of your posts on Facebook. The first thing you need to do is change the visibility of your Facebook posts to ‘Friends’. The step by step instructions are listed below.

Click on Privacy Settings
Click on the drop down arrow in the upper right corner of your Facebook Page and then click on ‘Privacy Settings’
Choose Friends in the ‘For Mobile Apps’ section
There will be many sections on on the privacy settings page, so start with the Mobile Apps section. This section controls who sees the Facebook posts you make. Click on ‘Friends’, as seen below, to ensure only your friends can see your Facebook posts.
Click ‘Edit Settings’ in the ‘How You Connect’ section
Next move on to the ‘How You Connect’ Section and click ‘Edit Settings’.
Change the settings to what you feel comfortable with
When the window opens, you will have several choices to make. The settings below are set at the most stringent level. If you choose a less stringent privacy setting that those show below, there is more potential for employers to see something you do not want made public.
Adjust you ‘Timeline and Tagging’ settings by clicking edit settings
Next, move on to the ‘Timeline and Tagging section and click ‘Edit Settings’.
Change the settings to what you feel comfortable with
Most of these settings are important. Especially if you have friends who tag you in personal posts/pictures or post questionable content onto your timeline. If this is the case, at the very least change your settings to ‘Friends’ only. To disallow tagging in photo’s you will have to turn on the option, ‘Review posts friends tag you in before they appear on your timeline’. This affects posts that are made after you turn reviewing on. Existing tags will have to be removed manually by clicking on options in the lower right corner of the image.
Adjust your ‘Ads, Apps and Websites’ settings by clicking edit settings
Now move on to the ‘Ads, Apps and Websites’ section by clicking on the ‘Edit Settings’ button.
Change the settings to what you feel comfortable with
There are two areas in this section that are important. The first is ‘Apps You Use’ and the second is ‘Public Search’. In the apps you use section you can remove an app or adjust the settings on who can see posts from that app. You will have to select each app individually and change the settings for each one. You can probably remove a lot of these apps without any consequences.In the public search section, uncheck ‘Enable public search’ if you do not want your posts to show up in Google.(Click to Enlarge)
In the ‘Limit the Audience for Past Posts’ click ‘Manage Past Post Visibility’
Click ‘Limit Old Posts’ if you want to change every post you’ve made to ‘Friends Only’
If you choose to limit all of your old posts, every post you’ve made on Facebook that previously had visibility greater than ‘Friends Only’, will revert to ‘Friends Only’.

Handling Friend Requests From Recruiters and Hiring Managers

So far I’ve discussed what you can do to keep your profile out of Google and limit your post exposure to those that you have on your friends list. But what happens if the hiring manager sends you a friend request? Rejecting the friend request is probably not the best of ideas. It implies that you have something to hide.

There are two things you can do at this point. Your first option is to make all personal posts visible to only you by going to your timeline (click on your name in the upper right corner) and clicking the little drop down arrow next to each of your posts that you would like to hide and change the visibility to ‘Only Me’. You could also delete the posts entirely by clicking the pencil in the upper right corner and choosing delete.

While this solves the issue of personal post visibility, it also stifles an outlet that you use to communicate with the people that you know. There is a better option available. In short, what you want to do is create a friend list, put work people and potential employers in that list, hide all personal posts from people in that list and set all your posts to be hidden from them by default automatically.

How to Create and Use Lists: Step by Step Instructions

Click on the ‘More’ Link in Your News Feed
‘More’ should appear in the left hand navigation of your Facebook page. If the ‘More’ navigation does not appear on your timeline, skip to step 2.
Click on the ‘More’ Link Next to Friends
The ‘More’ link next to ‘Friends’ will only appear when your mouse cursor is hovering over the ‘Friends’ header. You should also see any existing friends lists listed below the Friends header.
Click the ‘Create List’ Button
After you click on ‘More’, some default friends lists will show up. You want to create a brand new friends list so click on the ‘Create List’ button.
Name Your List / Add people
Choose a descriptive name such as ‘Work People’ for your friends list and start typing in the names of people you want to hide posts from. As you type, your friends will pop and and you can choose them.
Modify Your List
To add people to your list later, find the ‘Friends’ header on the left hand side of your ‘News Feed’ and click on the list (‘Work People’) you want to add friends to. Then click the ‘Manage List’ drop down at the top and ‘Edit List’. From the drop down ‘On This List’, choose ‘Friends’ and then pick the people you want to add to the list. Add recruiters or employees to your list as they friend you. Remember, they will see everything your personal friends can see until you add them to your ‘Work People’ list.(Click to enlarge)
Hide Individual Personal Posts From Your List
Now you can go through your personal posts (the ones you don’t want recruiters to see) on your timeline and change the visibility to ‘Custom’. When you do this, you have the option to hide the personal post from people on your ‘Work People’ list. The benefit of using lists to keep your personal posts private is that once you add someone to your ‘Work People’ list, you do not have to go back and change the visibility of individual personal posts any longer. All of your personal posts are blocked from view the minute you add someone to the list. You can see who can see your personal post by hovering your mouse cursor over the asterix next to the date on your personal posts. See the pictures below for a visual of each step.
Hide Personal Posts by Default
The last step is ensuring that future personal posts are hidden from your ‘Work People’ list by default. To do this, go into your privacy settings and change the, ‘For mobile apps’ setting to ‘Custom’ and add your ‘Work People’ list to the ‘Hide This From’ box. As a precaution, always check the asterix to see who the post will be visible to before hitting the ‘Post’ button. If it says ‘Public’ or ‘Friends’, you can change it before you post by clicking the drop down next to the post button.

Why Go Through The Trouble?

You may be asking yourself why you would want to go through all this trouble of creating lists and hiding your personal posts if you can simply set your Facebook page to hide all of your posts from everyone except people on your friends list.

Setting everything to ‘Friends Only’ doesn’t help if an interviewer puts you on the spot in the middle of an interview and tells you he has just sent you a friend request and he’d like you to go ahead and approve it…during the interview. You could say, ‘No’, and look bad or, if you’ve set up your ‘Work People’ list, you could say, ‘Sure, but for privacy purposes, I hope you don’t mind if I accept on my phone/tablet.” Then while accepting his request, add him to the ‘Work People’ list right away. All of your personal posts are kept personal and the interviewer is kept happy.

Only one state, Maryland, currently has laws in effect that prevent employers from asking for your social networking passwords. Illinois has also passed a law that will take effect on January 1st, 2013. Until then, if you do not feel comfortable giving an interviewer your password or logging into your Facebook account through their computer, you may be able to mollify their concerns by offering to add them as a friend over your phone/tablet during the interview. This will show a good faith effort to be transparent while still allowing you to add them to your ‘Work People’ list and keep your private life private.

Building Yourself as a Brand

So far everything I’ve discussed has been about cleaning up your personal brands image. While this will help segregate your personal life from your work persona, this alone will not brand you as the competent expert that you know you are.

According to a survey by Execunet, 77% of recruiters use search engines to find background data on job candidates. This presents an absolutely huge opportunity for you to stand out among your peers. Any recruiter that is going to be doing a background search on you, will undoubtedly be searching for your name. This gives you the opportunity to determine exactly what the recruiter will see.

By authoring your own content you can determine what the recruiters are reading about you and how they view your professional skill. The question is, where do you place this content? There are two places that relatively easy to make your content visible. First, you can write guest posts for popular blogs and websites that fall into your area of expertise. The second, is by authoring content on your own website or blog. Don’t worry if you do not have your own website yet.

Writing Guest Posts

To write a guest post for another website you first have to find an appropriate website to write for. A good way to do this is to search Google. What you will want to do is search for your profession and blog. For example, if you are an accountant you would search for: accounting blog

Once you’ve found several potential websites/blogs that you would like to write a guest post for, find the contact form on the website and ask them if they accept guest posts. Include your name, contact information, the topic of the post you’d like to write about and assure them that the article will be unique and placed on their website only. Let them know you are only looking for attribution through a bio somewhere on the article page. Also, ask them if they have any requirements for the article such as length or a deadline.

Publish Your Work on Your Own Website

Starting your own website is a very powerful way to improve your personal brand and it isn’t as difficult as it sounds. You will need two things to start your own website, a domain name and a hosting account. Both can be purchased from Hostgator for very little cost.

If you buy a Hostgator domain name and hosting account through the links on FindIllinoisJobs.com, I earn an affiliate commission and it will help support this website. I also highly recommend them. I run this website and several other websites on Hostgator’s shared hosting servers and I have yet to run into any issues with them.

If you decide to start running your own website and need help with the initial setup of your site, contact me and I will be more than happy to help you for free (time permitting).

If you choose to do it yourself, there is a fantastic e-book called WP Starter Guide by Lisa Irby that does a great job helping people just starting out with WordPress Websites. Purchasing WP Starter Guide through the links on FindIllinoisJobs.com also helps support FindIllinoisJobs.com. I have personally bought this book and know from experience that it can help people who are just starting out with WordPress.

By starting your own website and publishing your content on it, you have the opportunity to present the information that recruiters are seeking about you, in a way that is the most flattering to you. As an example, let’s say that you are going to be applying for a position as a CPA for a medium-sized retail shop. You know they are specifically asking for retail experience and that they require experience with the Brand X point-of-sale system.

Before you apply for this job, you should write an incredible article about retail accounting for mid-sized businesses using the Brand X point-of-sale system. In as little as a few days your article could be showing up in the search results when recruiters or hiring managers search for your name. Now when they research you, one of the first things they are going to see is your article, on your website, talking about a business need they need to fill: A CPA with retail experience and Brand X point-of-sale experience.

One last note on starting your own website for branding purposes, make sure to write content regularly. Try and add content once a week at least.

Claim Your Name

Finally, you need to claim your name on the important social media websites. This will mean you have to create accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Pinterest using your name as a username. If you cannot get your exact name, use something as close as possible. For all social media accounts, use a real picture of yourself as your profile picture. Recruiters need to know it is your account they are looking at. Preferably, use a professional head shot .

Even if you do not actively use all of the social media accounts you have set up, it is important to claim them. It will prevent any confusion if someone else with your name becomes active on those websites. Also, if you have created a website, most of your social media profiles can be ‘attached’ so that posts displayed on your website will be automatically shown on your social media accounts.

All of it in a Nutshell

I’ve covered quite a bit of information in this post so I think it is pertinent that I consolidate everything into a more manageable high-level view.

Increasingly recruiters and hiring managers are researching potential employees online and through social media websites. Considering the permanent nature of digital media and the convoluted privacy practices of some social networking websites, it is imperative that you as a job seeker do your due diligence into what is being presented about you online. Finding and fixing issues that reflect poorly on your personal brand will take time and effort but it is well worth it.

It is equally important to ensure that all future personal posts on your social networking profiles remain between you and your close contacts, and that your professional posts are the ones prominently displayed. Setting up your privacy settings and distribution lists correctly can accomplish this task and give you a clean personal brand.

Once you have properly controlled your personal posts and set up your future personal posts to be distributed to your trusted list of friends, you can start on putting out the personal brand image that you would like recruiters and hiring managers to see. Accomplishing this can be easy with the combination of providing guest post content to existing prominent websites in your field of work and creating your own website (on Hostgator perhaps?) that demonstrates your expertise.

Finally, it is important for you to claim your name on the popular social networking platforms. This prevents brand confusion and allows you multiple avenues of pushing your message to recruiters and hiring managers and presenting yourself in the best possible light.

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By Rick Biederer on July 10th, 2012

Are Your Passwords Required For Employment?

Growing Trend

There has been a growing trend among employers to ask job applicants for their social networking usernames and passwords during the job interview. This issue first came to my attention back in April when I read an article about Justin Bassett, a statistician, withdrawing his job application when, during the interview, the interviewer asked him to hand over his Facebook username and password. Ultimately Justin ended the interview and passed on the job opportunity.

Asking for passwords isn’t just striking a nerve with job applicants, Facebook has warned employers that asking job applicants for their passwords violates Facebook’s terms of services and could potentially open the requesting company up to discrimination lawsuits.

Federal Laws

In March of 2012, two senators asked the Attorney General to look into the legality of employers asking for your passwords. Unfortunately, the House voted against adding an amendment to the Federal Communications Commission Process Reform Act of 2012 that would have prevented employers from requesting this information.

However, on May 9th, 2012 the Password Protection Act (HR 5684), which would make it illegal for employers to ask you for your user names and passwords, was filed. HR 5684 is currently in Committee and waiting to be passed to the House of Representatives.

Individual State Laws

In addition to the bill at the federal level, individual states have taken action to protect job seekers.

Maryland – A bill has been passed that prohibits employers from asking for social media user names and passwords. It takes effect on October 1st.
California – Similar to Maryland, California has also introduced a bill that would prevent employers from accessing your user name and password.
Massachusetts – Massachusetts has also introduced a social media bill.
Michigan – Michigan’s social media bill was introduced on March 29th 2012 by Aric Nesbitt.
Illinois – Illinois has also introduced and passed a social media bill that takes effect on January 1st, 2013.

Illinois Law

Illinois law makers have also taken action against employers seeking to obtain your user names and passwords for social media sites. The Right To Privacy – Social Net (HB3782) bill has passed both the House and Senate and has been sent to the Governor to be signed.

~~If HB3782 is signed into law by Governor Quinn, it will be illegal for any employer or potential employer to ask for passwords or demand access to your personal social networking profiles.~~

Bill HB3782 was officially passed by Governor Quinn on August 1st, 2012.

Other Legal Implications

It is also important to take into consideration other laws that may prevent you from legally giving full access to employers asking for your social media account passwords. Doctors, lawyers, financial planners and anyone dealing with private client information may be legally prohibited from sharing their account information.

As an example, as a small business owner I manage the social media presence of several businesses. For me to allow an employer access to my Facebook account could violate my client’s privacy. The same would be true for anyone that uses social media sites to interact with clients. Your clients have a reasonable expectation of information remaining private between the two parties.

What Should You Do?

While there is no clear-cut answer on what you should do if you are confronted with the “Facebook password” question, there are certain actions you can take to alleviate employers concerns without giving them access to your accounts.

Try and identify what the employers concerns are with social media accounts. You may be able to provide them with what they are looking for without giving up your passwords. For example, their concerns may be soothed if you have all of your Facebook content visible to the general public temporarily.

Another issue for the employer may be that they have had issues with employees posting content that damages the companies reputation. This concern could be smoothed over by offering to be bound by a non-disparagement clause in your employment contract.

There are dozens of reasons why an employer may feel it is necessary to have access to your social media accounts during an interview. If you are unwilling to allow an employer full access to your social accounts, identifying and alleviating the employers fears is a hurdle you will need to overcome.

Until the dust settles with the pending laws, your answer to the “Facebook password” question will have to depend on your personal situation and what you are comfortable with. If you have been out of work for an extended duration (the average duration of unemployment is 39.9 weeks as of June 2012), allowing a potential employer to access your social media accounts may be acceptable if it means you are getting the job.

Have You Been Asked?

Has an employer ever asked you for one of your social media passwords? If so, what what your response? If not, have you thought about what you will do if it happens? Leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts!

HR Infographic on Social Media

Featured By: OSHA Safety Training

Disclaimer:
I am not an attorney and no part of this article should be taken as legal advice. If you are having legal issues with discrimination or employment law, consult professional legal council.

Sources:
Job seekers getting asked for Facebook passwords – Yahoo.com
Facebook warns employers: don’t ask for passwords – Yahoo.com
Senators Question Employer Requests for Facebook Passwords – Nytimes.com
House votes down law to stop employers from asking for Facebook passwords – Neowin.net
Maryland becomes first state to prohibit employers from asking for Facebook logins – Washingtonpost.com
California Employers: hands off your employees’ Facebook password – Northerncaliforniaemploymentlawattorneys.com
Social Media Privacy Bills Around the Country – Faircompetitionlaw.com
Illinois General Assembly – Ilga.gov
Michigan Legislative Website – Legislature.mi.gov

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By Elizabeth Medina on May 17th, 2012

Dressing for Job Interviews

It’s All about How You Dress

As a current job seeker, one thing I’ve been taking careful notice to is how other candidates dress for interviews. In comparison to most candidates, I’ve been wondering if I’m overdressed. Then I remember everything I ever read about dressing for interviews: always dress to impress. First impressions can be lasting impressions so it’s extremely important to make them your best.

Ditch the jeans, Capri pants, Bermuda shorts, tight fitting cloths, flip flops and sandals. Remove any facial piercings. This is neither a trip to the beach nor a leisurely day of errands.

Men should wear a conservative, solid color suit. Navy blue and charcoal grey are preferable suit colors. Some dark brown suits are okay, but should generally be avoided. Earth tones aren’t formal enough and shouldn’t be worn. Black suits are plenty formal but are inappropriately flashy, like something you’d wear to a wedding. Pin stripes are okay, but only if they are subtle as they add a touch of flair, show a sense of adventurousness, and can liven up a gray suit. Suit jackets should fit so that they can be easily buttoned without any real tug marks across the fabric. The arms should be long enough so that about a ¼ inch of your dress shirt can be seen past the cuffs when your arms are relaxed at your side. White shirts are the safest and most conservative. Cream, almond and pale-blue shirts are also fine as long as they are solid without stripes or patterns. Point collars are recommended for an interview, but spread collars are okay too. Avoid cotton-blend shirts, polyester or any shiny shirts. Shirts should be 100% cotton. Ties should be between 2 ¾ and 3 ½ inches wide and should have a traditional pattern. Wear ties made of pure silk. Skip “trendy” ties or anything made of something other than silk. Your tie should reach, but not exceed, the top of your belt buckle. Windsor knots are generally preferred at job interviews because they’re considered the most conservative, but four-in-hand knots are fine as well. Knots should be neat and fit within the space created by your choice of collar. Your belt should always match your shoe color. Suspenders are fine, but avoid belt buckles. You should wear black, oxblood or brown leather shoes. Black shoes are strongly recommended because they match almost with any suit and are easy to coordinate with a belt. Avoid loafers. Socks should be dark and coordinate with your suit. They should be long enough so that no one can see your leg when you’re seated. Go sparingly on the cologne or use none at all. You don’t want to smother in interviewer in your cologne.

Women should wear a conservative two-pieced matched pantsuit or skirt suit. Dresses and dress pants with a nice button down blouse are also acceptable. Navy blue, charcoal grey, khaki, and black are preferable suit, dress, and pant colors. Very subtle weave patterns and plaids will work. Skirts and dresses should be knee length or longer. Avoid wearing micro-skirts, mini-skirts, and mini-dresses. Underneath the suit jacket, wear a white tailored shell or blouse of good quality knit. The same goes for your nice button down blouse if you’re opting for dress pants. Be sure not to show any cleavage. Shoes and hosiery should be neutral in color. Go with flats or heels that are black, beige, taupe, and tan are always a safe bet. Heels should never be more than a couple of inches in height. Shoes should always be closed toe. Nude is the best choice for pantyhose. Avoid high contrast between your suit and hosiery color. A watch is fine, but remember to keep your choices simple and always lean toward conservative. Avoid extremes of style and color. It depends on the industry; some may go for more creativity, but generally keep it simple when it comes to jewelry. Keep make-up conservative as well. A little is usually better than none. Nails should be clean and well groomed. Avoid extremes of nail length and polish color. As with men and cologne, go sparingly on the perfume or use none at all. You don’t want to smother in interviewer in your perfume.

When it comes to briefcases, portfolios, and handbags, try to use leather. Avoid large and bulky briefcases, portfolios, and handbags. Make sure whatever you’re carrying coordinates with what you’re wearing. Leave the backpacks at home.

Hair should be tidy and ideally low maintenance – i.e., back from the face, not elaborate. Men, short hair is generally preferred. Facial hair is discouraged, although well-groomed mustaches are usually okay.

You want to come across professional and not high-maintenance or fussy in your appearance. Don’t try to look dowdy or older than you are. Appear confident. The way you’re dressed will help sell yourself during the interview.

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By Janine Elias on May 13th, 2012

The Power of Partnership

How to Network for Employment Opportunities

Whether you are newly out of work or in the process of making a career change there is power in partnerships. We live in the information age making networking both easy and confusing. It’s easy because all you have to do is get on your computer and it’s confusing because there are so many options available to you it can be daunting to know where to begin.

I personally like to begin with making a list. Lists make it easy to see what needs to be done and provides you with a step by step guide to getting it done. You decide what you want to do, write it down, break it into steps and cross off each step as you go along. Let’s begin with what you want to do. You are tapping into the power of partnership to network for employment opportunities and this means we need to look at who you know. It’s amazing really how many people we know from all the varied venues we participate in daily.

Take an inventory of who you know they are all potential prospects to network with. There’s the person you get coffee from, people you went to school with, former coworkers, people you interacted with on the job, your friends, family members, and people you’ve never met but have interacted with on social media. This gives you plenty of people to work with! How about the person you get coffee from, so many of us go to coffee houses on a regular basis to by a cup of Joe. Thousands of people stop on their way to work in the morning to grab a cup and over time become friendly with the person pouring their morning coffee chatting about the day, discussing plans for the weekend, even talking about upcoming political elections and in all of these conversation the type of work they do is often a topic for discussion.

Lets look at more obvious options people you went to school with, former coworkers, and people you interacted with on the job. These groups of people are in the same or similar industry of your potential job market. Someone at a competitor could be hiring, your school mates may know of a potential opening where they work or have heard someone is looking to fill a specific position, and former coworkers could have family members, friends, or business associates who have information about an opportunity that would be perfect for you.

Let’s not forget your family members and friends. When you tap into the network of your family and friends, your reach expands exponentially giving you a fresh pool of potential connections. And we must not forget our social media LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. There are potentially thousands of people there for you to connect with who would help you along your way to making the right connection putting you back into the work force!

Pick a number! You now need to decide how many people you are going to reach out to each week. I like to keep things simple and easy so I would go with the number 5. There are 5 days in the week and reaching out to 5 people a day is simple and this won’t overwhelm you and keeps you focused and on target giving you 25 people in a week you have reached out to. If you are feeling ambitious you can do more then 5 in a day but you want to be careful you don’t burnout on your process.

What do you say to the people you are networking with? You let them know you are looking for a new opportunity. By the way you need to know what type of job you want, the industry you are looking to work in, and what you would like to do in that industry. It is important you do this because you need to give the person or people you are networking with the best opportunity you can for them to help you. We always want to help our friends but we need guidance on how to best support them so let others know what you need so they can help you get it.

I also recommend you create a spread sheet so you can keep track of who you are networking with, the medium you are using i.e. calling them direct, email, IM, connecting on social media whatever medium you are using you want to keep track of the last time you connected, what you said, and when you told them you would follow up… your conversation could go like this, “Hi George! Do you have 5 minutes? Is now a good time for you to talk? There have been some changes with my employment and I’m looking for a new opportunity working in an IT department, do you know of anyone who works for a company with in house computer support? Could you make an introduction for me?” If they can’t think of anyone at that moment ask them to think about it and ask around to see if they know anyone who knows someone and let them know you will call them back and give them a date in one or two weeks that you will get back to them and make sure you follow through on your return communication.

I think it’s best to make a in person phone call because it increases your personal connection and it is more likely they will remember to keep you in their thoughts. An email or text is less personal and the person or people you are contacting will not have as great of a commitment to help you as they would from a phone conversation or in person meet.

Follow up is key to networking! I can’t stress enough how important it is for you to follow through on your connections. If you tell someone you are going to call back or reconnect give them a day and in some cases narrow it down to a specific time and make sure you don’t forget! This is why I recommend the spread sheet or some form of keeping your conversations organized for follow up. This demonstrates to the person you are networking with you are reliable and you do what you say when you said you would. No one wants to refer someone they don’t trust or can’t rely on to follow up on a conversation.

As you go through the process of being in the job market it can seem endless and daunting but when you reach out to your connections and ask for guidance and support your partnership can open doors for you that you would have never known were available. I have found amazing results in my own life just from asking. It’s incredible the things you can obtain if you simply ask!

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By Rick Biederer on February 01st, 2012

Are You a Job Applicant or a Consultant?

If you are looking for a job in the consulting field, check out our MBA Job Openings page.

I just got through reading an article by Liz Ryan from Bloomberg Businessweek entitled, 5 Out-of-Date Job-Search Tactics.

While I consider all five points she discusses as important, I found one point profound enough to make me want to expound upon it. Liz states, “You should act as a consultant and business advisor during a job search.”

While this sounds simple, think of the impact this will have on the interviewer and on your confidence during the interview. By mentally changing your role from ‘supplicant needing a job’, to that of ‘an expert willing to impart knowledge and help the interviewer solve a problem’, you are subliminally changing the interviewers perception of you from a person looking to get something of value (a job), to a person able to give something of value (your expertise).

Consider the following situation:

You go out in the morning to start your car. When you turn the key a horrible noise that you’ve never heard before comes from under the hood. So you take it to your local mechanic to find out what the problem is.

When you pull in, the mechanic directs you where to park your car and takes down your information. Next he starts asking you questions about the noise. You answer the best you can. The mechanic then directs you to the waiting room while he inspects your car and figures out what the noise is.

Throughout that whole process you were the ‘supplicant’ and the mechanic treated you as such. You came in ‘needing’ your car fixed. But you came in without knowledge of what the problem was. The mechanic, on the other hand, was ‘acting as a consultant‘ by finding out what your needs were and providing solutions to you. And this is what you should be doing in the interview, finding out what the hiring manager needs and showing that you can fill that need.

What Does ‘Acting as a Consultant’ Mean?

I have read a lot articles that give advice on what you should do during interview. Here are some of the common tips given that I’m sure you have also already heard:

Be enthusiastic.
Back up your statements with concrete examples.
Be yourself.
Show your passion for your career.
Have a positive attitude.
Do your research on the company/job.
Exhibit confidence.
Show that you are really interested in the job.

This is all good advice but can you tell me exactly how to “exhibit confidence” or “show your passion for your career?” You can come up with examples on how others have done it, but how do you do it given your unique talents, skills and history? Simply put, act as a consultant.

Once you get into the mindset of helping the interviewer with their problem, it changes your mannerisms and demeanor. You are automatically enthusiastic because you have the answer to their issue and can show them the solution. Your passion for your career shines through, giving the interviewer a positive impression of you. You exhibit confidence because you are no longer “in an interview”, you’re solving a problem using your expertise in the subject at hand.

Confidence is incredibly important during an interview. Confidence often conveys competence. By acting as a consultant and treating the interview as if it were a consulting job, you are focusing on your area of expertise, demonstrate your knowledge and offering solutions. Focusing on what you know will innately make you more confident and relaxed.

From my person perspective I have retrospectively seen how acting as a consultant can work in interviews. Two of the interviews I had back when I was searching for a job demonstrate the power of ‘acting as a consultant’.

The first interview was for a job where I met 90% of the qualifications and the job matched nearly everything I wanted in a job. This was one of my first interviews and I was less confident and more nervous. While my technical skills matched what they wanted, my interview was mediocre. I answered the questions and showed I had the skill to perform the job but I didn’t clearly demonstrate my passion for the work or my ability to solve their problems. As a result, I wasn’t called back for the job or another interview.

In the second interview, I met about 60% of the job requirements . The 40% I did not meet was in an area of my field that I had not explored. During this interview, my approach was completely different than the interview with the previous company.

The driving reason the company was hiring for the position was expressly stated during the phone interview. This gave me time in between the phone interview and the face to face interview to research the problem the company was having and demonstrate a workable course of action that I would take.

The interview went smoothly and I was able to present solutions to their problems. I was able to overcome missing 40% of the job requirements with confidence and by presenting solutions to problems before I was even employed at the company. The end result is that I received and accepted a job offer with them.

Simply put, acting as a consultant can be defined as demonstrating your expertise by solving a problem.

What ‘Acting as a Consultant’ Does Not Mean

Acting as a consultant does not mean being overbearing and controlling. Your goal is to show that you can solve the interviewer’s problems, not to take over the interview. What you want to do is to use the opportunities that the interviewer presents to show what you can do for them but follow their lead in the interview process.

You also do not want to come across as a know it all. As I said earlier, the interviewer is the one who directing the flow of your interview. Let them tell you what they need and once they do, provide them with the answers they are looking for from your experience and the research you have done.

Don’t walk into the interview and tell them what they want. Let the interviewer tell you what their issue or need is and then provide a solution. This doesn’t mean you can’t steer the conversation to a point where it is appropriate for you to present a solution. Just make sure they are expecting to hear a solution before you present it.

Acting as a consultant is a state of mind more than it is a definable set of actions. By putting yourself into that state of mind, you will tend to become more relaxed and confidant, which will show in your interview. You will sound more natural and stand out in the interviewer’s mind as someone who is capable of filling the companies needs.

If you are looking for a job in the consulting field, check out our MBA Job Openings page.

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By Rick Biederer on January 26th, 2012

Is Your Full Time Job, Finding A Job?

I read an article today from AskAManager.org that, at first, had me scratching my head in bewilderment. The title of the article is:

Another Job Search Cliche That Isn’t True:

Looking For A Job Is A Full-Time Job

My initial reaction was something along the lines of, What?!? That’s crazy! If you are unemployed, your primary concern is finding a job! And I still stand by that statement. However, everything Alison said inside that article I 100% agree with.

When I define looking for a job as a full time job, I’m not implying that you have to sit at your desk from 9 to 5, forty hours per week. That isn’t necessarily the best course of action to take. However, looking for a job is your primary responsibility and it needs to be treated as such.

Some people are going to need more structure in their jobs search and creating a detailed schedule of events will be beneficial to them. Keep in mind that quality, not quantity, should be the focus of your efforts. Using your time to blast your resume out to every hiring manager in a fifty mile radius is NOT where your focus should be.

Your efforts need to be focused in the areas that are going to help you find the right job for you. The odds are that if you are a software programmer you really don’t want to be selling women’s shoes for a living, so don’t apply for those jobs. This is where your efforts should be focused:

Finding and targeting companies and employment opportunities. As I mentioned above, you do not want to blast your resume to everyone. Focus your efforts on finding companies that you want to work for, in the job that you want to perform.
Target your resume. Each resume you send out should be targeted to a specific employment opportunity. Pay attention to what the employer is asking to see in a job applicant and address those concerns in your resume. Focus your accomplishment statements to the companies needs.
Focus on great content. The ‘content’ of your job search is your resume, cover letters, 90 second introduction, your professional network, your job skills, your answers to interview question and anything else that you present to others in your search for employment. Do everything you can to sell yourself as the best possible solution to the employers problems.
Build your professional networks. The more professional contacts you have, the easier it will be for you to find a job. By no means does that mean it will be simple just because you are connected to a lot of people but being connected can only help.
Develop needed skill sets. Have you noticed a particular skill set that the majority of job postings are looking for that you do not have or have a weaker proficiency in? Develop that skill set and do something that shows a proficiency in it. It may involve spending money on some additional college classes and setting aside extra time but it will be worth it.

As you focus your efforts on these tasks, you may find that you are spending only twenty hours a week. As long as you are accomplishing all of your job search goals and making progress in your job search, the actual amount of time is less important that the results of the time you are spending. Some people will need to spend more time than others depending on their experience, skills and professional network.

The important part is that you treat your job search as a full-time job and acknowledge that you have responsibilities associated with your job search. Focus on presenting the best product that you possibly can to employers and put forth the effort necessary to show that product. Whether that takes you ten hours or fifty hours a week is less important. Your focus needs to be on quality and not quantity.

Preparing For Change

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By Rick Biederer on January 06th, 2012

Using Twitter In Your Job Search

According to a recent survey done by reppler.com, 91% of employers are using social media sites to screen prospective employees. Of those that use social media, 53% use twitter as a screening tool.

Those are some big numbers. What this means for you is that if you are currently looking for a job, you had better be paying attention to Twitter and other social media platforms. But, how do you use Twitter for your job search?

You first have to control your personal brand. There is no point in trying to use twitter as a networking tool if what employers are going to see is not a reflection of who you are and what assets you will bring to their company.

Control Your Personal Brand

At the very least, you need to make sure the image you are projecting to employers through your Twitter account is a professional one. You don’t want them to discover any inappropriate content or content that could make the company look bad if they were to hire you. You want your social profile to give the company every reason TO hire you.

First, check you profile picture. As a guide, if it contains anything that you wouldn’t want displayed in front of your boss or work peers, then change it to something more acceptable. Keep it simple. A professional head shot is best.

Now you need to work on your Twitter bio. Chris Brogan has an excellent in-depth write up on how to write bios but I will give you the overview here. In short, you want to write your bio in the third person and start with your name. Include your profession and/or accomplishments next. Finish up with a way to contact you. Keep your bio professional looking. With Twitter you only have 160 characters in your bio so make them count.

Make sure that your name and location are both accurate. If you set up your Twitter account up a while back, make sure you didn’t use a nickname or an off-the-wall location on your profile.

Finally, drop inappropriate followers and inappropriate accounts you follow. You don’t want a potential employer to browse through your list of followers/followee’s only to see a bunch of border-line pornographic pictures with innuendo laden bios. Attracting these types of followers can happen if you blindly follow anyone who follows your account.

Making Twitter Private

If all else fails and you don’t feel as though you can clean up your Twitter account in time for a review from one of the companies that you’ve applied to, you can make your twitter account private and create a new Twitter account that you use for your job search and professional life. There is no guarantee this will clean up the search results in time for recruiters doing a social media background search online, but it should at least make any content found inaccessible to people not in your approved list of followers.

The following comes straight from Twitter with regards to private Twitter accounts:

By making your Twitter account private, you will have the following benefits:

People will have to request to follow you and each follow request will need approval
Your Tweets will only be visible to users you’ve approved, meaning that other users will not be able to retweet your Tweets
Protected Tweets will not appear in Twitter search
@replies you send to people who aren’t following you will not be seen by those users (because you have not given them permission to see your Tweets)
You cannot share permanent links to your Tweets with anyone other than your approved followers

After you have cleaned up your Twitter account so that it is presentable, you can start using Twitter to find new employment prospects and to network with potential employers.

Follow The Right People

Following the right Twitter people is important but who exactly are the “right people”? There is no single set of right people to follow. You will need to follow the Twitterer’s that are right for your industry and situation.

You can start by following people and companies in your industry. Look for key people in your industry that provide valuable information. If you are targeting a specific company for employment, you can search for key people who work for the company and have Twitter accounts. They can be great sources of inside information.

If you are unsure what companies to follow, The Undercover Recruiter has a nice list of companies tweeting jobs by industry. The Recruiters Lounge also has a nice list of The Top 50 Recruiters on Twitter. You can use these lists to find active Twitter recruiters. Both these lists will provide you with a great start.

If you are looking for jobs in IL, I use two Twitter sources: @ChicagoJobs1 and @SuburbanChiJobs. Both of these Twitter accounts tweet out jobs for the Chicago area and both list jobs frequently.

Interact With People You Follow/Follow You

Interacting with your followers and the people you follow is important but interacting with your Twitter network in the right way is even more important.

You don’t want to be considered a spammer so avoid over-self promoting. Don’t make every tweet about you or your needs. Twitter is a two way conversation.

Imagine if you invite a friend over for dinner and all they do is to talk about themselves and completely ignore you and what you are saying. When you ask them a question, they turn the topic to themselves or they don’t even bother answering you.

You wouldn’t continue to invite this person over given their behavior. If you only talk about yourself and your needs, your Twitter followers will ignore you or quit following you. That doesn’t mean that you should not post any self-promoting content. Just keep those type of tweets in the minority and focus more on building relationships.

Here are some suggestions for productive activity on Twitter:

Ask questions
Tweet relevant, useful industry information
Answer questions, reply to your followers and those you follow
Tweet links to interesting or relevant articles
Help others when they ask for help

Employment Bound

Twitter is a social tool that can be used to help you with your job search. The key to using Twitter effectively is to treat it as a social interaction between you and your audience. Keep the conversations on your Twitter account professional and narrow in scope and focus on networking with professionals in your field. While you probably won’t get a job offer based on your Twitter account alone, Twitter can help you showcase your knowledge and experience in your field and help you to make the connections necessary to find employment.

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By Rick Biederer on November 14th, 2011

10 Tips: How To Interview

Research The Job

Not only should you know everything you can about the job you are applying for, but you should also do you research on both the industry and the company you want to work for. To research an individual company you can follow the steps below:

Read and participate on the Vault Message Boards for the company you are interested in.
Check the local papers for articles and information on the company.
Start a Google Alert to receive emails when new news shows up online for the company name and the specific location you are applying for.
Read the companies blog postings for the last few weeks.
Follow the company on Twitter, Facebook and any other social media platforms they use.

To research a particular industry you can check these resources:

Check industry associations for the company you are interviewing at. Here are two lists you may find useful: Wikipedia, Weddles.
Start a Google Alert for industry news.

Practice

You’ve gone through all the work of finding a job posting or company that you would like to work for, you have written your resume, tailored your resume to this employment opportunity and done all your research for the job. You don’t want to mess the interview up by bumbling through it because you were unprepared.

Marketing yourself to other people is hard, so for most people “winging” it just wont cut it. You have to be comfortable and articulate when describing your accomplishments and prior work situations.

This is where practice comes in. Grab a partner and have them pretend to be an interviewer. You can give them a list of common interview questions like the ones listed on Monster.com. Have them pick questions at random to ask you. Also, use this list to come up with answers ahead of time and try them out in the mock interview to see how they flow in a person to person conversation. Make adjustments to your answers as necessary and repeat this mock interview process with as many people as you can.

Another helpful practice technique would be to record yourself while performing these practice interviews. Recording your practice interview will help you to identify any nervous habits you have and will also make you aware of what your body language is telling the interviewer. If you find a negative habit, you will then be able to consciously work at fixing it.

Dress The Part

Show you are serious about getting the job by dressing to impress. Arrive at the interview dressed as if this is one of the most important moments in your life because it is. One of the first things an interviewer will notice is your physical appearance.

Here are three excellent guides on how to dress for an interview:

How to Dress for an Interview – about.com
Dressing for Interview Success – collegegrad.com
Dressing for the Interview by Industry – monster.com

Bring Copies Of Your Resume And Portfolio

Bring not only your resume and portfolio but also copies of anything your interviewers are likely to ask for. If the interviewer has had you send them copies of forms that you have filled out, make sure that you have printed copies of those as well.

I learned this lesson the hard way. I was just out of college and on my first or second interview. The interviewer sent me several forms to print and fill out and bring to the interview. On the very last form I messed up and needed to make another copy. The problem was that I didn’t have a printer of my own at the time and it was too late for me to run somewhere before the interview and print a copy off. So I went to the interview without it.

The interview was going great until the very end when they asked for the forms. I explained what had happened but I could immediately see in the interviewers face that I was out of the running for the job because of that simple form. Lesson learned. Come prepared!

Ooze Enthusiasm

It is very important to show that you are enthusiastic about the job that you are applying for. You need to show that you have an interest in the job and that you have a true passion for what it is that you do. If the interviewer can’t see that you are passionate about your career, why would they believe that you will do the best job possible at their company?

It’s also important not to be so overly enthusiastic that you come across as disingenuous or putting on an act just to get the job. In my last job search, one of the reasons I was hired over the previous interviewee was that she was over-the-top enthusiastic and came across as disingenuous.

Talk In 60 to 90 Second Bullet Points

Have your 90 second introduction bullet points memorized so that you can comfortably talk about whatever it is your interviewer is asking to hear. You will want to limit the amount of time you talk to about 60 to 90 seconds. This is the average time span that a listener will pay attention to what you are saying. If you go over 90 seconds you may lose your audience.

Also create and memorize these 60 to 90 second bullet points for each common question asked in an interview. Each one should be about 150 to 230 words long.

Take Notes

Taking notes when the interviewer is talking shows that you have a real interest in what they are saying. Writing down notes will also help you to keep track of what is really important to the interviewer and what job skills are the most vital. You don’t have to write down everything they say but make sure to note the important things.

You can also use these notes to help determine what 90 second bullet points to talk about when you are asked a question during the interview.

Ask Questions

Use the notes you took earlier to determine what questions you will ask. Stay away from questions about money, benefits or time off. Stick to the topics that interest your interviewer. If they have brought up a particular tool that will be used in your new job, make sure to ask a question about it when the time is appropriate. Also, make a note of anything that the interviewer brings up more than once so you can address it when you are asked if you have any questions.

Here are some sample questions to ask your interviewer:

What is leadership style of the person I will be working for?
What type of employee is successful at this company and what type of employee is not successful?
Do you have a timeline for making a decision on this position and when should I get back in touch with you?
Considering how rough the economy is, why did you decide to hire somebody for this position? What about this position gave it priority over other possible positions?
What will have to happen over the next year to make this company successful and how can I help achieve that success in this position?
What is the performance review process like and how do I make the most of my reviews to ensure that I’m doing the best job possible for the company?
What would the perfect candidate for this position look like? How do my skill sets and experience do in comparison to the perfect candidate?
What is the top thing I can do to make your job easier?
Can you see any reason why I am not the perfect candidate to fill this position?

Don’t Apologize For Your Lack Of Experience

It’s okay if you do not know the answer to an interview question. However, do not apologize for not having experience in a particular area or for not knowing the answer to a particular question. Apologizing makes you look unprofessional.

Here are a few tips for when an interviewer asks a question you don’t know the answer to or when they ask about an area that you lack experience in:

DONT

Don’t panic.
Don’t make excuses.
Don’t let anxiety get the better of you.
Don’t ramble or stare blankly.

Do remain calm.
Do maintain your confidence.
Do ask for clarification if you need it.
Do be honest.
Do turn the situation to a positive one.

Close With A Bang

At the end of the interview you want to leave the interviewer with a positive, lasting impression. One way to do this is to close with a question that shows you’re already working for the company. This sample question came from Alison Green at the Ask A Manager blog:

“Thinking back to people who have been in this position previously, what differentiated the ones who were good from the ones who were really great?”

The idea behind a question such as this is to leave the interviewer with the realization that you really care about doing a great job for the company.

Need More Help?

If you still feel that you need more help with your interviewing skills or preparation, I have found two products that you may find useful.

The first tool is an interview preparation application called Jobjuice Strategy & Consulting app. It is designed for MBA and Business professionals looking to hone their interviewing skills. It is available from iTunes for the iPhone, iPod and iPad. Inside the application are over 80 easy-to-use cards filled with concepts and frameworks. The same company also makes a Marketing app to help marketing professionals.

The second tool is an ebook published by Job Interview Answers. This ebook is 81 pages and details what you need to know to succeed in your interviews. The ebook was published in 2011 and can be downloaded instantly from their website. When you get to their website, check out the product reviews to see if this is what you are looking for.

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By Rick Biederer on October 05th, 2011

Your Resume

Your resume is going to be one of the greatest marketing tools you use in finding a new job. Think of your resume as an advertisement you’ve just paid top dollar to put in front of a highly targeted audience. And while you may not have paid actual money to have your resume created, you should have spent your valuable time and effort customizing your resume for each job you apply for. Make that time and effort worthwhile by creating the best resume you possibly can.

With unemployment numbers for August (2011) at 9.1%, employers are being flooded with resumes. Your resume needs to stand out from all the others and identify you as a prime candidate for the job you are applying for.

Resume Type

First, you will have to decide what type of resume you are going to need to create. The most common resume type is a chronological resume. If you have a strong employment background, creating a chronological resume may be your best option. Another type of resume is the functional resume. The functional resume is good for addressing employment gaps. Template files in Word format can be downloaded from the downloads section.

Work Objective Statement

Once you have decided on which resume type to base your resume off of, it’s time to focus on the the individual components of your resume. Your work objective may be one of the first pieces of information you include on your resume. You will first need to determine if you even need a work objective statement. They shouldn’t be included on every resume but can be useful if your situation is right.

Summary Statement

The purpose of your summary statement is to catch the eye of either a human reader or resume scanning software. To this end, your summary statement needs to be focused on the company and job you are applying for. What you say in your summary statement will need to match the companies core values and the job openings core requirements. Focus your summary statement on the job skills and keywords relevant to each job posting.

Accomplishment Statements

The meat of your resume is going to consist of your accomplishment statements. This is where you show concrete proof of your ability to fulfill an employers need for an employee. Write your accomplishment statements to showcase your best work and the results you have accomplished.

After you have your accomplishments written out into individual statements, you will need to have a system of deciding which statements to use on your resume for each job you apply for. A good way to do this is to use the worksheet provided on this site and follow the directions in the article, Creating An Accomplishment Statement Cheat Sheet.

Scanning, Style and Content

If you have followed the advice for each section of your resume above, your resume should be well received by resume scanning software. Keeping your resume focused on the keywords listed in the job you are applying for will help your resume score high with the software employers are using to weed out unrelated and underqualified resumes.

Catching the interest of human readers is equally important as passing the scanning software test. Jumping the first hurdle only to stumble into the second one will not win you this race. The style and content of your resume has to present to the employer that you have the most beneficial skill sets to fill their need for an employee. It’s an employers market right now and they can use any arbitrary reason they want to pass you over in favor of someone else.

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By Rick Biederer on October 04th, 2011

Creating Your 90 Second Introduction

Your 90 second introduction should be broken down into three sections: The past, the future and your question. There is also the possibility that you will be interrupted and asked the reason you are looking for work.

The Past
The first 60 seconds of your 90 second introduction should be used to talk about your most recent job history. You can pull information out of the accomplishment statements that you created previously and rework them so that they fit within the context of a 90 second introduction.

Choose the accomplishment statements that are the most impactful for your intended audience. If you are asked the dreaded, “Tell me about yourself” question by an interviewer make sure that you have prepared your 90 Second introduction ahead of time so that you can hand pick the most relevant statements to that company.

Sixty seconds is approximately 140 to 145 words. Keep this section within that range and adjust it as needed.

Interruption
Once you make it past your work history, your audience may interrupt you and ask the reason you are looking for a new job. Prepare yourself ahead of time with a one sentence explanation. Keep it to only one sentence and work in a transition to continue on with your 90 second introduction.

Here is an example of the one sentence I used back when I was laid off from Motorola in 2001:

As you may have heard, Motorola has been going through some tough times lately and since I had the least seniority in my section, I was one of the ones laid off.

Only use your interruption sentence if you are asked for this information.

The Future
The last 30 seconds should be used to talk about your target career. Be specific. Talk about the industry and position you are interested in. Mention companies that your audience may have heard of.

Thirty seconds is approximately 70 to 75 words. Keep this section within that range and adjust it as needed.

Your Question
Now that you’ve given them your past and future, give them something to say by asking them a question. Your question will vary depending on the situation you are using your 90 second introduction in. You’re not going to ask the same question of someone interviewing you that you would ask of someone you are networking with for information.

Tailored 90 Second Introduction
While you should create a 90 second introduction to be used in unexpected encounters, you should also customize one for each planned encounter. If you’re in the line at the grocery store and start chatting with the person behind you, use your general 90 second introduction. If you have an interview with a corporation that you’ve been courting for weeks, create a 90 second introduction tailored to that job opportunity.

Creating custom tailored 90 second introductions will also help you adjust on-the-fly when an unexpected question is asked or made.

Practice
One of the most important aspects of your 90 second introduction is that it should sound natural. You should not sound as if you are reading a pre-memorized script. One way to eliminate that unnatural sound is to practice your 90 second introduction on your friends and family. This will help you to become more comfortable and less rigid.

One of the techniques that I found useful with my 90 second introductions was to write out the full introduction and then pull out an ordered list of keywords, one keyword for every sentence or two. I would then memorize those keywords in the order that I needed to talk about them. Once I had the list of keywords memorized, I could think through those keywords one at a time to trigger the topic that I needed to bring up next. This helped me to sound natural when using my 90 second introduction. If you are comfortable using a memorized keyword list, it can help out a lot.

Free Templates
You can download a free 90 second introduction worksheet from our Job Search Resources page in both Word and Excel format.

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By Rick Biederer on September 30th, 2011

Your 90 Second Introduction

Do you get a feeling of panic during an interview when the interviewer asks you the simple question, “So, tell me about yourself?” Do you have an answer prepared for this inevitable question? If not, you should.

The perfect answer to the, “Tell me about yourself” question is your 90 second introduction. What a 90 second introduction is designed to do is to articulate your career goals and background in a way that leaves a positive impression on the listener.

Why 90 seconds?

Ninety seconds, or around 220 to 230 words, is the attention span of the average adult. If you talk too long, all you will do is inspire boredom in the listener and their mind will wander. If you don’t talk long enough, the listener won’t be hooked into what you are saying and they won’t want to know more.

When To Use Your 90 Second Introduction

During an interview is not the only time to use your 90 second introduction. Your 90 second introduction is a marketing tool to be used whenever the opportunity presents itself. For example:

In response to the, “Tell me about yourself” question.
During a pre-screening interview.
At an informational interview (networking).
During the job interview.
In social situations where there is an opportunity to market yourself.

The purpose of your 90 second introduction is to market you and your skills. It is a marketing tool designed to stimulate interest in you and your situation. Your introduction should include your background and what it is that you aspire to do. Also, be sure to mention exactly what your job title is or what field you specialize in.

During your 90 second introduction, you should talk about your career highlights and accomplishments. Choose the most impressive highlights relevant to the situation. Bring up your current situation and get to the point of your speech. What is it that you want? Are you networking with peers and need feedback? Are you in an interview and looking to be hired? Maybe you are in a social situation and looking for possible companies to pursue. Whatever the case, the listener needs to know what it is you want so they have the opportunity to respond to your need.

Your 90 second introduction can be a great foot-in-the-door or conversation starter tool that can be used in many situations.

Create Your 90 Second Introduction Now

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By Rick Biederer on September 29th, 2011

Creating An Accomplishment Statement Cheat Sheet

An accomplishment statement cheat sheet is a tool I’ve created to help job seekers easily decide what accomplishment statements to include on their resume for a particular job posting. Depending on your skill sets and experience, it most likely will not be appropriate to include every accomplishment on every resume.

Accomplishment Statement Breakdown

Your accomplishment statements can be summed up into this simple statement:

Accomplishment Statement = Problem or Goal + Action + Results

You can further break down an action as being:

Action = Action Verb + Job Skills

And a job skill as being:

Job Skill = Keyword + Keyword + …

It is important to break down your accomplishment statements into their base parts so that you can quickly and easily choose what statements to use in a resume tailored for the company and position that you are applying for.

Creating Your Worksheet

I’ve created a free worksheet you can use in the downloads section of this website. If you have not already created your accomplishment statements, you can follow the steps in my Creating Accomplishment Statements article.

Accomplishment Statements
Once you have your accomplishment statements ready, you can begin the process of breaking them down into job skills and keywords. The first step will be to add all of your accomplishment statements to the spreadsheet. This is an example of one from an old resume of mine:

Planned roll out of Intranet sites. Selected appropriate product groups for Beta testing to ensure full functionality of the site and rolled out projects on schedule to entire end user base after determining all user needs and coding were correct, rectified any errors that were identified after roll out by modifying necessary code.

Job Skills
From this accomplishment statement you can pull out several job skills: Project Management, Website Programming and Website Design are three job skills. These are the skills that were actually used to accomplish the goal of rolling out Intranet sites. As you figure out what the job skills are for your accomplishment statement, add them to the job skills column on the worksheet next to your accomplishment statement.

Notice that while this follows the Action = Action Verb + Job Skills formula, it is not rigid in its implementation. I would not, for example, start my accomplishment statement by saying, “Planned project management.” Instead, “Planned roll out of Intranet sites,” is the culmination of the job skills used into a single goal, with an action verb bringing it together.

Keywords
Now that the job skills are extracted from the accomplishment statements, you can start pulling out keywords for each job skill. If you take the job skill Website Programming as an example, you can start pulling out individual keywords such as these: HTML, ASP, CSS, ASP.Net, JavaScript, Object-Oriented Programming, Code Behind.

If you don’t know what any of those keywords are that I listed for the website programming job skill, that’s okay. It’s not important that you understand what those keywords in particular mean, it’s important that you understand what keywords are in general so that you can pull them out of your job skills and list them.

Keywords are those words and terms that are essential to performing your job skill as it relates to your accomplishment statement. Using the previous accomplishment statement example and the job skill website programming, I could not go into any detail about what I actually did without using the keywords that I listed. Those keywords are the primary building blocks of my accomplishment statement.

Keep in mind that every keyword that relates to a job skill does not necessarily belong as a keyword for your accomplishment statement. The keyword Java (a computer programming language) relates perfectly to the job skill website programming, however, since I did not use Java in relation to that accomplishment statement, it does not belong as a related keyword.

Using Your Worksheet To Populate Your Resume

Once you have your worksheet filled in with your accomplishment statements, job skills and keywords you will be able to choose what statements to use with each resume that you create. What you will need to do is pull out the keywords for the job posting that you are submitting your resume for and then search for those keywords on your worksheet to find your most relevant accomplishment statements.

As an example, I’ve pulled the job requirements section out of a random job posting for an Event Specialist from indeed.com and listed them below:

Job Requirements
High School Diploma or equivalent.
Significant experience in event marketing, demonstrations, sales, or retail/grocery is highly desirable.
Ability to build strong relationships with store Managers and store customers.
Friendly, outgoing personality; confidence and enthusiasm to engage retail shoppers.
Great communication skills e.g. ability to connect with customers and sell products.
Basic knowledge of how to use a computer; access the internet; send, receive, and review email; download documents from website or email; submit event reports.

If you look at the second requirement you can easily identify these keywords: Event Marketing, Sales, Point Of Sale Systems, Retail Sales. All you have to do is match those keywords to the keywords in your accomplishment statement worksheet and place the corresponding accomplishment statements into your new resume*. Repeat this with each job requirement.

Do not ignore the rest of the job listing and only focus on the job requirements. There are many other keywords that can be pulled out of a job listing. You should focus on the job requirements first but then add in other accomplishment statements that tie to the overall job listing as space allows.

* Creating a new resume for each job listing you are applying for allows you to hyper-target yourself to each job. If you’ve done all the groundwork of identifying job skills and keywords for each accomplishment statement, creating a new resume a job listing shouldn’t take more that twenty minutes.

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By Rick Biederer on September 27th, 2011

Resume Scanning

These days you are not only creating a resume that is being sorted by people, but by resume scanning systems as well. This means that if your resume is not formatted properly, you will be missing out on potential jobs that you are qualified for.

What resume scanning software does is to scan your resume, identify useful information and categorize it in a database. From here your information is matched against the requirements for the job and then you are ranked in order of the most likely candidate.

As I’ve mentioned before, keywords are highly rated when a resume is scanned. Other factors do make a difference, however. Here are a few tips for dealing with resume scanners:

Make sure your resume is in a text-based format. Microsoft Word is generally good to use. You may want to avoid using a PDF format. PDF files can be viewed as pictures instead of text.
Don’t leave your address off your resume. One of the pieces of information that hiring managers add as a limiting factor is your zip code. They do this to make sure that they are hiring someone within a reasonable distance from where they will work. Without a zip code you could be left out.
Keep in mind that resume scanners won’t be able to scan information in Word’s headers and footers. If you have information located there, make sure that information is also in your resume if it is important.
Keep your resume formatting conventional. Don’t use out of the normal characters in places such as your phone number. Parenthesis and dashes are normal, tilde’s and control characters are not.
Use a standard resume format. If you start to get too creative with the layout of your resume, the scanning software may not understand the information it is being given.
Chronological resumes are easier for resume scanners to read.

Not only do you want to pass the resume scanners threshold but you also want to stand out and rank highly in terms of matching what a particular hiring manager is looking for. This is where diagramming the accomplishment statements I’ve talked about earlier comes in good use.

Here are some tips for ensuring that your resume is ranked highly:

Read the job posting to determine the keywords that they are looking for. You can find great keywords in the qualifications section of the job posting.
Tie those keywords back to your accomplishment statements and make sure to use the accomplishment statements that match the keywords in your resume.
Be sure to use the matching keywords inside the text of your accomplishment statement if possible. If you are not able to fit some keywords in your accomplishment statement try to fit them elsewhere in your resume. Such as in the summary statement.
Try to make your resume stand out by not using an exact resume template that you have downloaded from the web. Make your resume unique in that it showcases ‘you’ in the best light possible. Subtleties can make a big difference.

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By Rick Biederer on September 26th, 2011

Resume Style And Content

Your resume is the main tool you are going to be using to market yourself to employers. With the job market being as competitive as it is now, you need your resume to really stand out from all other resumes.

Style
The style of your resume is one of the first things that a potential employer will notice. In this economy, employers have the luxury of being fickle with any resume that comes across their desk. So it is important that your resume makes a positive impression before it has even been read.

Eliminate any ambiguity on your resume. Make it very clear where to find each piece of information that an employer will need to find. Bold headlines that are in a larger font will help accomplish this.

Keep you resume brief. No one wants to read every detail of every job you have ever held. Keep all the information in your resume relevant to the current job that you are applying for. If you are applying for an electrical engineering job, your three years experience as a short order cook has no bearing on your current career path so leave it out.

Remove any unnecessary or irrelevant information from each sentence in your resume. If it isn’t necessary for the sentence to make sense, then don’t include it. Look at the accomplishment statement below. There is a chunk of information that is completely useless:

In my job duties as webmaster, I identified project specifications with cross functional teams and determined all future necessary requirements for new online systems that increased accuracy and productivity, suggested alternative functionality and successfully met all project deadlines, ISO standards and customer needs.

The first seven words add no value to this accomplishment statement. It also does not start with an action verb. The fact that your previous job was as a webmaster should already be evident since this accomplishment statement is tied to a particular job on your resume. The modified statement is below:

Identified project specifications with cross functional teams and determined all future necessary requirements for new online systems that increased accuracy and productivity, suggested alternative functionality and successfully met all project deadlines, ISO standards and customer needs.

The at-a-glance appearance of your resume should appear professional and attractive. Hold your resume at a distance and glance over the pages without reading the words. Does it look professional, organized and have clearly defined sections? If it does, your resume passes the at-a-glance test.

Content
Getting the reader past that first glance of your resume is the first hurdle. Your resume’s content must also receive a passing grade. The content of your resume should tie everything together as it relates to the specific job you are applying for.

The summary of your resume should include the keywords that the employer is looking for and has mentioned in their job posting. If they cannot skim through the summary and see that you posses a majority of the skills they are looking for, your resume will not be read any further.

Similar to the summary, your work experience must relate to what the employer is looking for. Trace the keywords in the job posting back to the specific accomplishment statements that you created to use on your resume.

If the employer has asked for a very narrow set of skills for a job posting and you find your resume does not contain enough content, add in any accomplishment statements that would naturally compliment the skill sets they are looking for.

Every aspect of your resume should call attention to the fact that your skills overlap with the companies needs. If you do this correctly, you will be one of the few people that are contacted for an interview.

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By Rick Biederer on September 23rd, 2011

Creating Accomplishment Statements

One of the hardest things you will have to do is to evaluate yourself and your performance in your last job but a self-evaluation is a necessary step in creating your resume. A self-evaluation will also help to prepare you for the difficult interview questions and will improve your self-confidence.

Identify and write down a goal you had in your last job or a problem you solved for your last employer.
Write out a list of action verbs that describe what action you took to accomplish your goal or solve your problem. Then write an action statement that describes exactly what you did using one of those action verbs.
Now write down what the results of your actions were. Be specific and include quantifiable results.

With these three pieces of information you can now create an accomplishment statement that you can use as one of your bullet points on your resume.

Identifying a Goal / Problem
Identifying a goal or a problem that you solved can sometimes be difficult at first. This is because you are not used to thinking about your job, you’re used to doing your job. One way you can identify problems and goals is to think through your daily routine at your last job and evaluate each aspect of what you worked on.

For example, let’s say that in your last job you were supervising a manufacturing line of twenty people. One of your goals was most likely to make sure that at least X amount of product was assembled every day.

Action Verbs
Now that you have your goal, you need to think about what actions you took to achieve that goal and come up with some action verbs to describe what you did. Some examples of action verbs would be: reduced, improved, decreased, planned or organized. I’ve created this action verb list to help you find the appropriate action work for your accomplishment statements.

Using the previous manufacturing supervisor example, you could create an action statement based off of one of the words listed above. A good action statement would be something along these lines, “Reduced morning set up time by pre-assigning employees to specific tasks.”

Results
Writing your results statement can sometimes be difficult even if the results are numerically quantifiable. Take a look at these three results statements:

Exceeded product output goal by an average of 1% each week in a ten-week period.
Increased product output over ten weeks to consistently exceed manufacturing goals.
Increased productivity by 21% and consistently exceeded manufacturing output goals over a ten-week period.

Each of those statements would be true if your production goals were 100 units and you improved from manufacturing 80 units each week to manufacturing 101 units each week. But doesn’t the last one sound so much more impressive?

Remember to tailor your results statement so that they give the most impressive first impression.

Finishing Your Accomplishment Statement
You now have all of the pieces you need to write your accomplishment statement.

Reduced morning set up time by pre-assigning employees to specific tasks, which increased productivity by 21% and consistently exceeded manufacturing output goals over a ten-week period.

It is important to make sure that you do not embellish your accomplishments. With the national unemployment numbers for August 2011 at 9.1% and the average time an out of work person is unemployed at 39.7 weeks, employers can afford to pick and choose their employees carefully. Making a false statement on a resume is a sure way to ensure you will not be called for an interview.

Your Resume

Full Story

By Rick Biederer on September 22nd, 2011

Your Resume Summary Statement

The summary statement of your resume will need to catch the eye of both human readers and scanning programs that pre-sort resumes. By following the steps below, you will be able to craft a summary statement that does just that.

Identify your job skills
Use your accomplishment statements to find additional job skills
Create keywords for each job skill
Write your resume summary statement based on your job skills and keywords

Identify Job Skills
The key to identifying your job skills is to identify the areas in which you have both background and expertise. Think through the different places you have been employed and the different tasks you performed for each employer. Identify the job skills needed to perform each task in each job and write them down.

Another way to find your job skills is to read job postings related to your field. If you run across a job requirement that you have a corresponding job skill, add it to your list.

Since you are not necessarily going to be applying for these jobs, you do not have to narrow your job posting to your geographic area. Narrow your search only to your particular field.

Accomplishment Statement Skills
You can also identify your skills by searching your accomplishment statements and pulling out job skills that you used to accomplish your goals. You can read more about how to do this in the article, Creating An Accomplishment Statement Cheat Sheet. I’ve created a worksheet that you can use to record all of your accomplishment statements along with the skills related to them. It is available in the downloads section of this website.

The reverse is also true. If you have identified job skills that you have not already created an accomplishment statement for, you can think through your work history and write a new accomplishment statement tailored to that job skill.

Create Keywords
Keywords are simply words that an employer would use to describe exactly what they are looking. So if an employer was looking for an employee that had sidewalk repairing skills, a keyword they might include in the job posting may be “Certified Jackhammer Operator”.

Use the list of job skills that you created earlier and write the related keywords next to each job skill. Each keyword will describe a tool you used in that job skill.

Job Skill
Website development
Project management
Marketing

Keywords
Html, Javascript, Css, Php
PMI certification, Gantt charts
American Marketing Association (AMA) member

Write Your Summary Statement
In two or three lines, your summary statement should answer the question, “Why should I even consider hiring you for this job?” This is where you will tie your job skills and keywords together into one extremely focused, mind blowing presentation of your ability to fulfill what each employer is looking for.

Tailor your summary statement to each job posting as closely as you can. You already have a blueprint created by tying your accomplishment statement to your job skills and your job skills to your keywords if you used the spreadsheet I provided.

Now all you have to do is find the keywords within each job posting and match them to the keywords, job skills and accomplishment statement in your spreadsheet. Using the matching keywords will allow you to tailor your summary statement to each specific job posting.

What does a well crafted summary statement look like?
Your summary statement should look a little bit different for each job you are applying for but each one should be concise, focused and it should match the job requirements the employer is looking for.

In 2004, I was approached for a job as a webmaster for a mid-sized company. The job duties included writing all the Html and code necessary to update and maintain a group of about 20 websites. My summary statement looked like this:

Five years experience developing intranet web productivity tools using HTML, Asp and JavaScript in a Microsoft IIS and Windows NT/2000 environment. Created Microsoft Access 97/2000 databases and SQL queries to support web tools developed.

This was the summary statement off my general resume so I did not have an opportunity to adjust it to be specific to what they employer was looking for. However, enough of the keywords in my summary statement matched the company’s needs so that it caught their attention and helped me to get an interview. In the end, I received a job offer.

Your summary statement is going to be one of the first filters an employer uses to decide if you make it to the next step in the hiring process. Use your summary statement to effectively market yourself and truly wow your intended audience.

Already have your resume ready to go? Check out our Immediate Job Openings page to find job openings in Illinois!

Your Resume

Full Story

By Rick Biederer on September 21st, 2011

Writing A Resume Work Objective

When To Use A Work Objective Statement
Your work objective statement, also called a resume objective statement, tells an employer exactly what job you are looking for and qualified to do. Use a work objective statement to focus potential employers on the type of career you are looking for in one succinct sentence.

Your work objective statement needs to serve a purpose. If you decide to a work objective in your resume, first ask yourself what value will it add. How will it help your chances of finding a job. If the work objective statement adds no value to your resume, it is only taking up space that could be used to highlight your skills and accomplishments. If you find that your work objective statement addressing a specific issue and adding value, remove it and stick with a summary statement.

Two common reasons to use a work objective are:

You are changing careers and don’t have an elaborate work history.
You are fresh out of college and have no work history.

A work objective can also be used if you are providing your resume to a company that has no specific job openings but fits well with your skill sets and career goals. As an example, suppose that you have a strong computer programming and networking background. A great target company for you to work at would be Google but let’s say that Google is not hiring at the moment. However, in your social network you have a friend who has a relative that is a hiring manager at Google. That is a great “in” for you to use but since you are not applying for a specific job, you could include a work objective statement so that the hiring manager knows at-a-glance what type of jobs to keep you in mind for.

I personally used a work history statement to address the gap in my employment. After being laid off I spent two years finishing my bachelors degree in my field. I used the work objective statement to address my employment gap without calling extraordinary attention to the fact that I had been unemployed for the last two years.

Constructing A Work Objective
Your work objective statement should be very specific as to what you want to do. But do not make your work objective too far above your abilities. You don’t want to state that you wish to be the director of research and development if you are fresh out of college.

You might find it helpful to start with a simpler statement and work your way up from there. You can start with a short statement such as this:

I am looking to work in a sales position.

From here you can break it down by asking yourself questions such as, where would I like to sell? In an office? In the client’s office? Over the phone? Now narrow it down further:

I am looking to use my sales acumen in a sales position that focuses on direct client interaction.

Now narrow it down even further by asking what types of products or market you’d like to sell:

I am looking to use my sales acumen in a sales position that focuses on direct client interaction in the B2B market at XYZ corp.

Keep narrowing your work objective down until it gives an accurate, one-sentence summary of exactly what you are looking for. Also, keep your work objective as concise as possible.

Tailor Your Work Objective
Be sure that each job you are applying for fits within your work objective statement. If you are flexible in certain aspects of your work objective, you can tailor your work objective to coincide with what each employer is looking for. It is also a good idea to use appropriate keywords in your work objective. As with everything on your resume, target your work objective statement to specific job openings.

If the job posting you are applying for is for a sales position in the B2C market and you are happy with a B2C sales job, then swap out the B2B for B2C. But only do so if you are going to be happy working in that type of job.

Remember to be flexible with your work objective statement wording and use. Only use a work objective statement if it promotes the possibility of you receiving an interview or job offer.

Your Resume

Full Story

By Rick Biederer on September 20th, 2011

Budgeting For Your Career Search

How exactly are you going to pay your bills until you are employed again? Unemployment insurance will help alleviate some of this concern but it by no means will be able to support you. This is especially true if you have an extended period of unemployment.

What you need to do at this point is to create a budget for yourself. This will help you to determine when your “need to have a job” date is.

Add up all of your bills that you pay in a month. If you pay for services such as insurance six months at a time, be sure to calculate how much it would be for one months worth and add that into your monthly total.

Next, calculate how much income you will have coming in for each month. Add in your monthly unemployment benefits and any other reoccurring monthly income you bring in.

If you have any one-time lump sum income such as severance pay, you can do one of two things. If the severance pay is nine months worth of salary or more, you can consider it as income and figure it into your monthly income for budgeting purposes.

If it is less than nine months, you should consider it as savings. The reason you should consider less than nine months worth of income as savings, is because as of May 2011 the average duration of unemployment is 39.7 weeks according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Now take your monthly income number and subtract the amount of your monthly bills. In my case I was bringing in around $700 per month in income and I was paying approximately $1400 in bills at the time. That left me with a deficit of $700. Since I knew it was going to take me two years to finish my degree that meant I was going to have to pay a minimum of $16,800 before I was going to be gainfully employed.

If you have a deficit like I did, you are going to have to find out where that money is going to be coming from or figure out how you can cut your spending down to equal your monthly income. I did a combination of both; I cut spending and used my savings to cover the remainder.

So how do you calculate how long your savings will last you? One way you can determine how long the cash you have will last is to take your total cash value and divide it by the monthly deficit you figured out earlier. Here are the formulas I use:

Monthly Income – Monthly Expenses = Deficit
Cash (savings, CD’s, severance pay, etc.) / Deficit = Months You Savings Will Last

To use a simple example, let’s say you have a monthly income of $1000, monthly expenses of $1200 and savings of $2000. The formulas would look like this:

$1000 – $1200 = -$200
$2000 / $200 = 10 Months

If you would like to use the simple budget sheet that I used, I’ve provided it here as an excel sheet download.

Legal Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that I am not an accountant or financial advisor. None of the information I am providing is intended as financial advice. I am only demonstrating the calculations I used when I was unemployed.

Preparing For Change

Full Story

By Rick Biederer on September 19th, 2011

Your Resume Type

Your resume is a carefully crafted summary of qualifications that are relevant to the job that you are applying for. It is also a brochure marketing you and your individual skill sets to potential employers.

The only purpose of your resume is to let employers know what it is that you can offer them and to attain job interviews.

There are two main types of resumes: chronological and functional. The type of resume that you create will depend on your individual circumstances.

Chronological Resume
The most common type of resume is the chronological resume. With this resume you will list your employers and job titles from most recent to the least recent. The chronological resume highlights the companies you’ve worked for, the job titles you’ve attained, your skills, job responsibilities and your accomplishments.

You can use a chronological resume if you have a strong employment history and are looking for employment in the same field you’ve held in the past. Since a chronological resume emphasizes work history, you will not want to use a chronological resume if you have large gaps in your employment record.

I’ve added a free Chronological Resume Template in the resources section of this site.

Functional Resume
A functional resume emphasizes your skills and knowledge. If you have gaps of time where you have been unemployed, you will want to consider using a functional resume.

A functional resume will also be more beneficial if you are applying for jobs that are in a different career or industry than other jobs you have held in the past. The functional resume will allow you to highlight your skills and knowledge that will be relevant for your new career path.

I’ve added a free Functional Resume Template in the resources section of this site.

Your Resume

When I was first laid off, I knew my goal was to spend the next two years finishing my degree. That meant I was going to have a two year gap in my resume and lead me to believe that a functional resume would be the better choice for me.

Once I started writing out the actual functions for my accomplishment statements I realized that they were all nearly identical. Not only that but by sticking to a strictly functional resume format I glossed over a major resume asset. My previous employment was with Motorola, a fortune 50 company.

Similarly, sticking with a chronological resume wasn’t the perfect fit for me either. When talking with my career trainer we were able to create more of a hybrid resume that addressed the gap in my employment and allowed me to highlight my skills and accomplishments.

The resume that you create should address any potential issues that an employer may have by presenting your situation in the best possible light. Do you have a gap in employment? Make sure you resume highlights your skills instead. Are you changing career paths and lack an extensive background in your new field? Emphasize any recent education you’ve completed along with all the relevant skills and accomplishments pertaining to your new career.

Every job posting that you reply to will give you a blueprint of exactly what that employer is looking for. What you need to do is craft your resume so that you call attention to the fact that you have the skills and background to not only fill that job but excel at it.

Your Resume

Full Story

Lake County IL Jobs

What Every Job Seeker Should Know

To Send or Not To Send

5 Phone Interview Mistakes Real People Made

Lessons

It’s All about How You Dress

How to Network for Employment Opportunities

What Does ‘Acting as a Consultant’ Mean?

What ‘Acting as a Consultant’ Does Not Mean

Research The Job

Practice

Dress The Part

Bring Copies Of Your Resume And Portfolio

Ooze Enthusiasm

Talk In 60 to 90 Second Bullet Points

Take Notes

Ask Questions

Don’t Apologize For Your Lack Of Experience

Close With A Bang

Need More Help?

Resume Type

Work Objective Statement

Summary Statement

Accomplishment Statements

Scanning, Style and Content

Why 90 seconds?

When To Use Your 90 Second Introduction

Accomplishment Statement Breakdown

Creating Your Worksheet

Using Your Worksheet To Populate Your Resume

Your Resume

Job Opportunities

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