Why You NEED Career and Interview Coaching in Today's Job Market

I just read an article on LinkedIn from an HR Director titled Meeting the Need for Talent. The article is pointed at hospitality, specifically hoteliers, but it resonates several strong points, and the “baker’s dozen questions” apply to every industry, every function. It got me thinking about how many opportunities are really out there. I know the common chant right now is “not enough jobs” and there is some truth to that. However, if you change your thinking and become an opportunity seeker instead of a job seeker, you will see a world of possibilities open up for you.

Here’s the deal. Because there are fewer jobs and more people to fill them, employers are now seeking superstars instead of candidates. These career rockstars start wowing the hiring managers from first contact (their resume and cover letter) right through the interview process. Never tiring, never showing wear, ALWAYS identifying or recognizing opportunities to bring or demonstrate value.  These are the people that seem to sail through changing jobs, lay offs, downsizing, etc. The ones that make you sit up straighter and wish you’d ironed your shirt when they walk into the waiting room for an interview.

The afore mentioned article is all about how employers are changing the way they look, the way they come across to potential employees, and the way they interview. This is why you need career and interview coaching to go along with knockout personal marketing documents.  The career coaching is necessary just to target you and or make you appear less specialized at the same time. So to keep up and not get left in the “pass” pile, you need to change the way they see you and the way you interview. That’s a lot for you to take on when you’re already worried about this transitional period in your life. 

I hear clients all the time tell me out of one side of their mouth that they don’t have an “exciting job”. They don’t do anything special, ever. Then out of the other side of their mouth say “Oh, interview? No, I’m good. I can nail an interview.”  My next question is, “Really, what will you talk about?” Silence. Sometime the answer is an embarrassed “Well, I wasn’t ready for that.” That,  I offer, is the problem. You should know your experience and accomplishments well enough to know what needs they match and be ready, at any time, to deliver professional, poised, value laden answers to any questions, from anybody asking about your knowledge, skills, and abilities.

Flash forward three days and our client now has a document properly showcasing their former positions and achievements (and yes, everyone has achievements in every job). They have  a document with a strong call to action for a personal meeting, and have learned not only how to answer any professional question, at any time, but also the ever important questions they should ask employers at the interview. They have become a superstar, through knowledge about who they are as a professional, which path they are traveling and how to successfully convey their match to employer’s needs for talent.

OMG! Resumes has built vital career and interview coaching into every package at no extra charge. We want you to get the job, not just the interview. OMG! Resumes turns weary job seekers into opportunity seeking superstars!

21st Century Networking

Protean:

1. Tending or able to change frequently or easily.

2. Able to do many different things; versatile. 

The 21st century career must be protean. A career that is completely driven by the individual, not the organization. A career that will be reinvented by the person, as the person, the environment, and the market change. This is why networking is now of paramount importance. Throughout your life you will collect all kinds of people and in this protean age, any one of them could be a valuable connection.

Quintessential Careers.com reports only 5%-25% of jobs are advertised.  
About.com says at least 60% of all jobs come from networking.

Meeting and rubbing elbows with people is easy. The complicated part has always been how to give them as much information about you in as convenient a way possible. Every article I read says “DO NOT go out anywhere without a copy of your resume in your car or briefcase.” Let’s clarify this and bring it into this century. First, keeping your resume in your car – I don’t know about you but if anything stays in my car for longer than one day it is inevitably covered in dried McDonalds barbeque sauce and has at least two different size footprints on it. So your car? Maybe not the best place to store important potentially life changing documents. Keeping them in a briefcase. Do you take your briefcase to dinner? To parties? No. You don’t always have your briefcase with you. These scenarios also leave out the inconvenience to whomever your giving your resume, to now, make sure it doesn’t get wrinkled or they don’t leave it their car, and to make a copy or scan it into their pc and get it to the decision makers. This puts a lot off onto this person your are trying to impress.

Cue technology and the 21st century. Networking cards have been around for a while. There have been several different kinds of networking cards through the years. Some with just your name and contact information. This gives your contacts no information except who you are. Then we had “shrunken resumes”, compact little pieces of paper that when unfolded revealed a truncated version of your resume and when folded up properly looked like a regular networking card. These were hard to read and harder to fold. Now we have email addresses or direct links to web resumes. This is much easier but let’s take it a step further.

With the rise of smart phones we have discovered how, in one step to get your information to contacts, making it convenient for both of you. Welcome, the QR code.

You may have seen these little graphics on products, some TV shows, cds, dvds or a myriad of other things. These are little pieces of code that when read by a smart phone will take you immediately to a website for that product or movie or album or…candidate. We redesigned the networking card to include your name, branding statement, contact information and QR code. When you hand these out, you are giving your entire personal marketing package to a contact in a way that is easy for you to always have on you. Even better, its easy for your contact to keep and access. The QR code, when read by a smart phone, will redirect to your web resume and cover letter. Your web resume can also include links to your LinkedIn profile or online portfolio, highlighting all pertinent accomplishments. From your web resume, your contact can save a copy of your resume, email it, print it, or send the link directly to your targeted decision maker.

All of these are solid, modern business reasons for this to work for you. The part that is not talked about as much but is equally compelling is…it’s really cool, brand new technology. People will stand in line to say they are doing the newest technology based thing. The convenience and innovation of this product will stick in your contact’s mind, further ensuring you will not be forgotten. Your contact is going to want to show this to everyone they know, there by growing your network without you even having to be around.

OMG! Resumes will build and host your web resume and cover letter with a unique URL and create your NetSmart Card with QR code. Call us today to make sure you never miss another networking opportunity again.

Happy New Year everyone!!!

2011 will be a year of rebuilding and recovery, however it is the 1ST year of rebuilding and recovery therefore it is still a mixed bag. Only 5% of companies surveyed by AOLJobs.com plan to continue a hiring freeze in 2011. And, salaries are expected to increase an average of 2.9%. However, most companies that began "working leaner" during the recession say they do NOT plan to re-grow their staff.

So, if you are looking for a job, looking for a promotion, or raise you have to stay sharp. Now more than ever. The job market will actually be even more clogged with candidates than last year. All the folks who hung onto that job they hate, the ones who knew how bad the market was and weren't going to get out there until they saw a light at the end of the tunnel? All of these people will now throw their hat into the ring for consideration.

Education and soft skills seem to be tied for "most important to employers". Don't get discouraged - Education doesn't necessarily mean college. In many careers a specialized certification is as or more important than a degree. For example, the number 1 growing industry in the US right now is healthcare. All kinds of healthcare workers are needed and these careers usually require a certification that takes between 9 months and 2 years.

You'll also see an influx of part time jobs. Another growing trend spawned from employers wanting more educated workers AND the fact that this new brighter market is still in it's trial stages. These jobs are more likely to work around class schedules. On the flip side most continuing education institutions offers weekend or night classes as well as a myriad of classes online for almost any career path.

DEVELOP AND SHOWCASE YOUR "SOFT SKILLS". I have long been made fun of by everyone from my friends to my husband for constantly correcting people's grammar and criticizing emails with misspelled words and either fragmented or run on sentences. Well guess what, it's cool to speak properly again. At least in the workplace. Think about it - In any position you'll ever have you must be perceived by the client as the expert in that position. Receptionist to CEO you have to be "the one" in the client's eyes. That same set of traits gets you hired for that position. You cannot convey expertise through schoolyard slang, abbreviations and words that aren't really words (example: irregardless, NOT a word). This has become paramount to employers. No one's going to turn you loose on clients if they can't understand what you say.

Develop other soft skills as well. Figure out what part of your personality makes you the best at what you do, develop it and showcase it. Hard skills are hard skills and degrees are degrees and they are attainable through hard work to anyone. However, employers now know soft skills and character traits, that's where one person differs from the next. That's what makes us, as individuals, stand out. Following that logic, employers realize if it makes us stand out individually, then adding a spotlight grabber to their team will add to their bottom line.

If you or someone you know is venturing into the job market this year, give us a call. We will highlight your hard skills, pin point your most valuable soft skills, and put together a value statement that makes employers say "OMG!"