Don’t Get Stuck In A Rut

Don’t get stuck in a rut. If you need a job and you can’t find one in your industry, consider changing industries. If you are struggling to get your phone to ring and/or get an interview, you may want to step back and evaluate your skill set. Identifying your transferable skills will help you make a successful transition to another industry. However that is not the only thing you need to consider.

If you want to or need to change industries you may want to consider a few more things.

1. Go back to school for a specific trade or skill you need.

2. Find an opportunity to volunteer for a job within the new industry.

3. Set up an informational interview and find out the skills and abilities you need for the industry.

4. Consider taking an entry level position in the new industry.

5. Consider moving away from a chronological resume to a functional resume.

6. Network with people within the industry you are interested in,

7. Develop a strategy for making the change. Don’t assume just because you want to change you will make the change. Plan the career change.

8. Assess your reasons for wanting to make a career change. You should have clear reasons that you can articulate about why you are making the change. It can’t be just because you can’t find a job in your previous industry.

Last but not least, be flexible. When you are making a career change, things may not go as smoothly as you would like. As I stated, you may have to take an entry level position to successfully make the change. You may have to take a decrease in your salary. Flexibility will help you make a smooth transition. No matter what obstacles you find in front of you, if it is time for a change, determine that you are willing to take the chance and step outside of your comfort zone and go for it.

Image Credit: sxc.hu

The Function of Functional Resumes

Functional resumes are less common than chronological resumes. They are laid using skills and abilities rather than chronologically from most recent job. Chronological resumes are for job-seekers who have spent years in the same career. and you plan to remain in the same career for your next opportunity. I had the opportunity to speak to a new client this week who is struggling to get the phone to ring. He is interested in working in a completely different industry than where he has been working for the last 15-20 years. He has excellent skills and a strong resume, however, no one is calling in the new industry. That’s where a functional resume comes in.

Here are some reasons you may want to consider when transitioning from a chronological resume to a functional resume:

• Because you have done a lot of jobs and do not have a clear career path with your work experience
• Because you are a student with little to no work experience
• Because you have gaps in your employment history
• Because you want to change your career path and you have no experience in your new career choic
• Because you are an older job seeker and you want to minimize your long job history
• Because you are reentering the job market after a long period of time

If you are a job seeker and the phone is not ringing, consider developing a strong resume and cover letter. If the resume is not working, try reconstructing the resume into a functional resume. Make sure the skills you highlight on this resume connect to the type of job you are interested. Highlight transferable skills, include education, and employment history on the functional resume. Don’t assume that a chronological resume is the only way to go. You are much more likely to get the phone to ring when you connect the jobs you are applying for with your skills.

Image Credit: sxc.hu

Transferable Skills Open Doors

What are Transferable Skills: They are general skills and abilities employers look for in potential employees. In the current job market, it is very important that your identify your transferable skills so that you are not limited to one and only one industry. If you want to be marketable, in this challenging employment climate, versatility and not rigidity is the name of the game.

Here is a list of Transferable Skills to help:

1. Problem Solver

2. Decision-making

3. Planing

4. Teamwork or Team Player

5. Strong Communication Skills (written and oral communication)

6. Leadership Skills

7. Ability to Prioritize

8. Organizational Skills

9. Time Management

10. Organizational Savvy

11. Presentation Skills

12. Facilitation Skills

Take a moment to review your resume and cover letter. Are these words anywhere on your resume and cover letter? If not, take some time to add these words. Be able to speak about your transferable skills in an interview. Use them when answering questions. You don’t need to say they are transferable. Hiring managers and Recruiters will hear them as you are speaking with them. This list will get you started. However as you review your resume and cover letter and prepare for interviews, these words can be used to help bridge the gap between what you have done in the past and what you are willing to do moving forward. Don’t limit yourself in your job search. Open up your mind and consider other industries that may be hiring if the one you have invested in for years is not hiring.

Image Credit: sxc.hu

Informational Interviews

Career changes is one of the options available for job seekers. If you have invested years in your current profession and the jobs seem to be dried up, consider what else you can do. You are not stuck, and you are not a victim of the foolishness happening in the market. Evaluate what else you could potential do and use your network to help set up Informational Interviews.

The purpose of the Informational Interviews is to conduct research before you jump into another job, in a new industry you have never worked. You are an information gatherer, so that you can determine if you want to make a career change to the new industry. Make sure that you set up your Informational Interview with seasoned professionals from the industry or business you are exploring. Your preparation prior to the meeting is critical. Make sure you use your time wisely. No more than an hour should be spent asking questions. Make sure contact you are meeting with understands your purpose for meeting. You are not asking for a job. Prepare a minimum of 10 questions, no more than 15.

Here are some things to keep in mind as your prepare for your Informational Interview:

1. Learn how the person got into the business

2. Ask what the person enjoys about what they do, and what they don’t enjoy and why

3. Ask about their greatest challenge

4. Ask about skills and abilities needed to be successful in the industry

5. Ask about current job opportunities in the industry for someone who has your skill set – transferable skills

6. Ask about professional organizations for people in the industry

7. Ask about the future of the industry

8. Ask about minimum requirements for entering the industry

9. Ask about books, magazines or journals you could read to learn more about the industry

10. Ask for any additional information they believe you should know before making a decision to change careers

Make sure you thank the contact for taking time to answer your questions. Thank you notes are still critical for you to include while in your job search. Handwritten thank you notes are still the best, however email thank you notes are effective and acceptable.

Image Credit: sxc.hu

Substitute Teaching Is A Job

A substitute teacher is a person who teaches a class when the regular teacher is unavailable due to illness, personal leave, job dissatisfaction, or any other reason that keeps a regular teacher from performing their duties. As I was discussing the upcoming school year today with a teacher, I realized that she has been substitute teacher this entire school year. She is a certified teacher with about five years experience. She didn’t land a contract for the current academic year. When we discussed it last fall, I suggested that she consider becoming a substitute teacher. As we discussed next school year, she reminded me about my conversation with her last fall. I thought it might be a job for you to consider if you are struggling to find a job right now. There are always substitute teaching jobs available.

Here are some things to consider if this job interest you:

1. Go online and check the qualifications they will consider for a substitute teacher
2. Select at least school districts to apply
3. Determine the grade levels you are interested in teaching
4. Complete the application process. Include all supporting documents they may request
5. Prepare for your interviw
6. If you have never taught before, not to fear, do some research – talk to someone who does teach
7. Determine your transferable skills and communicate them

Be ready for the unexpected. You never know where substitute teaching will take you from day to day. You might spend one day teaching high school science, two days later teaching math. You have the freedom to choose which assignments to pursue at whichever schools you wish. You can take a day off whenever it is necessary in your schedule. There is freedom to manage your schedule from week to week and day to day.

Make sure you like children. If you don’t like children, don’t apply. The students in our schools need people who care. My purpose in sharing this job opportunity is to continue to give ideas for those of you who may want to consider this option. Everyone doesn’t need to be a substitute teacher. If it is something that will help you get back on your feet, than go for it!

Image Credit: sxc.hu

People Want To Work – People Need To Work

People want to work and people need to work in order to make ends meet – to survive. It is about survival for many people. Bills are stacking up, children need to eat. I know you want to work and beyond your want, there is a need to work, but don’t take a job that you know you don’t want to do. If you are unemployed and actively pursuing employment I want to recommend that you take a moment – actually 4 hours or more and evaluate what you really want to do. Once you identify your target job/industry, now you need to develop a strategy for getting the job you say you want.

Don’t get bogged down as you develop your strategy in non-traditional job search tools. Sitting in front of your computer responding to job board ads is a waste of your time. Networking, letter writing campaigns, direct contact with organizations, networking… maybe a better way to approach your job search.

Develop a dossier of your work experience. List every job that you have worked. Identify your accomplishments so that you will have some clarity about what you will share in the course of the interview. Your resume is the beginning of your dossier.

• Highlight your strengths
• Differentiate yourself from the competition – other job seekers
• Reinvent yourself  – Look for transferable skills and seek employment in industries who are hiring.
• Don’t settle for a low-ball salary – Negotiate

People want to work and I know people need to work given our current economic situation in this country. People are hiring, Get creative with your job search. Network, make direct contact with organizations. Don’t get stuck responding to job board ads. Get out and volunteer while you are in the job search. Lastly, consider what you can do from home. Maybe look at starting your own business.

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Resume – Access to the Interview

Resumes are still a critical key to getting the interview. It will not guarantee an interview or job offer, but it will unlock the door or access into organizations. Resumes have a shelf life of about 2-5 seconds in the hand of a hiring manager. So, you have a moment to make a first impression.

Here is a list of suggestions for you to consider as you develop your resume:

1. Use a strong opening statement or objective – or don’t use one at all

2. Integrity matters! Do not pad your resume

3. Highlight leadership and decision-making experience

4. Highlight how you have impacted previous organizations

5. Indicate what you can do for the employer with your experience, skills and abilities

6. Connect previous experience, skills and abilities to the position you are considering

7. Emphasize your accomplishments

8. Highlight transferable skills

9. Keep it short – 2 pages maximum

10. Previous salary is not relevant on the resume

11. Omit personal information such as: marital status, age, religious preference, height, weight, and hobbies

12. Include accurate dates – Eliminate gaps in employment if possible

13. Grammar, spelling, word choice do make a difference – Use Spell Check, proofread and edit before mass producing

Image Credit: Newscom

Tags: Interview Chatter, Resume, Access to the Interview, Transferable Skills, Skills, Abilities, Accomplishments, Interview, Leadership, Decision-making, Marital Status, Age

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Assessing Your Strengths and Weaknesses

You can be sure that you’ll be asked about your strengths and weaknesses at your next interview.  Sometimes coming up with a few of each can be difficult so it’s best to prepare for this way ahead of time.  Here’s an excerpt from a great article I found at Monster.com that tells how to assesses your strengths and weaknesses. 

It’s a great exercise and even helps with scripting your answers.

Assessing Your Strengths

Assess your skills, and you will identify your strengths. This is an exercise worth doing before any interview. Make a list of your skills, dividing them into three categories:

1. Knowledge-based skills: Acquired from education and experience (e.g., computer skills, languages, degrees, training and technical ability). 2. Transferable skills: Your portable skills that you take from job to job (e.g., communication and people skills, analytical problem solving and planning skills).

3. Personal traits: Your unique qualities (e.g., dependable, flexible, friendly, hard working, expressive, formal, punctual and being a team player).

When you complete this list, choose three to five of those strengths that match what the employer is seeking in the job posting. Make sure you can give specific examples to demonstrate why you say that is your strength if probed further.

Assessing Your Weaknesses

This is probably the most dreaded part of the question. Everyone has weaknesses, but who wants to admit to them, especially in an interview?

The best way to handle this question is to minimize the trait and emphasize the positive. Select a trait and come up with a solution to overcome your weakness. Stay away from personal qualities and concentrate more on professional traits. For example:

“I pride myself on being a ‘big picture’ guy. I have to admit I sometimes miss small details, but I always make sure I have someone who is detail-oriented on my team.”

Scripting Your Answers

Write a positive statement you can say with confidence:

“My strength is my flexibility to handle change. As customer service manager at my last job, I was able to turn around a negative working environment and develop a very supportive team. As far as weaknesses, I feel that my management skills could be stronger, and I am constantly working to improve them.”

When confronted with this question, remember the interviewer is looking for a fit. She is forming a picture of you based on your answers. A single answer will probably not keep you from getting the job, unless, of course, it is something blatant. Put your energy into your strengths statement — what you have to offer. Then let the interviewer know that although you may not be perfect, you are working on any shortcomings you have.

Industry Experience – How Important is it in Your Job Search?

Here is a scenario from one of my colleagues in the career niche, Chris Russell of Secrets of the Job Search.

“One of my best friends is going through a job search right now. He is a smart guy with an MBA who’s not even 40 years old yet in the financial management industry. His biggest challenge seems to be that most jobs he sees always have one little requirement he cant meet. The old “experience working in [insert industry here] is required“. What ever happened to transferable skills? Why are employers so adamant about only wanting candidates who work in their industry? Its especially frustrating for him since he is a Finance Manager which almost every major company is hiring for. I mean they’re just crunching numbers right? Anybody with good finance management skills should be able to do the job in my opinion. But employers still seem stuck on the perfect candidate.”

Let me begin by answering the the question of industry experience – how important is it in your job search? Given the tight job market it is VERY important. But it is not an insurmountable obstacle for you to get over in your job search. This issue of transferable skills, and communicating them to a hiring is manager comes down to finesse. When you are interviewing for a job and you don’t have all of the skills and abilities they are looking for, you better be bringing more to the table than what they are looking for. You can’t bring 80% of the skills and abilities and not bring 20-25% more than what they are looking for to make up the deficit.

What am I trying to say? Prior to going into the job interview, it is very important to understand the “pain” the organization is having – what are they really missing in the role, or opening they are attempting to fill? What is in your “tool kit” that will give them more than what they are looking for. If you don’t know, then you are not ready to sit down and discuss the opportunity.

Most people walk into the interview hoping they meet the minimum qualifications, but it about adding value. How do you differentiate yourself from the competition and from the job description they are using as a baseline for the new hire?

To Chris: If you would like me to speak to your friend, I would be happy to help. I may be able to help him approach his interviews differently. Please feel free to share my contact information. To my readers: I challenge you to think outside the qualifications, skills and abilities outlined in the job description. What more, do you bring to the table? If you are not sure, let’s talk and let me help you see beyond the job description to bring value to the organization you are interested in working. I would love to hear your thoughts!

Image Credit: Newscom

Blogging is a Transferable Skill

For anyone who is now or likely to be in the job market and therefore will need at some time to front up to an interview, the Interview Chatter blog is required reading and a must-link for a feed reader.

Like this blog, Interview Chatter is part of the b5media business channel. Its author, Darlene McDaniel, has a gift for explaining all those things that as a former job seeker I wished I had known and as a former executive and interviewer I wished I’d been able to communicate to sweaty-palmed or nonchalant or “just don’t get it” interviewees.

Darlene’s post a few days ago on transferable skills was a typical gem. Transferable skills, Darlene explains, are “general skills and abilities employers look for in potential employees”, such as decision-making ability and time management.

In my observation, it’s very easy for any of us to overlook skills we have which are actually transferable.

A classic example of how a candidate can overlook their own skills and thus not do themselves justice in an interview is a single parent who has to be a supremo in the decision-making, time-management, prioritizing, child psychology and diplomacy departments but fails to recognize how valuable that sort of skill base can be to many employers.

Or someone who has driven a taxi for several years, as I did long ago, may not realize how valuable to a potential employer it might be to have someone on their staff who knows something about dealing with drunks and other disagreeable people without getting their head knocked in or having to call the police.

Darlene has a great list and any job candidate would do well to sit down with her list, go through it and document their own skills.

A skill I would add is blogging.

Blogging? Really?

Yes, blogging. And this is why. As Web 2.0/social media technology becomes more pervasive in the workplace, more and more business owners and executives are going to be looking for people who have the skills to handle the technology.

And as any half-way committed blogger knows, there is a lot of knowledge and skill in this field that you can only acquire by doing it.

So, for example, an eighteen year old who may not have a lot of developed skill in financial management may be a mad keen blogger/MySpacer : the knowledge and skill they have acquired in that private activity might be very timely and potentially very valuable, say for a financial services business which is about to set up a corporate blog and needs someone to make it all work.

If I were the employer, I might well decide that the blogging candidate’s skills in this area outweighed a lack of experience in other skill areas. That candidate might well get the job over someone with more financial skills but who doesn’t blog or have any interest in blogging.

Or for a job that required a lot or a reasonable amount of writing, think how good would it be for a candidate to be able to say to a prospective employer, “Sure, I’ve been writing in my blog for the past couple of years, I have x number of subscribers and y number of page views a month. You don’t need to take my word for it. It’s all there for you to check.”

And a candidate who blogs needs to remember and explain that blogging effectively and building a loyal readership is about more than writing. It’s about studying visitor stats to see what works and what doesn’t. It’s about being able to respond intelligently to comments, including critical ones. It’s about social networking.

Transferable skills.

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