Earlier this year I read an article by Joshua Waldman over at Career Enlightenment. He gave a list of 25 Twitter Chats for valuable career advice. I checked out each of these. I highly recommend #HFChat which takes place every Friday at 11 AM (Central). This chat has the most participation and invaluable advice from HR experts on a variety of topics. Not only is it a great place to learn tips and get advice, it is a great way to meet and network with recruiters and HR professionals that want to help.
Tag: Career
5 tips when your job search has you discouraged.
Searching for a job is seldom fun and takes a lot of discipline. What do you do when you get discouraged in your search? Here are some tips that are helping me.
- Give yourself permission to take a break and do something fun. This is important to keep a positive outlook
- Make sure you are networked with friends who can offer encouragement
- Get some advice from experts. These days there are a plethora of places on the Internet to find expert help. Some help is free. Some you pay for. Take advantage of both. Brazen Careerist and Careerealism are great places to start
- Remember that every day is one day closer to your next job and every rejection is one step closer.
- Spend time seeking God and staying connected in your local church.
Job Fair ROI
It’s been several weeks since the job fair I went to and I decided it was time to rethink my posting (Job Fairs: Are They Worth the Investment of Time). Every job fair is going to be different. Yes, there are a lot of people there. However, you do get to have face time with potential employers and it is a great way to network with other job seekers.
What happened to change my mind? I got an interview with a company for a job that I think is right up my alley. I would not have seen this possibility on my own, nor would I have had the interview. It may only be one interview, but one interview is one more than I had before and one more opportunity to connect.
I have another job fair next week that I am now looking forward to. For those of you out there that are struggling, like me, to find a job, let me encourage you to get out there.
How to find and follow the thought leaders in your industry.
These days there is so much information out there in just about every industry. If you are trying to keep up with trends, how do you determine who to listen to? Here are some of the steps that I took to discover the people I follow.
- Do a search for top blogs in your industry
- Do a Twitter search for people in your industry
- Do some research and find out who is following the blogs/Twitter accounts and who those people are following.
- As you research, you will begin to see patterns in the people that are continually referenced and followed. These are likely thought leaders and influencers in your industry.
- Follow these leaders and they will lead you to other influencers
What tips do you have?
3 Job Search Blogs I Follow
Part of my job search plan involves following job search blogs. Following these blogs gives me insight, ideas, and continued motivation as I work toward finding my next job. What follows are three job search sites I discovered through reading Joshua Waldman’s book Job Searching with Social Media For Dummies (For Dummies (Career/Education))
- Brazen Careerist I am currently participating in a job bootcamp through them and finding it very helpful.
- Careerealism
- Career Enlightenment
Tracking Job Applications
When job hunting, it is important to track where you send applications. It gives you a reference point when you are contacted and keeps you from applying to the same job multiple times. There are a number of ways to do this. Some, write down information. Some use a spreadsheet. These days there are websites that help you do this. The following are two that I came across an am testing in my own job search.
- Jobkatch.com: The amount of information you can track through this site is good. They also have a bookmarklet you can add to your browser to make it easier to input information as you are on job boards.
- Startwire.com: I just started using this one recently. The information you can track isn’t quite as detailed. However, if you get an email response from an application, you can foward it and it will automatically be entered without having to do much of anything. Other plusses? They will ask you if you would like your resume forwarded to various job sites and you have control of the status of your lead (marking an interview, etc) where jobkatch does not have a way to do this yet
There are other sites out there that I haven’t tried yet. What do you recommend?
Are there Alternatives to the Traditional Resume?
I love this day and age of being able to apply for jobs online. I know how to navigate online and am very comfortable looking for information. The downside is that it is much more difficult to follow up on applications. Sometimes it feels like they are sent into the black hole of cyber space. It also means getting an interview can be difficult.
Being judged solely on my resume has always been frustrating to me. My resume may or may not get me an interview, but if I can get an interview, it usually goes well. One of my first jobs, I got because the recruiter liked me so much in the interview. I didn’t qualify for the job I interviewed for. However, as the recruiter talked with her co-workers about me, they found another position.
I read this article in the Wall Street Journal this week and was encouraged to see companies looking for alternatives to the traditional resume. This is one upside to having a blog or personal website. If recruiters do take the time to view my site, I think they get a little better picture of who I am than what I can show on a piece of paper.
What do you think? Are there better alternatives to the traditional resume?
Job Fairs: Are They Worth the Investment of Time?
I went to a job fair this morning. It was the first job fair I have ever been to. I was glad to see that there were a lot of companies represented. However, as I made my way around the room and through the masses of people, I began to wonder if it was worth the investment of time. I had hoped to take advantage of meeting with people face to face. However, with so many people, I wondered if I would even be remembered when the day was over. My resume was added to a stack of others. Worthwhile to get it in the hands of a hiring manager? Yes, but does it accomplish anything more than submitting a resume online?
Have you been to a job fair? What was your reaction?
Tracking Time
I recently asked the question How do you spend your time when you are job searching? To be honest, I wondered at that point how I would fill my day job searching. Now, a couple of weeks later, I have no problem filling the time. I am working on finding a schedule that works best for me. I am trying to spend half the day on my part time work at home. That only leaves half the day for searching for jobs, applying, networking, writing and re-writing my resume and trying to keep up with the blog.
I find that creating a schedule helps. It gives me a purpose for the day so I have more determination to get up and get going. I have even found myself beginning to set my clock earlier so I can get more done. This is is very good considering I am not a morning person. It feels good to be accomplishing something each day.
A special thanks to all those who have written to say they are keeping their ears open for opportunities.
My favorite online job board
I have used many online job boards in the past and this time around there are even more. My favorite site is indeed.com. Indeed collects leads from multiple job sites. It’s a little like a one stop shop. Although it doesn’t include everything, I have found a lot of great niche sites through here.
The interface for indeed is very minimal and basic. I like this. It gets right to what I want to do without a lot of fluff. Like most boards, you can save searches and have it send you an email whenever something new comes up in your search. My favorite thing is thing is that I can make notes about most of the searches right in the search screen. I can quickly note that I applied for the job without having to go through a long process.
Indeed also has a great mobile app that brings up your most recent searches immediately and notes whether there have been any new postings before you even click to search.
I am always open to suggestions, but for now indeed.com is my favorite place to search.