Thursday’s Thought: Being Different Is the New Normal

Just about every aspect in our society today has changed from what the "norm" was about 20-30 years ago to a new and different "acceptance" on the street. I won't even bother to try an list all of them, but to give you an idea of where I am going: Tattoo's were hidden, hair color was natural (not pink), sexual preference was not out in the open, communicating to someone was done in person, via snail mail, or over the phone, resumes were a simple black and white history document, we relied on our own efforts to accomplish a task, and if you were against public opinion you probably kept your mouth shut.

Maybe some of us that are unemployed are sticking to our "older" traditions, and we are not trying new things that might get us noticed. Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to have you dye your hair pink if that is not your desired hair color, but I am asking that you open yourself up to formerly non-traditional actions that we still think is not for us, or still hold onto the "we never did it that way mentality". For example, how many job seekers today are using more than 3 social media avenues? The answer: less than 10%. Most of us have 1 or 2 and some use 3, but very few explore more than this. It's a good idea to only start with a few, but you need to expand into other social media channels if you want a broad coverage and to enhance your online identity. Also, does your resume look as bland as it did in the 90's? You need to attract the recruiter's attention, and the proper use of pictures and graphics will help make you stand out from the other 499 resumes that they view for every position they work on.

We all know the definition of insanity, yet we still stick to our traditions thinking society is going to change. And it will, but change takes time and I don't ever think that we will see a resume chiseled on a cave wall like we did in the past.

Tuesday’s Tip: The Interviewer is Nervous as Well

Most Hiring Managers are not very good at interviewing (and they know this). Thus, they are just as nervous as you are in the interview. They are nervous because they are thinking, "Will I represent my company well?", "Will I ask the right questions", "Can I sell this opportunity", and "Will I be able to answer their questions". So why do I bring this up? It's because you need to take control of the interview without the Hiring Manager realizing that you are controlling it. You need this "control" because you need to get across why you are the best candidate for this position, and why you can come in and solve their problems better than anyone else can. And if the Hiring Manager is nervous, they may (or may not) ask the right questions to obtain the right amount of data to make a valid determination of your value proposition.

In preparation for your interview, you should make note of 5-7 things that are critical for them to know about you in order for them to fall in love with your qualifications. If you take control of the interview, you will have an opportunity to state those items during the conversation. If you rely on them asking the right questions before you can explain your top 5-7 critical statements/stories, then you are leaving too much to "chance".

If you arrive at the end of the interview and notice that you have not had an opportunity to tell them your critical (prepared) statements, then when they ask, "Kevin, do you have any further questions?", you need to turn your un-stated statements into a question. For example, "Yes, I do have one more question. When I was at ABC Company, I got them on the Top 100 Places to Work List. Is this important for XYZ Company to be recognized on one of the best places to work lists?".

Controlling the interview will provide you the vehicle you need to drive yourself to victory lane. Otherwise, you may crash and burn if you let the interviewer drive you around the crazy obstacle course that they have you headed on.

Thursday’s Thought: Discrimination Against the Unemployed

Recently, it's been in the news that companies are discriminating against those job seekers that aren't currently unemployed. They would rather interview employees that are currently working at another company, than bring in talented individuals that have valid reasons for being on the job market. This mentality just further proves the incompetence of many recruiters and hiring managers that are looking for people to come into their company and solve their problems. No wonder they have problems to solve. It's hard enough to run a business where natural problems are bound to surface, but they are complicating the workload with decision making skills like this!

Since the task of changing the mindset of millions of individuals is almost impossible, I suggest you take a much simpler route. LOOK LIKE YOU ARE CURRENTLY EMPLOYED! It is a very simple process to register yourself as a new company. Then, on your resume, you can put your new company name, give yourself a title similar to your desired position, and list the skillsets that you possess. Make it sound like you are a Consultant for whatever profession you are in. They don't know that you do not have any active clients. Besides, the whole purpose is to get them interested enough in your capabilities that they want to contact you. Once this happens, it is your job to convince them that they have made their last call to potential candidates. You need to convince them that you can come aboard - with a 2 weeks notice to yourself :), and make their problems go away.

Tuesday’s Tip: Asking For & Writing Social Recommendations

We all know by now that receiving social media recommendations (especially for LinkedIn), is crucial to your online significance. Although I personally feel that recruiters do NOT pay as much attention to what is said about the individuals, as the "media" reports, I still would rather you have a well polished and "clean" online record.

Let's face it, when you ask for a recommendation, you are asking the person to do some work. If you want to alleviate some of the burden, and if you want the recommendation to say what you want, consider ghost writing it for them. Then, send them your written piece of work, and offer them 3 options. 1) Use it word for word (just copy, paste and submit - and you're done). 2) Modify it as you feel appropriate and then submit. 3) Totally abandon my work and start from scratch. If you write an appropriate recommendation for yourself, most people will select option 1.

If you need help ghost writing your recommendation, or you are asked to write one for someone else, consider using the following website:

http://socialrecommendator.com/

You input a few keywords and personal information and it will come up with flowery verbiage that you can use for the recommendation.

Tuesday’s Tip: Introducing Yourself In Networking Situations

In a networking environment, we may meet 20 people in one night. My question to you is: Did you impress those 20 people to the degree that they would remember you a month later? If most of us answer that honestly, we would fail. Most of us would say that they would remember my face if seen again, but almost all of us would not be able to remember the name nor the career that we are passionate about. It is critical that people remember you down the road, otherwise they are unable to help you. So how do you make an introduction that is remembered? If you don't have a Michael Jordon "6 Championship Rings" story to tell them, then you'll have to do it with your charm and wit. I suggest using the Forrest Gump Method of introducing yourself. Say, "Hi, my name is Tracy, Tracy Smith". This way you mention your name twice. You can even mention it 3 times by saying, "My name is Tracy, Tracy Smith. That's Tracy with a Y". And if you are wearing a name tag, point to your name while you are saying it. That is 4 total impressions of your name in their mind. And if you have a half way decent branding statement to follow that up with, you should have enough impressions for them to remember you when an opportunity is mentioned at a future event that they are attending.

Thursday’s Thought: The Job Seeker’s World Is Turning Upside Down

The landscape is changing. The idea of lifetime employment with one company is all but extinct. And staying in one career for your entire work life is not as prominent as in the past. The trend is also moving towards more contract/consultant short-term "project work". People will not be restricted (nor expected) to carry only one job at a time. And finally, virtual teams can come together and work on a project without ever meeting in-person.

With these wide-spread changes, comes new opportunities for everyone. We just need to change our mindset to adapt to the new norms. If you plan for this, it will be easier to find and land these opportunities. Do you have things that you are good at but never attempted to make money at them? This might be the time to dust off that piano and start charging for lessons. Or, how about using that artistic side of you and go into business for yourself. If we all gave this alternate income path a chance, we might be surprised at what we can accomplish.

The impact of globalization, technology, mergers, outsourcing, and company acquisitions have significantly changed the structure of the employment game. I believe all of us have other options that we can explore, but are waiting for the thing that we did in the past to come around and be there for us in the future. This may or may not happen, and even it does, you can still explore your other gifts. You just have to go for it.

Tuesday’s Tip: When You Use Social Media… Be An Open Book

Why do job seekers want to keep their information private? As a recruiter, if we can't find you, there is no magic lamp that we can rub for you to appear. Here are 3 reasons that I have heard why some people are not comfortable providing their contact information, address, and other personal information, followed by my response:

1) Identity theft: I don't buy the "someone will steal my identity" claim because there are so many other easier ways for the criminals to find and steal your identity. I would bet that no jury in the United States has ever listened to a person on trial explain how they sneaked into LinkedIn late one night, found some "secret" information, then tweeted the person asking them for their password, and set up a meeting via meetup.com for the both of them to meet at the victims local bank for a complete withdrawal of all their money. It just doesn't happen this way! If you are worried about putting your address on your resume, go to www.pipl.com, type in your first name, last name, and state. You will see LOTS of information about you that is already published for anyone to see; including your address, and more.

2) My employer will see that I am looking: You can make your social media "profile" sound open ended by using the following statement, "Always open to networking and hearing about opportunities in my industry where I can refer qualified people".

3) I don't want potential hiring companies to see me doing personal things: Despite the "rumor mill" that recruiters and hiring companies are out there looking at at Facebook and other Social Media sites to "catch" you drinking a beer while hanging upside down, and revoking the offer to you, this is not done (very much) at the professional level. Most companies are still learning how to use social media FOR GOOD, and are not yet worried about analyzing the bad stuff posted on peoples profiles. The exception to this might be the hourly worker, but all the professional recruiters that I have talked to rely on the background check to "flag" any discrepancies in the application or data provided to the employer.

So make it easy for those recruiters and companies to find you. Turn off all security restrictions and "get connected" to the 2011 way of socializing/networking on the Internet.

Thursday’s Thought: I Need A Job! Where Do I Begin?

The most common answer to that question for a typical job seeker is "The Job Boards". It worked in the past, so let's try it again. Wrong answer.

In confusing times, where everyone and anyone is handing out inaccurate advice, and the job seekers heads are spinning with confusion, some seem to turn to those "comfortable" job boards. This is a huge mistake.

They spend entirely too much time looking for opportunities on these boards. And with the success rate of this approach nearly at zero, and with months and months of not getting any "traction" on their job search, they have become "frozen" in their tracks and are not doing anything at all, or at least not doing "productive" tasks.

So what is the correct answer? To fully answer that question in detail, it would take me about 40 hours (since that is how long my 5 day class is), but to get you started in the right direction, you need to seriously consider implementing these 5 steps in your job search arsenal.

1) Write your job search ammunition (resume, cover letter, etc.) so that you look radically different than the rest of your competition.

2) Go crazy with networking. If you don't show up to networking events at least 30 minutes early and talk to those that arrive, you are missing a huge opportunity to have them all to yourself.

3) Ride the Social Media Wave.These tools need to be your new best friend. I guarantee they won't bite (like your former best friend - wolf wolf).

4) Learn how to be a geek. Yes, you need to become Internet savvy. There are so many helpful tools, applications, tips and tricks to shorten your job search time in half and place you in front of the decision makers quicker.

5) Attend my CTS Networking Club on the first and third Wednesday's of every month at the Lisle Hilton to learn how to get employed faster at a company you love and at a salary you deserve. Register here.

Want to learn more? I can help. Give me a call for a free evaluation on what steps I think you need to take to thaw out your frozen job search.

Kevin Crews - The Career Strategist - (630) 660-0000.

Tuesday’s Tip: Are You Ready for Those Interview Questions?

We all wish we had a magical cheat-sheet with all of the questions (and the excepted answers) to all of those weird and illogical questions that those ill-prepared interviewers are bound to ask us in an interview. But unless I haven't been copied on the E-mail yet, that sheet probably doesn't exist. However, you can still pass the interview with flying "answers" if you are just prepared.

I once heard that "Facts swell and generalities smell". If you apply this along with "storytelling", you have a formula that shouldn't lose. The whole goal of an interview is to connect with the Hiring Manager so that he/she thinks, "I like this guy, and I think he can get the job done". The best way to accomplish this is by having 10-12 pre-planned stories about your career accomplishments and/or projects where you went above and beyond the "expected". You then need to look for opportunities to direct the conversation to the topics that you want to cover. Think of yourself as a politician. Listen to the question, repeat it, sort-of answer it, and provide a bridge to the message you want to deliver. The formula is Q = A + 1, where Q is the question, A is your answer, and the +1 is the point that you want to make. Now, the bridge needs to be such a "WOW" that they don't even realize that you might not have completely answered their original question. But they are now onto a new tangent that will most likely take up the next 5-10 minutes, and you are off the hook from answering "What type of tree would you like to be?"

Thursday’s Thought: Speed Interviewing

Last night after our networking event, someone came up to me and mentioned a clever idea. I wanted to run this by all my readers and see what kind a response/participation this would ignite.

He thought that my networking group could further be enhanced by offering a Speed Interviewing Event. This would be similar to speed dating but a recruiter would speed interview job seekers for 2-3 minutes. Then everyone would rotate one position.

After all, that is all the time it takes someone to know if they are going to move forward with you in the process. That 1-hour interview that you always have could easily be cut off at the 5-10 minute mark, because the Hiring Manager has already made their decision.

So, if I could line up 15-20 recruiters and/or Hiring Managers from companies in the Chicagoland area to participate in Speed Interviewing, would this be a benefit to job seekers? Let me know via a reply to this post or to my E-mail at kevin@corporatetransitionservices.com