Job Search Survival Toolkit
Job Search Survival Toolkit - What You Need To Know
I wanted to share with everyone my thoughts on the job market, job search, layoffs and the effect of the Coronavirus on jobs in the near term along with potential courses of action to take in both the near and long terms. This Job Search Survival Toolkit was created to help you better navigate searching for a new job
I have really been on the front lines these past few years, speaking with job seekers around the United States, Europe Asia, Latin America, Africa and Australia trying to get a sense of the effects of the Coronavirus on their personal and professional lives. They are concerned about their health, their jobs, potential layoffs and how long all of this will last. What I found is that in the United States and around the world, there are 4 kinds of job seekers right now. The ones that are currently out of work seeking employment, those that are currently employed but are looking for new positions, the ones that may lose their jobs in the coming days, weeks and months and those that are looking for remote work
Many people right now are taking a wait and see attitude. That may seem like the right course of action to take, but in my opinion, it’s not the right thing to do.
So What Does it All Mean
In my 35 years of experience in the job market as an applicant, a hiring manager and a global recruiter..... DONT WAIT. People are taking a wait and see attitude on whether to step up their job search. In my professional opinion, this is the wrong action to take. Start putting together the necessary pieces for a comprehensive job search. Resumes, cover letters, job board registration, setting up customized alerts, updating and optimizing your LinkedIn profile and investigating remote work as an option. No one but you is responsible for your job search and finding another job. Not your current or former employer or Federal Governments.
It takes a few weeks to put the foundation together for an effective job search (resumes, cover letters, job board registration, alerts and LinkedIn profiles. It will then take a few weeks more to apply to potential job openings and have them in process.
Below is a Job Search Survival Toolkit that can help you through these difficult times.
As an Executive seeking a new job or new career, there are certain fundamentals and tools you must have to effectively find that new position. They include 1) Resume, 2) Cover Letter, 3) LinkedIn Profile, 4) Registration on Job Boards, 5) Setting up daily job opening alerts. Below is a comprehensive Executive Career – Job Search Toolkit to help you get started. During the past 35 years, I have worked in several large Fortune 500 companies, been an entrepreneur starting 4 companies (3 of them global) and was the Director of Human Resources for a Non-Profit. During my entire career, I have been on over 100 interviews at many different companies, a hiring manager at large companies interviewing hundreds more and a global recruiter, placing hundreds of candidates all around the world.
If there is one subject I am considered an expert on, it’s helping busy executives find jobs. After personally reviewing hundreds of thousands of resumes, what I can tell you is that the art, process, function of resumes and technology relating to a successful career change/job search has dramatically changed. When I graduated college in 1984, there was no internet and no personal computers. How one searched for a job was completely different. Your job search/career change is ultimately your responsibility. However, what’s really needed today is someone to help you get started with your search. Not actually do it for you, but help
you get started.
Below is a Job Search Survival Toolkit that can help you through these difficult times.
Perhaps you need your resume professionally written, or you need to register on all the major job boards, or need help strategizing on what the best positions for you might be. Or most likely, your LinkedIn profile needs to be updated and optimized. There are plenty of new jobs out there. However, to land the right one, you need to take charge of your own job search.
Resumes
Does Your Resume Pass the 10-Second Rule Test? The quality of your resume determines who will call you for an interview. Here are some highlights of how your resume should be laid out as well as some tips and tricks.
Professional Summary
Summarize your entire career in a few sentences. It’s the first thing someone will see but it’s the last thing you should write. If you have 20+ years of experience and multiple positions, you need to pull out at least one important item from each position and place it in your professional summary. This can include; number of years of experience, industries that you worked in, education, measurable achievements, number of direct or indirect reports, etc.
Today’s style of resume is more accomplishment driven. No longer can you just include a list of bullet points of your responsibilities. The trend is that you need to project yourself as an achiever, not just a doer. Use descriptive adjectives and vary them (ex: created, developed, improved, implemented), innovated, simplified, deployed, consolidated, mastered, strengthened, accelerated, motivated) So, the professional summary is a short narrative on the highlights of your career followed by bullet points of several key areas of experience.
Here is a narrative of my Professional Summary.
Dynamic, seasoned, human resources leader with 20+ years of success in the recruitment and successful onboarding of high-quality talent both domestically and internationally. Expert in the analysis of organizational structures, benefits and insurance, finance, operations and the crafting of new human resource policies to boost employee engagement. Demonstrated background in increasing regulatory compliance within the Human Resources arena, ensuring compliance with relevant employment laws, and the development and maintenance of employee personnel files. Skilled in the resolution of employee grievances, harassment investigations, workers compensation claims and the facilitation of exit interviews.
I am a Human Resource Executive, so some of my bullet points would include Global Talent Acquisition, Benefits and Insurance Administration, Payroll, On-boarding, employment contracts, regulatory compliance, performance reviews, HRIS and Applicant, Tracking systems. These bullet points serve 2 purposes. The first is visually. A hiring manager for my industry can easily see that I have experience in all these areas. The second is that the applicant tracking systems and parsing software will pick up and identify all key keywords contained within your document.
After your career professional summary, you should start with your most recent position first. Again, the same format (narrative summary and bullet points of accomplishments). Start with the company name, the position and the dates of employment. Always be sure to include the months not just the years. As a recruiter it was always a pet peeve of mine because if someone had for example 2012 – 2014; Is that 3 years or if you were hired in December of 2012 and left in January of 2014, that’s 1year and 2 months, not 3 years.
Examples of Some of My Career Accomplishments
Researched, evaluated, selected and implemented new organization wide employee benefits program reducing deductibles and out of pocket expenses by 50%.
Identified 3,000 candidates, set up and coordinated 150 interviews over a two-day period in two Italian cities, in less than three weeks resulting in the hiring of 40 staff for the client. Grew company from a staff of 1 to a staff of 9 resulting in an annual revenue of $1M and 3000 translators in servicing over 100 language combinations.Your Education
Your Education
If you are a recent college graduate, you may not have much work experience, so your education should be first. Otherwise, it should be placed towards the end of the document. If your education is over 15-20 years old, do
not include the dates of graduation. Although people may not admit it, there is still age bias for older candidates.
Here is how your Education should look:
Master of Business Administration, Concentration in Finance and Entrepreneurship
Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, FL (Date Graduated)
Business Administration - Finance and Economics
State University of New York, College at Brockport, Brockport, NY Date Graduated
Technology/Software
List every technology that you have used. I have dozens that I have achieved expert level knowledge in. This section not only shows the technology and software you know, it also shows your ability to learn new ones.
Awards
I received an award from the United States Department of Defense – The Patriotic Employer Award, so I included it.
Published Articles
If you have any published papers or articles, include it here. I had a magazine article published - Global Trade Magazine: Hire Education: Employee Laws when Expanding into Europe, so I included it
Other Important Resume Tips
- Header/Footer – Include it at the top of each page, but not in the header portion of MS Word. Also, do not include tables, borders or crazy looking bullet points. These create a problem for ATS.
- For each position create a narrative section first, but instead of a skills section, it is labeled key contributions/ accomplishments.
- Most resumes will be scanned and skimmed and won’t be entirely read if the reviewer can’t immediately find what they are looking for.
- The rule of thumb is that we want to show detail/bullets on positions going back no farther than 15 years – with dates. However, I would include one line for each position greater than 15 years. This was relevant to me because I had many positions with name brand recognized companies that I wanted to reviewer to know about. My first job in 1984 was with Goldman Sachs. I definitely wanted people to know I worked there but not include the dates ex: Accountant, Goldman Sachs and Company, (Investment Bank) New York, NY but no dates.
- Your email address is actually important. You shouldn’t use names or providers like Hotmail, AOL. Preferably Gmail. The prefix should be recognizable.
- So now you have it. If you follow these procedures you will not only make it past the 10-second rule, but you will have the reader review your entire resume and hopefully schedule an interview.
Cover Letters - Do They Really Matter
Yes, they do, but not to everyone in the hiring process. An ATS software that initially scans your resume will pick up the use of your keywords in your cover letter. Try to optimize a few of the keywords you want to be known for. The first screening of your cover letter by an HR representative or a Recruiter is usually performed by a junior level employee. They most likely won’t read your cover letter. However, when they pass along your application to the hiring manager, he/she will most likely read it.
Try to include your experience as it relates to the job description of the position you are applying for. Once you develop the cover letter, 90% should be a template. What should change with each application is the Header/Address and the introduction describing your interest in an application for the specific position at the specific company. This will show the reviewer that you at least took the time to customize some of it as opposed to sending something that is all template.
A cover letter reveals a lot about a job seeker’s attention to detail, communication style, personality, and how much research someone has done on a company. Make sure it can stand alone from your resume – in case it gets printed and is separated from your resume. Keep it short, but get your point across If the position you are applying for is in another city, state or country, make sure you state that you are open to relocation.
How to Make Your Cover Letter Stand Out
To stand out from the other applicants, inject something personal.
- Include your contact information at the top. It is not necessary to include your physical address. The City, State, Phone and Email Address is fine
- Include a Link to Your LinkedIn Profile.
- If you know the name of the person your application is going to, address the letter to that person
- Include the job title or the job reference number at the top of the letter
- The first paragraph is a 3-sentence summary of your entire career experience. If the reviewer doesn’t like what it says, your application is rejected/finished within 10-seconds.
- Each paragraph that is read reinforces what came before and convinces the reviewer to read on.
- Peak the reviewer’s curiosity driving them to want to read more.
- State how you found out about the opening (referral, LinkedIn, Indeed, Social Media, Company Website)
Job Boards – Purpose, Function and How to Make the Best Use of Them
I remember over 10 years ago the major player in the job board space was Monster. com. It was during one Superbowl in 2010 that they did a major advertising blitz and shortly became the leader in the marketplace. Today however, there are more players in the space and some of the leaders have changed. I have been an applicant applying to companies, a hiring manager at companies and a global recruiter placing candidates around the world. For the purposes of this discussion, I will limit the subject matter to applicants that are looking for work in the United States and how one would effectively use the job boards to find their next jobs. It is my opinion that the ranking order of the major job boards based upon relevance, number of positions, accuracy, setup of your profile, ease of applying, receiving alerts and mobile interfaces, the following is my ranking from best to worst (US Only). Overseas, the rankings change, and others are more popular depending upon the specific country.
1. LinkedIn
2. Indeed
3. Glassdoor
4. Monster
5. The Ladders
6. CareerBuilder
7. Dice – is a must if you are in the
technology fields
8. Zip Recruiter
There also other niche boards and well as job board aggregators. Googles new job search functions pulls in all the openings from all the boards into one place A company’s HR department usually relies on 1-2 job boards that they post their openings on. Although, recruiters may have access to the resume databases of several. HOWEVER, as an applicant, you need to be registered on at least the top 5. This is because if some companies are only using 1 or 2 of these, you won’t see the openings if you are not registered on all of them. Registering on all of them enables you to cover the full spectrum of new job openings.
Tools for an Applicant to Use When Looking for a New Job
1. Setting up a LinkedIn Profile
2. Registering on the 5 major job boards. These boards serve several purposes:
a) Be found by hiring managers and recruiters.
b) Applicants can search for positions by titles, locations or multiple locations (outbound).
c) You can setup alerts to openings, so you are notified as they become active. These are sent to your email inbox daily,
d) All job boards have Phone apps (except for the Ladders), so you can not only receive alerts on your mobile devices, you can also apply from your phone.
e) When you register on each of these boards, you can either upload a resume and cover letter or complete a profile. This resume is stored on each individual board and when an alert comes in from a specific board, you can apply using the resume in your profile
f) Number of Applicants - As a hiring manager at several large companies, I might receive 100 resumes for an open position. Some of the job boards let you view how many people have already applied. Let’s say for example that it shows that 100 people have applied. You may think, wow, 100 people already applied. I don’t stand a chance. I understand why you may think that way, but your logic would be wrong. Let’s go back to the example of me as a hiring manager. On all the positions that I have posted, and all the applications I have received, out of 100 resumes received, on average only 5 make the first cut. Yes – 5. If you are a qualified applicant, you are only competing against 5 applicants. Most of the applicants are not qualified and shouldn’t have applied in the first place. They just sent a resume for any open position regardless of if they are qualified or not.
g ) Company Websites – Almost all companies today have a Career’s page on their website, listing all the current job openings. So instead of just using the job boards to see which positions are open, you can go to a specific company’s website and apply. So, if you know you really want to work at 1 to 10 different companies, visit the website of these companies and apply directly. At some of the larger organizations, you will probably have to create a profile (which may be time consuming). However, you can then use this profile to apply for other positions as well as new positions that open, without having to register again. In addition, you can also set up alerts, so you are directly notified of new openings instead of having to go back to each website to view the new items that are posted.
h) Job Opening Alerts – Each of the major job boards provide you the ability to set up notification alerts when a new position is posted based upon specific job titles, keywords, locations, industries and more. Some only provide the ability to set up 5 while others allow you over 10.
i) How to Search - The first step is to determine the titles of the positions you are interested in. For example: Mechanical Engineer, Marketing Manager, Vice President of Human Resources, Chief Operations Officer, Director of Sales. This method of creating alerts is very targeted/specific. If you are living in a major metropolitan are like New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington DC, it is best to be very specific in your titles for the alerts. If you are not living in a major market, it is best to be more general.
For example, Let’s say I am interested in finding Vice President of Human Resources positions in Augusta, GA. There will probably not be many positions listed. So, I might just search on Human Resources in Augusta. This will return every position with “human resources in it (Vice President, VP, Director, Manager, Supervisor, HR, CHRO, Chief Human Resources Officer, etc.) Many positions may not be relevant to your search, but you will pick up all the openings with one saved search instead of creating 10 separate alerts. You can also affect the number of positions appearing in your alerts by setting geographic parameters – usually from 10 miles to 100 miles. The titles for some of the positions may say “human resources” will others might say HR. Some might say “Vice President” while others might say VP. That is why you must create alerts or search the openings using all the variations.
j) What Time Frames Should I Look At? - You can also further narrow down or expand your results by setting up additional alerts based upon parameters for how long the positions have been open. (ex: New, 1 Week, 2 weeks, 1 month, longer). When you first create an alert, I would recommend setting your filters at 30-days, so you can see all the openings in the past month. After you have reviewed these openings, you can then reset your filter to two weeks, then 1 week, then daily. It is very important to understand that everyday is a new day in the job search world. New openings are posted every single day, which is why you must review your alerts at least 1X per day. Or even 2x per day. Once in the morning and once in the evening. This way you can view and apply to brand new positions as they appear for the first time.
k) Don’t Expect to Get Responses – Do not expect and do not be surprised if you do not receive a response to the majority of the applications you complete. You will probably receive confirmation that it was received, but that means physically received, not necessarily reviewed. Do not take it personally. The hiring manager or recruiter may get over 100 resumes for each position posted so they just don’t have the time to respond to each application. They will reach out if there is an interest.
Preparing for a Job Interview
Back in the 1984 when I graduated college, preparing for an upcoming interview was difficult. Mostly, you could really only prepare to talk about yourself. You were very limited in obtaining information about the company you were interviewing with. Perhaps you went to the library to see if there were any annual reports, newspaper and magazine articles or books. Fast forward 35 years and the amount of information available is not only endless, but it can be accessed from your phone. As a hiring manager interviewing hundreds of applicants, I have always asked the same first question as I begin each and every interview. “What have your learned about us? Who we are and what we do? The answer to this question sets the tone for the remainder of the interview. I will immediately know if the candidate has done their homework/research and to what depth. When they answer this question, you can tell if they just did the
minimal amount of research or they really did their homework and thoroughly researched the company.
On several occasions when I asked that question, the candidate would say “I don’t know? I haven’t really done any research? After pausing for a moment, I say “Thanks for coming in. This interview is over”. It lasted a total of 3 minutes. The candidate looks at me and doesn’t understand what just happened. There is absolutely no excuse for not doing some research on the company you are interviewing with. Especially because there is no much information readily available and easily accessible. Much different form 1984. I would say to the candidate, “If you haven’t taken the time to do your research, this is not the position for you.”
Taking the time to gather key information can not only set the tone for the remainder of the interview, it can make the difference between getting or not getting the job.
What Kind of Research Should I Do?
Company Website
- LinkedIn Company Information - At the very least, an applicant should look at the organization’s websites. Many are hundreds of pages and contain information about products and services, clients, company history, executives and if a public company, financial information. newsletters and press releases. Not only can you find company information on LinkedIn, the key company facts of that organization are usually summarized in one place. How many employees and how many locations the company has. You can also see how many open positions the company has that they are trying to fill. Is it a great many or only a few? If you are a LinkedIn Premium member, you can see if headcount has been rising or shrinking. You can also see other individuals that currently and historically have worked for the company, what their average tenure is and if they have progressed and been promoted over time.
LinkedIn Personal Information
- LinkedIn Personal Information - Before an interview all candidates should research the person(s) that he/she is interviewing with. You can find out what their title is, how long they have been at the company, what other positions they have had within the company, their prior work history, education – where they went to school and what did they study. You can also see what interests they have, key skills, certifications, publications, awards, what groups they belong to and what influencers they follow.
Glassdoor is a great website to see actual employee reviews. How current and past employees describe their time working for the company. If the discussions about culture, salaries, benefits, work environment, management, room for advancement are positive, you will feel much better taking a job with that company? Or do the reviewers talk about poor working conditions, tremendous overtime, a terrible medical plan, high turnover, disconnects between company leadership Use this to connect with someone on a personal level. Where they grew up, their interest in the Arts, Music, their volunteer work, etc. Should you be visible or invisible – when reviewing someone’s LinkedIn profile, depending on your own personal privacy settings, the person you are reviewing can see that you reviewed their profile, or are you an anonymous user. Personally, I recommend changing your privacy settings to anonymous. and staff. If so, that should be a red flag. It’s the same premise as Amazon reviews. There will be positive and negative reviews. Don’t pay too much attention to one specific review. Take a look at the overall theme/message from these reviews. This type of information is not posted on the company’s website or social media accounts. If there are too many negative comments, this is a clear indication to stay away.
Finally
Properly preparing for an upcoming interview can make or break your chances of having a successful interview and being offered the position. If you prepare yourself with all of the above tactics, you will appear intelligent, knowledgeable and confident. “Knowledge is Power.” Practice talking about the information you have found before the interview, so you know it cold walking in. Almost all employers will ask the candidates if they have any questions. Don’t not have questions. Always, always, always prepare 2-3 questions ahead of time that you want to ask at the end of the interview. Don’t ask general knowledge questions (ones where the answers are readily available), ask deep thought out questions based upon the research you have done. This will really impress them at the end of the interview.