Monday, April 30, 2018

Would you want to work for this company?

Every job seeker has their own wants, needs and desires for their next job.

Job searching normally starts with getting your resume in shape before searching, but it could start with who's hiring. Soon enough one must find out who is hiring and whether they would want to work for them. 

Each situation is different. Are you employed or unemployed? Do you fit in better in a large company or a small one, a public or private company, for profit or non-profit situation, start-up or mature, same industry or different one? How important each consideration is becomes an individual decision.

Getting interviews with a great resume is one thing. Having enough information to make an informed decision about a company is quite another. Before pursuing an opportunity, two things one might consider are: If I had the choice, would I be willing to invest my money in them? And what do their employees have to say about them?

The key questions are:
     Is the company financially stable?
     Is the industry and company growing or declining?
     Is the company competitive? Is it a leader or follower?        
     Do people like working there? Do they like the company culture and management? What would they change if they could?
     What do ex-employees think about the company? (If negative, dig deep to find out why. They may simply be disgruntled.)

To help assess how strong a company is, visit financial investing resources: 

And ask a financial advisor if you can:
     It's their business to know about investing opportunities.

To find out what employees think, ask what they like/dislike about the company:
     To find current and past employees, search LinkedIn for people who work at the company. Invite them to connect. Write a note introducing you in the invitation, don't use the impersonal default invitation.

Don't forget to ask people in your network
     It's been said you never know what you don't know? Well you won't ever know if you don't ask questions. And you will often be surprised by the answers you get.

The takeaway is this:
     Getting your resume into shape is critical for certain, but so is researching companies before you get too involved with them. A bad decision may put you back into the job market.

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Sunday, April 22, 2018

Tips for scoring high with Hiring Managers

Seeking a new job is a sales task. Your resume is an advertisement that describes the benefits of buying your services to the buyer, AKA the Hiring Manager. The purpose of the resume and cover letter are to entice this decision-maker to want to interview you.

So it's important to find out what the hiring manager's problems are. Why are they hiring? What needs to be done? The more you know about what the problem is, the better able you are to describe yourself in terms of being the solution to the problem.

The actual problems are rarely described adequately in job descriptions. The greatest success in winning interviews is achieved by those who talk directly to the decision-maker in an informal way before submitting their resume. This is how to pinpoint the real needs and show how you can fix them. And that is what sales is all about, discovering a need and selling to it!

When creating your advertisements, think like the hiring manager.  Put yourself in his or her shoes and ask yourself "If I were the hiring manager what would I want to see on my resume that would make me want to interview this person?"

Your accomplishments and the results of your work are the answers to the question. Your responsibilities and the companies you may have worked for are important but may not get you an interview by themselves. It's very important to provide evidence of how well you performed your job.

The takeaway is this: Find out why the job is open. Describe why you are the solution to a problem. Sell the benefits of hiring you. Make the resume easy to read quickly. Cull out words and statements that don’t really address the requirements of the job. Leave out fluff, things that are not relevant to the job. Once people begin to read fluff they tend to lose interest quickly which makes your sale much more difficult. By the way, fluff includes those self-assessing adjectives that say how great you are. Instead of making those statements, describe your accomplishments and work results to demonstrate how good you are without saying so.

Karl Liechty a resume writer who was a hiring manager at Xerox, Shugart, Maxtor, and Sablestone for many years.

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Monday, April 9, 2018

What To Do When You Do Not Hear Back After a Job Interview

When people wonder what to do when they don't hear back, it's usually their fault. Candidates are salespeople by default. Salespeople set expectations at the end of  conversations, interviews in your case,to avoid wondering what to do if they don't hear back. Don't leave without establishing who will do what, and when. The "who" is you; let them know if you don't hear back within some agreed upon time, you will call them; identify who "them" is and get business cards, telephone and email addresses. It's crazy to wonder what to do when you don't hear back.

OK, so let's say you flubbed the opportunity to establish next steps. If you haven't heard back in a week or so, make a call to the hiring manager or one of the interviewers. You did get business cards didn't you? Heck, you messed that up too? That's ok. At least you wrote down names. 

Make a call now and ask for the name you have. When you reach the person, apologize and ask your questions. Don't shy away from making the call. And don't bother calling HR unless you're seeking an HR position. HR is the junk yard dog of  gatekeepers. You're likely to get lip service or no information. And you better call. Don't hide behind an email or text message. Everyone has a delete button and uses it, don't you?

If you have no idea who to call, shame on you, you're stuck and hopefully have learned your lesson for the next interview.

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