New Career Coaching Website

The Imagemakers, Ink! LLC

Check out my new website for The Imagemakers, Ink! LLC. We provide comprehensive career transition services from resume writing, developing marketing materials and search strategies to coaching on social media, interviewing and negotiation techniques.

Are You Relevant In Today’s Job Market?

Linda Lupatkin, Career Counselor, Coach and Consultant

Last week the University of Colorado announced it would be closing its School of Journalism. Among the reasons cited by board members, the rapidly changing technological landscape, a dynamic media marketplace and the Journalism School’s failure to adapt. In other words, the program is no longer relevant in today’s market.

This begs the question, are you relevant? Are you embracing today’s technology and harnessing its power both on the job and if you’re in the midst of a career transition. If you’re not, you’re missing the boat.

There’s a world of opportunity and it’s just a mouse click away. Every day I talk to clients who fail to comprehend the incredibly useful tools that are available to them on the Web.  I have to educate and advocate on the usefulness of the Internet and in particular social media. Tools like LinkedIn, Twitter and Google alerts can dramatically reduce the time of your job search.

For some, they’ve signed up with LinkedIn, built a profile and then say nothing’s happening. Well, that’s like joining a gym, hopping on the exercise bike and then not pedaling. Just putting your profile on LinkedIn is not enough, the next step is fully utilizing its capability… expanding your network, using advanced searches to find companies in which you’re interested and then reaching out to your contacts to network into those companies.

With Twitter you can follow companies and see if they’re doing something that will create an opportunity for you. For instance, if the company posts that it won a new contract, that means it may be expanding what better reason to reach out to that company, regardless of whether they have posted openings or not.

You can use this same technique by setting up Google alerts using key words and the specific geography you may be interested in targeting. The majority of people land positions by utilizing these creative approaches to mine the unpublished or hidden job market rather than by relying solely on advertised job postings.

The Web is not just about job boards and your job search shouldn’t be either. In today’s competitive market you need to have a comprehensive approach fully utilizing the tools available to you on the Internet. In other words, if you want to succeed in today’s job market, or even in today’s world, you must remain relevant.

Linda