The Truth About Job Hunting

We had an inquiry recently from a potential client who said that he wanted to hire someone who would do EVERYTHING for him and find him a new job. Of course my response to him was that no one, other than he himself, can actually land his next position and here’s precisely why.

While a top notch professional resume, bio and career coach can help you reach your career goals faster and with less stress, the bottom line is that once you have the tools and knowledge, finding a new position is primarily determined by your own motivation. As Zig Ziglar puts it, “your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.”

This is paramount to understand when undertaking a job search because a successful transition  requires a disruption to most peoples’ comfort zone. There is no magic bullet or secret technology that can just make it happen regardless of what some in the career services industry are selling.

You should be wary of any organization or individual claiming they will do the work for you. Often times organizations will say that they will place your resume in front of targeted decision makers from their network. This is when you should delve deeper and start asking questions. Find out if they personally know these decision makers, or if they’re just pulling executive names from a database to which they have access. Also, ask about how they will be delivering your resume. Will it involve a personal introduction or are they planning on distributing your resume en mass? We all know how well those bulk mailings, e-mailings or faxings work – NOT, especially at the executive level.

There is a group in the career industry who will represent you, legitimate recruiters will present you to a decision maker if they’re running a search for a position for which you’re well qualified. You can judge the authenticity of a recruiter by the way they’re paid. True recruiters will not charge the job candidate a fee for services because the company that the recruiter is working for will be footing the bill. But a recruiter is only interested in you if you’re a perfect fit for a position they’re trying to fill. To get the most exposure, you’ll need to work with several recruiters as well as on your own behalf.

As is often said, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. Remember no one has more incentive to find you your next position than you do and while working with an expert in career transition can absolutely make you more effective in achieving that goal, you’re still going to have to do the leg work. As essayist John Burroughs said “For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work . . .”

~Linda

The Evolution of the Resume

The Evolution Of The ResumeIn the beginning there was man . . . and man had a job, to be fruitful and multiply . . . and it was good. Finding a job was easy. Of course you had to be appealing to the opposite sex in order to fulfill your responsibilities, but while you may have needed to interview well, you didn’t need a resume. As humanity evolved, merely being fruitful and multiplying wasn’t sufficient. As the earth became more populated, the competition increased, to be fruitful and multiply one had to become more appealing and develop new talents to attract a mate, thus great hunters and gatherers were born. Again, the fruits of your labor were apparent without the need of a resume.

Still the world continued to transform and to survive in the ever changing landscape, men and women adapted. Merely hauling a bison body on your back or gathering grains and bearing berries would no longer suffice, now people needed to do more to compete for mates, they needed good jobs with benefits, that meant acquiring more modern skills and oftentimes an education.

Since the fruits of their labor were less obvious and it would be difficult and unwieldy to take your cave drawings to a potential employer, the resume was born. Evolving from a document written on parchment with a reed or quill pen, we advanced to paper, typewriters and white-out. We started with an objective statement and we sent out mass mailings.  Oh, but we have come a long, long way in the evolution of the resume. Objective statements (what I want) are passé and have evolved into marketing statements (what you, the employer wants that I have) and we’ve learned that mass mailings don’t work, we need to use our caveman instincts with a focused target to win in today’s job hunt.

The resume has transformed to the point that not only do we not put pen to paper, we may not even print to paper. With the advent of email and the Internet, sometimes your well-crafted, beautifully formulated document never gets printed at all. It’s created, sent and viewed entirely online. It has also transformed beyond a mere resume into an online presence on LinkedIn, where hiring managers, executives and recruiters can find it instantly. And most recently, the resume has also entered a new evolutionary phase, becoming an online presence in and of itself in the form of a cutting-edge web portfolio.

Do we still need resumes? Absolutely! They’re the basis for your online presence; some people have not gone entirely paperless, and you should print your resume (and if you’re an executive, your bio) and bring it with you on your interviews. But, if you want to truly demonstrate that you’re progressing and growing with the changing world, you need to leave your caveman days behind and join Gen Z in a competition that’s morphed from earthbound hunting grounds to cyberspace and the World Wide Web.

~ Linda

Quick Tip: No Lying On Your Resume

The Career Coach Quick TipA small fabrication is causing a big uproar across the tech community. Yahoo CEO, Scott Thompson is accused of exaggerating his credentials on his resume. According to news reports, a regulatory filing and a company press release mention Thompson as having earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting and computer science from Stonehill College. But checks of his school record show an accounting degree only. Now there are demands for his departure as head of the struggling Internet company.

Despite his 30+ years of real world experience, what Yahoo is calling an “inadvertent error”, may lead to Thompson’s downfall. Still feel like embellishing on your resume? We’ve all heard the admonishment, never lie on your resume. Well here’s a real world example to show no matter how high you get on the food chain, an embellishment, error or exaggeration will catch up with you.

What’s interesting to me is that Thompson does have a Bachelor’s degree, it’s just not in computer science. Imagine the uproar if he didn’t have a degree at all!

~Linda