Tag Archives: Resume

Expertise Drives the Future of Employment

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Everybody wants a job. You want to go out, get hired by somebody, perform some pre-determined tasks, get paid, and go home. Simple, right? It’s the way it has always been. 

But hold on a moment. The news is that working at a job will not be the same for much longer. The nature of the job is undergoing a radical shift as we become more of a knowledge-based economy. We are being told those who do not keep up with how employment is changing will be at a disadvantage in the employment marketplace going forward. 

Because American workers are having to engage much more directly with global competitors, companies are required to shift the way they structure operations and employees are being forced to face a new definition of what being successful means. 

The knowledge-based organization and its talent force must be more agile to meet growing business demands. They need to learn fast, communicate clearly, and adapt to change. The old method of presenting a long list of past experiences on your resume as evidence that you have current value is giving way to demonstrating that you have just-in-time needed expertise that can be applied from day one. 

It is expertise more than experience that separates the future oriented worker from the old-fashioned one. If you can link your past experiences to applicable expertise that is desired now, then great. You are ready to move forward. But if you think that just having a long history of meeting the same type of responsibilities in a similar manner over time is going to separate you from the pack, then think again. 

Legacy skills are taking a back seat to modernized specialized skills. Preparing for a world that honors creative and deep specializations expressed within cross-functional teams, which are not limited by borders and silos, is the future for the successful worker. 

Becoming specialized is not anything new, but it is becoming increasingly important. Traditionally we have looked at our interests and early skills, matched them up with a pre-existing list of career options, and made a choice about what we would do for work.  

But increasingly it is too hard to fix a list of stable careers. Technology is generating new specialties both directly and indirectly all the time. From mobile branding experts to global collaboration facilitators, the brave new world is characterized by more speed, more innovation, and greater challenges requiring novel solutions. This can also mean blending your skills into new and valuable hybrids that reflect both your interests and what sells. 

Refining a set of skills, collecting quantifiable and qualitative data as evidence of proficiency, and continuously scanning the employment horizon for companies coveting your expertise is the strategy to best position yourself for opportunity. 

This strategy is helped enormously by logging your accomplishments. Each professional should have a portfolio or running record of their achievements, summarized in a resume, telling the story of how expertise has and is developing. There is a big difference between telling what your expertise is and presenting confirmation of what it is. 

Much is said about the importance of well-functioning teams in the workplace and with good reason. Shared and collaborative expertise enhances the strength and competitiveness of organizations. Merging common and related spheres of expertise not only benefits companies, but each of the internal players as well. Organizations that encourage continuous learning, demonstrate a culture of agility, and hire innate potential over raw experience increase their chances of attracting and retaining a high level of expertise in their workforce. 

So, instead of everybody wanting a job we may soon see everybody wanting a project requiring their specialty. Adjusting your perspective now on what a job means will help your upcoming employment prospects. 

Making a Resume Recruiter-Ready

Posted on by Bill Ryan

As is the case with most industries, the profession of resume writing is trending in new directions and undergoing changes. As writers, we know that to make resumes effective for their primary purpose, getting the job candidate an interview, we must please not only the job searcher, but perhaps more importantly the recruiter or hiring manager viewing the resume. 

Career Directors International, a global professional organization for career professionals, recently published their 2012 survey of hiring authorities, so that we in the business can track the latest preferences of recruiters, hiring managers, and others who source talent when viewing resumes to make hiring decisions. 

As one who wants to present my clients in the best possible light to these stakeholders, what they think and want matters to me a lot. In sharing some of the more salient, and frankly unexpected, findings of the survey, we can also review what many believe to be conventional wisdom, or should I say old fashioned thinking, about the construction of resumes. 

At the top of the list is the notion that resumes need to be one-page only. Only 6% of the respondents felt that way (21% did regarding blue collar resumes) with 34% preferring two pages and a surprising 37% feeling that length is not an issue if the content is quality. 

Given how busy these people are you would think they would want as brief a document as possible, but apparently not so. Let us not assume this means they want pages of verbose fluff. Three-quarters of the respondents already think that there is too much embellishment in resumes, and they want less irrelevant wordiness, not more. 

Functional resumes are the type that are focused on skills and competencies rather than chronological work histories. They are often used by people who have gaps in their work experience or who are just entering or returning to the workforce after a long absence. General thinking is that recruiters do not like them because of the perceived lack of consistent work experience. But a whopping 72% said “yes” or “maybe” they would consider interviewing a candidate with a functional resume and without a first-impression employment history timeline. Looks like what you can do might be starting to trump your longevity at work. 

One of the big challenges in resume preparation is writing the professional summary that serves as a lead in grabbing the attention of the reader. It should tightly communicate brand, strength, and achievement. The question often is whether to include one, and if so, should it be short or long. 

Again, a surprise finding is that 43% are fine with a longer summary version, 18% with a shorter version, and only 17% saying to skip it entirely. A combined 61% of respondents are therefore saying to have a professional summary. The unexpected part in this response comes in that reading a longer summary is okay with busy people. I am getting the message that good information is desired even for those with full schedules. 

Finally, there is a tendency to include new elements into resumes, such as links or QR codes to social media profiles or to present resumes as web-based videos. My assumption has been that most recruiters do not like straying too far from predictable, if not traditional, resume styles. Two-thirds said looking at external links is something they would consider, but only 13% would bother with video resumes. Sounds like putting time and energy into your LinkedIn profile may get more viewership than your self-promoting YouTube video. 

The bottom line is that there are few, if any, certainties when it comes to preparing your resume for competition. What is in today probably will be out tomorrow. But one absolute appears to remain: Having a resume that communicates high quality accomplishments and core competencies and that speaks to the position to which you are applying. 

Confronting Age Discrimination in the Workplace

Posted on by Bill Ryan

By now it is conventional wisdom that age discrimination against hiring workers 50+ years of age has become excessive in recent years. Examples are becoming too numerous to count. 

Here is one. I just heard from a client the other day about a directive he had heard about from a friend which was given where the friend works and was issued by an HR manager that went something like, “Give me all the names of employees over the age of 50.” The inference was clear. They were being targeted for something. Tell me. What do you think it was for? A bonus for loyalty, hard work, and willingness to slog for long hours? I doubt it. It sounds as if they were being rounded up like cattle to be sent to the slaughterhouse. 

The conversation about what to do for this cohort of clients is generating chatter among career counselors and coaches for good reason. We are finding that a lot of clients are experiencing age bias and want to know what to do about it. Some of the advice I hear and read being shared is of the obvious type, such as do not list a work history longer than 15 years and do not put any graduation dates on your resume. I have to say, no matter who it is, I do not like putting any year that begins with the number “19” on a resume anymore. 

Other advice that I like has to do with how the mature worker presents him or herself. Show energy and a positive attitude. Keep your body looking decent by controlling weight, taking care of yellow teeth, and retaining the healthy look that comes from not eating poorly and drinking too much. Have a professional photographer take the picture that is placed on your online profiles, so the vigor and glow show through. 

Some parts of aging you cannot control. Employers seem to fear higher health care costs, because of the relatively advanced age, for example. But of the things you can control as you mature with your career you should. Keep a portfolio or log of achievements, particularly those of the past 10–15 years. Be able to demonstrate that you have made solid contributions that matter to employers now and are likely to be valued for the foreseeable future. 

Never stop building your intellectual and social capital within your profession. Be able to show that you are on top of current trends and best practices. Have well-founded opinions about the future of your industry. Know what are the issues, challenges, and likely solutions that will face your profession in the coming years. In other words, stay relevant. And keep building and cultivating those professional relationships, keeping you in the game. Participate in discussions and presentations that continuously give the impression that you are engaged. 

A workplace characteristic that is highly valued now and will be going forward has to do with the skill employees can show in collaborative teamwork that is not limited by arbitrary boundaries and which breaks down silos. Flatter organizations are less departmental and more creative in the way experts interact. 

Although evolving organizational structures may be new, try hard to resist the temptation to think they are bad. Get with the program. One of the great raps against the older worker is their resistance to change. Rather, you should dive into these innovative ways of communicating and sharing to show that you not only embrace inventive ways of working, but that you can also bring a perspective to the conversation and strategic planning discussions which others may not be able to. 

No doubt about it — it is tough out there and likely to remain so for the older worker. If you are one who does not want to retire earlier than you thought you were going to, then combat this trend with some steps that will keep you active and connected for years to come. 

Reflections On My Business

Posted on by Bill Ryan

With this, my 100th blog posting since opening my career development business Ryan Career Services LLC in January 2009, I am compelled to stray from my usual pattern of offering career advice to instead summarizing how the business experience has been for me and to reflect on what I have learned from this venture.

Following a 31-year career in public education, which I left in 2008, I was primed to try something completely different — an entrepreneurial enterprise that capitalized on strengths I had developed as a teacher. Primarily, to assist each individual to become the best they could be.

I had been working on the concept, including the writing of a business plan, for three years prior to formally offering career counseling, coaching, and resume/cover letter writing services. Although I felt qualified to deliver a superior experience for clients I found myself faced with two big uncertainties:

1. Was there really a viable market for these services just waiting to be tapped into?

2. What impact would the start of the most serious economic recession since the Great Depression have on the success of my business?

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard from people that “so many must need what you are offering during these times!” But what I found instead was that I was competing against the need for people to make sure they had food and shelter as the unemployment rate continued to rise.

The first year had an expected financial loss. I was not naïve enough to think a profit was to be realized at the outset. Despite the anxiety associated with launching a business, however, what I most feel now about that first year is profound gratefulness for the clients I did have who placed their trust and dollars with me.

I had two goals for year two. One was to increase my knowledge and skill and to refine my expertise. This did happen and continues to this day. I wanted to strike a balance between what service I could credibly provide with what service clients most wanted. I did get closer, but realized that this would be an ongoing process. What I learned from teaching came to mind — there is no pinnacle of perfection. You always keep learning.

The second goal had to do with trying to build a positive cash flow. Quite simply I wanted revenues to at least match expenditures. I achieved that point by the end of the third quarter and have never looked back.

Two significant lessons from year two included:

1. Half of my time was being spent on marketing, which I found interesting, but had no experience with at all. I can say, however, that I became impressed with the power and cost effectiveness of pay-per-click campaigns on Google AdWords. That along with continued optimization of my website has strongly increased my exposure.

2. The realization that career development was becoming more technological, in that how a client appeared online correlated more and more with the success of their career and employment prospects. It was during this time that I added a third leg to my stool, that of Online Profile Management. I became committed to being a go-to professional in this early stage industry.

By year three I reached an important milestone by earning one of the nation’s most prestigious resume writing credentials, the ACRW or Academy Certified Resume Writer. This has boosted not only my writing capacity, but my client base. Consequently I also found my writing going into two additional areas along with resumes and cover letters: LinkedIn Profiles and Professional Biographies.

Financially, I set a specific revenue-to-expense ratio goal to reach by year’s end that I again hit by the end of Q3. I began paying myself for the first time and found that my first big uncertainty from the start was no longer one. I became convinced that there is a market for these services.

But there was another significant risk to take. I knew I would get to this at some point and the beginning of year four, my current year, was the time to take it. I had always envisioned the business becoming one that drew in clients from around the country and that I would not be too reliant on just one geographical region, like New Hampshire. I knew that my lifestyle was starting to shift to one that involved more travel and living for extended periods in other places beyond NH. I have always felt that technology gave me the tools to merge a mobile style of living with the ability to continuously bring in work no matter where I was — as long as I had an Internet connection.

The past three months gave me an opportunity to test this concept out. I just finished living in Los Angeles for the winter, which is about as far away as one can get from NH while still being in the U.S. What have I learned?

1. The writing services are much more mobile than counseling. I provide resumes, cover letters, online profile, and professional biography writing services to clients from around the country who I never meet face to face. Many times we may never even speak on the phone. Email is an incredibly efficient means of conducting this end of the business.

2. How to offer career counseling and coaching from afar remains elusive. Despite Skype, webcams, and video conferencing technology the adoption rate for utilizing these tools into a counseling context is slow. For the issues that are raised in these types of sessions, the preferred means of contact is still face to face. I am still working on figuring this one out.

3. Marketing on a national level can be a lot more expensive than on a state or regional level. Google AdWords is based on selecting geographies to showcase your ads. That is no longer as relevant to me as before, even if I pick multiple locations to post ads. Pay-per-click with sites that are more national and targeted to professionals, such as LinkedIn, may be more appropriate. I shall see.

Financially, I have lost ground as I try to shift to building a more national client base. But I am confident that I can make this work eventually.

The other challenge that I have faced is to develop a resume writing tutorial service that is usable from my website for those clients who want to try their own hand at writing a resume, but who need a teacher to guide them. I have begun working with a web developer who has experience in course management software. I hope to have this up and running by the end of year four.

In closing, I have to say that my basic premise, which has always been that the quality of one’s life is tightly linked to the character of their work, has been reinforced by working with hundreds of clients to date. As the saying goes, do what you love and you will never work a day in your life, still holds. I feel very fortunate to be playing a small role in helping people reach that goal.

 

 

 

The Six Biggest Blunders of Job Applicants

Posted on by Bill Ryan

With an uptick in hiring expected this year the combination of those trying to get back into the workforce and those currently hired but wanting new positions will mean that hiring competitiveness is likely to remain high. 

Yet not every job seeker apparently knows how to compete. Common complaints can be heard from company interview teams, HR personnel, and recruiters about what kinds of job applicant behaviors lead to rejection. If your goal is to make a potential employer say, “You’re hired!”, then be aware of what turns them off and resolve to bring your A-game to the interview. 

Following are six frequent blunders I read about from those looking to align talent with employment: 

Blunder #1: Being Sloppy with the Basics: Examples are having a poorly thrown together resume, showing up late for and/or carrying a cup of coffee to an interview, and not being truthful about claims of past work that will easily be found out during a background check. Also, do not talk trash about your former employer. Nothing says “troublemaker” like an interviewee going on about what a jerk their last boss was. 

Blunder #2: Not Doing Your Homework: It is hard to believe, but there are people applying for jobs with companies they know nothing about. Compare that to the applicant who can cite statistics, market advantage, and the mission of the company. Having a sense of the culture matters, too. Walking into a casual creative work environment wearing a Brooks Brothers could be a “Whoops!” moment. 

Blunder #3: What Can You Do for Me?: I hope you still are not applying for jobs thinking that a company’s first concern is the health of your career track. You are going there to serve them and meet their needs. Addressing the gaps, shortages, threats, and obstacles that impede productivity are what matter most to hiring managers. Go prepared to present yourself as the value they crave to help them be successful. 

Blunder #4: Not Preparing for the Interview: Do not try to wing it. Interviews may be stressful, but they are not rocket science. Describe your well-rehearsed value proposition; be able to give examples of how you were a star performer; be ready to cite a couple of past weaknesses you are improving; and be quick on your feet to tell how you would handle a hypothetical challenge thrown at you. 

Blunder#5: Doing All Job Hunting Online: I still hear this a lot. People’s idea of a complete job hunt is going to online job boards and posting their resume, then waiting for the interview requests to roll in. This should be a small part of the search. The bigger effort should be to shoe-leather your network. Get and stay in touch with the rich set of contacts you should have built up to see what opportunities they may have. Do not forget to reach out to them with offers of help as well. 

Blunder #6: Not Presenting Yourself as a Professional: Demeanor, comportment, body language, being well spoken, and projecting confidence all play an important part in how you are perceived. When your game is off in any of these areas it shows and works against you. The belief is that the more competent someone is it will show in how they hold themselves. Haven’t you noticed how true this is? 

Increased hiring, if in fact that is what we are starting to experience, should not translate into not having to work exceptionally hard for those new jobs. On the contrary, it means you just need to be sharper than ever before. 

Enhancing Your LinkedIn Profile

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Establishing a solid LinkedIn (LI) profile is the first step to managing your overall professional online profile. If you are in the market for a new job, it is helpful to know that recruiters are all over LinkedIn looking for talent. Not being present at all on LinkedIn is a big mistake in today’s technical and connected world. But almost as bad as not showing up is having a mediocre or shoddy profile. It screams of a lack of professional effort. So, to make the most of your LI profile building time here are some tips that will leave you looking sharp. 

Before starting enhancements, you should know about a couple of privacy controls. If you are like most busy people, you may be thinking that you will chip away at your profile improvements piecemeal when time allows. But as any LinkedIn user knows, you get periodic updates that show the activity levels of your connections. Now there may be occasions when you do not want your LI world to know that you are upgrading your profile too frequently. It can give the impression that you are looking for other work, which may be off-putting to your current colleagues. If this issue is one of yours, then look for the “Turn on/off your activity broadcasts” link in the Privacy Controls sections of Settings. 

You also have the option of selecting who can see your activity feed in the same Privacy Controls area. You can choose from everyone, your connections, your network (connections plus group members), or “Only you”. The latter essentially eliminates anyone from seeing your editing activity. 

With activity viewing determined, you are ready to start tinkering with your Introduction field: 

  • Headline: This is important. It should begin with a short description of your professional expertise rather than just listing your current job title and employer’s name. Make this headline searchable by selecting key words that home in on your specialty. 
  • Picture: Do not just crop a decent looking detail from a larger JPG. Get a headshot taken by a professional photographer. 
  • Connections: Sure, the more you have the more connected you look. But do not just invite anyone to be a connection. Choose from people who you respect and vice versa. Quality professionals provide more opportunity than a stuffed ballot box. And I must admit that I have a gripe when one’s contact list is closed. Shouldn’t a viewer be able to see who your connections are? After all, networking is what LI is all about. 
  • Recommendations: Try to get at least three. These do not have to be essays either. Well written and complimentary short paragraphs can be just fine. 
  • Website links: You can include up to three. Your employer, a professional organization that you belong to, or better yet, your own website can all be included. 
  • Public Profile link: Go into settings and customize this to show your name without any of the trailing digits. Consider placing this link in the contact data section of your resume. 
  • Twitter feed: Short timely tweets interfaced with your LI account keep the Profile fresh. 

Once your Intro field has been polished it is time to tackle the meat of the profile: 

  • It is good to have a look that more closely resembles a well written resume, i.e., including quantifiable accomplishments. Collecting and communicating quantifiable achievements should come through strongly in your Summary and Experience sections. Always be careful to avoid just very basic responsibilities and tasks, but rather include accomplishments and results as much as possible. 
  • There are some great additional sections that can be included such as Skills, Honors and Awards, and Volunteer Activities, among many others. Try to at least add a Skills Section. 
  • Blogging or micro blogging with Twitter can keep the Profile even more dynamic and show your connections that it is being frequently updated. It also adds to the impression that you are a subject matter expert. It is not that hard to have your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages all updated simultaneously. 
  • Do you like to make PowerPoint presentations? You can design one about yourself and post it for viewers to play. 
  • Groups are one of this tool’s most powerful networking features. Joining and participating in groups allows you to learn from and influence others. It is a great way to get known by others. 
  • The Education section is straight forward enough, but if you are 45 years old or older be careful of the rampant age bias going on in today’s world of work. You do have the option of not including your graduation date. 

With a good LinkedIn profile in place, you will find that it is easier to promote yourself in a competitive employment climate. 

Regulating Your Digital Footprint

Posted on by Bill Ryan

It is not news that people go to the Internet first for information on just about anything these days. But it may be news to some that this includes recruiters, hiring managers, and just about anyone else who is trying to locate talent for their businesses and organizations. 

About 90% of all recruiters and 50% of all employers perform web searches before making a hiring decision. If you are trying to find a new job, transition to a new career, or seek new business opportunities you need to have a presence online. Can you imagine anyone in 2011 making a claim of professional greatness and not being found online? It is unimaginable. 

Your digital footprint refers to all the web information there is about you out there. It can come from many places, including social networking media, profile and biography pages you may have established on your own or that exist on employer and association web sites, blogs, forum and message board postings, chats, and even political or religious contributions that you have made. Even if you are committed to not being online, it is hard not to find yourself there somehow. 

If you are serious about regulating your digital footprint — and you should be — there are five things to strive for: 

  1. Your presence should exude self-confidence and be in multiple locations.
  2. A positive professional image should be displayed.
  3. A consistent and keyword rich value proposition should be present across all platforms.
  4. A clear and memorable career brand should exist.
  5. There should be no digital dirt or negative unprofessional content about you found in searches.

Above all, never assume that anything you write or post online is anonymous. 

Begin regulating your online presence by seeing what it looks like now. Google yourself in quotation marks and find every reference to you on the first three search ranking pages. Assess what is being shown about you. Is it positive or not? 

It is highly probable that you are sharing your name with others. Note how often this happens. You may even find that old information once confined to paper has now been converted to digital format and is available online. 

Now that you have a baseline, get started managing. There are three fundamental steps to establishing a digital footprint that you control: 

  1. Have a well written resume with a distinct value proposition that serves as your image anchor.
  2. Build a basic online by completing profiles on Google Profiles and ZoomInfo.
  3. Set up a business networking presence by having active accounts with LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

All the above-mentioned websites are SEO (Search Engine Optimization) rich meaning that they will rank high during web searches. 

There are additional sites and features to consider opening accounts with such as MyWebCareer, Google Alerts, Reputation.com, Vizibility, Ecademy, and BrazenCareerist. Taken together these will give you a lot of power to control your cyber appearance. 

Some management techniques to know when using these sites include: 

  • Fill your profile with tangible competencies. 
  • Be aware of the privacy settings, set them accordingly, and check them frequently for usage changes. 
  • If sharing a name with someone, differentiate yourself, such as “John A. Smith, Senior Marketing Executive”. 
  • Use headshots taken by a professional photographer. 
  • If you cannot remove digital dirt, then bury it by creating enough multiple positive presence points that the bad stuff gets lower search rankings. 
  • Untag yourself from friends’ Facebook tags. 

Follow these suggestions and you will be well on your way to managing what the online world will learn about you. And you don’t have to be a control freak to want or need that level of self-authority. 

Recognize Your Career Successes

Posted on by Bill Ryan

We are largely driven to enhance our careers by the need to feel successful. The urge to link our efforts with purposeful outcomes is a primal motivator for the professional person. The desire to make a difference for others and ourselves gets us up in the morning. Capturing success may be frequently elusive, but it is a goal most think is worth pursuing. 

In today’s world, being successful implies there is continual growth and improvement. Some professionals are fortunate to find they have chosen a job that allows for and even rewards career development. New, novel, and stimulating challenges are always being presented, which provide opportunities for repeat successes. These people are happy with their jobs. They do not want to or need to enter a job search. They feel successful where they are. 

However, for many others, the chime of achievement is not sounding at their jobs, or at least not enough. This group feels stuck. For them, work does not offer enough pay-off. Boredom and too much routine have set in. These people are just as professional and talented as the above group. So, what is going on? It is called reaching a plateau. 

Here is a very typical scenario. We finish our formal education and get a job, or series of jobs, which may or may not be related to what we studied in school. Eventually we settle into a “decent enough” job. The salary is okay, co-workers become friends, and we start experiencing our first professional successes. We feel grown-up — we have arrived.  

But give it five or ten years and the dull weight of a been-there-done-that attitude takes hold. Work weeks start to feel too long and weekends too short. Frequent funks and a sense of stagnation start to become the norm. Inertia now seems to guide us more than the exciting quest for work gain. 

This becomes the time to strongly consider a career defibrillator. You need to get back to feeling worthy. Now you could look for a job change, or redefine your role with your current employer, or you could go entrepreneurial. Whichever route you take to rekindle career happiness will involve enlisting one fundamental practice to place you in the most advantageous position to reach this goal. That is to determine clearly and to be able to communicate effectively what success means to you and how in the past you have gone about attaining it. 

When you can identify your unique success metrics, you are then able to claim your professional value. You can cite contributions that have benefited others. With this self-realization you know what ball to keep your eye on. It becomes easier to envision yourself in situations, in which you can practice your craft and again be successful. 

So how do you measure success for yourself? Here is an exercise for distilling career success and happiness into practical and powerful statements, which can be used as guides for future work. This is a way to promote yourself to those who may be able to provide opportunities for future successes. 

Begin compiling a record of your greatest hits. List the achievements of which you are most proud. Have these statements contain actual, and if possible, quantifiable results. Look for the ways you found remedies to problems, resolved issues, mediated conflicts, assisted in growth, created novel solutions, improved efficiencies, and so on. For example, 

  • “Created systematic process for client interactions, deal flow, and follow-up.” 
  • “Grew occupancy from 67% to 88%. Steadily increased average guest satisfaction to 99%.” 
  • “Ten+ years of administrative, volunteer, and team experience in the coordination and implementation of educational, nonprofit, and community service projects.” 

With this valuable insight organized in your mind and on paper you are then prepared to chart a course for continuing career fulfillment. And when your work is successful, your life is greatly enhanced. 

Ten Things to Have Ready for Your Interview

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Despite the bleak employment news from May, many more New Englanders are getting job interviews than a year ago. Preparing for one is daunting to say the least. And there is no shortage of articles, blogs, and how-to tips that can be found on the web to help you make sure you are ready for the type of questions you will be asked. I have even contributed to the information pool. For a change, let us look at the real basics of interview preparation — the most concrete things you need to help increase your chances of this all-important conversation going well. 

Smart people, whether pilots before a flight or doctors before an operation, get ready for any complicated procedure by having a checklist of steps that experience shows needs to be addressed to ensure optimal performance. Here is my pre-interview checklist of simple things to have ready: 

  1. Ten copies of your resume: Do not assume all the interviewers are ready by having had your resume provided to them prior to the interview. Not all employers run like clockwork. Think how prepared you will look if you can instantly hand out resumes to interviewers who do not have one.
  2. Bottle of water: Thirty minutes or more of high-pressure answering questions can make anyone’s throat dry. Coughing, throat clearing, and deep swallowing to keep lubricated does not make you appear at your best. Have that water ready to keep the talker oiled. One caution, however, is do not keep reaching for it nervously like a beer during a first date.
  3. Breath mints: While on the topic of your mouth, having sweet minty breath leaves you feeling more confident to speak directly to someone at a relatively short distance, say when shaking hands, and it leaves the listener with the impression that you are clean and presentable. Although, I love Altoids, for many they are too powerful, so choose one more subtle, but effective.
  4. References: Having copies of two to three references, which are ready to pass out, can add to the message that you are prepared and are at this interview to do work. Distributing them without being asked shows that you are taking a level of ownership for the meeting.
  5. Pad of paper and two working pens: From jotting reminders of points, you wish to make to getting names and titles of interviewers down, it is okay to take a few notes during the interview. Remember, though, that writing too much is not good and lots of eye contact is good. And for goodness sakes, don’t doodle!
  6. Power bar: I do not know about you, but I never like eating before a big meeting, especially one in which I am the center of attention. Now what if the interview turns into a second one for later in the morning or the whole process is delayed for some reason. You do not want your stomach grumbling at an inopportune time, so have one of those power bars to eat between sessions.
  7. Tissues: Sneezes, running nose, watery eyes, the list goes on for reasons why you might want or need to wipe your face. Have one of those handy little tissue packages tucked in a discreet pocket for just those occasions.
  8. Cash: Imagine that you are asked by an interviewer to continue the conversation at the cafeteria over coffee or lunch. Wouldn’t you want to be able to pay for not only yourself, but for the interviewer? Sure, a debit card might work, but what if it did not? Be prepared.
  9. Photo ID: You probably carry one around with you all the time anyway, but be sure to when going to an interview, especially one that might be held in a setting in which you have to pass through security. Being able to prove who you are could be useful.
  10. Written information about interviewer and department: You are probably going to be nervous showing up for the interview, so have the necessary appointment data written down for reference. Your memory may not be as sharp if you are freezing at a reception desk, so have the name of the interview contact person and any relevant contact info ready to read from or to show.

Check, check, check, ready! Go get ’em! 

Four Strategies to Keep Your Career Relevant

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Traditionally, we have thought of a professional as someone who is very dedicated and practiced within a relatively narrow, yet focused type of work. They choose to not be distracted by trying to be too many things to too many people. Instead, they get really good at delivering a limited category of a service or a product. 

Specializing has served the workplace well since ancient Mesopotamia and for the most part it still does. But there is growing evidence that changes in the 21st century work model is ushering in a new definition of what it means to be a professional. 

The talent and skills required by a global marketplace, which is characterized by intense competitiveness and rapidly evolving commoditization, are in an increasing state of flux. For a professional going forward, expecting that only one skill will keep them marketable and employed for the long-term is becoming unrealistic.  

The workplace of the future will be demanding talent that is continuously involved in learning and development, such that it is nimble enough to transfer aptitudes to alternative and hybrid jobs. Allowing yourself to be too limited in scope, or worse yet, to give into complacency and inertia, are the career killers of the hereafter.  

What every pro wants to do is to be as prepared as possible for an uncertain and unpredictable workplace in the coming years. Since no one can be expected to be knowledgeable and skilled in everything, it becomes necessary to have a preparedness plan that builds from your current skill base. To help, I suggest four strategies to keep your career development options open moving forward: 

  1. Showcase in a compelling format the breadth and depth of your skills and accomplishments. To do so, begin with a basic assumption, which is that every employer will have only one thing on their minds when considering you for employment, “What can you do for me?”

The wider your range of capabilities, the greater your chances of being able to answer their question. By being equipped with a portfolio and resume that highlights your adaptive talent, you are ready for the changeable needs of employers. Show that you are as dynamic as the businesses you hope to work for. 

  1. Learn and practice skills that are transferable to multiple situations. Being skilled at something is, of course, good. Having skills that are transferable and can be applied to a variety of circumstances is even better.

So, what are these skills? Remember that as a professional you never give up keeping up with your field of expertise. By staying current, you can be on top of the turns and twists your profession is undergoing. This heads-up knowledge allows you to adjust and reapply your competence as necessary. Be ready to not only say, “I can do this,” but “I can do this and that and if needed blend the two with…”. 

  1. Accept being a lifelong learner. No news here. Learning does not stop with graduation. Growth is constant. Embrace it. Catch and enjoy the excitement of learning more and studying things that are new.

Move out of your comfort zone sometimes, as well. The more secure your attitude of continuous improvement, the better you can leverage your expanding capabilities towards career enhancing opportunities. Again, your never-ending research and networking will inform you about what content to master.  

  1. Seek out employers who care about your career along with you. Smart employers know about the correlation between engaged employees and productivity. And one of the best ways to keep your talent engaged is to let them know they are valued and to show it by offering job descriptions that encourage growth and development.

Choosing places to work, in which management actively seeks to plan for success in tandem with their workers that result in productivity for both parties, is the goal of progressive professionals. 

Given an uncertain work future producing jobs that did not even exist a few short years ago, it is best to be proactive rather than reactive. The early bird still gets that worm. However today that bird is multi-talented and searching for new ways to meet new challenges. She keeps an ear to the ground and an eye on the horizon. 

Four Ways To Improve Your Resume

Posted on by Bill Ryan

So, let’s assume that you have not yet started on that New Year’s resolution of rewriting your resume, which of course assumes that you made a New Year’s resolution to rewrite your resume. (You did, didn’t you?). Having a current and well written resume is the single best thing you can do for yourself, if you are thinking about transitioning to another job or career, or if you are trying to get back into the workforce after a too-long layoff. 

As is the case with many such tasks that can be easily dropped down one’s priority list, the hardest part is simply getting started. Once you do pull out that old resume you may find that the rewrite job looks to be about as much fun as doing taxes. Then there is the question of what needs to be done to make your resume a winning one. Is it just updating the contact information and work history, or is there more to it than that? This is a writing exercise that can be daunting and frustrating. You may find yourself thinking of postponing this resolution until next year. 

To help make your resume rewriting a little easier I am going to focus on what needs to be done to make it very readable to hiring managers and recruiters, who are the types of people most likely to look over your resume someday. Think of them as your audience. Know their world. It consists of lots of scheduling, running reference and background checks, conducting interviews, debriefing clients or managers, communicating with their network, and all under constant time pressure.  

They do not have the time or interest to read your autobiography, nor will they be attracted to a boring chronology of your past jobs with nothing substantial to set you apart from the vast crowd. You have got about fifteen seconds to make a good first impression. Consider the following questions when rewriting your resume: 

  • What is your functional and industry expertise? Do not make the reader have to infer your skills by looking at work history. Have a lead section or summary that quickly informs and emphasizes what value and talent you would bring to the employer. Categorizing core competencies and special technical skills prior to any list of previous jobs will allow you to be in or out of the hiring ballpark in a hurry. 
  • Where are you on the work-level hierarchy? It should be established very quickly if you are a laborer, assistant, manager, executive, or contracting consultant. This can be highlighted in the lead summary and by bolding or capitalizing current and previous job titles. You need to make it easy for the reader to position you where you want to be positioned. 
  • What have you been up to for the past ten or twelve years? A clearly written chronology of your most recent and relevant past employment should be displayed. And yes, gaps in your work history are a problem. Not what laid-off workers want to hear, I know. So, what can be done about employment gaps? Hopefully, you will be able to show that you tried to remain current and viable with your profession while you were out of work or caring for an ill or elderly family member. Perhaps, you received further education and training, or volunteered and maybe interned, to continue maintaining and developing expertise. Also, in most cases, what you did before, say 1998, is not going to be that important to someone hiring in 2011. 
  • What have been your significant accomplishments? In this chronicle of your employment there should be points about what you have done that has made a real contribution. Refer to tangible measures like revenue and profit increases, lead generations and conversions, savings in costs or resources, or anything else that shows you have improved processes. Think of it as compiling your greatest hits. 

You may not be successful with all your New Year’s resolutions, but if you can get this one right, it just may be enough to make 2011 the year of positive change you hoped it would be.