Archive for September, 2010

New Job-Hunt Articles + Career Spotlight

September 24th, 2010 by Susan P. Joyce

Career Spotlight:   Did you enjoy college enough to work there? I worked in HR in a large university, and it was very interesting, a tightly-knit community within the larger world with different standards than most other industries.  College Administrators, on average, now earn $81,000 year (much more than I earned!), with an expected 10-year job growth of 14%. Over 8o% hold at least a bachelor’s degree. More about this and other careers in Job-Hunt’s Career Changers’ Guide to Careers.

Quote of the Week:  The most RT’ed quote of the week is from the amazing @2MorrowKnight who was RT’ing a quote by PBS’s Tavis Smiley (@tavismiley) -

Failing does not make you a failure.

New Articles:  Four new articles this week - (more…)

Employer Benefits of Employee LinkedIn Participation

September 22nd, 2010 by Susan P. Joyce

Employers - AND Employees – Benefit from Employee LinkedIn Participation

It may be a surprise to some, but LinkedIn isn’t useful only for job search and recruiting.  Active participation is good for your career and good for your employer as well.

NOTE:  Before you join LinkedIn, or, in fact, participate in any social media, be sure to check for an official policy from your employer about employee use of social media. Some employers ban social media use by employees, at least while the employees are at work. Some don’t want any mention of the employer at all, while others think social media is great and encourage employee participation. So, it’s best to check for a policy and/or guidelines to be sure.

In fact, your employer may benefit from your active participation in LinkedIn. Even if you are the only employee who is a LinkedIn member, your participation puts your employer “on the map” (virtually) as an organization.

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New Job-Hunt Articles + Career Spotlight

September 19th, 2010 by Susan P. Joyce

Career Spotlight: If you like numbers and money, don’t mind being referred to as a “bean counter,” and enjoy keeping track of things, you might be a good Accountant.  On average, accountants earn $59,000/year, with expected 10-year job growth of 18%. Nearly 80% of accountants hold bachelor’s degrees. More about this and other careers in Job-Hunt’s Career Changers’ Guide to Careers.

Quote of the Week:  The most RT’ed quote this week is one I Tweeted myself via @JobHuntOrg.  I found it on a fortune cookie recently:

The only thing to doubt about yourself is your limits. ~Anonymous 

New articles: Five new articles were published this week (whew!), one of them written by the most excellent Robyn Greenspan, Job-Hunt’s newest Job Search Expert:

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Leveraging LinkedIn for Your Stealth Job Search

September 17th, 2010 by Susan P. Joyce

I strongly recommend that – if at all possible (and sometimes it is not possible) - people continue working in their old jobs while looking for their new jobs.  If you have the option, you are much more attractive to an employer when you are still employed.  Not logical, but very human (here’s why). 

Someone in Twitter recently disagreed with my recommendation in that article that people be sure their LinkedIn Profile is complete while they continue working in their current jobs. This person felt that being in LinkedIn signifies that someone is job searching. 

Yes, being active in LinkedIn can mean you are job hunting. But, most people in LinkedIn are working on expanding their network, getting in touch with thought leaders, former colleagues, and new potential clients, all to help them with their job performance. (More on how LinkedIn benefits your employer)

So, being in LinkedIn can also mean you are a savvy business person, leveraging current technology to improve your ability to do your existing job better, through better networking, and learning new skills.

NOTE:  Some employers do not want their employees using social media, particularly during working hours and/or using the employer’s computers, networks, etc. Check for a “Social Media Use” policy (and also an “Email and Internet Use” policy), to be sure that you are in compliance.

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Welcome Robyn Greenspan of ExecuNet!

September 15th, 2010 by Susan P. Joyce

This week, we are very pleased to welcome Robyn Greenspan who is joining the roster of job search and career professionals who are our Job-Hunt Job Search Experts.  These knowledgeable and helpful people contribute monthly articles to Job-Hunt in their areas of expertise.

Robyn will help job seekers with their job search networking issues as Job-Hunt’s  Job Search Networking Expert.  Editor-in-chief at ExecuNet, the private membership network, founded in 1988, Robyn is well-versed both in job search networking and in helping job seekers succeed at networking.

Robyn’s background includes earning an undergraduate degree in psychology and a dual Master of Science degree in counseling and human resources development.

Author of ExecuNet’s very well-regarded and widely cited research project, the annual Executive Job Market Intelligence Report, Robyn also brings daily insight to executives at the public blog, Executive Insider, which enables readers to make better career, business and leadership decisions.

Robyn’s first article, “Lead with Your Abs,” describes how people can make themselves well-known in their network (without showing off any body parts).

Robyn’s education, background in technology, and her experience at ExecuNet will provide Job-Hunt’s visitors with excellent, grounded-in-reality, tested advice on their job search networking strategies.

For more of Robyn, check out the Executive Insider blog, and follow @RobynGreenspan on Twitter.  You’ll find Robyn provides a unique blend of everything you wanted to know about executive career issues – and more that you didn’t – through her Twitter account.

Meet all of Job-Hunt’s  Job Search Experts.

New Job-Hunt Articles + Career Spotlight

September 13th, 2010 by Susan P. Joyce

Career Spotlight: Advertising Salespeople earn an average of $43,000/year, with expected 10-year job growth of 20%.  Advertising and sales are always in demand, even if the advertising platforms have changed a lot the last few years. If you like helping companies reach their target markets or just enjoy sales, this seems like the perfect job.  Around 56% holding bachelor’s degrees or more. Find out about other careers in Job-Hunt’s Career Changers’ Guide.

Quote of the Week: This quote from Georgia Feiste of Lincoln, NE (GO BIG RED!) who Tweets as @fiestycoach, received the most ReTweets last week:

It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up. ~Babe Ruth

As usual, we also added 4 new articles to Job-Hunt last week:

Stay tuned – more next week, of coursel!

Good luck with your job search!

Maybe Social Media Isn’t a Waste of Time for Your Career

September 12th, 2010 by Susan P. Joyce

The trend data from giant job aggregator Indeed.com, bottom, shows something very interesting happening.  Social media terms like “Facebook” and “Twitter” are appearing in more and more job descriptions every month. Since its founding in 2004, use of the term “Facebook” in job descriptions has grown an amazing 550,000% (that’s not a typo, the number really is five hundred fifty thousand percent) through July, 2010.  And it was the fastest growing in the 12-month period which ended in July, 2010.

Employers add social media terms to job descriptions because social media
is growing in importance, and they need employees with social media skills.
So, the value of your social media skills is increasing.

You can leverage your social media skills to benefit your job search in many ways.

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New Job-Hunt Articles + Career Spotlight

September 5th, 2010 by Susan P. Joyce

Summer is now officially over, and it’s time to get back to reality. The economy seems to be struggling along, hopefully improving, but things do seem to be gradually getting better.

Quote of the Week:  Until the Recovery is complete, I’m sticking with this advice, as Tweeted by Jane Purdue, a.k.a. @theHRgoddess, last week,

“Nothing reduces the odds against you like ignoring them.” ~Robert Brault.

Four new articles were added to Job-Hunt this week, written by Job-Hunt’s Job Search Experts:

Good luck with your job search!

10 Steps to Job Search Success!

September 3rd, 2010 by Susan P. Joyce

An earlier post about wasting time in a job search described how job seekers waste their time and energy applying for hundreds of jobs, under the delusion that applying for jobs via job boards is how people land job. For over 85% of job seekers, applying via job boards is NOT what works!

Rather than hundreds of fruitless applications, this is what does work:

1.  Choose up to 3 job titles for jobs that you really want.

Why bother applying for jobs you don’t want?  If you landed one, you’d be miserable, most likely, and you probably wouldn’t be a good perfomer, so you’d be job hunting again – way too soon in this economy - and probably with less than stellar recommendations.

Let’s be serious here. Don’t pick “network TV news anchor” or “dermatologist” unless you have the credentials required of a network TV news anchor or dermatologist, respectively, or unless you have a plan to get those credentials before you start your job search.

If you really don’t know what you want (other than a paycheck), buy or borrow a copy of Richard Bolles best-selling book, “What Color Is Your Parachute.” Read the whole book, and do ALL the exercises.  This will be time very well spent!

Focusing on the few job titles for jobs you really want enables you to be more effective in your job search.

2.  Choose up to 20 target employers.

Find employers who seem to be financially stable, relatively secure in their market niche, and in the right location for you:

  • Check local Best Employer lists.
  • Ask family, friends, neighbors, even employees of various local companies, for the names of local employers that are good places to work – good management, fair pay, good benefits, etc. – whatever is important to you.
  • Go through the Yellow Pages of your phone book or search an online Yellow Pages for your location to find potential employers in the right kinds of businesses for you (e.g. food wholesalers, jewelry stores, IT consulting companies, etc. – whatever your target employers might be).
  • Identify more potential employers by searching on job titles, type of business, or the industry/sector you want in one of the job aggregator sites, like Job-Hunt’s sponsors Indeed.com, JustJobs.com, and LinkUp.com.

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Job Search Time & Effort Wasted

September 1st, 2010 by Susan P. Joyce

We’ve had a fairly active discussion on Job-Hunt Help, Job-Hunt’s LinkedIn Group, about the biggest mistakes job seekers make.

The biggest mistake that I see job seekers make is “keeping [their] options open” which is another way of saying that they apply for EVERYTHING they see that they even remotely qualify for – “just in case…”

Applying for everything can temporarily give people the feeling that they are doing something for their job search, making some sort of progress (“I applied for 15 jobs today!”).

The problem is that the feeling they are making progress is an illusion, and the reality is that these job seekers are wasting their time and effort.

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