Category Archives: Finding jobs

Like your job search, even lasers have to focus

Posted on June 19, 2014 | Leave a comment

Careers and lasers are not naturally focused.  Your career focus will determine whether you have the career you want, or the one that is most convenient for your boss and coworkers.

Lasers, by nature, are also unfocused. A common misconception is that the light comes out of a laser in a tight beam.  It does not.  If you take a laser pointer apart you will see a simple lens just in front of the laser. Because of the light’s coherence and origin, the light can be focused into a tight beam. Coherent light waves all marching in step come from a laser naturally.  Focus has to be designed into it.

Most people laugh at the idea of a company president becoming a janitor.  I know two people who decided to do it.  They decided to change the focus of their lives.  Both make a lot of money as janitors because they are focused.

Do you need a focus for your career and job search?  You may be capable of being a manager, worker, company president, and janitor.  With 4 resumes you could apply for each job in a coherent manner.  You could also interview for each and present yourself as the perfect employee.  But should you?

What are your talents?  What do you do better than others?  What do you want to learn?

Inability to get ahead in a career is often caused by a lack of purpose or focus.  You are happy to float to wherever there is an opening today.  Everyone always tells you what a great team player you are.  The trouble is that your raises are small and you get passed over for promotions.

So you decide to get another job.  You apply for every job you can.  Your new job is outside of the field you were in before.  Once again you float into whatever needs to be done today.  Your career goes nowhere.

Do you WANT to go nowhere as fast as you can?

Stop today.  Focus on a goal.  What is the next job, responsibility, or promotion you want?  Turn down urgent requests to do something else.  Stop letting the minor inconvenience of other people decide what you will do.  Focus on a goal.

One way to tell if you are focused is to count how many people YOU ask to help YOU reach YOUR goal.  Ask for help.  Network.  Talk to people doing what you want to do next.  Get their advice.  Focus on one goal.

But what if you are unemployed?  It still works.  Decide on a specific job, title or assignment you want the most.  Find people doing that job.  Ask them to help you figure out how to get to that job.  That’s networking.  That’s laser like focus.

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Something To Do Today

Talk to someone doing the job you want for your next job.  Ask them the steps you can take to get the same job.

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Tomorrow:  Why lasers work – part 3

Later:  What time is it?

Put your feet up on his desk.

Sunshine collecting

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Posted in Finding jobs, Focus, Quitting or Fired, Raises, Resumes

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How to find the most jobs, that pay the best, and hire fastest

Posted on May 22, 2014 | Leave a comment

What is hot today? Follow the money.  To which industries is money flowing the most heavily?  What are people investing in?  Where is the greatest potential for growth?  Where will it be the easiest to get hired and promoted?

If you really want to know, you need to go to Investor’s Business Daily. The chart is called, “IBD’s 197 Industry Group Rankings”. The latest copy is http://www.investors.com/pdf/IBD197_052214.pdf.  It wasn’t in their paper today, so I had to go online and get a free 4 week subscription to see it. Go to http://news.investors.com/otheribddata.aspx and look under the link for “197 Industries Table” I’ll keep an eye out and let you know if they put it in the papers on only some days.

The chart lists all the major industry sectors in the USA.  Then it ranks them according to how well stocks have performed in the last 6 months.  The industries at the top of the chart are the ones everyone is investing in.  The ones at the end are the ones being abandoned.

It says that the medical software industry is the biggest loser.  Oil & gas transport is the biggest winner.

Just because money is flowing out of an industry does not mean it is doomed.  It does mean that it will be hard to find a new job in that industry.  It means that you have to show a strong ability to save big money or make big profits to get hired. In the losers, being a bankruptcy specialist guarantees a job.

I always try to fish where the fish are abundant.  I hunt where the animals I seek are the thickest.  I job search where the jobs and promotions are plentiful.  Time to do a little research to make sure you are looking where the jobs are plentiful.

The contest does not always go to the strong, nor the race to the swift, but that’s the way to place your bet.

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Something To Do Today

Print out or cut out the 197 Industry Group Rankings chart and pin it to your wall.  Study it so that you understand each column.  Compare what is hot today to what was hot a year ago.  Are you hunting where the jobs are thickest?

Tomorrow:  Olympic class talent

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Posted in Economy, Finding jobs

“Ash breeze” can fix your job search

Posted on May 21, 2014 | Leave a comment

Sometimes your job search just isn’t working.  Fix your job search using what the old sailors called “ash breeze”.

You won’t go anywhere in your sailboat if you are becalmed, no wind.  Sailors on the old 3 mast boats used to dread finding themselves where there was no wind.  There are places in the ocean where you can go weeks without a breeze.  The old mariners often had only one way out, “ash breeze.”

When becalmed, a rowboat full of men would be sent out tied to the front of the ship.  They would take their ash wood oars and start rowing.  Progress was always painfully slow.  Any breeze would move a ship faster, but “ash breeze” was better than dying becalmed.

Are you becalmed?  Are you stuck in a company or job that just isn’t getting you anywhere?  The book, Carry On Mr. Bowditch, is the story of one of the greatest mariners of our age.

Bowditch was stuck in a nowhere job.  Born in 1773, with little formal education and  apprenticed to a storeowner, Bowditch became an expert bookkeeper.  He wasn’t where he wanted to be.  He studied mathematics and astronomy on his own.  Eventually he became a sea captain, author and educator.  He received an honorary PhD for his accomplishments.  His book on celestial navigation is still used at the US Naval Academy.

The most important thing you have is your attitude.  Couple attitude with an intense desire to better yourself and you cannot be stopped.  Start preparing now for the job you want to have in five years.  Learn what you need to learn.  The more you work on YOU, the better your life will get.

The harder I work on me, the better my life gets.

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Something To Do Today

Read the book, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, by Latham.

Tomorrow:  IBD and what’s hot

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Posted in Attitude, Finding jobs, Focus, Perseverance, talent, Time management, Training

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Is your job search evolving or going nowhere?

Posted on May 20, 2014 | Leave a comment

If you kill time, you’ll murder your future. In your job search, are you comfortable doing the same thing over and over?  If you are getting interviews, you are doing a lot right.  If you are not getting interviews, you need to add something different.

Here is an example of people with potential dying early because they weren’t challenged.  You won’t die from boredom, but I bet you can learn new skills and look for jobs in a new way.

Down Syndrome vs down syndrome part 3

Up until the 1980’s it was common to put babies with Down Syndrome into asylums.  They never learned to read, talk, be toilet trained or do much of anything.  They seemed to be content.  They would sit in the corner and rock or wiggle their fingers in front of their eyes.  Most died before the age of 21.

The singing cowboy Roy Rogers and his wife Dale Evans had a baby with Down Syndrome, which they refused to put in an asylum.  Dale Evans wrote a book about the child’s two years of life.  She began a revolution.   Most kids with Down Syndrome, like my daughter Merrilee, now learn to read to a fifth grade level, are toilet trained, and live to be at least 50.

Merrilee would sit in a corner and rock or wiggle her fingers in front of her face if she didn’t have something more interesting to do. We have to purposely work at it.  We have to provide something better than rocking in the corner. Are you doing the same for yourself?

Job seekers with down syndrome often end up doing something equivalent to rocking in a corner.  They find an essentially useless, brainless task and concentrate on it.  They don’t want to think.  They just want to be doing SOMETHING. Or they find a task that looks like it should be useful, but is producing absolutely nothing, and they do that.

Do you keep submitting the same resume online to hundreds of jobs with no result?  Do you mail a resume to all the ads in the paper without getting an interview? Do you scan websites for jobs and never find one?  Do you just watch TV because it is less painful than trying to get a job?

You really do have amazing potential.  Sometimes discovering your talents is painful and difficult.  Worse, trying to get paid for those talents the first time, before you have “experience”, can take the wind right out of your sails.

Try something new.  Make a completely different resume and submit it a few places.  Call a few companies and ask for the person who would be your new supervisor.  Do some serious networking by having friends critique your resume for you.  Study interviewing skills at the library.  Read, “How To Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie.  Read “Acres of Diamonds” by Russell Conwell (Google for it)

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Something To Do Today

Try something new.

Tomorrow:  Ash wind and sailing

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Posted in Finding jobs, Focus, Job Boards

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How to get that job they don’t want to give you or don’t have

Posted on May 14, 2014 | Leave a comment

You may get a job by thorough persistence.  Don’t be pestilential and persistent, be pleasant, nice and thoroughly persistent.  Let me demonstrate.

My daughter Merrilee has Down Syndrome.  Her IQ is 43.  She has a lot of advantages over job seekers with down syndrome.  Job seekers with down syndrome accept what happens to them fatalistically.  My daughter with Down Syndrome got an extra half chromosome that makes it impossible for her to be fatalistic.  For example:

Merrilee loves cartoon videos.  We limited the time she spends watching them.  We locked them in the boys’ room so she couldn’t get them.  Yet she showed up with a cartoon video in her hand while I was at the computer or reading and handed it to me almost every day.

How did she get the video?  She knew that eventually one of her brothers would leave the door unlocked or the key down where she could get it.  She checked the door several times a day.  Not obsessively, just whenever she went by their room.

She can’t talk clearly, but I knew when she handed me a video that she wanted me to play it.  She gave it to me when I was busy so I wouldn’t go upstairs to lock the room.  I would hand it back and say, put it on the TV stand.  She did.   10 or 20 minutes later she brought another.  This went on until I played a video for her or put the videos away and locked the boys’ door.

She is how you should be in your job search. If I tell her, “No,” she’ll be back.  If I lock the boys’ door, she’ll be back.  She’s gentle and loving.  She’s quietly persistent.  She’s not unreasonable.  I want to help her.  She does what I ask when I tell her to put the video on the TV stand.

A job seeker with down syndrome sadly lacks Merrilee’s gentle persistence. Job seekers who feel down, just give up at the first, “No.”  There may not be a job today, but there might literally be one tomorrow.

Be persistent.  Don’t give up on the job or promotion you want.  Figure out how to gently and kindly get your qualifications before the decision maker.  Be reasonable, persistent, helpful and nice.  Take your resume to HR every time they ask.  Ask what you can do to qualify for and get the job.  Then do what they say.  After a month or two, try again.

If you make yourself qualified and have a great attitude, eventually someone will leave the door unlocked.  Someone will quit or the department will expand.  If you are kindly persistent and not irritatingly pestilent, you’ll have a great shot at the job.

You can’t have the blessing of the extra half chromosome that Merrilee has.  However, you can develop her persistence, love and patience.

Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence.  Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.  Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.  Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.  Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.  The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.  (Coolidge)

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Something To Do Today

Is there a promotion you really want?  Are there companies you really want to work for?  Go to your job journal and write a plan for getting what you want by being persistent in a nice way.  Decide how often you can try again.  Set appointments on your calendar to try again.

Tomorrow:  Down Syndrome vs down syndrome part 2

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Posted in Attitude, Finding jobs, Focus, Followup, Networking, Perseverance, Promotions, Raises

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What if you are getting NO response to your resume? 6 fixes

Posted on May 13, 2014 | Leave a comment

If they can’t see you, you aren’t there.  If they can’t take their eyes off you, there’s no competition.

What is the difference between these three scenarios?

  1. You send out 100 resumes in an hour and get no response.
  2. You spend two days deciding who to send resumes to, send out 3 resumes, and get no response.
  3. You go fishing.

From a job search perspective, there isn’t much difference.  If you are getting absolutely no response from your job search efforts, change something.  Experiment.  What can it really hurt if you completely change what you are doing 10% of the time?  Can the response get any worse? 

Get creative.  Here are some things others have tried:

Make a trial resume each week.  Do severe changes or just rearrange the bullets.  Send your normal resume out to most jobs.  Send your trial resume to 5 or 10 companies.  Do you get a response? 

Call up 10 friends and ask them to critique your resume, before you send it.  Send them a copy and find out what they think.  You don’t have to make the changes they suggest.  In addition to getting some good and bad help, you’ll be networking.  They’ll know exactly what you can do and be looking for an opportunity to help you.

Call half the companies you want to send a resume to.  Ask for the person who would be your supervisor.  If you get HR (Human Resources) that’s okay.  Whoever you get, ask them what skills they are having the hardest time finding.  If you have the skills, make them the first line in your resume, in bold print.

Once a week walk down the street in a business park and ask for the owner of each business.  Whether you talk to the owner or the receptionist, tell them you are looking for a job.  Take a resume and a sincere desire to help.  It can’t hurt.  Ask everyone you meet who they know that can use you.

Add a recommendation letter to your resume.  Get your last boss or a coworker to write a letter telling how hard you work and how much you help.  Make it the first page of your resume.  It’s bragging when you say it, it’s proof when someone else says it.

Think. Earl Nightingale suggests spending an hour each day with a pencil and a pad of paper just thinking and listing ideas of how to reach your goal. Exercise your brain. You’ll throw most of the ideas away, but you’ll also come up with some gems.  Think.  What can you change that will make you stand out?  What can you do that will draw positive attention to yourself?  Is there any REAL risk?  Probably not.  So try it a few times.  See what the response is. 

Learn.  Do better each week.

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Something To Do Today

Decide what you will do different.  What will you change?  Try your experiment out 5 or 10 times and see what happens.  

Tomorrow:  Down Syndrome vs down syndrome

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Posted in Finding jobs, Resumes

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In a job search it feel like “It’s a blizzard! There’s nothing I can do.”

Posted on April 14, 2014 | Leave a comment

The most important step in winning is to show up.

If you are looking for a job, it always seems there is a blizzard going on.  You are stuck at home and nothing is happening because of the snow and cold. You send out a hundred resumes and get no calls back.  Recruiters won’t help you.  No one is advertising jobs with your skills.  There’s nothing you can do.  You feel cold, helpless, and can’t see any hope of success because of the blowing snow.

No matter where you live, the blizzard is over.  Spring is here.  The job market is hot.

How many US metropolitan areas were importing workers in September of 2006?  At a 4.5% real unemployment rate, metro areas start importing workers.  Take a guess, how many were below that?

195. Yes, 195 places in the US were importing workers.  And the situation has gotten even better in the last 2 months.  In the DC area the unemployment rate in some counties is well under 1%. As a matter of fact, the national unemployment rate is below 4.5%. There is a real scarcity of workers.  That means there is opportunity.

Does that mean you have to move?  No!  That means you have to continue to job hunt.  If you keep trying intelligently, you’ll get a better job.  Workers are getting imported from  low paying areas into higher paying cities all over the US.  They’re leaving jobs behind that have to be filled.

Having trouble getting a job?  Here are some areas to re-evaluate:

  1. My job skills.  Can I make them more attractive? Can I get certified?
  2. That pesky resume.  Its job is to get you an interview.  Is it working?
  3. Am I showing up?  Are you contacting people about jobs?  Sending resumes?
  4. Are you relying on the right sources of job leads?

Now may be the time to refresh your approach.  Take a look at where your industry is going.  Sharpen your job tools.  Then keep applying.  The blizzard and cold is ending soon.  Jobs are opening up all over, like daffodils in the spring.

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Something To Do Today

Use the 4 questions above to re-evaluate your job search.  I’ll go through them this week

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Posted in Attitude, Economy, Finding jobs, Followup

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The healthiest way to look at jobs unfilled

Posted on April 7, 2014 | Leave a comment

Needlessly unfilled jobs get me mad.  They keep you out of a job.  They lower profits at the companies that desperately need the right person.

This article calls the over qualification of a job opening “zombie thinking”.   I like the solution Lou gives to solving the problem.  Unfortunately it has to be solved by the employer, not the job seeker.

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Posted in Economy, Finding jobs, talent, Uncategorized

Giving your way into a job.

Posted on April 3, 2014 | Leave a comment

Do you know how hard it is to get an administrative job with a symphony orchestra?

A symphony administrator told me how to do it.  A woman called him and asked for a job.  He said, “I can’t hire you, there is no budget.”

That’s not the end of the story.  She said, “I’ll work for you for free.”  It was a wage he could afford.  She did a great job for 3 months and went back to school.  What do you think will happen when she applies for her next job and has experience and great references? 

You can’t afford to work for free.  Not forever, anyway.  Can you do it for a few hours or days?  Over the weekend?  Helping people out of a bind is a great way to network your way into a job.  They will feel compelled to let others know how much you helped them.  In the programming and computer networking field it is a very common way to work yourself into a company.

I can point to specific examples where this worked for accountants, secretaries, company presidents, salespeople, office managers and more.  These were jobs worth anywhere from $6/hour to $250,000/year. These people all helped someone who mentioned they were snowed under with work.  After a few hours they offered to come in the next day.  After 2 days they said they’d help out the next weekend.  The boss, owner or chairman of the board heard about it and hired the person.

If you are unemployed, what’s the damage?  If you have a job, why not spend some of your evening and weekend time helping out with something you don’t normally do?  I know people who got promoted because they came in a few extra hours to their regular job to help their boss out on the boss’s project.

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Something To Do Today

Do you know someone who needs help?  Seize the opportunity.  Go on in and see if you can help.

Tomorrow:     Giving 30 seconds away can get you a job too

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Posted in Attitude, Finding jobs, Focus, Followup, Networking, Perseverance

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What the 3 types of recruiters can do for you

Posted on March 19, 2014 | Leave a comment

There are three basic recruiting types. Knowing which one will help you the most is extremely important.  Go to the wrong one and you’ll get that nagging feeling that he is not on your side.

Mass marketers work with companies that need a lot of people.  They process candidates in a systematic way and send out resumes by the dozen.  They are great if you want a job where there are 10 or 100 people doing the same thing you are, like at a help desk or clerical job. I was talking to one mass marketer who said, “We always check references.  We hope no one remembers our candidates because that means the candidate didn’t cause any trouble.”  If you want a job without a lot of questions asked, look for a mass marketer.

Professional pickers find individuals for spots where 1 to 3 people are needed.  The pace is slower.  Personality and skills become a huge factor.  Programmers, accountants, managers and other jobs are often in this group. These guys will match your specific skills and background to the job.  You have to be willing to answer a lot of questions and go through several interviews.  The better you do in the interviews, the better you will be paid. But you have to find the right professional picker.  You have to find one that specializes in guys just like you. Send them your resume.

Boutique elite recruiters are looking for top jobs.  They are headhunters. They hunt their quarry one person at a time.  The find presidents, CFO’s, CIO’s, plant managers and very high level engineers. They find you.  Put your name and reputation out on LinkedIn and publish a few articles in online forums if you want to attract their attention. If a headhunter calls you, remember that they generally talk to 50-100 qualified people for every opening they fill. So, expect to be contacted by several of them before one finds you a job.

Think about the type of job you want.  You need to make sure your recruiter is at the right level.  Ask your recruiter how many people they have placed in the job you want in the past year.  Ask them why you should let them represent you.

Control your job search.  Evaluate the people who offer to help you. More on that soon.

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Something To Do Today

Take control of your job search.  Let any recruiter who offers to help be a helper.  You keep searching yourself and control your search by requiring feedback.

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Posted in Finding jobs, Recruiters

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