job search

Steve’s Job Search 2012: Networking

by

In my latest job search?  Yeah I did networking.

Yeah, I always emphasize networking.  What did I find out about networking in my latest job search?

Well, yes, it works.  You knew that.  Most of us know that.  I found that it works pretty well – I had several interviews due to networking, and all of them due to people reaching out to me due to past contacts.  As my job search geared up, I got lots of people helping my apply for jobs at their companies (though my results came so quick I had to let them down quick as well).

What did I do?  I took a weekend and wrote everyone I knew and told them my situation.  That took hours.  It was also worth it.

My advice:

  1. Be open about it. Tell them your situation, what you’re looking for, and where you’re looking for it.
  2. If you don’t know what you want or what you’re looking for, hold off until you do – it’ll just confuse things.
  3. Track and follow up with every person who replies, and review your conversations.
  4. When you do get a job, let people know (even if its a LinkedIn post or something).
  5. Find people who can refer you and see if they’ll refer others – after all, they may have some leads for friends of yours.

Networking’s effectiveness is, much like the use of job boards, also bounded by geographic area and connections.

There is also one, big, huge, enormous factor in Networking that I realized while doing my search, something I knew unconsciously, but now I *get* it:

The skills you develop in networking, the attitude of trying to connect, is just as important as any connections that you make.  When you interview, you’re networking, when you handle a rejection you’re networking.  You’re networking throughout the job search even if you don’t realize it.

That networking ability connects you with recruiters and interviewers.  That networking ability lets you turn a failure into a future interview.  That ability simply lets you connect.

That makes a huge difference.  I could see in my interviews that sheer connecting got me results.

So when you’re in an interview?  You’re still networking.  Remember that.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach for professional and potentially professional geeks, fans, and otaku. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/

Steve’s Job Search 2012: Job Search Boards

by

As noted, in May 2012, I lost my job – and found a new one in a few weeks.  This is part of my latest findings . . .

Despite what we’re often told, Job Search Boards do work.  If you use them right.  And you have the right skillet.  And live in the right area.  Which is a way of saying “they work kind of.”

Worse, as I have harped on before, they go through cycles of being useful.  For my profession Craigslist has become less useful, but Dice.com is mores.  In short, if you use job boards, I’d keep a list of good ones and check them now and then to see if they’ve gone bad – or gotten better.

So the real question is – do the damn job search boards work, or should I do all the networking everyone tells me about.

Well for me, I sent out a good 350 resumes, got about one solid lead for every 12 I sent out, and got to 3-4 “final rounds” (one of those is sort of debatable), and one definite offer that I took (terminating the process).   Not sure how far it would have gone otherwise, but from those numbers you can get an idea of what can be done in about 2.5 weeks.

Here’s what I found.

  1. If you live in a region/megaregion that has a lot of work (say, Silicon Valley, etc.) then job boards may not only be good, they may perform better than networking for results.
  2. If you’re willing to contract, then in most large regions you’ll have a lot of job board opportunities.
  3. You better have a good resume or cover letter because you will get lost in the shuffle.
  4. This does not work for every profession, and for others it’s better.  In Silicon Valley if you’re a PM with ERP or CRM experience, you can probably name your price.

 

So how do you leverage the job boards?

  1. Keep a list of them and find which ones work.  My personal favorite was Dice.com.
  2. Find scrapers like Indeed.com that scrape information from many sites – it also helps you find other job search sites.
  3. Do not rely entirely on Scrapers – they don’t cover everything
  4. Don’t waste time on these – mechanize and streamline the process, but don’t just apply

Job boards are one tool you can use – and if you’re in the right location, it may be an excellent one.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach for professional and potentially professional geeks, fans, and otaku. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/

Steve’s Job Search 2012: Resumes

by

And more on my 2012 job search and what I learned . . .

Resumes are vitally important to a good job search.  In fact, they’re even more important because:

  1. They communicate a level of skill.  A bad resume and a bad cover letter just make you look bad.  There’s no excuse to have a bad one with so many tools out there.
  2. They communicate about you.  If you’ve  ever seen a dull, inhuman resume, you know no one cares because it’s a pile of text.  A resume and cover letter say who you are.
  3. They help out recruiters and HR people.  Your resume is not there to convinece people to hire you, it’s there to help people hire you.  Keep that in mind (the convincing part is part of the whole job search picture).  The resume should help people get a handle on you.
  4. A good resume is also scannable and analyzable, be it by software or people.  That’s part of #3.

I knew I was onto something in my job search when people complimented me on my resume.  I’m not bragging – this has been the results of years of perfecting it.  It let me know I’ve been on the right track.

It also tells me that these people have seen some terrible resumes.

So here’s what I found works:

1) A format of it’s own.  Unless you’re an artistic type, your resume doesn’t have to be all fancy, but it shouldn’t be a dull pile of points.  Add some lines, boxes, spacing, etc. to make it look like something.  Newspapers, newsletters, guides, instructions all look like “something” – you need to find a something for your resume.

A quick trick here – find a template that works.  Is your resume better like a newsletter, manual, guide, chronology, etc.?  Find something and make it work.

2) Communicate a narrative.  This is something I heard several times – your resume must coherently tell your story.  I’ve written on this extensively, and am telling you again.

If you don’t know your story, find one first.  But a resume must illustrate what you’re telling about yourself.  If there’s no story, there’s your problem.

“I want a job” is not a story, or at least not a unique one.

3) Hit the high points.  A resume must include the skills, titles, buzzwords, and so forth that say you can do the job you applied for.  Make sure they’re in there.

4) Helps the recruiter.  Look a recruiter is there to get the right people into the jobs.  Ask yourself what they want to see, put yourself in their shoes, truly feel what it’s like to be a recruiter.  If you can’t do that (more on that later), then you will have a problem.

As alway’s there’s my Epic Resume Go guide!

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach for professional and potentially professional geeks, fans, and otaku. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/