Presented to the Salt Lake City Job Club by Mary Cosgrove of What’s Working Well ™

Course description:

NLP describes the way we look at the world as Frames. Frames are important; a frame helps us make sense of the world. However a frame can also confine our vision to seeing the “truth”. When information or opportunities show up that don’t fit into our frame we often don’t see them or dismiss them.

photo credit: Steven Tainsh

Since our frames are made up (of experiences, thoughts, teachings, beliefs etc.) why not make up a wonderfully positive frame as you create your year. Creating a map provides a way to set intentions and provides you a frame for your future.

Intentions are different than goals, they provide:
Theme
Vision
Structure/Frame
Direction not destinations

Exercise:
I’m inviting your creative artist archetype to take charge. Your judge and rationale self should take a vacation. Bring an open mind and the willingness to let you subconscious brain take the lead.

Look through the magazines, pictures books, draw. Clip out pictures and words that resonate. What delights you? What words speak to you? Don’t judge. Spend some time on this. Bring pictures of yourself, photos of objects, buildings whatever you want. The theme is career however I know for sure the maps will provide clues to other parts of your life.

I provide boards and other crafty material. You are encouraged to bring stickers or other special craft items you wish. We will assemble our boards and take the last 45 min to share and ask for feedback.

It is important that you are careful when requesting a follow-up interview so that you do not appear pushy. After the original informational interview, send a thank you card. Once some time has passed, reach out to that person again. Tell the person how much you appreciated his/her time and opinion. Let the person know that you reflected upon what was said, and as a result are really thinking about a career in the particular field. Request a second interview by telling the person that you would appreciate his/her input on your resume and career advice.

photo credit: alancleaver_2000

Here are some sample questions for your follow-up interview:

Resume Review:

- Is my resume written appropriately to apply for a job in this field?

- What suggestions do you have to improve the appearance or content of my resume?

- What strengths or weaknesses do you see in my background?

- What skills should I stress in my resume to appear a more attractive job candidate?

Job Search and Application Process:

- How do companies normally hire in this field?

- How do applicants typically learn about job openings in this field?

- How do you think someone with my experience (or lack of experience) should approach prospective employers?

Job Opportunities:

- What types of jobs in this field do you think I’m qualified for?

- Are there any related fields or jobs that you think I should consider?

- What entry level jobs are best for learning as much as possible or provide the greatest likelihood for career advancement?

Steps to Enter the Field:

- Is there any work experience, paid or unpaid, that you suggest I pursue before looking for a job in this field?

- Are there specific classes or training programs that are important? Are there any that you recommend?

- Are there any professional organizations that you think I should join as a student?

- Is there anything else you recommend that I do or any special advice for starting or changing my career?

One of the primary purposes of an informational interview is to make contacts in a field that interests you. Once you have a contact, it is important to foster a continuing relationship. The follow-up interview is one way to develop a deeper connection with that person. Agreeing to speak with you again is a good sign that the person is interested in you, your abilities, and your future.

By Justin Harris, a writer and career coach at Degree Jungle, find other articles and ranking of the top online colleges if you are looking for an advanced degree in your field.

I am constantly amazed at how much people are willing to spend on what they think will help them get a job. They assume, wrongly, that they can find a job more quickly if they throw money at the problem. Let’s set up a job search budget that you can use to help you find a job quickly without overspending your shoestring budget.

Whether it’s because of the economy or because of individual job seekers’ situations, I hear it all the time: I don’t have the money to spend on my job search. Let’s break down the costs of your job search and help you define your boundaries to get you to your new job quickly.

photo credit: Alina Sofia

Essentials for a Free Job Search

1. Free use of a computer. If you are not searching for jobs online and using e-mail intelligently, you are putting yourself out of the game. Luckily, most public libraries have computers that are free for the public to use. Printing on their printers costs very little, perhaps $.10 to $.25 per page. They often have open source software, which you can use to save your documents in Microsoft Word, the document format of choice.
2. Free email. You don’t need to pay a service to get great e-mail. Sign up for a professional email account with Yahoo!, Gmail, or Hotmail. You can access this account from any computer connected to the Internet.
3. Free job clubs. Most cities these days have job clubs that are run by experts in job search. These might meet monthly or more frequently, and they might be run in a church, synagogue, public library or community center. They all give their participants a chance to learn new strategies about job searching and opportunities for networking.
4. Free resume assistance. You can get free resume assistance in person from your local Workforce Services in addition to the myriad other services they provide. If you need samples of excellent resumes that got people the interviews they want, then sign up here http://eepurl.com/cGxMo for my free e-book on resumes and cover letters that got the interviews.
5. Your local Department of Workforce Services. Get free advice on job search, access to job opportunities in the public and private sector, and free assistance with job search tools.
6. Your personal network. Reach out to 10 people every day; ask them about what they do in an informational interview. Ask for recommendations from them for additional people to connect with via LinkedIn or on the phone.
7. If you’re a relatively recent graduate, your professors. Many academics have close ties with industry. See about getting in on a research project or securing a critical introduction from a trusted academic mentor.

Are Free Professional Resume Writing Services Worth It?

As for free professional resume writing services? Don’t expect much from them. Only hire an expert to do the complex work of crafting your personal and professional brand in a resume. In other words, don’t waste your money on the cheap resumes that don’t work. Ask for credentials, such as the Certified Advanced Resume Writer credential, which I have (in addition to an MBA and Master of Arts in publishing). Successful professional resume writing is not cheap, and it’s not free. But it is likely cheaper in the long run than it will cost you day by day to delay your deserved success.

What free job search tools do you recommend to job seekers?

Today a wonderful new client asked me an important question: Can she use her experience in volunteer work on a resume? Will hiring managers like what she has done, or will they consider it fluff? The answer is twofold.

Volunteer Work on a Resume

Including volunteer work on a professional resume can be a critical way of ensuring that a hiring manager understands the full flavor of your experience. For example, your professional career might be a greased rail to success, but it might lack a specific dimension that you need to promote. By highlighting your volunteer experience, you can show that you have many types of expertise, not just the kind that you get paid for day to day.

photo credit: Gavin Tapp

Examples of this type of volunteer work from which your resume can benefit can include:

• Volunteering at a church or synagogue.
• Leadership roles with your child’s PTA.
• Organizing a food drive.
• Serving as a Boy Scout or Girl Scout guide.
• Tutoring a struggling student.
• Sitting on the board of a non-profit institution.
• Participating or organizing a fun run for charity.
• Coaching a sports team.

There are, of course, many other types of volunteerism that can bolster your job application process. The critical thing to remember is that you must couch your leadership contributions and your accomplishments in the same way that you account for them with your regular paid positions. Work is work, even if it’s unpaid.

Volunteer Work as the Basis for Your References

Don’t forget, in addition, that your volunteer roles can serve as a source of references for you if you haven’t had a paid role in some time. If you had any type of reporting relationship with leaders of a volunteer organization, it’s a good idea to ask them to write you a letter of recommendation on the organization’s letterhead commenting on your contributions. These people can also become excellent sources of references when you need to give names and numbers to interviewers of people who can vouch for your excellent work ethic, ability to organize projects and teams, and so on.

Examples of the types of individuals who might serve as excellent references from your volunteer work include:

• Event leaders, when you directed a portion of the event.
• Co-organizers, who can comment on your excellent team spirit and ability to motivate the group.
• A beneficiary of a nonprofit event.

To conclude, your professional paid work history is not the only type of work that belongs on your resume. By putting your volunteer work on a resume, you can expand on and elaborate on what makes you special and what makes you unique and the only one who can do what you do in the way that you do it. In short, volunteer work on your professional resume enhances your brand. If you are concerned that you don’t know how to incorporate your volunteer work into your resume, contact a professional resume writing service. Call Amy at 801-810-JOBS for some quick insights on how to evolve your personal brand into a package hiring managers will appreciate.

Six Tips to Focus Your Job Search

If you’re wondering how to get a job fast, you need to stop spinning your wheels and start focusing. Here are 6 tips on how to focus your job search so you can get the right job quickly.

1. Hire a professional resume writing service. Your first impression has to be 100% perfect. If you’re not confident that you can write a resume that makes the phone ring, call a professional resume writer to get the job done. The money you spend will pay itself back in job search speed and increased salary.
2. Stop sending out dozens of resumes. No local market has tens or dozens or hundreds of jobs that are right for you. You might find 3 or 4 in a day’s research, but certainly not more than that. Stop wasting time sending out resumes for jobs that you a) are not interested in, and b) you’re not qualified for.
3. Join a job club. Networking is hard for job seekers, even for the savviest among you. By joining a job club, either locally or virtually, you’ll find there is a support structure that can help you overcome the difficulties of introducing yourself and communicating your needs effectively. Job clubs also often have the benefit of being led by experts in job search.
4. Cold call one or two people you don’t know who have jobs similar to the one you are targeting. Politely request a phone meeting with them of about 15 minutes in length. Use that time to ask specific questions about their position, what they like, what they don’t like, how they got where they are. You’ll find that people love to talk about themselves, and you’ll get great information for your own job search. N.B.: Don’t ask these people for a job. If you have to ask them anything, ask if they know someone you should meet; get that person’s phone number and use it to set up another cold-call meeting.
5. Rework your LinkedIn profile. Change your URL to a vanity URL. Pepper your profile with critical keywords. Ask or answer a question. Learn about anything with the Updates function.

Last:

6. Practice interview questions. You’ll need to know those answers when you’ve completed #1-5 above—the more focused you are, the easier it will be for you to get a job fast.

Have questions about how to get your job faster than you can do it alone?

Call me at 801-810-JOBS to learn about my professional resume writing service.

by Judy Lindenberger

I love LinkedIn. It’s one of the best networking tools out there to help you expand your reach. It’s “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” for the business world. But it can be a big, foreign maze. To stand out in the LinkedIn crowd, here are ten quick tips:

1. To increase your Google search rankings, make your LinkedIn profile 100% complete
2. Brand yourself by using a professional headshot that’s also on your website
3. In the “Specialties” box, list keywords that will help people find you
4. Don’t just cut and paste your resume – use short sound-bites that get your readers’ attention
5. Update your status regularly by adding articles and blog posts you have written, awards you have won, promotions you have earned, or, if you are looking for a job, let people know exactly what you are looking for so it’s easy for them to help you
6. Include links to your website, blog and twitter account
7. Put your phone number and email address in the “Summary” section at the top of your profile for quick contact
8. Be open to invitations to connect with new people
9. Get involved in groups and discussions by asking thought-provoking questions, answering questions, and sharing interesting information
10. Get and give recommendations

Speaking of recommendations – the words people choose to describe you may hurt you. Here’s why. Researchers from Rice University recently analyzed over 600 letters of recommendation. The letters of recommendation for both women and men used positive words; however, communal words such as helpful, kind, sympathetic, tactful and agreeable, and behaviors such as taking direction well and maintaining relationships were more often used to describe women, while agentic words such as confident, ambitious, forceful, independent, and intellectual, and behaviors such as speaking assertively and influencing others were more often used for men. There was no difference in the gender of the letter writer – both men and women used more communal words when describing women than they did for men.

Here is the interesting part. When men and women reviewers were asked to rate the strength of the letters, the researchers found that letters with communal words were ranked lower than letters with agentic words.

After learning this, I went to my LinkedIn profile and scanned the words on my recommendations. Phrases that I thought were great before, like “very accommodating” and “excellent listener”, suddenly sounded quite different to me. Instead, I wished to be described as decisive, smart and a leader. Let’s level the playing field for men and women by carefully choosing the words you use to recommend others.

What about you? What tips do you have for making your LinkedIn account stand out from the crowd? And what do you think about the research from Rice University? Interesting huh?

Judy Lindenberger is the President of The Lindenberger Group, an award-winning human resources consulting firm, located near Princeton, NJ. They are experts in career coaching, customized training workshops, online training programs, mentoring, 360-degree assessment and feedback, HR audits, employee handbooks, and more. Learn more about them at www.lindenbergergroup.com and www.lindenbergergroup.com/blog/ or contact them at info@lindenbergergroup.com or 609.730.1049.

If you’re unemployed, looking for work should be your full-time job. Although your effort to look for work in this touch economy isn’t something you can put on a resume, your job search has to be your main focus, and that means up to 40 hours per week.

Does a 40-hour weekly investment seem too much? Think about it this way. If you worked for a company and didn’t spend every valuable moment doing something profitable and productive, you’d get yourself fired. If, in a perfect world, you could hire someone else to find you a job, and that person failed, you would fire him/her as well for failure to perform. Thus, if you’re not looking for work some standard number of hours every work week in effort to find yourself a job, you should probably fire that persona and take on a new, successful job search strategy.

If You Worked only 22 Minutes per Day, You’d Be Fired

photo credit: pj_vanf

A recent white paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research* reported on what the unemployed generally do instead of looking for work. It turns out people sleep more, work on their houses more, and attend to their medical care. But they don’t spend a great deal of time looking for work. Surprisingly, they spend only 1% of their time in job search mode. If a typical work week is about 37 hours (down about 9% over the last couple of years), this means that the average unemployed person is spending 22 minutes per day looking for work.

Your Job Search Plan of Attack

Every hour, every minute you spend on some other activity during work time is unrecoverable time lost that you could be using productively as you are looking for work. Use this list to jump-start your new daily grind:

• Join a Job Club. There are in-person job clubs, virtual job clubs, formal and informal job clubs—and all are designed to help you as you are looking for work. If you live in the Salt Lake City area, come to the Salt Lake City Job Club—it’s free. Call me at 801-810-JOBS to participate.
• Get training. You’ve got the time, so go take a class in something you can talk about in your next interview. It also fills that gap on the resume since your last position while you are looking for work.
• Shadow someone in a new industry or position for a day. Learn what they do. Ask questions. Pay attention. This might be your job target.
• Network with people you know—and people you don’t know. Expand your circle. Become visible.
• Apply intelligently for jobs. Your resume is one of the keys to your success. Tweak it for choice positions. Don’t know how? Don’t have a killer resume? Not getting those interviews? Call me at 801-810-JOBS.

Don’t just “do” something. Everything you do in your job search should have a purpose. If you don’t have a strategy and have no idea what the best use of your time is while you are looking for work, call me.

What do you while you are looking for work? Comments welcome.

* “Time Use During Recessions,” NBER, July 2011, http://www.nber.org/papers/w17259.pdf.

I’ve written in the past about resume writing for business owners. But it’s not enough for entrepreneurs to have a resume. Entrepreneurs who are thinking about transitioning back into the corporate world also need a professional biography.

What Is a Professional Biography?

A professional biography is not a resume. A professional bio is a one-page statement of who you are from a branding perspective—a marketing document that is content-heavy, attractive, and readable. It’s purpose is to convince a hiring manager that you have the substance and experience to make interviewing you worth their while.

Constructing and Professional Biography from the Ground Up

As a business owner, you probably feel like your business is your life. But your business owner experience is not the same as your life story. So your professional biography will likely start somewhere around the time that you developed your idea for your company. If that was while you were in college, great—use that to your advantage. But the fact that this document is called a biography doesn’t mean you need to collect your personal history starting from your childhood. Remember: Everything you present to a future hiring manager counts, and this needs to be clean, professional, content-laden, and well written to get a jaded hiring manager’s attention.

Key Sections of a Professional Biography

photo credit: manhattanloftcorporation

There are many formats that will work for a professional bio; you might want to research what your potential colleagues have developed. Likely they will all contain the following elements:

• A history of how you got to the point at which you are seeking to make the transition to corporate life.
• A brief discussion of your skill set, detailing a few stories of accomplishments specifically related to your target role.
• Your educational history.
• Your contact information.
  Your photo, if you choose.
• Recommendations or testimonials from clients and vendors.
• Speaking engagements or publications related to your industry.
• Related interests and hobbies, if appropriate.

How to Use a Professional Biography

Certainly, you must have a resume if you are applying for jobs. However, as you network into companies and work with recruiters, you might want to have copies of your professional biography ready to present. Because your bio will be lighter and eminently readable yet still contain the essential elements of your brand, you might find that recruiters and hiring managers are likely to read this document to get a broader sense of the person behind the words—you, the professional ready to tackle a corporate positions successfully.

If you’re an entrepreneur who is trying to break into a traditional corporate job, contact Amy at 801-810-JOBS to learn how a professional resume writing service can help you make that transition or learn more here.

Job Seekers Need This Career Guidance

I have almost finished your ebook and I think it is really helpful in walking a person through the sometimes overwhelming thought process of what you want to do for a living.—JB, Salt Lake City region, in career transition

Perhaps you’ve been working for several years—even decades, and you’ve come to a point where you just don’t know what direction you want your career to take. Your education and early job roles have prepared you only so much, and you might be thinking you’ve reached a dead end—or that you have so many options you are having trouble focusing. You are probably spending a fair amount of time thinking about the career ladder you’ve been climbing, its next obvious rung, and your personal expectations of yourself. But there might be this voice in your head that keeps asking, “What job should I have? What is the right job for me?”

photo credit: baileyg100

On the other hand, if you’re just starting your career, you might be asking yourself, “What job should I have?” You might have studied a long time for a particular career but not know exactly what to do with your education. Or, you might be choosing to work for a while until you feel prepared to return to school to refine your job search goals.

Either way, I have developed a series of tools to help you target your job search so that the answer becomes less complex, and reaching your goals becomes much easier. In fact, once you determine your job search goals, you’ll see that with a properly constructed resume and cover letter, you’ll start seeing invitations for the interviews you need. In the end, doing a bit of strategic work up front sets the stage for a smooth ride into your next job.

I am proud to announce the recent publication of Resumes and Cover Letters Easy Strategies that Work Utah Edition. This exclusive resource provides readers with the right strategies and guidance to help them refine their career search, using tools easily available on the Internet. When a job seeker follows the advice provided in the workbook, he or she can feed that information back into the job search so that the answer to the eternal question of “What job should I have?” becomes easy to figure out and even easier to target in an actual job search campaign.

In addition, Resumes and Cover Letters Easy Strategies that Work Utah Edition delivers 150+ Utah Companies You Didn’t Know Were Hiring, which is the only resource of its kind. This resource provides links to Utah’s top 150+ employers’ career sites—so you can take the results of your efforts derived from the workbook and start applying for your dream job today!

Order your copy of this invaluable workbook for $19.95 (plus Utah state sales tax, if applicable), and get 150+ Utah Companies You Didn’t Know Were Hiring as a gift from me. I know you’ll put this resource to good use—and you’ll use it to get the job you should have!

Add this invaluable resource to your cart now

• Unique to your specific job search
• Targeted to the positions you are trying to obtain
• Authentically about your specific career history and your personal brand.

There are hundreds of articles on resume personal branding. There are perhaps thousands of articles on resume accomplishment statements. However, strictly speaking, using accomplishments in your bullets alone won’t convert your history into your unique branding, or make your career history into the best resume it can be.

photo credit: Plutor

You could research resume examples written for anonymous other members of your industry (or look at a friend’s) and copy the bullets word for word. You could also use resume writing systems that you buy on the Internet, which are simply lists of bullets that you can use in your resume. And there are the professional resume writers that won’t even talk to you before embarking on the tricky process of writing a resume that best suits your job search.

These seemingly simple systems don’t work. They do not capture the authentic you. If you want to be authentic in your job search and to find the best fit for your specific job search needs, you need to think about your resume as an organic document that is borne of your particular personal history. Even if you worked in a factory, or even ran one, you are not a factory yourself. There’s no such thing as data-in, data-out in a resume writing process that gets you interviews. It’s much more thoughtful and careful than that.

The following are the minimum steps I follow to write the best resume that fits your specific job search needs.

• I learn about what makes you special.
• I learn about what makes you unique.
• I ask you about every aspect of your job, in the context of your position, role, and industry.

When I start a resume writing project, I start with a blank screen. Yes, this process is tougher than using a resume template, but it’s much more authentic. I start from scratch because I make sure that each client receives 100% unique content that is 100% about his/her specific career history, branding, and personal excellence.

If this is the type of personal, one-on-one, targeted resume writing service you need, call me at 801-810-JOBS. I am confident it will produce the best resume for you.