Job Search Series – Step 8 – The follow up
March 3rd, 2008
Welcome to the final step in the Job Search Series. Today we’ll look at something that a lot of people tend to forget: the follow-up. Just as we learned in Step 5 – The cover letter you need to distinguish yourself in some way. The follow up is one of the ways that you can stand out from the crowd.
After you’ve had your interview or sent your resume to someone in your network you need to take the time to follow up with them. Make sure they don’t have any questions and if they do get them straightened out. If it was an interview simply send your interviewer a quick thank you note via email. Most people don’t do this and the person receiving this will appreciate it.
Personally I’ve sent thank you notes by email and left voice mails after pretty much every interview I’ve had for at least the last 5 years. What this has done for me is it has kept the dialogue open longer giving me additional chances to impress the decision maker. But the biggest thing a thank you note or call says is that you’re really serious about the job. Skills can be trained but attitude and interest are very hard to implement after you start a job.
From a hiring manager’s perspective the people who I interviewed that left me a follow up note really showed a lot of interest in the position. They stood out more than people with good skills that simply wanted a paycheck. I’ve hired a few of these people and I have to say that the enthusiasm from these individuals is far higher than from people who didn’t follow up.
Another reason to follow up with companies that you’ve interviewed with, and in general, is that sometimes there are changes in the company. There maybe a temporary delay on hiring a position. You don’t know the details but following up if you haven’t heard back from the company reminds them about you and shows that you’re still interested. If the answer ends up being they’ve filled the position you now have an opportunity to ask why you weren’t selected (but be tactful – learn from the experience) and to develop a potential contact for your network.
Following up with people is incredibly important not only in searching for a job but also in your day-to-day life. I’ve seen its benefits over and over again as I’m sure most readers have. Remember to follow up with the people who are considering you for a job. In my opinion: you should send a quick thank you note at a bare minimum.
Thanks for following along with the Job Search Series; I hope it’s been beneficial for those of you out there looking for work. If you have any comments or feedback please pass it along, these have been based off of my experiences and I’d be interested in hearing what you’ve encountered.
Job Search Series – Step 7 – Networking
February 29th, 2008
Welcome to the next step in the Job Search Series, a series of posts that revolve around getting yourself into a new job. Today we’ll be looking at networking. Networking is reaching out to all of the people that you know to see if they happen to know of any jobs or any ways to help you. Unfortunately if you haven’t been actively networking this process might take a while since your network will be comprised of your friends.
Surprisingly networking can get you a great many leads. I’ve gotten just as many job offers through networking as I have through regular channels. In my current job search the person I’m going to be taking a contract with I knew from my old job. He got in touch with me when he found out I wasn’t working. This is how networking can be very powerful. Companies are always on the look out for good employees, possible clients, and great vendors. Most of these deals don’t happen through direct open channels but through networking.
By relying on people in your network to get a lead on a job or even on a sale you’re essentially coming into the first meeting pre-qualified. For example if your close friend Mike knows a plumber he’s worked with in the past and you need a plumber. Are you even going to bother looking for one or just calling Mike’s friend? This is how networking gets you an in with your job search. Don’t discount it and don’t burn bridges when you change companies. Remember you’re not the only person that will change jobs, you might find that if you change jobs your clients might come with you.
I’ve had a lot of great success relying on the people I know to help open some doors. This doesn’t mean I was forceful or pushy. I would simply let a few people in my industry know that I was looking and if something came up they would let me know. I’m sure you’ve had friends and co-workers mention they’re looking for something and you respond by saying that you’ll keep an eye open. If you can help them out then great if not no one is upset.
When you’re searching for work don’t forget about the network of people you know; you might be very surprised where a job lead might come from. On Monday we’ll cover the final step in the Job Search Series, Following up.
Job Search Series – Step 6 – The Interview
February 27th, 2008
The next step in the Job Search Series is the Interview. Getting your foot in the door so you can actually sit down to meet with your prospective employer is where we’ve gotten to now. Unfortunately that doesn’t mean that you’ve got the job; you’ve been selected out of a pile of resumes as a potential fit and now you need to prove it face to face.
The interview helps the employer know if you would fit into the organization by asking you questions about your previous experience. They need to know that you know what you’re talking about (unfortunately a lot of people lie on their resumes). They also need to get a sense for your personality to make sure that you’ll be able to work with them and the others in the company.
Interviews can be very nerve wracking for some people. There are a few things that you can do to make sure that you’re better prepared and do well during the interview. First off you really need to do your prep work. In this case prep work means knowing the position you’re applying for, reviewing your resume and being able to talk about your previous experience, and most importantly do some research on the company. If you have an interview with company ABC, make sure you find out as much as you can about the company. This means checking their website and doing some searches online about them.
As you’re doing your research you should start collecting a list of questions that you’ll want to ask the employer. In some cases they’re answer most of them during the actual interview but you need to keep in mind the type of atmosphere you’re walking into, roles and responsibilities. Ask as many open ended questions as possible.
During the actual interview stay calm and collected. I know that this is easier said then done if you’re interviewing for your dream job. But remember your prep-work will give you something to ask them about and it will show initiative and interest on your end. Make sure that end of the interview you have a good sense of what the company and the job are about.
By coming in prepared you’ll be able to make a good impression. But don’t forget the person on the other end of the desk is human too. There’s a good chance they don’t like interviewing or aren’t very good at it.. Present yourself as best you can, get as much information about the job as you can and that’s about all you can do. Good Luck, knock ‘em dead!
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Job Search Series – Step 5 – The Cover Letter
February 25th, 2008
Welcome to the next step in the Job Search Series over the last couple posts in this series we’ve covered: Writing your Resume and Getting out there. Now we move onto a topic that I personally have a love-hate relationship with: The Cover Letter. Surprisingly this one piece of paper can be incredibly important.
What is it?
The cover letter is a short introduction letter to you and your resume. It will have a few polite niceties and a quick description why you as a candidate should be considered for the job. This one pager is attached to the front of your resume when it’s submitted for a job.
Why it’s important?
The cover letter is important because, lets be honest, most people don’t write them. When submitting a job application all they do is submit their resume. By this virtue alone simply creating one will give you a slight advantage and increase your chances of getting an interview. The second thing they give you is some additional space where you can plug your skills. Your resume is nothing more than a highlight reel from your working past and it probably doesn’t cover everything. By adding a cover letter you can highlight your interest in a job or point out a reason why you should be considered.
The main reason I have a real love hate relationship with the cover letter is I have experience with them from the other side of the fence, the hiring manager’s point of view. What I have learnt is the people who went to the effort of writing a cover letter are more interested in the job, they’ve done more research, and stand out of the crowd that much more. Imagine if you were a hiring manager and had a stack of 300 resumes and 10 of them had cover letters; which ones would you start with?
Best approach – write one
By virtue of writing one you are already putting yourself ahead of the game. From a very general point of view introduce yourself and why you might be good for the job. Then write a point or two about your skill for the job above and beyond your resume and you’re pretty much done. I’ve definitely simplified the process but this shouldn’t be a long piece of prose but a short couple paragraph introduction that will entice the reader to look at your resume and consider you.
A well-written introductory cover letter can show the hiring manager that you’re more serious about this job than the rest of the people in the pile that didn’t write one. Even if you’re not as qualified as you could be, that cover letter shows determination and can get you an interview when you might have been previously overlooked.
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Job Search Series – Step 4 – Getting Out There
February 22nd, 2008
Welcome to the next entry in the Job Search Series So far we’ve covered off: Analyzing your past, knowing what you’re looking for and most recently writing your resume. At this point you should be ready to go out there and apply and get yourself some jobs interviews.
By getting out there I am saying that you should let the world, or at least the companies you’re interested in, know that you’re looking for work. Depending on the industry that you’re looking for work in this might mean that you have to go any apply for a position in person or it might mean that you apply for jobs online. There are a number of ways that this can occur but you have to make sure to get out there.
There are a few things that I would do regardless of the industry that I was looking for a job in. First off post your resume online (Workopolis, Monster, Dice), this will provide you with some initial exposure for your resume. Not to mention that this is necessary to use most of those services. Next I would start applying to jobs. If you came up with a list of jobs during your research you could start applying to these (or doing more research about the companies for your cover letter, we’ll cover this in the next step). Finally I would start looking around for job fairs, job boards and in general career related information and postings.
There is no way around the fact that this part of the process can be laborious and take time but it is also necessary. If you’re still working while searching most of the online sites have ‘private’ settings to keep your name protected (just in case). Don’t get discouraged.
Next we’ll move onto the aspect of looking for a job that I like least but its also one that I know is incredibly important: The cover letter.
Job Search Series – Step 3 – Writing your Resume
February 20th, 2008
The next entry in the Job Search Series is about: Writing your resume. This entry is very challenging to write about because there are so many different formats for resumes not to mention things that you can actually put on your resume. Unfortunately there is no really right or wrong way to go about this from a style point of view.
In an effort to give the best advice possible when it comes to writing your resume here are some things to keep in mind:
- Be honest
- Tailor the resume to the job that you’re looking for
- Highlight relevant experience
- Don’t worry about things like length (most of the time this doesn’t matter)
Where to start? Haven’t written a resume before or in a very long time? Look at the notes that you made in the first two steps of this series as a starting point. Your goal is to highlight your past experience and your most positive results from those jobs. Chances are you were able to come up with a long list of tasks, responsibilities and accomplishments but you need to look at the possible jobs that you’re interested in and pick the ones that are most appropriate.
For example if you’re looking for a job in management you want to highlight the fact that you managed people in the past. Making sure that what you’re putting down is relevant will go a long way to helping you get your foot in the door.
As a hiring manager for the better part of this decade I’ve seen a few resumes and in a large pile of resumes you need to make sure yours stands out (for all the right reasons). Getting through the screening process to an interview is a contest; you need to make sure that your resume stands out so you can win it. Here are a few things that I’ve seen and done to make a resume stand out:
- Clarity – don’t let your statements be too ambiguous
- Focus on results – saying that you managed something/someone is nice but saying you “managed 7 staff improving the efficiency of turn around times by 25%” is more focused and results driven
- Creativity – if you’re not 100% qualified point out reasons or items that will help you succeed (think transferable skills)
- A little humor – A line or two with a small comment to make the hiring manager smile will make you stick out and give you character, you’re not a piece of paper you have a character see if you can incorporate it a little
Remember to keep the reader in mind when you’re writing your resume. You might be an amazing worker but if you’re not highlighting the right things on your resume it might not seem that way. Once you’re written your resume take a bit of a break and then read it as if you were looking through a stack of them – adjust as necessary.
One final point and probably one of the most important: Spell Check! Then pass your resume to someone who is a good writer and have them read it. If they’re not in your industry even better, this will point out grammatical problems and force you to clear up any ambiguity.
In the next step in the series we’ll cover getting yourself out there. There’s nothing wrong with the old fashioned statement of pounding the pavement which we’ll cover on Friday.
Job Search Series – Step 2 – Know What You’re Looking For
February 18th, 2008
This is the second step in my Job Search Series, knowing what you’re looking for. In the previous step we looked at analyzing your past to know what you’ve done and where you came from work wise. Now you really need to know where you’re going or where you would like to be going.
If you happen to know exactly what you want to do then that’s great, amazing even, but a great many people when faced with the prospect of changing jobs aren’t quite that certain. Over time our jobs change and evolve to the point where we really aren’t doing what we started off as. Not only this, but you also need to consider what would make you happy and be fulfilling work. This step like the first step is incredibly important because you can later adjust your resume to suit.
We’ve got our notes from what we’ve done in the past; so where do we go from here? What I’ve done in the past is I’ve gone to online job sites and done some research. These sites have thousands of postings with hundreds of job titles. By going though these listings you can see if the tasks you’ve done in the past are those of a Project Manager or a Business Analyst or essentially whatever. Going through various postings will give us a better understanding of what the jobs entail and what might be expected of us if we were to take those jobs on.
If you happen to know what title you’re looking for (say a Project Manager) don’t think that this step doesn’t apply to you. There are many different roles and responsibilities that can pertain to any particular job. You want to make sure that you’ve got a good understanding of what the expectations might be and to make sure that they are appropriate for you.
Another aspect of this research is that it helps you identify possible companies and their attributes, values and work environments. Unless you need a job immediately to pay overdue bills you can be a little pickier with the choices that you’re making. If you didn’t like your company because you had to deal with too much politics then you want to identify that as something that you are looking for in your next company. The work environment is something that makes or breaks a job in my opinion.
Once you know the type of company and the approximate job that you want keeping in mind reality (we’d all like to go from office clerk to president) you will have everything you need to write that resume and apply for the jobs. In many cases you might even have the jobs already picked out. If you’ve got your resume written you might want to adjust it but we’ll cover that off in the next step.
Some job search sites that I’ve used in the past: http://www.workopolis.com
http://www.monster.com
http://www.careerbuilder.com
http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/
http://www.dice.com
I’m sure there are a lot more sites out there but I’ve managed to get good results just using these. Since I’m in the middle of looking for work myself if anyone has some good sites definitely pass them along.
The next post in the series Step 3 – Write your Resume will be posted up on Wednesday so definitely keep an eye out for it.
Job Search Series – Step 1 – Analyze your previous experience
February 15th, 2008
The very first thing you need to do when you’re starting a job search, in my opinion, is you need to stop and take a step back. By taking a step back you can look at your previous experience and see what you’ve done in the past. For me this is the starting point because what you’ve done in the past will help you and others determine if you’ll be good at doing things in the future. It also gives you some perspective as to where you’re coming from which will help us in Step 2 - Know what you’re looking for.
I start my analysis by listing all of my previous jobs/titles and responsibilities that I’ve had. If you haven’t looked for a job in a long time this can take a while. Really stop and think about what you’ve done and what your responsibilities where then compare that to what you actually did (they don’t always match up).
Next you need to write down aspects of each job that you liked and didn’t like. Pretty much every job that we will ever have comes with its good side as well as its bad. The goal is to make sure that the positive aspects outweigh the negative ones. Personally I find that unless I stop to think about it some of the more pleasant aspects of a job are lost in the negativity that is driving me to look for another job. Remember you want to highlight the positives as items that you might want to look for in the future.
Now you also want to look at the negative aspects of each job. If you’re searching for a job you’re either out of work or have decided to move onto something better. Either way there is a good chance that there was something negative or a series of negative aspects that got you to the point of searching for a job. Because the aspects themselves are negative we don’t need to treat them as all bad. We’ll use these or parts of these in Step 2 to make sure we don’t fall into the same trap again.
Finally, the good and bad of the job aside, think about your actual performance on the job and be realistic; was it the best that it could have been? The answer will hopefully be yes but it might not be. Don’t get discouraged if it isn’t. We take on jobs and responsibilities that sometimes we don’t like and aren’t great at. Our performance at these jobs is often not optimal but that doesn’t make us bad people. Looking at this realistically and honestly will give us a good starting point when we get out there to look for a new job.
From a personal perspective I am highly critical of my own performance and this part of the analysis always gives me some trepidation. I start beating myself up over things that went wrong where my performance could have been better than it was. Don’t get caught in a negative rut when you’re doing this. Use it to discover things about your working experience that will help you down the road. For example over the years I’ve come to the conclusion that I am not a highly detail oriented person. A lot of the times where I feel I could have done better performance wise have involved highly detailed tasks. I used to beat myself up over this because I know I can do a lot better when it comes to this. Rather than dwell on this I can identify that although I can do the detailed work I probably shouldn’t be looking for a job that is 90% detail work. We can highlight the jobs and tasks that we excel at based on our performance to help us identify the jobs we’re good at and we like.
Surprisingly if you’ve never done an analysis like this you might learn a few things about yourself. You might learn that you like to coordinate projects or that you’re not a detail oriented person or countless other items. You might find some holes in your training that you can fill in before you more onto your next job. Be honest with yourself and if it helps to have someone help you go through this then by all means do it.
Remember if you haven’t written your resume in a while this exercise will help you not only come up with the points that you’ll put down on the resume but it will also help you highlight your strengths. Also knowing where you’re coming from will make the interview process a lot easier because you’ve gone through and thought about your past rather than try to talk to it on the spot.
On Monday we’ll move onto Step 2 - Know what you’re looking for where we’ll take what we learned in this step to give ourselves some focus before actually writing or changing our resume.
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Job Search Series – Introduction
February 13th, 2008
As some of you know from my posts about loosing my job and next steps I’m currently in the job market. Although I’m not aggressively trying to find a job just yet myself I have been in this situation before and I figured it was about time to write a post on the matter. After making some notes this quickly turned into a series of ideas for posts, which I’ve decided pull together into a series on starting your job search.
Most of the readers of this site and most personal finance sites in general rely on their day jobs for the majority of their income. Having a steady job is a very important thing and having a steady job that you like would be a bonus.
There are many times in our careers when we might be in the situation where we are looking for work. These situations can range from being laid off or let go to being upset with our jobs and wanting to find something better. Unfortunately when we are starting to look for another job many of us have been out of the market for so long that we don’t know where to begin.
The following is a series of steps that I’ve followed in the past and I’m starting to work through for my current job search (each will be a subsequent post in the series):
- Step 1 – Analyze your previous experience
- Step 2 – Know what you’re looking for
- Step 3 – Write your Resume
- Step 4 – Getting out there
- Step 5 – The cover letter
- Step 6 – The Interview
- Step 7 – Networking
- Step 8 – Follow up
Now I know a bunch of people who just jump into step number 3 or start with step number 7; these steps aren’t necessarily supposed to be followed in the order I’ve outlined. Some people will understand quite well where they’ve been and what they want, treat this as an example of what has worked for me.
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