The Landing Expert

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Résumé + Interview = A Job

The formula expressed in the title sounds so simple yet for some is difficult to achieve. So let’s together demystify the two elements for getting a job offer.

The Résumé

Because of the enormously large pool of job applicants nowadays, even a very good résumé may not get singled out when compared with the many outstanding résumés. It’s a competition for sure, and only, say, five résumés might be considered for invitations to face-to-face interviews. So, how does one put together an excellent résumé? That depends: if you have good writing skills, you can draft a résumé and then have some people whose proficiency and judgment you trust review and edit it for you until it becomes excellent. Consult career coaches, human resources professionals, or recruiters. Hopefully, you’ve developed good relationships with such people, who will agree to help by expressing their opinions.

If you are not skilled with language, I suggest you seek a professional résumé writer who has performed work for others and brought them success. This is a good investment, since otherwise, you’re merely spreading around a noncompetitive résumé that brings no action--and you will never find out why. Many people fall into that trap, and they therefore lose time and of course the opportunity to make money. So, how does one know whether one’s résumé is excellent? The answer is very simple: Excellent résumés get action. The rest don’t--or do only very rarely.

The Interview

Congratulations! Your résumé was attractive and intriguing enough to persuade a hiring manager to want a conversation with you in order to explore your candidacy for an opening, competitively with a few others. Now the real competition starts. All of those who have been invited to interview stood out too and could potentially take the job, meaning that they have the skills for it. But the hiring manager has another need to satisfy--and that is whether you fit and will be committed to the company. Ascertaining whether you fit is very much psychological on the part of the hiring manager, who is asking himself whether your future peers would accept you, whether you and he are aligned ideologically, whether his own boss would consider you a good hire, and whether you represent a promising investment. And there are other, similar questions, whose answers can be rather subjective.

The hiring manager’s final area of vital interest has to do with whether you seem committed to the job. He wants to ensure (1) that you have potential for growth within the company, (2) that you won’t move to a competitor if the company goes through some difficult times and someone else is offering you a fraction more compensation, and (3) that you deliberately targeted this company as an employer.

If you can convince the hiring manager that you’re the right choice, if you answer questions properly, and if you project positivity and energy, your chances for getting an offer are good. Good luck on your next job. Feel good about yourself. You deserve it.

Alex Freund is the founder of Landing Expert–Career Coaching. His Web site includes a current and comprehensive list of job search networking groups in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and the city of New York, and the site is visited by thousands of people every month. Landing Expert is a premier career-coaching service with the objective of preparing job seekers for interviews. Alex’s clients are gaining knowledge, receiving marketing material, and acquiring the know-how to beat the competition.

Alex can be reached at:

609-333-8866

Sunday, May 9, 2010

There Are Two Types of Americans: Employed and Unemployed

The title of this blog is of course oversimplified but I wanted to emphasize the vast difference between the two sides. As a career coach, I spend a lot of time with people who are not employed, whether they’re my private clients or attendees at the various job-search networking groups I support and frequent.

On one hand, I certainly understand the self-imposed pressure or the family pressure or friends’ pressure on these people. It can be debilitating, devastating, and, as time goes by, more and more depressing. On the other hand, many of those who are currently employed simply don’t understand those on the other side. While the unemployed have to succumb to the reality that the money that used to come in has stopped and while they have to make very painful and unprecedented lifestyle changes, those who are employed and therefore unaffected by the 10 percent rate of unemployment live their lives as well as ever they did. The restaurants in my area are always very busy, and my neighborhood’s Lotus dealer is selling those $75,000 cars; I can tell by the dealer’s parking lot.

So, what’s the solution for those in transition?! NETWORKING is the solution. Having an excellent résumé is a must, of course, but a good résumé is not good enough in today’s competitive marketplace. Most important of all, finding someone to hand carry your résumé to a hiring manager is certainly a huge plus. How do you make that happen? By sliding into the company through networking via, say, LinkedIn, other social media, and networking meetings--and finding the right person to help you.

A recent executive client of mine had been a stellar performer throughout his career but was out of work for five weeks through no fault of his own. Similar to the pattern of all of those in transition, he was down and upset and frustrated about his new situation. I implored him to increase his networking activities, and he did. Last week, I bumped into him at a networking meeting. Later, he told me that while there he was asked by one of the other networkers for a copy of his résumé. The next day, the wife of that other networker called him to invite him to interview. The way it looks now and with a little bit of luck, this job seeker will be extended a job offer. What a wonderful story, hopefully having a happy ending that will prove my point. Networking is the answer.

Alex can be reached at:

609-333-8866

Saturday, May 1, 2010

The Psychology of Finding a Job

To start with, I must make an important disclaimer. I am not a psychologist but a career coach. I don’t find it surprising that there is much in common between the two professions, and I have lots of stories to prove it. If you happen to be in transition, you may want to understand the psychology of the decision makers. It would be useful ammo you could deploy in order to promote yourself in landing a job.

Borders, Barnes & Noble, and similar stores have shelves and shelves of books on the subject of finding a job. I’m going to spare you from having to read several of those books. I want to focus on your need to start accepting change. It’s a known fact that our comfort zone lies within what we know. People exhibit various degrees of resistance to change. But when you’re in transition, you’d better embrace change, because if you resist, the world will go by and you’ll get left behind.

First, accept the fact that your old résumé that you just updated needs much, much more work. It needs to be revamped for today’s contemporary look and for projection of your accomplishments—not a listing of activities that someone in your position was expected to perform. I read résumés every single day, and the reluctance I see on the part of people who stick to the old style and content is a shame. Hiring managers and human resources people are interested in your accomplishments and what you excelled at and not what kept you busy. Recruiters are even more interested, since they have to sell you to hiring managers.

The next area of resistance I see is among those who stick to their own old ways and don’t jump in with both feet by using social media. They simply underestimate to what extent social media is being used by hiring managers, human resources staffers, and outside recruiters. Those hirers consult those social media for several reasons. The most important one is probably that it’s free versus their having to pay significant amounts of money to Monster, CareerBuilder, and others. In addition, social media enable them to cross-check information about you. People spend an inordinate amount of time and effort to make their résumé just right. But not so with information on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

Please understand that when companies hire a job candidate, they’re making a big investment. And so, they must do their due diligence, which is similar to what you do when you’re considering a big investment or a decision. A part of that due diligence involves finding out more information about you than what you intended to provide via your résumé. My advice to people seeking employment is to become knowledgeable about and active with social media and at the same time to be careful of what they post in cyberspace. Whatever it is, make sure you’re consistent. A significant discrepancy between your résumé and your cyber persona could be very detrimental.

Alex can be reached at:

609-333-8866

The Psychology of Finding a Job

Alex can be reached at:

609-333-8866

Alex Freund

(609)333-8866

Email: alex@landingexpert.com

Website: www.landingexpert.com

Blog: www.landingexpert.posterous.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/alexfreund

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Endear Yourself to the Buyer

Nobody likes to be a nobody, but unfortunately, that’s what you are at the beginning of the job search process, provided you’ve just joined the ranks of those in transition. Those who are the decision makers about your future do not initially know anything about you, so you have the chance to impress them, and you want to make darn sure it’s a very good impression.

So, how are you going to positively influence hiring managers, human resources folks, and recruiters? To start with, record brief greetings on both your answering machine at home and your mobile phone, and project a clear, mature, businesslike, and overall positive message. Your children are cute, I’m sure, but leave their greetings for sharing with family and friends and not potential employers. Next, get into the habit of answering your phone professionally. Answering with “Hello, this is John Doe,” with a friendly and inviting tone of voice, is best. Get into that habit even if you think you can identify the person via caller ID. Don’t make exceptions to the rule, because you’ll be sorry if you didn’t answer properly when it’s someone you really want to impress. You also want to make sure your e-mail address is nothing less than professional. An address like bigmama@yahoo.com or anything cute or sexy could be detrimental to that first impression.

Your next opportunity to create the right image is via your résumé. This is probably the single most important document you’ll be evaluated by, and it will determine whether the hiring folks want to invite you to an interview or not. Remember that the first impression is a lasting impression. This is an extremely critical stage because résumé readers typically review large numbers of résumés, and having only one opening to fill, their intention at this point is to reduce the number of résumés to three to five final candidates for interviewing. In fact, this process of reviewing the résumé is divided into two parts. The resume reader’s objective is to eliminate résumés that clearly seem to lack something. It might be something as simple as an unattractive appearance, improper use of language or grammar, lengthiness, overly detailed experience, or a lack of accomplishments.

On one hand, many résumés contain listings of job duties as described in job descriptions and not actual accomplishments. The résumé reviewer expects to read about accomplishments on the job. If your résumé doesn’t pass this 10- to 30-second scan, it’s likely that it will be set aside and never resurface again. Unfortunately, you’ll never find out that that was the case—except by the lack of any next steps.

On the other hand, if your résumé passes this first-blush review, it will be read thoroughly, along with another 10 or 12 others, and will be ranked on a competitive basis. Probably only three to five candidates will be called in for face-to-face interviews. With that decision, you move on to the next stage in the job search process, in which you have to get ready for the final test, which is to convince the hiring manager and others interviewing you that you are their ideal candidate. Good luck.

Alex can be reached at:

609-333-8866

Friday, April 9, 2010

We Judge with Our Eyes

I am on vacation and not even on American soil. It is a vastly different milieu in almost every respect. I find myself continuously comparing, contrasting, judging, and labeling people. Of course, this continuous chatter is only in my head. I don’t share it with anyone, God forbid.

But isn’t that what we do in all instances when we see people? It’s even more critical when you go in for an interview. As a career coach, I counsel people every day—not only on how to answer interview questions correctly and how to avoid interview traps but also on how to let your body communicate the message you want to convey. Hiring managers and human resources folks read your body language and can tell whether there’s congruence between what you say in words and what your body says in motions.

Part of my coaching covers how to dress properly for an interview. I use an evaluation system to make sure you convey the right image. Men are faced with less of an issue on this subject than women are. It doesn’t cause me pleasure to tell clients to upgrade their clothing to fit the 21st century. Or to replace their large-size eyeglass frame with something more contemporary. Or to rethink their outdated hairstyle. Or even simply to get a haircut. An interviewee’s shoes need to be polished, and socks better match. But all of that is only part of the image a job candidate leaves behind and which will heavily influence the impression made on others. The words the interviewee uses are important too, but even that is not all. The overall image—the total impression—is what will be remembered.

My advice is that you ask a trusted source to tell you the truth about the impression you make and the image you leave behind. Family members are not the right people to ask. And don’t jeopardize a friendship by asking the wrong question and causing unease or embarrassment. It’s best to hire a career coach who is paid for giving such advice.

Alex Freund is the founder of Landing Expert–Career Coaching. His Web site includes a current and comprehensive list of job search networking groups in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and the city of New York, and the site is visited by thousands of people every month. Landing Expert is a premier career-coaching service with the objective of preparing job seekers for interviews. Alex’s clients are gaining knowledge, receiving marketing material, and acquiring the know-how to beat the competition.

Alex can be reached at:

609-333-8866