Job Search Advice

Stepping Up to a Better Career was created to help job seekers nationwide find fulfilling employment by providing advice on resume writing, interviewing, job searching and more.  For the past year, I have upheld that goal by creating topics that I felt would be interesting to the 100 loyal readers I have each day.

Now I feel it is time to turn over the reigns.  I want to hear your specific questions and concerns and provide you with advice that will aid you in finding fulfilling employment and fast.

Have a question about transitioning careers? Looking for employment while keeping your old job? Networking to find employment? Moving from nonprofit work to the business sector?

Explaining laid-off or fired status? Job searching on the internet? Keeping a job after your company has been bought out or your department is being phased out?

Creating a resume? Formatting a resume? Specific resume samples? Types of resumes?

Following up on an interview? Negotiating your salary? Creating a cover letter?

If you have any questions about your job search…

Contact me!  You can choose to comment directly on this blog or you can e-mail me your questions at Resumes@AyeshaWrites4u.com and see your question appear in my next post.

All I ask is that along with your question(s), you send your first name and an e-mail address where I can contact you to let you know that your answer is being posted on the blog.

As always, good luck on your job search.

Ayesha Long

www.AyeshaWrites4u.com

You’ve been fired, now what?

Being fired or laid-off can have a serious impact on your family, your bills, and your own self worth. Yet, there are ways to bounce back from unemployment leading to feelings of renewal and better employment opportunities.   If you have recently been let go from your job, you may feel one of two emotions- despondent or elated.

For the despondent employee, there are several factors that can lead to despair after losing your job. For some, it is a shock to find out that you have been “let go”. Often, an employer is afraid of hurting your feelings and will not tell you that your job is in jeopardy until it is too late. Other times, you may have a feeling that you will be fired, yet, you have this need to hold on to your current place of employment because it pays the bills. Getting fired takes away your security and your ability to provide for yourself and your family, thereby leaving you with feelings of helplessness and desperation. If you find yourself upset about the way you were fired and would like to vent out your frustration, you can share your firing experience on the blog www.howigotfired.com.

On the other hand, you may not have felt despondent at all.  In fact, the minute your boss told you that your services were no longer needed, you might have felt as if a huge weight was being lifted off of your shoulders. If you are elated after being fired, it typically means you were working at a dead-end or displeasing job but didn’t have the courage to move on. Being laid-off or fired gives you the breathing room and the excuse to find more fulfilling and satisfying work. While you may hold some feelings of being betrayed, overall, you feel a sense of relief that you will no longer have to go back to your place of employment.  If you are elated about your unemployment and will like to read about other people who have also chosen to relish their unemployment experiences, you might want to visit the blog www.surviveunemployment.com.

Regardless of which category you fit in, typically, the newly employed will and need to take some time to get their bearings. Check your savings, checking, and investment accounts to determine how long you can reasonably be unemployed while still handling your financial responsibilities. Call your mortgage lenders, car insurance carriers, and utility companies and let them know your current situation. Tell them that you have recently been laid-off or fired and see if there is a way to negotiate lesser payments or a deferral on payments for a set time frame.

If you have the money to pay your bills, you might not want to defer payment, in fear that when the deferred time period is over, you will have an exorbitant amount of debt to catch up on. On the other hand, if you choose to pay your expenses immediately and you fail to find new employment in the time frame you have in mind, you will wind up in dire straights without any emergency reserves. So before making the choice as to which payment plans work best for you and your situation, call the companies and ask what payment alternatives do they offer and how long do they give you to pay on deferred payments. Then speak with your family and friends about how much support they can provide you if you wind up in a situation that is too difficult for you to handle on your own.

Aside from your own personal finances, be sure to apply for unemployment benefit assistance.  The Department of Labor’s website offers a fact sheet to help you determine if you are eligible for unemployment and provides the contact information for your state’s Unemployment Insurance Agency.

Once you have squared away the financial aspect of being unemployed, it is time to make plans.  First, you need to determine if you would like to stay within your current field or change fields altogether.  One way to make this decision is to check your feelings towards your last place of employment.  If you were happy at your most recent job and enjoyed your responsibilities, you may want to start looking for positions within the same industry and field.

If you were constantly depressed while working at your last job, then it might be time to do some soul searching.  Ask yourself, what about your last job upset you.  Was it the work itself or was it the environment?  Oftentimes, when people are upset at their work place, it is problems with coworkers or superiors that lead to this feeling of disillusionment.  If that is the case, then you may want to stay within the same field, but be sure to find companies that are more suitable to your preferable work environment.

If, on the other hand, you hated everything about your last job, then it is time to dig deep and find out what fundamentally makes you happy.  One of the most common used, but sage advice on job searching is to ask yourself, if money was not an issue, what work would you do?  If you have an immediate answer, then you have the starting point for finding a new career.  If you are still uncertain, you can take a career assessment like the Myers Brigg Personality Test, which will provide you with an assessment of what careers fit your personality for a fee.  If you would like to take a free career test, I highly recommend www.free-career-test.com which gives you a series of multiple choice questions about your likes and dislikes, then creates a 13-16 page free analysis of the field that would suit you the best.

Once you know which career you’d like to work in, it is time to create a job search plan.  In this plan, you need to come up with three career choices -

• The jobs you wouldn’t want to do but could help you pay your bills
• The job you are qualified for but aren’t extremely excited about doing
• The jobs that match your career interests and work personality

Once you have these three career fields in mind, it is time to create your career search arsenal.  At the very least, you will need a cover letter, resume, and follow up letter for each field.  This way, whenever an opportunity arises that fits into either category, you can easily apply to the jobs by simply customizing the contact information in your cover letters.  When creating your personal branding materials, be sure that they show-off your unique value proposition and makes an employer excited about hiring you.  You should never mention being fired or laid-off in any of your career search documents.  If you are unsure of how to do this or need assistance, hire an expert.

Remember that the key to finding a new job is to be diligent.  Network with everyone, including friends, family, and old work contacts.  After sending out any resumes, filling out any applications, and conducting any interviews, always follow up.  Be consistent and thorough and keep your family and friends abreast of your progress.  They will be more willing to help you if they have evidence that you are persistently seeking new employment.

As always, good luck on your job search.

Ayesha Long

www.AyeshaWrites4u.com

Step Up to a Better Career with Professional Resume Services
*** Also be sure to go to Ayesha Writes 4 You’s website and schedule your Free Resume Consultation. From now until August 15th, you can take advantage of our Summer Discount and get 15% off any resume package. So go to www.AyeshaWrites4u.com to get started now!

One Step to Ace Your Interview

Your interview will get you a job.  There is really no big secret here.  We know your cover letter and resume open the door for the interview.  We know that after the interview, following up will let the employer know that you are still interested and will keep you fresh in his mind.  But really, once you are in front of your employer, it is time to put the nail in the coffin.

So why do people fail to impress their employers during their interview?

Simple!  They forget about their most valuable asset as an employee – their unique value proposition.  Your unique value proposition also known as your UVP is the quality that you possess that differentiates you from the competition.  An employer wants to know that out of the hundreds of candidates applying for a position, you are the best.

How do you let an employer know that you are the best?

Come prepared with your unique value proposition already written out on a notepad.  There are two ways of doing this:

1. List three qualities you feel make you a great candidate such as being visionary, team-oriented, or a trouble-shooter.
2. Come prepared with three scenarios that identify your qualities.  Each of these scenarios should follow the three tiered approach I call problem, solution, impact.  Using this approach, you think of three situations where your previous company had a problem that you or your team solved and the impact it had on the company.

Which method is the best?

I suggest doing both.  When you list your three unique values, under each one should be a Problem, Solution, Impact scenario demonstrating that quality at work.

For example, as a teacher, I felt that one of my strongest traits was motivating children to succeed.

The scenario I would use to demonstrate my unique value proposition of motivation would be:

When I was in the classroom as an elementary teacher, students were not reading the mandated 25 books a year that were expected of them by the school (problem).  After speaking with several teachers, I discovered the problem was that many teachers were only checking the number of books read right before report card time, leaving the children with approximately three months of unaccountability between each report card period. To fix this problem, I decided to hold reading conferences with every child each week and to have them hold on to their books until I had recorded them being finished.  This way, I was able to track their reading and intercept if there was a problem (solution). By the end of the school year, all of my students had read the 25 books and at least one-third had read over 50 books.  Their reading levels also jumped three to four levels and they all left reading above grade level (impact).

Notice that by having your three unique values and those three scenarios written out in this format, you can be prepared to answer several “tricky” interview questions such as:

Tell me more about yourself.

Answer: I often look for situations where I can troubleshoot.  For example…

Can you think of a time you noticed a problem and you solved it?

Answer: Actually, yes.  In fact, just last year there was a situation where…

Why do you think you should be hired above all the other candidates?

Answer: I have the ability to notice a problem and to offer solutions where I can not only utilize my talents, but also unite the entire team to work on a cause.  For example…

What do you think is your best quality as an employee?

Answer: As an employee, I believe that it is my job to support the organization towards increased productivity and effectiveness.  I often look for ways to eliminate problems and to promote efficiency.  In fact…

What is your worst quality?

Answer: I sometimes have the ability to rock the boat if I notice that something is amiss. For example…

With each of these questions, you have an answer because you know your unique value proposition as an employee.  You can ace any interview because you know what differentiates you from the competition.  Your competitors will not be as prepared and will stumble around these questions.  Yet, you will be poised, confident, and prepared, which are all the traits an employer looks for in a prospective employee.

As always, good luck with your job search.

Ayesha Long

www.AyeshaWrites4u.com

Step Up to a Better Career with Professional Resume Services
*** Also be sure to go to Ayesha Writes 4 You’s website and schedule your Free Resume Consultation. From now until August 15th, you can take advantage of our Summer Discount and get 15% off any resume package. So go to www.AyeshaWrites4u.com to get started now!

You’re too old to be hired???

One of the most ironic things about finding employment is that experience is always considered an advantage when someone is seeking employment.  Yet if you have too much experience, those same businesses from five years ago that were banging on your door asking you to work with them are now too busy to even interview you.  If you have over twenty years experience in your field and are not a C-level executive, experience becomes a barrier.  More factually, it’s not the experience, it’s your age.

Something about being older than most of your cohorts will turn employers off from employing you.  Unfortunately, they have biases due to increasing health issues and stubborn attributes that are often associated with older employees.  So how do you fight age discrimination?  How do you get an employer to look at your age and experience as an asset as opposed to a liability?

Our guest blogger, Kevin Donlin answers this question in his article, “How to Get Hired Faster by Overcoming Obstacles Like Age Discrimination”.  Before turning over the realm to Kevin, I want to point out that many of us know these answers.  It will be the same time and time again.  You must always sell the positive and forego the negative.  If you are unsure how to do this, hire a professional.  If you want to attempt to do it yourself, be sure to click on the link for The Guerrilla Job Search DVD at the end of Kevin’s blog post.

As always, good luck on your job search.

Ayesha Long

www.AyeshaWrites4u.com

Step Up to a Better Career with Professional Resume Services
*** Also be sure to go to Ayesha Writes 4 You’s website and schedule your Free Resume Consultation. From now until August 15th, you can take advantage of our Summer Discount and get 15% off any resume package. So go to www.AyeshaWrites4u.com to get started now!

How to Get Hired Faster by Overcoming Obstacles, like Age Discrimination

By Kevin Donlin

I got an email last week from Jim S. in New York. His job-search question may not apply exactly to you, but the mind-set I suggest to solve it should.

So, if you give me two minutes here, I’ll show you two ways to get hired faster, by playing to your strengths, and offering employers the equivalent of “found” money.

Ready?

Jim writes:

“I have been a self-employed residential general contractor with some commercial supervision experience for 35 years. Last fall I had heart surgery and as a consequence, I am no longer able to meet the physical demands of the job. How do I best convey this situation to a potential employer and still get in the door?”

When Jim asks, “How do I best convey this [health] situation to a potential employer and still get in the door?” what he’s really asking is: “How can I bring up my health problems and still get an interview?”

This is common, backwards thinking.

Instead, of worrying about how to confess a negative, Jim should build a case for his strengths until they overcome any resistance in the minds of employers.

Here’s the question that Jim (and you) should ask instead: “How can I appeal so strongly to an employer’s self interest that any issues about my physical condition won’t matter — they’ll want to hire me for my brains and not my body?”

Put another way, there must be some management function Jim can perform in construction that can leverage his 35 years of industry experience and knowledge, without requiring hard physical labor. He should examine his work history until he can picture a suitable job.

Better yet, he should call past supervisors, vendors, and clients, remind them of the good things he did for them, then ask: “Given my knowledge and experience, what leadership role do you see me playing for an employer?”

This is one way to overcome obstacles of physical condition, age, etc.

To learn more about how to use Guerrilla Job Search tactics in your job search, click here.

Online Scammers are still at it…

On Tuesday, I wrote the blog post “You’ve found a job…or not?”. In this post, I wrote about clear cut signs to tell if a prospective company is legitimate or if it is a scam.  Due to the number of employment scams that have increased in the past year, I felt it was necessary to let my readers know of these predatory practices.  It’s no longer investment scams that people must fear.

Now people are benefiting from the media’s constant display of unemployment rates, job seekers restlessness at not finding employment, and the lack of positive responses employees are getting after sending out hundreds of resumes.  Even worse, there are thousands of employees fearful of being laid-off or fired in the near future and they too are adding to the droves of people now seeking new employment.  With that said, there is a multitude of people that predatory companies can target to profit from other people’s suffering and desperation.

Yesterday, the New York Times discovered the same predatory phenomenon occurring throughout the internet.  I decided to share this article with you because while the tips are helpful, the most shocking aspect is the profile of Claude Vera, a employment scam victim who now owes Chase $6,700.

What makes this scam so profound is that Claude was actually paid by the company.  They sent him money orders to purchase the laptops and other materials he would need in order to begin working for the company.  Yet, after requesting these items and conducting wire transfers,  he never received the materials because the money orders were COUNTERFEIT  or had been USED  prior to being received by Claude!

Apparently, the number of on-line scams have increased exponentially and even sites like scam.com or Phishbucket.org cannot discover a scam until someone has complained of being scammed.   My hopes is that by reading this blog and the linked article, you can avoid being a victim of a fraudulent company.

For the second time this week, I am asking all my readers to trust your instincts.  Finding a job is hard work.  Even more difficult is bouncing back from the financial setback of falling into an employment scheme that can wreak havoc on your savings, credit, and dealings with banks and reputable companies in the future.  Avoid being like Claude Vera, whose Chase account is now in collections because he failed to see beyond his current economic situation and allowed his emotions to put him in an even worse situation.

I highly recommend reading the New York Times Article, “Online Scammers Prey on the Jobless“  because it offers some great information, including the names of companies that have been identified as scams and additional tips on how to neutralize the effects of being contacted by a scam company.

As always, good luck with your job search and be careful.

Ayesha Long

www.AyeshaWrites4u.com

Step Up to a Better Career with Professional Resume Services
*** Also be sure to go to Ayesha Writes 4 You’s website and schedule your Free Resume Consultation. From now until August 15th, you can take advantage of our Summer Discount and get 15% off any resume package. So go to www.AyeshaWrites4u.com to get started now!