On Friday 4 December 2009, my buddy Scott Birkhead is offering another free class for job seekers:

Many people today approach job hunting like they did 8 or 10 years ago…and are getting very little in the way of results. For the time being, the days of putting 30 resumes out and landing a job are over.

Today, you must become the “Chief Everything Officer” of You, Inc. That means adopting tried-and-true business direct-marketing and sales tactics to become more effective with your time and the other precious resources you have at your disposal.

The one hour class starts at 1:00PM. See the web page for details:

http://mostplaceablecandidate.com/classes.html

This one is for Kathy:

Must see: http://xkcd.com/

Tara Gowland at the Seattle Jobs Examiner offers ten useful tips for older job seekers. Here are three to get started:

1. Find out about culture: Employers know better than to address your age, but there is no reason you can’t ask your own questions about how you might fit in. (This ties in nicely with an office tour).
4. Be modern: Typically what I have seen is that the older the interviewee, the more formal the attire – and sometimes this can be overkill.
5. Keep up to date on software: If you are in fact out of date with some of the newer software programs or office machines, seek out help. The more versed you are in the current programs, the better.

Check out the text of Tara’s full article here:

http://www.examiner.com/x-1495-Seattle-Jobs-Examiner~y2009m2d16-Top-10-things-for-older-job-seekers-to-keep-in-mind

Hat tip to LinkedIn connection Bob Edelman

Natali, the Thinking Blonde

Natali is the Thinking Blonde, and she’s also hiring for tutors:

Every year, around this time, I recruit for some new blood on my team of tutors. This year is no different, and this week, as I screen resumes I am reminded once again of how many people are so poorly prepared to apply for jobs. I’m not sure if this is a failure on the part of high school “career” classes or parents not teaching their kids this necessary skill… but it is sorely lacking, at least from what I am seeing, OVER and OVER again.

Natali – I agree. That’s why I started this blog!

Natali goes on to list her top 10 faux pas committed by people in their applications or  interviews. Here are my favorites:

2. Read the position posting carefully. If you ask me questions that are clearly answered by my posting, I am getting the impression that you are careless or don’t pay attention.
3. If you are relatively young or relatively inexperienced, I’d rather you have a shorter, well written resume with a nice cover letter than one you are trying to pad with things that are mostly irrelevant, such as your experiences in junior high cheerleading and playing softball.
9. Follow directions. If the ad you are responding to says, to apply, send your resume and cover letter, and then goes ON to say, cover letters are required for consideration – and then you STILL just send a resume – I have ZERO faith you will follow instructions on the job.

Great points – especially the last one.  In my experience, application instructions are hints from the staff about how to successfully complete the process, not a challenge to be mastered and overcome.

Natali – thanks for sharing your wisdom. I encourage everyone to go see the whole thing, which can be found here:
http://onmywaythere-nc.blogspot.com/2009/09/applying-for-job-101.html

Curt MacRae writes the job advice column for the Examiner.com in Detroit. Last month, he had some great tips on how to get bounced from a job in the interview process. Here’s a snippet from “You’re FIRED!! and, you haven’t even been hired yet!“

Then, the innocent question gets asked about what you’re looking forward to at this company that you may not have had in your previous position.  You can’t resist, and in fact, go into explicit detail about how you absolutely cannot wait to dump that slug you used to work for.  You provide a litany of grievances you had against your supervisor, and the unreasonable and unappreciative company hierarchy, all the way to the top.

As you might imagine, the answer to this question got the job offer rescinded.

MacRae contiues the narrative and then concludes with six useful tip for the jobseeker. Check it out by clicking here!

Steinar Skipsness describes himself as “a 27 year old Seattle native who doesn’t drink coffee.” Skipsness consults on search engine marketing, but seems to be looking for new employment. To help his chances, he taped mock interviews with some unsuspecting candidates.  I’m not sure I agree with his ethics, but his conclusions are strong.

Skipsness offers his 22 tips on “How to Nail an Interview.” His site contains a number of video snippets which support his points. As shown in the video above, some of his examples better demonstrate how NOT to get a job.

IMHO, his top ten tips are:

3. Be on time
4. Cell phone off
5. Know the company, and why you want to work there
8. Dress in a clean conservative manner
9. [Facebook & MySpace] Profiles to private
11. Don’t babble
12. Don’t badmouth a boss
14. Don’t play with your face/hair
19. Have accomplishments
20. Have passion

Take a look at all 22 tips on his web page:
http://www.howtonailaninterview.com/

After graduating from college, I set out on the job hunt. One of the companies interviewing me at the time was Source EDP Personnel Services. Source EDP provided IT consulting services, and billed themselves as “the world’s largest recruiting firm devoted exclusively to the computer profession”. As part of their offering, they shared their 1987 Computer Salary Survey and Career Planning Guide. After I got the another offer, I stuck the salary survey in a file, where it stayed until last week.

The first graphic image in the publication is of a stack of greenbar paper with large dollar signs in ASCII art.  But, even though the data is old, it can still offer a useful comparison to today’s technology salaries. We’ve come  a long way!

Here’s the meat of the survey for non-management positions:

Source EDP was purchased by Romac International, and later became Kforce Technology Staffing. Kforce still offers a salary survey and career guide. Download the latest version in PDF format from here.
http://www.kforce.com/files/documents/2008_Tech_Job_Seeker_SS.pdf

From the 14 April Wall Street Journal comes an article with tips on How Not to Interview:

The Interview That’ll Bag a Job

By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN

In recent weeks, recruiters for Consolidated Container Co. have seen job candidates arrive up to an hour early for interviews. Other candidates have alluded to financial hardships while in the hot seat, and one person even distributed bound copies of documents describing projects he completed for past employers.

These sorts of tactics aren’t exactly winners.

Not winners, but tips to remember (to avoid.) The article goes on:

At an interview, you want to stand out for the right reasons. To do so, you’ll need to leave your baggage and anxiety at the door. For starters, wait until 10 minutes before your scheduled interview time to announce yourself. Arriving any sooner “shows that you’re not respectful of the time the hiring manager put aside for you,” says Loubaton, adding that a candidate who arrived an hour early made workers uncomfortable. “Companies really don’t want someone camped out in their lobby.”

The earliest I’ve seen a candidate arrive was over 75 minutes before the interview. That candidate wasn’t hired either.

If all has gone well, don’t stalk the interviewer. Wait at least a week before checking on your candidacy. “There’s a fine line between enthusiasm and overenthusiasm.”

Indeed!

See Needleman’s  whole article here.

In honor of April Fool’s Day, see the masters Cleese and Chapman demonstrate How Not to Interview:

Gooooood night a ding ding ding ding ding dinnng…

But then I realized that I was not applying to a stuffy ass federal prosecutor or corporate law job…

Thanks to Eagle I On-line, here are some humorous examples of bad cover letter text from aspiring lawyers. Susan Gainen at University of Minnesota Law School’s Career & Professional Development Blog published these actual errors from last year’s job seekers:

1. Trial advocacy and the defense of the indignant are the two primary forces behind my study of the law.
2. I would appreciate an opportunity to discuss my qualifications and how foregoing a relationship would be mutually beneficial.
3. If assiduousness and passion were candy, then I would leave you with a mouthful of cavities.
4. My anal retentiveness to minute details is quite possibly one of my greatest strengths, not withstanding my sense of humor.
5. As an inspiring defense attorney, I am particularly interested in working with the Public Defender Service.

She also notes that one shouldn’t walk in to the Hiring Partner’s office and say “I’d like to work here for a couple of years and then decide what I really want to do.”

See the whole sordid mess here.