I am committed to helping those who want a job to find a job. I am hoping that this blog will help those who really want to find work.
Job finding has changed. When I was first looking for work back in the 1960's, one just walked into a store or office and applied. In the 1970's and 1980's applying for a job meant looking through the want ads in the paper and sending in a resume stating your qualifications. Usually, any job I applied for - I got. It was that easy!
Now, most resumes are sent on line, and an advertised position can receive up to 10,000 resumes. This makes finding a job much more difficult.
What can you do to make your resume stand out? That is where Get Hired Now America hopes to help.
So, tell me, what methods have worked for you? What is most frustrating for you? Let's talk!
About Judith Auslander, MA
- Judith Auslander, MA
- Ever since I heard the saying - “Don’t go to your grave with your song unsung” - it has become my motto for my life. In 1990 after graduating from The Evergreen State College I moved to El Salvador where I lived for 4 1/2 years. When I returned I went back to school for my Masters in Teaching. In 2006 I received my certification as a Life Coach. That decision was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I love coaching! My hope for this blog is to get people involved in talking, communicating, and exploring new ideas. I believe that it is never too late to blossom.
Times have changed, Judith!
ReplyDeleteTwitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Oh my!
My daughter is going to be a Senior at University of Oregon this year and she's starting to get nervous.
I had 8 offers from 9 interviews when I graduated!
I hope the economy picks up and she has an easy time finding something.
Cindy Morus, The Money Mender
www.MendYourMoney.com
I'm now self-employed but the last time I took a full-time corporate job was in 2003.
ReplyDeleteI found that opportunity by working through the membership directories of two professional organizations to which I belonged.
First, I selected a few members to contact at companies for which I would most like to work (based on distance from my home and their industries). Then I customized a personal letter that essentially rewrote my resume in a letter format with additional information about how we belonged to the same organization, my enthusiasm for their company, etc. (The letter was 3 1/2 pages long.)
I asked for their help in finding a job. Several of the people searched their company job board for me and called me back.
One of the companies had a position posted on the website. Instead of writing the organization's member who worked at the company, I phoned her and asked about the opening. She was helpful and I mentioned her name when I sent the resume to the hiring manager.
This process worked well. I believe it was because my educational background is in library science and people in this field feel a certain loyalty to each other and like to help each other.
Librarianship is a narrow field requiring a specific academic degree. It is easier to create rapport with others in your specialty than with the people of varied backgrounds that you meet at the typical networking event, I believe.
Fellow professionals are much more helpful than friends and family, who are unlikely to understand the highly specialized jobs that people pursue in today's economy.
I agree in the above comments that times have changed. Social media such as Facebook, My Space, Linked In have taken presence to look for jobs. I just had an experience with helping someone to find a job and even helped get interview.
ReplyDeleteMy question is how do you save face if the person you referred did bad as a referral?
These are some great comments.
ReplyDeleteComment 1 - Yes social media has taken over and it is a great place to make a presence and to let others know you are looking for work and how they can assist you. Social Media is all about building relationships and these relationships may find you the job you are searching for.
Comment 2- Again, it is about relationship building. Finding a job is about who you know, so making contact is important. Sending your resume like everyone else is just "in the pile."
Comment 3 - I would not refer anyone unless you can really count on them. Why? Because it may reflect back on you. This includes who you befriend at work. It is best to just keep in at the office. Too much out of the office contact, although seems OK, can come back to bite you. Be careful.
Thanks for the comments. Keep them coming, Judith
Times have indeed changed. Yet it is amazing (to me at least) that many tech savvy people have not caught on to the new way of doing business. It has ALWAYS been about relationships to some extent. But now more than ever relationships are the center of the job process. Harvey Mackay writes "Dig your well before you are thirsty". In other words, the time to build relationships is before you need to draw from those relationships.
ReplyDeleteIf I were to give one piece of advice to a job seeker today it would be about the importance of meeting the right people before you need a job.
thanks for the great insights....