Britain set to become world leader in unemployment technology

1 April 2016

By Neil Patrick

As technology continues to transform jobs, a new government initiative will virtually eliminate jobs in the Jobs Centre network across the UK.

The flagship programme called ‘Care4Jobs’ will massively reduce staffing in job centres and in some centres eliminate them completely. Touch screens which automatically connect jobseekers’ social media accounts with suitable employers are being used to help people find work faster than was ever possible before. Because employers and jobseekers are now both using social media every day, the scheme was described as being a “no-brainer” by Jeremy Twonkington-Smyth, Under Secretary of Work for State and Pensions. He said:

“Britain has a long and proud history of world-leading innovation in the delivery of public services. We are determined to ensure we remain committed to the vital services we provide for job-seekers and employers. Our pilot study carried out in Grimsby, a northern town I hope I never have to visit, showed that the automated social media connection of employers and job-seekers had an immediate impact on the time taken to locate suitable jobs. This has resulted in a rapid decline in the number of unemployment benefit claimants. Many have already found jobs in Starbucks, McDonalds, Asda and other leading high quality employers who have embraced the digital and social media world. Some claimants have simply vanished completely which is a mystery we have set up a sub-committee to look into. ”

The use of this new technology in Job Centres means that the costs and difficulties of maintaining staffing levels are significantly reduced.

“We inherited a massively bloated and unproductive department from the previous government and have been working hard to rectify this. We have always had problems with staff in job centres. Some take several days off each year claiming to be sick, others take far too long to get their work done.”

Not only does this innovation increase productivity in job centres, it is enabling unemployed people in the UK to become part of the new ‘global gig economy’:

“We want to future proof our services and the use of these televisual screen thingies connected to the world wide interweb, means UK job-seekers can find jobs all over the world. Unemployed people in Britain have amassed many skills much sought after overseas. More than 20 have already secured work in dynamic overseas economies like Brazil, Colombia and Romania.”

Thanks to this innovative new scheme, Barry
 Clunge, 41 from Stockport has already found
 a new job working part-time in sunny Madrid.

The programme to automate job centres has cost £3.4bn and Mr Twonkington-Smyth said this was an excellent investment:

“This technology will establish Britain as a world leader in unemployment. Because technology works so much better than people, we will see both a reduction in unemployment claims and faster hirings. Best of all, the costs the unemployed impose on hard working families will fall dramatically.”

When asked about the forecast 28,000 redundancies in job centres, he was upbeat:

“We sincerely regret that a number of valued colleagues in our job centres can no-longer be paid for their work. Some will choose our community service option, where they can still attend the job centre as usual and work on a voluntary basis. I know many care passionately about helping people find work, and this will enable them to continue with their valuable work and continue to find personal fulfilment.”

“Those who choose not to take up this attractive option thanks to their excellent skills will be much in demand by other employers. Their skills such as working with people with financial, mental, drug and alcohol problems will be much sought after by all sorts of employers from call centres to retail.”

The Think-tank on Work and Technology (TWAT) said, “Our studies have shown that this sort of work is carried out much faster and more reliably by IT systems than people. Our research found that over 70% of employers prefer to use technology to automatically select candidates rather than having people manually review applications. The savings for businesses will be considerable.”

The technology for the programme has been developed by tech entrepreneur, Josh Jones, founder and CEO of Govetech Systems, an innovative IT developer which Josh founded in 2014 with a young entrepreneur grant of £1.2m from the EU Innovation Fund.

He said: “We are delighted with the success of the Care4Jobs platforms. This sort of system has many applications and we are already working on a further system which will enable the armed services to largely avoid the need to deploy troops into conflict zones. Instead they will use a combination of gaming technology and social media to connect with and then invite adversaries to fight them online. It will save billions of government spending on defence and enable the reduction of already overstretched armed forces troops and support staff.”

Josh Jones, 28, dynamic young entrepreneur
and CEO of Govetech Systems

“Enquiries from oversea governments have been coming faster than we ever thought possible. We are already in discussions with government representatives from Greece, Russia and most exciting of all the United States. Excuse me, I have to take this Skype call from my stock-broker.”

The opposition spokesperson on Work and Jobs, Miranda Trellis MP said:

“This is a cruel and uncaring government that is cynically attempting to export unemployment. Thousands of families will be devastated by this move. We are liaising closely with the Union for Technology Workers’ Employment Rights and Policy Unit (UTWERPU) to organise a protest campaign to force the government to rethink this regressive strategy which will bring misery to people already deprived of opportunities. Sorry, I’m late for an equality and human rights committee meeting with JC. Can I go now?”

10 tiny things that can ruin your chances of getting hired

After many months of job hunting, my good friend David Hunt succeeded this week in getting hired into a part-time, seasonal job. Congratulations David; let’s hope for more good news soon!

During his search, he encountered and overcame many of the pitfalls waiting to catch out the unwary. So I was delighted when he sent me his list of traps he’d come across. Most are so small, you’d think they were unimportant, but in today’s jobs market, even the tiniest slip up can cost you the job!

All job seekers desire a quick conclusion to their job search. But the sad reality is that for many, this is not what happens. Today, job searches can easily last from several months to several years. Which means that as well as aiming for a fast outcome, we must also prepare for what may be a lengthy search.

Such awareness means adopting a long term strategy as well as short term focused action. This isn’t admitting we are defeated before we start, it’s simply a wise acceptance of the reality that luck plays a part. But we can still increase our chances of winning if we take sensible precautions and play the long game as well as the short one.

So here are David’s 10 things that shouldn't make a difference but often do. Don’t get caught out!



By David Hunt PE


1. Have a digital file of all your key documents to hand

If you are applying through an online ATS (Application Tracking System), open your resume file immediately after you upload it (so you can see it, and cut-n-paste, in case you have to fill in duplicate information – which is usually the case).

Have cover letter(s) already written: you may have the opportunity to upload one – they make a difference. Have your list of references file open too as some ATS programs require them to complete your application… and then immediately contact them to forewarn them you just gave their information out, to whom, and attach/include the job description, the resume you attached to your application, and any specific things you want them to stress.

If you don’t, you can have the ATS time out before you get everything open, or you frantically write a cover letter.

2. Don’t advertise your medical condition

If you have a medical condition of any type that requires you wear a warning – an allergy, a pre-existing condition, etc. – don’t wear a wrist band medical alert. Invest in a necklace. A wrist band will be visible, and will make people wonder what’s so wrong with you that you need it. And though it’s not legal, it can be held against you. This goes doubly if you have an infuser pump for anything and it’s visible. Again, it’s not legal to discriminate based on a medical condition, but it happens, and it’s undocumented, so it’s not legally actionable. (And an interviewer who was so biased would, doubtless, not even mention it; all they need to do is comment about your not being “a fit” even in internal discussions!)

3. Invest in your network relationships - with snail mail

Go the library once a month and peruse the magazine section. Try and look at trade-related magazines, but also hobby magazines, cultural magazines… basically, at least flip through every one. Why? Two reasons… you are looking for articles to send to networking contacts (actual and ones you’d like to make), and you are looking specifically in trade-related magazines for people at companies to write.

If you know of a person in your network that could use the information in an article, copy it and snail-mail it to them. This does not necessarily just mean work-related. (For example, a person I know is Portuguese and is there part of the time for work. I sent him an article about cork farms in Portugal… as it turns out, he owns a cork farm and really enjoyed the article. This makes an emotional impression, and keeps you in their mind favorably. Same thing for hobbies and interests that you know of, etc.)

Is there an article by someone at one of your target companies? Write them about it. Make it short, sweet, and ask a few questions to try and open a dialog. Do not mention you are out of work; this is a longer-term investment in cultivating contacts at target companies.

4. Polish your public speaking skills

Join a local Toastmasters group to start practicing public speaking. This is especially critical if you are more towards the introverted side of the scale. For networking and for your life and career, you need to be able to talk with people in a public setting, and give presentations. (I always loved the “Table Talk” events: you are given a topic for which you’ve not prepared or rehearsed, and then you need to talk for 60-90 seconds about it!)

5. Look for other people you can help

If someone approaches you because they’re also looking for a job, don’t blow them off. Try – as best you can – to help them. It’s good karma, and they’ll remember you for it. Over time, you will develop a reputation as someone who helps others.

6. The cleanliness of your car says more about you than the marque

Clean your car’s interior. Hiring managers have been known to go out to “scope out” your car while you are busy with other interviewers. If you’re political, get bumper stickers off (if you can). And if you have time, go through the car wash too.

7. Remember you are interviewing them as well

If a company can’t give you a list of the people with whom you’ll be meeting ahead of time, that’s a red flag about their organizational ability, as well as how they view you as a candidate.

8. Show appreciation to everyone involved

As you write your “Thank you” emails and/or notes, be sure to include the person who set up your interview. Odds are they were not on the interview schedule but, as someone whose involvement in the process was critical, reach out to them as well. It can’t hurt, and may help in making a better impression as they will likely forward it to the decision makers.

9. Protect your interviewers’ noses

Yes, you need to be subtle with any scents like cologne or perfume if not forgoing them altogether. But also… lay off the garlic, onions, carbonated beverages, beans and broccoli. And while it’s perfectly fine to need a bathroom break, try to eat a lower-residue diet for 24 hours. (Remember that smell is the only sense hard-wired into the brain unfiltered; if it registers in their nose, they will be consciously aware of it and its visceral and emotion-based response.)

10. Eating Etiquette

If invited out for a meal:

· Don’t go for expensive; they’re watching.

· Don’t be picky when ordering. I.e., “I’d like the ‘X’ but can you leave ABC out, substitute ‘this’ for ‘that’…”. If there’s a dish you really want but it has something you can’t eat, after ordering – explain. (E.g., eggplant will put me in the hospital for 2-3 days… but occasionally I’ll order a dish with eggplant, minus the eggplant, and then explain I have an allergy.)

· Don’t season the food until you’ve tasted it (I read this is one screening technique an executive uses and it’s a deal-breaker for them).

· When presented with multiple utensils, start outside and work your way in.

· Elbows off the table – and other etiquette.

· At most one glass of alcohol, but best to abstain. This is not the time to try and match someone drink for drink!

Hope these are useful thoughts for you in your job search.



© 2015, David Hunt PE

David Hunt is a Mechanical Design Engineer in southern New Hampshire. Currently employed part-time, he is looking for a full-time professional that allows him to design new products and shepherd them to stable production. His LinkedIn profile is: www.linkedin.com/in/davidhuntmecheng/; he blogs at davidhuntpe.wordpress.com and tweets at @davidhuntpe.

What do the best career coaches actually do?

By Neil Patrick

Do you need a career coach? How do you find the best career coach for your requirements?  

Career coaching is a new and high growth industry. There are over 300 coaches following me on Twitter alone. It’s arisen because as job search becomes ever more competitive and challenging, people are discovering the hard way that being really good at what you do is no longer enough to ensure that you have a successful career.

The best career coaches provide the insight and key skills that people need to reach their career ambitions. Whether that’s finding and getting hired into a new job, moving forward in an existing career, or making a complete change of direction mid-career.

But with so many coaches out there, how do you know what to look for to find the best coach for you?

Do you even need a career coach?

So I turned to my good friend Marcia LaReau, founder and President of Forward Motion US to try and find some answers to these questions. Marcia is exceptionally well qualified to deal with this subject. Since founding Forward Motion, Marcia has helped hundreds of people succeed in overcoming their career obstacles.

NP: Marcia, why do you think career coaching is needed at all?

ML: Thank you Neil. First I’d like to say that the definition of career coaching has changed dramatically with the economic situation. As we become a global, technology-driven economy, the very core attributes that are needed for businesses to succeed is changing. That in turn has changed career coaching.

Prior to the Great Recession we believed that we could define what we liked and enjoyed and pursue that as a career. At that time career coaches helped their clients identify what they liked and enjoyed and then helped them find a place where they could do those things, get paid a living wage and hopefully, grow their career. It was a long-term outlook.

Today this isn’t enough. It’s still important for a person to understand what they enjoy; however, businesses have been under a mandate to cut costs, increase profit margins and get everything out of their employees that they can. I don’t’ mean to infer that businesses are all being run by inhumane ogres. Many businesses are simply trying to survive. I also don’t mean to infer that there isn’t a fair amount of inordinate greed that causes companies to drive their employees past what is reasonable.

Let me get back to career coaching—the point here is that companies do not have the capacity to focus on the career growth of their employees (unless it is part of their succession plan and directly benefits the company). So today, everyone who wants to work is in charge of their career development and the direction they will pursue.

The scope of doing this is huge! People have to be aware of their core attributes from a business perspective. They have to position themselves both online and in the business community as a viable, credible resource in their areas of expertise. Then they have to understand the changes in their industry and how they can remain viable in a changing market. It’s a lot!

Today’s career coach is also a job coach and understands the hiring processes and the employment market. A career/job coach guides their clients to maneuver through the distractions to identify the employment goal and scope out an effective path to get there. In the process their client should (in my opinion) learn how to manage their career so they are proactive with regard to their future security.

Without a career coach, many people have become resigned to the idea that if they get a job that gives them a living wage, then they should be grateful and settle…even if they don’t like what they are doing for eight to 10 hours a day (or more), five to six days a week.

NP: Should someone use career coaching when they have a job, or is it really just for when they are facing unemployment?

ML: Businesses, industries are changing at record speed today. In my opinion, everyone should have a career coach and check in with him or her at least once a quarter and more often if there are signs that a business is losing its place in the market. Further, it is expected that everyone will change jobs every three to four years. It could be within a company, but not necessarily.

I believe every person who wants to work for more than five years should engage with a career coach as someone who is watching their industry and market and identifying potential disruptions that could cause an unwanted financial situation. In addition, the career coach should be looking for opportunities to grow potential earnings and help the client maintain their credibility in the industry and move their career in the direction that suits their long-term goals.

All the people that I talk to want to end their career strong. Today that is easier said than done!

NP: Does everyone need it, or are some job sectors more suited to it than others?

ML: Disruptive innovations such as Big Data and social media are changing the landscape of every job sector. So in my opinion, everyone should have a regular “career checkup” with a qualified career coach.

NP: If someone loses his or her job and money is consequently really tight, how can anyone justify spending money on coaching?

ML: How can they NOT justify it? One of the primary goals at Forward Motion is to reduce the time to employment. A good career coach should reduce the number of weeks of unemployment significantly.

Let’s say that a standard (non-executive) job search costs between $2K and $3,500. If a person makes, let’s say $52,000 a year. So the job search costs less than one month of salary. AND if the average job search is approximately six to eight months, and the job coach reduces that by four months, then the client is now $12,000 ahead because they spent $3K on a career coach.

Also, with a career coach, the chances a person will get a better job at a better salary, increases significantly.

NP: Tell me about the typical problems people come to you with?

ML: Their situations run the gamut of the imagination. Some people just have no idea how to go about the job search. They are bewildered and overwhelmed. Others have tried everything they can think of and used every available cost-free option they could find—nothing worked and the finally called me.

Some people are in industries that are failing or have already died and need to assess their transferrable skills and/or re-credential themselves and figure out how to get a new career path without having to start from scratch at as an entry-level employee.

And then there are the early-career millenials who see record-high unemployment numbers in their college friends. They don’t just want a job, but they want to do something that brings value and doesn’t just fill the pockets of corporate business owners and investors.

Finally, about 30% of my business includes executives, who many times have reached out to their network and come up empty. Executives, more than any other group, come to me earlier in their job search. They know they need help and that they aren’t an expert and they want someone who can advise them.

NP: And how does coaching help people overcome these problems?

ML: A good career coach knows the market and the current hiring practices. They can put together a customized program that will reduce the time to employment through a carefully designed, flexible search strategy.

A truly dynamic jobsearch strategy is anything but a shotgun approach where people apply for a ton of opportunities and hope something happens.

I believe that an effective program sets a foundation for the search by identifying the most viable employment opportunities where the jobseeker is found credible, and where they qualify for the jobs. Then they must create an airtight identity both online and through their application materials. That includes a stunningly polished and customizable cover letter and résumé. With the foundation in place, we apply for 5 jobs and find out how what happens. We then rework the materials and apply for five more jobs. Within two or three iterations, the client is getting calls for jobs that are a good fit.

NP: What can you tell me about your success rates?

ML: First, I don’t abandon clients. If they are diligent and conduct themselves in a professional manner, then we will work until they are hired. It’s harder in some industries than in others.

Nonetheless:

- 98% of Forward Motion clients get hired
- 76% of mid-career clients get hired in 68 days
- 96% of early-career clients get hired in 45 days

NP: If someone is considering career coaching, how should they go about finding the best coach for them?

ML: First, there should be a good fit from a relationship perspective. In other words, there should be open communication. A good career/job coach sometimes has to say things that are personal and private. The relationship should develop so that when comments are made, that are difficult to hear from the jobseekers perspective, the jobseeker knows it is being said with his or her best interest in mind. So the relationship must be candid and comfortable.

Second, the career coach should be someone who diligently wants to get place his or her client in a new job. This is tricky since the jobseeker brings in income for the career coach. There are some career coaches who want to sustain the relationship to earn more income. I am sorry to report this. I handle this by putting a cap on the cost of the jobsearch. So the jobseeker knows that expenses won’t get out of hand.

NP: What does it cost? And are there any things you’d caution people about?

ML: I try to provide my clients with choices around the costs. An early-career search may go as high as $2,500. A mid-career (non-executive) search may double that number although I haven’t had anyone do that. Executives are a different ballgame and it depends on how much he or she wants to do and how much I would do. So an executive search might be as little as $2500 and include no more than a stellar résumé, or it could be as high as $20K and include the total management of a jobsearch.

NP: Thanks Marcia.

ML: Thanks Neil.

I'd like to thank Marcia for the time she has taken to share these valuable insights. You can find out more about Forward Motion US and their resources and services here. Do please post any comments or questions below and we'll do our best to answer them.

An extra way to get found by recruiters when you are jobseeking

By Neil Patrick

I’m always thinking about ways I can make this blog and my Twitter account more valuable for jobseekers.

And this morning I had a flash of inspiration.

I have a lot of recruiters who follow my Twitter account - 500 at least. I also have a lot of job seekers.

But it occurred to me that jobseekers usually don’t have a lot of recruiters following them on Twitter. And recruiters are always looking for ways to find candidates.

So I have decided to try something new.

I have set up a new list on my Twitter account that any jobseeker that wishes to can appear on. Just send me a tweet if you are jobseeking and I’ll add you to the list.

The list is called “My job seeking friends”.

I have no idea what the results will be. Or how many people will join the list. All I know is that the people that join it first will be the most visible because they will be at the top of the list.

There’s no cost, no catches and no downsides that I can think of. It’s no more and no less than it appears.

I’d suggest that if you do this, you also make sure that your Twitter bio contains a link to your Linkedin profile. That way recruiters can go straight to your Linkedin profile.

It’s an experiment I admit, but you have nothing to lose if you are job seeking. Just let me know and I’ll be happy to put you on the list.

I’ll also tweet about it to encourage recruiters to view the list.

It might be a total flop, I don’t know.

But I’m ready to give it a try!

If you are a jobseeker or recruiter I’ll be happy to hear what you think!

How recruiters decide if your resume gets onto the 'yes' pile

By Liz Hardman

What happens when more than 300 people apply for one junior position at a company? And how do recruiters select a shortlist?

I recently had to recruit for my organisation - here I explain how I shortlisted candidates - more specifically the process I used to remove applications from the shortlist.

We recently placed an advertisement for a junior position at Northstar. We expected to get a few applicants but we didn't anticipate receiving quite the number we did - more than 300.

More startling than the sheer volume, however, was how few of the candidates actually made the cut; only 10% were shortlisted. So, what was wrong with the other 90%? And how can you make sure employers put your application through?

If an advert asks for a cover letter with your application, include one

60% of the applications we received did not include a covering letter, even though we asked for one.

Use this letter to sell yourself and explain why you want the role, why you're suited to it and, most importantly, what you can bring to the company. Don't go into how working for the company can help you achieve your goals and increase your skillset: companies aren't in business solely for the purpose of staff development. At this initial stage, show them you've got something they want.

Specific experience may be the key thing they are after, but if you don't have all the desired experience requested, don't despair - think laterally. Maybe you have transferable skills from a previous job, hobbies or interests which have helped you to develop skills the employer is after? For instance, you might not have developed leadership skills in a part-time job, but volunteering with a local Brownie or Scout pack might have taught you the same thing. The person we actually employed for this role had minimal desired skills. But they had other skills, which were of major benefit to us, as well as having the right enthusiasm and work ethos, which made them a great fit.

Don't directly copy cover email templates

If you really want a role, then write something specific to the role you're applying for. It's really obvious when candidates are applying for everything and anything. The text on your email or cover letter should demonstrate that you have specific skills and experience for this role/company which are worth the recipient opening the attachments. A generic email that reads, "Please find attached my CV and cover letter for you to see if my skills are a match for your company/position advertised" will not prompt the reader to continue. Tailoring your application takes more time, but will increase the possibility of you being called in for an interview. But keep it concise though - don't go overboard with the email text.

Use the correct salutation and check your spelling and grammar

If this isn't right, many recruiters will switch off immediately: it screams of a lack of English skills and attention to detail.

Don't start emails with "Hi", "Hello", "Dear All", or similar. You're not sending it to your friends. Instead, if the job advert gives a contact name, address it to them. If not, use the fail-safe "Dear Sir/Madam".

In our case, the job advert only gave my surname, so I knew that any applicants who wrote "Dear Liz" had taken the time to look for my name on our website - and this really showed initiative.

One of the requisite skills we said that applicants needed to possess was good spelling and grammar, but a number of applications did not meet this requirement. All email systems have spell checkers, so use them. Then read through what you have written again to check for typos, missing words and other errors. Finally, you could ask someone else to give you their opinion to check it's clear and makes sense.

Demonstrate you are interested in the organisation

As well as looking at the employers' website, take your research a bit further. Check whether they have they been in the news, or what their company focus is at the moment. Have a read of their blog (if they have one) to get to know what some of the employees are doing and so you have some great conversational collateral. Demonstrate that you are aware of how the role you are applying for fits into the organisation and in a wider context - what's new in the industry that the company is operating in?

Make your application stand out

Whether it's in the way you format your CV, the tone you use or the inclusion of a piece of work which is relevant to your application, do something to distinguish yourself. If your CV is a run-of-the-mill word document, that is how you'll be perceived. For example, the applications that stood out to us were those that looked as though they had been created by a graphic designer - they used subtle shading, changes in font sizing and orientation, and a modern font. They hadn't included anything garish, but it showed skill at using software by someone with an eye for how to format a document for maximum impact, both of which are really important in our industry.

If you choose to get someone else to do design your CV, however, say that you did this because you are still developing your skills in that area and do make sure you write the text yourself. When we interviewed candidates who had submitted one of the CVs that stood out the most for us in terms of design and content, it became immediately clear that the person sitting in front of us was not the same person that had written their CV and application letter. The result was a very short interview and no invite for a second interview.

Liz Hardman is a research director at Northstar Research Partners.

This post originally appeared here:

http://careers.theguardian.com/careers-blog/making-the-cut-recruiters-insight-yes-pile

6 Ways to Attract Recruiters to Your LinkedIn Profile

By Stacey Politi

You know the drill. You’re unhappy in your current job - or unhappy with no job - and are desperately updating your LinkedIn profile that hasn’t been touched since the last time you were in this situation.

Well, you’re not alone; this sums up the dysfunctional relationship many professionals have with their LinkedIn profiles. While some flock to LinkedIn only when in need and apply to already posted positions, the platform is at its best when maintained regularly and optimized to allow hiring managers to reach out to you.

LinkedIn's career expert Nicole Williams helps elaborate on six ways to optimize your profile and attract more recruiters to you now.

1. Develop a Keyword Strategy

If search engine optimization is not your expertise, here is a mini lesson. LinkedIn’s search functionality makes it easy to find people by their name, skills and any other words that appear in their profile — which is why these words should be chosen with thought.

First, make a list of terms associated with your skills and experience. Ask yourself, "What words would someone search for to find me?" If strapped for terms, seek inspiration from a job positing you are interested in.

Next, take those terms and rework them from the perspective of a searching recruiter. For example, you may have the term "digital strategy" in your LinkedIn profile; however, a recruiter would be more likely to search for the term "digital strategist." Synonyms are also important; you never know if recruiters will search for "digital," "online" or "Internet," so include them all. Lastly, you want to organically incorporate these key terms into your profile to attract both the search engine and human reader alike.

2. Say Cheese

Williams says that "hiring managers are seven times more likely to view your profile if you have a photo; it’s a must have."

Not only does a photo allow your profile to stand out in the search results, but also shows recruiters that you are active on the network and LinkedIn is a viable way to contact you. Williams suggests using a photo that places you in the context of your job. You want to help hiring managers envision you in that position.

"If you are a chef, feel free to show yourself in a kitchen, or in front of a whiteboard if you are a marketer," Williams says. "But don’t use a picture of yourself with your dog, unless you’re a veterinarian."

3. Be Vain

Williams also prompts all passive and active job seekers to claim their vanity URL. This is a customized URL that drives directly to your profile.

"Using your name in your vanity URL gives it a chance to appear in a Google when someone searches for you," says Williams.

This makes it easier for hiring managers to find you and share your information with other hiring managers. If your preferred vanity URL is already claimed, incorporate a relevant key term, for example www.linkedin.com/in/CarlySimonSinger.

4. Rack up Recommendations

Solicit recommendations from people you have worked for or with. "Make a strategic plan for your recommendations," says Williams. "Approach different people and suggest particular skills or experiences you would like them to highlight."

This strategy helps provide hiring managers with a more holistic view of you and your past work. However, the most important part of the recommendation is not necessarily the content, but that it exists at all. It shows that someone was willing to take the time to personally vouch for you.

(Extra Tip: People are always busy and if you ask for a recommendation, even if they agree, it’ll probably sit on their to do list for weeks. Worse, when they do it, they might not say what you want. So make it easy for them. Send a draft of the sort of things you’d like them to say, and allow them to edit as they see fit. You’ll make it quick and easy for them this way AND you’ll more likely get something close to what you desire – Ed.)

5. Strategic Connections

The more connections you have on LinkedIn the more likely you are to come up in a hiring manager’s search results. Strategically identify people you’d like to be linked to and approach them with a custom connection request.

"The biggest mistakes users make is asking for too much in the first request," says Williams. LinkedIn are no different than connections in real life.

"Find an affinity you have in common, ask a question, but don’t ask for a job in the first connection."

Groups work similarly and if you and a recruiter are in the same group, you can rise to the top of their search results. Join groups that are relevant to the industry you are in and a few recruiters in your field will most likely be members as well.

6. Now Share with your Connections

"Don’t just set up your profile; actively engage in LinkedIn," says Williams. Share useful content or comment on the shared content of others to make your profile more viewable. Interacting with others on the platform not only makes you visible to them, but also their connections.

If you don’t have time to scour the Internet for shareable content, Williams suggests leveraging LinkedIn Today, a feature that allows you to receive the most read news on your chosen topics. Choose one story per day from that feed and not only will it help you in your current job, but it might catch the eye of a hiring manager for a future position.


This post originally appeared here:
http://mashable.com/2013/11/17/linkedin-tips-2/

What to say to employers to get hired into the hidden jobs market

By Neil Patrick

If you are looking for a job, how many times have you called a company to ask if they have any job openings and the response has been something like, ‘Not right now, but please send us your resume and we’ll keep it on file and let you know if something comes up’?

I don’t think I can say it’s never happened, but I have never heard of anyone being called back after their resume has been sent in to a firm and put ‘on file’.

It might as well be filed in the bin. Sometimes, I am sure it is.

To avoid this happening to you, you need totally different tactics.

As I talked about in this post here on the hidden job market, the secret is not to ask people if they have any job vacancies. It’s to become a detective and use research to discover firms that have a problem that you can help them solve.

As with so many aspects of successful job searching, the key to your success is in working smarter, not harder. And thinking of yourself not as a job seeker, but a solution to other people’s problems. Find the problems and you’re half way there.

If you want to know how you can do this, how to find the right organisations to approach and exactly what to say to them, this great clip from sales expert Jill Konrath, spells it all out for you.

How to Brand Your YouTube Account for Your Job Search

By Heather R. Huhman

YouTube is the largest video-sharing site on the planet, but it’s often overlooked as a platform on which to build your personal brand. Job seekers carefully craft their Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages to portray their professional selves, but often they overlook the power of the video.

If employers want to really get a sense of who you are, video is simply more effective at communicating this than words on a page. YouTube can be an excellent resource to point recruiters to you, so they can get to know you during the job search. Check out these tips for successfully branding yours.

Decide how to brand yourself. If you’ve already been branding yourself as an expert or professional in a particular field, continue with that theme on your YouTube page. Click on your username in the top right corner, and select “Settings.” From here, you can link your account to your Twitter and Facebook (ideal for video sharing), customize your URL, and manage your videos. Use this page to adjust your settings and learn the ropes when it comes to privacy, playback, and monetization.

Customize it. Click your username and select “My Channel” from the drop-down list. Select “Channel Settings,” where you can customize your bio and layout. Include a professional avatar and customize your page to make it consistent with your other social networking sites by uploading your own background image. Under the “Info and Settings” tab, give your channel a title, add a description, and include tags with keywords so others can find you, such as “marketing,” “finance,” or any other words to suit your personal brand.

Create quality videos. The most difficult part of creating a YouTube page may be coming up with the content, but chances are you already have a breadth of knowledge you could turn into an interesting and helpful YouTube video. Consider taping an introduction, offering advice in your field, or interviewing a fellow professional. Autoshare your videos on Twitter and Facebook, and link to them on your blog or website. Spend time promoting your videos, but also peruse YouTube for accounts similar to yours, and add relevant videos to your “likes” or “favorites.”

YouTube can be an excellent resource for beefing up your professional online brand, and can allow employers to catch a glimpse of the person behind the website, Facebook, or Twitter. For more information on creating your personal YouTube brand, check out YouTube’s tips here.

How have you worked with YouTube to enhance your personal brand? Share your tips below.


Heather R. Huhman is a career expert, experienced hiring manager, and founder & president of Come Recommended, a content marketing and digital PR consultancy for organizations with products that target job seekers and/or employers. She is also the author of Lies, Damned Lies & Internships (2011), #ENTRYLEVELtweet: Taking Your Career from Classroom to Cubicle (2010), and writes career and recruiting advice for numerous outlets.

http://www.personalbrandingblog.com/how-to-brand-your-youtube-account-for-your-job-search/

Why it’s good to be promiscuous

By Neil Patrick

Last week I sent out a link to my LinkedIn profile via Twitter. It was accompanied with an open invitation to connect for anyone who wished to.

I had an unexpected reply tweet.

The exact words escape me now, but the essence was ‘ Why do this…surely you don’t want to connect with just anyone?’

My reply was unequivocal. Sure I do. Why would I not? I can always say 'No' (but I rarely do).

I had a similar conversation with a professional friend a couple of weeks ago. He has been a (very) late comer to Linkedin and only has about a dozen connections. He recognises the importance of building his network, but he was paranoid that if any of his connections were with anyone that wasn’t an absolute superstar, this might harm his reputation. But of course the people he wanted to connect with that didn’t know him or have any connection with him would be unlikely to accept an invitation from a stranger with only a dozen connections.

Catch 22.

Now if I think for a moment about all the work I am engaged on right now, I have about half a dozen professional projects on the go. How did these come to be? Well every single one bar just one, came about from relationships I have developed with other professionals through social media. That’s right about 83% of them.

And did I carefully target these people? Nope. They came about naturally through them choosing to work with me because they felt I was the right person that could help them out. And they made this choice of their own free will, not because I had targeted them as a ‘prospect’.

Sure I have had plenty of other approaches which I have turned down, but not because they were necessarily a waste of my time or unattractive, more because I have to prioritise and I’m in the fortunate position of being able to choose which proposals I take up and which I politely turn down.

But I have absolutely no way of knowing which connections I make through social media will turn into business relationships and which will not. And more importantly, if I wasted my time trying to second guess this, I suspect I’d nearly always get it wrong.

So I network freely and openly. And despite this ‘promiscuity’ I have not once had a problem with any of my social media connections.

Quite the contrary in fact. I am constantly amazed and humbled at how many people in my network help me out of sheer kindness and generosity of spirit.

All this social media interaction drives more attention. It’s like power to an electronic magnet. The more power, the stronger the attraction field becomes.

Exactly the same principles apply when you are looking to find a new job. If your attraction field is weak, you’ll get found by fewer prospective opportunities.

This principal and much more which it seems is counter-instinctive to many professional people is talked about here by the ever excellent Jill Konrath, who it seems is just as promiscuous as I am!

How to never lose your job (a reprise)

By Neil Patrick

In January 2009, Grant Cardone put up an article in the Huffington Post with this title.

To put that date in perspective, this was about one year after the start of the global financial crisis and 8 months after the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

I agree with some of his observations, but we now have the benefit of hindsight on events which have seen the unfolding of the worst financial and economic crisis since the 1930’s.

And this has shown that Grant’s viewpoint fell way short of the mark. Even in 2009, it should have been apparent that we were dealing with something other than a cyclical recession. We were (and are still) dealing with a systemic collapse.

So let’s take a look at what he proposed. He said:

There are two groups of people that will never be without work;

1) those working for companies and in industries that are selling enough product to keep them profitable.

2) Those people within those companies that contribute to the selling, yes the selling, of the products and services of that company.

Those that are able to drive revenue through the selling of the products and services of the company are the most needed and valuable people in that company. Warning: Assist the company you work for in bringing in revenue (selling products and services) or you are at risk of losing your job!

Fair enough, but to say such people will never be without a job is a massive over-generalization. And he hinted at this when he continued:

The question is, who will lose their jobs and who will not? If you notice the people that are losing their jobs today are attached to companies that are failing! Note - if the company doesn't do well, make profits, jobs are lost! (my emphasis). The next level will not be from failing companies but from those companies that don't want to fail! (sorry Grant, but I never came across any company that wanted to fail).

What he missed was the fact that (and I don’t care about the labels that economists apply here) we are not dealing with a recession, when everything gets tough for a while and then bounces back. In a recession, companies make less profit and have to scale back some of their expenditure, whilst trying to lift revenue.

Today is different. We are dealing with a systemic collapse. And in a systemic collapse, companies don’t just struggle, they die. In large numbers. And people's jobs die with them.

And whilst companies are failing every day, that’s a symptom not the cause of the problem. The root of the problem is massive over borrowing by western governments. Plus endless QE programmes by central banks that continue to deflate the value of our wealth and earnings. Plus much needed, but unaffordable healthcare programmes. Plus an ageing population. Plus soaring food and utility costs. Plus rising house prices at least in some regions thanks to misguided government interventions (yes, that’s you David Cameron).

Compared to this, the problems faced by businesses are miniscule.

The massive and naive gamble of western governments is that while contracting government spending, they can simultaneously boost the growth of private sector businesses. And it’s just not happening. Because governments are useless at this. They launch expensive initiative after expensive initiative. Every one sounds great with all the spin at launch. And then a year or two later they are quietly shelved when surprise, surprise they didn’t work.

So we are trapped in a Catch 22.

Western governments cannot spend their way out of recession. Their currencies are losing value and their assets are dwindling whilst expenditures continue to soar. Government bonds (misleadingly also called gilts) are showing diminishing yields as investors place less and less faith in the security of such instruments.

You only have to look at the situation faced by Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain to see what happens when a government’s borrowing options dry up.

But back to Grant:

Those that will never lose their jobs are those that go beyond the normal expected responsibilities and the duties of their post. Those that creatively extend themselves and take responsibility for assisting the company in revenue creation will never be let go. The job of selling the products and services of the company you work, will no longer be left to the sales force but become the responsibility of everyone that desires to continue to work for that company.

Sorry Grant, this may be true in a recession, but it’s just wishful thinking in a systemic collapse. It is of course also completely irrelevant if you work in the public sector where revenue generation is completely disconnected from the success or otherwise of your employer.

What happened to all those top selling people at Lehmans, at Bear Sterns, at MF Global, at Northern Rock? That’s right they lost their jobs with everyone else. And the subsequent devastation of the whole financial sector meant that only a minority could expect to find another similar job with another employer. And if you think that banking is not typical of the world of real jobs, what about all those folk employed by Detroit City who lost their jobs and/or pension rights? What about all those staff at Woolworths, Borders, Aquascutum, Comet and countless other retailers that have gone bankrupt?

So if no-one’s employment can be assured anymore, what are we to do?

The first fact to get a grip on is that there is no such thing as a secure job anymore. It makes not a bit of difference how good you are or how hard you work, your future is never assured. So despite Grant’s opinion, my belief is that not even the best sales people in the world can count on anything anymore.

Second, if you accept this first fact, you need to be preparing right now for the day when you lose your job. That means getting your borrowings down as much as you can and building enough reserves to ensure you can survive for at least 6-12 months with no income. At least then you are giving yourself enough time to hopefully find another job somehow.

But what is a job? Essentially it’s the means by which you earn the money to live and hopefully enjoy your life. And being employed by an organisation is only one of the ways you can do this. The numbers of entrepreneurs in their middle and later years are soaring right now. And whilst many report that they don’t earn as much as they used to, almost all report that they are happier and more fulfilled than when they had a ‘normal’ job.

All this means preparing yourself for the possibility especially if you are over 50 years old that you may never get another job again. But that’s not necessarily as catastrophic as it sounds. It might just be the greatest opportunity of your life. And this is how you can make sure you never lose your job, because you will own your job and your vision for your life goals. Not someone else’s. But you should be thinking about it right now and doing what you can to start developing your ideas and plans, because when the hammer falls, your clock will be ticking…

One man’s quest to make the best career consulting open to all

By Neil Patrick

Since I started this blog, I have just kept on meeting more and more really amazing people in the area of careers and jobs. HR heroes, star recruiters, resume writers, Linkedin experts, social media stars, bloggers, coaches…the list goes on and on. But then every so often, I meet someone extraordinary who doesn't neatly fit into just one of these categories.

I have made it part of my mission to find and connect with the most important and influential people in these fields. It’s a simple and obvious objective really. By finding all these people, I can provide readers of this blog with the best contacts possible. Despite being in different specialisms, these people all share one thing…a passion for helping people with their careers.

If you’re a bit of a cynic, that’s OK - I’m the same, but I’ll tell you right now that this post is a free plug! But I am only doing it because I think this is something that deserves spreading the word about and it’s a fascinating story…

Meet Fernando Ratkoczy

I first encountered Fernando Ratkoczy a few months ago on Twitter. He had a much bigger following than I do - over 35,000 - so I figured, he was someone I’d like to have in my Linkedin network.

Fernando Ratkoczy

When I checked him out on Linkedin I was astonished to find he had no less than 102 recommendations from people he’d helped. The average is just 2 from what I can discover.

And the glowing endorsements about him convinced me that he was much more than just a normal career coach. I knew I had to talk to this guy.

We exchanged a couple of emails and agreed we’d speak on the phone as he was temporarily in Europe instead of his normal home in California.

He’s helped over 10,000 people already

We managed to schedule a phone chat which ended up being four hours long!

As we started talking about his career, I quickly became fascinated. He had spent 20 years of his life as a career coach working with professionals who were facing redundancy. And it turned out that he’d helped over 10,000 people land great new jobs. That’s an astonishing number.

Being the slightly sceptical person I am, I did the maths. That’s 500 people a year, or about a dozen a week. Fernando explained to me that that was his normal caseload when he was a corporate career coach. He provided job finding consultancy and coaching to people who were typically being laid off by large organisations. His job was to ensure his clients found and landed new jobs as fast as possible.

I wanted to know firstly, why he thought successful professionals needed any help at all with their job search? He was quite unequivocal:

‘Today, being good at your job is no longer enough to get you hired for your next job. Getting hired is a specialized skill all on its own. And most people know far less about it than they think they do. Only a fool would attempt to represent themselves in court. You hire a professional. Finding and getting the right job is no different.’

Fernando went on to tell me that to minimise the negative PR, his clients’ former employers would pay up to $10,000 per person to ensure they were helped as quickly as possible after redundancy into a new job. Since many people were not adequately equipped to easily do this themselves, their ex-employers were willing to pay for this assistance as part of their redundancy package.

Which is how he became an expert at finding people great jobs. Or rather helping them to do it for themselves. And his success at helping people achieve this was why so many people had shown their appreciation of his help and guidance on Linkedin.

Why is it so expensive?

I asked him next why this coaching was so expensive?

‘The one to one coaching process is very time consuming. It takes many hours of meetings and discussions. And the firms that provide it typically carry big overheads. Most people don’t know what the steps to success are. They wrongly assume that you search for job vacancies that fit your experience, send off your application and resume, and hope you get an interview. It just doesn’t work like that anymore and if you use that method, you’ll most likely be in for a very long period of unemployment’.

Over many years, Fernando developed his coaching into a slick machine. He wasn’t in the business of just sitting there and giving tips. That was far too uncertain. What was needed was a proven process, which if followed would ensure success for everyone. At every level from the most junior to VPs and Executives. Over 20 years, his process just got better and better, until it was about as robust as it could possibly be.

How Hollywood comes into the story

As the chat progressed, he told me an amazing story about his own career. Before spending 20 years as a career coach, as a young man, Fernando had sought to develop his career in Hollywood. He had spent years in the film industry learning the art of film production. He’d actually acted in films and directed several too, before deciding to become a career consultant with one of the biggest global career consulting firms.

But that wasn’t the most interesting part of his story. He decided a few years ago to leave the world of corporate career consulting and combine his two areas of expertise; helping people find and land great jobs and film production.

He set out with a simple but hugely ambitious goal. He would produce the most comprehensive set of coaching films ever made, dedicated to revealing to people all the best practices and secrets of job search success he’d learned in 20 years of career consulting.

But these wouldn’t be just interviews and tips. Instead he set out to create a comprehensive programme which would film every step of the process he had refined over 20 years from start to finish, using the full production resource that would be applied to a movie production. Every scene would be properly scripted. Every shot would be professionally directed, lit and acted. The material would be edited, organised and packaged so that anyone could easily follow the step by step process.

This cost him over $1m dollars!

I’m still amazed at the ambitiousness of this project. Even after all the editing and organising, the full film programme runs for 7 hours! And I wasn’t in the least surprised when Fernando told me that it had cost him over $1m and 3 years to complete.

I wanted to know how the final result had been received. ‘The programme was finally finished last year and I’ve been delighted at the reception it’s been given by large organisations and the career coaching community. It’s great to get the endorsement of other recruitment and HR professionals. They tell me that the programme provides a really attractive alternative to the slow and expensive process of face to face coaching. And I’m relieved that they are buying it too… I need to recover my investment!’

I wanted to see the outcome of all this work and investment for myself and so Fernando gave me a free pass to view all the materials. I spent several hours going through the resources he has set up at the Successful Job Search Center - SJSC.

The materials there are impressive in their quantity and quality. Not just the film material, which is superbly well structured and presented; there are 400 resume templates for every role imaginable. Over 20 cover letter templates. A user forum. Progress tests. And a database of every employer in every state in the USA. It’s a very complete resource package.

Fernando has also provided me with this short series of excerpts so you can view some extracts for yourself.




I think he has succeeded in his goal beyond any expectation. The resources and process he has created distill all the best practices into a simple process that anyone can follow to achieve success.

I’d like to thank Fernando for the time he’s given me to talk about his life and work and I wish him every success with the Successful Job Search Center.

If you’d like to know more about the SJSC programme, just follow this link:

http://www.findrightjobfast.com/special-offer/

If you’d like to connect with Fernando or view his Linkedin profile, here’s the link:

www.linkedin.com/in/fernandoratkoczy/

LinkedIn may be the top job search tool, but real connections are still essential

By Susan Adams, Forbes Staff

According to a new survey of job seekers, hiring managers, recruiters and HR executives, close to 100% of job seekers use LinkedIn as their number one social media site for job hunting. Hiring managers also prefer Linked in over other sites by two to one.

The survey by Right Management, the talent and career management arm of staffing giant Manpower, polled 300 job seekers and 100 people on the hiring side, including hiring managers, recruiters and human resource executives throughout North America. Among the job seekers, two thirds were Baby Boomers and one third were members of Generation X. Some 95% say they are looking for a permanent job, up from 84% in 2010. Just 23% want to be entrepreneurs though slightly more Gen X job seekers, 27%, want to work for themselves. Right Management does the survey once a year. It ran this survey in the second quarter of 2013.

As any job seeker or hiring manager knows, technology now dominates the job search process. Print media barely registers anymore among recruiters, according to the survey.

Some of the other findings are striking, if not surprising. One of the new trends: the rise of video interviewing, both live and pre-recorded. The number of job seekers who say they have had video interviews in the past year more than doubled from a year ago, to 18%. One quarter of Gen X candidates say they have done video interviews.

As for those doing the hiring, the majority use Skype. Pre-recorded interviews are still rare, with only 3% of candidates saying they have done them. Among hiring managers, 45% say they expect video resumes to become more common. For now, just 19% of hiring managers use video interviews, roughly the same as last year, though more than two thirds say they predict video interviews will spike in the next three years.

Here are some other findings from job candidates:

- Some 94% say they prefer LinkedIn as their chief job hunting tool.

- After LinkedIn, job seekers are more likely to use Google+ than Twitter. Gen X candidates rank Facebook, Google+ and Twitter evenly.

- Some 22% of job seekers use smartphone job search apps.

- Macs are on the rise: This year 86% say they own a PC, down from 91% a year ago, while 33% own a Mac, up from 23% last year.

- Landlines are also on the wane, with only 34% of all job candidates saying they have one, down from 40% a year ago. Even Baby Boomers are letting go of their landlines. Only 38% say they have one, down from 41% a year ago.

Here are some findings from the hiring side:

- Social media sites like LinkedIn are the top way to search for candidates. Hiring managers and recruiters also still use company websites and employee referrals.

- Job boards and recruiters themselves are on the decline

After LinkedIn, hiring managers use Facebook, then Google+ and Twitter in a distant fourth place.

- More than half use social media to post jobs and three quarters use it to find possible hires.

- Some 65% also use job boards. Company websites rank third.

Even with all this social media use, the most effective way to get a job remains the old-fashioned method: People find jobs through people they know. The Right Management survey comes with a telling quote from Senior Vice President Monika Morrow: “Success almost always comes down to the candidate making a personal connection with a person or persons on the hiring side. The technology, now so integral to the job search, is just a tool, not by itself a solution.”

Just today I got a comment from a frustrated job seeker on a story I wrote about young people and technology jobs: “I have personally applied to hundreds of such jobs, and haven’t even received so much as the courtesy of a response from the employers.” I fear this job hunter is making the mistake that so many people make: They use technology to the exclusion of human contact. It’s far more effective to apply to two or three jobs where you can find a personal connection than it is to apply to 100 jobs where you know no one and you can’t communicate with a real person beyond an automated application process.

As I’ve written many times, it’s essential to have an up-to-date LinkedIn profile so hiring managers and recruiters can find you. It can also be useful to hunt for openings using LinkedIn job listings or company sites. But it can also be more effective to figure out what you want to do and where you want to work and to find a way in before a job is listed.

If you find an online job listing that seems right, use your networks, both online and off, to make a human connection. Reach out through LinkedIn, Twitter, or better yet, by email or phone, and try to set up an in-person meeting. At the least, find out whether the job opening exists, or the listing is out of date. If it’s real, do your best to find a personal connection to the person who is doing the hiring. Technology is a great tool but it still doesn’t replace human contact.

This post originally appeared here:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/08/12/linkedin-still-rules-as-the-top-job-search-technology-tool-survey-says/

7 seconds - why that's all you may have to succeed or fail at interview

By David Hunt, PE

Two animals meet – in a diorama played out countless times across hundreds of millions of years. Within seconds, each must size the other up. Is this a friend or foe, predator or prey? And if of the same species, an ally, a rival, or a potential mate? Each animal must make an instinctive judgment about the other based on sight, sound, and smell with three drivers that are axiomatic:

1. Speed of decision. When an animal meets another for whom they might be on the menu, they need to decide quickly whether it’s “fight or flight”. Similarly, an animal looking for a meal needs to decide quickly to pounce before the other reacts. In either case, animals that take their time risk being lunch, or missing it.

2. Even if of the same species, while cannibalism is exceedingly rare in most cases, strangers are often rivals – for food or for mates, likely both; never mind other possible same-species threats. Again, this drives the need for a speedy judgment about the other to evaluate them against multiple possibilities, the majority of which aren’t good.

3. A bias towards fear and dislike. Any animal that gives another the benefit of the doubt risks not living to pass its genes along.

So making snap judgments about another is hardwired into us with a bias towards being distrusting. This is backed up by research – most communication is non-verbal as is routinely cited in innumerable places. How we appear, how we move, and sound, and smell. Many people in the job search business coach that a good first impression is the key to a successful interview, and in my own efforts to help others I tell people that most interviews are over in the first few minutes, with the remainder of the time being dedicated to the interviewer looking for things to justify the decision they made.

By pure coincidence several articles have come across my computer’s screen right as I was writing this article.

The first, Why Qualified Candidates Don’t Get Hired, cites several factors that can make or break a good first impression, to wit: your clothing, your handshake, your breath, your general enthusiasm. He cites William Knegendorf, who is a consultant, speaker, and author on hiring strategies for individuals and organizations:

While surveying 327 Hiring Mangers on how long it takes (on average) for them to decide NO to hiring an applicant after the beginning of an interview, [Knegendorf’s] data showed an average time to rejection of 4 to less than 10 seconds. And what did the hiring managers he surveyed say was the cause of their rush to judgment? “I didn’t like them.” Skills or talent was never mentioned.

Reread that quotation and mull it over a little. Less than ten seconds and the interview might be over. The door is still open, or it has closed in the time that you, the job seeker, have smiled, shaken their hand, and said “So nice to meet you.”

The second article, 7 seconds to a stronger first impression, seconds this fleetingly-fast time. Pulling from research done at New York University’s Stern Graduate School of Business, the article states that people make decisions about others in seven seconds. The article then goes on to highlight things to do to improve how others perceive you in those critical first moments.

Yet another article, Dressing to Impress and How That Can Have a Huge Impact on Your Professional Career, discusses research from the University of Oregon:

Dr. Frank Bernieri, an associate professor of psychology at Oregon State University, recently conducted just such a study in which he probed employers about the traits they deem most favorable of prospective applicants. Conservative, polished dress and a well groomed appearance was at the top of the list. Dr. Bernieri also found most employers make a decision in an interview about an applicant’s rightness for the job within 10-30 seconds of a first meeting.

The article goes on to state that appearance has been found to be so critical in interviews that the University of Illinois Extension has a mini-course and series of online tutorials about the importance of appearance, style, grooming, etc.

As skilled professionals, however, let alone as sentient beings we should rightfully take umbrage at the idea that it is on superficial aspects like how we dress, how we groom, etc., that take precedence in an interview over what we know and what problems we can solve. After all, a great American man once said “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Yet we will be so judged – on innumerable things having absolutely nothing to do with our ability to do the work.

Weight and how you move / carry yourself will be used as a proxy for your energy level, drive, health, and stamina. (I again will take the liberty to brag about the fact I’ve lost almost 50 pounds after reading the book Why We Get Fat by Gary Taubes and taking his recommendations… with, hopefully, another 20 to go.)

Appearance – clothing, accessories, grooming, tattoos, and piercings – will be taken as a proxies for your attention to detail, respect for the positions of the people you are meeting, and your judgment in thinking about the long-term consequences of your decisions.

Body and breath odor will be taken as a proxy, again, for your attention to detail, your physical health, as well as your consideration for others.

And so on. Body language is a strange thing. Some aspects of reading and using body language can be taught, and I’ve found the book How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less quite helpful. Another book I’ve read is Contact: The First Four Minutes, and while this is more intended for those courting a mate, many of the principles apply.

A good friend of mine, Greg Chenevert (side plug: check out his dog treats and other pet/animal related products) once gave a very interesting and informative seminar on the psychology of interviewing and decision-making. Anyone who knows Greg will smile and nod in total agreement if told Greg is so persuasive he can talk a hungry dog off a meat truck. He knows his stuff. (In full disclosure, I’ve written a recommendation for him on LinkedIn, and vice versa.)

'WOW - I want THAT one!'

In his seminar I learned just how emotional decision-making really is. Most people, per his seminar, make decisions emotionally – and then seek out facts and information to rationalize this emotional decision. Having been in the automotive industry, specifically,Ford Motor Company and its components-and-subsystems spinoff Visteon Corporation, the adage is that “style sells cars.” Yes, things like impact resistance, gas mileage, etc., are all important – but what’s critical is the WOW! factor. Companies want people to walk into the showroom and go WOW I want that one! Gas mileage, safety, etc., will be used to rationalize the emotional WOW! decision after-the-fact; things that don’t meet the predetermined desires will be rationalized away. (As an example, I cite automotive lighting in which I spent four years of my career. Lights with the optics in the lens, as opposed to in the reflector, are significantly cheaper to make. But clear lenses showing shiny, reflective light interiors are much more glitzy and attractive. The WOW! factor of clear lenses trumps the added cost… something accounted for in their on-going use.)

Personal experience verifies this. My wife and I own a minivan – brand-spanking new. Why? Because my wife felt instantly comfortable in it. Looking at used ones, as was the original plan for cost purposes? Never happened. My wife – then mid-way through her pregnancy – felt comfortable and safe. That settled it.

So is this seven-seconds-to-judgment fair? No.

But fair or not, it is what it is. This is reality: making snap judgments about others as people meet is hardwired into us as a survival trait, a trait selected-for over millions upon millions of years. And while effort and time can overcome an initial bad impression, you as a job seeker may not be given the chance. Making decisions emotionally based on sight, sound, and smell is hardwired into the limbic system, the seat of emotion and memory in our brain – and probably the oldest structure in the brain (I’d like to definitively say the oldest, but apparently this is the subject of some debate these days).

So what can people do?

The first thing is to know what’s costing you that good first impression. Sit your friends and family down for a real, honest feedback session. Solicit trusted networking contacts the same way. Tell them you want them to pull no punches. You need to know. You’re unemployed. And if you are a skilled professional – and odds are you are one! – you are watching the calendar tick over day after week after month with, if you’re lucky, interviews. But still no offers.

So get that feedback. Read up on how to polish your first impression, and then reinforce it with non-verbal communication like body language. One article I just found comes from Britain: First impressions count: how can you overcome interviewer bias?

And then take action. Skills, knowledge, a good resume, references… all will help get you in the door to meet people. But your next job depends on the visceral, instinctive reaction you provoke in your potential new boss in the first few seconds of your introduction. The sooner you truly grasp that, the sooner you’ll land.

(c) 2013, David Hunt, PE

David Hunt is a Mechanical Design Engineer in southern New Hampshire looking for his "next opportunity" that allows him to design new products and shepherd them to stable production. His LinkedIn profile is: www.linkedin.com/in/davidhuntmecheng/; he blogs at davidhuntpe.wordpress.com and tweets at @davidhuntpe.

How to land a great job in two weeks (and how a mirror can help!)

By Neil Patrick

I have had an interesting few days. Two weeks ago I had a wonderful challenge land on the doorstep quite literally!

It was in the form of my step daughter, who had struggled through her first year of university due to some unfortunately timed health problems and had been forced to admit defeat and abandon her degree, return home and try and find a job.

She wasn’t in a great place mentally. She felt as if all her aspirations had gone up in smoke and that she didn’t have enough good work experience to land a great job, or even a not so great job for that matter. Not an ideal place to be in when you need to find work fast.

She’s independently minded too and likes to do things herself without help. Given what I write about on this blog and my great contacts, you’d have thought she’d be enthusiastic to take advantage of my assistance, but no, I had to persuade her to accept it!

But I am pleased to report that she relented and we set about the task together and now, just two weeks later she is starting work at the end of August. She has a brand new job, but not just any job, a good job with a great firm on our doorstep and a job that I know she’ll excel at.

She applied for just one job, went through a four stage selection process and beat about 200 other applicants.

The four stages were:

• Online application 
• Telephone interview 
• 3 hour assessment centre 
• Face to face panel interview 

So I thought I’d share the process we used to get the desired outcome from start to finish in just two weeks.

 
Research the market

We started by deciding what sort of firms we would target. The criteria in this case were:

• They must be nearby (less than 20 miles away) or the travel costs and time would be a problem.
• They should be expanding so that she’d have career growth opportunities
• They should be a recognised market leader
• They should have a good track record of investing in their people and helping them develop.

This was actually a rather quick step. We easily found the firms locally with a bit of help from Google and the local press online that were accredited as Investors in People and who were getting media attention because of their success.

We also found that the better firms had good websites which provided information on the type of people they were wanting to hire. We read this information closely to focus our search down to the best targets. 

Know a lot about the employer and job you are targeting

This was a quick process too. Once we had the (very) short target list, I showed her how to use advanced searches on Google to quickly find the right information about these firms. As it turns out, I happened to know the firms we’d identified quite well. I hadn't worked for any of them myself, but I knew people that did and I knew they'd help us with some inside information.

But being the independent woman she is, she decided that she’d do all her own research and turned up some recent facts and contacts, that I wasn't aware of. This was to prove invaluable later in the process, enabling her to prove that she was serious about wanting this job. She'd also be able to talk intelligently about the business, which would both impress her interviewers and make the experience less stressful too.

Get the application right

The first step was an online application. But before we even began to complete this, I sat down with her and her own draft of her resume and rewrote the whole thing. It was not looking good when we started. She had been working in a bar for the last year and had previously worked in high street fashion stores. Hardly the sort of job history that would make her look like a high flyer. Plus we had to address the potential negative that she’d become a college drop out.

But after I’d rewritten her resume, things were looking much better. It wasn’t any magic on my part, I simply went through the job description and highlighted all the keywords that were in it. Then I went back to her draft resume and rephrased her descriptions of what she had done, so that it was describing how she’d already done these things in her previous job. I should point out that everything we said was completely true, there were no exaggerations or fabrications.

Only once we’d done this and she had verified with me that the facts were all totally accurate did she take this information and place them into the online application. 

Excel at the telephone Interview

Within 24 hours of sending the online application, an email came back asking to book a telephone interview. Things were looking up!

This was going to be important and so we sat down for a couple of hours and discussed all the points we wanted to get across in the telephone interview as well as the questions I knew would be asked, like, ‘Why do you want to work here?’ and ‘What do you know about this business?’.

We rehearsed how she would talk about her failure to complete her degree. We distilled this into a little story that explained her history in a way which minimised the negatives and maximised the positives. She was preparing her own version of her life history which was showing she was now the perfect person to be hired for not just any job, but this job in particular.

We also rehearsed all the things she was going to want to talk about during the phone interview, to ensure we got over the points we wanted – she would be actively influencing the discussion, not just passively reacting to the questions. She prepared a little list of bullet points of topics that she’d talk about at the appropriate time.

We also practised delivery. For her, we decided, she’d perform best by standing in front of a mirror whilst on the phone and that she would smile frequently during the phone interview. These three things - standing, watching you own face and smiling are actually audible during a phone conversation. If you take these steps, they will introduce a subtle but noticeable change in your voice. You’ll sound positive, happier, more energised and more focussed.

After the phone interview, I asked how it went. She was happy, it had gone well and she’d actually enjoyed it! The next day, she was invited to attend an assessment centre the following week. 

Stand out for the right reasons at the assessment centre

We were still along way away from our goal. But again focus and preparation were the keys.

We went back again to the job description and isolated the behaviours and personal characteristics the firm wanted for the role. These would form the basis of how she was to present herself and behave during the assessment centre.

Based on this we then prepared: 

• The most suitable outfit for the day 
• The precise schedules and travel arrangements to guarantee she’d not just arrive on time, but with plenty of time to get relaxed and perhaps talk to some people in reception. 
• How she would interact with the other candidates and organisers. In this case we decided that she’d not try and dominate but would instead be helpful and friendly with everyone there and take the initiative to engage with the others who would mostly all be feeling at least a little nervous and anxious. 

We also practised rhythmic breathing so that if her nerves were starting to get the better of her, she could get them back under control 

Have the final interview thoroughly rehearsed

Towards the end of the assessment centre exercises, she was asked by one of the organisers to leave. She was crestfallen. In fact, the reason was that she was being whisked away was for a final interview and the organisers didn't wish to alert the other candidates to the fact that they had in fact not been chosen.

The final interview was her chance to ask all the carefully selected questions we had worked out in advance. Again, all designed to prove to the employer that she was the perfect person to hire.

The final interview was she says quite easy! But that’s because we’d prepared and rehearsed every step in advance and left nothing to chance.

The following day, she was telephoned and offered the job, together with a starting date of the end of August. So in two weeks, we’d turned around her life from university drop out to a new career. We applied for a total of one (very carefully chosen) job, and got one offer. That’s all we needed.

Total time investment by both of us I estimate was about 50 hours, which I think would be impossible if we were going after more than one job. And yes she had to beat 200 others, but I would estimate that from the 200 or so online applications, about half would have been telephone interviewed, and half of these invited to the assessment centres which were run over three days.

At every stage, even as late as the assessment centre, candidates were in their own words ‘winging it’. Reminds me of the old cliché, ‘failure to prepare is to prepare to fail.’

Mission accomplished!