Thursday, March 26, 2009

Job Connection Tools for You!

When it comes to your job search these days, it is imperative to consider the plethora of available tools that can assist you with the job search and placement process. Is every tool going to work for you? No! But does that mean you don’t try? After all, you need a job right?

Among this plethora of tools are job boards, career coaches, career mentors, hr professionals, job recruiters, career networking sites, social networks, online digital applications, and the list goes on. Each of these tools has something in common – they do not all work for everyone and they are not all autonomous in the sense that you don’t need just one of these tools in most cases.

Here are some examples of tools that work for some and not others/everyone.

While most cannot afford to pay a career coach the thousands of dollars for their services, some can. For those that can afford it, a successful and proven career coach can be a wise choice in helping you find your next career choice. In selecting a career coach however, please do your proper due-diligence and make sure that they have the years of professional experience behind them to educate and provide you with the knowledge that they have gained from their vast years of experience. Do not be content with a career coach who simply wants to get you excited and motivated, as that alone will not necessarily catapult your career.

Job Boards can also help but there again the probability of being found and connecting with a job is only about 2-5% on average (based on available research). Typically, people who are finding success on these boards have a unique or highly skilled component that leaps out from their resume like CPA, MBA, etc. Another issue that I have with these sites is that your information is out there for many to grab, and for me that is a security concern (expressed in some of my previous postings, which I strongly recommend reading).

Job recruiters can also help. There are several blog posts that I also recommend reading if you haven’t already, on how recruiters can be of great help for job seekers. The main component with job recruiters is that they have relationships with company hiring managers and have much more knowledge of what that company is looking for than a job board. Recruiters can be a great in-road to many corporations. Are all job recruiters good? Of course not! Though we are a recruiting agency, we realize that, and actually discuss that several times throughout our blog posts as well.

The main point is that like many things in life, some things are effective for some and not for others. But a job is a necessity for most, and trying different things is also a necessity, especially with today’s job market conditions and the changing landscape of job placement.

A new online application by JTL Services, Inc., a premiere staffing company, may actually and finally be a tool good for most if not all job seekers. The application is in the final stages of development, preparing to beta-launch in a few short weeks. The site is www.myjobcast.com and you can pre-register there right now for free.

This new online application is in essence a communication tool that will help job seekers track their resume sending, track who is opening their resume, and secure it at the same time. The site will also assist with interview scheduling, reference generation and storage, interview feedback and other vital components to the hiring process. Finally, the site will send updates via SMS service directly to member’s mobile phones. There are other features, but this is the phase 1 premise.

“We simply wanted to create a tool that can be used by most if not all, including providers (recruiters, career coaches, mentors and the like). I got tired of not being able to help so many people. My niche is Accounting and Finance, and Information Technology. We receive thousands of resumes, with many coming from other verticals and we could do nothing with or for those individuals. Now we can! Some people will love this new tool and some will surly hate it – like everything else in life I guess”, says Jeff LeFevre, managing partner of JTL Services, Inc.

I strongly recommend, going to myjobcast.com and pre-registering as it is a free service to those that do so. The tool is a creation by individuals close to job search and placement for over a decade. The tool will be robust and comprehensive, and might help differentiate you and help you get your next job!

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

The Importance of References

A critical, and yet overlooked component of the job fulfillment process is having solid references available as soon as possible, and even beforehand. References are crucial because they can validate a candidate’s work experiences and most hiring managers require this as part of their hiring practice.

Most recruiters can tell you that they despise the process of getting job candidate references – and for good reason. It typically involves making several phone calls to track down past supervisors who will vouch for someone’s career abilities. This can be like pulling teeth. Reaching them is half the battle. The other half of the battle is getting them to communicate what you are seeking without their maundering.

Recruiters who finally do reach a reference will then ask various important questions and then hand write notes from the verbal conversation on a sheet of scribble paper and then type out those notes and prepare them to fax or email the candidate reference back to their client. What a process. There has to be a better way!

Sure enough… there is! In fact a new site is preparing to launch in the upcoming months. MyJobCast.com will offer several automated components that will help facilitate the job closing process in a much more effective manner. One of these automated features will be an online digital reference generator. This feature will essentially allow job candidates to use the system to send their past supervisor(s) an email seeking a reference. This individual will receive the email message and the unique URL link which will connect them to an online reference form. Once filled out, the individual hits send and the reference system will automatically create a PDF file and send it back to the job seeker’s online profile for future use. The premise is to have the references available beforehand!

Today you have to be more proactive about references. Many recruiters will testify that the ideal practice would be to send references upfront to hiring managers who have scheduled an interview with their job candidates. I highly recommend this practice at the individual level as well. The reason is that it can help set the expectation and overall outcome of the interview. If you have great references to showcase and have them ready, that is saying something and you should not shy away from promoting your references. After all they are promoting you!

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Gate Keeper 101

Today when it comes to finding a job, the "gate keeper" is no longer a "secretary" screening your mail or phone calls to connect to a potential hiring manager regarding a job opening. In our modern era of technology, the gate keeper has by and large become a computer application that captures your provided/sent information, i.e., your resume, and scans it's contents for specific predetermined keywords and phrases carefully selected by hiring managers and human resource personnel.

Not familiar with these (Applicant Tracking Systems) ATS applications? I recently wrote a blog in regarding to ATS systems that you may wish to read for more details. If you have read this blog post, then you have a basic understanding of the the nuances with these applications. The tragedy is that at times, you inevitably have to go through these "gate keeper" systems to submit your resume via the corporate resume submission black hole. This being the case, I have some recommendations you may want to consider beforehand.

As job seekers catch on and rewrite their resumes tailored to a specific job and use specific trigger keywords and phrases, the applications are forced to become more artificially intuitive in what they are meant to perform for hiring managers - resume screening. Hence the problem is - as job seekers better understand how to trick these systems, the systems in turn, are reprogrammed to be more effective.

But perhaps you’re not a real life human popinjay, or online digital word-smith. What can or should you do to try and get through this initial application's screening?

Well, the goal always was and continues to remains the same - you have to be aggressive, prepared and proactive - in no particular order. Overall, the best thing to do is to try and find a contact at the company you are seeking employment with via am email or telephone number and politely explaining that you heard there was a job opening that you felt to be a perfect candidate. If you can forward you resume off to that person then perhaps they can then help guide or nudge you through the internal corporate process. Ultimately it is still much easier to get an interview if someone from within the organization can refer you to the appropriate gate keeper.

I realize that some HR personnel actually review every resume that comes into a company, but I also realize that some companies are just too large and to humanly sift through thousands of resumes can be too cumbersome and ineffective for internal hiring personnel. The trouble with this, is that you may be perfect for a job and never get the time of day to showcase yourself to the proper hiring manager.

While there continues to be an evolving process to enhance the congested superhighways of resume sending, I am still of the school that being aggressive and creative can help get you further. I urge those job seekers that disperse their resumes in these black holes, and assume they have done all they can do to find that next job, to rethink their strategy.

Do not rely on what appears to be the only gate keeper - the online ATS. In many cases, there are other options that can help you make the connection that can lead you into your next perfect job!

Monday, March 16, 2009

Demoralized Job Seekers Need Your Input

I know providing your own input on a blog can seem a wasteful task. However, many job seekers are simply losing faith in society as a whole. Being without a job, not being able to pay the accumulating bills, and listening to doom and gloom are providing the ingredients for demoralization in job seekers that can use your help!

What does your experience tell you about our current economic catastrophe? Do you ever recall spending so much time basking in an overload of doom and gloom, delivered on an hourly basis from our mediasphere? I know for myself every night is a tiring channel surfing event. Eagerly searching the abundance of cable channels to find that one station going out on a limb and offering a glimmer of hope.

I listen to the news now and at times they equate the current distress to that of the later '80's. Quite honestly, I was fresh out of high school and don't recall these levels of negative hourly news breaks. I also don't recall much chatter about it from my dad, mom or other "working adults". Being in my early 20's, I am pretty sure the economy was not the first priority on my wondering mind. My social calendar certainly didn't co-mingle with the "real world" so much in those days.

In the 1990's, I can recall working several jobs. Although there may have in fact been some economic troubling years in the 1990's, I surely didn't feel the effect. Quite honestly, I didn't notice any recession tremors at all. This is the first recessionary period that I feel the effects, see the effects and think of the effects throughout the course of my day.

The media has just about everything to do with this lingering pesimism. The television with its 24-hour new stations all repeatedly talking about the crisis our global world economy is facing. The Internet is another playground for such torturous negativity. Millions and millions of voices versus hundreds of cable channels being updated every second of everyday.

There are so many people today worrying about either losing their job or searching for one. It's hard enough to go through that and even harder to hear such barrages of negativity from everywhere they turn. Where should they look for help? Will the stimulus plan(s) really help? Can a government really help people with their economic problems? Are the elected officials really experienced in solving these problems? Did the majority of these elected officials own a business that had to generate money which provided payroll for their employees? Isn’t there some validity to the saying “give a man a fish feed him for a day, teach a man to fish you’ll feed him for a life time”.

A blog usually has someone’s opinions about a subject but I’m more interested in what others have to share about their experiences with an economy in turmoil. I'm not looking for any elaborate answers (though you may certainly bloviate as much as you'd like), as any shared experiences will go a long way towards my objectives here.

If you have experienced recessionary periods like this, what can your experiences share? If you recently got let go of your previous job and were fortunate enough to find a new job, please share your feedback.

If you are a recruiter what are you doing to help out your candidates in this market?

Share your points. I believe your experiences can help people to figure out what they need to do. If you have a website offering services that can help - here is a place to inform of that service.

If we can all pitch in and share positive result experiences, it would do a world of good!

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Beware of Using ATS When Applying for Jobs Online

Today practically every company has some sort of ATS (Applicant Tracking System). With unemployment heading north and job candidates sending sometimes 70 to 80 resumes out per week there are a couple of things you need to know.

Sending your resume using many of the largest online job boards like Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com might not help you as much as you think with finding a new job!

Today more than ever, companies are trying to grab as many resumes into their database as possible. A problem with this practice is the tsunami of resumes that hiring managers are receiving via their ATS. They are inundated with people who are under qualified or over qualified for position and the ones that are right for the position are many times being overlooked. The research out there shows that there is a very low average (somewhere between 2-5%) of people who use these job boards that actually get placed in a position they find there.

Job Candidates today need an edge when it comes to finding a new Job. One area I strongly support is finding a successful recruiter with a strong client list to work with who can use his connections to help you out. I've provided countless supporting reasons for this throughout my blog. But even using a recruiter might not help many.

The fact is there is also a low percentage of candidates to placements with recruiting as well. Most candidates that meet a recruiter will not end up finding a job through that recruiter. Now... those job candidates that do not get placed by that recruiter will still indeed benefit from spending some time with a during a screening or just through a conversation with that recruiter.

Recruiters can provide very specific and effective recommendations job searching techniques that ultimately can be used by that candidate to help find and get that next job. The reality is that recruiters are seeking out the best of the best for their clients. For good reason too, since companies by and large pay, on average, 25% of a job candidate's first year annual salary to a recruiter for a placement. The last thing a recruiter wants to do is send a candidate to a client that is not of the highest quality in every aspect. After all, that is one of the main purposes that a company uses a recruiter for in the first place.

There is a misconception out there that needs to be cleared up however. Companies DO NOT pay candidates less in salary because they are coming in through a recruiter. Job salaries are set in place by a company regardless if a candidate is placed by internal hiring managers directly or by recruiters.

Now back to ATS... The fact of the matter is that when a job seeker submits their resume via a bridge like Monster.com into a corporation they are actually sending their resume to a database with thousands of other possible candidates. Then, a piece or software (not a human) scans through every word of your resume and determines if you can be a fit. This is bad. I mean, it can be good for a hiring manager in that it reduces the amount of resumes that float to the top considerably, but it is bad because there are very qualified and very talented applicants that may never get noticed.

You simply cannot rely on a piece of software to get you a job. It's like anything else in life... if you want it, you've got to be creative and aggressive in getting it. If it is a job at, let's say GE, then find out who runs the department you are seeking to get into and find a few contact names and email addresses and reach for them. Find them on other social networks like LinkedIn.

You've got to separate yourselves from the pack. You've got to be aggressive. You've got to be creative and finally you've got to stop ignoring reality and be less complacent. A job isn't going to find you!