Favorite Job Search Tools?

What are your favorite job search tools? This post was inspired by Robert Wright’s post: My Favourite Online Tools (as a recruiter)

As a speaker to job clubs and job ministries around the U.S., I see tens of thousands of job seekers who use various things and create (or use) various job search systems.  Here are some tools I’d recommend:

1. LinkedIn.  This is the 800lb gorilla in the social space, and has replaced other “must-have” tools for job seekers.  If you are a professional, in (or preparing for a) transition, you MUST be on LinkedIn.  Period.
2. JibberJobber.  I’m totally biased, since this is the company I started almost six years ago.  But I’ve seen so many people get value out of it, in a job search and after they land.  I think every professional should be more serious about career management and organizing their job search, and they should have this CRM-like system to help them navigate the relationships  they track during their job search.
3. Email and phone.  Regular communication tools.  Have good email address that isn’t going to misbrand or embarrass you.
4. Resume.  No, it’s not dead.  People still ask for it. They still demand it.  Unless they are super cool San Francisco startups that think resumes are lame (that’s probably because they are so small they don’t hire much), the companies you are targeting, and the managers you network with, will ask for a resume.  Not having one could be a show stopper.
5. Business cards. Another thing that is not dead (unless you are in the silicon bubble).  Handing out something that people can take with them can be valuable, and differentiating.  And, what you put on your card could be brand-reinforcing.

What are YOUR favorite job search tools?

Posted by Jason Alba on February 21st, 2012 | No Comments

10 Tips For Working With Recruiters

Scott Corwin wrote a post titled Top 10 Tips for Candidates Working with Recruiters.  If I would have read this article in my job search, I would have saved at least a month of wasted time.

I thought recruiters were my friend, and worked for me.  Further, I thought with my experience, that I would be a great gift to a recruiter.  That is, I would be an easy fee they could collect. I was sure I was so hireable that the right recruiter would latch onto me, help me land within a few weeks, and we’d both win (I’d get my job, they’d get a fat commission off me).

It wasn’t that way at all, and I’ll be forever grateful to the recruiter who set me straight and helped me understand the candidate (that is, the job seeker) / recruiter relationship.

Going back to Scott’s article, this should be required reading for anyone who is trying to network a lot with recruiters.

Scott’s number one point is perhaps the most important to understand: Recruiters are paid to fill a job not find you a job.

Number five: Preparation is the difference.  I’ve seen this as a hiring manager and interviewer… no matter how good you think you are without preparing, you are not as good as the person who has prepared.  Even if they sound a bit more rehearsed/canned, they sound like they cared enough about the position to take the time to prepare for it… and that means a lot.

Number six: Q&A with the recruiter should be renamed to the last sentence of his explanation: Just be truthful.  If you lie to a recruiter (who should be “on your side”) you are setting yourself up to be blacklisted by the recruiter, their firm, and their colleagues (yes, they talk).  Misrepresentation can reflect very badly on them, and they can lose trust with their clients.  Sadly, this is an issue I continually read about, so it must be happening more than you would think.

Number ten: Karma and referrals.  I got to a point in my job search where I was ready to introduce almost anyone to my contacts… if you are an open book for your recruiting contacts that you’ve developed a relationship with, you can expect to get some goodness from them in return.  It might not be immediate, it might take years, but it’s a principle of preparing to “get.”  Need more?  Read Bob Burg’s The Go-Giver.

Check out Scott’s complete post here.

Posted by Jason Alba on February 16th, 2012 | No Comments

Happy Valentines Day. Get Out Of Here.

Did you hear about the 8,700 jobs getting cut from Pepsi?  Or 13,000 jobs from American Airlines?  Or Kraft’s 1,600 layoff?  That’s what Caroline Ceniza-Levine writes about on her Forbes article titled 10 Career Steps to Take After A Layoff.  Read the article here. It’s a very tactical, short article that helps you get grounded as you start your transition.

From this side of the fence (that is, having gone through miserable job search, and having survived), I can say that the second point, stay positive to yourself, is very difficult.  As much as you want and try to stay positive, things happen.  And one thing after another can really drag you down.  But, if you let the negativity take over, that becomes your message, and your stench, and people won’t want to help you until you are ready.  It’s easy to read about, hard to do, but absolutely critical.

Caroline’s fifth point, prepare your story to explain what happened, is also critical.  We want to tell people “the truth,” or our side of the story, so we don’t look like we were fired.  We might throw in a pinch of truth about how our former boss was a loser, or a dash of reality about how doomed the company was, but in reality, your story needs to be absent of those elements and ONLY portray the best, most professional you.  This includes any body language and wink-wink gestures.  Stay professional, and focus on the task at hand, which is getting more networking, interviewing and job opportunities!

Her sixth point, collect contact info for when you leave, is also more important than you might think.  The best way to manage and organize all of that is in JibberJobber (which is a tool I designed in my job search, six years ago).  Put those contacts and their information into JibberJobber, and figure out which relationships you wan to nurture.

I’d like to caution you about the eighth point, take time to asses and reflect.  Caroline says “take a few days”… yes, a few days.  DO NOT TAKE MONTHS.  As I’ve travelled the country and spoken to job seekers, the ones who take months off to figure out their life seem to have a hard time getting back into things… if nothing else, just network hard and effectively, even if you don’t do any other job search tactic.

She has more… read her entire article here.

Posted by Jason Alba on February 14th, 2012 | No Comments

Preparing for Job Search Interviews

Supposedly the economy is getting better.  I’ve seen it as I travel around the country speaking to job search groups.  More people are celebrating new jobs, and more people are interviewing.  That’s great!

How are you preparing for your job interviews?  I didn’t prepare much, except emotionally… I really should have prepared more with my responses, scripted them out, rehearsed them, and gotten really comfortable with them.

I also should have brainstormed stories to use in my responses, so I could recall significant events and quantifiable things (like how much I generated in sales, etc.), but I didn’t do that. I thought off-the-cuff was good enough, since I’m such a smart guy.

Yeah, right.

Prepare!  Seriously, prepare!

In light of that, here are a few resources to help you have a better job interview:

From today’s LinkedIn headlines, on Forbes, Top Executive Recruiters Agree There Are Only Three True Job Interview Questions.  They are:

• Can you do the job?
• Will you love the job?
• Can we tolerate working with you?

Not sure how I feel about those, but if you think about the dozen questions you’ll be asked, and how your responses will really help the interviewer understand how you would answer the three questions above, then you can come across as the stronger candidate… or, the right candidate.

On Twitter, I saw a tweet from @MyStaffingPro pointing to John Sullivan’s common and critical interview problems: The Top 30 Most Common (and Critical) Interview Problems, followed up with 20 More of the Most Common (and Critical) Interview Problems.

50 is a lot to go through, but if you are preparing for an interview, browse through them and understand the issues.

I remember going through a two day workshop and learning how to interview better.  In my next two interviews I remember thinking I was 100 times more prepared than the person asking the questions – it was almost disgusting how unprepared interviewers are… simply reading from a list of questions and not really digesting the answers.  The next time I saw people from my workshop I heard the same thing.  As Dr. Sullivan says:

What’s wrong with corporate job interviews? Pretty much everything!

Do the best you can, prepare, and be the thing that is not wrong with job interviews!

Posted by Jason Alba on February 10th, 2012 | No Comments

Millennial (Gen Y) Unemployment Rate… Yuck!

A few years ago I couldn’t help but see a number of articles and blog posts about how millennials were going to change the world, and how awesome they were, and how much better they were than Gen X and Baby Boomers.

They were entitled, but no one could complain, because they were going to plug the hole when all the Baby Boomers left the workforce.  It’s as if they were entitled to their entitlement!

Many, many speakers spoke at HR conferences about how to find them, engage them, hire them, keep them happy, reward them, communicate with them, and understand them.  They didn’t want to pay their dues, didn’t have any job loyalty, were rude, didn’t really put a full days work in, and wanted all the perks they could get.  They were prone to leave for stupid reasons (another company offered more or better free coffee).

The picture that was painted of them was, I think, unfair, and innaccurate.  But “expert” speakers made (and some still do) a fortune telling us how to think of these kids.

That was when the economy was good.

Since it turned sour, the millennials don’t get as much ink.  Partly because the Baby Boomers haven’t really left the workforce… they can’t!  Partly because many millennials (that I talked to) didn’t like the stereotypes.  They were, indeed, hard workers, and wanted to contribute, and were okay paying their dues.  They were stereotyped.

Stereotypes are BAD.  They help us understand like things, but no one wants to be classified, and have all the characteristics of the stereotype to be inferred on us! We are all individuals, right?

Oh well.  Thanks to the experts, the millennials now seem like a bunch of whiners.

Many are, in fact, not whiners.  But that’s the brand that has been imposed on them.

Read this article, by Catherine Ruetshlin, titled What Unemployment Rates Don’t Tell Us About Millennials’ Jobs Woes

If you are a millennial, don’t let the numbers (which I think are fake) get to you.  There is opportunity out there.

If you need to hire, don’t let the stereotypes influence you when interviewing (regardless of what generation people are)… get to know the individual!

Posted by Jason Alba on February 9th, 2012 | No Comments

The List: What Do I Want/Need Out Of My Next Job?

I remember counseling someone during a transition a few years ago.  He was interested in only one thing: salary.

I was in a “bad relationship” with my employer.  Not bad enough to leave, but bad enough to know I didn’t like it there.  It wasn’t healthy for me at all, and I should have left. The experience helped me realize there’s a lot more to a job than just a paycheck, no matter how good it is.

What’s on your list of must-have’s in a new role?

I explored this a little bit on this post: Blue Collar Job Search – What Do You Want in a Job

I put that post together for a friend who was in transition.  He wasn’t sure what kind of environment he wanted to work in, which was affecting his ability to narrow down companies, titles, roles, etc.  This list was quite helpful.

I found a new list on recruitingblogs from Paul Crowley.  The post is titled What do you get from a job besides a paycheck?

It’s an important post to read. If you don’t understand the answers to those questions, you might get stuck in a job that just isn’t right for you. The culture might be wrong.  The way you are appreciated might not fit.  The non-monetary compensation might be out of line.  The ethics might cross lines that you never wanted to cross.

Go through Paul’s list right now.  Answering those questions, and the questions I pose in my post above, can give you focus and clarity in your search.

Posted by Jason Alba on February 3rd, 2012 | No Comments

Open Letter to Job Seekers, from Recruiter Amy Ala

Here’s a brilliant read that you must digest. As a job seeker it’s easy to get frustrated at recruiters (and hiring managers, HR, etc.) because they aren’t giving us the respect we are used to (the respect we had when we had a job, with a title and a salary).

As a recruiter, Amy has frustrations with job seekers…. and I’m sure she’s seen all kinds of bad behavior. Read her letter to you here. Her advice is bulleted below, but you MUST read her post, or you’ll miss the message:

• Know yourself
• Find companies that hire what you are
• Talk to her (the recruiter)
• Apply selectively
• Be patient (with a link to a story of job seeker patience that paid off)

What do you think? Are you different than the typical job seeker? Are you better than the average recruiter candidate?

I thought I was, too.

Turned out I was exactly like the rest of them.

Read Amy’s letter, and differentiate yourself from the rest!

Posted by Jason Alba on February 1st, 2012 | No Comments

Is Google Your New Resume?

I’ve seen plenty of bloggers say that “Google is the new resume.”  They say “if you aren’t on Google (or LinkedIn), you don’t exist.”

The thinking is valid… to a degree.

Here is what they are trying to say, and my take:

Google is the new resume: Why use the boring old two page document that no one likes?  Instead, I should be able to Google you and see how amazing and qualified you are.

Here’s my take: The search results for someone on Google have a long ways to go before they will replace a resume, for many reasons:

• A resume is a succinct document that summarizes your career and qualifications, and should be customized for the industry, job title or company.  Google results are hodgepodge results, thrown together by a search engine, and not controlled by the candidate.
• A resume is accepted by the people making the decision, or weighing in.  The format is common and familiar.  If you have to run someone by 10 people, are you going to forward their Google search results and let people figure out what is good and what to ignore, or are you going to forward their resume?  Everyone knows what a resume is, and how to read it. Not everyone knows how to sift through search results.
• A resume is part of the ingrained (defined: Firmly fixed or established; difficult to change.) hiring process. When has HR even moved fast on anything, much less something as ingrained as the resume?
• Even if a candidate could control the Google search results (see Vizibility if you want to attempt this), many people don’t have anything that will come up when you search for them… which goes to the next point….

If you aren’t on Google (or LinkedIn), you don’t exist: Recruiters and hiring decision makers and influencers look for talent on search engines, mostly Google.  If they search for, for example, a project manager in Seattle who is certified and has 20 years experience in a certain industry, and that matches you exactly, but you don’t have a good Google presence or a LinkedIn profile that comes up, you don’t exist, they wont’ find you, and you will miss out.  In short, you don’t exist.

Here’s my take: Recruiters are not as shallow and simple as this. Many recruiters I know are networkers who spend more time on the phone and hanging at industry events. If they are looking for you, they will ask their network, who are hopefully your colleagues in your company and other companies in your area.  You’ll be harder to find, but that’s the challenge a recruiter accepts.  If everyone was easy to find in a Google or LinkedIn search, the value of a recruiter would be diminished.  Valuable recruiters specialize in finding the hard-to-find talent… whether they are online or not!

Will technology replace the resume?  Perhaps, eventually, but not anytime soon.

Posted by Jason Alba on January 25th, 2012 | No Comments

The Importance of a Cover Letter

I’ve heard debate recently about cover letters – are they important, do you need to write one, etc.

Cover letters are kind of hard to write.  Maybe they are more of a pain, really, than they are hard to write. And anything that is a pain to job seekers is questioned… “waa, waa, do we really need to spend more than 3 minutes on this thing?  Waa…”

It seems that if we have to take more than a few clicks to do something in our job search, it’s a waste of our time.

Not true with cover letters.

Let me share an experience I had this morning.  It was with a LinkedIn introduction, not a cover letter, but the concept is similar.

I got a LinkedIn introduction request from someone who I didn’t recognize.  Turns out, I have a reason to recognize the name, but it had slipped my mind when I saw the introduction request.  The person was asking for an introduction to a really big name at a big organization.

I sent it on to my contact, who would forward it to his contact.  I wasn’t able to write a very strong “you must forward this on, this is a great person who isn’t going to waste your contact’s time.”  But I forwarded it on anyway.

My contact immediately wrote me back and said “I need more information before I forward this on to my contact, who I have to be careful with. ”  In other words, people are cautious about what they forward on… if there is something that might affect your brand, or your relationship with your contact, would you send it on for a stranger?

NO!

The original introduction was vague.  Here are two things that would have added a lot to the request, and put the request in context:

1. “Hey Jason, remember me?  I am the person who ___________….”  Even if you think you are close to the person you are communicating with, it’s always helpful to remind them of who you are and why you have a relationship (where you met, etc.).  It never hurts to add this information, which can help remind me of why we are talking.
2. “I’d like to talk to Ms. XYZ because _________ and __________.”  The reality is, I’m not in a position to be the gatekeeper.  And if I pass on something without substance to Ms. XYZ, do you think she is going to trust what I give her next time?  In this case, there was someone between me and Ms. XYZ, and as another gatekeeper, he wasn’t going to pass anything on unless there was a real reason.  I can’t tell you how many times people want to get on the phone just to chat and pick my brain. My contact wasn’t going to allow an introduction to get to Ms. XYZ just for a brain picking… or else he would risk his relationship with Ms. XYZ.

This is the exact same thing I’ve heard from people who get resumes.  If you send a resume in without some kind of context, and something to set you apart, or explain something that you can’t really explain within the boundaries of a resume, you end up in the pile with a thousand other undifferentiated resumes.

But when you use a cover letter to explain a little more about you, or why you are so perfect for this job, or to add context to your application, you are filling in the blanks for the recipient.

Will it be read every time, by everyone who touches your resume?  Not necessarily.  But it could mean the difference between which pile you go into (the No pile, the Maybe pile, or the Short List pile).

Take the extra time to prepare a customized cover letter, and don’t risk it.

Posted by Jason Alba on January 23rd, 2012 | No Comments

Do Recruiters Recommend Based on PERSONALITY or QUALIFICATIONS?

The short answer: both, and it depends.

Check out this post on Recruiting Blogs by Katie, titled Personality vs. Qualified.  She talks about a challenge that regularly comes up.  No matter how fair anything should be, there are always nuances, and biases, and circumstances… so there is not one “right answer.”

Here’s Katie’s advice, which should help you interview better:

“Show interest and spunk in an interview and make sure you have done your research on the position you are interviewing for and what the job duties will entail. It really isn’t a “tough world out there”, if you just put some time and effort into your interview process. Show your passion. And if you don’t end up getting hired at that certain company– I’m sure in the long run it really was not a good fit anyway.”

Let’s break this advice down:

• Show interest and spunk in an interview: You don’t have to fake this.  If you are really interested, it should show without any special effort.
• Make sure you have done your research on the position you are interviewing for and what the job duties will entail: If you ask a question that I, as the interviewer, thinks you should already know the answer to, I’ll think you are too lazy to simple web research, or you are not as interested as the 5 others who asked better questions.
• ….if you just put some time and effort into your interview process: Does your interviewer feel like you haven’t put any time into your interview?  Or do they feel like you are well-prepared?  Who do you think they are going to hire?  The one who cares about the position enough to put time into it, or the one who is just throwing mud up on the walls to see what sticks??
• Show your passion: Two parts to this… first, like in bullet one, be interested!  Second, know the right questions to ask to show you are passionate. If you are passionate, let it show… don’t keep it quiet.
• … if you don’t end up getting hired at that certain company– I’m sure in the long run it really was not a good fit anyway: If you let getting passed over affect your attitude, it will affect your entire job search.  What you want and need is coming, even if it looks different than what you thought it would be.

Katie has great interviewing advice – take time to digest this and become a better interviewee!

Posted by Jason Alba on January 19th, 2012 | No Comments