Praux.com Blog

The Complete, How-To, Job Search Guide for the New Graduate

This is a summary of the tutorial system for first time job seekers presented on this blog. It will overview the phases of the job search plan from resume preparation through job offer.

My experience as a job search consultant over the past 8 years has given me a unique view of thousands of job search guides or plans. Unfortunately, the most common job search plan is NO plan.

Job seekers by and far define a job search in three steps: A) Write a Resume, (B) Get A Telephone Callback and (C) Go on a Job Interview. While these steps are part of every job search campaign, by themselves, they are an oversimplification of the time and effort that goes into a successful job search.

In this blog tutorial system for first time job seekers, I developed a job search plan that discussed not only resume writing and job interviews but also the subtle, inside information, and the strategies required for a successful job search. Let me summarize the entire system for you.

UNDERSTANDING THE HIRING GAME
To succeed at any game, you need to understand the rules. I began discussing the rules of the hiring game with The Most Important Thing To Know Before You Begin Looking for a Job and Why You Should Develop Job Hunting Skills. These tutorials set the framework of the system.

After introducing the rules of the hiring game, I continued with a discussion of job competition with Learning The Most Important Job Seeking Skill, Job Competition and Resume Writing Preparation and How To Search For Jobs You Are Competitive For

DEVELOPING JOB SEARCH MARKETING MATERIALS
To market any product or service in business, you need  marketing materials that promote or advertise what’s being “sold.” Job searching is not much different. A resume and cover letter are the marketing materials of every job seeker. I discussed how to write and improve them in How To Write a Resume that Gets You Interviews and Clearing Up the Fallacies of Cover Letters.

APPLYING FOR JOBS
Every job seeker, even those who have networked successfully, at some point, will post a resume or apply for a job online. I discussed the best way to perform these activities in How To Search For Jobs You Are Competitive For, Tips on Submitting Online Job Applications and Choosing and Investing in a Worthwhile Internship.

INTERVIEWING
I discussed the purpose, types and strategies of job interviews in Why Job Interviews Exist?

OVERCOMING JOB SEARCH PROBLEMS
Finally, I discussed how to recognize a job search problem and correct it in The Job Search Troubleshooting Manual

If you follow this job search guide I have detailed here, at the very least, you will reduce the length of your job search by half. Happy Job Hunting.

FOR MORE ASSISTANCE
If you need assistance on your job search or have specific questions about your resume, letter, etc., please contact me at randy@fs5consulting.com

First Time Job Seekers: The Job Search Troubleshooting Manual

This tutorial for first time job seekers will introduce you to a system by which you can resolve your job search problems. It will first discuss the nature of job search problems and job search metrics. Then it will breakdown a job search campaign into three phases. For each phase it will discuss the symptoms and actions a job seeker can take to resolve them.

All job seekers experience problems over the course of their search campaign. The most difficult problem first time job seekers face is recognizing when they have a problem that requires some outside help.

JOB SEARCH METRICS

So, let’s discuss the basic job search metrics. These metrics describe a job search campaign in objective terms. A job seeker can use them to establish their expectations regarding the progress (successes or failures) of their search campaign. They are:

• Typical Length of a Job Search: with contacts or employee referrals, 1 to 2 months; without contacts or referrals, minimum 3 months but can last up to 1 year depending on job demand and market conditions.
• Typical Amount of Telephone Callbacks: you should get at least 1 callback every 10 working days for a functional search campaign.
• Typical Amount of Onsite Interviews: in the first month of your search, you should get no more then a few interviews. But after your campaign is in full swing, expect to get an offered 1 interview every 15 working days.

These metrics, of course, are not cast in iron. They depend on various (sometimes chaotic) factors. However, they can tell you if you are in trouble or not.

Always remember that getting hired is a numbers game: as you increase the number of telephone callbacks, you will increase the number of onsite interviews. More onsite interviews increases the likelihood you will receive a job offer.

THE TROUBLESHOOTING MANUAL

All job search campaigns can be broken down in the following manner:

Pre-Launch

• Communicating with your Contacts and Established Relationships
• Test Marketing Your Resume

Post-Launch

• No Telephone Callbacks
• Onsite Interview But No Job Offer

PRE-LAUNCH TROUBLESHOOTING

The Pre-Launch Phase of a job search campaign is typically the 2 to 6 months before you are available for employment. For a first time job seeker, it may be the beginning of your last term in college prior to graduation. During this time, you are writing your resume and getting ready for a job search campaign while not actually applying for jobs.

Communicating with Contacts: So, the first action you should take is forming a list of contacts, that is, people who you know who can help you get hired. You need to call them and tell them you are preparing to look for a job. Ask them if they have any job leads, etc. Most of the time, a few calls can point you in the right direction and get you a job interview WITHOUT applying to jobs via the Internet, which is very time consuming and hyper-competitive.

If you have good contacts, your search campaign will take care of itself. However, what if you have no contacts? Lacking contacts will always extend the length of your search campaign. So, in the pre-launch phase, you need to begin the process of relationship building. Refer to my previous blog entry on this subject, Learning The Most Important Job Seeking Skill.

Test Marketing Your Resume: While you are relationship building (job networking) in the Pre-Launch Phase, you should write your resume. After you have written your resume, you should test market it. Many job seekers post a resume to a job board or apply to jobs and never get a response. The most common cause for this is no one is looking at it, that is, the resume is underwritten and/or not competitive and will need to be written or improved.

By test marketing your resume in the Pre-Launch Phase, you can determine if anyone is looking at it by the number of views or inquiries you receive. Here’s how. Post your resume to Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com.  These job boards have very high, hourly recruiter traffic. So, if you do not receive any views or inquiries, it’s quite likely that your resume has a problem. If that is the case, go to my previous blog entries about resume writing: Job Competition and Resume Writing Preparation and How To Write a Resume that Gets You Interviews

POST-LAUNCH TROUBLESOOTING

So you are ready to launch our search campaign? This usually occurs when you are a month or so from your work availability date. (It takes that long to work your way through the employer’s hiring process so it’s okay to start applying before you are truly available.)

Your primary activity at the beginning of Post-Launch will be to (a) send your resume to all your contacts, (b) post your resume to job boards or social media sites and (c) apply for jobs you are competitive for.

No Telephone Callbacks: If your resume is properly written, you should get telephone callbacks with 1 to 3 weeks. If you do not, no one is looking at your resume. This can be a resume problem or a job competition problem. In other words, the natural selection processes of the competitive marketplace, your resume either does not rank high enough (resume problem) or you have so much competition that even a great resume isn’t working. This could also a problem with your selection of jobs to apply for. Refer to my previous blog entries about resume writing, job competition and job applications: Tips on Submitting Online Job Applications, How To Search For Jobs You Are Competitive For, How To Write a Resume that Gets You Interviews, or Job Competition and Resume Writing Preparation.

Failing the Telephone Screening Call: If you are receiving telephone callbacks, your resume is doing its job. But, if you are receiving a telephone callback but are not invited to an onsite interview, then you are failing the screening interview. To correct this problem, review the questions and the answers of the interview. The “no” answers are the red flags. For example, if the screener asks you if you are able to work a 11am to 7pm shift and you say no, that’s probably why you didn’t get the onsite interview. This shift is critical to the employer.

Onsite Interviews but No Job Offer: If you are receiving onsite interviews but do not get a second or third interview or a job offer, then you have a competitive problem. Your resume is not an issue at this point. What is the issue is your competitiveness relative to the other onsite interviewees.

Take a hard look at (a) how you interviewed and presented yourself and (b) how well you matched up to the basic and desired requirements stated in the job ad. If you do not have 75% of the requirements, then you are being out-competed. To correct this you need to select job ads that are more appropriate for you skill level. Refer to my previous blog entries on job competition and interviewing and the hiring game: The Most Important Thing To Know Before You Begin Looking for a Job, Tips on Submitting Online Job Applications, and Why Job Interviews Exist?

Randy Scasny

Happy Job Hunting.

FOR MORE ASSISTANCE
If you need assistance on your job search or have specific questions about your resume, letter, etc., please contact me at randy@fs5consulting.com.

First Time Job Seekers: Why Job Interviews Exist?

This tutorial for first time job seekers will discuss the subject of job interviews. It will first discuss the purpose of job interviews. It will then discuss when job interviews are used and when they are not. Then, it will overview the interview process. Finally, it will discuss some interviewing strategies.

There are hundreds if not thousands of article written about job interview tips or how to beat the job interview competition or how to handle difficult job interview questions. Searching the Web or going to a bookstore will give you more than enough expert information about job interviews.

What most of these books and articles usually do not give you is the big picture of job interviewing. One of those issues is why job interviews exist in the first place? By exploring this question, you will better understand the entire hiring process and what you need to do to wage a competitive job search campaign.

WHY JOB INTERVIEWS EXIST?

Most questions with the word “exist” in them are unanswerable. Does God exist? Does extraterrestrial life exist? When did humans first exist? We can discuss these questions till we’re blue in the face and for the most part we’ll come up with answers based upon our subjective opinions or faith, not objective fact. Fortunately, job interviews are not in the unanswerable category.  They exist for two basic reasons:

• Job Competition
• Lack of Candidates in the Hidden Job Market

If there were no other candidates known for a job opening and you sent an employer your resume for a job it had to fill immediately, and you had the skills for the job, there would be little need for a formal job interview. You would get a phone call. Then, get called in to its office and, if you were a reasonable person, you’d be hired on the spot. It’s happened to me when I was younger and in the engineering field. I’ve seen it happen to my customers.

But when an employer receives 10, 20, heck, 100 resumes for a single job opening, the story is quite different. She needs to determine who is the most qualified to prune down the stack of applications. Then, she needs to interview the finalists to determine who is the best one.

You’ll find that as the job competition increases, the complexity of the interviewing process increases as well. So, job competition is the primary reason why job interviews exist.

But there is a lesser known, more subtle reason why job interviews exist: the employer does not know of any qualified job candidates in the hidden job market. Basically, before a recruiter posts a job ad, she looks at her contacts and calls around to see if anyone she knows can direct her to a good candidate for the job. If her contacts (or current employees) know someone, that person will be called. And informal interview will result, if at all. (Many times, the person is called to go to lunch and the job is offered over a burger.)

Why are these “hidden” candidates hired so quickly?

They have built some kind of relationship, direct or indirect, with the employer. This relationship tells the recruiter much more about the candidate than a resume or a 1-hour job interview. That’s why relationship building is so important. It gives you direct access to the people who have the power to hire you. It reduces your job competition. So, by having a relationship with the employer, the need for job interviews is minor (if at all).

Now, if you have not built a relationship with the employer and you are applying for a job where there’s a lot of competition, you will need to interview. So, let’s briefly discuss the types of job interviews to overview the interviewing process.

OVERVIEW OF THE INTERVIEW PROCESS

The moment you decide to apply for a job, you have begun the interviewing process. I’ve noticed in the last few years an increase in the number of application questionnaires associated with applying to a job online. These questionnaires used to be questions they asked candidates during telephone callbacks or onsite interviews. But, to maximize the candidate filtering or elimination process and to save time, employers ask candidates to complete questionnaires with their applications.

Application Questionnaires: These application questionnaires can range from 5 questions focusing on salary expectations, basic qualifications, ability to travel or perform shift work, or do overtime. I have seen pre-employment questionnaires of up to 85 questions (this is not a typo!) for Federal job applications. These application questionnaires are interviews. If you do not answer the questions correctly, you are instantly eliminated. BTW, the increase in application questionnaires is one of the reasons lots of job seekers are getting less telephone callbacks.

Telephone Callback: this interview is commonly called the screening interview. You get a telephone callback because a recruiter viewed your resume and determined you were a good fit for the job. Essentially, you are on their short list. So, she wants to talk to you to determine if you are really interested in the job. Remember, recruiters are on the telephone all day long and can determine in a 1-minute phone call if you should be called in for an onsite interview.

Onsite Interview: if you “passed” the telephone callback, you will be invited for an onsite interview. This interview has the following forms:

• Technical: a technical team member will take you into a conference room, get you comfortable, and ask you 5 to 10 technical questions relative to the job opening. Most of these questions have short answers. To pass this interview, review the job ad and read the requirements. Brush up on the technical topics before you go into the interview.
• Cultural: this type of interview focuses on your knowledge of the company, its customers, and its business line. The goal of the interview is to determine if you fit into their work culture. This is more important than you think. Always remember your knowledge gets you the interview but your people skills and your ability to click with the work team gets you hired.
• Team: this general category of interviews occurs when you are either simultaneously or individually interviewed by several members of a work team. The questions are varied. The action happens behind the scenes when each team member compares and dissects your answers.
• Behavioral: this type of interview is the most arduous and gets into how you deal with situations and how you think creatively. You will receive thought provoking questions within a defined situation. Here’s an example: “Tell me about a time when you had to stick by a decision you had made, even though it made you very unpopular.” It’s hard to prepare for. And that’s why the top line employers are increasingly using this kind of interview.

THE TWO BEST INTERVIEWING STRATEGIES

Before writing this section, I went to Google searched for “Best Job Interview Strategy.” Tons of articles. No need to repeat them here. But I have found over the years two strategies that serve job seekers well. They are:

• Build Relationships to Avoid Interviewing: The best interview strategy is to avoid interviewing in the first place. You do this by developing the most important job seeking skill right now as a first time job seeker.
• Mirror Interviewer Behavior: If you must interview for a job, then I’ve found that mirroring as much as possible the manner by which the interviewers walk, talk and express themselves is the best way to act in a job interview. Remember, you were invited to the employer’s office not to discuss your job skills (other than in passing). Rather, they want to take a closer look at you to see how you will fit into their organization. The best way to fit in is to learn about the employer and its culture before you go to the interview. When you get on the interview, alter your behavior by imitating as much as possible how the interviewers present themselves. You want them to feel you are like them, that is, part of their team.

Happy Job Hunting

Randy Scasny

FOR MORE ASSISTANCE
If you need assistance on your job search or have specific questions about your resume, letter, etc., please contact me at randy@fs5consulting.com

First Time Job Seekers: Choosing and Investing in a Worthwhile Internship

This tutorial for first time job seekers will discuss how to choose a worthwhile internship. It will first talk about why internships are important and why some are worthwhile and some are not. It will then review the requirements to guide an internship selection decision. Finally, it will discuss why it is in your career interest to invest in a good internship.

For most first time job seekers an internship will be your most qualifying experience to a potential employer. A good internship will make your resume more appealing than others who do not have one. So, what is a good internship?

WHAT IS A GOOD INTERNSHIP?

Well, let’s start with your degree. While your degree proves you have knowledge in a specific occupational area, a good internship proves you have an understanding of the practical, business side of an employer. Here are two examples of good internships:

1) Chemical Engineer Intern (CITGO)
Description: This is an internship position for the summer of 2011. You will be assigned to one of the following areas: Process Design, Operations Process Engineering, Economic & Logistics, Strategic Planning, or Process Control. You will become familiar with the refinery organization and work processes, as well as learn refinery safe work practices. Throughout the summer you will begin working on various projects throughout the refinery under the direction of a more senior engineer. Minimum Qualifications: Enrolled in Chemical Engineering Bachelor’s Degree program with a 3.0 GPA or higher. Job experience is a plus. Candidate must possess strong analytical skills, communication skills, and be able to work in a team environment.

2) Digitas 2011 Summer Internship Program
Description: There are five types of paid internship tracks to choose from: Delivery Management (Project Management): Our role is to ensure our internal partners can focus on the client’s business rather than project coordination. Marketing: directly with clients to help them build their brand and their business; to understand it from the ground up; to make ourselves, and Digitas, indispensable to their success. Media: development of core marketing strategies, and their tactical execution; makes recommendations to clients on where to place their marketing messages; recommendations for both Branding and Direct Response/Acquisition campaigns. Strategy & Analysis: manage their investments, reshape their organizations and master the ever-growing stream of data they are generating. Creative: Breakthrough creative ideas come from a collaboration of passionate and diverse team members – from interactive designers to graphic designers to film makers to storytellers. Requirements: Must be an undergraduate student entering senior year of college/Class of 2011. Must have a cumulative GPA average of 3.0 or higher Ideal Candidates are Passionate about creating and building brands and companies; Idea generators – inspired by culture, arts, popular trends – who live to break new ground; Collaborative workers, with a bent for client-service business; Eager to learn, not afraid of new challenges, and willing to work hard while having fun.

BTW, here’s an example of a bad internship:

Engineering Assistant (AMERESCO)
Assisted Project Engineers and Managers with daily project support by researching alternate energy/fuel sources using the Internet. Performed general office re-organization.  (Basically, nothing was learned in this internship; it was basically an unpaid office clerk’s job.)

All in all, a good internship makes you a less risky hire because you understand the inner workings of an employer’s business and you get some organizational or work context. A good internship will increase your employment value. That’s why you will learn later in this blog that a lot of employers use their interns as their source of new graduate hires.

If a good internship is so important, why do so many of the resumes of new graduates I view have bad internships?

For example, as I cited above, why do some engineering students select paper-pushing internships?  Or, IT interns that opt for a campus computer center internship instead of going to intern at HP or another technology industry company.

Now, I’m not at all suggesting that an internship on a college campus is bad; what I am saying is (a) if you learn nothing, it’s a bad internship; (b) if you do not get the work culture context, it’s a bad internship; and (c) if there is little or no likelihood that the internship-employer will hire you, it’s a bad internship.

By not choosing internships wisely, new graduates can find themselves in an uphill battle come graduation when they have to compete for jobs with all the other new graduates, some of which have invested time and money into a good internship. So, let’s talk about how to choose a good internship.

CHOOSING A GOOD INTERNSHIP

At risk of repeating myself, I’ll state again the three requirements of a good internship that should form the basis of an internship decision:

• Requirement #1 (Learning) : you must learn something in your occupational area. It should not be a go-fer (this or go-fer that) situation.
• Requirement #2 (Inside View) : you should learn something about the employer that only an insider would know. For example, in the CITGO internship I cited above, the intern would learn a lot about the work environment of a process engineer. This is good. And, for the Digitas internship, the intern would learn about the 5 different areas of the company and how team members interact amongst themselves and with other teams. This is valuable experience.
• Requirement #3 (Hiring Potential): you should be able to find job ads where the employer states that an internship experience is required or desired. This shows you the employer is using the internship experience to filter out the qualified and unqualified candidates from a large pool of candidates.

For example, this is a clip from a New Graduate Chemical Engineer job ad from Dow Chemical:

• 6 months or more years of experience in a manufacturing environment is required.
• 3.0 GPA or above is required for new graduates along with Co-op or Internship experience.
• Chemical, Petrochemical, Oil and Gas or Energy experience is preferred.

Here’s  one for an Entry Marketing Writer from SmithBucklin:

• Bachelors degree in related field required (Marketing, Communications, Advertising, Business)
• 1-2 years relevant professional experience in marketing communications If recent graduate, relevant internship strongly preferred

INVESTING IN A GOOD INTERNSHIP

Most students seeking internships would agree with the guidelines I have described in this blog entry. But when they research internship opportunities (using the Internet), they usually find the good internships are NOT in their city or state. Some are on the  other side of the country. And some are unpaid (in theory).

So, they quickly give up on the idea of getting a good internship and opt for a local, bad internship just to fill the degree requirement. Essentially, they wait until they graduate to deal with their job search when it is much more difficult and the pressure is on to find a job fast.

What they are failing to understand is that:

• Competitive Disadvantage: they are placing themselves at a competitive disadvantage when they graduate because those new graduates with the appropriate internship experience will be selected over those grads who do not have it.
• Jobs in Geographic Hubs: they fail to realize that business/industries congregate in geographic hubs. For example, most chemical engineering jobs are in the Midwest, East and Southeast (US); and, most creative advertising/media jobs are either in large cities (Chicago, New York, or LA) or are on the East or West coasts. Some will have to move anyway so why not start building relationships in those geographic hubs as an intern?
• Value of an Internship: they do not see the true value of a good internship in the long term success of their first professional job search, which is always the most difficult. Essentially, they are not investing in an internship. So, what if you have to take a student loan out to travel and live for 8-12 weeks in Ohio or LA, or wherever! This might come to $3K–a small price to pay come graduation time when you could spend 6 moths to a year looking for a job because you don’t have any industry experience!

Finding a good internship comes down to using the most important seeking skill (relationship building). I recall a fellow student (technical writing major) of mine who attended a regional conference of the Society of Technical Communication. He was a student member of that professional association. While there, he talked to some technical writers from HP. By the end of the conference, he was offered a summer internship at $18 per hour! And, he ended up working there full-time upon graduation.

Happy Job Hunting,

Randy Scasny

FOR MORE ASSISTANCE
If you need assistance on your job search or have specific questions about your resume, letter, etc., please contact me at randy@fs5consulting.com

First Time Job Seekers: Tips on Submitting Online Job Applications

This tutorial for first time job seekers will teach you how to submit online job applications. It will first give you an overview of the problems of applying to jobs online. Then it will discuss the types of jobs websites relative to competition so you can determine where is the best place to apply. Finally, it will discuss the mechanics of posting your resume online and completing job applications.

Why do you need to be trained in applying for jobs online? I mean most people would say, “For heavens sakes, just upload your resume, follow the directions, click and apply. What’s the big deal?”

The big deal about applying for jobs online is:

• Competition: Some jobs get 100 or more applications so the competition is extreme.
• Time: It’s very time consuming. Depending on the application software used by the job board, it can take 30 minutes or more to complete an application.

Let’s start at the beginning: in the first place, if you are applying to a specific job means you have NOT cultivated the most important job seeking skill (relationship building). Without any relationships to rely on to help you through the hiring process, you now have to compete with hundreds of other job seekers. Not a good situation to be in.

Commonplace jobs can attract plenty of job candidates so the cards are stacked against you. To use your time well and position yourself to get positive results, I’d recommend that you employ a job application strategy. So, let’s first talk about job posting sites to better understand how job ads are distributed across the online world.

Types of Job Posting Websites

Employers have a variety of choices when deciding where to post a job ad online. Some job boards cost more money than others. Some don’t cost anything to post a job ad. All in all, where job ads are posted depends on the likelihood that an employer will find a job candidate with hiring appeal. There are both advantages and disadvantages to job posting websites. They are:

• Large Commercial Job Boards: these job boards have resume databases over 10 million (They go as high as 40 million). They have very high daily traffic so lots of recruiters visit them hourly. They post jobs across many job categories or industry sectors. If  job seekers have a unique skill to offer an employer, these job boards are a good place to post a resume. Unfortunately, the competition on these boards is extreme. Recruiters can easily find 100 resumes or more per job posting. So, to get noticed by a recruiter, a job seeker must have a very detailed resume and skills in demand. (Examples, Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com)

• Small Commercial Job Boards: these job boards are very similar to the large boards except they have less traffic and a smaller resume database. (Some don’t even have a resume database; they refer the job seeker to the large job board for posting.) They are used to post the same job ads you see on the large job boards but the smaller boards serve a different audience or demographic so the employer’s ad has the possibility of being viewed by a totally different set of job seekers than seen on the large job boards. (Examples, Job.com, WashingtonPost.com)

• Market Niche Job Boards: these job boards are usually operated by a recruiter from a specific industry. Hence, the job postings are focused around a specific industry or cluster of similar industries. Their resume databases are smaller (less than 5 million) but are of a much higher quality than the large or small commercial job boards. The competition is not as extreme as in the large job boards. But recruiters spend a lot of time searching the resume databases because they are looking for something very specific (i.e., industry experience). Market niche boards have the best hiring success rates of all job boards. (Examples, ClearanceJobs.com, Logjobs.com, Dice.com)

• Governmental Job Boards: these job boards are operated by the government (Federal or State). They list all job openings or vacancy announcements. The vacancy announcements are long, complex and detailed. There are many requirements and you must have both the requirements and the eligibility to apply to the job. Your resume will need to be formatted to the government’s requirements, which means it will be much longer than 1-page. Also, the government requires supporting information and supplementary documents to accompany job applications. The competition is intense. However, internships are relatively easy to get. (Example, USAjobs.gov)

• Corporate Career Boards: these job boards are run by the employer and hosted by the employer’s corporate website. Their resume databases are generally small because most job seekers do not go to or apply directly to the employer. Hence, competition is the lowest of all the job boards.

What’s this all mean for a first time job seeker? If you expect to just upload your resume to a large job board and get a response in a couple of weeks, you will be disappointed. The competition is too extreme.  But if focus your job applications in places where there is less competition (market niche boards) you have a better chance at obtaining a job interview.

Reviewing How To Search for Jobs

In my last blog entry (First Time Job Seekers: How To Search For Jobs You Are Competitive For), I discussed in detail how to search for jobs that are ideal for a first time job seeker. In summary, select a keyword that describes your skill and/or job title you want to apply for (e.g., chemical engineer). Then, modify it with one of the following: entry level, associate, recent grad/new grad or junior (e.g., entry level + chemical engineer). This keyword string will pull out of the job ad database those jobs appropriate for a recent college graduate.

What job boards do you use to search for jobs? Good question. You can do one or more of the following:

• Aggregator sites (indeed.com, careerjet.com, juju.com or linkup.com) These websites index job ads across the WWW. So, they are convenient in locating jobs. But you have to determine what type of website it is so you can modify your resume to match up to the competition. Generally speaking, a large job board needs a long, detailed, and targeted resume while a market niche board needs a standard resume that articulates you credentials and experience for that market niche.

• Commercial Job Boards: use a search engine to locate these job boards. Use “job board” or “jobs” or “job listings” as your search keywords.

• Market Niche Boards: use a search engine or an industry listing to find these job boards. Use “logistics jobs” or “IT jobs” etc. as your search keywords.

• Company Career Boards: use a search engine to find a list of employers you want to work for. Typically, the way to find them is to get to an industry listing site or search with “defense industry companies” or “IT consulting companies” etc.

I cannot stress enough the importance of gauging your level of job competition when applying for a job at a specific job board. Job Boards are getting hundreds if not thousands of applications per month that they are forwarding to the employer. Most of them are thrown out by the employer because they aren’t targeted to the job. To avoid wasting your time, modify your resume for the level of competition. My general rule is, the higher the competition, the more detailed the resume.

Tips on Reading Job Ads

This section seems unnecessary. But I have found over the years as a job search consultant that the job seekers who complain the most have not actually read the job ad they are applying to. When I read it with them, they often discover the job isn’t what they thought it was. Or, they do not have the requirements for the job. So, let me breakdown a job ad. Typically, a job ad consists of:

• Job Title in a Specific Job Category: job boards are broken into 30 or so job categories or industry sectors. Each of these categories will have job ads headlined by the job title. So, an IT consultant in the Financial industry may have different requirements than the same consultant in the health care industry.
• Company Information: a paragraph that describes the company and its line of business.
• Basic Requirements: these are the skills you need to have to get through the first screening of resumes by the employer. It’s typically where they will list your college degree.
• Desired Requirements: these are the nice to have skills that the employers really want a job candidate to have. They are more or less optional, relative to the job competition. If you are competing against people who have, say, MS Access experience, then the desired skill of MS Access acts more like a basic than a desired requirement.
• EEO Disclaimer: a blurb they put in job ads to claim they are abiding by all fair hiring laws.

Tip: Once you have found a job you would like to apply for, read the basic requirements. If you have at least 50% of these requirements, then go ahead and apply for the job. If you do not, then do not expect a immediate response unless there is little or no job competition.

Tips on Posting Your Resume Online

Most of the time, when you have found a job to apply to, the job board requests you to upload your resume to the job board. Once your resume is in the board’s resume database, you can easily send it with your job application. But it’s easier said than done.

When you upload your resume to the job board, sometimes the software does not populate the fields of the resume database properly. So, make sure to check the database fields to ensure that all your information has been placed properly. Building the resume is my preferred method. But this is much more time consuming.

Tips: When you name your resume, do not use your actual name. Rather, use a set of keywords or the job title. For example “IT consultant Financial Industry.” Ensure you are placing your resume in the correct job category or industry sector. Employers do not perform global searches of the entire resume database. Typically, they only search through 3 or 4 categories. So, if you are in the wrong category, you resume will not be seen. Finally, be as detailed as possible and place as much information in separate database fields as possible. For example, if it allows you to list your skills separate, then do so.

Tips on Submitting Online Job Applications

Keep in mind that you aren’t the only person applying to the job. Sometimes there will be 100 other applications. And there is no way a busy hiring manager will go through all of them! They will throw out any resume or letter with a misspelled word. They will throw out an application with errors in any form. They are looking for applications which are (a) complete, (b) error free, (c) mirror the requirements of the job, (d) within the geographic area of the job and (e) possess the intangibles, that is, hiring appeal.

Tips: Double post your applications. If you see the job ad on a large job board, go to the employer’s website as well. Look for the job and apply for it there too. Always include a targeted cover letter. Make it personal and creative. When a human being finally looks at your application, a personal letter always helps. Provide all supporting documents. For governmental job applications, ensure you apply before the closing deadline (or else it wll be tossed out.)

Happy Job Hunting

Randy Scasny

For More Assistance
If you need assistance on your job search or have specific questions about your resume, letter, etc., please contact me at randy@fs5consulting.com

First Time Job Seekers: How To Search For Jobs You Are Competitive For

This tutorial for first time job seekers will teach you how to search for jobs you are competitive for. It will define the term, competitiveness. Then it will cover the four categories of published job postings. Finally, it will show you how to target jobs via keyword modifiers that are ideal for early career professionals.

Summary

Thus far in this tutorial system for first time job seekers, we’ve discussed the true nature of the hiring game, how to write effective job search documents (resumes and cover letters), and what’s the most important job hunting skill. This blog entry begins a new phase: searching for jobs you are competitive for.

What Is Competitiveness?

Competitiveness is a subjective value a job consultant such as myself places on the likelihood a particular job seeker will (a) get an invitiation to an onsite interview and (b) receive a job offer. Usually competitiveness boils down to this question: How likely will a job candidate get offered a job in a field of 25 job candidates? The number 25 is based upon the maximum number of resumes most recruiters would consider reviewing for any one job requisition. (BTW, I’m being fairly liberal here because many recruiters who search resume databases are looking for only 3 really good job candidates.)

Competitiveness is important because you may have the education requirement for the job but not have the experience for it. So, even though you have part of the job requirements, you may not be considered competitive for the job because you do not have the other requirements.

So, competitiveness is related to overall job targeting, where you are matching not only the education requirement but also the experience, unique skills and people skills requirements of the position. Nowadays, it is very easy to apply to 10 jobs an hour via a job board using the “hail mary pass” or “hope for the best” job application strategy. Typically, these faux techniques do not work; they only clog up the hiring process and generally piss off recruiters who get job applications from candidates who obviously are not competitive for the job.

Types of Published Job Postings

As a first time job seeker, you have probably felt the first time you started to look for a job online that “all the jobs require experience I don’t have.” Soon enough, you feel discouraged or believe employers aren’t looking for young professionals. That really isn’t the case. But, if you begin blindly looking for jobs, it can seem so. Therefore, let me discuss the categories of published job posting to clear up any confusion and help you target which jobs are ideal for you.

Job boards are marketed through national advertising to all job seekers. Web advertising tries to persuade you to post your resume to the database of a job board at no charge to you. But does it follow that all job seekers who use a job board are intensely sought after by employers searching through resume databases? My question is leading; the answer is, obviously, No.

If you have spent countless hours as I have, reading through hundreds of job ads to analyze job requirements, you will soon realize that published job postings are broken down into the following categories:

• Critical Experience jobs
• Rare Skills jobs
• High Turnover jobs
• No Experience jobs

Critical experience jobs are usually at the managerial or executive level. They are very hard to fill because the jobs require a depth of business and industry experience. As a first time job seeker, you will not be competitive for these jobs. You won’t even be considered.

Rare skills jobs are usually jobs that require a special skill which usually is technical in nature. (But not necessarily so.) A certified IT auditor is an example of a rare skill. PhotoShop expertise could also be a rare skill. Some first time job seekers could be competitive for this category. If the need is great, an employer will consider you if there were no other candidates and they felt you were a good match for the job both in your technical and people skills.

High turnover jobs are usually jobs that have low pay, high travel or undesirable working conditions (excessively cold, hot or noisy, etc.). In some cases, high turnover jobs are the result of poor human resource management by the employer (e.g., supervisors who scream and yell at employees). Unfortunately, these jobs are generally at the low end of the skills ladder and most first time job seekers unknowingly apply for these jobs. Hence, the jobs always have an oversupply of job candidates. Yes, you are competitive for these jobs. But the more important questions is, do you want to work in a less than ideal situation?

No experience jobs are a subset of high turnover jobs. After an employee gets some experience (6 months to a year), he or she will start looking for a new position. There is always an oversupply of job candidates for these jobs. These jobs are most commonly sought after by first time job seekers.

Analysis of Job Categories

We clearly see a problem for a first time job seeker upon analyzing these job categories. First timers are not competitive for critical experience jobs. High turnover or no experience jobs are adequate but not great jobs and they are sometimes hard to get because there are too many job applicants. Rare skills jobs appear to be the preferred category for first timers who have a critical skill.

So, you can see that even for a very large job board with thousands of posted jobs, first time job seekers either are not competitive or are in oversupply. It is the rare skills jobs where first time job seekers, as a knowledge worker, can be competitive for and begin a desireable career with a quality employer at a decent salary. In the next section, I will go through how to locate these rare skills jobs using a keyword analysis and the techniques of job targeting.

How To Search For Jobs You Are Competitive For

It is a two-step technique to search for jobs that you are competitive for as a first time job seeker:

• Step 1: Determine your rare skill(s)
• Step 2: Modify the skills for keyword searches

Determine your rare skill(s): To begin, you must determine what your rare skills are. A degree alone is not a rare skill unless it is in high demand (e.g., Chemical Engineering degree) Most college degrees are not rare (e.g., business administration, economics, marketing, etc.) But the knowledge within any degree is. For example, in business administration, writing a business plan may be your rare skills; in economics, statistical analysis may be your rare skill; and, in marketing, search engine optimization (SEO) may be your rare skill.

Look over the courses you’ve taken in your major. Look at the topics discussed. Look at the course chapters of your textbooks. Harvest specific terms as your search keywords. Terms that you feel you have at least some familiarity with. These are you rare skills. But, if you search for jobs with these terms alone, you will not find jobs ideal for you. That’s why you need to modify these rare skills keywords for your career level.

Modify the rare skills for keyword searches: After you have determined your rare skills, you will need to modify the skills by adding one of the following:

• Entry Level
• Recent Grad or New Grad
• Associate
• Junior

Employers post job ads using these terms to target new graduates or early career professionals. In general, “entry level” is for job candidates with no more than an internship experience. Likewise for “Recent Grad or New Grad”.

For a job candidate with an internship plus up to  1 year of experience, modify the rare skill keyword with “associate.” For early career professionals with 2 to 5 years experience, modify the rare skill keywords with the term “junior.” Let’s go through a few examples:

• Entry Level + Chemical Engineer = (Employer Job Ad Title: Process Engineer)
• Associate + PhotoShop = (Employer Job Ad Title: Assistant Art Director)
• Junior + Economic Statistics = (Employer Job Ad Title: Junior Budget Analyst)

Once you have the Employer’s Job Ad Title, you can then search for jobs using that job ad title. You will then find jobs that are appropriate for your career level and you have a chance at winning. Why? You are filtering out your “most competitive jobs” from all published jobs. Experienced people will not be searching for these jobs so you won’t be competing against them.

Doing this, you will be targeting or mirroring your skills and knowledge to the specific job. By mirroring as closely as possible to what the employer is seeking, you will have a greater likelihood of being called for an onsite interview. The more onsite interviews you have, the more likely you have receive a job offer.

Happy Job Hunting

Randy Scasny

For More Assistance

If you need assistance on your job search or have specific questions about your resume, letter, etc., please contact me at randy@fs5consulting.com

First Time Job Seekers: Why You Should Develop Job Hunting Skills

This tutorial on job hunting for first time job seekers will summarize the first two phases of job hunting already discussed and preview the final two phases of job hunting. It then will discuss the consequences of learning or not learning job hunting skills and why it is in your personal, professional and financial interested to develop these skills.

Let me start this blog entry by asking some open ended questions. Why should you bother with learning the job hunting skills I am presenting in this tutorial system? Or, if someone has great job skills isn’t that enough? And, if you don’t learn the skills of job hunting, what are the consequences?

I mention these questions because they are on the minds of most job hunters when I tell them that the reason they are having career problems is that they have not developed the skills needed to look for a job efficiently. Most respond by saying, what’s there to learn: write a resume and apply for jobs. If it were only that easy! I will explore this “no skills needed” attitude later in this blog entry. For starters, I’d like to summarize what I have covered thus far.

The Summary

This tutorial system on job hunting for first time job seekers is broken into four phases. The first two phases already covered are:

Phase I: Understanding the Hiring Game
First Time Job Seekers: Job Competition and Resume Writing Preparation

First Time Job Seekers: Learning The Most Important Job Seeking Skill

First Time Job Seekers: The Most Important Thing To Know Before You Begin Looking for a Job

Phase 2: Developing Your Job Search Documents

First Time Job Seekers: Clearing Up the Fallacies of Cover Letters

First Time Job Seekers: How To Write a Resume that Gets You Interviews

Phase 3 will cover the strategies of selecting and applying for jobs. And Phase 4 will cover interviewing, negotiating and job offers.

Before moving onto Phase 3 and 4, I’d like to assess what has been covered and predict what will happen if you choose to learn the skills presented in this tutorial system. And, what will likely happen if you do not develop sound job hunting skills.

The Assessment

Phase 1 attempted to give you an insight to the Hiring Game. Why do I call it a ‘game?” Well, games have rules. Games require strategy. Games are competitive. And, finally, all games have winners and losers. Sounds pretty much like looking for a job.

Not everyone who looks for a job will get hired. Or, get hired for their dream job. There’s always a give and take, depending upon the supply/demand of the job market and job competition.

Remember, the hiring game is primarily a relationship-building task. Those people who have relationships that turn into employee referrals are more likely to get their dream job. Those who do not have relationships need to compete against many people and generally will find themselves accepting a job offer that may not be their dream job but will be a realistic job for their situation. In other words, an adequate starting point to build a career. Down the road, with more experience and relationships, they may win their dream job.

Phase 2 attempted to give you some guidance on how to write your job search documents: the resume and the cover letter. The tutorials showed you that both of these documents are primarily marketing vehicles not qualification summaries. Since they are used to market your “services,” these documents must be adapted to the job seeking situation. Hence, the only test for a good resume is the offer of a job interview. (Bad resumes get you nothing but silence.) In other words, the resume and letter are a formal means to build professional relationships. You just can’t get away from relationship-building.

If you follow the guidance provided in Phases 1 and 2 you are likely to succeed in getting job interviews. Other benefits include: The length of your job search campaign will be reasonable, about 1 to 3 months. And you’re likely to start at a higher salary because you will be competing against many less people.

But what if you don’t learn the job hunting skills presented in this tutorial system?

What if you blow off job networking because it takes too much time. What if you use a generic resume template you found in an old resume writing handbook (or on the Internet) because it was quick and easy? What will be the consequences? Well, in the next section, I will predict what will happen to you if you DO NOT learn sound, practical, and realistic job hunting skills.

The Prediction

If you do not learn job hunting skills, expect one or more of the following to happen:

• Long job search campaigns (up to 2 years)
• Frequent periods of unemployment
• Lower income over the course of your work life
• Frequent career changing
• Above average amount of retraining
• Personal unhappiness
• Financial problems

Ugh. Not an optimistic prediction, is it? It’s not. Unfortunately, I see these predictions come true every week in my work as a job consultant. Let me go through why the prospects are grim if you do not learn job hunting skills.

Let’s start with the U.S. economy. For nearly a decade the U.S. job market has been shrinking. In essence, there’s less jobs out there. And many of the jobs a first time job seeker may shoot for either do not exist anymore or there is so much competition that winning the job is nearly impossible.

Why is the job market shrinking?

Well, two recessions in about a decade  is one of the causes. Recessions cause a decrease in sales revenues for a company. To balance the financials and keep the company’s shareholders happy, costs are reduced. And one of the biggest costs to an employer is employee salaries. So, during a recession, companies find ways to operate more effeciently. This means many jobs are eliminated and hiring is slowed. While hiring is slowed down across the entire US economy, more people get laid off and the job competition increases drastically which slows down hiring all the more. It’s a snowballing effect.

But the economy will not be the sole cause of your current or future job problems if you do not learn job hunting skills. More than anything, YOU and the changes that are about to go on in YOUR LIFE after college will impede you from doing the things you need to do (relationship building) to stay employed.

In a few years, you will have family responsibilities. These will take up a lot of time and money. You will not have the time to build relationships, job network, and go to the professional events after work where the relationships are built.

So, when you are laid off, you will not have the relationships to help you get hired quickly. You will more than likely resort to using the job boards and the Internet to find a job. You and millions of other people.

So, the consequences of NOT learning job hunting skills will surface rather quickly after you remain unemployed for 1 or 2 years. But, if you invest the time in learning the skills presented in this tutorial system, you can avoid all the unpleasant problems that surround extended unemployment.

Happy Job Hunting.

Randy Scasny

For More Assistance

If you need assistance on your job search or have specific questions about your resume, letter, etc., please contact me randy@fs5consulting.com

First Time Job Seekers: Clearing Up the Fallacies of Cover Letters

This tutorial for first time job seekers discusses the fallacies surrounding cover letters. You will learn, through examples, what a cover letter is, when to use a cover letter, and how to write one.

Yesterday I heard from a job seeker who attended a job help club that he listened to a hiring manager from Chase Bank say that she doesn’t have the time to read cover letters so don’t bother writing one. Is that it? Never again will a job seeker need to write a cover letter?

Well, not quite. The above example only illustrates the most common fallacy surrounding the use of cover letters. And, there are plenty of them. This blog tutorial will cover major fallacies and give you two examples of cover letters.

The Fallacy of the Term “Cover Letter”

The biggest fallacy (and least talked about) of cover letters is the term “cover letter” itself. A cover letter is not a letter that “covers” a resume or job application. In real terms, a cover letter is more appropriately described as a marketing letter or a targeting letter or a sales pitch letter or, simply, a “pitch letter.”

A pitch letter is a short, persuasive, “tease” letter that tells the recipient, “You have a business need and I’m the best person to fill that need and here’s how I can make your business more profitable.”

A cover (pitch) letter is trying to (i) focus the recipient’s attention on YOU, (ii) persuade the recipient to take longer than the typical 5-second look at your resume, and (iii) call you for a job interview.  In other words, a pitch letter is an active attempt by the job seeker to influence the recipient’s behavior. If it were simply a cover letter, which has a passive function, it would only inform and not persuade.

The Fallacy of “You Don’t Need A Cover Letter Anymore”

As I stated in my job seeker example at the beginning of this blog entry, a job seeker reported that a manager from Chase Bank never reads letters so you don’t need one. Hmm…well, not quite.

You will find in Life, as you mature, that when people make blanket statements about anything (i.e. American cars suck (not true); Blondes are dumb (they’re not); Algebra is useless (it’s not).) these people are really talking about their personal preferences rather than an objective analysis based upon universal facts.

However, let me give credit where credit is due. I’ll admit there is some truth in what the Chase bank hiring manager said to the job seeker I cited above. Let’s go through the situations when you need a letter and when you don’t. They are:

• Resume Uploads: You do not need a cover (pitch) letter when you upload your resume to a job board’s resume database. Recruiters search databases by using specific keywords. So, they are looking for something very specific which they are having a hard time finding for their employer or client. A letter will not persuade or influence their behavior unless it is exactly what they are looking for. So, don’t bother using a cover (pitch) letter in this situation.
• Technical Job Applications: if you are a technical professional (IT, Engineer, Designer, Developer, etc.) you do not need a cover (pitch) letter to accompany your job applications. The reason why is similar to the “Resume Upload” explanation. The recruiter is looking for something very hard to find and a letter cannot influence or persuade unless you have it. This is true now as well as two decodes ago when I was a field engineer in the industrial automation area. I never used a cover (pitch) letter; I didn’t need to. I always had tons of recruiter inquiries because I had a unique area of expertise: adjustable frequency inverter drives.
• Lots of Job Competition: if you are competing against a lot of people who have similar skills, you NEED to use a cover (pitch) letter. Why? Well, even if the recruiter graded each of the resumes submitted, she would find a lot of tied scores. So, how do you decide whom to call for an interview? Perhaps more skills. Perhaps someone who lives nearby. Perhaps what the person said in her cover (pitch) letter that made her both an intriguing and appealing job candidate.
• People Skills, High Visibility Jobs: when you are applying to a job in sales, marketing, advertising, public relations, and, in some cases, management, the personal fit for the job is taken into account as much as the skills needed for the job. These types of jobs require a lot of communication skills and a lot of finesse. A resume cannot always communicate these subjective traits but a cover (pitch) letter can.

The Fallacy of “The Professional Cover Letter”

When I work with clients, after writing their resumes, I always send them several cover letter concepts. Basically, these are first drafts that are usable as is but can be modified to the specific job seeking situation.

I have two types of cover (pitch) letters: professional and creative. In 100 percent of all my clients over the past 9 years, not one client used the creative cover letter. When I asked them why, they generally say, “The professional letter is what they say you need to have (at the employment agency).” This is the fallacy of The Professional Cover Letter, which is the belief a dry, sterile, skills-focused letter will get you more interviews than a unqiue, funny, creative letter.

The creative letter I included at the end of this blog entry I wrote as a test. I submitted it with a job application as a test. I received a job interview in 48 hours. The fact is that when it comes down to a human being making a decision to call a job candidate or not, recruiters generally will call someone they feel comfortable with or think they like or feel a connection with. Dry, professional letters cannot do those things. A creative letter can.

Template for a Professional Cover (Pitch) Letter

Instructions

• Reference the letter to the job ad’s title and job requisition number. This helps the recruiter know exactly what the job seeker is writing about. It saves them time as well.
• Summarize your “recent” work experience. Your recent job title, name of industry or area of expertise relative to the job ad’s requirements is enough to tease the recruiter to read more of the letter.
• Go to the requirements of the job ad. Choose 5 requirements the job seeker possesses and list them in bullet point style. You may have to do some rewording.
• Keep it short! Recruiters do not have time to read long letters. Most of the time, they are only concerned about your last position and skills needed for the position they are trying to fill.

The letter template:

Dear Human Resources Department,

Please accept the enclosed résumé for the (Job Title) position (Job ID No. XXXXXX from the job ad).

I’m a talented and congenial (Job title of your most recent position) with significant expertise in the name of industry or area of expertise.  I am confident that my experience has prepared me for the position, and my unique abilities will enable me to contribute significantly toward your goals. Here is what I can offer you:

• Requirement #1 from the Job Ad
• Requirement #2 from the Job Ad
• Requirement #3 from the Job Ad
• Requirement #4 from the Job Ad
• Requirement #5 from the Job Ad

You will find me to be a well-organized, detail-oriented team member with excellent analytical, troubleshooting and problem-solving skills.  I thrive on new challenges and will prove to be an asset to your organization.

Thank you for considering my candidacy.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours very truly,

Name

Example of a Creative Cover (Pitch) Letter

Dear HR,

It’s one of those days! Your inbox is full. You have a ton of unanswered voicemail messages. You’re scheduled for an all-afternoon meeting you have no time for. One of your assistant’s has called in sick. Another has resigned abruptly and isn’t saying why. On top of that, you promised your spouse you would be home early!

Well, you might not be experiencing the hypothetical scenario cited above. But most managers would agree they wished they had a helping hand to turn to when the need arises.

Let me be your helping hand!

I specialize in editorial work that needs the guidance of a seasoned professional. Here are a few realistic scenarios where I may be of assistance to you:

• You need someone who really understands the technology to interview a subject matter expert and produce a thoughtful, intelligent story.
• Your staff is busy on other assignments and you need a temporary fill-in for a week.
• You need someone to attend an industry tradeshow and write a cover story.
• An industry leader just sent you a 20-page white paper that you want to publish but it needs to be pruned down to 800 words before doing so.
• You need someone to ghost write your monthly industry perspective column.

I could mention more but I “hear” your phone is ringing, your cell phone is jingling and your secretary just told you something needs your immediate attention. You’re experiencing an information overload right now. I won’t extend it any more than necessary.

But I’ll leave you with this offer: If you are interested in my help, I’d like to speak with you at a quiet time for lunch or coffee to discuss your needs, present or future. I’ve enclosed my c.v., which will give you some idea of my capabilities.

I look forward to speaking with you in the near future. In the meantime, do some yoga, get a massage, or take a Pilates exercise break. Above all, have a great, stress-free day.

Sincerely,

Randy Scasny

For More Assistance
If you need assistance on your job search or have specific questions about your resume, letter, etc., please contact me at randy@fs5consulting.com.

First Time Job Seekers: How To Write a Resume that Gets You Interviews

This tutorial for first time job seekers discusses how to write a resume that will get you job interviews. Resumes for young people are different from older, experienced folks. You will learn, through an example, how to write a “knowledge” resume, which is the best kind of resume for the first time job seeker.

I know you are ready to jump in and write your resume, post it to a job board, and get hired! But a resume is more than a piece of paper with your job skills. To both write and apply a resume that gets you job interviews, you need to understand how the job seeking “game” works. So, if you haven’t done so already, I’d suggest you read my previous blog entries which discuss:

• The Most Important Thing To Know Before You Begin Looking for a Job
• Learning The Most Important Job Seeking Skill
• Job Competition and Resume Writing Preparation

Now that you have the background of “the game,” let’s talk resumes and begin by discussing the types of resumes.

Types of Resumes

There are many different types of resumes. Most people would define the types based on career level (i.e., executive, experienced non-manager, entry level, etc.). While it is true that many professions have their preferred resume formats, I am not talking about a format in this discussion. Rather, I define the types of resumes relative to how employers find, select and view resumes. The types are:

• Paper resumes: a hiring manager holds the resume in her hands, reads or skims it, then makes a decision whether to contact the owner for an interview.
• Online resumes: a hiring manager goes to a resume database of an Internet job board or career site and searches the database using “search keywords.” When the database “returns” a series of resumes, she decides to view some of them. Then, decides to contact the owner(s) for an interview.

When you read resume writing handbooks or go to a resume class held by your school’s placement office or guidance counselor, you are generally learning about paper resumes. This type of resume usually is 1 page long and summarizes your job skills and experience. Since it is only 1 page long, it is a low information resume. But it contains just enough information for a hiring manager to decide to call you for an interview or not.

Online resumes (that get interviews) are quite different from paper resumes. They are longer; most are 2 to 4 pages long. They are high information resumes that describe in detail the job seeker’s knowledge, skills ad abilities. Why the difference? Good question.

If you upload a 1-page, summary resume to a job board there is a small probability it will be seen or viewed by a recruiter. For starters, it has few keywords so there is a small probability that it will match the keyword searches of hiring managers relative to the thousands of resumes in the database.

More importantly, it doesn’t work well when you are competing against hundreds if not thousands of other job seekers and some of those job seekers are a perfect fit for the job opening. In essence, when you go online, your resume needs to tell a more detailed story for you to get noticed.

What Kind of Resume Is Best For Young People?

So far I’ve covered the two types of resumes: paper and online. So you know that if you are applying in person or have contact with the “human being” in the company, a paper resume is the way to go. But, if you are using the Internet, you will need a long and detailed resume to upload to the website.

But these types of resumes don’t tell you what information needs to go on the resume. And, what is the best kind of resume for a young person. The following will. So, read on!

Your greatest challenge as a first time job seeker is your lack of experience. If you haven’t heard it already, you will early in your job search: “You have an impressive record but we found another candidate who is a better fit for the position.” Translation: You don’t have enough experience. Rejection. Sorry.

How do you overcome the lack of experience on your resume? Simple. Don’t focus on it. Rather, write a resume that emphasizes your knowledge, not your experience.

A knowledge-based resume is the best kind of resume for a young person. Young people know a lot of things that older people do not because you just got out of school. A lot of jobs today need specialized knowledge. If you have it, an employer may consider training you over an older person. The greatest advantage of a knowledge-based resume is the keywords: it has many more keywords than an experience-based resume, which increases the likelihood you will be “found” and viewed in a resume database. How do you write a knowledge-based resume? Keep on reading.

What Information You Need To Write a Knowledge-based Resume

Obviously, the answer to the question is anything that tells you what your knowledge is! Okay, let’s start with your school transcript. List the courses in your major. Then, go to the textbooks of these courses. Look at the Chapter Headings. These headings form the keyword language of your knowledge. Let me go through an example. Let’s say you were an economics major and you took the following classes:

• Price Theory
• Macroeconomics
• Microeconomics
• Statistics
• Economic Analysis
• Money and Banking
• Introduction to Finance

These economic sub-topics tell us alot about your knowledge. And they are juicy keywords. But that’s not all. Let’s look at the table of contents of a textbook on microeconomics:

• Nature of Economics
• Criteria for Evaluation
• Consumer Behavior
• Production and Cost
• Optimization
• Pure Competition
• Market Power
• Property Rights

This course alone gives us a more detailed picture of your knowledge. Sure, you may not be an expert. But that doesn’t matter at this point in the game. A hiring manager needs to find your resume first. Only with rich, detailed and unqiue keywords will she find it. After viewing your resume, she will make a decision whether or not to call you. Once she does, and describes the job, you need to make a decision whether you have the knowledge to do the job.

What Sections are in a Knowledge-based Resume

A template is a general guide for the structure of your resume. Templates are NOT cast in stone. Templates are always modified for the situation. A knowledge-based resume template is not any different. It contains sections that are common to all resumes as well as sections that contain additional “knowledge” information. The structure of a knowledge-based resume template generally follows:

• Contact Information: self-explanatory
• Job Objective: the job title or targeted goal
• Areas of Knowledge, Skills and Abilities: list your courses or knowledge keywords in Knowledge section; list your hands-on job tasks in the Skills sections; list your people skills in the Abilities section.
• Education: formal education
• Technical Skills: computer, software or other skills
• Job Related Training: a training course or certification or a license you possess.
• Experience: list only job experience that relates to your targeted job objective, such as an internship. Do Not include experience from fast food restaurants, etc.
• Awards: school, military, community awards are acceptable. But work or employment awards are preferred.
• Affiliations: memberships in organizations that relate to the job title.Many professional organizations have student chapters you can join at a discounted rate.

An Example of a Knowledge-Based Resume

Bob Smith
123 Main St., anywhere, Any State, 34123
Phone: (111) 111-1111 ¨ E-Mail: name@name.com

OBJECTIVE
Entry Level Chemical Engineer

OVERVIEW
Quality-driven, enthusiastic, and well-organized college graduate in Chemical Engineering with experience in business development, online sales, team management, customer service and website development. Demonstrated leadership skills including accountability, customer focus, results driven, and integrity & trust. Strong verbal and written communications skills, articulate speaker and writer.

AREAS OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING KNOWLEDGE
Heat & Mass Transfer
Kinetics
Thermodynamics
Fluid Mechanics
Hydraulics
Pneumatics
Energy balances
Statistical Process Control
Computer Analysis/Simulation
Material Science
Formation and Bonding
Experimental Design
Project Management
Troubleshooting
Data Analysis
Report Writing

CORE COMPETENCIES
Knowledge

Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering.
Basic understanding of chemical process engineering.
Knowledge of laboratory and chemical safety procedures.
Microsoft Office, Word, Excel, PowerPoint.
MATLAB

Skills

Demonstrated leadership skills including accountability, customer focus, results driven, and integrity & trust.
Excellent team participation skills.
Proficiency in Microsoft Word (procedure documentation and formatting), Excel (creating workbooks, writing formulas with functions) and PowerPoint (creating slides for presentations and project mapping).

Abilities

Solving technical problems.
Collaborate with cross-functional areas.
Adapt to rapidly changing business priorities and assignments.
Multi-task efficiently.
Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
Willingness to travel for domestic and international assignments.

EDUCATION
B.S. in Chemical Engineering, University of Texas. Graduation Date 6/2010.
GPA: 3.4

WORK EXPERIENCE

ENGINEERING Intern, ABC SOLUTIONS CORPORATION, Summer, 2007, 2008

Company Summary: ABCdevelops simulation software for mechanics problems. The area of focus is directly involved with ballistics, safety systems and crashworthiness. Technologies are implemented in an object-oriented method of Java programming.

DUTIES & ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

–Assisted a defense contractor that specializes in computer-aided engineering related to the ballistics performance of various systems.

–Prepared finite element models to solve problems involving reinforced concrete and refractory metals. Searched for relevant scientific journal articles.

–Converted constitutive models with complex unit systems from one unit system to another.

AFFILIATIONS
American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Member 2006-2010

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Happy Job Hunting

Randall Scasny
FS5 Consulting | The Science of Job Search
randy@fs5consulting.com

First Time Job Seekers: Job Competition and Resume Writing Preparation

This tutorial for first time job seekers will discuss how job competition relates to resume writing preparation. Understanding the types of job competition will ensure that you are writing a resume with hiring appeal that naturally attracts recruiters.

Students are busy people. Term papers to write. Exams to cram for. Homework to do. And, yes, parties to go to! What happens when the graduation party is done and over? Reality sinks in. You need to find a job. At this point, most first time job seekers write a resume from samples they are given by a college placement office or one they found on the Internet. Little thought is given to job competition and how it affects resume writing. That’s what this blog entry is about: a beginner’s guide to job competition and how it relates to resume writing.

In my previous two tutorials (1 and 2), I discussed what you need to know before you start looking for a job and the importance of relationship building skills in obtaining employee referrals. I discussed them first because if you understand the job market and can get employee referrals, you may not even need a resume to get a job interview!

But that’s not how it works for most first time job seekers. So, they need to write a resume to post on job boards or apply for jobs. To write a killer resume, you need to understand the two types of competition.

Job Seeker to Employer Competition

A hiring manager will develop a job requisition based upon a list of job requirements commonly called skills. These requirements will be listed in a job ad and defined as basic and desired/preferred requirements. These requirements are the check-off list for the resume screener who could be a just a human resources assistant and doesn’t know anything about the job other than what is written on the job ad.

After the job requisition is published and resumes are collected, the HR assistant will use the requirements to screen out resumes that either (i) do not have the requirements or (ii) have the least amount of requirements relative to the others resumes. In essence, in this initial phase, you are competing against the employer’s requirements, which is the first type of job competition.

To be selected for a job interview, your resume must correspond to the requirement check-off list as much as possible. Hence, if you wrote a generic resume without any reference to real-world job requirements, it’s unlikely that it would be selected to move forward in the hiring process. The consequences of this could be disastrous; you could be looking for a job for months without getting any employer inquiries. Let’s avoid the disaster and work through a simple example.

Let’s say the basic job requirements included:

• College degree with at least a 3.0 GPA
• Ability to work rotating shifts
• Ability to use MS Excel to update inventory
• Ability to go on overnight business travel

These basic requirements suggest that they need someone who has both computer skills and a flexible schedule. For the employer, the flexible schedule is the greatest challenge because of most people’s family commitments or child care needs. Hence, if you have tuned your resume to the requirements for this job and include these requirements in a summary section of your resume, you will have a greater likelihood of being considered as a job candidate with hiring appeal.

Job Seeker to Job Seeker Competition

Once your resume is selected for an interview, your resume will be part of a small group of job candidates of interest. An employer will seek to determine which of this small group of job candidates has both the most hiring apeal and is a good fit for the job as far as goals, attitude, and temperament. At this point, you are no longer competing against the employer’s requirements; rather, you are being compared to the other job seekers in a head-to-head competition.

The subsequent job interviews will focus on the desired requirements rather than the basic requirements. Desired requirements are specific to the job, the employer’s business, or industry sector.

Let’s go through a few examples of desired requirements:

• Multilingualism a plus
• 1-2 years experience in business-to-business environment preferred; new college graduates considered
• Ability to work creatively and analytically in a problem-solving environment
• Completed at least 24 hours of business-related studies in Accounting, Law, Business, Finance, Contracts, Purchasing, Economics, Industrial Management, Marketing, Quantitative Methods, or Organizational Management
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, have good follow through, be well organized, successfully work on several projects at the same time, and have the ability to refocus on a project after multiple interruptions.

As you can see from the above list of desired requirements, they are much more specific and detailed than the basic requirements. They are harder to fill as well as to find. What I mean is job candidates who have these desired requirements are very competitive; hence, they do not remain job candidates for long. They get hired fast!

So, when you write your resume, you need to be as detailed as possible. Even if you do not have all the desired requirements, your detailed resume may stand out from the other new graduates. You may get a second or a third job interview as a result of the depth of detail on your resume while the other job candidates are given a polite, rejection letter.

Assignment #3

Go to Indeed.com and search for jobs using the following keywords: “entry level + your college major.” Read through 5 job ads that interest you. Select 2 job ads to print out. Now, take a yellow highlighter and carefully read the basic and desired/preferred job requirements. If you have a resume, compare it to the highlighted requirements. Does your current resume reflect the requirements detailed in the job ad? Report your findings back to me. Either via this blog or randy@fs5consulting.com

Happy Job Hunting.

Randy Scasny
FS5 Consulting | The Science of Job Search
randy@fs5consulting.com