7 Essential Job Hunting Tips

Janet Schlarbaum Hopes you find this interesting.

Whether you are looking for a job in travel or teaching, PR or publishing, hunting for a new job can be a daunting experience. There is no flawless formula for finding the perfect job, but by taking some basic steps and remembering a few important principles, you can greatly enhance your chances of success…

Know thyself

If you are about to start searching online for a job, ask yourself a few simple questions first. What skills and experience do you have? What kind of work do you want to do? What parts of your previous jobs have you enjoyed and been good at, and where have you struggled? When you are hunting for jobs online, life will be a lot easier if you have a better understanding of what you like and what you are good at.

Do your research

Once you’ve built an accurate picture of your skills and experience, it’s time to do some online job research. Take a look in the print and online job listings of major newspapers and relevant trade publications to get an idea of what kind of jobs are out there, and find out how much experience or what specific qualifications you’ll need for the ones that interest you.

If you are lucky enough to have any contacts in an industry that interests you, talk to them about the details of their job. Online forums, blogs and message boards are also good places to learn more about an industry, potential employer or a specific kind of work.

Get some help!

There’s nothing like the advice of a professional to help you on your way, especially if you are heading into an industry about which you know very little. If you’ve recently graduated from university, you can still contact their careers service for advice. You should also consider contacting a recruitment consultancy. Recruitment consultancies are usually knowledgeable and specialized in specific areas, from travel jobs to publishing and PR, and they will have the experience and contacts to help you find employment. They may also be able to advise you on writing your CV and preparing for an interview.

Get some experience

Many companies like to see relevant experience before they will consider hiring you. Work experience and internships look good on your CV and can be a shortcut to employment - if you are impressive enough in an unpaid position, many companies will hire you full time.

Craft your CV

Don’t send out the same CV for different jobs - it’s easy to spot when a CV is generic and when it has been given a little thought. Focus on the skills on those that are relevant for the position you are applying to, and when writing about your previous jobs, emphasise the experiences they gave you that have prepared you for the job you are applying for.

That personal touch…

Try and find a way to stand out from the crowd with your application. Call the company to enquire about the position and/or follow up your application with a phone call (but don’t be pushy!) Try to speak to the same person each time you call the company so that you can develop a contact there. Consider submitting a paper CV and covering letter rather than applying for
the job online. But don’t try anything to quirky when trying to add that personal touch - fancy fonts and a list of strange interests on your CV can make you seem unprofessional.

Be prepared!

If you make it through to an interview, preparation is the key to success. Read up on the details of
the job and travel to the interview early - being late always makes a bad impression! Dress smart and simple, prepare a list of relevant questions, learn more about the company and the industry it is in, and so on. The more you prepare, the calmer you’ll be, the more you’ll know and the better you’ll do. Good luck!

Janet Schlarbaum Ripoff

A ripoff (or rip-off) is a bad deal. Usually it refers to an incident in which a person pays too much for something. A ripoff is distinguished from a scam in that a scam involves wrongdoing such as fraud; a ripoff, on the other hand, is in the eye of the beholder. A scam might involve, for instance, a scheme in which a person pays $20 for a startup kit related to stuffing envelopes for a living, but the kit never arrives; upon receiving the money, the recipient flees. A ripoff, on the other hand, might be a business opportunity in which a person pays $375 for bulk vending machines worth $75. The fact that the advertised product actually arrives – even though it is worth far less than the purchase price – makes it a ripoff, not a scam.

In a related meaning, a ripoff is a blatant or unscrupulous copy or imitation. This is also known as a knockoff. In both senses there is an associated verb “to rip off”, but the location of the preposition differs between the two meanings:

In one of his stand up comedy routines, Dennis Miller jokes about seeing an ad in the National Inquirer: “Learn how to avoid ripoffs - send $5.”

In South Africa ‘ripping off’ can be making a joke of something that a person does on a regular basis.

Career Management - Revealing Its Options And Opportunities

By Abhishek Agarwal

One confusing and rather elusive business is career management, or more precisely called “career planning.” Anyone needs career management; however, only not many people employ or do it. Why? Because many just don’t know how important career management is. A lot of people think that they need not seek other people’s help for they can find suitable jobs for themselves. To find out if career planning would benefit you, you have to know the definition of career management. Actually, career management has more than one definition. The meaning is actually dependent on your purpose: are you planning for a new job or are you looking for ways to develop your present job? To find out what will be good for you, you should search for the meaning of career management. Then you will know if you need career planning or not, and if you do need it, what kind do you exactly need.

Are you contented with your present job? The likelihood is that you are not. Your happiness or contentment should be the first thing you consider. Many workers do not love their existing career for different reasons. Some may have the opinion that they are underpaid; a few may have problems with their colleagues; and others may not like the work in general. Regardless of whatever reason you may have for disliking your work, you can acquire assistance from experts in career management that give this kind of service or from career management centers. They can either find a better career that will fit you well, or they can help you move up the corporate ladder in your present company. That entirely relies on what you want. Once you know the meaning of career management, you will see that everything that occurs to you is rooted in the kind of employee you are, the kind of money you want to be making, and the things that interests you. Based on those things, a good career manager will assist you in searching for a career that contains all of those criteria. Once the career managers have worked everything out, you will feel a lot satisfied not only with your career but also with everything about yourself.

Seeing things through the usual definition of career management, anyone could gain advantage from this service. It is highly improbable that you are absolutely satisfied with your present job in all its aspects. Therefore, you should visit the career management centers near you.

Janet Schlarbaum Options And Opportunities

Successful Job Interviews

By: Pamela Watson

Within this article I will share an important secret behind successful job interviewing and career management. We all know that a well designed job search requires much more than revising your resume and learning a few job interview tips. Usually it’s good to get advice from the experts and career counselors or coaches. But, it is far more important to know yourself and to know where you want to end up. Do you have a picture in your mind of where you’ll be in 5 years…10 years? Have you written it down? With this picture or goal in mind, can you now plan for tomorrow’s career strategy? What can you do, tomorrow, that will lead to the better job or the promotion?

The most important secret to successful job interviewing is knowing your career vision - - where you want your career, and your life, to take you. Every step you take towards securing a new position, obtaining a highly desired promotion, reaching short-term career plans should be based upon a big picture - - your career vision. It is what provides the pathway for your personal success. It is what keeps you on track during disappointments and in the midst of organizational or personal changes. We have to know what it is that we’re seeking to be effective within our career moves.

Recently, I received an email from a business associate who wanted to share a promotion within a major corporation. I’ve known this professional for over ten years, have heard him speak of his career goals, and I recognized how valuable his stepping stones mean to him. His careful preparation, and planned risk-taking, was leading to career success that had personal value to him and his family. When necessary he had made adjustments and changed jobs, but he kept focused on achieving the big picture.

The steps to creating your vision are similar to the the way companies create their long-term plans or mission statements. Due to the size and functioning of corporations, it can take months - - sometimes years - - to complete a mission statement.

That’s not the case when you create your own personal one. The process doesn’t take as long, and there’s no need to get an entire management team together to complete it. What’s most important is that yours be based on your “reality” and your “dream.” Between these two areas is a “gap of compromise” that allows you to create a successful vision of your career. Whether you’re searching for a new job, a promotion, or career satisfaction, it’s important to have a vivid picture in your mind of where you’re heading.

Your career vision can be drawn directly from your personal values, family background, financial desires, geographical limitations, physical needs, etc. At least 25% of it should deal with your reality.

So, if you have an deeply embedded, vivid picture of your career goals, it makes life so much easier in your job search. You begin to fully use your network in a way that will get you better job leads. You are then able to clearly identify what company or position can further your career and synchronize with your goals. You can fully evaluate a company before, during, and after the interview. You begin to use a much more efficient job search strategy.

Many job seekers send their resumes to numerous job boards, recruiters with generic opening statements and introductions. You throw enough darts and sooner or later something’s going stick, rights? But will that new position lead you to your desired position? Or will you be looking for a new position 6 months after accepting the offer? The secret to successful job interviews centers on you knowing where you expect to end your journey. With this knowledge you can search for a new job with a clearer sense of what it is that you will accept, or not accept.

Job interviews are designed to review the results of your career-related actions, as well as to determine how well you will fit within the company. If you’ve done your homework (self evaluation and company research), then your vision should directly impact the short-term step of interviewing. By understanding where you’re heading, you’re more likely to successfully manage interview questions - - as well as decide if the position is one that will lead you closer to career success.

Successful Janet Schlarbaum Job Interviews

Career Development Brings Success

By: Shanat Kuphur

Meaning of the word “career” has moved out of its regular boundaries as a “money making business” into something more as a culminating edge of human ambitions. Henceforth career development and career development plans conquer their dreams even in a sound sleep - eternal happiness becomes a mirage. Vigilant eyes have to be kept to win back those lost hours of sleep.

Worldly pleasures have always attracted mankind-so is career development. Professionalism has grabbed world in such a spurious manner that education itself is oriented to career development. As world is advancing at the fraction of a second, becoming a professional-a lawyer, doctor, engineer, businessman, scientist-only can satisfy the ambitious students of today. Even after procuring a job, the urge for career development continues- human needs never ends.

In his pursuing for a lofty career, man often turns to be complaining. A dissection of the state of the art clearly reveals an unbiased human mind. Frequent career switching followed by red lines in career graph is the end result. A fretful mentality supplemented with lack of perseverance, determination and confidence is the root cause of these hindrances in the path of career development. Career development goals are set aiming at long-range career growth in the initial years. A lack of motivation and a lack of understanding of the aim throw stones and thorns in the road to the target. Egos and complexes pull their legs further down. A realization of potential becomes impractical and a career break through turns out to be impossible. Blinking eyes at this major issue is paving the way for a cancerous disease of mind. When surveyed for reasons, what commonly found is - setting lame excuses by beating around the bush, searching for heads to put the blame upon - this bird’s eye view makes things worse than the worst.

In order to succeed and have a commendable approach towards your career path, it’s essential that you follow a decided career development path. This need not be someone else’s plan, but just your estimates or goals based upon your personal gauging of the current day scenario. However your career development approach or path may not always get the much-anticipated momentum. The reason being you may be confused or simply not confident about your own achievements. Apart from this you may not be able to foresee and may not really device the best of plans. As such hypnosis for career development can help you see a great change in your monotonous and all too stagnant career graph.

Hypnosis for career management enables you to make a conscious decision and ensures that your sub conscious mind is always working towards this goal. Hypnosis awakens your inner being making it aware of the concerned scenario; you gain a deeper insight into what’s happening and revise your approach accordingly. Through hypnosis you will be able to initiate the process of change.

Career Development Brings Janet Schlarbaum Success

7 Strategies to Credit Crunch Proof Your career

By: Sharon Alexander

Every time you open a newspaper nowadays, the first thing you see is the current fear of a recession, the credit crunch, the banking crisis and the difficult days ahead with a downturn of the economy. It seems obvious that there will be cost cutting measures within some organizations, which in turn triggers fears of downsizing. Keeping this in mind, it is better to credit crunch proof your career when there is still time. Even if your company is not affected right now, it is necessary that you build up a strategy to safeguard yourself. There are no magic answers or sure shot solutions but these tactics can help to give you confidence and an added edge.

1. Update your skills and learn new skills: Now is the time to invest more in yourself. Update your skills in your current areas of work. Similarly, learn new skills like IT skills. You may take up new courses or trainings that will enhance your resume and can prove to be helpful not just in your current job but also any new opportunities if the need be.

2. Target your resume for specific jobs: Design and develop a resume that is fully targeted for a specific job that you are applying for. It should not be a generic list of your qualifications and experience. If you are unable to do so yourself, invest some time in learning this skill. Only a professionally targeted resume can take you further to an interview level. Your resume should stand out from the rest and should be appealing enough to the employers.

3.Get yourself noticed: At your current job, take efforts to be noticed. Make sure your boss is aware of your achievements. If you are given an opportunity for a new role and responsibility, take it up. If you are involved in a very important project, you may be safer than most.

4. Make yourself indispensable: Be ready to take on new tasks even over and above your usual activities. Volunteering to take on new tasks helps in making you indispensable as a person who can undertake any activity happily. That will help list you out as an important team member not worth losing. Find ways to contribute innovatively to your company. Be an active team player.

5. Start networking: It helps having a good supportive network. Keep in touch with former colleagues in other organizations, you previous bosses etc., which can help you find other job opportunities whenever the need arises. Be equally helpful to your contact as far as possible, as then only can you expect them to return the favor.

6. Plan your finances carefully: Building up your financial reserves is necessary. Even if you may be given a redundancy package it may take some time to come. If you have some financial reserve to last you at least 6 months, you would not go deeper in the trough. Plan you finances carefully with your current job at hand.

7. Don’t hide: Do not make yourself invisible, considering that you would not get axed because of it. Get up and prove yourself so that you become a bit safer. Your clients and boss need to see results now. Try to solve immediate needs.

7 Janet Schlarbaum Strategies

Career Management - Do Your Friends Know What You Do?

Author: Dennis Abenanty

Most people can recall at least one time when they needed help with something and without hesitation a friend or relative offered a referral. Have a pain in your neck? See Dr. Weber. Need a math tutor? Call Mary Jones. Not sure how to report the gain on the sale of your home? Call my tax guy.

But as quick as they were to recommend a doctor, a tutor, or a tax preparer, do these same people know what you do? If they were in a similar conversation with someone about what you do for a living, would they even think of offering your name? If they tripped over the perfect job for you, would they know it? For most of us, the answer is, no.

It is your job to help people understand what you do. You need to create a marketing campaign about you, so that job opportunities will come to you without you even being present in the conversation.

Consider this conversation between a data security manager and a friend:

Data Security Manager: “If I don’t find someone quickly who knows about Extranet & Internet DMZs and network security, I’m going to have some serious problems on my hands. Just today we had another major problem with our PIX Firewalls and Split Managed VPN, and all our routers and switches went down.”

Friend: “I haven’t the slightest idea what that means, but I know a guy who does. Here’s his name and number; give him a call and maybe he can help.”

Whether you are in the market for a new job or not, this is how you want to be known. But before you start broadcasting to the world what you do, prepare a carefully thought out marketing pitch and try it on some trusted colleagues.

Avoid Expansive Labels

Telling people you are a banker, a consultant, or a sales person won’t even begin to educate them in what you do. Be more specific.

A lawyer can be a criminal lawyer, an intellectual property lawyer, an immigration lawyer, a securities lawyer, a real estate lawyer, a tax lawyer, an international lawyer, a family lawyer, and a multiplicity of other specialties.

Educate

Much like the lawyer paradigm, telling someone you are a programmer is not precise enough, but might also evoke a deer-in-the-headlights question, “So…what do you do, then…?”

Don’t assume the other person knows much about computers. Be prepared to define your specialty at varying levels of understanding, and be patient even if you have to explain Programming 101; “Computers follow instructions from programming languages that require a great deal of precision and completeness to enable the computer to produce the intended action. There are many different languages, but my specialty is helping companies design first class web pages using HTML programming.”

Promote Your Value Proposition - Not Yourself

Offering your job title does little to help people understand what you do and can also be perceived as condescending. Think in terms of a marketing brochure, not a resume.

Janet Schlarbaum Career Management

Career Branding Strategies to Beat a Recession

By: Sharon Alexander

Self Branding or career branding is an often over-looked important party of the job search. The biggest mistake that people make is to assume that their past accomplishments and career experiences will speak for themselves.

Often, job seekers can fail to take a proactive approach to creating and marketing their reputations. Branding is setting yourself apart from other job
seekers. If an employer sees “productive,” or “self-motivated” basically stamped on your forehead he/she is going to stop and take notice. The blame lies entirely on you if you choose not to be active in asserting your reputation.

It is so important to market and manage your reputation in this manner. Start by determining what your strengths and assets are. What have other employers complemented you on? Are you dependable? Do you show good leadership? Or maybe you have good analytical qualities?

Whatever your best feature is, you need to identify it, and then go about highlighting it to potential employers. There are many different ways to market your brand. Begin including your brand in emails and letters. When you describe to people your job functions, include your brand. This can be done effectively and tastefully in a manner such as, “I work for company X to create new software; my work is completed on time and on budget.”

Another example from a manager’s standpoint could be, “I lead others to follow my example and work efficiently without sacrificing quality or integrity.” The first example provided highlights the candidate’s respect for deadlines and good money sense. The second showcases the employee’s leadership qualities and values. Once you establish your brand you can use it in many situations to remind your potential employer what it is that you bring to the table.

The bottom line is that if you don’t brand yourself, others will. Nobody wants to see bad qualities like these present in a potential employee. You might have accidentally given a bad first impression without even knowing it, and words like these might cling to your name.

Much of this could have been avoided had you mentioned in early email correspondence that you have responsibly performed your duties with other employers and that you possess such and such qualities. Obviously if you claim punctuality as a selling point, then are late to an initial interview, your actions discredit your claims. Generally, however, you can shape the opinion that others will take toward you, by effectively marketing your brand.

Janet Schlarbaum Best Career Building Strategies