Blog [ Original ]

Your Early Work Years Impact the Rest of your Life

September 1, 2015 By Marta Goertzen

Occasionally I run into recent college graduates so desperate for work that they take the first job offered to them. They mistake a job for a career. They do not understand the impact their first job will have on the rest of their lives.

My first job was as a Labor Relations Assistant. Labor relations is different from human resources. It is a specialty that is recognized by many people as more complicated than human resources in a non-union environment. I am not sure I agree but that is not the point. Starting in labor relations, even as an assistant pushed me ahead in my career by at least 5 years compared to others who started in human resources. Because I had this background I became a Director at age 30, again well ahead of colleagues who started in human resources.

The first job out of college makes a difference. It takes years to make up for a misstep at the beginning of your career.

If you are a marketing major and your first job is a customer service representative, it will take you much longer to get into marketing than someone whose first job goal is an entry level marketing position.
If you get an engineering degree but accept a position as a technician it will take a long time to become an engineer.
If you want to be a systems analyst but accept a position as a help desk person it will take a long time to become a systems analyst.
If you want to become a human resource manager but your first position is as a human resource assistant, you have added years to your career to reach your goal.

At the core this is a question of confidence. If you allow barriers, imagined or real, to stop you from getting what you want then you must not want it hard enough. Take another look at your desires and methods to be sure you are doing everything possible to achieve your career goals. Are you making the right connections or networking effectively? You might need to get an outside opinion about your job search.

Someone is getting those jobs. It might as well be you.

Lead with confidence in your next job interview

August 28, 2015 By Marta Goertzen

No one is going to give you your next job or promotion just because you are qualified. There are lots of people who are qualified. The one that gets the job is the one that makes the best first, second, and third impression. The one who fits in best with the rest of the team is the person who gets the job.

confidence There are two ways you make a great first impression.

The first part is physical – the way you look when you step through the door.

Smile. A real smile that starts in your eyes and moves to your mouth. Even if you are nervous at least pretend to smile. You will grow into it if you try.
Dress the part. Look like you will fit in. Dress a little better than the others. Wear a suit and tie.
Body language that shows that you mean business. That includes great eye contact, a strong handshake, and great posture. No slumping. Sit straight like your mother taught you. Look the other person in the eye with a twinkle and smile in your eyes and extend your hand in a positive gesture of friendship. Not a wimpy, wet handshake but a strong grip.

The second part is confidence that comes from inside you – from being prepared, from knowing you are the right person for the job.

Know what you want and why you should have it. No one can do that for you. Do not look at the interviewer for the answer. You will not do anything. Deep inside you is your secret desire for a particular role in which you know you will excel.
Have a great response to “tell me about yourself” that expresses who you are and what you can do for the team. You have one minute to give a 30,000 foot overview that draws a dotted line between your experience, what you bring to the table and the job you want.
Be confident. Not smarmy, cocky, or aggressive but a calm that comes from being prepared.

Take a deep breath and open the door, figuratively and literally, to demonstrate that you are the best person for the job!

Keywords – the new Marco Polo

August 25, 2015 By Marta Goertzen

When I was a kid we spent hours playing Marco Polo around the pool. Remember that game?

The kid who was “it” closed her eyes and yelled out “Marco” while all her friends scattered around the pool yelling “Polo” while moving around the pool trying to avoid the kid who was “It”. Eventually the kid with his eyes closed honed in on the other kids by listening to the sounds.

Today keywords are the new way we play Marco Polo in recruiting. Hiring managers post jobs describing the vacancy using certain keywords commonly used to describe the position then search LinkedIn and other sites using keywords to find candidates who match the job. Candidates describe themselves in terms that demonstrate that they have the right skills and abilities to do their dream jobs.

When the two worlds collide then the hiring managers and candidates make a match!

Keywords are particularly important in LinkedIn since hiring managers and recruiters search for candidates who describe themselves with the keywords that the hiring managers look for. If you don’t have the right keywords in your LinkedIn profile then hiring managers will not find you. That is a problem.

A client recently told me about a different way to measure whether we are using keywords appropriately in job search using those cool word clouds. The tool is www.TagCrowd.com. I tried it and would like to share it with you.

Find job descriptions describing your ideal job. I randomly selected three jobs for Product Manager posted at indeed.com that sounded interesting.
Paste the main areas of the description into a Word Document. Remove extra words like the company name and unnecessary words like “experience” and “requirements”. You can also list these unnecessary words in a box in TagCrowd. This text does not have to be formatted or look pretty. We are looking for words describing the job and the experience needed to do the job.
Copy and paste the text into the section of TagCrowd labeled “Paste text to be visualized”. You can also upload files or provide a web page URL but I just copied and pasted.
Click on “Visualize!” In a few seconds you will have a word cloud describing the words that frequently are used to describe your ideal job! At the bottom of the page are options you can click on. You can either do this before clicking on Visualize! or afterwards as a way to refine the word cloud.
Refine the word cloud by eliminating unnecessary words that you don’t think are key to describing your ideal job. The default finds 50 words but I reduced it to 25 words to clarify my focus.
Click on “Save As…” under the word cloud. I saved it as a PDF. Then I can add it to my LinkedIn profile as a document, increasing the number of times my

Here is the word cloud for the Product Manager position. Someone looking for a Product Manager position would be smart to include these words in their LinkedIn profile.

I tried this on my own LinkedIn profile. I copied the text of my existing LinkedIn profile and pasted it into a Word document. I eliminated unnecessary words and cleaned it up a bit. Then copied and pasted it into the text box then clicked on Visualize! I reduce the words from 50 to 25 and identified some words that did not add value like “Doctor”, “including” and “offer”. The resulting word cloud showed what I want people to know about me!

You want to have dense keywords in your LinkedIn profile to be sure you show up at the top of the search pages. “Dense” is often viewed as 20+ mentions of a keyword. Keywords for me as The Interview Doctor are “Job” with 37 mentions, “Management” with 27 mentions, “talent” with 29 mentions, “search” with 25 mentions and “coaching” with 22 mentions. “Consulting”, which is my business, only has 10 mentions. This tells me that if I want people to find me about consulting then I better adjust my profile to increase mention of my consulting experience!

Keywords are not a substitute for a well worded resume and profile and definitely not a substitute for networking but having a great LinkedIn profile that supports your goal is a foundation for a good job search.

How does your profile stack up? Do you have enough of the right keywords? If not, what are you going to do about it? Share your thoughts in our LinkedIn Group, Job Search Check-Up, or just drop me a note!!

Six Tips to have fun in any situation

August 21, 2015 By Marta Goertzen

We were very silly last weekend at the Great Tomato Stomp at the Leamington ONT Tomato Festival! A team of crazy friends including my husband Kermit entered the contest and won by creating the largest amount of tomato juice by stomping two crates of whole tomatoes. Twelve teams entered. It was a blast.

What can we learn from such silliness? I came up with a few life lessons:

Find the fun in whatever you are doing. We drove 50 miles to a community festival celebrating the humble tomato. We saw a parade, visited booths and met really nice people. Who would have thought we could have such fun! Who ever heard of the Tomato Festival!! What have you done recently to have fun wherever you are planted?

Play well with others. Our team won by a landslide this year but it is important to be nice to everyone. We want everyone to have a good time too so we had to be considerate of others and include as many people as possible in our fun. Networking involves give and take. You have to have a great reputation for playing well with others. Do you help each other and involve other people in your search?
Depend on other people to achieve your goals. You have to hold on to each other to survive five minutes in a slippery plastic swimming pool stopping on juicy tomatoes. How are you using your friends, colleagues and acquaintances to achieve your goals?
Be creative to come up with unique solutions. The winning team created the most juice so the team came up with a great way to strain out the solids. The solution complied with the rules but turned the circumstances to our advantage. Are you considering ways to use the job search “rules” to your advantage? Maybe going around barriers instead of waiting for permission?
Look beyond the “ickiness” to your goal. Stomping tomatoes with bare feet feels kind of icky. But that icky feeling is a necessary part of the process. Job search has its own ickiness – occasional loneliness, a little fear. But without that ickiness you will never get to the other side to find the job you want.
Get right back up when you fall. Crushed tomatoes are slippery. A participant or two slipped and fell in the goo. But they got up and continued on. Most teams clasped hands or arms to stay vertical. That was part of the fun! What are you doing to stay vertical and on course?
Be a good sport and leave a good impression. No one likes a bad sport. Double check your attitude at the door. Be open, friendly, smile a little. Be gracious in victory and open in defeat.

Stay active and alert for opportunities for fun wherever you are! The chances are there if you look. Every adventure takes you closer to your goal.

A better way to find interns? Check out The Interview Doctor’s Talent

August 18, 2015 By Marta Goertzen

Recently I received a LinkedIn invitation to connect from Richard, a mechanical engineering student at University of Akron. The first line of Richard’s summary says, “Mechanical Engineering Co-op student seeking a summer assignment.” His invitation arrived in August probably too late for a summer internship.

I accepted of course after reviewing his profile. Richard has 500+ connections and a nice profile. Clearly he is unafraid of reaching out to people who might be helpful.

This got me thinking. The University of Akron Engineering School offers a co-op program so they must have some relationships with the business community. But they must not be able to provide every engineering student with a co-op assignment. Maybe that is not their job. I don’t really know. Richard has a lot of connections. Either his many connections failed to yield a summer internship or he did not update his LinkedIn profile yet.

I bet Richard is not alone. I bet he is not the only college student looking for a summer internship.

I bet there are companies out there that would be thrilled to have a summer intern if they could figure out how to navigate the university system. There should be a better way.

We can make this process a LOT easier with The Interview Doctor Talent Exchange. Connecting for internships is completely free to both the candidate and the company! Now when was the last time you heard about something FREE that could be helpful in job search? That is clearly a rhetorical question!

Here is how it works

Richard can go here to sign up for an internship. He enters as a job seeker. Lent He will create a profile and identify himself as a candidate for internships. Then he will answer a series of questions about his field and specialties, his preferred locations, the kind of people he prefers to work with and the way he likes to work.

If you as an employer wants to hire internships, you go to interviewdoc.workfountain.com to sign up as an employer. You will create an account and a profile. You will answer a series of questions about your business and the internship you offer. Then you will answer a series of questions about the work you offer to interns, the kind of people you have in your workplace and the way they like to work.

I bet you know what is next!! Next we make a match!

Once Richard and the employer press the “GO” button, the system begins processing, churning away like a big BINGO cage behind the scenes. The system is matching the kind of work Richard wants with the work that an employer offers. Then it matches the geography and industry. Then it matches the characteristics or competencies around the people and the way they work.

Zappo Wammo out comes a match.

The employer receives an email with the five or six candidates that match their requirements! Richard the candidate receives an email with the five or six internship opportunities that match their requirements!

They reach out to each other, talk, interview, explore to see if Richard is the right candidate for the employer’s internship opportunity.

No cost to anyone for an internship.

How does that sound? Do you think Richard could have leveraged his LinkedIn connections in this way? Probably not. In the meantime some employer missed out on having Richard as an intern this summer.

I bet The Interview Doctor’s Talent Exchange could have helped.

Blog [ Original ]

Occasionally I run into recent college graduates so desperate for work that they take the first job offered to them. They mistake a job for a career. They do not understand the impact their first job will have on the rest of their lives.

Someone is getting those jobs. It might as well be you.

Take a deep breath and open the door, figuratively and literally, to demonstrate that you are the best person for the job!

When I was a kid we spent hours playing Marco Polo around the pool. Remember that game?

How does your profile stack up? Do you have enough of the right keywords? If not, what are you going to do about it? Share your thoughts in our LinkedIn Group, Job Search Check-Up, or just drop me a note!!

Stay active and alert for opportunities for fun wherever you are! The chances are there if you look. Every adventure takes you closer to your goal.

Don’t be left out. Get your interns through The Interview Doctor’s Talent Exchange at no cost to the employer. What do you have to lose?