In the last few months I worked with Julia and Greg, recent college graduates having trouble landing jobs after graduation as an accountant and an engineer. Their parents came to The Interview Doctor for help. Both candidates had a mishmash of odd jobs during their school years but neither had any relevant work experience or internships during college. That is not good. The lack of internships was hampering their ability to get a job. [Read more…] about Start Looking for your College Internship Now!
Blog [ Original ]
Check in with clients: Erin got a job!
Erin’s parent’s caught me at church with the great news: Erin got a job!! A recent college grad in the unusual field of journalistic photography, she was a great client. She listened. She was unafraid to try something new. She knocked on doors until someone opened. Really!
Literally, Erin knocked on doors and followed every lead until she turned up a position at The Smithsonian Museum that is perfect for her. She can directly use her college training and her photography skills. Then she found an apartment with her college roommate. She is on her way.
Recent college grads are so wonderful to work with. Most are optimistic, upbeat, the world is at their fingertips if they can only grasp it. Erin did exactly what I asked her to do. All she needed was a little direction and off she went to get what she wants.
We congratulate Erin on her success and wish her the best in her career!!
The week before Christmas I got a call from Jonathan. He was excited, thrilled even. A recruiter found him on LinkedIn!
I worked with Jonathan a few months ago. Another recent college grad, he wants to use his biomedical education in medical sales. Unfortunately for a variety of reasons he did not have an internship so he had less experience than might be ideal. So we worked on how to adjust his LinkedIn profile to attract attention from recruiters who often work with medical sales positions.
He got attention from the recruiter. Now he has to demonstrate his ability to do the job he wants to have. He needs to bump up his networking and be even more visible.
It works! These techniques work. It is possible to structure your job search to get attention to get a job. What you do with these techniques make a huge difference. You could make two calls a day or you can attack the situation like Erin did and make 10 calls a day. Every “no” leaves space in your day to find another lead that will say “yes”.
It is up to you. How will you define your search to make your search successful?
By the way, an hour with The Interview Doctor makes a great gift for the graduate!
Turn a new leaf in 2014
I am remodeling my master bathroom. I need to remove the carpeting and wall paper that my daughter refers to as “fugly”. I am not sure exactly what that means but I am pretty sure it is bad. The wallpaper came down easily. I lovingly washed the walls to remove the sizing then sanded for an entire day to make the walls almost perfectly smooth then washed the walls again to remove the dust. I was ready to paint. I have the perfect paint color, a little lighter than the bedroom, a really sweet pale yellow, almost white. It will be great!!
I painted the ceiling yesterday. It didn’t take very long so I thought why not paint the walls? The walls are a bigger job and I had plenty of time left on that Sunday. I put up the tape, cut in the corners, and finished the walls at about 6pm. Perfect timing to watch the evening football game. Then it occurred to me I should remove the tape on the ceiling. The first piece of tape pulled off a big chunk of the new ceiling paint. OH NO!!
Sure enough, in my haste to move forward with the project I cut a corner. I moved too fast. The ceiling paint had not dried sufficiently. Now I have to repair the work I did so lovingly. I have to go back and prepare the ceiling again then repaint the parts I messed up.
Of course you see the allegory. I took two steps forward and one step back. This happens. Sure, I could have (and in hind sight should have) waited to paint the walls until the next day when the ceiling paint would have certainly been dried. But I really want to finish this project. I moved forward with confidence but made a small error. Ready, Fire, Aim.
I do it all the time. Ready, Fire, Aim is part of my genetic make-up I think.
Making a mistake in your job search or in your career progression is almost never fatal. A misstep requires a pause, reassess, then step forward with confidence to try again.
What will you do in 2014 to achieve your goals? Perhaps you had a misstep in 2013 or perhaps you have a big challenge in front of you? Or perhaps you must fill a vacancy on your team? All challenges require a plan. How do you plan to achieve the objective? What tactics will you use? What is your contingency for mistakes, because you will make a mistake somewhere along the way.
Don’t let the mistakes define you or change your plan. Ready, Fire, Aim happens to everyone. What you do after you misfire makes the difference. Do you Aim and make the correction or do you let the misstep define you forever?
Be optimistic. Readjust your aim and fire again to achieve your goals in 2014. After all, 2014 represents a blank canvas, a clean wall upon which to lovingly layer a beautiful new color!
Career Lessons from Flight Dynamics
If you pay attention you can pick up knowledge in the oddest places. I attended an information session last week about focus. The points made just as much sense for people who work in business as it does for small business owners like me.
According to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, “stability and control are much more complex for an airplane which can move freely in three dimensions, than for cars or boats, which only move in two.”
An airplane has three axis’ of movement: yaw (rotation around the vertical axis), pitch (rotation from side to side), and roll (rotation around the front to back axis). It is as if three lines run through an airplane intersecting at right angles at the airplane’s center of gravity. You must pay attention to many details at one time.
I can drive boats and cars but I cannot drive an airplane. It looks pretty complicated. If you mess up one of the three elements the plane goes out of control and becomes unstable. This is serious stuff.
It got me thinking. A career is like an airplane. You have to control many elements:
- Your brand or reputation – the sum of your experience and relationships with others.
- Your network – the relationships you build with people you meet.
- What you know – the quality of your work and the way you seek out information to solve problems.
Every day is an adventure in control and stability. Make a mistake in any one area and you wobble a bit. Lose control of any two and you have big problems.
Wake up every day committed to keep your career stable and under control. Take calculated risks. Reach out to build your network or learn something new.
Take control of your future in 2014!
Formatting a New Approach to Resumes
Recently Tom (not his real name!) sent me his resume to get my opinion and to network. Tom has a nice background with many accomplishments and a good educational background. But the resume was formatted in a way that made it very hard for me to read.
I asked Tom if he was getting any traction with that resume. “Sure, I am getting a lot of responses. In fact I have an interview tomorrow.”
Mmmmmm….. This surprised me. It goes against everything I teach about formatting resumes. So I asked a few more questions. Turns out Tom, a lab technician, is getting a very good response with that resume when he applies for jobs online. His job is more likely to be successful through advertisements than other kinds of jobs.
Tom said he used to have nicely formatted resume that was more attractive to the eyes. He was frustrated at the very few responses he got. One day he got a call from an HR person who liked his background but there was a problem. His pretty resume was stuck in the mysterious inner workings of the software behind the ad. Would he be so kind to remove all formatting and resubmit his resume so they could consider him for this position?
Wow! This shocked me on so many levels.
An HR person called him directly? That doesn’t happen very often these days. Most important, they wanted to see a different kind of resume!
Tom revised his resume immediately to remove all formatting. He started getting all kinds of responses to his background. Now he has a different problem – how to interview better. But that is not the point.
By removing all formatting Tom can apply for online jobs more successfully. However he uses that unformatted resume for all purposes – that is a problem.