Keppie Careers

Social media speaker, social media consultant, job search coach

What do hiring managers want to know?

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Career AdviceFor job seekers, one of the most important items to identify is what hiring managers want to know. Many candidates wax eloquent about themselves, their backgrounds and experiences, but fail to identify the touch points that help indicate their qualifications for the job.

This is a big mistake. Before you apply for any position, keep the following items in mind so you’ll be sure to provide employers with the information they need to decide if you’re a good fit.

Are You Qualified for the Job?

The easiest way to answer this question is to study the job description and to directly address the employer’s needs. Do not create a resume and other marketing documents without first identifying the most important connections between you and the job. Don’t assume hiring managers will give you credit for skills you don’t list. Include details and specifics about accomplishments and results. Don’t just say you have leadership skills. Include something that resulted from your leadership. For example: “Used leadership and management skills to reorganize team, resulting in 15% increase in productivity.”

Do You Demonstrate Good Judgment?

No matter what job you land, you will represent the organization where you work. Employers want to select candidates who are least likely to do anything embarrassing. When one ill-conceived tweet or Facebook post can make the national news, it’s not surprising that employers want to know that you have good common sense. One way to illustrate you’re a good fit is to maintain professional streams of information in your social media profiles. If an employer can review your Twitter feed without any concerns, you’re a step ahead of competition.

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How Well Do You Get Along with Others?

Whether you’ll be working with a team, or connecting with clients and customers, most jobs require working with people. Hiring managers want to know you have strong communication skills and aren’t prone to too much drama. Don’t cause an employer to think otherwise during the application stage by sharing unnecessary personal information or by volunteering details about past bosses or colleagues you didn’t like.

Are You Interested in the Job?

If you’re applying for your dream job, make sure the employer understands why you are well qualified and grasps your passion for the position. While it’s great to hire someone who is a good fit, it’s even better (from the employer’s perspective) to find someone with the skills and a strong interest in the organization and its work. This is especially true for non-profit organizations, where you may have a personal interest in the mission. However, you can also demonstrate a passion about a for-profit company. For example, if you’ve always loved shopping in a particular store because of the customer service you receive there, and there’s a job opportunity that is a good fit for your skills, don’t hesitate to include a few details about your connection to the company when you apply.

How to learn new career skills

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http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-image-skills-word-sphere-ball-required-experience-job-career-to-illustrate-many-different-skillsets-knowledge-training-image35557201Is it time to think about your next career move? Perhaps you’ll want to add to your arsenal of skills before you seek your next job. Lucky for you, resolving to add some professional development to your schedule doesn’t mean you need to factor in extra commuting time to take a class, adjust your schedule or add a new line item in your budget. There are many free educational content providers out there, from Duolingo to Coursera to Codecademy. If you’re motivated, you can download content to your phone, and learn for 20 minutes during your commute, on the treadmill or before you go to bed at night.

Choose one of these four career-driven goals:

1. Learn a new language. In 2010, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said only 18 percent of Americans claim to speak a language other than English. When you can add a new language to your résumé, you demonstrate initiative and cultural competence, and you distinguish yourself from other candidates.

  • Duolingo (Duolingo.com): Choose one of nine European languages, and learn for free from this crowdsourced platform.
  •  Chinese for Beginners (Coursera.org): Want to learn a non-European language? Try this on-demand course from Peking University. The instructor teaches the language phonetically, so users can easily master daily expressions and basic conversations.

2. Brush up on your business and marketing skills. In a 2014 joint study by Duke University and RTI International, 73 percent of employers said they would appreciate job candidates who completed an applicable Massive Open Online Course, otherwise known as MOOC. Impress your future employer by taking initiative to learn the basics of business finance, content marketing or even entrepreneurship.

  •  Introduction to Finance (Coursera.org): This course from University of Michigan will teach the frameworks and tools to measure value. It will help you be a better decision maker in both your personal life and in your business.
  •  Content Strategy for Professionals (Coursera.org): Want to learn to develop better content to engage audiences? Or do you want to brush up on your current skill set and virtually meet other content professionals? This free course from Northwestern University will help you improve the written, graphic and video content you produce.

3. Learn to code. Here’s a New Year’s resolution for the aspiring techies out there. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects more than 200,000 job openings for software developers between 2012 and 2022. The median salary for these professionals? $96,660. If you were ever considering becoming a developer, now is the time to act.

  •  Codecademy (Codecademy.com): This free site teaches coding classes in six programming languages, including Python, PHP, jQuery, Javascript and Ruby. Learn the basics of coding, or brush up on your skills before an interview.
  •  Programming for Everybody (Coursera.org): If you prefer to take courses from official universities, try this offering from the University of Michigan. It has no prerequisites and “avoids all but the simplest mathematics,” meaning it should be easy for anyone with basic computer skills.

4. Become a Data Scientist. Data science is quickly becoming a high-demand field. A 2011 McKinsey Global Institute report estimates that by 2018, “the United States alone could face a shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 people with deep analytical skills as well as 1.5 million managers and analysts with the know-how to use the analysis of big data to make effective decisions.” This is the perfect time to start building data science skills.

  •  Data Science (Coursera.org): This “specialization,” or group of courses from Johns Hopkins University, offers users the chance to learn the basics of data science, including R Programming, data analysis, research, regression models and even machine learning. Take all these courses to get a solid foundation, or try out just one to learn a specific skill. The courses are offered for free, or you can get a certificate verifying your identity starting at $29 per course.

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  •  Intro to Data Science (Udacity.com): This series of lectures and instructional material, taught by a data scientist at Airbnb, also teaches the basics of the field. You can watch instructor videos for free or enroll in the course for $199 per month to get coaching and project experience.

Appeared on U.S. News & World Report.

How to get a job when you work the night shift

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Night ShiftDo you work two jobs or odd hours? Are you a freelancer, but you’d prefer a more traditional job? Perhaps you’re sick and tired of your unconventional schedule and hours, but you can’t figure out how to break out of your current work situation.

You’ve heard that networking is the key to landing a new job, but you don’t have any time to attend events or hob nob with people who may be able to influence your job opportunities. Is there hope for you?

There is, if you’re willing to take a few key steps to manage your career. If you continue on your current path, you may eventually luck into a new opportunity. However, finding a new job that fits your best-case scenario isn’t likely if you don’t make a concerted effort.

How can you find a new job when you’re so busy keeping up with the odd hours or inconvenient oddities of the job you have?

Make a plan

You’re never going to get anywhere if you don’t know where you are going. Having a general idea that you’d like “better hours” or a “different” job is a first step, but it’s not specific enough to help you make a change. Write down exactly what type of job you want. Include target companies, hours you’d like to work and what you want to do. Don’t be afraid to be very specific. Once you specify your goals, it is much easier to reach them.

Research people

Even if you work odd hours, you can turn to Google or LinkedIn at any time of the day or night to research people who work in places where you want a job. If you’re already using LinkedIn, see if the company has a page there and determine if you have any contacts that connect you to people who work there. Look in LinkedIn’s advanced search to find possible contacts, and investigate the “Education” section to see if you should connect with fellow alumni. Don’t forget to check out Groups. This is a great place to meet new people, and your odd schedule doesn’t prevent you from connecting with new people who may be able to refer you to job opportunities.

Expand your network on your own time frame

One thing a lot of people don’t realize: even if you can’t meet people in person, when you connect online and share information and resources, you can win friends who may open their networks to you and help connect you with opportunities. No matter what type of work you do, there is likely to be a community online of people who can help you along the way.

For some professions, it’s most obvious to turn to LinkedIn’s groups to connect, but what if your profession doesn’t have an obvious professional arena? Look for interest groups unrelated to work. Do you have a hobby or interests that could help you connect with people you don’t know online? Search Facebook or Google+ for an interest group. Maybe you like to cook or are passionate about ultimate Frisbee. Even if you can’t participate with in-person groups, you can still extend your network. Look on Twitter to see if there is a chat about something you like to do. Even if you can’t attend a Twitter chat “live,” you can still connect with the people who participate and get to know them online.

Network everywhere

The best networkers look for opportunities to meet new people wherever they go. In the grocery store at 2 a.m? You probably have something in common with the person in the line behind you. At the gym in the wee hours of the morning? Say hello to people working out beside you. You never know how a smile and a hello can influence your future.

Don’t ask for a job

Even if your primary purpose for using social media may be to increase your network for job opportunities, avoid telling people you’re looking for a job when you first meet them. Even though you’ve heard you should let everyone you meet know you are looking for work, it’s better to get to know people first and share your professional goals later. If you play your cards right, you could be quitting that job before you know it.

Originally appeared on AOLJobs.com.

 

How to use a video cover letter to get a job

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Screen Shot 2014-07-03 at 10.30.02 PMYou may be surprised the next time you apply for a job to have the opportunity to include a video in your application, or to be invited to send in a video after you apply. Many employers, seeking an efficient and effective way to evaluate applicants, are investigating ways to incorporate video technology into their hiring practices. Susan Vitale, chief marketing officer at iCIMS, a provider of innovative Software-as-a-Service talent acquisition solutions, says that 65 percent of employers are adding video technology to learn about job seekers’ personality and professionalism before scheduling on-site or phone interviews. “The adoption of video technology in the hiring process is growing as employers put more emphasis on understanding motivations and previous experience during the interview process,.” she notes.

For job seekers, this can be a great opportunity to incorporate a video cover letter as a bonus to their application. If your target employer prompts you to include a video aspect to your application, consider the following tips from Vitale to create a job-winning video cover letter.

1. Do your research. As a job seeker, it’s up to you to assess your audience and target all of your materials to appeal to the employer. “Job seekers must find out what the employer wants and how they think,” Vitale says, adding that she believes the best way to do this is to research the company and identify what makes it tick. Items to consider: the company’s value proposition (what it offers) and its mission statement. Don’t forget to review the company’s press kits if they’re shared online; they can provide a lot of insightful information. Read everything you can about the organization and the people in the department where you’d like to work. Tap LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to access information other candidates may not bother to find.

2. Expand your channels. If you really want to be creative and targeted, include on-screen text and other types of visual imagery that add more depth and meaning to your video. “Using information uncovered via research, job seekers can tap into a particular need the employer may have and apply this knowledge to create the right style video for the job,” Vitale says. “Understanding the company’s tone in its communication materials will help job seekers speak in a similar voice when recording video cover letter.”

3. Learn from others. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Get ideas from what other people have done and make them your own. According to Vitale, YouTube can be a great reference tool. “The site has tons of video cover letters to source ideas, from the super high-tech to low-tech as well as from straight-laced professional to very casual and creative.” Keep in mind there’s no right or wrong way to create your video, but you do want to be sure to create it in the style and content most applicable to the organization where you are applying.

4. Practice makes perfect. Don’t plan to create your video in one sitting. You want to be sure to appear confident, natural and relaxed, and that takes practice. “The goal of video technology is to allow the job seeker to clearly and concisely state their value proposition to the employer as it relates to the specific job for which they are applying,” Vitale says. “While writing the script, reference the specific items in the job description and knowledge of the company.”

5. Be concise. There is a reason why television advertisements are generally short: most people have limited attention spans and hiring executives who are in active need of new hires are extremely busy. “Obviously, job seekers should follow any time requirements indicated by the employer who requests a video, if applicable,” Vitale says. “However, if the company doesn’t provide any time guidelines, it is best to keep video cover letters under two minutes. This will provide a sufficient amount of time to tell a story in a concise manner without the risk of losing the audience’s attention.”

If your target employer requests you provide a video as part of your application, take these steps and use all the technology available to you (including your smartphone, desktop mounted webcam or tablet) to help you create a positive first impression. You’ll stand out from the other applicants.

Originally appeared on U.S. News & World Report.

How to get an internship now

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Screen Shot 2014-04-19 at 12.59.55 AMIn today’s economy, there’s a lot pressure on colleges and their career centers to help improve students’ chances of landing internships and job opportunities. According to a piece in The Atlantic from 2012, more than 50 percent of recent grads are either unemployed or underemployed. A recent CNN Money report revealed the average student loan debt for the class of 2012 was $29,400. [Read more…] about How to get an internship now