Keppie Careers

Social media speaker, social media consultant, job search coach

Chosen as “Career Mastermind”

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I want to thank Dr. Randall Hansen and Dr. Kathy Hansen of Quintessential Careers for including me in their list of “15 Quintessential Careers Career Masterminds” in honor of the 15th anniversary of the founding of Quintessential Careers.

This is a real honor, as I have been using and recommending Quint Careers as a resource for my clients for just about that many years! I remember meeting Randall and Kathy several years ago at a conference — it was a “brush with career fame” for me, which makes this honor even more special.

Their announcement notes:

As part of the 15th anniversary of the founding of Quintessential Careers, we are honoring and celebrating some of our favorite career visionaries, gurus, and experts — people who truly want to help job-seekers understand and succeed in the job-search.

We’ve selected these 15 career experts, folks we are honoring with the title of Quintessential Careers Career Masterminds, because of their career and job-hunting know-how — and their passion for sharing that knowledge with job-seekers, career-changers, and the entire career community.

It’s especially nice to be recognized for sharing information and resources with the career community, so thank you very much!

Learn about everyone on the Quint Careers list and stay tuned for our involvement on the site in the coming months!

How to Re-think your job search

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If you’ve been looking for a job unsuccessfully for a long time, you are not alone. However, just because you haven’t landed yet doesn’t mean a job isn’t just around the corner. One adage that is true for job seekers? If you’ve been doing the same thing, over and over again without achieving the results you want — it’s time to try some new things!

This month, the Career Collective (a community I co-coordinate with my colleague Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter) looks at how to re-tool, re-focus and generally re-organize your job hunt. It’s almost spring (at least on the calendar), so it’s as good a time as any to review your plans.

1. First thing to evaluate: does your target job exist?

Maybe this sounds obvious, but many jobs are not going to come back. Certain industries may never recover from the downturn, some positions are being replaced with automated systems or being sent overseas, and other jobs are going to contractors and short-term workers instead of permanent employees. (Temp to perm has become a reality for a lot of people.)

Even if you’re doing everything “right,” if you are looking for a job that doesn’t exist, you’re likely going to continue to be very frustrated. Your choice? Either a) hang a shingle (maybe a virtual shingle) and think about going into business for yourself as an independent contractor or b) read on!

2. Have you considered that it may be time to change career paths or directions altogether?

Even if your job “exists,” maybe things have changed and it doesn’t “exist for you.” It’s possible companies no longer want to pay for your experience and prefer to hire less skilled people to do the work. No matter the reason, maybe it’s time to think about a new career path.

Identify growth fields and careers and start researching to learn if you may be a good candidate for opportunities in the new industry. Make sure to target your resume and other materials to your new goal employer. (This is very important, as transitioning between fields is not an easy thing to do, especially when there is a lot of competition for jobs.)

One thing that may help is to have a strong online presence supporting your skills in your new targeted industry. A social resume (website), where you highlight your expertise and skills (maybe via a blog) can help attract interest in your abilities as they apply to a new field. Consider creating your social resume (YourName.com) I can help!

3. Have you been too picky?

Do you have a certain vision of the type of job you’re willing to do? Maybe you don’t even LIKE the work you did in the past, but you have your mind set on doing it again. Have you been too particular about the type of people or places where you want to work? (A 20-minute commute — absolutely not! Work for him – are you kidding? When pigs fly!) I am not suggesting you take just “any” job, but it may be a good time to take a good, long, hard look at what you want and decide if you need to change your goals.

Maybe a longer commute is worth it if you can land a job at X company or in Y field or industry. Decide what parameters you can change and refocus your search with new vigor. You never know how opening up a few new windows may result in an open door.

Take a look at how my colleagues responded to this month’s question below and follow our posts on Twitter via the hashtag #CareerCollective.

Personal Branding to Fire Up Your Job Search, @DebraWheatman

Succeeding in a “Final Jeopardy!” World, @WalterAkana

5 Steps to Retool & Jumpstart Your Job Search, @erinkennedycprw

Your Job Search: Let’s Just Start Again Shall We? @GayleHoward

Checklist for Spring Cleaning Your Job Search, @careersherpa

5 Ways to Spring Clean Your Job Search, @heatherhuhman

Ten Surefire Ways to Organize Your Job Search, @KatCareerGal

Put Spring Into Your Job Search, @EliteResumes @MartinBuckland

Toes in the Water, @ValueIntoWords

How to Revitalize a Stale Job Search, @KCCareerCoach

How to re-think your job search, @Keppie_Careers

Wake Up and Smell the Flowers: Spring Cleaning Your Resume, @barbarasafani

Spring Cleaning and Your Personal Brand, @resumeservice

Spring clean your mind clutter first, @DawnBugni

Managing Your Career 2.0: On Giving Something Up To Get It Right, @Chandlee

photo by Werner Kunz (werkunz1)

30 Ideas – The Ideas of Successful Job Search

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Job seekers don’t have to look very far to find advice. Book stores and the Internet are filled with ideas about strategies, tools and tips to help people find jobs. What is different about my colleague Tim Tyrell-Smith’s book, 30 Ideas: The Ideas of Successful Job Search, is his perspective as a hiring manager and a former job seeker. He was inspired to share his 30 ideas based on his own experiences.

He explains his job search focus is on “working with a purpose throughout the process…there’s little room for impulse decision-making. It is about efficiency and structure.” A bonus? His background is in consumer marketing (22 years). In case you didn’t already know — finding a job is all about marketing, branding and communicating, so Tim’s experience is invaluable.

30 Ideas offers both practical advice and important reminders.

For example, we know it’s difficult to maintain a positive mindset while job hunting. We also know how invaluable it can be to face the challenge with an optimistic attitude. Tim empathetically provides numerous suggestions to help job seekers keep an upbeat focus, including:

  • ideas to create an actionable strategy
  • reminders to embrace some of your “free” time to recharge your batteries
  • specifics to consider, even on the worst days
  • tips to overcome irrational fears
  • how to avoid the “out of work” stigma

In addition to these important reminders, Tim takes his readers through practical job search networking steps, offering advice about:

  • how to tell your network what you want
  • whom to target for networking
  • how to handle networking events
  • when to readjust your “pitch” — and how
  • what NOT to do when you network (which could be as important as what TO do)

Tim’s book is a great resource for job seekers who need a boost and some real-life, honest-to-goodness advice to remind them they can make a difference in their job hunts. Be sure to also visit Tim’s website/blog, where he offers frequent insights for job seekers — extending the advice in the book and interacting with his readers. You may also be interested in Tim’s LinkedIn group, Tim’s Strategy – Ideas For Job Search, Career And Life, where a community of job seekers and advisors share ideas and suggestions.

Learn more about 30 Ideas on Tim’s site and order it HERE via AMAZON or HERE for Kindle.

Tim generously offered to send a copy of his book to one of my readers! Comment below with a tip for job seekers based on your experience or a question!

 

LinkedIn adds new functionality to ‘Company’ search

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LinkedIn’s blog reported yesterday that you can now search “for companies not only by attributes such as location, industry, and size but also by how you are connected. You can filter a set of results to include only those companies where you have a direct connection or broaden your search to include companies in your extended network.”

Hopefully, you have already been following companies (read more about following companies on LinkedIn here), but this is a pretty neat improvement. All you need to do is go to the top toolbar, select companies (see picture) and include keywords (which could be city, industry, etc.). LinkedIn finds a list of companies with your criteria where you have connections in your network. LinkedIn links you to those contacts and lets you know which companies currently list jobs in LinkedIn.

You’ll also have a chance to follow the company, which helps you track what is going on there. Take a look at LinkedIn’s video describing the new search function:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j5VoN_v-Us&feature=player_embedded

I think job seekers (or anyone thinking of making a change) will find this new functionality extremely useful! Be sure to keep up with The LinkedIn blog for updates.