Posts Tagged ‘career coaching’

Power posturing during an interview: should you do it? That all depends where you are in the recruitment process. Most applicant systems, and telephone screeners want to know if you are in the salary ballpark. Does that mean you should blurt out a number when a recruiter asks you what’s your salary range? Just say: nothing. A moment of silence say it all, often it prompts the telephone screener to give you a range first. The safe answer is: I expect that your organization pays a fair wage commensurate the the duties the position require. Some still choose to say: I’m negotiable, and leave it at that.

Chances are the person on the other end of the phone wants you to speak first. Sometimes answering a question with a question can work in your favor, such as, “how about if we wait until the second or third interview until be begin discussing salary? I’d much rather be assured that we have established that we are a mutual fit for one another.” Isn’t it smarter to be sure you are a fit for the position, and have an offer on the table before launching into salary discussions? Let’s not let our phone screeners put the cart before the horse. Remember, it’s up to you to hold your salary cards close to your chest.

What about recruiters who disagree with my strategy? To them I suggest that it is in the candidates best interest to allow the recruiter for the position be the first to discuss salary ranges. If it’s that important of a screening tool recruiters, put your cards on the table first. The candidate will decide if the range is acceptable or not. The strategy I’m suggesting works. I used it all the time during my own transition.

What about applicant tracking systems where companies make a salary range mandatory, or fields that require you to input your current salary? This is a conundrum that confounds, and frustrates career development professionals. There’s no easy answer. This requirement can hurt if you had to take a cut in pay due to the recent downturn in the economy. I suggest finding someone in your linkedin network immediately, and asking for an introduction to the hiring manager or recruiter. You can either input what you made input negotiable. If it requires a number you can take a risk and put in $1.00. That will surely flag someone’s attention and make them smile. It might make them mad, but either way you are making a point. Applicant tracking systems are looking for buzz words, key words that match the industry.

The best way to identify the tag cloud for the given job is to go to google, bing and search key word, search industry, job title, and see what pops up. An excellent tool is visit tagcrowd.com. Chandlee Bryan wrote an excellent blog post about how to make your resume shoot to the top of applicant tracking systems. Read her post here.

Once you’ve identified the key words prevalent in your industry, pepper them in your linkedin profile and resume. It is also important to search several different companies for job descriptions to discover what your job title, cluster, and job family is called in different organizations. This way you can strengthen you positioning in applicant tracking systems, and with recruiters.

I want to leave you with one last thought: make sure the photo on your twitter and linkedin profile is appropriate for your career search. Read this article posted on recruitingblogs today for great suggestions by recruiter, Hung Lee.

I now offer today’s theme song: Don’t Stop Believing-Keep Believing In Yourself, and Others Will Believe In You. Know this, I will keep believing in you until you believe in yourself!

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There’s just one more thing I’d like to say. It is put so well in today’s theme song:

Ok, I know, just yesterday I took an oath to change my ways, and not lose my temper in the wrong places. I said I wasn’t going to be a ShockTalkRadio star. I said I was going to be The Compassionate HR Woman that I am deep down inside. But that song, is today’s theme song because it aptly describes my feelings after I’ve left crappy jobs, crappy relationships, and crappy, dysfunctional situations. Today, I am taking the low road to the high road, because like most human beings, I have to work through my feelings, and process them before I take them world-wide. So, why did I post this to my HR Blog? Because, I write for my HireFriday community too. They need to let off a little steam too, every now and then.

Today’s lesson continues, HireFriday Community. I encourage you to process the F-Us in private, and put the smiles on in public. Unless you are Howard Stern, or @Animal, it’s wise to keep your facebook page free of debris. Keep your twitter page filled with links to useful industry information, and participate in linkedin groups by answering questions in discussions. You might argue, HR Margo The F U song is your theme song today, well why don’t you…It’s my theme song today to teach you a lesson. DON’T DO THIS IF YOU ARE A JOB SEEKER.

The take away from this post is to be a proactive, classy job seeker. Dig your well before you are thirsty, as the saying goes. Help others along the way, because as you help one another, you are doing good deeds while getting ahead. Continue to to network after you land that great position, and unless you are me or @Animal in the midst of a debate: don’t air your dirty laundry on social media. It’s risky. I’ve lost friends by being mouthy on twitter, and on blogtalkradio shows. Do I regret that? Yes and No. It’s complicated. With that said, I’m self employed, a blogger, a public speaker, a trained facilitator, and coach, and being an outspoken advocate is part and parcel to my brand. Do I ever step on my own two feet? You bet I do. Do I learn my lessons? Most, but not all of the time. As I always say, the best we get to be in this lifetime is human.

What I want job seekers to take away from this post is to put your best foot forward, be original, be yourself, but your best self. Remember, the world is watching. One of my HireFriday Community members @PracticalWisdom suggest we play the “Let’s Get Ready To Rumble” tune whenever somebody in our community gets #HiredFriday Woot. In her honor, I now give you a bonus two-fer theme song. Let’s Get Ready to RUMBLE your Job SEARCH

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Margo Rose's HireFriday 2.0: A Boots On The Ground Approach To Your Online Job Search (Service Mark, Copy Right 2010)

Since I wrote the first Guidelines For HireFriday in May of this year, our community has grown exponentially.  As an omnipresent social media community, or more accurately, cluster of online communities; we have learned new lessons about how to grow, and incorporate best practices that will benefit: the job seeker, the recruiting community, the job board community, the executive coaching community, the resume writer community, the human resources community, and the business community at large.   HireFriday is going viral, and as we grow, we want to maintain the interactive, interpersonal communication that makes it one of the most unique new media communities in the digital space. I make it a point to interact with every single person in our community. It is the 1:1 that makes this so rewarding for me.

Social Media doesn’t describe what HireFriday is, or what it has become.  We are a social media community, we also have a cluster of new media communities popping up on blogs around the world.  HireFriday launched in France last Friday.  Each Country that replicates our model is adding its own international twist.  We have a facebook page, and a new facebook group which I am limiting in size in order to provide one to one attention with each of its participants.  My professional goal for HireFriday is NOT to grow large, but to grow smart, slow, and steady. Because this is my passionate quest, I do not want to lose the personal touch I give each person in our community.

In order to avoid brand confusion, and chaos I have chosen keep the spot light where it belongs: on the job hunter, the job search evangelist, the unemployed person, the passive candidate who wants to go public, but not quite ready.  Bottom line, what makes HireFriday important is its focus solely on the job seeker.  Unemployment is hard.  HireFriday can help.  What we as a community do is lend a hand, and encourage a heart. Lou Bonica put it well when he said, “HireFriday reminds the job seeker that they are not alone, or forgotten.”

Twitter does not need another job board which is why, for the time being, we will not adopt HireFridayJobs, as suggested on a blogtalkradio show I appeared on this week.  That would adversely affect my business model, and my business partners who make their living as twitter job search engines.  Monster.com was the first adopter of HireFriday.  TweetMyJOBS also incorporates @tweetmyresumes is a dynamic, and high quality resource. I formed a strategic partnership with Gary Zukowski. Gary is the heart and soul of the twitter job space. I met Gary at the ERE Conference in March. I had him on my show, and was favorably impressed. He reached out to me, and offered incredible ideas, and advice. We hit it off, the rest is history. Please follow @tweetmyresume. Recently, I connected with @Workway. I suggest you follow them, and follow their leader @WhatsWithDiane. They reached out to me, and I’m excited they wrote such a nice blogpost about HireFriday.

As you know, jobseekers can create a Public Profile on TweetMyJOBS.com, and there’s a button they can click to tweet their resume.  As I consider the gigantic job boards, and the small Mom & Pop job boards, I realized in short order, I don’t want to compete or play in that space because I am a CANDIDATE ADVOCATE. HireFriday is growing in leaps and bounds. It needs a full-time community manager, and I have promoted myself into the job.

HireFriday is growing, and I’m growing with it. It’s time to explore what the buddhists call “right livelihood.” It blends my vision for Compassionate HR with HireFriday Community Management. It’s time to monetize this venture in a way that maintains the ethics, integrity, dignity, and respect of each person in the stream. I want your input about how I can do this in a way that provides value to you.

In addition, I am a dot connector.  I connect the dots, make matches, and connections with people across, throughout and around networks.  For years I’ve been saying, ” you are either networking or not-working.”  In essence, we are all on different trajectories in our careers.  This further explains my intense passion for shining light on job seekers, and keeping the HireFriday stream on twitter exclusively for JOB SEEKERS, and UNEMPLOYED people.  Yes, I’m capitalizing those words, because I want to emphasize how profoundly important job seekers are to me, my heart, my mission and my vision for what HireFriday was intended to do from its inception.  

Guess what, I’m not selling out to outside interests.  I carefully pick and choose ethical, dignified, authentic, and respectful partners in the recruiting community.  The ethical, compassionate recruiters have profound reach and resonance, and can be uniquely helpful to our community. I want to make an honest living, and work only with people who are doing the same.

This week I announced a new partnership with Paul Paris (also known as @Paris22) he’s affectionately referred to as The Ex Recruiter.  I am encouraging my community to be as omnipresent as I am.  Participate in Paul’s Employment Cafe.  Participate in #WorkWednesday. Be present in #JobAngels. Watch the #Jobs & #Career Stream, and as I frequently say, “Job Seekers: Think Like A Recruiter.” Before I share too much, let me just say that some very exciting services are about to be offered with the two of us coming together. Now, what you’ve been waiting for my top 5 tips for getting the most out of HireFriday this week.

Here are my top 5 tips for getting the most out of this week’s HireFriday on Twitter:

1. Use your real name in your tweet. It will make it easier for recruiters, hiring managers, human resource directors to find you.  HireFriday is a brilliant inbound marketing experience. Use it, and make it work.
2. If you choose to tweet through tweetmyresumes, do you buzz, or another service, put your name first, followed by an industry recognized job title that will tickle the search engines, and candidate sourcers radar.  They are watching you. The world is watching this human community experience. This is your chance to shine.  Do the research.  Go to google and find out what those job titles actually are, how they are indexed, and how they are written in the applicant tracking systems.  Research the job boards.  What do they call your job title?  Is it what you think it is, or is it called something else? Is your job industry specific? Or do you care about which industry you are in now? Figure it out before Friday.  Do not think outside the box.  Rather, get inside it.  Squeeze in tight and niche yourself.   Even if you are a generalist, you best make sure you are stripping out key words so people will find you.
3. Location, location, location.  Is it important? If it is, say so, if it is not, say so-clearly, so that people can identify whether you are a realistic candidate for the position.
4. Industry: if you are a java developer (consider yourself the unicorn) everyone the world is looking for you.  I’m not entirely kidding.  If you are in Information Technology hash tag #IT #Java #C++.  If you are in #HR hashtag #HR #EmployeeRelations #Benefits #Compensation #SPHR #PHR #Training #LeadershipDevelopment #StrategicPlanning you get my drift.  If you are an #OrganizationDevelopment Specialist hash tag #OD #Organization #Assessments #Diagnostics #MBTI #DiSC #OrGCulture or whatever aspect of OD you excel.  In future workshops, I will teach you how to research and break down the components of your job so you can hash tag them appropriately.
5. Create a bit.ly link (or another link shortener if you wish) to your resume or linkedinprofile.  My personal preference is a link to the linkedin profile because it does two things. 1) It builds your network and your professional brand, and 2) if your linkedin profile is well written, it can be even better than your online resume for lots of reasons (I’ll discuss this in future posts).

The volunteer job seeker evangelists make HireFriday the special community it is. If I left out your name, please don’t be offended. Instead will you please leave a comment.

My faithful readers know how much I love a theme song. Today’s theme is hand picked for my job seeker community. I’ve Got A Feeling by The Black Eyed Peas. I’ve Got A Feeling That HireFriday is going to be a good day, HireFriday is going to be a good, good day, that today is going to good day. (My Personal Ring Tone 2009)

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