It's important to
manage your job search and keep track of the job leads you
find, the jobs you've applied to, the resumes and cover letters you
have submitted, and the networking contacts you're outreaching to.
If it sounds like a lot, it is. There are ways to get (and keep)
your job search under control though.
Spending time managing your job search, keeping it organized, focused, and on the fast track will help you find a job faster than if you don't have a plan in place. Even though you're going to spend some extra time getting organized, it will save you time in the long run. It will also save you from being in the awkward position that someone I heard from the other day was in. She got a call for an interview, but had no clue what the job was that she had applied for.
Rather than hitting, and maybe missing, your job search targets, or not being able to properly prepare for an interview because you're clueless about the opportunity, you'll be spending your time job searching in an effective manner if you take it one step at a time - and stay on top of managing the job search process. Here's how to get your job search on the fast track, along with free tools and tips to help expedite a job search.
Have a tip for getting your job search organized? Share your job search tip or comment (below).
More: Manage Your Job Search | Online Job Search Guide
Image Copyright Franc Podgorsek
How to Manage Your Job Search originally appeared on About.com Job Searching on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 06:15:36.
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[Read Entry]Should I send a thank you note after a job interview and should I send it by snail mail or email? How often should I call to check on my status after the interview? Is there anything I shouldn't say to a future employer? What characteristics or behaviors will make me stand out during the job interview process? These are some of the questions you may have about job interviews. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) asked human resources managers to answer them in a poll the professional organization conducted. Some answers came as a bit of a surprise to me. For example, 43% of respondents said job candidates should call once a week to check on the status of a job opening. I would have thought calling one time, in total, would be enough. Other answers were less surprising â" 56% said that "Skills Directly Related to the Job" made a candidate stand out the most. See all the questions and answers: Interviewing Do's and Don'ts for Job Seekers SHRM Poll.
An Inside Look at Job Interviewing originally appeared on About.com Career Planning on Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 15:05:43.
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My brother is a marathon
runner who recently had his best time ever in the New York City
Marathon. He's got a hectic full-time job and he's middle aged, so
it was a really big accomplishment. He spends a lot of time
training and staying in shape.
Talking to John about the race and what led up to it was a good reminder that a job search isn't a one shot deal. It's a marathon, not a sprint, and everything you do leading up to winning the job search competition, and it is a competition for each and every job, and getting a job offer matters.
Every part of what you do when you job search, including looking for job postings, online job searching, writing cover letters, dressing for an interview, sending a thank you note, job searching (or not) from work, and using social media can make - or break - your job search.
These top job search tips include tips for resume writing, cover letters, curriculum vitae, interviewing, phone interviews, working at home, online job searching, using your network, finding work at home jobs, and more advice to help you find a new job fast.
Related: Top 10 Job Search Tips | Online Job Searching
Image Copyright Lisa Gagne
Winning the Job Search Competition originally appeared on About.com Job Searching on Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 06:00:13.
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[Read Entry]I've been using job specifications for years; I just never called them that. Recent searches by readers on my site indicate that a lot of people work with job specifications and I decided to research best practices. As a result of my research, I came up with my own definition for job specification. Then, I tried my hand at two sample job specifications.
Job specifications serve a number of important roles. They allow recruiters and hiring managers to zero in on the most important requirements for the best candidate for your jobs in ways that more detailed job descriptions cannot. In this capacity, a recruiter can use the job specification to write job postings and recruit through employees and social media such as LinkedIn. This posting is much more defined than a job description for the short time spans that colleagues can invest in your recruiting.
Next, the HR recruiter or the hiring manager can use the job specification to review the resumes and applications you receive to select the most qualified candidates for telephone screens and interviews. The job specification is refined at the recruiting planning meeting so all employees involved are clear and agree about the qualifications of your eventually chosen employee. And, the employees who will participate in interviewing prospective employees receive a clear picture of the employee the organization seeks.
Here's a sample Human Resources Director job specification and a sample Marketing Manager job specification.
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Not Sexy, But Handy: Use Job Specifications originally appeared on About.com Human Resources on Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 03:42:49.
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I'd like to expand our collection of cover
letters, resumes, CVs, and other employment-related letters. If you
have a cover letter, resignation letter, thank you letter or other
job search related letter, resume or curriculum vitae that you're
proud of, I'd like to consider adding it to our samples.
Simply send it to me via email, along with the form giving us permission to use it. I'm looking for samples that reflect all levels of job seekers - from students to experienced professionals. If you'd like credit for your letter, let me know or, if you're concerned about privacy, let me know that, too, and I'll edit or remove your personal information. Thanks in advance for your help!
Also, if you have a cover letter writing tip to share, add it to our list. In a tough job market, a little advice can make a big difference.
If you're looking for samples to review, take a look at these sample resumes, cover letters, curriculum vitae, resignation letters, thank you letters, letters to accept, or decline a new job, and more career-related letters you can use for your job search correspondence.
More: Cover Letter Examples | Cover Letter Tips
Image Copyright Alejandro Raymond
Do You Have a Great Cover Letter? originally appeared on About.com Job Searching on Sunday, November 15th, 2009 at 06:00:07.
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[Read Entry]Starting up a company is a lot different than working for somebody else for a living. When you're in the business of "that hasn't been done before", there are a lot of mistakes to make. And in some senses, growing a start-up is all about learning how your business will work, by figuring out what won't work. The hard way. By screwing it up the first time.
And that's why a short memory and a long time-horizon is what makes an entrepreneur.
A business that is already up and running has standard procedures for dealing with the world. A way to service customers, and a means to acquire new ones. A system for purchasing goods, and back-ups in case one falls through. A way to finance the business, and a plan to make returns for its shareholders.
Through time and prudence, established companies have found their way to a set of policies, plans, procedures and programs that make its businesses work well.
For a start-up, just the opposite is true. Nothing is determined, nothing is time-tested, nothing has been molded by trial and error into a workable trade-off.
The result is pain. Lots of it. In repeated, persistent, capricious doses.
There's the marketing hire who gets away. The customer that signs up and then has a change of heart. The contact you've been buttering up for months at your potentially biggest game-changing partner who gets canned the week before the final meeting. The vaporware that the 800-pound gorilla announces to a gullible press that sucks the air out of your momentum and buzz. The thousand of ways that things can go wrong, big and small (usually both), that distract, depress, and discourage the mere mortal at the heart of the entrepreneurial venture.
I know they say that success has a thousand fathers and failure is an orphan; but then whoever is siring the little bastard is one promiscuous fella, because start-ups do nothing but create failure after failure.
Succeeding at a start-up is not, then, about being prescient enough, smart enough, and experienced enough to never make mistakes, but rather it is about learning why it went wrong -- both the symptom and the ultimate cause -- and rebuilding your business to be stronger in light of it. And the faster you make your mistakes, the quicker you'll take your lessons from them. That's how you learn.
So an important part of being an entrepreneur is forgetting.
They say that women's bodies produce a drug to forget the pain of pregnancy after they give birth, and maybe the entrepreneur's experience parrots that.
There are so many painful experiences in the course of a start-up's life that it's a wonder anybody voluntarily does it at all. The odds are bad, the pay is atrocious, the chances for advancement dubious, and the world is dead-set against you when it isn't ignoring you.
A typical person on a typical day would consider any one of these indignities worthy of surrender.
And that's why a short memory -- forgetting yesterday's pain while remembering the lesson that came with it -- is what makes for a successful entrepreneur. Because dwelling on the embarrassments, humiliations, and failures that happened before today's sunrise will do nothing to make you more successful by today's sunset.
Yep, a start-up is all about let-down and heartbreaks. And getting to success requires a mind that always forgets.
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