3 Job Search Myths Busted

3 Job Search Myths Busted3 Job Search Myths BustedJob seekers frequently go into the process with assumptions about how to present themselves and what employers want to hear. All too often, preconceived notions need to be challenged in order for a job search to be successful. Here are three things you should clearly understand and act upon to make yourself an attractive candidate1. Yourrsumisnt your professional autobiography. Often, job seekers try to include everything they have ever done on arsum. After all, you never know what will attract someones attention, thereasoning goes. Think differently Consider yourrsuma marketing document that presents your fruchtwein attractive features to the people who are most in need of the value you can provide. Think of your job hunt as aprocess in which you are selling your skills, experience and capacity to potenzial employers. Dont tell them everything you can think of about yourself and make them figure out if and how you might be a fit for their needs. Clear away the clutter of information, and keep your overall message focused. The old adage of less is more turns out to be a more fruitful way of presenting yourself. Figure out what key things you have accomplished that relate to the job you want to do, and focus on them. Tailor yourrsumto each position you seek. When you include too much information, you make it harder for the reader to understand the most salient portions of your background, which are more than likely to have occurred in the last decade and relate to current technologies and ways in which work is currently done.For example, if you are mid-career or an older job seeker, chances are what you did in 1987 is probably irrelevant to a hiring manager in 2014. It is totally reasonable to not include positions that ended more than 12 to 15 years ago. Instead, simply include a line at the bottom of your Professional Experience section that states Details about prior experience are available upon request . You shouldnt necessarily list everything you did or do at recent positions, either. Instead, yourrsumshould highlight the areas in your background that most closely reflect the Requirements and Experiencesections of the job posts to which youre responding.2. Your LinkedIn profile shouldnt just be an online version of yourrsum. When you simply cut and paste yourrsuminto your online profile, you demonstrate a lack of knowledge about how social mediaworks. You also forfeit an opportunity to take advantage of LinkedIns features. You should make every effort to complete all the sections of your online profile and include rich information, such as PowerPoint presentations, portfolios of your work, skills, languages and more. And while you should never put your picture into yourrsum, you should always put a clear, professional-looking headshot of yourself in your LinkedIn profile. In your Summary section, drop stilted language that refers to yourself in the third part. Instead, take p ains to be social and use the first person I have experience in the areas of A, B and C.3. Your interview isnt just about answering questions. Of course, you need to be prepared to answer everything from the standard strengths and weakness and salary questions to more thoughtful behavior-based questions that begin, tell me about a time when But you should turn the interview from a grilling into a conversation by asking questions along the way. For example, after you finish answering a question, you can ask Is this the information you are looking for? Thats a way to make sure you are on topic and have hit the target. At the end of your answer to a behavioral question, you might turn the question around and pose it to your interviewer. Heres howSuppose you are asked, tell me about a time when you disagreed strongly with your boss. As you finish your answer, instead of pausing to wait for another question, instead ask In your companys culture, how are these kinds of situations bes t handled?This way, you can come back and modify your answer or reaffirm how your own style mirrors the company and thereby put that question to rest. When you take the time to step back and think about the process, you can understand how to best relate your experience and value to potential employers. Your communications will come across with greater self-assurance and clarity. And you will stand out in a refreshing way from your competition. Happy huntingArnie Fertig, MPA, is passionate about helping hisJobhuntercoachclients advance their careers by transforming frantic Ill apply to anything searches into focused hunts for great fit opportunities. He brings to each client the extensive knowledge he gained when working in HR staffing and managing his boutique recruiting firm.

4 Signs That Your Leadership Approach Is Not Working

4 Signs That Your Leadership Approach Is Not Working4 Signs That Your Leadership Approach Is Not WorkingFew things in life or business work out as planned, especially in the life of a leader. Whether you are new to leading a kollektiv or simply new to leading, it pays to be on the lookout for these 4indicators that you might need to rethink your approach. 1. The Results Are Falling Short of Expectations In business, results are the ultimate measuring stick, and if your kollektiv is consistently falling short of targets, its time to admit theres a problem and start looking for a solution. However, before you rush to shake things up, it is important to look closely at your behaviors. Consider Resist the rush to judgment. Consistently subpar results are an indicator of a problem or, more likely, a confluence of problems.Avoid blaming factors outside your control. Its tempting to point fingers at the new product your competitor just launched or the problems with suppliersor quality y our firm is having. However, you need to resist the temptation to point. Its time look at the gruppe around you and importantly at the leader of the team staring back at you in the mirror.Explore the symptoms outlined in the balance of this article and cultivate an informed perspective on the root causes and needed changes. Remember, you are the leader of your team. When the team succeeds it is because they did their job. When they fail, its your fault. 2. The Flow of New Ideas is Weak to Non-Existent When ideas to solve problems or innovate to improve operations arent flowing, theres usually a leadership factor involved. The leader is responsible for forming and framing the working environment, and when the people in that environment go quiet on offering ideas, its time to change your approach. Consider Perhaps youve fallen into the trap of telling instead of asking. Resist the urge to issue orders and instead of describing what to do, ask people what they would like to do.Expl ore whether you are intimidating people or, worse yet, inciting fear in the workplace. If your behaviors in the past have involved punishing or chastising individuals who tried new things, you should expect the culture to go quiet on you. You need to model patience and showcase support for people experimenting and failing with new approaches. Position every failure as a lesson learned and encourage people to keep looking for solutions. 3. Your Team Seems Distant and Standoffish If you perceive you are getting the cold shoulder, you are probably right. This situation is particularly common for leaders new to a team. Consider You are likely navigating a trust issue with your team members, particularly if you are just getting started working with them. Often, leaders do a little dance with trust, suggesting or telegraphing by actions and words that people have to work hard to earn their trust.To strengthen the team chemistry faster, quit putting people on trust trial and instead, offer your trust to them immediately. People will understand your positive gesture and good employees will move mountains to not let you down. If someone does let you down or betray your trust, well, thats another issue. However, it is worth the risk. Trust first 4. Your Team is Just Going Through The Motions No leader wants to admit that her team is just going through the motions, but it happens. And while it is tempting to look at the people or overall workplace factors as the root causes, you control the energy switch for your team. Consider If people are not excited about their work or, if they do not clearly see how their efforts connect to the larger corporate mission and key goals, work seems just likewell, work. It is incumbent upon you as the leader to bring a sense of mission and purpose to the challenges your team faces.Conduct regular business updates with your team. Make certain they understand the overall company or group performance and strive to tie-in the teams results to the bigger picture results. If your firm uses a scorecard or tracks key metrics, teach your team how to understand those tools and share the latest results with them. Invite your executive or executives from other groups to visit with the team and share insights about the firms strategies and key initiatives.Encourage your team members to identify opportunities to strengthen their support of their internal or external customers and go to bat to gain approval for new projects or initiatives. Let your team members serve as active project participants.Celebrate more. Often we are so focused on our daily firefighting that we forget to acknowledge the victories- small and large. Find opportunities to celebrate accomplishments and milestones and become your teams biggest cheerleader. 5 Key Actions to Help Strengthen Your Teams Performance Theres always an explanation for poor results. While there may be external factors, chances are, there are leadership, resource, and pr ocess issues at work creating the challenges. Now that youve looked at some factors under your direct control, its time to get the team involved in helping diagnose the cause and develop the cure. Be transparent with your team about the poor results. They deserve to understand that things are not working and that management is looking for improvements.Resist the rush to frame your view to the problem. Ask the team to explore the areas where performance is weak and offer their analyses. Listen more than you talk.Once the team develops a hypothesis on root causes, encourage them to detail their ideas for potential solutions. Help them prioritize the ideas.Provide ownership of the ideas for improvement to your team members. Ask them to own the implementation and on-going monitoring and tuning of their ideas. This sense of ownership for improving their overall performance will address many of the issues identified throughout this article. Celebrate the victories and place your team mem bers in the spotlight with senior management. Remember, when things go right, it is because of them, not you. The Bottom-Line Its frustrating when things are not running right with your team. As the leader, you control many of the variables that impact morale, teamwork, innovation, problem-solving and performance. Before you rush to blame factors outside your control, pause and take a step back and look carefully at your behaviors. You will be surprised how small changes in your approach will yield significant results.

3 Ways to Fix Your Resume

3 Ways to Fix Your Resume3 Ways to Fix Your ResumeYour resume is the first impression you make to an employer, networking contact or your boss when youre asking for a raise. It should represent your skills (hard and soft skills), your experience, education and your brand and is a critical piece to any job search or request for promotion.Most professionals know how important a resume is, but many of them struggle to ensure it tells the right story. Why is it so hard to make sure your resume is in good shape? Keeping your resume up to date and truly effective for your search is difficult becauseIt requires being detail-oriented, which is bedrngnis everyones strength.You have to be objective about yourself, which is not always easy.You have to sell yourself, and many people hesitate to brag about themselves.See The 25 Best Jobs of 2018.All of this can feel daunting and like too much pressure, especially when you consider very few business leaders have a solid and defined personal brand, and employers spend 10 to 15 seconds scanning a resume before they decide to consider or toss a candidate. Here are three ways to fix your resume to ensure that it properly represents you and stays out of the toss pile.First of all, develop your personal brand. If you arent sure what your personal brand is, start by asking friends and family members what makes you unique. What are your strengths? Many times we discount what comes naturally to us, and that impacts our confidence and ability to sell ourselves. You could also ask co-workers or teammates what they appreciate about you. See Tips for Surviving a Career Transition.Once you have a better understanding of who you are and what you have to offer the professional world, you can start to form your branding statement. Your branding statement is composed of four parts who, what, how and why. Who do you serve or who is your target market? What unique value do you provide? How do you deliver? Why should they believe you? When you have formed your branding statement, you will want to include it on your resume. For example, it could be part of your professional summary. Your summary lets fhigkeit employers know right away who you are and your expertise. The next thing to watch out for is formatting mistakes. Formatting mistakes can includeUsing too many font styles and sizes. Pick one font and size for the heading and one font and size for the body of your resume. This keeps your document easy on the eyes. Inconsistency when using tabs, punctuation, spacing and bullets. Follow the same rules throughout your resume.Margins that are too small. Page margins should be a minimum of 0.6 inches. leid using enough white space on the page. White space is your friend. It can be used to emphasize or play down information. Without white space your resume becomes difficult for potential employers to scan. Underlining information. We recommend that you skip underlining, since this can distort information when scanned in to an applicant tracking system. You can use formatting properly to play to your brand. You can do this by making sure your name stands out. Dont be afraid for your name to be larger than the rest of the content. Once you have decided on a header that properly represents you, make sure to use the same header on your cover letter. Remember, these documents are your personal marketing materialsSee 8 Ways Millennials Can Build Leadership Skills.Finally, when working on your resume, keep in mind that it is not a one-size-fits-all document. You will want to tailor your resume to each job you are applying for to ensure you highlight that you have the relevant skills and expertise needed for the position. If these items are not clear to a potential employer, no matter how great your resume looks, it will be put aside. To make sure your resume is tailored to the position you are applying for, analyze the job description to find the skills, expertise and any key words and phrases used to des cribe their ideal candidate. That is the information you will use to make sure your resume is concise, targeted and relevant to that specific role. We recommend creating a master copy of your resume and then saving other versions of your resume for different positions.