Perfect Pitch: Creating YOUR Best Elevator Spech

Article first published as How to Give the Perfect Pitch on Technorati.

I’m in sales, so I’m always pitching something.  Whether it’s a brand, an idea, or a product or service, I’m comfortable with the process of creating a compelling pitch and persuading others to “buy in” with their support, budget, effort, or other resources.

As a job seeker, you should get equally comfortable with the notion that you’re selling yourself to potential employers, but also to any number of people along the way who can help you get connected to new opportunities, based on their perception of who you are, what you bring to the party, and where your passion lies.  Your ability to concisely articulate your unique value proposition might be the strongest weapon in your career arsenal and will exponentially improve your networking and job search results.   You can call this pitch a personal branding statement, elevator pitch, or individual value proposition, but whatever you call it, create one now.

So, grab some pencil and paper and start drafting the elements of your pitch.

1)     What’s your name?  Sounds obvious, right? You need to be clear about what name you want to use professionally.  Stay consistent.   This can be a challenge for those of us with maiden names, or for folks who prefer a shortened name or nickname.  Get clear on what you want to be called and use that name consistently.  Make sure that if you choose to use a nickname, it isn’t one that will negatively impact people’s perception of you. (For example, George W. Bush stopped encouraging people call him “Junior” and even Eminem dropped the name “Slim Shady”, right?)

2)     What do you do?  How do you see yourself?  What service or role do you do well or do you wish to do in your next role?  You can be creative here.  If you’re a salesperson for an HR outsourcing company, you can say that you help companies connect with experts to put HR best practices in place. If you’re a private chef, you could say that work with busy households to ensure that they always have delicious, healthful food available for family meals, snacks and special occasions.  You can also of course say what you are: nurse, teacher, or student. Be authentic!  Is your self-image tied to your title, or is it a specific facet of your job/career?  There’s no right answer here. You need to be accurate about your qualifications and core focus, but you can choose whether to say who you work for and what your title is, or focus more on what’s important to you about what you do and frame it in terms of where you want to go next.

3)     What’s your passion?  What truly compels you?  Is it an industry, platform, environmental concern, industry best practice, or some other focus?  If you’re passionate about some aspect of your current role or if a personal passion is driving a career change, you should communicate this. You’re much more interesting, credible, and persuasive if your passion shines through.  

4)     How do others benefit from working with you?  What unique value do you bring to the table?  What outcome or results can you help an organization achieve?  What accomplishment or trait do you possess that’s important for people to know about?  You don’t want to come across as a braggart, but you do need to toot your own horn!

5)     Where are you going? Do you have a clear vision or career aspiration?  Are you planning relocation or will you soon be earning additional certification or education?  If so, this needs to be part of your pitch, so that it’s forward-looking and enables the listener to help you.

Write ideas down for these categories.  Play around with options and narrow it down to your best answers to each question.  Now, take those concepts and create one paragraph that captures you.  Read it aloud.  Does it sound natural, like something you’d actually say?  If not, tweak it – you need to get really comfortable with this statement for conversational use. Make sure it’s not more than about 20 seconds – we’re a short attention span nation! Now, practice, practice, practice! Run it by your best friend, spouse, mentor, colleague or other confidant.  Get some feedback, then, retool and rehearse again.  Want some more ideas?  Look here: http://www.ehow.com/how_5450473_create-personal-elevator-pitch-interview.html.

 

Now that you have your Perfect Pitch, how should you use it?  Use it at networking events, in interviews, introductions, when you catch up with people from your past, or when you talk to a recruiter.  You can also use it to craft your career objective on your resume, or to create your Linked In profile statement (or any other Social Media profiles), and you can use a version of it in any cover letter you write.  Be sure you can both write and say it in a voice that is uniquely yours.

Now get to work, so you can get to work and tackle the 21^st century job market! 

How Not to Blow a Phone Interview...Final Thoughts

This article was first published as How Not to Blow a Phone Interview: Final Thoughts! on Technorati.  A former client called me recently to ask about how I’d suggest wrapping up a successful phone interview.  It got me thinking about a few more ideas for interview success, particularly for phone screens.  These tips, together with the suggestions in my last post (http://technorati.com/business/article/how-not-to-blow-a-phone1/), will help you get your ducks in a row, so you can rock your next phone screen!

1)     Be a Sleuth!  With all the resources available today, there’s no excuse for going into any interview without doing your research.  If nothing else, this will show that you’re intelligent, interested in the opportunity, and a fairly savvy candidate.  Use Google, Linked In, Plaxo or Facebook to see what you can learn about the person on the other end of the phone prior to the call.  If a staffing industry/agency recruiter has set this interview up for you, ask them about the experience placing prior candidates with this organization.  Find out how prior interviews have gone, and what you should expect.  Be sure that you’ve taken time to fully review the hiring firm’s web site and understand at least their structure, what they do, and some recent news about them.  Use this information both to generate better questions to ask, and to tailor your answers to questions so that they not only reflect your personal truth, but also jibe with the company’s culture and direction.

2)     Get Your Facts Straight!  The purpose of many phone interviews is really a brief technical screen.  The interviewer wants to spend 10-15 with a handful of candidates to quickly determine if they have the appropriate technical expertise, or hard skills, to do the job.  In other words, they want to see if you really know all the things you say you do in your resume.  Then if you pass muster, they’ll bring you in to assess fit for the environment, soft skills, level of interest, etc… By technical skills, I don’t necessarily mean technology, but the hard facts and processes needed to be successful in any job.  For an accountant, these might be finance/tax/regulatory questions, for a computer programmer, these would be questions on how you create a certain type of code or application, and for a sommelier, they’d be questions focused on various wine terroir and vintage. Be sure that you fully understand the direct competencies and hard skills needed for the role and if you have any weaknesses in these areas, study up prior to the interview.  Don’t be afraid to use notes either. You’re invisible to the interviewer, so allow that to work to your advantage. I’m not suggesting you totally fake it!  If you don’t have the basic skills to do a job successfully, getting through a phone screen will not help you.  It will just draw out the inevitable result of you being weeded out, and waste both your time and the employer’s time.

3)     Get Those Ducks Lined Up! The worst thing an interviewer can hear is “NO, I don’t have any questions”.  This makes you sound uninterested in the opportunity, or (worse yet), not analytical enough to dig into any of the covered topics.  By all means, have some questions prepared! Don’t ask about benefits, pay, flex time or related topics at this stage of the game.  Keep your inquiries professionally-focused and ask about their expectations, vision, past successes or failures in filling this role, culture, or tools/methodologies/processes used in the role. The best questions are “high octane” – they get you information and cast you in a more intelligent light with the hiring manager.   

4)     Lock and Load!  If you decide you want a “second date” with this employer, don’t be shy! When the interview is over, tell them you’ve genuinely enjoyed speaking with them and getting to know more about the organization and the role.  Share how you feel you are a good match for their need and how you could make an impact.  Ask them what the next step would be and whether they have any hesitations moving forward. This gives them the opportunity to share their concerns with you so that you can overcome their potential objection.  Conversely, if you don’t think it sounds like a match, let them know this (nicely) as well.  If it makes sense, inquire about other more appropriate roles for which you would be better suited.  Thank them for their time and be sure that you’re helping to drive the next step that you want to achieve.  

Now, get to work and tackle the 21^st century job market, fully armed with all the skills you need to thrive.  Don’t forget to let your personality shine and just be the best version of yourself.  In other words, even on a phone interview, don’t be a phony. Best wishes and happy hunting!

         

How Not to Blow a Phone Interview....Part Deux!

How Not to Blow a Phone Interview: Part Deux!

This article was first published as How Not to Blow a Phone Interview: Part Deux! on Technorati. 

Think of the phone interview as the work version of speed dating.  The current job market is very active, meaning that most posted or advertised openings have hundreds of applicants.  More and more hiring managers are scheduling phone screens as a first gateway to quickly assess if a candidate has the right skills, communication style and attitude to warrant a face-to-face meeting.  It’s your one shot, so be sure you don’t blow it.  Hopefully, you read my former post with the first 3 tips on this topic.  If not, here is a link to that article: http://technorati.com/business/article/how-not-to-blow-a-phone/. Now, for some more ideas on how NOT to blow your interview.

1)     Look in the Mirror!  If possible, have a mirror close by.  Go ahead, check yourself  while you’re talking.  Are you smiling?    If you’re not, your caller will definitely hear it.  Before the call, relax, take some deep breaths, stretch a bit, have a sip of water, spit out your gum, put any snacks away, and take a good look at yourself.  Smile, be confident and convey an upbeat mood and attitude.

2)     Use Cue Cards!  Since it is a phone interview, the caller cannot see you. Make this work to your advantage.  Have questions written out beforehand, have your resume printed out and ready for you to reference.  Have some notes on the company/hiring manager/job handy that you’ve either pulled from the internet, from your recruiter, or from your own super sleuth detective work.  I recommend printing out your resume, highlighting key things that you want to be sure to convey (more on this in the next tip).  Write out a few key questions on notecards in fairly large print and have them laid out on the desk or table in front of you.  Be sure to ask them and jot down responses as you chat.  Have the job description and other data points handy, again highlighted or notated with where you want clarification.  This would seem awkward in a personal interview, but use your temporary “cloak of invisibility” to your advantage and you’ll sound better prepared, more articulate and more engaged in the interview.

3)     Practice Makes Perfect! Practice your elevator pitch!  Be sure you have well rehearsed and compelling answers to the standard interview questions that you know you’re likely to get.  These include strengths, weakness, why you’re looking, and the old standby, “tell me about yourself”.  Be fully ready to explain any gaps in employment, salary history and any significant career path changes you’ve made.  Be prepared, write out answers in advance and practice saying them a few times so you’re sure they sound natural, confident and credible before the phone interview! A tip I like to share is to gather several colors of highlighter pens and a printed copy of your resume and the job description for which you’re interviewing.  On the job description, pull out the top 3-5 required skills/attributes or experience factors needed for success.  Highlight each one in a different color.  Now, go to your resume and map those colors/skills back, so that your resume is now highlighted in the same colors and you can easily walk the caller through how your experience specifically matches their requirements.   

4)     Be attractive!  Look we’re all human and we tend to respond to people who think, talk and act like we do.  Now I’m not suggesting that you try to sound like Dolly Parton if you’re interviewing with someone in Tennessee or like Tony Soprano if you’re talking to a manager in the Garden State.  But there are subtle things you can do to make the interviewer more at ease with your communication style and more interested in taking things to the next phase. Listen to the interviewer.  Are they animated or more even keel?  Excitable and passionate? Or grounded and soft-spoken?  Pay attention and adapt your tone and pace of speaking to match theirs slightly, keeping it very natural.  Jot down key words that they use and try to reiterate those in your own dialog so you’ll be “speaking the same language”.  Try to avoid any negative words and stay positive. Ask them questions that show you’re engaged, interested in them, their perspective on the organization, and the role. Please don’t interrupt them!  On a cell phone, this may mean waiting 2-3 seconds after they finish talking to speak just to be sure.  If I sound a bit like I’m giving dating advice, that’s ok.   Remember, the phone interview is like speed dating, and you want to be the one to control whether you get a real date, or not.

Love them or not, phone interviews are here to stay.  Hopefully, these tips will help you shine in this somewhat awkward format, and win the interview.  Look for my final installment on this topic in the next few days.....Go get ‘em! 

How Not to Blow a Phone Interview...Part One!

This article first published as How Not to Blow a Phone Interview...Part One on Technorati.

 I'll confess to a love/hate relationship with phone screens.  As a recruiter, I want to push the interview process along quickly and get to an offer stage (or not) quickly.  I typically try to put people together face to face as soon as there’s mutual interest.  As a candidate, I enjoy connecting with new people and believe that comes across when I meet them, so I’m more compelling in person. Experts say nearly 90% of human communication is nonverbal, so the phone isn’t the best showcase for your charisma, confidence and body language to shine.  It’s tougher as a candidate to read the cues from the interviewer over the phone than in a face-to-face meeting, so making adjustments along the way is trickier.  Also, odds are good that someone will be on a cell phone.  This can be fraught with issues including dropped calls, bad signal strength, poor network quality (which makes you sound as if you’re slurring, or even drunk!), background noise, or the dreaded delay.   On the other hand, as a busy candidate, I’ve found that a phone interview is a great use of my time and an easy way to determine quickly if an opportunity is right for me.  As a recruiter, I encourage a hiring manager to conduct a phone interview if they’re on the fence about someone, to get a quick gauge of their suitability for the role.

However, phone interviews are here to stay.  Companies have distributed work teams.  Telecommuting is growing so team members may not even be on site to conduct an interview.  Also, it can be a good use of both the candidate’s and the employer’s time.  There’s no need to fight traffic, park and spend an hour getting your hair perfect, and the hiring manager doesn’t have to clean up their office!  For out-of-towner’s, both parties benefit from a quick conversation to ensure there’s a baseline fit, before investing in travel time and expenses. So, how can you, the candidate, turn the phone interview into a clear advantage for yourself?  How can you minimize the inherent problems associated with this forum and stand out?  Here are a few things that can make a BIG difference and ensure you don’t blow it! I’ll share several tips, broken into 3 posts so you can quickly read and digest each one without getting overwhelmed.

1)     Be a Landlubber!  Mobile devices are awesome, but unpredictable. It’s totally old school, but if you have a landline, it’s just better. Disable call waiting.  If you must use a cell, be sure you pick a quiet place to conduct the call and check your signal strength, so there will be no surprises.  Stay away from using a Bluetooth, as that can compromise call quality too.

2)      No Pajamas!  Comfort is good. I’m not suggesting that you put on your best suit for a phone interview, but if you’re overly casual in your posture, attire, or environment, your voice will reflect it.  Sit up straight at a desk or table with your feet on the floor, and have on business casual/work clothes.  You’ll feel professional and it will come through in your voice.  You can even stand up and walk around the room a bit and use hand gestures, if you typically would in live conversation.  You’ll sound more animated and probably more interested. If you’re a natural skeptic (like me!), try this experiment.  Put on comfy pants, lay down on the couch with your feet up, and record yourself on your cell answering this question, “where do you see yourself in 5 years?”  Now, wear standard business attire and sit up at a table or desk with your feet in front of you.  Record yourself again answering the same question.  Finally, stand up, stretch, shake your arms and legs out a bit, have some water and record the same thing again.  Listen to all three recordings back to back.  Which one gives the listener the best version of you?

3)      Power Down! Turn off your computer, radio, TV, etc…and unless you’re on your cell phone, turn that off too.  You don’t need any distractions.  You want to focus on the call and nothing else.  This is not the time for your potential boss to hear your new ringtone chiming in as background noise.  Don’t IM, check email, tweet, or read texts – it can wait.  The phone interview typically won’t last long, and you should afford the interviewer the same courtesies you would in a face-to-face meeting.  

Stay tuned for my next post with tips 4-6.Also, if you’d like some more tips from the hiring manager’s perspective, check here: http://www.job-search-steps.com/phone-interview.html. Most importantly, let your personality shine and just be the best version of yourself. That’s always my #1 tip!

        

Six Ways to Get Ready to Get Ready to Get a Job!

Recently, I had lunch with a former client. We talked about the job market and shared some thoughts about our expectations for a fairly robust hiring climate in 2011.  Corporate America is hiring faster than anytime over the last 9 quarters and U.S. job satisfaction is at an abysmal 22-year low, with a 2010 Conference Board study showing that only 45% of workers are satisfied with their current employment. Some say that more than 80% of us intend to seek a new role this year alone.  Wow - this sounds to me like a potentially Perfect Storm for job seekers who may be entering a very competitive and active hiring market, especially if you are in the latter stages of your career, where competition is always the most fierce.  Don’t get discouraged; there are great opportunities available at every level as companies innovate, expand, and add new revenue streams, new products and new divisions.  But, you need a very well thought-out plan to master your job search, so if you’re thinking of getting out there, or if you are unemployed and actively looking, it’s time to get ready to get ready to land THE job you want!

Don’t get me wrong, many people today are unemployed and may not have the luxury of time.  And the reality is that depending on your education, experience, chosen field, geography, and other factors, some of you will have the ability to be more particular than others in identifying your next opportunity.  But, if you are one of the many of us who are either employed or comfortably unemployed and starting to consider a job search in the near future, take a deep breath, step back for a moment, and give this momentous step its full due.  Here are some important steps to take BEFORE you really dive into a job hunt to chart your course, prime the pump, build your brand, and enhance your employability.  All of these tips will be personally and professionally enriching for you even if you stay in your current job by the way – good stuff, huh?

1. Take time for some healthy introspection.  You don’t need to get all new age on this one or invest in a new yoga mat, but DO meditate or at least ponder on this a bit before you start actively putting yourself out there.  Where are you today?  Have you thought about what your next job will really look like?  What do you want to be when you grow up?  What things are you just NOT willing to do again?  What job would be an extraordinary role in which you could truly thrive?  What 2 or 3 things are truly important to you? Lofty stuff - I know!  Trust me, walking through these questions and others in advance of launching a full scale attack on the 21^st century job safari will serve you well. It will save you time in the long run, keep you focused on the prize, and help potential employers both find you and more quickly determine that you are the right candidate for their opening.  For most of us, if you are unhappy in a job today, going somewhere else to do the same thing within a similar culture for 15% more compensation or a 15 minute shorter commute, will NOT make you happier in the long run. Keep a journal or at least take notes throughout this process and then use the final product to define the parameters and the possibilities for this search. 

2.  Create your sales pitch.  I’ve said this before, and I’ll probably write a future blog post that really digs deep into this issue, because I believe there are few things more important than being able to state with absolute clarity who you are, what you love to do, and what you bring to the party.  Call this the 30-second elevator speech or personal branding message, but you should definitely have one and it should be unique, compelling, and truly reflective of who you are as an individual.  Use your notes from the introspection process to help build this pitch, keep it concise, and be confident.  Its okay to have a couple of slightly tweaked versions of this for different audiences, but there should definitely be unifying elements that reflect the truth of you and what you’re all about.  Where would you use this?  Once you start really thinking of your elevator pitch as part of your “brand”, you’ll find ways to use it all the time.  When you meet someone new  through friends or at a social engagement and they ask, “what do you do?”, rather than saying, “I work at Accenture” or “I’m not working currently”, use your pitch!  At a networking function when you meet someone, use your pitch!  When you go for an informational interview or connect with a recruiter, use your pitch!  When you reconnect with people from your past and they ask, “what have you been up to?”, use your pitch.  If you are on Facebook or Twitter, what do you write in the “About Me” section of your profile? Use your pitch. You get the idea, right?

3.  Get Authentic.   Now that you know what you want from a career move, and know how to say it in a great sound byte, it’s time to soften the beaches in the marketplace.  You may not yet be ready to tell the world you’re actively looking, but this is the time to ensure that peoples’ perception of you jibes with your desired image.  If somebody asked a former co-worker or boss about you today, what would they hear? If someone met you today for the first time, what would their first impression be? If someone Googled you, what would they read? All of these possibilities are near certainties once you start an active job search, so why not prepare for them now?  Reconnect with former colleagues and managers/mentors to catch up, try your elevator pitch on for size, and learn what your connections are up to.  Start to line up professional references and ensure the folks you’ll use know the specifics of how you wish to be perceived.  Take a hard look at what others in your life think of you, and if appropriate, invest in some image updates.  There are some great tools available to see how others feel about you in a safe and confidential way. Here’s a link to one that I really like: http://www.reachcc.com/360, but there are several out there. Go ahead – take the plunge!  I promise you’ll gain valuable insight that will guide you in deciding where you may need to “re-brand”. Use this opportunity to evaluate your physical presence too.  Look at yourself in the mirror tomorrow morning before you head out.  Does what you see reflect the role you want?  You definitely want to start presenting yourself with the image of someone who already belongs in your next starring role.  Could your professional wardrobe or style use some tweaking?  I’m not suggesting that you try to become George Clooney, or Heidi Klum, or even the next contestant on Ambush Makeover, but the harsh reality is that we live in a society that judges us (at least on first impression) by our looks, so be sure your look is consistent with what you want to represent.  

4.  Get “Googly”. I’ve shared in prior posts the importance of building your online reputation and tapping into your network to create your brand.  Here are some specific tactics to try to enhance your online image.  Google yourself!  Like what you see?  If not, you can change it by becoming active on at least one  professional social network, writing a regular blog which shows your expertise or passion in a key area, or even frequently commenting on others’ posts in the blogosphere.  If you are on Linked In, be sure to create a public profile with an URL shortened to just your name.  Better yet, go ahead and lay out the $12 to buy your own name as a domain and create a quick multi-media site with your resume, links to any appropriate social network pages, a headshot, and other relevant professional data.  Linked In also has a great new tool called In Maps, which allows you to create a graphic depiction of your network and see quickly where you may be light in valuable connections. Maybe you have 200 folks in your network, but only 3 from Grad School.  Really?  You probably know more people than that from all those late night study groups.  Use the tool to help you see where you could add some depth.  Check it out:  http://inmaps.linkedinlabs.com/.  Attend a few networking functions in your chosen field.  Many of these publish attendee lists to the web and you’ll start to see yourself online as a mover and a shaker; others will see that too. I bet you’ll also meet some interesting people, and maybe even learn something new, or have fun!  How bad could that be? Update all your online profile pics with recent, flattering, and professionally appropriate headshots so that you’re presenting a consistent image.  This is NOT the time you want your Girls Gone Wild shot, or your prize-winning Borat Halloween costume out there for public consumption, at least not as the first thing people see when they look you up!

5. Create a Compelling Resume.  Check out my former post on Powering Up your resume for the 21^st Century here: http://wotherspoonswords.blogspot.com/2011/02/power-up-your-resume.html.  There are tons of other resume-writing resources and advice blogs on the web you can browse too. Just be sure you are armed with a really good resume before you launch your job search.  Surely, you’ll adapt it to individual roles as they come along, but start with a great CV that includes your professional objective, skills, experience, and accomplishments in clear, concise language that accurately reflects all that you have to offer.  As I’ve suggested before, it’s also a really good idea to establish at least one strong personal relationship with a recruiter who focuses in your field/industry.  If you have not yet done this, now is a great time to start!  If you have forged a rapport with one, share your resume and ask for their genuine feedback.  Really good recruiters can be an excellent resource for you as you move through your career path, and resume advice is one of the many ways they’re typically happy to assist you, especially if you can refer another candidate to them, or offer to review the resume over a nice latte or a cold beer.

6.  Have some fun! Enjoy yourself as you go through this process.  Take your career and your pending job search seriously, but don’t ever take yourself too seriously!  Re-engage with people you genuinely like.  Make connections and attend events that you’re truly interested in.  Don’t be afraid to let some of your quirks and personality come through.  At the end of the day, people help, hire, and hang out with other people they like. Period.  Skills matter, image matters, experience matters, but more often than not, your wit, compassion, positive attitude, and personality will matter just as much….so let those qualities shine through too!  Most of us can smell a fake a mile away, so be authentically you; you’ll be more relaxed and way more inviting.  You probably don’t want a job where you cannot be yourself and laugh a little anyway, right?    

Now, get to work and tackle the 21^st century job market! Define yourself, Be yourself, and Enjoy yourself!

         

10 Ways To Put the WORK Into Your Network!

In my last post, I noted some optimism in corporate hiring as determined by the recent Manpower Employment Outlook survey.  This survey always has great insights for job seekers and employers alike; I strongly encourage you to check it out.  You can sort the data most relevant to you by geographical region, sector and other categories.  Here is a link: http://press.manpower.com/reports.  Okay, enough free advertising for my competition, here is today’s post…

One of the more interesting tidbits I gleaned from the most recent survey suggests that 84% of U.S. workers plan to look for a new position in 2011.  Wow, right?  While this number sounds intuitively high to me and we could debate the difference between “those who plan to look” and “those who will actually look”, I think its undeniable that 2011 will be an active market, both in terms of hires made by U.S. employers, and by the overall volume of job search activity we see. Competition in the job search market will definitely be high!  This is particularly true for executive-level roles, high paying technology jobs, and managerial positions where some statistics indicate that as many as 90% of the openings are never advertised and are filled by referrals and networking.  What does this mean for you?  You better get out there and WORK that network if you want to land a plum job in the near future!  Here are some 21^st century tips for putting the WORK into your network.  You don’t need to embrace them all immediately, but take steps every week to expand your network, visibility, and access to opportunity. 

1)     Link In.  If you are not on Linked In, you should be.  It is an invaluable tool for researching who you already know at firms that may be of interest to you and reconnecting with past colleagues.  It’s a great place to build your online professional reputation and define your personal brand.  Create a compelling profile and provide regular (but not constant) status updates, reminding your network that you are on the job market (if you are currently unemployed).  If you need to be a bit more stealth about your job search, promote yourself as an expert in your field by sharing articles and informative content relevant to your audience. Join some groups to further expand your network and learn about unlisted job opportunities.  Here is a link to a blogger I really respect who offers several great tips for how to make Linked In work for you.  It is geared primarily at Sales professionals, but you are selling yourself online, so start thinking like a salesperson! http://yoursalesplaybook.com/21-ways-to-master-linkedin/

2)     Friend someone.  If you’re comfortable with Facebook as a platform, get on there and use it to your advantage.  Make sure your profile has up to date professional information and add some of your close professional colleagues, work friends and past colleagues as friends.  Try to update your status and join the conversation, on at least a weekly basis, to stay relevant.  Be sure to “Like” the pages of prospective employers and/or recruiting firms that could help you.   If you’re actively and not confidentially looking for a job, make it known!  Idea: let’s say you have an interview coming up at Pfizer and you do not need not keep it confidential, update your status and let people know.  Ask your friends if they now anyone who works there.  You can even sort your friends into groups and update only the appropriate ones if you prefer.

3)     Branch Out.   Facebook has a professional networking app called Branch Out that you can launch and use to connect with your Facebook friends.  You can download your Linked In profile, so you don’t need to reinvent the wheel or spend a lot of time creating your online brand here. If you’re like me, your Facebook friends circle is not the same as your Linked In network, and learning more about where your friends work or have worked before can be a very helpful tool in you job search.

4)     Meet Up.  If you don’t know about this site, check it out: http://www.meetup.com/find/.  Meet up allows you to search out informal get-togethers and networking opportunities in your geographic area.  You could get together with other job seekers to share leads, or with individuals in your industry to share information about professional topics of interest.  You could even get together with fellow badminton aficionados, aspiring sommeliers, or iguana enthusiasts.  It does not have to be strictly work-related; the idea is to bond with new people you’ll have an affinity with and share your interest in finding a new opportunity.  You never know where it will come from! You can also use the “events” app on Linked In to find relevant networking opportunities, seminars and professional enrichment forums. Especially if you’re not working, it is a great time to do volunteer work, and attend charity functions.  This may give you a chance to keep your key skills in use while making new contacts and uncovering potential opportunities. You can still go old school here - get involved in professional networking and/or local Chamber of Commerce events and really dive in.  Volunteer to share your talents on a committee or speak on a panel.  This way, you’ll get great exposure, help others, and enhance your credibility as an expert – all great ways to find a new job!     

5)     Treat someone.  Ask someone in your network out for lunch or coffee or a drink.  Offer to treat!  Use the opportunity to pointedly discuss your career goals and how they could help you. Great choices would be a former co-worker, former manager, mentor or former subordinate.  Maybe you have a friend who worked 5 years ago at a company you’d like to know more about.  Find out what they are up to and offer ways you could possibly help them as well with introductions, information, or whatever you may have at your disposal.  Help others and they’ll help you back! 

6)     Befriend a Recruiter.  Good recruiters are experts at getting people hired, at reviewing resumes and at offering career advice.  Seek out and invest in building relationships with a couple in your geographic area, who focus on your chosen field.  Make yourself a valuable resource to them, by referring other job seeker/candidates to them, and/or letting them know about openings that aren’t right for you, but that they could potentially fill.  Most will be delighted to network with you – that’s a key component of their success.  They’ll be especially happy to help you if you help them by expanding their network too.

7)      Practice Your Sales Pitch.  I know, you may not think of yourself as a salesperson and you may feel odd touting your accomplishments, but you need to craft a (30-second or less) pitch about yourself to use when you meet new people or reconnect with prior associates.  It just needs to be a couple of quick sentences about what you’re good at, what you’ve done, and what you’re looking to do next.  When people ask, “how are you doing?” or “what are you up to these days?” in social setting, haul it out!  People probably won’t look for opportunities for you if they don’t know what you do, what you want to do, and that you are potentially looking.  Write down a few options and try them on for size.  Practice in your car or in the shower – it’s okay – nobody will know!      

8)     Get Carded.  Make sure you have easy ways for all these new connections to find you.  Create business cards for yourself to distribute.  You can create your own in Word or go online and get free or very inexpensive ones made.  This site has some good options: http://tinyurl.com/4s83jnj.  Be sure to include a link to your Linked In profile, your phone numbers and a personal email address that’s work-friendly.  In other words, liveforcats@ymail.com or bigsexypapa@aol.com just will not cut it.  Go ahead and create a free email account with your first and last name and use that for all your job search/professional correspondence.   If you have a smartphone, download apps that allow you to easily exchange contact information with new people you meet.  Linked In for iPhone is great for this, as is the Bump iPhone app.  Cam Card Lite is another app available for multiple smart phones that makes it very easy to share your contact info, and store the data for the new people you meet. 

9)     Go Mining.  Take some time and really dig into your social networking sites to mine great info on companies you are interested in.  If there is a job at AOL for an IT Project Manager that interests you, look on Linked In and Facebook / BranchOut to see who you know that works there.  Most companies have employee referral bonus programs so if you are qualified for the role, your contacts will often be more than happy to refer you in and get the cash.  Maybe you’re a marketing professional and have decided that you really want to work for Proctor & Gamble, even though you don’t know of any specific openings appropriate for you.  Mine your networks for connections that work there and ask to treat them to coffee for an informational interview. Share your passion for marketing and what your unique skills are and pick your contact’s brain about the culture, who the movers and shakers are in the company and which units are growing.  It’s invaluable information to get.  Then, follow up with promoting yourself and of course, always with tremendous gratitude to those who helped you.

10)   Be the Best Version of Yourself!    Try to stay positive and encouraged about what YOU bring to the party!  If you are passionate about your brand, others will be too!  While you’re promoting yourself, promote and help others. Share information and really engage people in conversation.  Most of the skills that make people great networkers are really not that different than the ones we learned in Kindergarten to make friends: be respectful, treat others how you want to be treated, be helpful, let people know what you want in a polite way, and play nice! You’ll be rewarded. Most importantly though, do be yourself.  Remember, if you act like someone else to get a job, you may end up in the wrong role.

Now get out there and increase your visibility, promote your expertise and help others so that you can build a fabulous network that you can really make WORK for you and succeed in the 21^st century job market!   

          

Power Up Your Resume!

So first the good news: we’ve now seen 10 consecutive months of U.S. private sector employment gains.  College hiring is reportedly up 3% over prior year statistics, and according to the latest Manpower Annual Employment Outlook Survey, corporate America is “reporting the most optimistic hiring expectations in more than two years… The adjusted Outlook for Quarter 1 2011 is +9%, up from +5% during the same period last year and +5% during Quarter 4 2010. “ Sounds rosy, right?  If so, consider this; while some regions and individual sectors are showing signs of robust hiring agendas, many economists agree that the increase in newly created corporate roles does not yet outpace the amount of unemployed individuals actively seeking jobs.  Moreover, a more active hiring market will engage discouraged workers who had abandoned their job search, to again seek employment.  What does this mean to you if you are an active job seeker, or even an employed individual, considering a potential move?  It means that the job market is still uber-competitive and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.  You will clearly need to find a way to differentiate yourself from the pack if you want to land a great job in your chosen field.  You’ll need to build a strong personal brand and go to market with excellent marketing collateral…in the form of a Powered Up 21^st century resume.

I’ve been in Staffing, Human Capital Management and Consulting Management for more than 17 years and have reviewed literally tens of thousands of resumes.  I’ve hired hundreds of people myself, and placed thousands more with clients.  Frequently, people come to me for advice on their resumes and the number one suggestion I have is “Toot your own horn!” Seriously, a resume is NOT the place for humility or shyness.  You absolutely need to be your own champion, highlight all of your significant accomplishments, and make it very simple for the folks reading your resume (or software programs parsing it) to quickly see how you stand out in a crowd. You need to be honest in self-representation, but don’t be afraid to sing your praises from the mountaintops!  There is plenty of time for modesty and a low profile once you get the job (or even in the interview!).

In my last blog entry, I offered tips on writing a resume that incorporated enough job description key words to be successfully recognized by Applicant Tracking Software.  By the way, if you somehow missed this extraordinarily witty, insightful and helpful read, please feel free to check it out here:  http://wotherspoonswords.blogspot.com/2011/01/creating-winning-resume-in-era-of.html

      

You should absolutely heed this advice and use the keywords you find time and again in job descriptions for your particular area of specialty throughout your resume.  You should also craft a credible, targeted career objective to open the resume – consider it your elevator pitch.  It is the first thing someone will read when they receive your resume so it should state who you are, why you are right for that particular job, and what you bring to the table that is unique to you.  However, beyond peppering your resume with job description key words and writing a great opening statement, there is a lot more to creating an engaging resume that will grab peoples’ attention, help them connect the dots on why you’ll help them accomplish their objectives in hiring for this role, and get you an interview.  So, here it is…

Tip #2: Power Up your resume!

Take a look at your current resume.  What does it say about you? Does it capture what you’ve really accomplished over the course of your career?  Does it speak clearly to your sense of pride and what you’ve done to drive positive and measurable business outcomes for your employer?    If it is just a ho-hum re-wording of your job description, technical skills, work history, blah blah blah…I assure you it will not get you noticed.  You must be accurate and honest about what you did, and its imperative to clearly demonstrate your key tasks and responsibilities, but that alone won’t get you noticed in today’s job safari. Following are some examples of how you can Power Up your resume in a few easy steps.

First remove all personal pronouns and identifiers from your resume; those are for amateurs.  You’re not writing an article about yourself in the society pages! Next, add a relevant level of detail to your key tasks and responsibilities that will really help employers understand how you spent your time and what your full range of competencies are.  As an example, instead of “I led a team of sales personnel”, consider “Selected, trained, mentored and managed the daily activities and ongoing metrics of a high performance sales team”.    Rather than, “I was responsible for keeping all accounting records”, try the Powered Up version:  “Managed and maintained a portfolio of 500+ accounts payable and receivable records and ensured fiscal reconciliation in support of corporate objectives”.

Think about each line on your resume as a chance to tell your story, to make the most of what you specifically did to benefit your employer, and to best highlight what skills and experience you bring to the party.  As you do this, consider not only the job that you had, but also the role to which you aspire.  Perhaps you are a successful sales professional applying for sales management roles.  You’d want to specifically highlight what you have done in your role as a superstar individual producer to select, train, mentor, and/or assist others on the sales team. If you are a software tester and are going for QA Manager roles, be sure to highlight your experience as a test lead, or even informal leadership tasks that you completed in your prior roles.   

Another key way to Power Up your resume is to quantify your results!  Everyone is interested in measurable business benefit and what you’ll be able to do for the organization if they hire you. So, instead of the ho-hum  “executed process improvements”, Power It Up!  Go with, “identified and implemented a major process improvement project increasing the firm’s targetable account base by 150,000 customers with expected annual value of $40M”. Rather than “opened new accounts and sold into an existing customer base”, how about “Developed a new business target pipeline of $3M in revenue and secured 8 new clients.  Managed a high value legacy customer and increased sales and margin by 25% in year over year performance. ”  Power Up the boring “oversaw collections and aging reports” and change it to “managed an aging portfolio of nearly 250 individual clients and reduced bad debt reserves by 75% while improving DSO metrics from average of Net 65 days to Net 40, improving corporate cash flow dramatically.” No matter what your role or industry, there are clear ways for you to spell out exactly what you set out to do, what you accomplished, and how your employer benefited from these accomplishments. 

These are just a few examples of how to Power Up your resume using action words and results-focused content that WILL get you noticed.  Take the time to really work on the resume and have someone you trust review it and provide candid feedback.  You’ll be glad that you did!  Resume writing is like almost everything else in life, the more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it! Uh oh, I sound like my mother hauling out that old adage, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing after all, right?  Now, get to work and start job hunting the smart way! And, don’t forget to check out my next blog; I’ll share some wisdom on how to use your network effectively to find the best jobs out there…stay tuned!!

Daphne Wotherspoon is an expert at getting the right people hired into the right jobs.  She has nearly 20 years of experience in the staffing, consulting, recruiting, and human capital management industries.  An industry leading sales professional, entrepreneur, general manager, and recruiter, Daphne has hired and placed more than 2000 job seekers at Fortune 500 and mid-market companies, not for profit institutions, and government agencies.  Currently, Daphne is a founding partner of Aligned360, a Talent on Demand Solutions firm located in Northern Virginia.  She is also a mother of two, an avid blogger, social media enthusiast, and an aspiring TV chef.  She has been featured in Staffing Industry Review, and the Washington Business Journal, and in 2009, she was selected to be a contestant on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, a nationally-televised game show (which did not unfortunately result in millionaire status!).  For more information and helpful suggestions, tips and notations on business trends, follow Daphne on Twitter @dspoon1 or check out Aligned360 on Facebook.