If you’re unemployed and worried that employers will turn you down for taking on unimpressive work during the recession or for the large employment gaps on your résumé—you needn’t panic. A new survey just released by the careers website CareerBuilder.com reveals that the vast majority of employers are sympathetic to such circumstances.
The nationwide survey was conducted among 3,023 hiring managers and human resource professionals between November 9 and December 5, 2011. Not only does it offer unemployed job seekers some hope, but it also provides tips to help them land a new position.
“More than 40% of unemployed job seekers have been out of work for six months or longer,” says Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources for CareerBuilder. “There’s a sense that such a long gap on a résumé negatively affects a candidate’s chances, but the survey shows that is not true. That’s very positive news for this group of job seekers. If you fill the gaps with activities and experience that illustrate how you are still developing your skill sets, the overwhelming majority of employers will look past your unemployment and focus on what you can bring to their team.”
Eighty-five percent of those surveyed employed reported that they are more understanding of employment gaps post-recession. Ninety-four percent said they wouldn’t have a lower opinion of a candidate who took on a position during the recession that was at a lower level than the one he or she had held previously.
But this doesn’t mean you can sit around and wait for a sympathetic employer to offer you work. “The worry is that employers may think job seekers are losing some of their skills because they haven’t been utilizing them. By volunteering, taking temporary work, or signing up for a class that develops your professional tool kit, you show employers that you’ve made the most of your time and will be ready on day one,” Haefner says.
Employers and CareerBuilder experts recommended a variety of activities you should engage in to build, expand, and strengthen your skills during period of unemployment, in order to increase your marketability.
Take a temporary or contract assignment.
Seventy-nine percent would recommend doing this. Why? “The key is to get people to see your work and to see what you’re capable of doing,” says Andy Teach, the author of From Graduation to Corporation: The Practical Guide to Climbing the Corporate Ladder One Rung at a Time. “If you do a great job, even if it’s for a temporary job, whoever hired you is more likely to recommend you for a permanent position.”
Take a class.
Sixty-one percent of the hiring managers surveyed recommended taking a class during a period of unemployment. “You never stop learning in your career, so the more technical competence you have, the better,” Teach says. “When you take a class in your field, you are also showing that you are serious about your work and that you take initiative.” Another advantage to taking a class: It’s a great networking opportunity.
Volunteer.
Sixty percent of the hiring managers said volunteer work makes you more marketable. “When you volunteer for something, you are telling potential employers something about you as a person,” Teach says. It shows that you are passionate about something and care about helping others—and it demonstrates that money isn’t the most important thing to you, he adds. “When companies are hiring, they are looking not only for people who can get the job done but also for people with character and integrity.”
Start your own business.
Twenty-eight percent suggested doing this—but starting a business can be pricy and time consuming. If you have the means to do it, it’s a great résumé booster and a wonderful marketing tool.
“The beauty of having your own business is that you can work part-time or full-time depending on whether or not you are able to land a job working for someone else,” Teach says. “You are also going to learn skills that are transferrable if you do end up working for someone else again.”
Start a professional blog
Eleven percent of the surveyed employers said a professional blog can be a good way to market yourself to employers. Why? You get people to see you as an expert in your field. “You are also conveying your passion, gaining knowledge, and separating yourself from others,” Teach says. “Potential employers will see you as having taken the initiative during your job search to blog about something you truly care about: your career.”
Follow stories on hot industries and job functions.
CareerBuilder experts say information technology, engineering, health care, sales, and customer service are among the top areas for hiring nationwide, according to CareerBuilder’s job listings. Follow the news and job openings in these fields.
Use the time to come up with ideas.
Whether it’s an idea for a marketing campaign, new revenue stream, cost savings, etc., the candidates who show up at an interview with ideas demonstrate that they are passionate, knowledgeable, and excited about the opportunity. These job seekers always stand out from the crowd, CareerBuilder experts say.
Make connections.
A résumé handed to the hiring manager directly from someone within the company is more likely to get noticed, CareerBuilder experts say. Build and expand your network of contacts through social media and professional organizations. Let friends, family and professional contacts know that you’re looking for a job, and ask for their help in finding connections to the organizations you’re interested in.
Follow up.
According to CareerBuilder, two thirds of workers reported that they don’t follow up with the employer after submitting their résumé for consideration. It’s important to take that extra step to let the employer know you’re interested, and make sure you always send a thank you after an interview. Handwritten notes will set you apart from the pool of candidates, but e-mails are acceptable, too.
Use key words.
As long as you’re actively pursuing a job, you’ll likely be spending a significant amount of time editing and sending out your résumé. Remember to use key words. Why? CareerBuilder experts said most employers use electronic scanning devices to screen and rank candidates. You’ll want to tailor your résumé for each position you apply for, and include specific words from the job posting. Do this and your résumé will come up higher in employer searches.
“These types of activities tell the employer that the job seeker is serious about their career development and made the most of their time off,” Haefner says. “The key for the job seeker is to make the connection between how their volunteer work, blog, class, or temporary position prepares them for the next job. If they can successfully do that, their employment gaps won’t be an issue.”
“Are you looking to be just the next hire or are you more like a business a company is looking to acquire?” … an intriguing question I saw recently in a newsletter.
Whether it’s out of desperation or self-deprecation, have you reached the point in your career where you approach a company like Oliver Twist asking, “Please sir, may I have some more?” With no confidence in your own ability to deliver, produce, and be a valuable commodity?
Believe me, humility is important but as a recruiter, it doesn’t take more than a few moments to tell whether a professional is “paper-thin” (i.e., a resume without depth)… and this is not an attribute you want to be known for.
From a resume that reads “I’m just a tool; use me” to interview tactics that scream desperation and fear to job search techniques that prove to hiring managers before they even meet you that you are just like the rest and thus not worthy of interest… don’t be that person.
YOU MUST BE DIFFERENT!
You want companies coming to you, to “acquire” you rather than “hire” you. They are the ones that need talent; they are the ones with a gap in the wall, an unmanned tower. And rather than a screw driver, you’re a a Swiss Army Knife: something they just can’t live without, even if they don’t realize it yet.
What you need, in your job search as well as in your career, is confidence. And the best way to build confidence is by not just looking the part but being the part. You need to take it to hiring managers. You need to express to them what they’ve been missing with you not there.
You need a job search method that is itself a reason to hire you. After all, a company doesn’t want someone who comes begging at the back door; they want someone who can get things done; so be THAT person right from the start.
Don’t leave it to chance, don’t play the orphan, don’t be just a shallow resume with no goal, no purpose, no confidence. Instead, get the training and the program you need and learn to do your career, and your job search, the right way.
Job Search and Personal Branding Seminar, May 9
You’re invited to a free Job Search Strategy Session at our offices on May 9, when I’ll deliver an intensive, two-hour training session devoted to innovative job search strategies and how the CJSS program can help you acquire your Dream Job. Get more info here.
I hope you can attend this indispensable time of training. It’s designed to incorporate all the essential elements you’ll need to get your job search really and truly underway.
Class size is small (only 20 professionals) so you can expect personal advice, direct interaction, and answers to your specific questions.
So if you are motivated, hungry, and want to separate yourself from what everyone else is doing (thereby dramatically improving your chances for not only a successful job search but a successful and fulfilling career), this is a tool that works.
P.S. RSVP (866.JOBS.456 OR Email) as soon as possible as seating is limited to the first 20 professionals. I hope to see you there.
Business owners and entrepreneurs in Michigan continue to drive innovation and change in order to keep the state competitive in the fierce domestic and global markets. Lots of great ideas from the people who have built and rebuilt the state over the last few decades.
You hear every day about how more and more American jobs are being outsourced overseas and what the negative results are for our economy.
But are you guilty of trying to outsource your job search?
It may not seem like it but if you’re posting up your resume all over the place and begging your former colleagues to refer you, you’re basically doing just that: outsourcing your search so you don’t have to do the hard work.
Problem is, that “let them come to me” attitude rarely works.
Finding a job IS a job and just like any other job, it requires hard work, perseverance, and the proper tools, strategies, and training to do it right.
Education is key. Ignorance is not bliss; it is chaos and failure as yet unborn. You don’t step into a race car before you’ve learned how to drive. You don’t rush into battle without armor and a weapon. And a job search isn’t about Monster or Careerbuilder or classified ads or sitting at a coffee shop wearing a sign that says, “H1re M3.”
What you need is an out-of-the-box, proactive approach that leaves you in control. You take it to hiring managers, you tap directly into the “Hidden Job Market”, you network, you have a goal, and you make it happen.
So don’t outsource your job search. Instead, get the training and program you need and learn to do it the right way yourself.
Job Search and Personal Branding Seminar, March 31
You’re invited to a special free Saturday Job Search Strategy Session at our offices on March 31, when I’ll give 20 professionals an intensive, two-hour training session devoted to job search strategies and how the CJSS program can help further your career. Get more info here.
Last month’s seminar filled up within just a few days and you’ve got less than 2 weeks remaining to sign up and learn about how the innovative job search strategies provided by our CJSS can land you an “under the radar” job.
I hope you can attend this unforgettable time of training. I’ve designed it to incorporate all the essential elements you’ll need to get your job search really and truly underway.
Class size is small so you can expect personal advice, direct interaction, and answers to your specific questions.
Just keep one thing in mind: we’re not here to do it all for you. The common denominator behind all of our success stories is this: they take the information we provide, follow the program we have created, and they stick with it. No hesitations or waiting around for someone else to do everything for them. So if you are motivated, hungry, and want to separate yourself from what everyone else is doing, this is a tool that works.
P.S. RSVP (866.JOBS.456 OR Email) as soon as possible as seating is limited to the first 20 professionals. I hope to see you there.
Some networking and job search tips from the founder of one of the fastest growing recruiting and career tools in the world: LinkedIn.
Early on in The Start-up of You, Reid Hoffman takes on the sacred cow of career advice books, making it clear that the timeworn exhortations of What Color is Your Parachute? won’t fly in this economy.
“That’s the wrong question,” Hoffman, the co-founder and chairman of LinkedIn writes (with the help of coauthor Ben Casnocha). “What you should be asking yourself is whether your parachute can keep you aloft in changing conditions.”
Hence the central conceit of the book. Just as Detroit’s dinosaurs fell victim to hubris and an inability to adapt, so will you, dear career seeker, if you don’t mimic the nimble startups of Silicon Valley. Though Hoffman and Casnocha see the struggle through the eyes of one percenters (they don’t seem to know anyone who didn’t go to a good college), there’s lots of good advice that you can apply to your own career. We’ve distilled that advice into eight solid tips that you can apply to your job search today.
1. “A Company Hires Me Over Other Professionals Because…”
To answer this question, Hoffman uses the example of Zappos, which focuses on mainstream shoes and clothes. While it might be tempting to adapt the company’s “over-the-top customer service” to other categories as well, that would make Zappos’s unique selling proposition less apparent. “If you try to be the best at everything and better than everyone (that is, if you believe success means ascending one global, mega leaderboard), you’ll be the best at nothing and better than no one,” Hoffman writes. “In other words, don’t try to be the greatest marketing executive in the world; try to be the greatest marketing executive of small-to-midsize companies that compete in the health care industry.”
2. You Don’t Need to “Find Yourself”
Hoffman makes a sharp distinction between his advice and that of Parachute, which, like many self-help books, believes that uncovering your deepest desires is the key to finding your passion. “Contrary to what many bestselling authors and motivational gurus would have you believe, there is not a ‘true self’ deep within that you can uncover via introspection and that will point you in the right direction,” Hoffman writes. “Yes, your aspirations shape what you do. But your aspirations are themselves shaped by your actions and experiences. You remake yourself as you grow and the world changes. Your identity doesn’t get found. It emerges.”
3. Use ABZ Planning
In Hoffman’s formulation, Plan A is what you’re doing right now. Plan B is “what you pivot to when you need to change your goal or your route to getting there.” Plan Z, meanwhile, is your fallback plan. “In business and life, you always want to keep playing the game,” Hoffman writes. “If failure means you end up on the street, that’s an unacceptable failure.”
Hoffman illustrates what he means by Plan Z with a personal anecdote: “When I started my first company, my father offered up an extra room in his house in the event it didn’t work out — living there and finding a job somewhere else to earn money was my Plan Z. This allowed me to be aggressive in my entrepreneurial pursuits, as I knew I could draw my assets down to zero if necessary and still have a roof over my head.” Hoffman writes that if you’re in your twenties and single, working at Starbucks and living with your parents might be a viable Plan Z, but if you’re in your thirties or forties with children, your Plan Z might be cashing in your 401(k).
4. Look at Professional Networking as Dating
Hoffman distinguishes between old-school “networkers” who pursue relationships based on what they think others can do for them and “relationship builders” who think of the other person first. Relationship builders “don’t keep score. They’re aware that many good deeds get reciprocated, but they’re not calculated about it. And they think about their relationships all the time, not just when they need something.” Hoffman likens relationship building to dating. “When you’re deciding whether or not to build a professional relationship with someone, there are many considerations: whether you like him or her; the capacity for the person to help you build your assets, reach your aspirations and position you well competitively and for you to help back in all the same ways,” Hoffman writes. “And, like with dating, you should always have a long-term perspective.”
5. Have Fun Building Relationships
Hoffman writes that networking gets a bad rap because most people don’t enjoy it. “It’s the presumption that building relationships in a professional context is like flossing,” he writes. “You’re told it’s important, but it’s no fun.” To motivate yourself for network building, think of the fact that your happiest memories were probably with someone else. “We’re not suggesting that you have to be an extrovert or life of the party,” he writes. “We just think it’s possible to appreciate the mystery of another person’s life experience. Building relationships is the thrilling if delicate quest to at once understand another person and allow that person to understand you.”
6. Build Your Weak Ties
Despite the limitations of Dunbar’s Number (that your brain can only really handle about 150 people in your network), Hoffman illustrates that the bigger your professional network, the better. For instance, if you have 170 connections on LinkedIn, then you will have, on average 26,200 second-degree connections and more than 2 million that are three degrees away. Having access to all those people can help you in a pinch. Hoffman illustrates this by pointing out that Frank Hannigan, a software entrepreneur in Ireland, raised more than $200,000 in funding in eight days in 2010 by reaching out to his 700 first-degree connections. But 30% of the investors actually were second-degree connections.
7. Pursue Breakout Opportunities
Every once in a while, a great opportunity comes along that might help you leapfrog up the career ladder. For example, George Clooney was a struggling TV actor when he heard about ER in 1994. Clooney “caught wind of an opportunity, hustled to seize it, and catapulted his career to new heights.” Clooney didn’t necessarily know that ER would become as huge as it eventually did. “How did Clooney recognize ER for the breakout opportunity it was?” Hoffman writes. “Well, he was not certain it would be a breakout. You can never be certain.” But ER had “high quality” people on board and the opportunity was a lead role in a major network drama.
Such breakout opportunities may seem like blind luck, but Hoffman writes that you can develop thinking and behaviors that help you recognize when such “luck” appears. One habit is to remain curious about events that happen in your everyday life. For instance, Reed Hastings (the CEO of Netflix) was a software entrepreneur living in Silicon Valley in 1997 when he ran into a problem: Huge fees for returning Apollo 13 late to his video rental store. Hastings then began researching the industry and found DVDs were light and cheap to ship.
You should also be on the lookout for serendipitous meetings. For instance, John D’Agostino, then in his twenties, attended an event in the Waldorf Astoria in New York featuring Vincent Viola, the chairman of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). D’Agosino made some remarks that caught Viola’s attention and the two set up a meeting. D’Agostino soon got hired as a manager for special projects on NYMEX and was eventually promoted to vice president of strategy.
8. Be Resilient
Not everyone will appreciate your great idea, but if you really believe in it, you can put up with a lot of adversity. Hoffman offers a great illustration of this idea in Tim Westregen, the founder of Pandora Media. Westregen began working on the idea behind Pandora in 1999. By late 2002, the company was doing so badly that he arrived at his office to find an eviction notice at the door. In late 2003, four former employees sued him over deferred salaries. Over the next year or so, he pitched his idea to investors more than 300 times. “For almost 10 years, Pandora was beaten and battered by lawsuits, unfavorable legislation and the constant threat of bankruptcy,” Hoffman writes. “Remarkably, Tim and his team hung in there.”
"When I decided to relocate to the US, my attempts to find a job did not yield any results... until I met Arthur. He showed me the difference between being a passive ad hunter and a proactive agent/lobbyist... I was amazed...it only took a month to land my new role with a multinational corporation in New York. During the process for acquiring an H1-B visa, he was available 24/7 to answer all of my questions. Highly recommended."
A.T.-Int Tax, CPA, LLB-Israel
"Pursuing new opportunities was challenging, being on an H1B visa. Arthur walked me through every step of the process, actively seeking all H1B employment possibilities... Landing my new job with a Big 4 firm was a dream come true as a result of Arthur’s relentless efforts and involvement. Arthur is truly an expert and I would recommend his “out of the box” approach and attitude to anyone!"
M.H.-Sr Auditor, CPA-Detroit
"I wanted to thank you for the amazing effort you made to revamp my resume! If not for your efforts and your bringing to my attention that my resume needed some serious reworking, I never would have secured a job at a Big 4 accounting firm in the US!"
M.G.-IT Auditor-Kuwait/Detroit
"It has been a pleasure working with Arthur. I was unemployed and couldn’t get a job because of some immigration issues. Arthur explained what the best options were for someone in my situation. He never turned his back on me even when I faced complexities in my visa petition. He was always available to answer any questions and provided whatever help he could."
S.G.-CPA-Sr Auditor-Pittsburgh
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“Are you looking to be just the next hire or are you more like a business a company is looking to acquire?” … an intriguing question I saw recently in a newsletter. 
"When I decided to relocate to the US, my attempts to find a job did not yield any results... until I met Arthur. He showed me the difference between being a passive ad hunter and a proactive agent/lobbyist... I was amazed...it only took a month to land my new role with a multinational corporation in New York. During the process for acquiring an H1-B visa, he was available 24/7 to answer all of my questions. Highly recommended."
"Pursuing new opportunities was challenging, being on an H1B visa. Arthur walked me through every step of the process, actively seeking all H1B employment possibilities... Landing my new job with a Big 4 firm was a dream come true as a result of Arthur’s relentless efforts and involvement. Arthur is truly an expert and I would recommend his “out of the box” approach and attitude to anyone!"
"I wanted to thank you for the amazing effort you made to revamp my resume! If not for your efforts and your bringing to my attention that my resume needed some serious reworking, I never would have secured a job at a Big 4 accounting firm in the US!"
