The Upside to the Down Economy
~by Lauren Zander, Career Coach
How can I use the current economic climate to my advantage in my current job?
Be the inspiration in your company. Be a leader. If you notice someone is unhappy or stuck in a negative cycle, try to help him or her. Be the one who rallies people. This is the best time to make real teams and alliances with the genuine heroes who want to win, even against the odds.
Turn the perspective around: Focus on the achievement and challenge of the "underdog" winning, and get people excited and inspired about the idea of triumphing in—and despite of—hard times. Long after the tough times pass, you will be remembered and known and appreciated for being that kind of champion. Innovation and hard work combined with that spirit will win the day. If you don't fall prey to fear you will end up shining, because many people are going to go down with the fear. If you instead represent courage and fortitude and remain focused, it will do you good now and in the future.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Ten Reasons to Take up Biking During a Job Search
Saw this blog post and identified! Sounds like a great technique for us recruiters as well! Go out and ride our bikes (conserve gas and find potential new clients at the same time! Thanks, Jeff!
Taken from "Jeff Lipschultz" Blog
Fellow Recruiter
While riding my road bike recently, I was thinking about all the benefits of putting in miles on two rubber tires (and no motor!). And then I got to thinking about the job seekers in the world and how biking should be an activity included in their job search routine.
So, without the fanfare of a drumroll, I present in no particular order:
Jeff’s Ten Reasons to Start Biking While Looking for Job:
As you venture out of your immediate neighborhood, travel through industrial parks to find companies to investigate.
Riding helps clear your mind and gives you time to think. Bring a scrap of paper and a pen. You’d be surprised how many great ideas pop into your head while you’re riding.
Obviously, getting some exercise is a chance to burn calories. Hours of research in front of a computer can lead to the opposite.
By meeting new folks who ride in your town, you get to network with all kinds of new contacts. Most bike shops hold weekly rides originating from their shop.
In between jobs, it is sometimes hard to find accomplishments to be proud of. As your miles and fitness increase, you’ll feel extremely good about your positive experience.
Biking adds another dimension to your personal life that may be useful in interviews. You never know, you might have an interviewer who is an avid cyclist. Making personal connections in an interview is key.
Being healthy is appreciated by employers’ (and your own) budget. In fact, many companies have developed programs in the last several years for encouraging their employees to stay fit.
Biking lends itself to setting and achievement of goals. Hiring managers like candidates who are self-directed and can achieve personal goals.
Biking is a stress reliever. It gives your body and brain a chance to vent frustrations by pushing yourself physically. Being out in the world/nature/fresh air helps bring you back to reality. Although this may be a tough time, there is a “bigger picture.”
Duh! It’s a good habit. After you’ve found your next job, you’ll want to continue mashing those pedals!
Taken from "Jeff Lipschultz" Blog
Fellow Recruiter
While riding my road bike recently, I was thinking about all the benefits of putting in miles on two rubber tires (and no motor!). And then I got to thinking about the job seekers in the world and how biking should be an activity included in their job search routine.
So, without the fanfare of a drumroll, I present in no particular order:
Jeff’s Ten Reasons to Start Biking While Looking for Job:
As you venture out of your immediate neighborhood, travel through industrial parks to find companies to investigate.
Riding helps clear your mind and gives you time to think. Bring a scrap of paper and a pen. You’d be surprised how many great ideas pop into your head while you’re riding.
Obviously, getting some exercise is a chance to burn calories. Hours of research in front of a computer can lead to the opposite.
By meeting new folks who ride in your town, you get to network with all kinds of new contacts. Most bike shops hold weekly rides originating from their shop.
In between jobs, it is sometimes hard to find accomplishments to be proud of. As your miles and fitness increase, you’ll feel extremely good about your positive experience.
Biking adds another dimension to your personal life that may be useful in interviews. You never know, you might have an interviewer who is an avid cyclist. Making personal connections in an interview is key.
Being healthy is appreciated by employers’ (and your own) budget. In fact, many companies have developed programs in the last several years for encouraging their employees to stay fit.
Biking lends itself to setting and achievement of goals. Hiring managers like candidates who are self-directed and can achieve personal goals.
Biking is a stress reliever. It gives your body and brain a chance to vent frustrations by pushing yourself physically. Being out in the world/nature/fresh air helps bring you back to reality. Although this may be a tough time, there is a “bigger picture.”
Duh! It’s a good habit. After you’ve found your next job, you’ll want to continue mashing those pedals!
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Dayton, Ohio: Final Fortune 500 Company Abandons City
Brittanica Blog - by RSS
Jon Talton - June 9th, 2009
At the turn of the last century, Dayton, Ohio, was something akin to the Silicon Valley of its day. It was the home to the Wright brothers, of course, as well as Charles Kettering, the automotive genius who would develop so many innovations that allowed General Motors to become the dominant player in a new industry. And the backbone of all this was the National Cash Register Co. (NCR), founded by John Henry Patterson.
Last week, NCR said it was leaving Dayton after 125 years, decamping its headquarters for what urban theorist James Howard Kunstler would dub one of the suburban “asteroid belts” around Atlanta. It marks the departure of the last of Dayton’s Fortune 500 companies and is in many ways the most vicious blow yet to this battered city.
Considering the future we face, of steadily rising temperatures and their effect on the South, and steadily rising energy prices and their consequences for long, single-occupancy vehicle commuting, this is a boneheaded executive decision. (It wouldn’t be the first: the temperamental Patterson drove away a young Thomas Watson, who went on to found IBM). Worse, it’s a stab in the back for a city that spent years catering to NCR’s every whim. Dayton wasn’t even allowed to compete to keep the headquarters.
But it’s a storm warning for America. There are many Daytons out there.
The conventional arguments will go like this. “NCR needs to align itself for future growth and drive the lowest cost structure in our industry,” as its chairman said. This stretches credulity considering the cost of living in the well-off Atlanta suburbs is higher than in Dayton. NCR will have a hard time attracting young talent to the dreary suburbia of its new home. And the company is hardly relocating to a major technology hub to avail itself of the synergies of ideas and innovations.
Another argument will say, this is creative destruction so deal with it. Unfortunately, Dayton and Ohio have supped for years at the table of destruction but have yet to taste creative feast (and we should remember that economist Joseph Schumpeter, who coined the term, argued that its consequences would harm capitalism, perhaps fatally).
Yet another excuse is that this is the payback for a Rust Belt that became lazy, complacent and uncompetitive. The trouble is, it’s just not true. I was the business editor of the Dayton Daily News in the 1980s and did another stint later at the Cincinnati Enquirer. In fact, after the shocks of the late 1970s and early 1980s, much of the Midwest worked hard to reinvent itself. By the mid-1990s, American manufacturing in the Midwest was as advanced and productive as any place in the world.
Dayton had to learn this lesson early when National Cash Register made the painful transition from mechanical cash registers to computers in the late 1970s. Some 30,000 factory jobs were killed in Dayton at a time when it was also losing the GM Frigidaire appliance plant that employed thousands more. But although blocks of factories owned by “the Cash” were demolished, NCR remained, building a new headquarters perched in a park above downtown. Local and state leaders also persuaded GM to turn the Frigidaire plant into a light-truck auto assembly. Such was the resilience of Dayton.
I’ve written about the city I encountered when I arrived there in 1986. It had been wounded by many of the same ills of older American cities, including suburban flight and poor race relations. But it was a real city, with major corporations, an airline hub, a busy downtown and a diverse economy that included both information-age startups (notably Lexis-Nexis) and good blue-collar jobs. It had more real universities than Phoenix, the nation’s fifth largest city. It was not Youngstown, mortally wounded by dependence on a single industry, decades of bad decisions and a culture of corruption. In many ways, Dayton was still the city of the Wrights and Kettering.
Now almost all those assets are gone. Despite huge subsidies over the years from state and local government, even the GM plant recently shut down. And, finally, the stab in the back from the executive successors to Patterson — a man who deployed his company to rescue the city during the great flood of 1913.
The root causes have little to do with Dayton.
Mergers that took away headquarters were driven by changes in public policy — tax rules encouraged deals whether they made “economic sense” or not; executives were highly compensated for selling “their” firms; Wall Street became much more powerful and made huge fees by pushing mergers, and the government stopped enforcing anti-trust laws, allowing for dangerous industry concentration. Significantly, finance overtook manufacturing as America’s largest economic sector in recent years.
These policies took away Dayton’s air hub, its corporate jewels, its local banks — and allowed NCR to be bought and cast aside by AT&T to land as a fickle vagabond. NCR is surely continually shopping itself on Wall Street even now.
A world trading system established by the United States has slipped its leash and no one can argue credibly any longer that most Americans will be net winners. Having cheap stuff from China will not replace stable jobs with good wages and benefits. As the manufacturing heart of America, the Midwest has felt this the worst. But the Carolinas have lost hundreds of thousands of jobs in textiles, apparel and furniture since China joined the WTO — and those workers have not retrained to be video game developers or stem-cell researchers. As a debtor dependent on China to finance its bailouts and military adventures, Washington is in a weak position to demand that Beijing trade fairly.
The grand malpractice that destroyed General Motors deserves its own treatment — here again, Dayton and Ohio did everything they could to help the automaker, and workers repeatedly made concessions. The changes in policy that tilted the balance so badly against working people and unions also played a role in killing the blue-collar middle class. But with the city and region bleeding companies, it’s not as if a college education will guarantee opportunity, either.
Perhaps the biggest driver is the rootless executive class that runs American business. Their loyalty is to hitting Wall Street’s quarterly numbers, nothing more. Some come in merely to sell a company — as happened with Seattle’s iconic Safeco Insurance. They are coddled, bowed-to and massively compensated. But they have no allegiance to any place or any country.
It’s a nice thought that Dayton can”get its competitive act together” — and I’m sure a small army of consultants will be well paid to offer advice, draft plans, hold summits. But Americans should think long and hard about the fate of Dayton and its kin. Dayton did not walk cluelessly into this calamity. It would be so comforting to believe that it did. That, with some different moves, it could have reinvented itself as a New Economy star.
The reality is that Dayton and Ohio made many right moves — spent decades worrying and acting to head off disaster. And in the end, it didn’t matter. The Reagan-Clinton-Bush era worshipped an abstract “free market” but not the values that either allowed Dayton to emerge as a powerhouse or to reinvent itself in the 1980s. Thus, a handful of metro areas are net winners. Many seemed to prosper in a bubble of house building and leverage — and now they have been brought to earth. Many more seem in permanent eclipse and one largely beyond their control. It is part of a broader national decline cloaked by the prosperity that was built in places like Dayton.
So Dayton watches NCR leave as President Obama is focused on saving the big banks and Wall Street, and, as far as I can see, pretty much trying to shore up the status quo. Those institutions, of course, are “too big to fail.”
What will be the cost of letting Dayton fail? I fear it is huge. We just don’t realize it yet.
Jon Talton - June 9th, 2009
At the turn of the last century, Dayton, Ohio, was something akin to the Silicon Valley of its day. It was the home to the Wright brothers, of course, as well as Charles Kettering, the automotive genius who would develop so many innovations that allowed General Motors to become the dominant player in a new industry. And the backbone of all this was the National Cash Register Co. (NCR), founded by John Henry Patterson.
Last week, NCR said it was leaving Dayton after 125 years, decamping its headquarters for what urban theorist James Howard Kunstler would dub one of the suburban “asteroid belts” around Atlanta. It marks the departure of the last of Dayton’s Fortune 500 companies and is in many ways the most vicious blow yet to this battered city.
Considering the future we face, of steadily rising temperatures and their effect on the South, and steadily rising energy prices and their consequences for long, single-occupancy vehicle commuting, this is a boneheaded executive decision. (It wouldn’t be the first: the temperamental Patterson drove away a young Thomas Watson, who went on to found IBM). Worse, it’s a stab in the back for a city that spent years catering to NCR’s every whim. Dayton wasn’t even allowed to compete to keep the headquarters.
But it’s a storm warning for America. There are many Daytons out there.
The conventional arguments will go like this. “NCR needs to align itself for future growth and drive the lowest cost structure in our industry,” as its chairman said. This stretches credulity considering the cost of living in the well-off Atlanta suburbs is higher than in Dayton. NCR will have a hard time attracting young talent to the dreary suburbia of its new home. And the company is hardly relocating to a major technology hub to avail itself of the synergies of ideas and innovations.
Another argument will say, this is creative destruction so deal with it. Unfortunately, Dayton and Ohio have supped for years at the table of destruction but have yet to taste creative feast (and we should remember that economist Joseph Schumpeter, who coined the term, argued that its consequences would harm capitalism, perhaps fatally).
Yet another excuse is that this is the payback for a Rust Belt that became lazy, complacent and uncompetitive. The trouble is, it’s just not true. I was the business editor of the Dayton Daily News in the 1980s and did another stint later at the Cincinnati Enquirer. In fact, after the shocks of the late 1970s and early 1980s, much of the Midwest worked hard to reinvent itself. By the mid-1990s, American manufacturing in the Midwest was as advanced and productive as any place in the world.
Dayton had to learn this lesson early when National Cash Register made the painful transition from mechanical cash registers to computers in the late 1970s. Some 30,000 factory jobs were killed in Dayton at a time when it was also losing the GM Frigidaire appliance plant that employed thousands more. But although blocks of factories owned by “the Cash” were demolished, NCR remained, building a new headquarters perched in a park above downtown. Local and state leaders also persuaded GM to turn the Frigidaire plant into a light-truck auto assembly. Such was the resilience of Dayton.
I’ve written about the city I encountered when I arrived there in 1986. It had been wounded by many of the same ills of older American cities, including suburban flight and poor race relations. But it was a real city, with major corporations, an airline hub, a busy downtown and a diverse economy that included both information-age startups (notably Lexis-Nexis) and good blue-collar jobs. It had more real universities than Phoenix, the nation’s fifth largest city. It was not Youngstown, mortally wounded by dependence on a single industry, decades of bad decisions and a culture of corruption. In many ways, Dayton was still the city of the Wrights and Kettering.
Now almost all those assets are gone. Despite huge subsidies over the years from state and local government, even the GM plant recently shut down. And, finally, the stab in the back from the executive successors to Patterson — a man who deployed his company to rescue the city during the great flood of 1913.
The root causes have little to do with Dayton.
Mergers that took away headquarters were driven by changes in public policy — tax rules encouraged deals whether they made “economic sense” or not; executives were highly compensated for selling “their” firms; Wall Street became much more powerful and made huge fees by pushing mergers, and the government stopped enforcing anti-trust laws, allowing for dangerous industry concentration. Significantly, finance overtook manufacturing as America’s largest economic sector in recent years.
These policies took away Dayton’s air hub, its corporate jewels, its local banks — and allowed NCR to be bought and cast aside by AT&T to land as a fickle vagabond. NCR is surely continually shopping itself on Wall Street even now.
A world trading system established by the United States has slipped its leash and no one can argue credibly any longer that most Americans will be net winners. Having cheap stuff from China will not replace stable jobs with good wages and benefits. As the manufacturing heart of America, the Midwest has felt this the worst. But the Carolinas have lost hundreds of thousands of jobs in textiles, apparel and furniture since China joined the WTO — and those workers have not retrained to be video game developers or stem-cell researchers. As a debtor dependent on China to finance its bailouts and military adventures, Washington is in a weak position to demand that Beijing trade fairly.
The grand malpractice that destroyed General Motors deserves its own treatment — here again, Dayton and Ohio did everything they could to help the automaker, and workers repeatedly made concessions. The changes in policy that tilted the balance so badly against working people and unions also played a role in killing the blue-collar middle class. But with the city and region bleeding companies, it’s not as if a college education will guarantee opportunity, either.
Perhaps the biggest driver is the rootless executive class that runs American business. Their loyalty is to hitting Wall Street’s quarterly numbers, nothing more. Some come in merely to sell a company — as happened with Seattle’s iconic Safeco Insurance. They are coddled, bowed-to and massively compensated. But they have no allegiance to any place or any country.
It’s a nice thought that Dayton can”get its competitive act together” — and I’m sure a small army of consultants will be well paid to offer advice, draft plans, hold summits. But Americans should think long and hard about the fate of Dayton and its kin. Dayton did not walk cluelessly into this calamity. It would be so comforting to believe that it did. That, with some different moves, it could have reinvented itself as a New Economy star.
The reality is that Dayton and Ohio made many right moves — spent decades worrying and acting to head off disaster. And in the end, it didn’t matter. The Reagan-Clinton-Bush era worshipped an abstract “free market” but not the values that either allowed Dayton to emerge as a powerhouse or to reinvent itself in the 1980s. Thus, a handful of metro areas are net winners. Many seemed to prosper in a bubble of house building and leverage — and now they have been brought to earth. Many more seem in permanent eclipse and one largely beyond their control. It is part of a broader national decline cloaked by the prosperity that was built in places like Dayton.
So Dayton watches NCR leave as President Obama is focused on saving the big banks and Wall Street, and, as far as I can see, pretty much trying to shore up the status quo. Those institutions, of course, are “too big to fail.”
What will be the cost of letting Dayton fail? I fear it is huge. We just don’t realize it yet.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Young workers need to adapt job-hunt tactics
Although this article is addresing young workers, the advice really is for all jobseekers (even the experienced).
~by Carolyn Kepscher, New York Daily New
Monday, June 1st 2009
Twentysomething is usually a wonderful time of life — except if you have to search for a job in today’s economy.
Lindsey Pollak knows the drill. She makes a living helping twentysomethings navigate the job market and handle workplace issues.
In her book, “Getting from College to Career: 90 Things to Do Before You Join the Real World,” and on her popular blog, she offers sound advice.
We talked about how young workers can cope during the deepest recession in decades.
Q What must the up-and-coming generation do differently to prepare for a great career?
A“The trend for a while now has been for professionals to become the CEOs of their own careers because we no longer live in a world where people stay at the same company for 30 years and retire with a gold watch. This means that the most recent generation to enter the workforce, Generation Y, is much more in control of their careers, but also has to do more work to find jobs, network and stay employed.”
QWhat traits should job hunters emphasize?
A “Gen Y is known for their ease with technology, their global viewpoint, their comfort with diversity and working in teams, their self-confidence, which many older generations call entitlement, but can be very appealing in a career like fund raising or sales, and in an economy where it’s easy to become disheartened.”
QWhat do you think is the worst advice people follow?
A“The résumé blitz. So many students tell me they’ve sent out 100 résumés and nothing happened. Today, because it is so easy to e-mail a résumé with a click of a mouse, everyone sends out zillions of résumés. You have to put in much more effort to stand out to an employer. In-person networking, connecting one-on-one on a social network like LinkedIn.com or meeting potential employers at a professional association event are all much more effective than e-mailing out lots of résumés.”
QWhat’s your most important social networking advice?
A“LinkedIn has become the most popular and valuable professional social network, but it won’t work unless you work it. First, set up a complete profile including keywords a recruiter or business owner might use to find someone like you. ... Scour other people’s profiles to look for companies you may want to apply to, job titles or professions you didn’t know about, professional organizations where you might network and people with similar interests who might be willing to offer you some job search advice. Finally, use LinkedIn to help other people with suggestions, job leads and moral support — the more people you help, the more people will offer to return the favor.
“Twitter can be valuable for networking and company research if you want to find a job where Twitter has a strong presence — for example, PR, new media, technology and venture capital. ... There are also lots of people who tweet out job listings, so do a search on the term jobs to find these.”
QWhat can job seekers focus on to keep perspective?
A“It is tough out there, but there are jobs. ... Remember, this is only your first job out of many, so the most important thing is to get your career started and to make the most of any opportunity you find. The economy will turn around.”
Your Money columnist Carolyn Kepcher, author of the best-selling business book, “Carolyn 101,” is the former “Apprentice” star who thrived working for one of America’s toughest bosses. She’s now CEO of Carolyn & Company Media (carolynandco.com), an enterprise created by and for career women. For info on personal coaching, visit carolyn101.biz.
~by Carolyn Kepscher, New York Daily New
Monday, June 1st 2009
Twentysomething is usually a wonderful time of life — except if you have to search for a job in today’s economy.
Lindsey Pollak knows the drill. She makes a living helping twentysomethings navigate the job market and handle workplace issues.
In her book, “Getting from College to Career: 90 Things to Do Before You Join the Real World,” and on her popular blog, she offers sound advice.
We talked about how young workers can cope during the deepest recession in decades.
Q What must the up-and-coming generation do differently to prepare for a great career?
A“The trend for a while now has been for professionals to become the CEOs of their own careers because we no longer live in a world where people stay at the same company for 30 years and retire with a gold watch. This means that the most recent generation to enter the workforce, Generation Y, is much more in control of their careers, but also has to do more work to find jobs, network and stay employed.”
QWhat traits should job hunters emphasize?
A “Gen Y is known for their ease with technology, their global viewpoint, their comfort with diversity and working in teams, their self-confidence, which many older generations call entitlement, but can be very appealing in a career like fund raising or sales, and in an economy where it’s easy to become disheartened.”
QWhat do you think is the worst advice people follow?
A“The résumé blitz. So many students tell me they’ve sent out 100 résumés and nothing happened. Today, because it is so easy to e-mail a résumé with a click of a mouse, everyone sends out zillions of résumés. You have to put in much more effort to stand out to an employer. In-person networking, connecting one-on-one on a social network like LinkedIn.com or meeting potential employers at a professional association event are all much more effective than e-mailing out lots of résumés.”
QWhat’s your most important social networking advice?
A“LinkedIn has become the most popular and valuable professional social network, but it won’t work unless you work it. First, set up a complete profile including keywords a recruiter or business owner might use to find someone like you. ... Scour other people’s profiles to look for companies you may want to apply to, job titles or professions you didn’t know about, professional organizations where you might network and people with similar interests who might be willing to offer you some job search advice. Finally, use LinkedIn to help other people with suggestions, job leads and moral support — the more people you help, the more people will offer to return the favor.
“Twitter can be valuable for networking and company research if you want to find a job where Twitter has a strong presence — for example, PR, new media, technology and venture capital. ... There are also lots of people who tweet out job listings, so do a search on the term jobs to find these.”
QWhat can job seekers focus on to keep perspective?
A“It is tough out there, but there are jobs. ... Remember, this is only your first job out of many, so the most important thing is to get your career started and to make the most of any opportunity you find. The economy will turn around.”
Your Money columnist Carolyn Kepcher, author of the best-selling business book, “Carolyn 101,” is the former “Apprentice” star who thrived working for one of America’s toughest bosses. She’s now CEO of Carolyn & Company Media (carolynandco.com), an enterprise created by and for career women. For info on personal coaching, visit carolyn101.biz.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Dayton losing NCR... Jobs moving to Atlanta
The writing has been on the walls for awhile. Still I am so saddened to see this "Dayton" icon leave town.
It appears that our community did not fight hard enough to keep this company here! Dayton, which historically is one of the most innovative and entrepreneurial cities in the United States, is slowly turning into a ghost town.
What can we do to turn things around? I am still pondering this myself... For the time being, I will turn off the news, stay focused on what I can do on a daily basis, and have hope for the future. This is certainly not the first time that Dayton has been hit below the belt; unfortunately, it will not be the last either.
Daytonians, let us pull together, and bring back the community spirit needed to move forward!
It appears that our community did not fight hard enough to keep this company here! Dayton, which historically is one of the most innovative and entrepreneurial cities in the United States, is slowly turning into a ghost town.
What can we do to turn things around? I am still pondering this myself... For the time being, I will turn off the news, stay focused on what I can do on a daily basis, and have hope for the future. This is certainly not the first time that Dayton has been hit below the belt; unfortunately, it will not be the last either.
Daytonians, let us pull together, and bring back the community spirit needed to move forward!
Monday, June 1, 2009
Tips to Put You Ahead in Your Job Search
If you are looking to change your job or get a new one in this challenging environment, you are certainly not alone. As unemployment rises, finding a job has become extremely tough.
What should you do before starting your job search?
1. Decide your target market.
What industries would you like to work in? What "employers" do you want to target. Keep in mind that you must think about industries that are growing (or at least not declining). You also want to be practical about your target market. Choose an industry where there is some overlap with your existing skills or experience.
2. Identify the specific role that you are interested in.Your next job may very well not be your dream job, but it might be the next logical step. Determine what role you would like to play, and determine a natural progression from your current job. For example, if you are a Programmer / Analyst, and you want to target a Project Management opportunity, you could easily target a Team Lead role in your next job.
3. What would a potential employer find "valuable" about your skillset?
Determine what skills you have to offer that are unique and sellable to future employers. "If you Build it they will come"!
4. Develop a 60 second elevator pitch.Once you develop the elevator pitch, you need to convey it! Personal interactions, through your resumes and through various online as well as offline media.
5. Do you have a personal network? If not develop it! Immediately!
After completing the first four steps, you need to tell everyone that you feel could help you (former colleagues, alumnae associates, friends, family, Linked In network, etc.!
Happy Searching!
What should you do before starting your job search?
1. Decide your target market.
What industries would you like to work in? What "employers" do you want to target. Keep in mind that you must think about industries that are growing (or at least not declining). You also want to be practical about your target market. Choose an industry where there is some overlap with your existing skills or experience.
2. Identify the specific role that you are interested in.Your next job may very well not be your dream job, but it might be the next logical step. Determine what role you would like to play, and determine a natural progression from your current job. For example, if you are a Programmer / Analyst, and you want to target a Project Management opportunity, you could easily target a Team Lead role in your next job.
3. What would a potential employer find "valuable" about your skillset?
Determine what skills you have to offer that are unique and sellable to future employers. "If you Build it they will come"!
4. Develop a 60 second elevator pitch.Once you develop the elevator pitch, you need to convey it! Personal interactions, through your resumes and through various online as well as offline media.
5. Do you have a personal network? If not develop it! Immediately!
After completing the first four steps, you need to tell everyone that you feel could help you (former colleagues, alumnae associates, friends, family, Linked In network, etc.!
Happy Searching!
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