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Job Hunting Scam That Won’t Die – Diane Stafford

Feb 062017
 

A company found Jane’s resume online and contacted her, offering a pathway to the career she coveted.

Jane went to the company’s local office. The “counselor” asked for $4,500 up front to help her tweak her resume and get access to unpublished job openings.

Jane left. Smart Jane.

I repeatedly hear from job hunters, many of them professionals seeking high-powered positions, who — too late — regret paying big money up front to an organization that promised access to the “hidden” job market.

Their egos had been massaged, and their wallets had been drained. In return, they got little more job-search assistance than what they could have done on their own.

Legitimate headhunters — who are paid by employers to submit qualified candidates for consideration — do not ask job hunters to pay for their services.

Repeat: You shouldn’t be asked to pay to find a job.

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3 Necessary Follow-Ups to Get the Job – Arnie Fertig

Jan 302017
 
Make an impression without being a nuisance.

Use a company event as a networking opportunity to meet people in your field.

If you know anything about sports, you know that follow through is key to success. No good golfer stops the swing as the club hits the ball, no baseball batter freezes at the split second when the bat hits the ball, and the lesson carries through in sport after sport.

[See: How to Follow Up on a Job Application Without Being Annoying.]

Similarly, in your job search it is important to follow up at every stage if you expect to be the stellar candidate who gets the job offer. Here are some key things you need to do to keep your job search up to date and moving forward.

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This 60-Year-Old Theory Can Help You Nail Your Next Job Interview – Liz Alexander

Jan 232017
 
You need to showcase the higher-order thinking skills computers haven’t mastered and your peers aren’t highlighting.

This 60-Year-Old Theory

Day by day, year by year, machines are taking over basic tasks like data collection and processing, leaving the higher-order stuff to humans. The more automation eats away at the edges of our jobs, the more we’ll need to show we’re still masters of the type of thinking skills robots can’t yet do.

That trend is pushing a framework developed more than six decades ago back into the fore. In 1956, the education theorist Benjamin Bloom and his colleagues developed what’s since become known as Bloom’s Taxonomy, a hierarchy of six types of cognitive goals they believed education should address. In 2017, it’s looking more relevant than ever.

Bloom's Taxonomy

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Take Bloom On Your Next Job Interview

The framework makes it easy to identify the differences between knowing, understanding, and applying information—and, subsequently, to pinpointing the type of contribution that’s most important to companies and hiring managers. Get your head around Bloom’s Taxonomy, in other words, and you’ll stand a better shot at discussing your skills and experience on a job interview in terms that can set you apart.

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It’s Time for Interns to Stop Hating on Coffee Runs – Samantha Subar

Jan 172017
 

The Leadership Insiders network is an online community where the most thoughtful and influential people in business contribute answers to timely questions about careers and leadership. Today’s answer to the question, “How do you turn an internship into a full-time job?” is written by Samantha Subar, global public relations manager at Spredfast.

On the first day of my internship, I was handed a laptop, emailed a contract, and shown to my desk. That’s all—no new-hire orientation, no manual. The rest was up to me.

That was nearly three years ago. The trajectory of my eight-month internship relied entirely on my own ambition, and quite frankly, my desire to land a job. I found that there are three basic practices that interns should adopt in order to land a full-time offer:

Follow the leader

It won’t be difficult to identify the individuals you admire at your company. Do some calendar stalking and you will find the leaders—their schedules will be packed with meetings. Ask to join those meetings—as many as they will allow you to attend—and then sit in and listen. Try to absorb the dialogue taking place inside the room, understand what’s working, and note what isn’t.

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10 Job Skills That Will Get You Hired in 2017 – Megan Elliott

Jan 092017
 

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If you’re in the market for a new job, you’re not alone. More than 75% of full-time employees are either open to new opportunities or actively looking for work, according to CareerBuilder’s 2016 Candidate Behavior Study.

You might be more than ready for a career change, but you may not have the skills it takes to get noticed by recruiters. LinkedIn recently combed through its database to find out which skills employers were looking to hire for in 2017, both in the United States and around the world. They found you’re in good shape if your talents lie in statistics, cloud computing, and mobile development, while other job hunters might have to work a bit harder to catch the eye of hiring managers.

To develop lists of the top 10 in-demand job skills, the professional networking site looked at trends in hiring and recruiting from January through September 2016. LinkedIn predicts these skills will also be in high demand in the first part of 2017.

“While some skills expire every couple of years, our data strongly suggests that tech skills will still be needed for years to come, in every industry. Now is a great time for professionals to acquire the skills they need to be more marketable,” LinkedIn career expert Catherine Fisher said in a statement.

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This Is the Easiest Way to Expand Your Job Search Network Instantly – Abby Wolfe

Jan 032017
 

the-easiest-way-kpgMy partner, Chris, is a huge beer nerd. For a long time, he’d get together every few weeks with fellow craft beer fans to try bottles from all over the world. For years, beer was just Chris’ hobby. Because when he wasn’t hanging with the crew or concocting his own homebrews, he worked full-time at a criminal justice facility.

And while he loved the field he was in (he could—and still does—talk my ear off about incarceration theory and statistics), he hated the bureaucracy and was miserable. He dreaded going in each morning and returned home more bitter than when he’d left.

Then, a year ago, one of his closest beer buddies, Niall, came to the rescue. He had two friends who owned a market in his neighborhood, and they were looking for a new supervisor and beverage director. And because he knew Chris was so unhappy at work, he put them in touch.

They decided to give Chris a chance, even though his food service experience was limited to an ice cream shop. Fast-forward to today, and he just helped them open up a new store—at which they asked him to be the general manager.

Why am I telling you this? No, it’s surprisingly not because I enjoy saying, “My boyfriend is a beer and wine director.” (Which I do—the free samples are awesome.) It’s because this experience taught me two big things about one of the activites I used to dread most—networking. And now, I want to share them with you.

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  •  January 3, 2017
  •  Posted by at 2:58 pm
  •   Comments Off on This Is the Easiest Way to Expand Your Job Search Network Instantly – Abby Wolfe
  •   Career Success, Social Skills

5 Things Job Applicants Can Expect in 2017 – Ray Bixler

Dec 192016
 
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With unemployment dropping, companies are aggressively hunting for the best talent.

After another strong jobs report, which shows the unemployment rate is down to 4.6 percent, job candidates will have the chance to press their advantage – but only if they know the new rules of the game. It pays to be prepared. Here are five key trends that job seekers will encounter in 2017 – and tips on how to navigate this new terrain.

[See: 10 Things New Grads Can Do Right Now to Get a Job.]

A Need for Speed. The job-search process is moving faster than ever. Companies are paying close attention to how fast job applicants respond to their questions and complete any necessary assessments, and they are sometimes using this information to rule candidates in – or out. For example, our research shows that the reference response rate is a factor in predicting turnover, along with the overall rating those references provide. Job applicants who take longer to provide references, or whose references don’t respond in time to a request on behalf of a potential employer, may be perceived as less likely to last for the long term. Potential employers know this and are factoring it into their decision-making.

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The Best Question to Ask if You Want to End the Interview on a Great Note – Caroline Liu

Dec 122016
 

the-best-questionWe’ve all been there: It’s the end of the interview, and after nearly an hour of pouring your heart (and work experience) out to a potential employer, the hiring manager asks if you have any last questions before wrapping up.

It’s meant to be a formality, of course—a way to end the conversation without kicking you out right then and there. But it’s also an opportunity, intentional or not, to make one final impression and give your interviewer something to remember you by.

As Marshall Darr points out in this short piece on Medium, this final remark is actually a moment to “add value to the conversation” before you both head your separate ways. It’s especially noteworthy when you do manage to pull that off, since so many other candidates, having already asked many questions throughout the session, mindlessly shrug off this little last thing at the end.

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  •  December 12, 2016
  •  Posted by at 2:36 pm
  •   Comments Off on The Best Question to Ask if You Want to End the Interview on a Great Note – Caroline Liu
  •   Career Success, Interviewing

Your Career Q & A: Applying for Jobs Before Graduation – Martin Yate

Dec 052016
 

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“I’m nearing graduation and wondering if I should start applying for an entry-level job now or wait until after graduation. I’d appreciate any advice you can give me”.  – Anonymous

The short answer is: the sooner you start applying, the better. Put your degree on your resume, with “(anticipated)” before your graduation date.

But before you rush off to update your resume, let’s look a little more deeply into this question that’s important to every college student. Being aware of the challenges that you—as an entry-level candidate—present to the people who hold your future in their hands gives you the ability to minimize them:

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Your Guide to Making Unrelated Experience Look Relevant on Your Resume – Kat Boogaard

Nov 282016
 

guide-to-making-unrelated

Perhaps you’re a few years into your career with just a few jobs under your belt. Maybe you’re an experienced professional looking at making a pretty major career change. Or, perhaps you entered the military right out of high school, and now you’re looking for your first civilian job.

Regardless of your specific circumstances, you’re dealing with an all-too-common problem: You know exactly which jobs you’d like to apply for, but the majority of your work experience up to this point seems completely irrelevant.

Believe me, pretty much everybody’s been there. I remember sifting through openings when I was fresh out of college—with work experience that equated to a part-time pizza waitress and someone who did all of the grunt work at a law firm—and getting frustrated by the fact that I would never be able to make myself look impressive (or relevant) enough to even get my foot in the door.

Yes, it can be somewhat discouraging. But, if up until this point you’ve reacted by either crying, cursing, or contemplating throwing your computer out the window, it’s time for a serious change.

Luckily, there are a few different tactics and strategies you can use to make even the seemingly most unrelated experience appear more applicable to the position you’re applying for. Follow these six steps, and you’ll be armed with a resume that makes you look like a no-brainer fit.

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  •  November 28, 2016
  •  Posted by at 10:03 am
  •   Comments Off on Your Guide to Making Unrelated Experience Look Relevant on Your Resume – Kat Boogaard
  •   Career Success, Resume Tips
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