Early in my search I was tempted to look at every job posting that showed up on a job board. Not a smart idea. Do you know how many hundreds, no, thousands of postings there are for just one website like Monster? You have to narrow your search.
One thing I discovered that job boards seem to do a very poor job of selecting jobs that fit me.Even narrowing my search down to an industry and a geographic area proved unproductive. I would register for free service and select the job categories I wanted. The job board would then send me daily notices based on my criteria. What I found was that I got a lot of junk job postings that I had to wade through to find the ones that might fit me.
What I finally discovered was that the best job boards were highly specialized. I joined a professional association for Trainers and Developers. They had their own regional website and a section devoted to training and development jobs in the Portland area. I also connected with the local HR network and likewise found great leads in the Human Resource field through them.
I read a recent article that detailed where were the best places to look for job postings. Would you believe it? In one study last year 20% of the people hired for jobs found the job on the company website.
When fishing on the Internet look for professional association websites and company websites for employment. They are more productive then the big job boards. It takes time and effort to find these smaller websites but its worth the time and effort.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Day 12 Better fishing holes for job postings
Day 11 Be productive, not just active
When I first started out applying for jobs I went to the job boards on the Internet. They posted hundreds of openings every day. Surely there are dozens of jobs I am ideally suited to fill. It surprised me and then dismayed me to realize that big name job boards generated very few leads. The job postings look promising, positions were within a reasonable distance from where I lived but I rarely resulted in a call or interview.
Do not mistake activity for being productive in your job search. Be careful what you measure. Eight hours in front of the computer looking at job postings is admirable but is it effective use of your time?
Responding to a hundred job postings may make you feel good but how many hits did they produce? How many interviews did they generate?
After weeks and months of fruitless hours searching the big boards I came to realize there had to be better places and ways to search for work.
If your Internet search isn't producing calls and interviews, then change strategy or tactics. Don't waste time, don't waste weeks and months hoping for results. I discovered that the jobs are out there but searching the job boards is not the best way to find out about them.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Day 10 Learn from the local experts
If you are going to be successful at fishing at an unfamiliar lake its helpful to get advice from the local fishing shop. The locals know the area lakes. They know what's biting. But most importantly they know where to fish and what kind of bait or technique to use.
I considered myself pretty knowledgeable and skilled at hooking and landing a new job even if it was in an unfamiliar industry. How hard can it be to prepare a good resume and present myself well in an interview?
A lot harder than I thought as it turns out. I made the mistake of relying too much and too long on my own skills in job searching before I sought out the help of local experts.
Spending several fruitless weeks (months?) sending out resumes in response to Internet job board postings made me realize maybe I am going about my job search wrong. I was getting virtually no worthwhile strikes for all the time and effort I was putting into scanning job postings.
After a month and a half of fairly unproductive effort I finally went to the local Oregon Worksource job office and began taking advantage of their free services. It was humbling to go in for help but well worth the effort. I couldn't believe the range of free workshops they offered and the free resources they had available for me to use. They offered 15 or 20 workshops every month on all aspects of job searching. They had postings of jobs. They offered weekly support groups for high tech professionals. I found the career counselor to be very busy but very caring and skilled at what they do. I also discovered that there were plenty of other mid-aged professionals like myself seeking out their help.
If you have some time to look and holding down career search expenses is very important to you, check out this service. Visit a local Worksource Oregon center to gain valuable knowledge and skills to improve your chances of finding and landing the kind of job you are looking for. Check them out at http://www.worksourceoregon.org/ If you live in another state, no problem. Just type in Worksource and your state name in Google and find a listing of a center near you.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Day 9 Create business cards for yourself
I needed a way to give people my personal contact information. I did not want to pass out old business cards from my old job. There were at least two reasons for that. Half of the contact information was incorrect. People could no longer reach me at my office number or company email address. And secondly, I did not want to be associated with my old occupation because I wanted to transition to a new career field.
A personal business card gave me a way to quickly and professionally pass on my contact information to others. Crossing out outdated information and scribbling new information on an old card does not look very professional. Writing my phone number on any scrap of paper and giving it out wasn't classy either.
A second thing I printed on my card was a job title or a job description of what I was planning to do. I used the label "Career Transition Consultant". I realized that people reading those words could pigeonhole me but I also wanted to help people remember the kind of career position I was looking for.
I discovered that adding the job description turned out to be very helpful. Most people reading the description said something positive and followed up with a question. "Interesting. There are a lot of people who could use help finding a new job." "What exactly do you do?" From these responses I gained confidence that people wanted this kind of service. Secondly, the questions they asked gave me the opportunity to clarify what kind of work I was looking for. And lastly, people started remembering me as that guy who wants to help people make career changes. People were associating me with the work I wanted to do and not the career I had done previously.
It is worth the time and expense to make business cards for yourself.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Day 8 Identity Crisis-Who am I now?
I tend to describe myself by the work that I do. So how do I identify myself now that I am out of work? I wanted to change careers and do something different so now I really am faced with a challenge. How do I describe myself without saying what I did before?
Most of us tend to categorize ourselves by our job title. "I am a teacher." "I am a manager." "I am a pastor." I made a shift from stating my job title to describing my former job skills. When people asked what I did I would say, "I was an educator." or I would say, "I was involved in training and development." I found myself experimenting with generic ways to describe myself.
What I quickly realized was that I needed to come up with a new way to identify who I was without boxing myself in to what I wanted my next career position to be. I had a general sense that I wanted to move into career coaching but I wasn't sure how best to describe my new identity.
After much thought and several failed attempts I finally came up with a tentative description that served me for several months. I called myself a
Career Transition Specialist. I tried the terms Halftime coach, career specialist and vocational counselor first. I found myself struggling to find just the right words to describe my new identity but I needed something to summarize what I wanted to become. I also needed to stop describing myself by my old job title.
To my delight I discovered that new people I met took me at face value for how I was now describing myself. In fact, I frequently got very positive and inquisitive responses from people. People would say, "That's interesting. What do you do?" That gave me a chance to briefly tell them what I hoped to do, to help people find careers or volunteer opportunities where they could make a shift from success to significance.
I learned early in my career search that I had to change how I saw myself and how I described myself to others. I had to stop identifying myself by my old job title and start introducing myself with a new career label.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Day 7 Finding a job in the nonprofit sector
I have a terrific web resource to tell you about today. It is a nonprofit organization called Action Without Borders. It's website is called Idealist http://www.idealist.org/ . It is the largest and best known nonprofit meeting place in the world for individuals and organizations wanting to connect with people and groups interested in the same causes.
Take a few minutes to explore this site and learn about their mission to bring people together to address issues of common interest. One of their goals is to encourage grassroots community collaboration. Their website makes it possible for anyone to post a notice and call people to meet and address issues in their very own city, town or even neighborhood. What a potential for finding like minded people in your very own area!
Also take time to look at its career center. This site is a great resource for job postings if you are looking for a career in the nonprofit sector.
Day 6 Decide when you will begin your job search
If you are released or laid off from a job with a severance package you may feel like you owe it to yourself to take a few months off before beginning your new career search. Weigh the pros and cons of postponing your job search before you make that decision.
To some extent the circumstances surrounding your termination may dictate how much time to take off before starting your search. As I mentioned in my first blog, I was caught off guard by my termination. I knew there was a good chance that I would be let go or that I would leave on my own but I thought it would be another six months before the employer or I would make that decision.
I was stunned when I learned that I was going to be let go. Two or three weeks passed before it was officially announced to my co-workers and the public. Nearly a month passed before I felt emotionally and physically ready to start my job search.
Set a time limit for how much time you need to transition from your old job to the starting date for searching for a new one. Get rested. Recover emotionally but decide when you you are going to start looking. Chances are, especially if you are over 45 that it is going to take longer, much longer than you think to find work. Be intentional about resting then be intentional about starting your job search.