Archive for March, 2016

Preparing Your Facebook For Your Job Search

Wednesday, March 30th, 2016

If you’re looking for a job and you haven’t taken a careful look at what’s public on your Facebook profile, you’re doing yourself a tremendous disservice. How you present yourself on Facebook can (and will) determine your chances of being hired.

Consider these numbers:

  • 91% of hiring agents use social networks to screen prospective employees
  • 76% of these agents (69% overall) check Facebook as part of their search
  • 42.8% of employees will check your Facebook after reviewing an application
  • 69% of HR officers have rejected job applications based on social media reviews
  • 68% have hired a candidate based on their social media presence

So what are these recruiters seeing? Log into Facebook and take a look at what they can see. Chances are there’s a few things there that are best left unseen. Which begs the argument:

Why Not Hide My Profile Entirely?

For one, recruiters expect you to have Facebook, and if they can’t find it, you may look suspicious to them.

Above that, what you have here is an opportunity to present yourself positively to your employers. Rather than locking down your profile (or deleting it), why not run a little maintenance? This is your chance to proactively impress your employer with your savvy, charismatic, and career-driven online persona. It’s a simple law of business — turn every weakness into a strength.

Takeaway: Instead of locking down your Facebook, set it up to look awesome when a hiring manager checks it out.

You should be able to whip that profile into shape in four simple steps:

Step 1: Gain Control Of Your Existing Posts

If you’ve been updating your Facebook profile daily since 2004, there’s simply too much to sort through. Instead, you can choose to automatically limit your old posts on Facebook (and by “old”, they seem to mean anything before this year). This leaves you with some recent activity to share, while saving you many hours/days in the archives. You can still go back and set individual posts back to public if you want.

Next, lock down your friends list. You have almost no control over their pages, and it’s safest to keep them away from prying eyes. Additionally, Facebook rolled out a feature called “Graph Search” that allows your friends and relatives to appear in searches associated with you. Locking down your friends list won’t protect you from those searches entirely, but it will help.

As a final precaution, you may want to turn off search engine indexing to your Facebook profile. Many search engines cache your posts, which can make them stay visible in search for several months after you’ve removed them from the actual page.

Step 2: Prune Your Profile

A Facebook profile provides more recorded information about an individual — including where you’ve been, what you’ve eaten, who your friends are, etc — than any source in history. When sifting through that information, at least 12% of employers are going to specifically look for reasons NOT to hire you. Make sure your profile doesn’t have that reason.

Eliminate These Red Flags:

Takeaway: 12% of employers check your Facebook profile specifically to find reasons NOT to hire you.

It’s also a good idea to consider who, specifically, you’re applying to when cleaning out your profile. For example, if you’ve got your fingers crossed for that job at Apple, it probably wouldn’t hurt to unfan “Droid” for the time being. When clearing out your Facebook, be sure to delete the stories (as opposed to hiding them), as they will otherwise still be searchable through Graph Search.

Step 3: Clean Up Your Image(s)

When it comes to a job search, Facebook images are asking for trouble. Everyone’s seen your old photos already: this is a great time to get rid of those old beach photos from college, toss up a professional-looking profile and cover photo, and make most of your albums private. This is also a good time to check out your tagged photos and unlink yourself to those fabulously embarrassing photos your friends have so generously posted and tagged you in. Facebook’s privacy features make this easy to do — you can select multiple photos for untagging all at once.

It’s also worth being prepared for the next batch of draconian privacy changes that Facebook will unleash without notifying you (think: The Great Betrayal, where private photos suddenly went public). If you have anything on there that would be REALLY embarrassing/scandalous if it went public, just get rid of it.

Step 4: Be Mindful With Your Future Content

Using Facebook’s graph search feature to find people who live near you, whether friends of yours or not.The golden rule here is: “Think before you share.” I would take it one step farther: “Think before your friends share.” There’s nothing worse than having to explain your friend’s “Hey, were you able to get the day off for your interview tomorrow?” post to your boss. I suggest you turn off tag suggest for photos, restrict who posts on your timeline, and keep your e-mail notifications on.

One last thing: take the time to research what your Facebook apps are posting on your wall, and be careful with comments you’ve posted under your name in articles and news stories through your Facebook account. These apps and media outlets want to be found, and they will post publicly on your wall if you let them.

Once you’ve cleaned up your Facebook, it’s time to be a little proactive about what the hiring managers will be seeing.

Do This With Your Public Facebook Page:

  • Reflect a positive, charismatic, well-rounded personality
  • Demonstrate solid grammar and communication skills
  • Reflect your passion for your profession
  • Show off your professional accomplishments and awards

If your hiring agent checks your Facebook before calling you for an interview, this is your first chance to show your face and make a good impression. A little effort in cleaning up your image online can (and does) make all the difference between losing the opportunity and getting your foot in the door.

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4 Easy Steps For Creating A Targeted Resume

Wednesday, March 16th, 2016

Targeted resumes (customized resumes) get interviews and get jobs. Would you use the same resume to apply for both a teaching position and an office job? You’d better not if you want a decent shot at getting an interview.

A customized resume is one that is tailored to a specific job. You’d start with your resume template and strategically customize it to feature the skills and accomplishments that best match the typical job description for the job you want (or, even better, to a specific job you are applying for).

Why Custom Tailor A Resume At All?

Why? Because many companies don’t immediately read your resume anymore. Instead, they file it with the other 700 resumes they received and feed it through a computer filter called an Applicant Tracking System, which only looks for ‘keywords.’ This system excludes resumes that don’t contain keywords matching the job posting and spits out the resumes of applicants whose resume language closely matches the job skills required.

Think You Can Game the System?

ATS technology is getting smarter every day – keywords in a block of text dumped into the resume at the end will be ignored. The filters look for ‘context.’ That is, these filters want to see those keywords used with and near other relevant words. In other words, the system cannot be gamed.

Also, real, live people still read many resumes – and they are open to being impressed and persuaded. A good resume makes the employer want to hire you based on your resume – that’s the reason they call you in for an interview (to make sure you are as impressive in person).

The Process

First, you’ll start with your original resume, which has the information universal across all potential targeted resumes you’ll create (contact info, work experience, education, etc.). Next, you’ll convert that master resume into a targeted resume:

1. Copy Keywords From Job Descriptions

Read the job description (noting the position title) then copy the whole thing into a separate document. Do a search for six other job descriptions that use the same title (search the web or an online job site). Copy these entirely into the same separate document.

Finally, you can opt to check the free US Department of Labor Statistics’ free download, the “Occupational Outlook Handbook” since it happens to contain common job descriptions for US occupations that you can use in your job description collection (copy and paste the relevant job description to your list).

2. Determine Which Keywords Make The Most Appearances

These job descriptions contain words in common – KEYWORDS, words relating to THREE categories:

  • Education
  • Experience
  • Skills/Certifications

You are going to create a “tag cloud,” also known as a “word cloud,” using any online tag cloud generator (TagCrowd.com or Wordle.net work very well). These word clouds make the most commonly used words in the descriptions leap off the page. You will know exactly what skills, experience, and position titles are demanded by the position. Copy a list of the TOP 10-20 keywords that relate to the job you want in this situation.

3. Add The Keywords To Your Resume

Take the experience, credentials, and education identified by the tag clouds and include them in your resume. Input the Job Title in your template, then in the Summary section at the top of your resume you should include keyword transferable skills that relate to this role.

4. Capture The Keywords In Your Accomplishment Statements

Write your accomplishment statements to capture some of the keywords. This is what makes you the perfect candidate for this job! These statements should reflect skills that are your strengths and only skills that you want to use again. Be sure to repeat each skill listed in the Summary section in the section discussing your work history so that there is emphasis on your specialty in that area.

That’s it! Just make sure you are writing for real people in spite of the potential of ATS screening.

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6 Job-Hunting Tips for Older Workers

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2016

Whether it’s for personal satisfaction or financial need, many retirees and future retirees want to work in retirement.

In a poll of over 3,000 business professionals conducted in 2013, more than 86% said they planned to continue working once they retired.

But employment for older workers isn’t always easy to come by. Americans aged 55 and over experience an average unemployment duration of 52.7 weeks, according to a July 2011 survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s up over 160% since December 2007 when the average duration of unemployment for these workers was only 20.2 weeks.

The job-hunting tips below are tried and true methods utilized by many older professionals in securing new jobs. Try them. They work!

1) Look for temporary or project assignments as they are much more available than full-time jobs. Executives, managers and professionals can often use their current skill sets and experience to work on projects where their background works for them and also for the employers that hire them on this basis. There are many employers interested in hiring on a project basis as in most cases employers do not have to pay benefits for these kinds of jobs and even more importantly an employer can terminate a project based worker with little or no warning and little expense.

Register with temp firms in your local area as they are less concerned with age and are more interested in your skills and experience. Their interview process will give you interviewing experience. Also if you get work through a temp firm, even if it is not the kind of job you are seeking, it helps build your resume for future work assignments.

2) When applying for a job tell the employer you are willing to work on a project or temporary basis. This often gives you a leg up on younger workers who are often unwilling to accept employment that does not include benefits.

Temporary employment can lead to full-time work.

3) Volunteer with a charity or non-profit. Although in most cases there is little or no monetary compensation it is good experience and can possibly lead to employment with a firm that is seeking that particular experience or appreciates your work ethic. It is also easier to find employment while you are working/volunteering as you have a better mind set during interviews. Looking for a job on a full-time basis is not a very rewarding experience and frame of mind is more important that you realize.

4) Consider having your resume re-written or updated by an expert as the resume you used years ago is no longer appropriate. You should have your resume on your computer so you can modify it highlighting the experience most appropriate for the employer and job to which you are applying. A single general resume for all interviews is not the best way to get hired.

5) Get information on the perspective employer prior to your interview.

For example, contact someone who works for this employer who attended the same school you went to saying, “Hi. You and I went to the same school but graduated at different times. I’m interviewing for a position with your firm later this week and, before I meet with the hiring manager, I would like to test out a couple questions I have about the firm on you and see what you think the answers might be.”

Research the employer on Google or Yahoo.

6) Search for a job on job boards that specifically connect older workers with employers seeking to hire them and post your resume on these sites. The search and resume posts are free. Set a job alert to notify you if a position is posted that matches your skills, experience and geographic preferences.

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