job search advice Archives - Page 4 of 5

Should You Ever Disconnect From People On LinkedIn?

When I was living and studying in Rome one of my favourite activities on the way back from lectures at the Gregorian University was to sit in Piazza Navona for an hour with a cup (or two!) of coffee and watch the world go by.

I have always been a great people watcher because just by observing people you can learn so much. As I am sure those of you who are familiar with Piazza Navona will be aware there is no better place to people watch. Observing the jugglers and entertainers, the tourists rushing to their next historic sight and of course the residents of Rome going about their business can give you some great insights.

So what’s all that got to do with the question I posed as the subject of this post you are wondering? Well a little like sitting in Piazza Navona watching the activities of your LinkedIn connections can be fascinating (you can find me here: Paul Duxbury) and insightful. You get to see the interesting people they are connecting with, they share posts that they find interesting and they offer their own posts and insights to engage you. Well, most of them do! Isn’t that what LinkedIn is all about? Building relationships, sharing interesting content and supporting people in your network? So why on earth would I be suggesting to a job seeker that you should consider disconnecting from people?

Let me set the scene for you! Early one morning a few weeks ago I received an invite to connect from someone I didn’t know, who had no photograph and who had used the default LinkedIn connection request with no personalisation. Now ordinarily I would have declined the connection. However, that particular morning for some reason I accepted the invitation. I say “for some reason” but perhaps on reflection I was opening myself to a learning experience without realising it and of course all learning experiences are good! Yes, I know it’s the Learning & Development Professional in me! For the sake of this post let’s call the person in question “Josephine.”

An hour or so later I logged back onto LinkedIn and was met by a long list of “Josephine has connected to…..” which I assumed must have been because the person in question was relatively new to LinkedIn and was connecting to people they knew – so I thought nothing of it.

But over the ensuing days I noticed, in fact I couldn’t fail to notice, that Josephine was connecting to between 10 and 30 different people every day. They hadn’t responded to the message that I sent them shortly after accepting their connection request nor had they shared anything, commented on anything or interacted in anyway. I reached the stage towards the end of last week that I started to wonder how many people they would have connected to since I last logged on! I also became aware of others who seem to have the same approach to their use of LinkedIn. I started to question the value I was getting from learning how many people they were connecting to each day. More importantly I began to realise that because my timeline was full of these “Josephine has connected to…..” I was missing updates from my other connections.

So over the weekend I decided to purge my LinkedIn connections and remove those that appeared to be simply treating it as a numbers game and adding dozens of connections every day.

So yes in my view there comes a point when you should disconnect from others on LinkedIn. If you are getting nothing from the relationship and the other party (Josephine) doesn’t appear to want to engage or interact then that’s the point at which to say “not tonight Josephine” – sorry a little corny I know!

LinkedIn is a professional network where you can engage with others, interact with them, learn from them and hopefully add something to the relationship. It’s not like Twitter where your sharing of content is on a much more superficial level because with LinkedIn you allow people into your network and share a lot about yourself that you may not choose to share elsewhere. Below is a brief Prezi that I created a little while ago which may help you with building relationships on LinkedIn.

Top 10 Mistakes To Avoid While Seeking a Job

I am fairly certain that there’s one 10 out of 10 that none of us want to score. That top score is making all the Top 10 Mistakes that Jobseekers make based on my recent discussions. None of us set out to make mistakes when we are job searching but I am sure we all do. Mistakes such as interviews which get off to a bad start by us addressing the interviewer by the wrong name, or going completely blank when we are asked for basic information, or by appearing too eager which some say can come across as desperation.

From my discussions recently, as I have been focusing on my job search activity it seems that some job seekers make the same mistakes time and again. So below are the top 10 mistakes made by job seekers and how you can avoid making those same errors.

The Generic Resume/CV

The first mistake that a lot of job seekers seem to make is sending out resumes (or CVs as we call them in the UK) in a generic way. Whether through online websites, email or snail mail. It’s all too easy, especially with online job sites to simply click “apply” and send the same resume for every job.

Instead always look to customise your application (both CV and Cover Letter) to address the specific requirements of the role you are applying for.

Outdated Information

The second mistake is having outdated information on your CV and not including appropriate changes, new information, qualifications etc.

Instead you need to take the time to have a professional looking CV which includes keywords related to your roles and the roles you are applying for. If you can’t do it yourself or you want to know what is currently working then it is worthwhile talking to a professional CV writer. In some instances, your CV is the only shoe you will get in the door of the company. You want it to look as brightly polished as possible don’t you.

Spelling Errors

The third mistake job seekers often make is having grammar or spelling mistakes in resumes, on the cover letter or in correspondence with the company. If grammar and spelling isn’t your strong point, then do ask someone you know is good at it to proofread it for you. Even with spell checkers you may still get mistakes.

Dressed Inappropriately

The fourth mistake people make is showing up for an interview dressed inappropriately. Personally I take the default position of always wearing a suit and tie even if you know that the company has a casual approach to dress in the office. You want your image to say, “I’m a hardworking professional” who values the fact that you are interviewing me for this role.

Lame Excuses

There are going to be situations which make you late even if you have done everything you could to make sure that you were there on time. I can well remember going for an interview in the centre of Manchester, arriving early and then as I approached the offices of the organisation that was interviewing me discovering a “police incident” which meant that the offices were inaccesible! You might have though that the organisation would have tried to call me to warn me but they hadn’t. However, because I was well prepared I had the recruiting manager’s and the recruiter’s mobile ‘phone numbers stored in my ‘phone and I called both to let them know I was in the vicinity but couldn’t get through. That counted in my favour when it came to the re-arranged interview.

However, I have also interviewed people who have made the fifth mistake of offering lame excuses for being late for the interview. If you are late and haven’t been able to call to let them know, apologise and if you have a legitimate reason then of course give it. However, if it’s because you couldn’t find their offices, then I have to say that’s not a good reason for being late! Make sure you look up directions ahead of time, telephone the reception of the offices beforehand if need be and check where they are (especially if it’s in a newly developed area of the town or city) and make sure that you give yourself additional time to get there.

Taking The Opportunity to Rant!

When I was interviewing one of the things that frequently surprised me was the number of people who made the sixth mistake of taking an interview as the opportunity to rant about their previous employer. When asked about leaving your current or former job, however you might feel about them do not on a rant about your last boss or previous company. No matter how awful it was or is, you really need to stay professional.

Salary Discussions

The seventh mistake job seekers sometimes make is to start asking about salaries too early in the process. Assuming that you responded to an advertisement that gave a salary range then you should know that you are applying for a role that will pay in the region of what you are looking for. I am very aware that there seems to be a growing tendency to advertise roles without a salary range and that can be frustrating. I know that I have seen roles advertised that appear to want the candidates to be super heroes with more skills and experience than you could imagine without any mention of the salary range. It then transpires that they don’t want to pay at the level you would expect for the role. Why do companies do that? Lots of reasons but that’s for another article!

For now, let’s just focus on the fact that I would recommend that you should only start to discuss salary options after learning about the job requirements and when the organisation is looking to make you an offer, not before. You should focus on what you can do to catapult the company forward, not just on the salary payment and benefits.

Lack of Preparation

The eighth mistake many job seekers make is failing to do their homework on the company they are applying to. In my opinion this really is unforgiveable as it indicates to the interviewer that you are not that interested in the organisation. As a minimum you need to review the company’s website, social media accounts, press releases etc. and try to gain an understanding of how they operate and what their future plans are. By doing this you will then gain insight into the organisation which will put you in a better position to convey how you will add value, bring skills that they can use and hopefully fit in perfectly.

Overplaying What You Have Done

The ninth mistake that people make is lying on a job application or padding a CV. As an interviewer it becomes very obvious to you that someone has not got the experience they claim in their CV when you start to probe a little about what they as an individual actually did rather that what the team they worked within did. Let your experience speak for itself and if you don’t have experience, just be honest about why you’d like to work for the company and start out learning from them.

Not Networking

Finally, the tenth mistake that some people make and one which can stop them finding a job as fast as they would like is failing to actively network. I know that it can be all too easy to get caught up in all the activity of your current role and not have the time to network with others. However, your networking contacts can be be a great source of advice and help when you are looking for that next role. Nowadays with sites such as LinkedIn (you will find me at Paul Duxbury) it is very easy to start building a network of contacts.

So how many did you score out of 10? I hope it was zero but if you did identify some areas that you could do more about then today’s the day to start addressing those issues.

6 Steps to LinkedIn Success

When Paul asked me to write a post for his new blog, ‘Job Search Advice for 2014’ I knew I’d have to write about something current and when it comes to job search techniques, there’s nothing more current than social media.

The big player in the ‘Social Job Search’ is undoubtedly LinkedIn, so for this post I’m going to take a closer look at how you can make the most of it.

Create a Strong Profile

In the past LinkedIn profiles were thought of as merely an online representation of your CV. Nowadays the LinkedIn profile has morphed into so much more. Whilst a CV is limited to 2 pages, a LinkedIn profile gives you the opportunity to tell an employer a little bit more. To ensure that your LinkedIn profile is showing you in the best light you need to include the following:

A professionally taken headshot
An eye catching headline
A summary that oozes personality and passion
A detailed experience section
Keywords that relate to your role or industry – This will help recruiters to find you when they are scouring LinkedIn for new staff
Recommendations and endorsements from past or current colleagues

Set Your Privacy Settings

Just like the drunk at a party who tells you way too much about their personal life, your connections don’t want to hear about every little change that you make to your LinkedIn profile. Be sure to turn off activity broadcasts and change the setting to “select who can see your activity feed” to “only you.” You can always change it back when you want to tell your network something important such as actively looking for work or that you’ve just gained a new qualification.

GarnerNew Connections the Right Way

There’s an art to making new connections on LinkedIn and from experience I’ve found that a lot of people are doing it wrong. It seems that a large proportion of people are using LinkedIn’s auto connect requests and stock messages. These are to be avoided like the plague (read a little more about this here). Make the effort to write a personalised message explaining why you should connect and include the following:

A reminder of where you met or a little information about where you found out about them
Why you’d like to connect with them – Ensure that this isn’t one sided, it’s not just about what they can do for you; primarily it should be about what you can do for them!

Become a Groupie

One of the best ways to find new connections within your industry is to join industry specific groups. Being a member of interest groups will enable you to interact with people in your industry by taking part in discussions. Ensure that your answers are well thought out and insightful and you’ll be able to show that you’re a thought leader, impressing would be connections. Being a groupie gives you the chance to reach out to new connections that aren’t already contacts, allowing you to expand your network without upgrading to LinkedIn premium.

Revisit Old Connections

Whilst you may talk to some of your LinkedIn connections regularly, for others it may have been a while. Reconnecting with old connections can be a great way to reinvigorate your LinkedIn network. I challenge you to pick 10 connections that you haven’t talked to for a while and send them a message asking them how they are, checking what they are up to nowadays and letting them, know a little about what you’re doing at the moment. Importantly, they may have changed roles, got a promotion or they could even be in a management position with a need for new staff. Rekindle those old connections and breathe a little life into your LinkedIn network, you never know what it might lead to!

If You’re Actively Job Searching – Tell the World!

If you’re on the job hunt and either don’t mind your current employer finding out or are between jobs, why not tell everyone in your LinkedIn network by including it in your LinkedIn headline. Before you change your headline you’ll need to make sure that you’ve changed your privacy settings back to ‘broadcast’ temporarily so that everyone in your network knows that you’re looking for work. Hopefully some of your connections will know of opportunities coming up or they may even be in the market for new employees themselves. It’s a great way of letting recruiters know that you’ll be open to their approaches.

Leo Woodhead writes extensively about Careers and was named as one of the Top 10 Careers Advice people to follow on Twitter by Guardian Careers.

If you want to talk about your LinkedIn networking or about your career in general he says that you should feel free to send him a tweet @thecareersblog and be sure to keep an eye on his blog here for useful advice.

Dealing With The Silence During Your Job Search

Reading the title to this post those that know me may be wondering whether I am letting Doctor Who seep into my job search advice! But don’t worry I am not going to reflect on the fictional religious order or movement that Steven Moffatt created with the aim of them being the scariest of the Doctor Who villains!

No in this case “The Silence” is that radio silence which has been the biggest shock to me since re-entering the market for a job. It’s the silence which I think you really have to prepare for when you are searching for a job. Having identified a role you feel you have the skills, knowledge and will to do, you will find yourself spending many hours crafting a cover letter. You will tweak your CV to place appropriate emphasis on aspects of your career to date which marry up with the requirements the employer or recruiter has identified in the job advertisement. You may even go through the process of creating an account on the employer’s website and completing various steps in the process. Having done all that you know that, based on the information they have given you, you meet the requirements and then you submit your application.

You then wait in eager anticipation of the response…..and you wait, and wait. It’s then I am afraid that you will start to wonder whether your application even reached them because The Silence descends. Yes, it has been quite a shock to me that it now seems that HR/Recruitment is the only function in a business where ignoring your clients/potential clients is deemed to be acceptable behaviour. You will find that household names will go silent, large companies with tens of thousands of employees will go silent; companies that you have dealt with in the past when you were in employment will go silent. That’s not to say every company or organisation is the same because there have been some excellent companies that I have dealt with that have kept me informed of the progress of my application via email, their website, text messages and telephone calls.

However, as I am providing job search advice I feel obliged to warn you what you are almost certain to experience. Now, I have commented elsewhere that I am not going to focus on the negative aspects of job search on this blog and nor am I going to deviate from that. The reason I decided to write about this area of the whole process is that I have fairly rapidly come to some conclusions as to how you can deal with what can be quite a challenging situation.

As I reflected on it I came to the conclusion that in reality there are probably two approaches you can take to dealing with the silence during your job search:

Vent about it and get annoyed. But what good is that really going to do you? Is it going to get you the job you applied for? Is the employer or recruiter going to feel suitably chastised by you wasting your time and energy on getting annoyed? I am sure that if you spend a little time reflecting on those questions you will come to the same conclusions as me.
Learn from it. Yes, as you might expect from a Learning & Development Professional I see it as a learning opportunity. You are learning things about organisations and how they deal with people which will serve you well in the future. Once you are back in employment and you have recruitment decisions to make you can do your best to ensure that candidates are dealt with in a way which you would have liked to be dealt with. You will also know firsthand what it is like have been a user of potential suppliers to your organisation and be able to make informed decisions based on those which gave the best service.

Any situation we find ourselves in is packed with learning opportunities and that applies equally to our positive and our not so positive experiences. As I have said many times before being open to the learning experiences that we encounter is a good thing.

Yes, I know it can be challenging when you are keen to secure new employment and you feel as if “The Silence” is yet another brickwall. However, learn from it and keep ploughing on.

Creating Your Personal Branding for Job Search

Following my article earlier I had a number of people ask me how to go about developing your Personal Brand. So in this article I will try to address some of the basics of building your Personal Branding for Job Search.

With the increase in the use of social media and social networking, people are using the internet to help them to create a personal brand. At the simplest level branding yourself is simply highlighting all of the features of a person that put them in the best position possible to secure a new job. While branding has been around for a while, marketing your identity on the internet is just a new twist. Here are some techniques to consider when developing your personal branding for job search.

Should Your Create Your Personal Brand?

Personal branding is all about how you want others to see you. While everyone already has their own unique identities, the idea of branding allows you to focus more on your strengths, showing potential employers your unique qualities that set you apart from the crowd. By marketing those unique qualities, you help to direct people to focus on areas that you want them to identify with.

If you have excellent people skills and are looking to work in the service industry, promoting your brand as a person everyone loves to be around can put you in a better position to get the job. Your personal branding for job search identity will communicate your resume in a way that highlights all the positive attributes you have. By having a much clearer understanding of who you are, you also gain more confidence at the job interview because you are simply focusing on the most positive features of your personality.

How Do I Build My Personal Branding for Job Search?

Personal branding allows you to simply focus on everything you feel makes you stand out from your competition. These attributes are a true reflection of who you are and could make the difference when the job interviewer is considering applicants.

To start working on your brand you have to focus on what you bring to the table, what values you have, and the goals you want to accomplish. This creates a memorable brand that will really connect with other people. They will be able to identify quickly if you bring what they are looking for in a new employee. Your personal brand should answer these questions:

What are my core values?
What is my reputation?
What am I truly passionate about?
How am I perceived by others?
What is the potential audience of my personal brand?

Social media has really transformed the ability to promote your personal branding online. You can easily create a brand on several different popular social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn and others. Many employers routinely use social media websites to check on potential employees to get an understanding of how they act when they are not in a business environment.

This is why it is so important that your branding be uniform across multiple channels because you never know which might be the one your potential employer is using to do research. When you create a profile on a platform like LinkedIn, you have to be consistent with your values and your passion, or you water down the value of your branding. Your actions online speak much more than simple words, and if you promote yourself as having particular values but consistently do and say the opposite on Twitter, no one is going to believe you.

When creating your brand, you have to realise that both your online and offline efforts need to be consistent. Branding is all about letting other people see you for who you really are. if your profiles are in conflict, you send mixed signals to potential employers and eliminate all that power in branding. Therefore having determined what your personal brand is you need to ensure that you keep it consistent across all those channels.