Simply Hired Blog

Watch Your Words! 4 Kinds of People Who Are Reading What You Write & Why You Should Care

By Sean Weinberg

The Internet is pretty awesome. Between watching the latest Gaga video, broadcasting your opinion 140 characters at a time, and Googling how tall Napoleon actually was, the World Wide Web truly is an amazing tool.

The Internet is just as helpful in your job search. Gone are the days of pounding the pavement and mailing off unsolicited resume packets. Job seekers in the know use social networking, personal websites, and blogs to connect with influential people and communicate their way into a job.

While it might seem like a blank canvas ready for anything, your blog and online presence can actually do a lot of harm to your job search if you don’t watch what you say. Share something inappropriate or say the wrong thing and you could burn bridges permanently.

While it might seem like a great idea to jet out a NSFW joke or rant about someone in particular online, consider who is reading what you have to say:

Your next boss

When you want to learn about something new, what do you do? Google it, of course. Well, potential employers are doing the exact same thing. With HR budgets shrinking and the importance of a professional online presence growing, more and more employers are turning to search engines to get a good idea of who you are.

Current and future networking contacts

Today, over 75 percent of new hires come from a referral, not a job board posting. That said, your networking contacts are more important than ever. Thanks to social networking, many of your networking contacts know more about your online self than who you are in person.

Your competitors

Today’s job market is competitive. While there may be a couple of candidates for a position a few years ago, nowadays, there are dozens. Your competitors are going to absorb the good content you put online and use bad content against you.

Your personal contacts

Last, but not least, your personal circle of contacts is reading what you have to say online. It might be a great release to rant about someone in your life, but you never know if that individual might end up reading your content.

Why should you care?

Everyday, all kinds of people view and read your blog, profiles, and website. The Internet might seem like a vast space, but when you burn a bridge, it can get pretty tiny. When in doubt, save it for later review -- you never know when it could cost you an awesome job.

What do you think? How important do you consider the content you put online? Have you ever made a mistake that came back to haunt you?

 

Sean Weinberg is the COO and co-founder of RezScore, a free web application that reads, analyzes, and grades resumes – instantly. Also the founder of Freedom Resumes, Sean has dedicated his career to helping job seekers write the best possible resumes. You can connect with Sean and the RezScore team on Facebook and Twitter.

Career Smarts: Straight Talk and Three Tips For Survival & Success

By Martin Yate CPC

Success in life is judged with calendars not clocks, and with the unprecedented ways our world is changing, there are new ways to build the foundations for that long-term success.

These foundations must take into account two of the biggest challenges to maintaining your economic viability over the long haul. Firstly, that your professional future will continue to be affected by the globalization of work through technology; and secondly that economic recessions come round with regularity every seven to ten years, further compounding the opportunities for economic dislocation.

So looking forward, in a world of work where the only constant is change, the most important professional skills you can possess are the skills that insure your employability and economic stability. Here are three commonsense tips that will greatly improve your long-term odds for survival and success.

Establish Professional Connectivity
You need to stay current with the issues facing your profession and how they will impact your job and your professional future.

To do this, join LinkedIn and become actively involved in your online professional community. Simultaneously, join the local chapter of a relevant professional association for offline connectivity at your local community level.  Do both and connect with other professionals who are serious about their professional future.

Professional Competency
Because technology will continue to change the nature of all jobs, a big part of professional competency is, in fact, technological competency: you must make ongoing professional education an ongoing priority.

The Things You Never Knew
The things that no one ever told you were important: resume writing, job search tactics and learning how to turn job interviews into job offers are really the most important professional skill sets you can possess. Why? Because they are the skills that keep a roof over your head and food on the table.

These three commonsense ideas can become the building-blocks of a successful professional future, because with the knowledge and connectivity they deliver, you will be able to conceive and implement a coherent long-term career management plan, for whatever changes the next decade might bring.

When you have the skills necessary to find work, and a wide network of professional contacts for introductions and referrals you are ahead of most of your contemporaries. If these skills are tied to an intelligent career management plan, your life will be more secure.

 

Martin Yate CPC, is the NY Times bestselling author of Knock em Dead The Ultimate Job Search Guide, and Secrets & Strategies For Success. As Dun & Bradstreet says, “He’s really just about the best in the business.” www.knockemdead.com

Your Last Chance at a First Impression

By Steve Brady

If you are one of the approximately 2.5 million people who are unemployed and have been actively engaged in America's new, most popular past time- the job hunt game- you have probably read about social media's growing influence for both seekers and employers. Between Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn a number of high value sites are now actively part of the game, and while you do not necessarily need to be an social media expert to get hired, completely ignoring these avenues is done at your own risk.

However, all these new career influences do not change the fact that the resume is your last chance at a first impression.

That's right, the old, tried-and-true resume is still your best option to impress a potential employer and land an interview. So, while you should certainly spend some time creating a unified message and brand across your various online profiles, do not neglect spending just as much time and resources on your cover letter, resume and post-interview thank you letter.

Your resume needs to convey your skills, training, education, experience and accomplishments in a tightly written one to two page document. Doing this is no easy task, so do not take it lightly. Professional resume writers get up to $800 for high level resumes for a reason – the importance of this document can not be understated.

Resume writing basics include four key items.

If you are new to resume writing, or you just need a quick refresher, here is the basic format. Start with a clear objective statement that provides three key pieces of information: the job title of your desired position, 3 things you can bring to the job, and the type of company you wan to work for. Next, complete a summary section where you detail the types of skills and abilities you possess. Third comes the work history. Aside from your job title, employers and dates of employment, you need to detail specific accomplishments. What made you stand out in each position? Be sure to tie this section to the summary. If you stated that you have excellent communication skills in your summary, have a detail in your work history that proves the point. Finally, create an education section and list your certifications and degrees.

The first time a hiring manager will really look at you as a potential employee is when he sits down and reads that document with a certain position in mind. Because of this you want to be sure that your resume is written with that same job as a focus. Spend time reading the job description before finalizing your resume. Tailor your objective statement and any tag lines you use to that specific position.

So, should you spend time on Twitter and LinkedIn looking for potential jobs? Yes, by all means, use these newer avenues for all they are worth. But in doing so, do not neglect the grand-daddy of all career drivers, the resume.

 

Steve Brady is the owner and head writer for www.Quality-Resumes.com, a full-service resume writing company. His career-based writing can be seen on Suite 101, EHow, and the Yahoo! Contributor Network.

How to Leverage Twitter: Building Your Online Brand - Part 3

By Cara Barone

With 140 characters or less you can keep up with the latest industry news and start conversations with friends and potential colleagues. Twitter can be an effective resource in your job search, but just as any other type of social media platform, you have to know how to make it work for you.

Kforce Social Media Marketing Manager, Cara Barone, says, step one is to create your Twitter profile using your full name, avoiding nicknames if possible. In your bio or headline, you should add keywords or skills sets that match positions you are interested in.

Barone also says you should include a professional picture of yourself and links to your LinkedIn profile, online resume or blog, if applicable. Unlike Facebook though, you want to adjust your privacy settings for all to see. Barone says, "Don't protect your tweets. You want to be heard on Twitter!"

After you have set up a public profile for all of the "Twitterverse" to see, a best practice is to start tweeting before you actively search for followers. "Ultimately you want to give people a reason to follow you back," says Barone.

Barone suggests tweeting at least 2-3 times a day about anything from industry news to questions you might have for industry experts. "This shows you are actively seeking information and you're up to speed with industry news and want to interact with others," says Barone. "Don't forget to include your own personality when tweeting."

It's important to actively follow individuals and organizations, with the hope they will follow you back. On Twitter, it's important to note that your tweets will only be heard by those that are following you.
You can start by following companies of interest, like-minded professionals, and industry experts. Barone says it's a good idea to organize those Twitter contacts by creating lists. For example, you may want to put industry news organizations in one list and potential employers in another.

"Just remember to focus on the quality of people you follow," says Barone. "You don't want to follow hundreds of thousands of people that are talking about information that isn’t relevant to you."

Tweeting back and forth with like-minded professionals can certainly stir up intelligent conversation, but it may sometimes come as a challenge to get your message across in 140 characters or less. Barone says you don’t have to let the conversation end there. "If you find someone you really want to connect with, ask if they would be willing to chat or email offline to discuss those topics in detail" says Barone.

In addition to engaging in discussions, you can also find plenty of job opportunities through Twitter. Many companies tweet job openings in real-time, so setting up alerts can be beneficial if you are following specific companies you would like to work for. You can also use Twitter Search to follow conversations that include keywords or skills sets of jobs you would like to apply for. Barone says you shouldn't be afraid to tweet about jobs you're looking for either or let your followers know what's going on in your job search.

One of the most innovative resources on Twitter is the use of hash tags. A hash tag is created by including the hash sign (#) in front of a word or phrase, without spaces. This allows Twitter users to create, categorize and follow tweets by topic.

For example, when using Twitter in your job search, include popular hash tags in your tweet that others may be searching for. Hash tags that include a location, skill set or position, such as #Dallas, #Java or #Accountant. Additionally, you can follow popular hash tags such as #Jobs, #Jobhunt, #Jobadvice to learn about job opportunities or advice.

From short online conversations to mastering hash tags, you can continue to build your online brand with Twitter's real-time updates. "It's always changing, but it's an easy and quick way to build your online community," says Barone.

 

Cara Barone is the Social Media Marketing Manager for Kforce Inc., a professional staffing and solutions firm providing flexible and permanent staffing solutions in the skill areas of technology, finance & accounting and health and life sciences. Cara is responsible for developing and implementing Kforce’s social media strategy across various platforms including LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

The Business Card Resume

By Martin Yate CPC

"Have you heard about a 'mini-resume' that fits on a personal business card?" One of my readers asked, "I was wondering your opinion on these resume cards, part of me says its a good thing another part not so much?"

The first time you hear about a business card resume, it can sound like a gimmick, and you should know better than to waste valuable job search time pursuing gimmicks. That said, business cards are an accepted sales tool the world over, and for a job hunter they're so much less intrusive than carrying around a wad of resumes under your arm.

If you want to try a business card resume, you must consider the severely limited space available to you and use that space wisely:

Front of the card

1. Critical Information: Your name, target job title, telephone number and email address.
2. Use legible, business-like (Times Roman, Arial) fonts.
3. Make it readable. Limit the word count so that you can maximize font size to increase readability; better to have one legible email address than add a social network address and have them both illegible.
4. No one in a position to hire you can read an 8pt font…and reminding someone that they are old and have failing eyesight….not a good sales pitch.

Back of the card

Space is minimal, so less is more and readability is everything, the words you choose must communicate both your understanding of the job and your ability to deliver when you are doing that job.

1. Repeat your target job title.
2. This is followed by a two word headline on the next line:
   Performance Profile
3. Then follow this with a single short sentence that addresses the #1 deliverable of your target job. The #1 deliverable in your job (and all jobs) is the identification, prevention and solution of problems within that specific area of professional expertise. It is ultimately what we all get hired to do.
4. Finish with a social network address that delivers a comprehensive professional profile to any interested reader, such as your LinkedIn profile; or your web-based resume or any other URL that delivers the full story on your professional capabilities.

As an example we can all relate to, an accounting professional who worked in Accounts Receivable might have the rear side of a business card resume that looks something like this:

Notice that by starting this mini-resume with a verb, you not only show understanding of what is at the heart of this job, you also deliver a powerful personal brand statement by telling the reader what to expect.

 

Martin Yate CPC, is the NY Times bestselling author of Knock em Dead The Ultimate Job Search Guide, and Secrets & Strategies For Success. As Dun & Bradstreet says, “He’s really just about the best in the business.” www.knockemdead.com