Simply Hired Blog

7 Best Employment Sectors for Career Flexibility

The traditional college student, or even the adult college student, may begin his or her educational path without a distinct plan of what to do afterwards. The truth is that plenty of people have a strong sense of what they don't enjoy or what they find boring, but aren't sure what they are passionate enough about to pursue for a lifelong career. Fortunately, there are several options that allow some "wiggle room" after college graduation.

Office Management

This covers a pretty wide range of possibilities. Check the wanted ads in your local newspaper and you'll notice that a lot of companies, large and small, are constantly looking for entry-level players such as receptionists, office managers and assistants. These positions are often a great way to get your foot into the door of an industry that you find appealing. For example, if you decided a career in publishing might be right for you, but your degree is in Literature, it might be wise to get a job at the front desk of a publishing firm and work your way up.

Sales

Are you an outgoing person with a natural talent for convincing others to eat out of your hand? A career in sales makes a challenging and interesting life path for many people. One of the key benefits of a job in sales is that each day is different, so if you are the type of person who thrives on constant change, then sales may be the right choice. And if you have exceptional time-management skills, creating your own schedule can be rewarding.

Marketing/Advertising

Did you major in a program such as Creative Writing or Studio Art only to have people constantly ask you what you are going to do with it? Well, be sure to inform those people that marketing and advertising is a fast-growing industry (especially online) with plenty of opportunity for creative individuals. If you can write copy or if you can create eye-catching art, you will probably find a place in this industry.

Retail

Retail also covers a wide range of topics, from cookbooks to hardware. If you dread the idea of cubical-land after graduation, retail can offer a fun and diverse career path with plenty of movement (forget being stuck behind a desk) and interpersonal communication. And retail isn't all big-box stores; plenty of small businesses offer good environments for gaining product knowledge, communication skills and management skills--all of which stand out on a resume.

Media

Another option for creative and technical personalities alike is the enormous world of media. Television, film, radio, web and print are all sectors of media that require more than one skill set, from building web sites to budgeting and editing. It's important to remember how much work goes into making a blockbuster film or running a television station; your talents just might find a niche.

Education/Child Care

Education is a mainstay in every city, and both private and public schools are constantly looking for college graduates who can teach, run after-school enrichment programs, work as office administrators and excel as team players.

Hospitality

Another wise choice for those who love to work with others is the hospitality industry, which can mean anything from catering a wedding to supervising a bed and breakfast. The opportunity to make people feel happy and relaxed is rewarding, and if your career takes you to a sunny place, well, that's even better.

After reading over this list you may have noticed something important: practically any career can be yours as long as you are persistent and open-minded. So instead of worrying that you won't have enough options upon finishing your degree, consider that choosing one might be the hardest part!

LIzzie Wann, the author of this post is the Content Director for Bridgepoint Education. She oversees all website content and works closely with New Media, Career Services, and Student Services for Ashford University.

5 Ways to Show You are a Leader in a Job Interview

Leadership is a major buzzword these days among employers. When applying for entry-level and manager-level positions with top companies and organizations, one of the most important things you can do as a candidate is show the interviewer that you can lead a group of people to success.

 

Here are the five most important things to keep in mind to show your interviewer you are a leader.

•  Discuss Past Leadership Accomplishments

The best way to convince your interviewer that you have the capacity to lead others is to tell him directly about a time that you did just that. It sounds obvious, but people often neglect to do this. When talking about your accomplishments, make sure to highlight times when you actually led people in some way. Maybe you were a mediator between two people who were having trouble communicating. Maybe you took the active lead on a project with classmates or coworkers. While the fact that you took on the leadership role might not seem so important to you, the interviewer’s ears will perk up when he hears this. If you can talk about why and how your leadership led to a positive outcome, all the better.

• State Everything Quantitatively

I find that most people are very good at using numbers and details to explain accomplishments on their resumes, but fail to do so in the interview itself. When preparing for an interview, make sure you know the numbers behind your achievements. Let’s say that, as an intern at a company, you led a team project that was ultimately presented to a Partner at the firm. Instead of discussing what the project was about, tell the interviewer how many people you led and how much money was at stake. If you can tell him that you led a team of 8 other interns to complete a 25-page analysis of a potential $2 million acquisition by your company, you’ve impressed him. He could care less about the details of the company to be acquired.

• Act Decisively

It is common for an interviewer to ask you to talk about a challenge you faced and how you overcame that challenge. In addition to talking about the goal itself and explaining it quantitatively, as mentioned above, you need to explain how you took initiative and acted decisively. The best leaders are able to evaluate situations effectively and act quickly. If you were part of a team at a job and a coworker got fired, did you step up and present to your manager a short-term solution to her absence? How quickly were you able to put that into place and what was the result? The best leaders have boatloads of these kinds of stories. Make sure you have one for your interview.

• Speak Calmly and Confidently

It’s one thing to tell your interviewer that you are a leader, it’s quite another to display leadership through your interaction with her. Part of your goal is to get the interviewer to want to hire you. She doesn’t have to like you, per se, but she has to believe in you so much that she knows you would be an asset if you were put on her team at the company. Staying calm and confident throughout the conversation will help convince her to get behind your candidacy. Practicing anticipated interview questions and conducting research on the company and industry allow you to communicate most effectively. The more you practice, the calmer you will be and the more you will smile. The more research you do about the company and the industry, the more confident you will be and the more knowledgeable you will appear.

• Show Passion

“Why do you want to work for this company?” This is one of the toughest questions to answer, especially if you’ve been on the job hunt for months and have applied to dozens of companies already. Know exactly why that company would be a good fit for you, even if you have to BS it just a bit to sound believable. Why is this important? Because you’ll have to do it when you have the job. The best leaders are able to bring people onto their side because those people want to be there, not because the leader tells them to be there. Showing passion for the company and the position will make the interviewer attracted to you as a candidate, and may make him put his neck out there for you when final hiring decisions are being made. He believes in his company, and wants to hire people who can portray the company in a positive light.

 

Jake Whitman is the author of Destination: Teach For America, a book designed to help candidates navigate the notoriously difficult application and interview process. Over the past several years, he has helped dozens of applicants get accepted to Teach For America. Check site for more information. 

7 Ways IT Job Seekers Can Stand Out From the Crowd

While many areas are still struggling, the IT sector has seen some healthy growth recently. And that means that even though unemployment remains high overall, there is a lot of competition to hire IT professionals.

In fact, the majority (65%) of IT leaders say they’re currently having a hard time finding the right IT employees, according to a recent survey from staffing firm Robert Half.

However, while competition among employers is high, IT job seekers are seeing a lot of competition of their own. A survey from Randstad Technologies shows that although many tech employees are somewhat satisfied in their jobs, more than half (53%) plan to look for new opportunities in the near future.

The bottom line: There are a lot of IT jobs available, and a lot of IT professionals competing over those jobs.

That’s good and bad news for job seekers. There are many opportunities out there, but now its more important than ever for IT pros to separate themselves from the pack. Here are some steps IT job seekers can take to stand out from their competition:

1.) Show off the right skills

While there’s a lot of hiring happening in the IT sector overall, IT pros with skills and experience in some areas are in higher demand than others. For instance, many organizations are looking for IT employees skilled in emerging technologies such as cloud computing, virtualization, and mobile app development and mobile device support.

IT job seekers should be sure to highlight their skills and experience in those and other key areas, as well as find ways to keep their skills up to date.

2.) Get certified

IT certifications are one tool organizations use to guarantee that tech employees possess those skills. These are the top IT certifications employers are looking for now, according to NetworkWorld.com:

• Microsoft (MCSE, MCITP, MCTS)
• CompTIA (A+, Network+, Security+, Linux+)
• Cisco (CCNP, CCNA, CCiE) Apple (ACSP, ACTC)
• Apple (ACSP, ACTC)
• International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium (CISSP)
• Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA)
• Project Management Professional (PMP)

3.) Spice up your resume

Of course, all the skills, experience and certifications in the world won’t do any good if they aren’t showcased in a way to grabs employers’ attention. That’s why a well-written resume is critical for any job seeker.

For IT professionals, it’s important to tailor a resume to the specific job at hand, focus on accomplishments in addition to experience, and avoid cliché buzzwords.

4.) Use social networks

These days, many employers use social networks to find their next hires – and that’s especially the case for technology-centric positions. Therefore, many experts recommend job seekers treat their social media profiles as resumes and use them to highlight career accomplishments.

5.) Try a new industry

Demand for IT professionals varies depending on the industry a company is in. One industry that needs more IT employees: health care.

Many health organizations are adopting electronic medical records and other technology. As a result, providers, software vendors and other organizations are creating a big demand for IT professionals. Job seekers may find a lot of new opportunities by looking for work in that industry.

6.) Understand the business

With the economy struggling and budgets remaining tight, it’s become more important than ever for IT departments to align themselves with the rest of the business and only focus on projects that cut costs or boost revenue.

That means companies need IT employees that understand how their business works. You can help your cause during interviews by doing a lot of research about the potential employer’s business and demonstrate that understanding. Also, use the interview and your resume to highlight your business skills and situations in which you’ve had to apply them.

7.) Consider contracting or consulting

Lately, many companies have struggled to perform all the necessary IT work on their limited budgets. As a result, many organizations are turning to consultants, independent contractors, temporary workers, and other types of flexible IT workers.

A recent report from IT job board Dice.com found that the number of IT professionals employed as consultants is increasing quickly. And those professionals are often higher paid and more satisfied than their counterparts working in traditional, full-time employment situations.

Sam Narisi is a technology editor for Progressive Business Publications where he covers mobile, security, cloud computing, and more. 

The Most Effective Way to Target Your Resume-Part III

By the end of this post you should have a killer targeted resume that is ready to go out.  If you’re joining us now, be sure to catch up on Part I and Part II.

Back to writing your resume.  You should have the headline, sub-headline, and first bullet point of each experience complete at this point. All you do to finish up is align your second bullets with the second most important thing in the job description and so on. Now, of course you won’t be able to perfectly align everything but a) it will do you good to try and, b) HR probably isn’t reading that far down anyway.

Here’s a really critical piece though: don’t fall into the trap of using your old sentences or old stories just because you are proud of them.  If the information is not relevant, don’t include it. For example, if our hypothetical CPA candidate had six months of a side project managing IT that he was really successful with, he still should not include it on his resume because a hiring manager is unlikely to care.

Once you’re done with all the bullets there’s one more thing you have to do. That’s your Skills and Tools section. Something I find a lot of people forget is there’s not just the concern of “what will someone think when they’re reading my resume,” but “how will they find my resume in the first place.”

This is where a great Skill and Tools section will work magic. It is simply a listing of essential industry keywords that you can derive from the job description. For example, for our buddy with the C.P.A, if the targeted job description has Sarbanes Oxley on it, then you need to have Sarbanes Oxley on your resume.

Finding the right industry keywords is easy. Think , “if I was going to use Google to find someone to fit this job description, what keywords would I use,” because the person who is vetting the resumes probably isn’t seeing the resumes as they come in, rather he or she is running searches through some sort of database.

Once you’ve done all that, get your resume analyzed for weaknesses for free by RezScore, and then apply. Let me know any success or failure stories in your comments below. As always, you’re also welcome to email me directly.

Happy hunting!

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.

The Most Effective Way to Target Your Resume - Part II

Hopefully you completed the last assignment. If not, hop back and read The Most Effective Way to Target Your Resume-Part I, before continuing below:

 Now that you have your professional headline completed, you’re going to do your sub-headline. It goes right below your professional headline, slightly smaller font but still larger than the main body. It’s a 6 -10 word sentence that effectively encapsulates what you’ve figured out as the most important skill the hiring manager is looking for. Continuing the C.P.A example, it may become clear to you that cost savings are the most important thing to this employer. So your sub headline will say, “Successfully reducing costs by eliminating redundant expenditures and renegotiating existing contracts.” Your sub-headline needs to have some basis in reality, but even if the priority skill they’re looking for is something you’ve spent minimal time on it is still the skill you want to lead with.

Once you’ve done that you are ready to go into the bulk of the resume.

Layout your job history (names, dates, job title, and location) as you normally would, but for now just put one bullet beneath each experience (and always use bullets not paragraphs).

Write just one first bullet from each job experience going backward in time. Each bullet should be a progression towards that sub-headline. Think “what is the logical precedent to this experience, what did I need to do or know at my previous job in order to be successful at the next job?”

Studies have shown that the vast majority of HR people and recruiters only read the first bullet of each experience, if they read anything at all. Studies have also shown that recruiters will look at your most recent experience first and then go to the bottom of your resume and read up. Recruiters want to see a logical progression from your first job to where you are today, so give them what they want. 

I’ll take a moment here for the naysayers. I can hear some of you muttering, “But I wasn’t successful at every job, or I’ve changed careers, or I’m not very good at xyz…” It’s for you naysayers that I recommend starting this blank document; to force yourself to rewrite your sense of your job history. It’s not actually about what you’ve done; it’s about how you describe what you’ve done. For example, let’s say at your first job you managed 10 bank accounts, and every other C.P.A. in the firm was managing 30. You’ve always thought of that job as a failure because you didn’t do as well the others; however the HR people don’t know that 10 wasn’t a terrific number. So if you’re first bullet for that job experience starts off as “effectively managed 10 accounts…” it sounds like you did well, while still being honest.

Let’s say your next job you managed less accounts but they were higher value or had more transactions. All you do is switch the emphasis to the better quantifier. So your first bullet for your next job might be “Consistently oversaw $500,000 in weekly transactions….”

You see both these sentences are strong and make you appear successful but are only giving out selective pieces of information that make you sound good without giving the reader enough information to make a negative judgment despite the fact that you may consider those experiences failures.

 Give this a whirl tonight and come back tomorrow when I help you finish up your re-worked, excellently targeted resume.

Think you have an awesome bullet point in your resume?

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.