I frequently get emails asking for recommendations on job coaches who are in or around the city where the job seeker is. For some reason they want to be close enough to meet with the job coach in person.
My response is “send me your resume and I’ll pass it on to my coach partners. My coaches usually specialize in a profession/area (like Project Managers or CFOs or CEOs) or an industry (like retail, banking, etc.). If any of them see a connection between your resume and their specialty, they’ll get back to you.”
It’s more important, when you look for a job coach, that they understand your profession and/or industry than whether you can meet with them, face-to-face.
Let me take that back just a little… some of my coaches prefer the face-to-face, and some clients prefer the face-to-face. There is great power in face-to-face, whether it’s with coaching or with networking or with sales or with __________. But I think that having a virtual job coach is totally acceptable.
To put it simply, would you rather meet with someone face-to-face who doesn’t understand your profession/industry, or meet with a job coach virtually who has helped dozens or hundreds of people who have similar career paths to yours land a job? Getting the best of both worlds might make you lucky, and I’m not against it, but I think it’s more important to be aligned with their specialty rather than just be in the same city.
When you look for a job coach, consider WHAT they specialize in, not WHERE they are. With that perspective, a virtual job coach makes sense, doesn’t it?
JibberJobber is a powerful tool that lets you manage your career, from job search to relationship management to target company management (and much more). Free for life with an optional upgrade.
My JibberJobber Partner Brad Attig wrote a post in reaction to my Job Search Tip: Get A Coach (someone who will hold you accountable) post from last week. It’s a great peek into the mind of a professional job search coach - spend a few minutes on his post - it’s worth your time!
JibberJobber is a powerful tool that lets you manage your career, from job search to relationship management to target company management (and much more). Free for life with an optional upgrade.
A job search coach would have significantly changed my job search… here are two reason why:
I was doing the wrong stuff in my job search, but I didn’t know it. I spun my wheels, and got frustrated, but didn’t know I should do something else.
I had no accountability to anyone. Everyone treated me with kid gloves since they didn’t know how to ask if I was still unemployed. It’s a touchy subject that many don’t ask about.
Now, you can PAY for a coach, or you can find a “buddy,” as Craig suggests. Either are okay options, in my opinion. During my job search I didn’t think I could afford a coach, and I’m not sure if I was ready to be a good client of a coach.
I have seen, however, many job seekers find someone they can be accountable to from job search clubs - essentially their job search peers. Some of those relationships lasted beyond the job search, which I think is pretty cool. I think there are two keys to a coaching relationship:
Principle-based methodology. If someone is your job search coach and they tell you to do bad stuff (like spend all your time on job boards, or apply to newspaper ads 100% of the time), you have the wrong coach. This is where a professional job search coach comes in - not only are they principle-based, they have a lot of experience with their other clients that will help you keep your job search as short as possible.
Accountability. You must be accountable to someone for your weekly (daily?) goals and targets. This CANNOT be your spouse, as your spouse is TOO close to the emotional outcome of the job search. I know career coaches who won’t coach their spouses
Do you have a coach? If not, go get one. In the link above, the first point in the Job Search Creed is to get a coach.
JibberJobber is a powerful tool that lets you manage your career, from job search to relationship management to target company management (and much more). Free for life with an optional upgrade.
A while back I met Paloma, who was here in Utah for a while and had gotten involved as a volunteer at a church-sponsored employment “agency.” Paloma heard about JibberJobber and wanted to meet me, so my family had dinner with her and her husband and a friendship began.
Paloma and her husband came to Utah on a lucrative contract that fell apart shortly after they arrived. They found themselves as clients at the employment agency, and then volunteers helping others. Paloma has a big heart, and a big desire to help others, and is a very smart person.
Eventually, her husband’s job search took them to Maryland. Paloma has evangelized JibberJobber and reached out to Joshua Persky (his LinkedIn profile), of NYC sandwich board fame, to see what we could do to help.
It’s been a fantastic first 2 days at Weiser LLP. Thank you again to my family, Paloma Bowland of www.jibberjobber.com, Richelle Konian of www.careersonthemove.com, and Elliot Ogulnick, Director of Business Valuation / Corporate Finance at Weiser LLP who hired me.
Pretty cool! Of course, it would be cooler if he said “JibberJobber was so indispensible in my job search, I don’t know what I would have done without it!” or “the only reason I landed this dream job was because I a sandwich board on my chest and JibberJobber on my computer!” or “I owe JibberJobber everything, as it was the real key to going from unemployed to dream job!”
Oh well :) It’s supercool that Paloma had a lot to do with helping Joshua land! Here are some online stories about Joshua Persky:
JibberJobber is a powerful tool that lets you manage your career, from job search to relationship management to target company management (and much more). Free for life with an optional upgrade.
Last weekend I got an email from a longtime virtual blog buddy that he was going full-time with his social media consulting business. Here’s the email from Ari:
In response to recent questions about my new venture, I’d like to share with you what I’m doing – and ask for your help.
With my 10 years of experience in digital media, community journalism, and government administration, I merged my skills into consulting. I have a small but growing list of clients who reached out to me after wanting to hear how social media, interactive marketing, and online branding could help them.
If you visit http://ariherzog.com, I list some questions that every CEO should be able to answer and identify with. You can read about the value I offer in social networking, blogging, search engine optimization, online branding, lead generation, and much more.
With the economic downturn, social media is all the more relevant because it’s downright affordable, and in many cases is free. Can you think of a better way to sell your products and services?
If this strikes a chord, I’d enjoy hearing from you — or anyone you can recommend. I’m available for either consulting or speaking opportunities with larger groups.
Scary… to get away from steady paycheck, health insurance, matching 401k, etc. I wrote about having guts to do it here …. my guts came because I had no other choice, and admire anyone who makes the decision when they already have a job!
If you are looking for help with your social media or social marketing strategy, I encourage you to check out Ari Herzog. He’s been a frequent commentor on this blog and he and I have corresponded quite a bit over the time we’ve known one another. He’s a sharp guy!
JibberJobber is a powerful tool that lets you manage your career, from job search to relationship management to target company management (and much more). Free for life with an optional upgrade.
What do all these things have in common? The JibberJobber radio show! Today I spoke with Karen P. Katz, owner of Career Acceleration and blogger who has some terrific thoughts on the job interview, and what we can learn from Obama and McCain in the ultimate job interview.
Karen P. Katz
We started talking about why Obama has the position he has, even though he doesn’t have the credentials McCain has. I’m not interested in a political discussion, so don’t go there, but think about it… doesn’t it seem that McCain has a lot of the “right things,” according to what a job description of the President of the United States (POTUS) would contain?
As job seekers, do we sometimes look at a job description and think it’s unatttainable, even though we might have done the same stuff somewhere else? Yup, you guessed it, transferrable skills. Karen talked a lot about transferrable skills on this one-hour job search radio show.
The Recruiting Animal
We got onto a very interesting point about age discrimination, and how to deal with age discrimination in a job search. It was cool to have the Recruiting Animal on the show, as he provided a recruiter’s point of view. What does an older job search candidate do if faced with discrimination in the interview? We talked about that at length, and some great ideas where thrown around.
That’s all I’m going to tell you - you can listen to the hour long show here
JibberJobber is a powerful tool that lets you manage your career, from job search to relationship management to target company management (and much more). Free for life with an optional upgrade.
Today I am honored to have Susan Whitcomb join me for our BlogTalkRadio show. It’s TODAY at 12:15 EST (15 minutes later than normal), and you can listen on your PC or we can take a few callers (last time I didn’t get to any callers, sorry). Here’s the info to get on the call (or hear the archive):
To call in and ask Susan question, call: (718) 766-4825
I’m thrilled to have Susan Whitcomb join us today. I met her at a conference last year and see here at about every conference I go to. Aside from being a successful author, she runs the Career Coach Academy… she trains career coaches! She is the one who teaches them systems, techniques, skills, etc. to help YOU find a job faster, or find the right job for you.
She recently shared a list of twelve tips for job hunting in a tight economy. I can pontificate all day long about how to conduct a job search, but let’s face it: when I was in my (failed) job search, it was a “job seeker’s market,” and I still couldn’t get a job! I think it’s great we get to hear from a career veteran on how to go through a job hunt in this not-so-fun economy.
Next week we’ll talk with Karen Katz, of Career Acceleration, about Transferable Skills and the National Interview… she’s done a lot of thinking about the current election and has some brilliant ideas on what we, as job seekers and career managers, can apply to our own careers.
JibberJobber is a powerful tool that lets you manage your career, from job search to relationship management to target company management (and much more). Free for life with an optional upgrade.
Tomorrow morning at 10MST (noon EST) I’ll host my first 45 minute BlogTalkRadio show. You can listen live (through your speakers), call in with questions, or download and listen to the podcast later. All the information you need should be on the BlogTalkRadio JibberJobber page (http://www.blogtalkradio.com/JibberJobber).
JibberJobber is a powerful tool that lets you manage your career, from job search to relationship management to target company management (and much more). Free for life with an optional upgrade.
I was recently asked if resume writers were worth it, or if they would just give you a 1-2 page document that you could come up with on your own. Let me share an experience with you.
After I got laid off, over the phone, I was asked to stay one more week to transition the new guy back as president. There wasn’t much transitioning to do, since he had been the president about 18 months earlier, so we just had a few meetings here and there. Plus, we were like “two bulls in a china closet,” or however the saying goes.
I spent much of my time getting ready for my job search. I looked, and looked, and looked some more for my resume. Not sure why I did that, wasting a few hours looking for something that was at least six years outdated. But is was like some old security blanket I was looking for. I finally gave in and downloaded a template from the internet that I could use to start over.
After hours of tinkering around on this very, very short document I sent it to a few trusted friends. These were all people who were qualified to tell me if my resume was good or not. Hiring managers, experienced professionals and executives, and even an HR professional from one of my last companies.
They all said it looked GREAT! And it did look great. It was shiny, squeaky clean, free from grammar and spelling errors.
And, it was IMPRESSIVE! You should have seen the titles:
General Manager
CIO/VP
IT Manager
Programmer
Okay, the last one isn’t the most impressive, but hey, I thought I was hot stuff to have those first few titles on the resume. Since I moved from a small town (Pocatello, ID) to a larger city (Salt Lake City), and I was hoping to go from a small IT company to a larger company in Salt Lake, people would be able to figure out I wasn’t the General Manager of GE, or American Express, or eBay, or something like that. I had a big title at a small company. And that was the problem.
Why?
Because I was applying to jobs with the following titles:
Business Analyst
Project Manager
Product Manager (this was my dream position)
When HR and recruiters saw my resume, they had to ask:
What’s a VP/General Manager doing applying for a Business Analyst job???
And I got put in the garbage pile. My success rate (number of interviews secured / number of resumes sent) was really, really pitiful. Like, 2%.
A resume writer would have interviewed me, tried to understand who I was and what I was looking for, and changed the resume so that my past job titles WOULD NOT have hindered my ability to get an interview.
Months and months and months went by, with no income. I forfeited thousands of dollars of income Just a few hundred dollars, invested in a resume writer, could have changed that.
Is a professional resume writer worth it? I believe so. A good resume writer will deliver MORE than just a one or two page document. Click here to see resume writers who have partnered with JibberJobber.
JibberJobber is a powerful tool that lets you manage your career, from job search to relationship management to target company management (and much more). Free for life with an optional upgrade.
One of the cool things about my career expert partners is that they are thought leaders in the career space. One of my partners, Louise Kursmark, is well-known as a thought-leader amongst her peers, recruiters, etc. She has the uncanny ability to combine the “very nice person” characteristic with astute businessperson. And she has a bunch of books that she has authored…
Her latest, 30 Minute Resume Makeover, is a great read. At only $9.95, this 200+ page book has a ton of valuable information for you to understand the how and why of an excellent resume. Louise includes a number of example resumes, picking them apart and explaining what makes them effective, what can be improved, etc. If you are a “do it yourself” type, I’d say this is an essential purchase.
The tagline is “Rev up your old resume in half an hour”… here are the chapters:
Chapter 1: Resume Diagnosis
Chapter 2: Resume Repair: The 30-Minute Resume Makeover
Chapter 3: Proofread and Polish to Perfection
Chapter 4: Before-and-After Resume Transformations (has 18(!!) resume transformations, including a situation, the before version, the after version, and strategic thoughts)
Chapter 5: Create a Killer Cover Letter (this is an awesome chapter)
Chapter 6: Find a Job Fast
Appendix: Resume Development Worksheet
If I had this book, my resume probably would not have sucked, and I would have gotten a job in 2006 (thank goodness that didn’t happen :p).
If you want to find resume writing information on this blog, check out “The Resume Experiment,” a five-post series where resume experts and recruiters pick apart a resume and suggest their revisions. Louise Kursmark was one of the expert resume writers contributing there.
JibberJobber is a powerful tool that lets you manage your career, from job search to relationship management to target company management (and much more). Free for life with an optional upgrade.
