Finally got a job

Well hello for anyone still checking out my blog.  I apologize for not writing anything in quite a while.  I did finally find a job.  Is it what I particularly wanted?  No, in fact it looks to be twice the work for less money.  I was kind of mopey about that part for a few weeks but I am over it now.  The more I hear the news about unemployment, the economy, and so on and so forth, the more thankful I am to have a job.  Besides, unemployment insurance just wasn’t cutting it and the kids were driving me crazy!

I have to say that I never worked so hard to find a job and had it be so unfruitful.  I did what I thought were the right things to do.  I networked with past colleagues, customers, and friends.  I tweaked my resume until I it was pretty darn good.  I used cover letters where relevant and highlighted transferable skills.  I had my resume on most of the big job boards; like, Monster.com, Careerbuilder, Dice, cybercoders, jobing.com, and even some smaller ones.  I even directly send my resume to several companies that I thought may be interested in my skills and experience.  Yet, I did not get a single response to any of the 60 or 70 some odd jobs I really wanted.  Not even a “Thanks but no Thanks”.  No calls for interviews, nothing!  So, I dropped some of the pride and started lowering my standards of pay.  I think that is what finally did it.  I don’t think I was asking for the sky and in normal times, I probably wouldn’t have had any problems getting the base salary and comp plan I wanted.  You know what though?  This is not normal times.  I don’t think I am just telling myself that.  I think I actually mean it.

Anyways, the more I stop complaining about my new job, the more I see that there is actually tremendous opportunity there and if I apply myself with the skills I do have and learn some new ones, I may be better off in the end.  Time will tell.  Thanks for reading.  I have to get back to my training for now.

 

Questioning

Is there a point in the evolution of job hunting that you start questioning yourself?

I don’t necessarily question my abilities, skills, and experience, but I am questioning my approach to job searching.  I feel like I have done a lot of things differently, out of the box things if you will, but up to this point, I have had very little reception (calls or emails) from prospective employers.

I did get a call from a respected company who wants to bring me in for an interview.  Yeah, you say, but the problem is that the base pay is about 40% below what I am looking for and the on target goal for first year is nearly $10-20K below what I made last year.  Sure I will go to the interview.  You never know what can happen, but it leaves me in a parculiar situation.  If they offer me with the job, do I take it?  Of course there are those out there who say, “hey, you haven’t had any offers, in this economy, you better take what you can get.”  I am not naive about the economy, I just think I am worth more money.  And being the sole provider for a family of four, I plain need a certain amount.  Of course, I suppose if the opportunity is right then my wife could go back to work too if needs be.  That is not ideal though as day care would just eat up nearly half her take home pay.  We shall see.

 

Now for the 6th version of my resume

I finished reading the book, Multiple Job Offers in 10 Days.  For various reasons, I felt like it wasn’t the right approach for me, but that doesn’t mean I did not get anything out of it.  I have a much better idea about marketing myself now.  In the current economic situation, any thing that can give you an edge is good.  However, I came up with some inconsistencies regarding resumes.  The author of the book claims all kinds of success using his method, so one would assume that he knows how to arrainge the most effective resume.  However, I spoke with a company that reports to be the one of the top companies in the world for resume writing, personal marketing, and job research.  Their methods are much different.  And they claim to understand and know what types of resume formats hiring managers favor today.  So what is a person to think?  I spent over an hour talking to the sales person from the marketing company.  He took me on a virtual tour of what they provide.  Their main product, which is to write a killer resume for you and comes in three flavors for different circumstances.  In the end I couldn’t see paying $900 for someone to write my resume for me.  Don’t get me wrong, I do believe they would probably write one better than I could.  They have you fill out questionairs that take you about 8-10 hours to finish.  You then meet with a marketing manager.  Finally they submit three resumes for your approval.  Any changes you want are completed and then you get your final product.  The questions for me were; how much better than I could they write my resume and was it prudent to spend that kind of money when I have very little savings and will be relying on unemployement from here on out?  I could spend the money with them and then have one or more companies call me the very next day from one of the jobs that I have already applied for, right?  As far as spending the money, well their arguement is, “how much are you losing every day being unemployed?”  Ouch!  True, but in the end I decided I could probably tweak my resume once again and use many of the ideas they presented.  So now to upload that new version to the job sites once again.  What’s that Monster password again…….

 

Call Backs?

I have been at this for a month and a half now.  I have applied for 35 jobs according to the spread sheet that I keep track with.  I have directly applied to about 30 of those with the remaining ones being positions that I was contacted for.  I have not heard back from a single company for a position that I have directly applied to.  Of those 30, I would say that 25 of them I was well qualified.  What gives?  The way you look for a job these days may be easier because of the internet (at least with finding job openings and applying for them) but when it comes to getting any feedback from the company, well it is usually non-existent and/or inadequate to judge if you are doing something wrong.  Job hunting can be frustrating!

My hope is that companies have been in aquiring mode since the beginning of the year.  I saw this quite a bit in my time at Monster.com.  Many companies would gather resumes for a month or so and then start calling and interviewing prospects.  I hope this is the case here.  I also realize that, though my resume is pretty good and I have excellent experience, I suddenly have much more competition!

So we will see how February pans out.  I will continue to put my nose to the proverbial grind stone though.  Wish me good fortune!

 

New resume

So I finished reading the book, “Multiple Job offers in Ten Days”.   As I indicated before, the author essentially advocates a direct marketing approach to finding a job.  His method of madness requires you to spend money (not the greatest prospect when you are out of a job and have a family).  It entails creating a tag-team partner of Cover Letter and Resume.  You then research different industries where your skills might be applicable, then buy a list of companies and contacts and literally mailing your resume to hundreds and potentially over a thousand contacts.  This will undoubtedly cost you a few hundred dollars for the list and printing, but you are virtually guaranteed to get multiple job offers.  Or you can hire his company to do that for you.

I have no doubt that this method would work to field multiple job offers in a very short period of time, but it seems a bit over the top to me.  I understand that, like sales, it is a numbers game, but I think if you are diligent, persistent, disciplined, and act as if your job is finding a new job, then that extreme is not required.   But then again, I don’t have a job yet…

I did create a new resume based on his resume tactics.  There is not a single bullet point on my resume.  I tell a short story for each of my job experiences.  It is very different, but I actually like it.  At his suggestion, I have also placed new emphasis on cover letters than I ever did before.  The cover letter sets the stage, it brags about your skills and talents, and it lets the prospective employers understand what your expectations are or at least the range.   I have updated my resume on Monster, Careerbuilder, and cybercoders with this new resume and cover letter.

I also started doing some direct marketing myself.  I have started making a list of companies that I would like to work at, rather they show they are hiring or not.  I find out who the director or VP of sales is either through internet research or by cold-calling and then send them a resume with customized cover letter.   We shall see if this yields any responses.

So while I am not whole-sale doing what the book endorses as a method, I do understand some of its valid points and have changed some of my behavior to utilize its suggestions.

 

A new resume

I have been reading this book, Multiple Job Offers in 10 Days.  It was recommended by someone who had read my blog.  I thought I would check it out and got a great deal on Amazon for it.  I have to say that I rarely pay full price for a book anymore.  The last four or five books I have bought for myself, I have gotten in nearly new condition and at least half off sticker price or better.  Gotta love Amazon and eBay!

Anyways, I got this book and started reading it.  The book has a direct marketing approach to finding a job, which is interesting in and of itself, but I don’t wan’t to discuss that right now.  One of the first things it has you do is to create a new resume.  Mr. Price explains that we talk to people about our selves in stories, so why don’t we write our resumes like that?  Instead we put lots of lists and bullet points.  Nearly everyone does it the same and it is boring.

We start off with an excercise to determine all the unique qualities, talents, and experiences that we have.  The more that are not tied to a specific trade, then the better because that means your skills are transferable across industries and that is good.  We are going to use this list of skills to tell short stories about each job.  We will include why we were hired and what was expected of us.  Next describe a hurdle and how it was overcome or explain how you had an unusual success.  It is okay to brag a bit here, but keep it short.  We don’t want our resume to be five pages long.

After finishing the story for the latest job you had, continue on down the line for at least ten years.  One point he makes is not to skimp on the dates worked at each job.  It will just raise more questions if you omit time or are not specific, like you have something to hide.

I have to admit, that this is tough; not neccessarily for the last job I had but once you get out a few years, it becomes more difficult to recollect specific details.  I have sure I will  have a few rewrites of it.

I will let you know how it turns out.

 

Ready, Set, Post!

I hope that everyone had a fine Christmas Holiday (or Hannekuh) and New Years!  It was nice to actually have some time to spend with my family, especially the kids.

But now it is already January 6th and time’s a wasting!

I had two interviews yesterday; one in person with a recruiter for a specific job and the other by phone.  Today I took an assessment test for one of them.  I have to say that I feel quite humble after taking the two-hour online assessment test or is “dumb” the right way to put it?  *Laugh*  It has been quite a while since I was called upon to do algebra and analytical logic sequence thinking.  I mean I suppose we use some of it in our daily life to some extent, but geesh, not in a test format.  And it isn’t even that it was too hard, but just that it took me too long to answer some of the questions.  The test was timed so that didn’t work out too well or maybe it was fine.  Maybe you aren’t expected to finish it.

On a different note, one thing that companies do that is very annoying is making you fill out an application.  They obviously have my resume since they just called me, but now they want me to fill out an official company application with exactly the same information that is on the resume.  I practically got a cramp in my hand filling out all the paper work at the recruiters office yesterday.  I haven’t used a pen that much since the early 90′s.  Is it really that imperative to have a separate application?  I mean who looks for a job without a resume?  Okay, enough of my complaining.

For the most part I am only getting contacted by insurance companies.  There never seems to be enough people to sell you insurance it seems.  Might be a wonderful line of work if I had oh a year or two or three to build up enough residuals to actually feed my family.  “your hard work and sales skills can make you unlimited amounts of income”.  Yeah, well if you believe in your business so much, then give me a base salary!

I used to be a huge fan of Monster.com and in fact I even worked for them for nearly a year.  Maybe Careerbuilder really is the better job engine of the two now because I sure do get more coming to me from there.  Most of the jobs aren’t what I am looking for but there are a few that look good once you weed through everything.

I have been reading a book that was recommended by someone who commented on my blog.  The book is called “Multiple Job Offers in 10 days.  Its approach seems to be that of direct marketer.  I mean for you to market yourself directly to potential employers.  I have’t finished it yet.  I will give a more comprehensive review once done.  I can say that it has encouraged me to completely rewrite my resume to be more of a storyboard than a “Mike Webb” work history chronography, which agreably is boring.  I will report more on how that is going soon.

 

I must say, I knew the pickings would likely be slim, but they are really slim.

A number of obvious factors are the Christmas Holidays and the current recession, but hopefully in January, some opportunities will open up.  I have only applied for a handful of positions.  I know that seems dreadfully low, but I truly have not seen many open positions that appear to be what I want.

I did have an exploratory phone call today with a company out of state.  It sounds very promising.  I have networked about as much as I can right now.  I have reached out to nearly everyone I know.  I really feel that my best opportunity for finding a job will likely come through the network I have worked hard to build up in the past couple of years.   Monster.com has probably the least amount of appealing jobs which really surprises me.  Careerbuilder has provided a few leads.

The book I ordered about marketing yourself should be coming tomorrow.  I need to finish up my book on Negotiations and then I can dive into that one.

I hope you that all who reads this has a wonderful holiday season.  I will be back on after Christmas.  Cheers!

 

Job Board Update

I just wanted to let everyone know that I didn’t stop at Monster.com or Careerbuilder.com.  On Wednesday, I signed up on Dice and today I signed up on a new job search engine called RealMatch that I read about on another blog.

I am not too impressed so far.  I don’t really expect much action this month.  December during a recession isn’t the time that most companies hire beyond temp and retail.  I do want to be ready in January though.

One other blog that I just came across that had some great advise about proactive job seeking is here.  I like her idea about cold calling HR departments.  Of course I am already working Linkedin pretty good.  I am also going to check out Indeed.com.

 

What is the reason again?

It has been a couple of days since I wrote anything.  I have been reading the book I mentioned in the last post.  It is nice to spend some time reading.  I forgot how much I enjoy it.  I have also been thinking a great deal.  Thinking about myself, who I am, what I am worth, this blog, moving out of state, my faith, the meaning of Christmas; you know the normal stuff right?  Well maybe not so normal.

I have had some friends and family caution me about this blog.  There are two things that I definitively don’t want out of this.  Those two things are:

1. I do not want anyone feeling sorry for me.  Showing concern and offers to help are fine though.
2. I do not want to scare away any potential employers.

This is a delicate thing.  Anything out of the norm (whatever that is – see first paragraph above) is libel to make some people shy away.  My gut feeling to that is that if they can’t see that I am trying to be constructive and use all means available to me besides just the conventional job-hunting methods, then they don’t get me.  But that does bring up a good question.  What do I expect of this blog?  My sister-in-law asked me this the other day.  I have to admit that I don’t quite know what my expectations are because I am not sure what all the possibilities are.

Forgive me for the lists, but it does help to organize one’s thoughts.

So here are some ideas on what this blog might or might not accomplish:

• A constructive outlet for expressing myself during the stressful time of job hunting
• A way to organize my own thoughts and consolidate my beliefs about myself and my capabilities
• A way to remain focused on the task at hand
• A new way to connect with others
• Possibly help someone else by giving them an idea on something they did not previously think about
• A way to show a potential employer that I try to think out side the octagon in finding a solution to a problem
• A way to solicit advice from other people or share ideas on best practices for finding a job
• A way to stay motivated (although with a family to provide for there is little chance I won’t stay motivated)
• Maybe this blog will receive a ton of traffic and the job boards will hire me to be a consultant  –  I won’t hold my breath on that one.

So those are some things I have come up with.  Feel free to comment on those or others I haven’t thought of.

One issue that has come up regarding what to do with this blog is the issue of transparency; being true to my feelings and not present myself in a fake light.  Some have told me that, within some limits, I should express myself here as much and as deep as I like.  Others have advised that I keep this blog like and extension of my resume, which is to say, pretty sedate.  While I don’t think of myself as a fake or pretentious person, I have learned that there is a time and a place for everything.  So, while I hope that my true personality, talents, and insight come through, I will try to maintain this blog in a fairly straight forward if not professional manner.  While Sgt. Joe Friday never actually said, “Just the facts, ma’am,”  I intend to keep it mostly to the facts.

Let me know if you disagree.