The Pain of Internet Job Searching



So I suppose we have all been there, but I have to be honest, this whole job hunt thing today is a huge hassle!  You have to weed through hundreds or thousands of jobs that are a complete waste, just to get referred to a website where you have to fill out an online application that takes you 30-60 minutes and before you know it, you have sold your first born.  Some of these applications are just intrusive.  The other day, I filled one out that requested my references up front, AND I had to complete a complete background check application before I could submit and apply.  Now, why exactly is it that you need my permission to run a background check, ssn, addresses for the last ten years, and everything else, before you have even seen my resume.  Does that seem excessive to anyone else? 

Now I do have to admit, I remember once upon a time when you had to actually go business to business and fill out applications, or mail hundreds of resumes, so I am appreciative of the new ease of online job hunting.  But as an HR professional, I think we need to take a step back and ask what we really need/want to see from applicants.  When I am doing the initial screening, I want to look at the resume and check that they have completed the application, and that it matches what is on the resume.  I don't need a duplicate.  Give me a list of your employment history with dates and salary history.  That and a resume is all I need during an initial screening.  Why do we insist on getting all of this information upfront?  Does anyone even look at it?  Interested to hear other HR/Recruiting perspectives...

Be a STAR! How to nail that interview.

Ahhh, Behavioral Interviewing, oh how we love thee.  At least those of us in HR love the technique that can really get to the root of if a candidate is a good fit for a job.  While it may intimidate the job seeker, it really is your best friend just follow the below steps to nail that next interview using the STAR method.

1.       First and foremost, you have to understand the question.  This means listening closely and asking questions when appropriate.  Often interviewers may get rather long winded when asking a behavioral interview question and especially when they have a list in front of them they are reading from.  Cut through the excessive adjective use and get to the root of what they are asking.  If they want to know a time when you went above and beyond, have a few stories ready of past jobs that are relevant to the job you are interviewing for and how exactly you do so.  Don’t be afraid to ask them to repeat the question or to clarify.  That just tells us you are listening.

2.       When doing your interview prep, look at their values and mission.  Tie that in to the job description and create three stories for each company that you can pull out of your bag of tricks when the question comes up, because it probably will.  Use the STAR method below and create index cards and practice.  Be ready to tie the story back to how it relates to the question that you are asked.  Notes in an interview are ok, but you don’t want to be flipping through a million note cards.  Those are just for practicing.  If you feel you need notes, or are prone to get nervous in interviews.  Create a professional looking document that you can have on the left side of your portfolio and your notebook on the right.  Bold the situation and then just have bullets to remind you to keep the answer short and sweet.

3.       Don’t be afraid to pause.  It is ok to collect your thoughts and organize your answer before speaking.  Don’t rub your forehead or start twitching though as this is a body language sign of being unprepared.  Instead, rest your curled finger on your chin for 5-8 seconds and think about which story to use, even glancing at your notes.  This gives you the ‘pensive thinking’ appearance and will give the interviewer a break as well.

4.       Stay focused.  As you might have guessed by now, I like to talk.  I am what is known as an ‘oversharer.’ As such, it takes a lot of discipline not to elaborate or go off on tangents in these situations.  If you keep to your STAR plan, you will be just fine, but STAY ON TASK!

5.       Be prepared and ready to answer follow up questions about your experience.  Keep your answers brief and only answer what they are asking.  They don’t want you to go back into a speech about the experience, they just need some clarification.

BE A STAR!  How to nail those tough “Give me an example of a time when you…” questions.

S Situation	Be specific and detail the background.  Explain what company were you with, what was the situation you were in that required you to do what they are asking to hear about.  Answer the What, When, Why, and Who.
T  Task	What did you need to do.  Keep this section brief.  You want the bulk of your detail to be in the action, but you also want to be able to describe the challenge that you overcame in order to accomplish the task.
A  Action	This is where you get to shine.  What did you do to solve the challenge you explained in the previous area.  How did you do it?  Were there any tools you used?  Did you have to collaborate?  What made it something special to share?
R  Results	Keep this section brief too.  Explain quantifiably what the result was.  Did it increase sales by 20%?  Save the company $20,000?  If there is a way to tie back the benefit it brought to the organization you were with at the time to the job description or values of the company that you are interviewing with, that is ideal.



Do you have a personal brand?

Of course you do!  Everyone does.  You may not realize it, and by all means it may not be what you want to be representing yourself, but none the less, you have a personal brand.  Now, you can and should be controlling it.  Follow the below steps to create your brand, and market yourself wisely no matter what your current employment situation.  Everyone needs a good brand!

1.  Create a mission statemnent for yourself.  Then shorten it to under five words and make it your tag line to life.  You may have several, you may have one for your personal life and one for your professional life for example, but you should always know and be ready to promote your tag line.

2.  Perfect your elevator speech and USE IT!  Use it at the supermarket, the bowling alley and on Facebook.  Make sure that anyone that asks about you can walk away with the impression that YOU want them to have.

3.  Examine your online presence.  Do you have a photo on Facebook of you and your besties at the bar clinking martinis?  If so, even though you may not know it, someone could see that.  It is fine to share those photos with friends, but leave off the tags so that they don't live on in your profile forever.  I have said it before, and I will say it again, you never know who knows who, so no matter how high you have your privacy settings, never post something on Facebook, Twitter or Linked In that you wouldn't want anyone and everyone to read.

4.  Market yourself.  If you are gainfully employed, sell yourself to your team and your managers.  Make sure you keep a brag book of sorts so that when self evaluation time comes around you can go back and reference all the great things you have done for them all year.  If you are looking for a job, put together the same thing.  Have a list in your head or on index cards to spark your memory so that when that behavioral interviewer asks you to give them an example of a time you XYZ, you can immediately have a story to tell in under 90 seconds of how you helped a former employer with just such a problem.  Make sure each story (one for each accomplishment on your resume) has a clear problem, evaluation, solution and result.

5.  Live your brand.  If your life isn't exactly what you want it, start living what your brand is.  If you have been out of a job for a while, it is very easy to fall into the frumpy side of life, but how seriously will that headhunter you run into at the playground take you if you try to sell yourself as a "Dedicated professional with meticulous attention to detail" if you are in your college sweatshirt and yoga pants?  You don't have to dress for success every moment of every day, but make sure that you are sharp, and could at least pass for business casual whenever you leave your inner circle.

Jennifer K. Hardie is an HR professional with more than eight years experience doing generalist duties.  She is currently seeking that next great role to take her to the next level. 

Navigating WIA in Chicago

This is my second time attempting to get the WIA Grant in Chicago since 2009.  The process is in no way easy.  But in all reality it shouldn't be.  There is only so much money that can be used, and don't you think those with the most dedication and success potential should be the ones that get it?  I do.  So despite the fact that the hoops to jump through may seem a bit tedious and redundant, they are there for a reason, and it is a good one. 

The process begins with contacting the closest WIA service provider.  This is not as easy as it sounds.  If you click on this link it will bring you to the IL workNet site that you can use to find the closest office to you.  There are workNet centers and satellite providers listed, and really, this is just a starting point.  Pick the closest workNet center, and then the four closest satellite offices and get your dialing finger ready.

Now it is time to do the research old school.  Call the workNet center and ask them about their waiting list.  It is my experience that the person answering the phone does not often have the correct information, so if at all possible see if you can charm you way past the gatekeepers to the person who teaches the orientation.  Ask them how quickly people that attend the orientation are being assigned to career managers.  Then ask them what the procedure is step by step from orientation to getting your voucher.  This will give you an idea of how long the process is going to take and from what I can tell it changes from week to week.

Repeat your questions with the four satellite offices and that will give you an idea of where to go.  I choose to go with the Northside IL workNet center, on the 4700 block of Sheridan.  This is also a DHS office so be prepared.  I attended my orientation on Monday, 1/30.  I got there at 8:30 and by 9 AM when the class was supposed to start there were probably 70 people in the waiting room.  I am not sure how many they took for the class, but I know it was very crowded and they tried not to turn anyone away.  Bottom line is, if you are going on a walk in basis, get there 1/2 hour early.  Remember, this is an investment in you.  It may not be a pleasant one, but the pay off is up to an $8000 grant, so stop complaining about the process, they can't just give it to everyone.

Once you have done your orientation you will have a bit more of an idea of what comes next, but at least at my center, I was required to attend three workshops.  This is the workshop I attended on resume writing, and the other day I attended one on 'once you have a job.' No, I didn't really get anything out of these workshops.  But again, it is a few hours out of your life.  We are all busy.  Yes, my time would have been better spent networking, job hunting or even blogging, but the pay off is well worth it.  Go to the workshops, keep an open mind, and even if you don't get anything out of it, maybe you can help someone else. 

As I continue through this process I will continue to blog about it.  For now, my workshops are complete, and I am waiting to be assigned a career manager and intake appointment.  I will keep you all posted.  Wish me luck!

So I should tell you that I have a tendency to get worked up about things =)  I am a very passionate person, in just about anything and everything that I do.  This has the ability to be a blessing or a curse.  Today, I took my frustration and utter disdain for a situation that was just making me mad and took my own advice. 

Over my first cup of coffee this morning I was checking my email.  As always, I get the hundreds of emails from job boards and one of them caught my eye.  There was what looked to be a blog post from some CEO or another about the importance of a thank you letter.  All excited about getting some specific, worth while tips about what sets a thank you letter apart from your competition, I anxiously clicked through all the 'skip this offer' pages between the teaser email and the actual article I wanted to read.

Once there, after, and I am NOT kidding you about this, no more than two paragraphs of basic, 'its important to send a thank you note.' statements, they went right into a sales pitch about how they want you to buy their resume writing service for several hundred dollars.  Oh. My. Gosh.  What a waste of my time!

This just makes me mad!  If you are one of me, reading these articles, hoping to get some important job search advice, the last thing you want to hear is that the only way to get a job is if you spend hundreds of dollars and pay someone who has never met you, knows nothing about you, or what it is that you specialize in to write the document that is going to tell an employer who you are and what you are best at.  And oh by the way, they will also send you a FREE customizable cover letter and thank you note.  And don't worry your pretty little head about the fact that it is absolutely the same one they sent the last client, and the one before that, you are going to customize it!  Employers are always THRILLED to receive form letters with no original thought!

So, I was incredibly irritated.  For those of you who read my post last night, I spent the day yesterday working with people at the IL WorkNet Center giving resume tips and some career coaching after being identified by the trainer of the resume writing class as an HR Pro.  After being so happy about being able to help people yesterday, and feel like I am actually doing good, this advertisement in disguise just made me mad. 

So, after another cup of coffee, I decided that rather than just sit here and seethe about how irked this made me, I would do something about it.  I promptly turned around and posted to CL that I was offering my resume writing, customized cover letter, and thank you note services as well as interview coaching for a SERIOUS fraction of the cost of what it costs by those cookie cutter places that have just about everything BUT your best interest at heart.

Since I began consulting two years ago, it has always been on the employer side.  I consult on performance management, recruiting and retention strategies, benefits, total rewards, etc.  But how great would it be to be able to work AND help the people who need it the most!  This is just up my philanthropic alley!  I will keep you posted on how it goes!

Feeling useful...

Today I had the honor of attending a workshop on resume optimization.  While it wasn't something I would typically have volunteered to go to, I did end up getting some good tips.  As a pleasant surprise, the workshop ended up making my entire day! 

While I wasn't expecting to get a whole lot out of the hour and a half, the instructor identified me at the start of the seminar as an 'expert' and I was actually able to help several people.  It is very easy when you are job searching to get discouraged.  But today was the first reminder that no matter what, there is always a positive impact you can make on someone. 

Take the opportunity to do that as often as you can!!!