Work, success, and meaning at every stage of your career
The First Coast Virtual Job Fair opened Monday, June 10 at 12:02 A.M. By the time you’re reading this, hundreds of job seekers will be uploading resumes from the comfort of their living rooms, wearing bunny slippers instead of power suits. It’s also a great opportunity for people who are working to attend a job fair without taking time off from their current jobs.
Q: I read every job search advice blog I lay my eyes on, and I know the rules backward and forward: I’ve learned everything under the sun about professional cover letters, sending thank you notes, and making eye contact during interviews. At this point I could practically teach a course. But I still don’t have a … Continue reading Guest Post: I’ve Done Everything Right and I’m Still Not Working: Q and A for Frustrated Job Seekers
Since this terrible recession started, we’ve been hearing about clever gimmicks that desperate jobseekers are trying to get themselves noticed. We’ve heard about people standing at a busy intersection with a “Job Wanted” sign and the guy in Seattle who took out a sign on the side of a city bus.
If you’re like most job seekers across most industries, the success of your job search will depend on your ability to reach out to people in the real world through phone calls, meetings over coffee, and conversations at social events. But as vital as face-to-face contact will be, you’ll still need to pay close attention to the online branch of your search. And if your online efforts aren’t taking you anywhere or don’t seem to be paying off, you may benefit by giving your digital strategy a few tweaks.
Are you a new graduate drafting your professional resume for the first time? Are you about to return to the work force after a long absence? Maybe you’ve been actively employed for many years, and it’s been so long since the last time you looked at your resume that you may as well start a new one from the beginning. No matter your circumstances, these eight simple resume tips can help you get started.
LiveCareer’s founders’ mission was to make high quality career and resume products available to everyone, online, at a fraction of the cost or at no cost.
A recent study by The Ladders.com tracked recruiters’ eyes as the scanned resumes over a period of ten weeks. The study was able to track their eye movements over resumes and produce heat maps of where their eyes spent the most time. The resulting maps looked like this (the darker spots indicate where their eyes rested longest.) The entire read time averaged six seconds.
In the chapter about resumes, Laskoff starts out by comparing them to personal ads. Here is how he makes his case that “looking for love is a lot like looking for work.”
If you’re still sending resumes that simply re-hash your job duties, it’s going to be hard to stand out in this economy. Your resume pages (usually one or two at the most) should be considered valuable real estate. Any words or phrases that don’t pull their weight should be eliminated so you can fill the space with accomplishments.
In a tight labor market, there’s only one thing worse than not getting the job of your dreams; not getting the job you could have done in your sleep. There are many reasons that jobseekers consider jobs for which they are overqualified. In a recession, high level jobs may be scarce and competition intense. When you transition from one industry or career to another, you may be forced into looking for entry level jobs in the new field, no matter how far you had advanced in your former career. Baby Boomers are opting for jobs that offer more time for family and quality of life. Others, seeking more meaning in their careers, are looking for opportunities in mission based companies or non-profits, even if the jobs pay less.
Your Work, Your Way 