What are the Chances a Recruiter Will Find You on LinkedIn? Double them.
This is the simplest way I know to get better results from LinkedIn:
Get recommendations for each position you’ve held.
I’ve noticed that many candidates have more recommendations for their recent experience than for older positions. Makes sense, since many have just come to LinkedIn in recent years.
But, having just one recommendation for a position doubles its relevance to the LinkedIn search engine used by recruiters to find candidates.
It’s also important to note that, while multiple recommendations mean a lot to the human eye, they do not affect LinkedIn’s algorithm.
When you ask someone for a recommendation, be sure to help them out by guiding them as to what you’d like them to speak about. This will also help you maintain a unified brand in your LinkedIn account. An sample communication could look like this:
Hi Bob,
I’m working on spiffing up [or “optimizing”, depending on how well you know Bob] my LinkedIn account, and I wonder if you would feel comfortable writing a recommendation.
I’m targeting startup companies for my next move, so if you could talk about my talents in both sales and technology implementation (because I may have to wear more than one hat) and/or my ability to meet or beat spending targets while still delivering high quality systems, I’d appreciate it. [Make sure whatever you ask of them is realistic given your performance and their understanding of your work.]
If you need more guidance, feel free to let me know. I’d like to make it as easy for you as possible. And, as always, I’m here to help you in any way I can. Don’t hesitate to reach out.
My best,
Kim
If you’d like to know a lot more about optimizing your LinkedIn account, I highly recommend the DVD LinkedIn for Job Seekers, by Jason Alba. You can order it here.
Hate the idea of “networking”? 5 Magic Words to Cure Your Aversion
When I tell my clients that most people (some say as many as 90%) will get their next job by networking, I’m usually met with silence on the other end of the phone line. Many people think of networking as either difficult or distasteful.
Young entrepreneur Andrew Horn has shared his secret for making networking enjoyable and productive, and it takes advantage of the age-old concept that one should be interested to be interesting.
So, how do you become genuinely interested, not just asking the classic questions like, “What do you do?” “Where do you live?” “Do you have a family?” and pretending that the answers are riveting? Here are the six magic words that will fast-forward a conversation to “the good part.”
“What gets you most excited?”
Here’s Andrew explaining how this phrase has made a big difference for him:
In Job Search, a Picture is Worth a Million Dollars
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. When talking about resumes and other career communications, a picture can easily be worth a million dollars.
I’m working with an IT executive who was wondering whether she’d have to take a salary cut, just to get her foot back in the door after a fairly sizeable period of unemployment. I say no. Let me explain… and you happily employed readers, this is for you too! Your annual review (read raise negotiation) is coming up.
Every job opening has a salary range that the hiring company is willing to pay.
A company will go above their initial range if they think a candidate offers a uniquely high return on investment (ROI) and/or that they align with company culture in a way few others would.
A company will pay as little as possible if they are choosing between candidates they view as offering the same set of skills and experience. Sometimes they’ll even forego making a hiring decision rather than risk making a poor one.
Negotiating a starting salary near the top of the range can add tens of thousands of dollars a year to your compensation and approach a million dollars of additional lifetime earnings. (The total extra amount grows exponentially because future raises and starting salaries at new jobs are negotiated upwards from there.)
So how can you be the must-have hire who commands the big bucks? By painting a clear picture of your ability to solve your future employer’s most pressing problems. Do this by:
- Proving your monetary worth. Review your entire career and look for ways you’ve made money or saved money for your employers. Be sure those are prominent on your resume, individually and cumulatively. If a company knows that you’ve repeatedly added $800K to the bottom line, they’ll feel confident hiring you at $100K+.
- Being branded, not “blanded.” Make sure your communications and everything about you express your brand. That means your resume, the messages you leave on voicemails, and the clothes you wear to your interview are aligned with each other and painting a picture of who you are and how you work. The right company, which is genuinely aligned with who you are and vice-versa, will have to have you.
- Speaking to prospective employers’ specific needs. Yes, of course you’ve researched your field and industry and created your documents and job search plan accordingly. But are you personalizing your communications? Have you Googled the company you’re writing to or interviewing with to find out what their current hot-button issues might be and how you can contribute positively from day one of your hire? Do it! Yes, it takes more time, but a few strategic, meaningful communications will get you further than masses of form letters.
Get the picture? If your employer does, it’ll be worth a million.
I want to follow my heart, but I have to pay my bills.
“I want to get back into fashion, my first love.” The voicemail from a potential client thrilled me. She obviously had a bold, heart-led plan for her next career move, and I hoped I’d be able to help her.
By the time we spoke the next day, she was in panic mode. Afraid the fashion market was not robust in her new city, she was thinking of pursuing hospitality instead. After all, her recent experience as an event planner would be an asset, and she was facing a hefty mortgage payment for her new dream house.
Fortunately, this was a case where she could have her cake and eat it too. I love those!
I suggested that it wasn’t an either/or choice. She could pursue both. If the job in hospitality worked out first, she could look for an opportunity in fashion from the powerful position of an employed person.
If you have a dream, it’s there for a reason. In the process of pursuing it, good will happen to you and through you. You might not get where you first envisioned going, but you’ll arrive right where you’re meant to be.
Have a dream you haven’t realized yet?
The best way to pursue it is directly correlated to your risk tolerance. I know I took a lot more risks when I was single than I do now that I have a husband and two kids. My dreams now look more like a slow and steady evolution as my career takes shape and I discover more and more about how to best help my clients by expressing my joy for writing, marketing, and cheerleading.
Ideas:
- If your dream and your work don’t seem to be in alignment, make them more so. There’s a great example in Career Distinction by William Arruda and Kirsten Dixson, about a sales manager whose first love was sports. He challenged his team to come up with the best sales presentation using sports as an analogy. Sales went through the roof and he was re-engaged with his “day job.”
- Start a business that’s related to your dream while keeping your current job. Once the business gets big enough, quit. That’s exactly how Movin’ On Up Resumes got off the ground. A good family friend and playwright, Evan Blake, was a paralegal for years until he was able to make a full-time living writing plays.
- Set up some informational interviews with people who are doing what you would love to do. You’ll get the chance to learn more about next steps and start the process of creating new opportunities.
- Check out www.vocationvacations.com. They can help you with information, set you up with a mentor, and give you a real-life taste of your dream.
You can be pragmatic and true to your authentic self. It takes courage, but most worthwhile things do.
What does your urinary tract have to do with getting the job? Beware the outplacementwocky!
Will ordering a cranberry juice at a lunch interview put you out of the running due to suspicions of urinary tract infections?
This newsletter is inspired by a client of mine who recently opted to use the interview coaching provided by her company’s outplacement service. She is excellent at what she does, but she hasn’t learned how to talk about it yet. I really hope that firm does a good job. This gal is the best and deserves the best!
Here at Movin’ On Up Resumes, we’re hard at work preparing to launch our own outplacement services division. Luckily, we’re virtual, so there are no cubicles to set up!
Of course, this has me researching the “competition.” I already had some idea of what’s out there because I get so many clients who ask me to redo the poor quality resumes they’ve gotten through their employers’ outplacement firms. This kind of client is common in the pro resume writing business.
For the most part, the big firms seem focused more on their corporate clients than on the individual end-clients, and they’re not current on career marketing best practices. I was given food for thought when I read this article in the archives of the Wall Street Journal.
There is much cause for concern in the article, most of it Keystone Cop-ish. But one anecdote stuck out. A candidate was coached after a mock lunch interview that she shouldn’t have ordered the cranberry juice because it could cause the interviewer to think she had a urinary tract infection. Another candidate was coached not to order Diet Coke.
John Challenger, CEO of the firm Challenger, Gray, & Christmas, Inc.—which gave this feedback to discharged Pepsi employees—said that, though this advice may seem “silly,” it is part of an overall message to always think about the impressions you make on your interviewer. “Ordering ice tea, water or coffee, doesn’t stand out. Ordering cranberry juice might.”
Exactly. Ordering something other than coffee or tea stands out. That’s great! Standing out is the key to finding meaningful employment in this market. I’m not suggesting that you order the most exotic drink, wear the wackiest suit, or try the craziest resume font just for the heck of it. But if every detail of how you present yourself is in alignment with who you are, you are living and breathing your brand. That will attract opportunities that are a good fit.
Is it possible that your brand will turn off a potential employer? I hope it will. That means you have a brand, that you stand for something. Your message, and your hire-ability quotient, will be huge with the company you’re meant for, the one whose culture and values align with yours.
And yes, if your employer has offered you outplacement services, use the resources that work for you, and take their advice with a grain of salt.
The Start of a Beautiful Friendship: Scripted Networking Works!
I got an email from a client the other day upon reviewing the resume I just wrote for him. The client, we’ll call him Bob, said, “It’s fantastic, Kim. I never realized I was so special. I would hire me! One thing, though. I’m not that comfortable with the MacGyver thing.”
He was referring to the tagline I wrote for him. It began, “The MacGyver of Construction.”
This guy did things with schedules that no one had ever thought of to raise quality and finish jobs early. Construction finishing early? Oh yeah, baby. He’s got 100% on-time or early record and the JD Power awards to prove it. Oh, and he built a successful high-class development in the middle of a slum, fit two feet of “inner workings” (my layman’s term) into a one-foot-wide space to meet commercial grade fire codes in a residential construction project, and invented a temporary housing structure for the electrical stuff so they didn’t have to rent expensive power equipment.
If that last paragraph sounds like a mouthful, it is! That’s why I crystallized it into the phrase, “the MacGyver of Construction.” Everyone knows that MacGyver makes useful stuff out of basically nothing and always pulls off really tough assignments. A tagline like this serves two purposes:
- Immediate information and intrigue. Anyone who hears a branding phrase like that will be intrigued and also have some idea about the direction it’s going.
- The entertaining, easily memorable phrase will be, as Sam Horn says, a “hook” on which your reader can hang their memory of you. It will make it easy to recall your story and express your value to their network.
To understand the second point, think of any blockbuster movie. Almost all of them have one thing in common—lines that are memorable and that people repeat to their friends, who then get excited and go see the movie. Garry Marshall, the famous director and producer, said that he can tell if a movie will be a hit by listening to the audience chitchat as they exit the theater. If they are quoting from the movie, it’s going to be a hit.
Examples (you most likely know which movies these quotes come from):
“I’m King of the World!”
“I’ll be back.”
“Are you talkin’ to me?”
“Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
“You had me at ‘Hello.’”
Think of clever ways to express what you do. Yes, you have to feel comfortable saying them, but I encourage you expand your comfort zone a bit if you want to be king or queen of your world. At you next networking meeting, you might just quip, “I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship.”
Special thanks to Sam Horn, whose presentation at The NRWA conference in 2009 crystallized a new level of branding-statement consciousness for me.
Follow your bliss!
How to Make Your Own Breaks: Use Chutzpah to Kill the Middleman
Today, I’m thinking about chutzpah. Just about everything I’ve accomplished has been the result of it. Chutzpah solves the old career catch-22: “How can I get experience if no one will give me a shot?”
You have to give yourself the shot.
- I backpacked alone across Thailand and India, meeting the love of my life who is now the father of my two children and a wonderful husband.
- I got representation for my first novel by pitching it to a famous poet whose wife was a budding literary agent. The chutzpah part here is that I was at their home giving them an estimate for relocating across the country.
- I landed the biggest sale ever for my employer, a residential moving company, by approaching commercial accounts—something I was clueless about until I immersed myself in the very different world of industrial transportation.
- I moved from transportation sales to driving an 18-wheel moving van across the country. I had to lie and tell the company financing my new truck that I had already a year of over-the-road experience. I also had to change companies because my employer told me that this intensely physical job, which also involved maneuvering a huge truck in small residential areas, was not one a woman could do well. At my new company I had the top safety record and the best customer service rating. I also got to spend two years being paid six figures to travel the country with my new husband.
- While driving truck, I hung out my shingle as a resume writer, building my business on my cell phone and via truck stop Wi-Fi connections. After two years, I went full time. I accepted the position of certification chair of the National Resume Writers’ Association, mentoring writers with much more experience than I had. Though I have no degree, I help people with MBAs and years of business experience to express themselves in writing.
Everyone I know who is successful has this kind of fake-it-till-you-make-it approach. And if you fake it, you’ll quickly come up to speed and be the real deal. If you are passionate enough to take a chance, you probably know more than you think. Perhaps it’s time to own that knowledge or special talent.
Though it’s been years since I moved to Los Angeles at the age of 20—another act of chutzpah—I still remember my tour of Universal Studios. The tour operator described how their relationship with Steven Spielberg began. He went on a tour just like the one I was enjoying, hopped off the tram, and set up shop in an empty office. By the time people realized he didn’t work there, they were so impressed that they let him stay.
Where could you apply a bit of hubris to make a leap in your career? To help you answer that question, I’d like to leave you with this quote from Seth Godin’s Poke the Box:
Imagine that the world had no middlemen, no publishers, no bosses, no HR folks, no one telling you what you couldn’t do.
If you lived in that world, what would you do?
Go. Do that.
