In a great economy, you have more options but even then moving and switching jobs has to be done with utmost care and thought. If you just landed today and realize it isn’t a good fit, you need to think about it carefully.

• Is your current position just not a good fit because you don’t like what you are doing? Perhaps you have only started to learn the job. Don’t make snap judgments.
• Do you feel like you are not being listened to by management? If you have just arrived, even if you were in management before, you may not yet have a good feel for the total operation. After a month or two, if you feel confident that you have a firm grasp of the organization and have some honest concerns, share them. Productivity improvement and process improvement have become a keen focus of management. If you know you can improve operations with a few tweaks, share your ideas with someone you trust to listen.

What if there are different problems with the new job?

The above bullet points assume you are in a reputable company and overall are treated with respect.

• What if you know your company or one of the management team is breaking the law? If you know someone is deliberately committing fraud or some other kind of corporate crime, let’s get organized with the value you did get out of the job, update your resume, and move on. You could report them if you had enough evidence but if you know you are in a place that is breaking the law, you can be guilty by association, time to move.
• What if your boss or someone in leadership is harassing you on a regular basis? Time to go. You don’t need that. Start a new search and do deep research to make sure your next position is with a company with people who respect each other.
• What if the salary changed after the offer (downward) or you suddenly find yourself working 80+ hours and being paid for 40? Time to reassess. Companies who change the rules or push unreasonable overtime hours on people without compensation or with no end in sight generally drain the lifeblood out of the employee. Start your search.

You might also find these posts interesting as you contemplate whether to change or stay put:

• What is on the economic horizon for job seekers?
• Why your resume is the foundation of your job search
• Why job search strategy is key to job search success

Stuck in your job search or existing position? Don’t know how to get unstuck? Hire an expert to do it for you. You will hit your target much more quickly and be doing what you do best instead of trying to figure your way through the job search maze. To find out how, Click here!

Photo Credit

What’s in it for me?

The “what’s in it for me?” mindset brings to mind that person who will never do anything unless they benefit. If you would ask them to volunteer for a project, they would give you a flat out “No” unless they could find a “what’s in it for me?” angle that would really benefit them. I remember an individual who was a high power insurance salesperson. He joined organizations and rapidly applied his skill sets to position himself into the best possible place to connect with the most people.

He was highly skilled in building what seemed like relationships and was very attentive in his listening skill as long as the “what’s in it for me?’ side of him was getting payback. However, he either found fault with you or dropped you like a hot potato if you didn’t turn into his newest customer. If you got in his way, look out.

The What’s in it for me? perspective will in the short-run get you to your goals because most people who are operating from the What’s in it for me? mindset are driven and generally successful. However, the What’s in it for me? angle only works until the people around you figure it out. Then you will need to move on to a new group, organization, or company.

How can I help you?

At first glance, especially after reading the What’s in it for me? discussion above, how can I help you? sounds like the best way to be. And in most cases, it is. But like with most things, it can be taken too far. The How can I help you? person is the one you can count on to be there when you need them. They are America’s volunteer force and in companies, they are the ones taking on extra work, staying late to make sure the job gets done, and being the helpful person everywhere they go.

Sounds good, right? What’s the downside then? The How can I help you? person is often working so hard to help that they never ask what’s in it for me? It is easy for them to get steamrollered by people who recognize them as the one who will do the work. And they can easily lose out on the income side too because they never showcase anything they do. When they look back on a career or volunteer past, they don’t even generally see any accomplishments.

Where’s the middle ground?

While I believe firmly in the How can I help you? mindset as critical to the future, they need a small dose of What’s in it for me? The What’s in it for me? mindset focuses too heavily on income-producing strategies often destroying people in their path. But the How can I help you? mindset can sometimes be scammed by the first person who recognizes that they are easy to manipulate.

If you take time to check where you are on this continuum regularly and try to find the balance point, you will be more successful than if you swing too hard one way or the other.

Stuck in your job search or existing position? Don’t know how to get unstuck? Hire an expert to do it for you. You will hit your target much more quickly and be doing what you do best instead of trying to figure your way through the job search maze. To find out how, Click here!

Photo Credit

Emily will land on her feet anyway, she is a talented young lady who I was blessed to have as my very first personal (as in Design Resumes) intern. She graduated from Rasmussen College on Friday, April 6 with her Associate Degree in Human Resources Management. She will get her Bachelor’s Degree in the future but right now just wants to get out there and use her Associate’s degree.

As my intern, I provided her with a full line of Design Resumes services. She has a new professional resume, she has been surrounded by career marketing advice for months, and she is a very smart young woman.

Emily went to the Rasmussen College career fair in February and apparently was more than successful. She’s connected to me on Facebook and I kept seeing her status say, “I have two interviews” or “The interview went very well.” When I called to ask her where the leads were coming from, she told me that most of the leads were coming from the career fair. She found plenty of opportunities with major employers.

You need to be prepared for a career fair though to be successful and Emily has good sense to start with and then I coached her even more just to be sure. You might benefit from the following check list.

The Career Fair Quiz:

1. Are you dressed the part? Look at the career fair photo above. Most everyone is in suits. If you don’t have a suit and you are a male, pick a nice shirt, add a tie, and get a pair of dress pants and some black or dark brown shoes. If you don’t have these things, perhaps you should invest. Since job search is challenging, having the basic job search outfit is a good idea even if you don’t use them later. If you are female, black pants and a nice shirt or blouse, perhaps with a blazer, makes a good first impression.
2. Do you have your resume updated? Don’t think that it will work to bring your old resume that doesn’t have your most recent position on it to a career fair. Your resume should be professionally written and chock full of accomplishments and key words. Be prepared with print copies but realize that you may be just collecting information and posting your resume online later.
3. Have an “elevator speech” ready. 30 seconds of what you offer, what you are looking for, and who you are. Tough as this can be, figuring this out in advance will make you look better at the career fair than the person who is stammering for an answer.
4. Though your resume should be prepared, collect business cards at the career fair so you can send a cover letter or thank you note to the person who is running the career fair booth for the company. You never know how that kind of networking could help you.
5. Did I mention that you should not be chewing gum, drinking soda, or eating anything as you go booth to booth at the career fair? No one wants to be unprepared to chat because their mouth is full. Networking, Networking…
6. Prepare questions to ask companies. Find a list of who will be at the career fair in advance and target the ones you are really interested in. You can do online research.

Emily got it right. If you follow the tips above, you will too!

Stuck in your job search or existing position? Don’t know how to get unstuck? Hire an expert to do it for you. You will hit your target much more quickly and be doing what you do best instead of trying to figure your way through the job search maze. To find out how, Click here!

Photo Credit

Who is looking out for you?

We have entered into an era when career management should be something everyone who desires to move forward in life should be thinking about. Gone are the days when you are likely to start a job after high school or college and retire from that same job in 40 or 45 years. You are not likely to be a “lifer” anywhere. My first question to the careerist (that would be you — the employed individual who wants to change positions, or you — the job seeker who is trying to land a new position.) You, the careerist,… who is looking out for you?

Let’s review the value of LinkedIn:

I believe in loyalty to your employer but the employer who doesn’t want his employees to be found on LinkedIn is misinformed. Yes, you could be looking for a new position and using LinkedIn to do so but you also could be connecting with professionals that could be potential customers for your company’s product.

The growth of LinkedIn is astounding. As of February 2012, LinkedIn states that 150 million professionals are on LinkedIn.

As of February 9, 2012, LinkedIn operates the world’s largest professional network on the Internet with more than 150 million members in over 200 countries and territories.

You wonder how that affects business. Here are a few more fun facts direct from the LinkedIn About Us page:

• As of February 9, 2012, LinkedIn counts executives from all 2011 Fortune 500 companies as members; its corporate hiring solutions are used by 82 of the Fortune 100 companies.
• More than 2 million companies have LinkedIn Company Pages.
• LinkedIn represents a valuable demographic for marketers with an affluent & influential membership.
• More than 50,000 developers are using LinkedIn APIs to create innovative tools and services for professionals, averaging over two billion API calls per month as of December 31, 2011.
• As of December 31, 2011, there are more than 300,000 unique domains actively using the LinkedIn Share button on their sites to send content into the LinkedIn platform. Referrals from LinkedIn to publisher sites around the Web are up more than 45 percent between September 30, 2011 and December 31, 2011.
• LinkedIn members are sharing insights and knowledge in more than one million LinkedIn Groups.
• As of December 31, 2011, mobile page views account for more than 15 percent of total unique member visits to LinkedIn.
• As of December 31, 2011, hundreds of thousands of job applications have been submitted using Apply With LinkedIn.

As yourself, should you be ignoring this resource. Is your company missing the value of LinkedIn? But you say, I am not in sales, I am in engineering or I am an accountant. Now I ask you, what better way to find people to interface with in your field and grow?

I see LinkedIn as a valuable resource not only for job seekers but for all employees, companies, and solo entrepreneurs. For an employer to see it only as a threat and a chance that maybe they will have an employee connect with someone who might hire them away is short-sighted and kind of sad. The likelihood of connecting with someone who will help the company grow is equally valid. If you need help with LinkedIn and are struggling on how to pull it together, I can help you with that, check here for more information.

Stuck in your job search or existing position? Don’t know how to get unstuck? Hire an expert to do it for you. You will hit your target much more quickly and be doing what you do best instead of trying to figure your way through the job search maze. To find out how, Click here!

Photo Credit