They are two different things. But though for Carly, dog training might be fun, I called Heide from H.R. Max, LLC when I attempted once more to try to get Buddy out the door to go for a walk with me. We didn’t have trainers for Teddy (our first German Shepherd) but I do remember a time period when he was young that I couldn’t get him to walk anywhere with me. Just putting the Gentle Leader on Teddy changed that and he became the best possible walking companion you could ask for.

Buddy is just one year and I still trying options for leashes and harnesses. Heide will be back next week and until she helps me over that walking hurdle, I walk with human friends only. For me, dog training is fun when I am doing some of the exercises as taught by an expert but not when Buddy fails to listen and I get frustrated.

Why Job Search may not be fun for you

Just like dog training without an expert is not fun for me. I love Buddy but learning the right strategies to work with him is well… Work!

Job Search has often been liked to having a job too. You can’t expect instantaneous results. But when you go about job search the wrong way, it will take forever and will not be fun.

I hired an expert dog trainer, just like I hired an expert marketing coach for the past three years and an expert accountant for the past two years, because I know that I am not trained in marketing or accounting. I need the advice of an expert to move me to the next level.

• Before I hired my accountant, I had asked a question about sales tax (which I had asked during a 15 year period from two other CPAs) and he checked with the department of Revenue specifically for my industry. He emailed me the reply. I do not need to charge or collect sales tax. His ability to get the right answer saved me both money and time.
• My marketing coach has saved me money and increased my income dramatically by showing me how to use the tools to attract clients from all over the world to work with me.

Both of these experts needed me to do something to make their advice work. But it was more fun to see the results when I listened to them and followed their advice.

What should you do to make job search fun?

Obviously, I recommend hiring an expert because then you can have results like this:

After a year of waiting and hoping, I just wanted to let you know I have my FIRST EVER interview early next week. I’m interviewing for XYZ District, which is exactly the kind of school district I get excited about. I just wanted to thank you, because I really believe that without your expertise, I’d still be twiddling my thumbs, waiting. Again, many, many thanks!

You can make it fun on your own though:

1. Start with the resume (the foundation of your job search). In the days of electronic applications, your words are still critical in the resume. If you don’t like to write, you have choices. Find an excellent writer friend who is willing to spend hours researching the cutting edge strategies from career professionals like myself and have the friend interview you and write the resume. Make it a game to tell her or him the very best stuff you remember about your career. How did you make a difference.
2. Find job postings you fit… and collect them. Then use them to write your cover letter and reinforce your resume.
3. Set goals to make contacts using online and in-person networking as well as answering job board posts. If you are only looking on job boards, you will get frustrated. Goals are fun.
4. Give yourself rewards. For every contact you make, keep track of them and when you hit a certain number, reward yourself. You can buy a special coffee, do something fun with your friends, or do something you love to do.

With dog training, I have to learn the right way to speak to Buddy. I have to remember to reward him when he does it right. And I have to find fun ways of training both for him and for me. Job Search can be fun too by following the same recipe for 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!

But never before in the history have we had the access to technology and career professionals. Never before in history have we been able to network around the globe in seconds. I totally know how challenging the market place is for the job seeker but I also believe that it is exciting times.

Free Career Marketing Resources

If you use just the free resources out there, you have access to the collaborative brains of thousands of career professionals and recruiters that before were hidden from your sight. A savvy web researcher can get up to speed on the right way to job search, the right way to write a resume, the right way to do career marketing, and the right way to network in a very short time.

Why some people stay unemployed longer than others? that’s a question many people ask. I believe the answer falls in the willingness to invest either their own time in correctly doing the research with the right professionals to figure out how to land the new job, write the resume, and navigate the multiple methods of job search. It certainly doesn’t require a career professional to get a new job but it does require the job seeker to do as much work learning the process as a career pro does.

When you invest in Career Marketing Resources

When you can select from a bevy of experts who can guide you through every step of a job search and hire the right expert, you make your job search much easier.

• As hard as it is to think about an investment into services, think about the college student who either invested thousands of his own money or his parents’ money into his education. The investment into an expert career professional to make sure that he gets a job pales in comparison.
• The hard working middle manager is eager to get back to work but he wastes months looking for a job the wrong way. An investment into the services of a career professional would have him earning an income in a very short time.

Think about the cost of not working

When someone is struggling to pay the rent or mortgage and buy gas, it is hard to think about another cost. Let’s look at a few scenarios for people who need just the resume and cover letter professionally written:

• An hourly rate of $10.00 equates to a weekly pay of $400, monthly pay of $1,733, and an annual salary of $20,800. For someone who is an entry level client, a resume created by a professional resume writer requires an investment of about $295. (Less than a week of pay.)
• An hourly rate of $19.37 equates to a weekly pay of $775, monthly pay of $3,357, and an annual salary of $40,290. This is a typical rate for a Production Supervisor and a resume at this level created by a professional resume writer might require an investment of $399.00
• An hourly rate of $26.56 equates to a weekly pay of $1,062, monthly pay of $4,604, and an annual salary of $55,245. A Registered Nurse may be in this range and a resume at this level is likely also to invest about $399.
• An hourly rate of $41.00 equates to a weekly pay of $1,640, monthly pay of $7,107, and an annual salary of $85,280. A Project Manager in Information Technology may earn this salary with 10 years of experience in Wisconsin and would invest about $550.

You get the idea.The above salary information was created using two tools:

• A simple salary calculator
• Salary reports generated by Payscale.com

Career professionals can do much more than write your resume. Skilled career pros also write LinkedIn profiles and teach you how to use this tool. They teach you how to use social media for job search. They provide individualized interview coaching and a bevy of other career coaching alternatives.

Your career will evolve during your lifetime and you may have multiple jobs but understanding the value of career marketing and how to open the doors to your career potential will only remove the frustration of job search and help you find your next position.

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

When I work with clients to design their career marketing strategy, we explore not only their accomplishments and strengths but what can be holding them back. Though I deliver career marketing documents like resumes, cover letters, and LinkedIn profiles and teach job search strategies, none of those are effective if my client is stuck on something else.

What barriers are in the way of your job search?

As we talk about the job search and start the resume writing process, I conduct in-depth interviews to determine what we need to showcase on the resume and what direction the job search needs to go. I often find that there is one barrier or another that is bigger than the problem of finding a new job.

The job loss job search

Particularly when someone loses a job, there is a road block. If they lose a job they had for 10 to 30 years the roadblock is even bigger. If they lose one more job after a series of other lost jobs perhaps caused by mergers, acquisitions, or job shutdowns, the impact can be just as confusing and troubling. Though the reasons for losing a job are many and some are tied to the person, even the person who has performed admirably and been an asset to the company with great people skills can be downsized.

It always hurts. And even if you see it coming, it strikes a blow at your confidence. In this economy, job loss is particularly devastating. My clients who have lost jobs are smart people who already know they need help to create compelling career marketing materials and they need someone who can lead them through the maze of using LinkedIn and other new job search strategies to reach their goal. They hire me and understand that my fees are an investment into their future.

But there is a roadblock to get a new position for many of them. The fears of how to find a job or the fears that they are past their prime or their fears of how to convince employers of their value overwhelm them. My job before I can write a new resume is to gain their trust and more importantly, help them gain their trust in themselves and their own abilities.

I can teach job search strategy and I can write targeted, focused professional resumes that capture their value but we need to get over the roadblocks first.

Clients who trust me to listen and share their fears are one step further to their new position, even before they are hired.

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

I’ve mentioned my intern, Emily, in several posts:

1. An “A” on your resume does NOT mean you have an “A” quality resume! which was a post actually suggested by Emily as a real need for those people confused by what their campus teaches and why professional resume writers advise a totally different strategy, layout, wording, and process.
2. In Is the career fair worthwhile? I talk about Emily’s successes in a career fair and why I think it worked for her.

Should you change your appearance to move into the job you want?

Yesterday, I had my first solid session with Pattie, my new intern, who is also from Rasmussen College’s Intern program. Pattie and I were talking about college degrees and why they matter.

She startled me with the revelation that as she sees some of the students whose academics are stellar, (think 4.0), she has observed that those same students may not want to change the way they dress, look, or even grasp that they do have to change their appearance to move into the jobs in the career they studied in school.

She said that she sees many who are ready to graduate, have done great in school but are firm in their belief that what they look like doesn’t matter or that they see no reason to change their appearance to get a job.

Her comment was, “So they will graduate with a degree, be great students, but the degree will do them no good at all because they couldn’t get past a stumbling block.”

Are you clinging to status quo?

Perhaps the desire to work in the new field isn’t as great as keeping things status quo (the way they always were for you, not the new employer.) For a college degree to be helpful, it has to be relevant to the industry you are targeting, be desirable by employers, and you have to succeed as a student in the subject matter.

What Pattie was saying is that for some students, all of those are in place and yet it is the thinking of the students that creates the barrier. Whether 25 or 55, she said that some students can’t seem to realize that there is a standard to strive for in dress, hair, and appearance in general.

Think about this. This also applies to the person who didn’t have to worry about haircut, beard, dress, or perhaps even cleanliness in their last job. To succeed in landing your next position, you have to be ready to change your appearance and that may mean you need to change your thinking first.

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