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How to market yourself incorrectly as a job seeker

Julie Walraven — Mon, 21 May 2012 11:56:52 +0000

When you are desperate and needing a job or a new client, it is easy to sound desperate and you might not even know you are doing it. Instead of attracting people who can help you, you are more likely to be repelling those same people.

How job seekers market themselves wrongly

1.) → Your LinkedIn heading says ACTIVELY SEEKING CAREER OPPORTUNITIES and perhaps even lists a year.

Why Not? – your LinkedIn heading is part of what is searched when either an employer or a recruiter is seeking someone. If you don’t brand it with specific skills and key words, it has no value.
The fix? Capitalize on using LinkedIn by learning successful marketing strategies.

2.) → You post whiny things on Facebook or Twitter (or worse, you rant about politics, religion or something else)

Why Not? – Employers are reading what you say. If you want to make sure that you get cut from the fold early, make sure you are ranting against corporate injustice when you are seeking a job as an Executive Assistant, middle manager, or even entry level employee. Who makes hiring decisions for those targets? Corporate people. It never fails to astonish me how the same person whining about no jobs can position themselves so badly.
The fix? Make sure your online presence is positive.

3.) → You think if you say it over and over people will hear you. Like reposting the same thing all the time with the caption, “you can’t miss this!”

Why Not? – If people see a steady stream of anything, they will ignore you. If you are trying to network, you can’t do it by blasting anything.
The fix? Create a conversational presence about interesting topics.

If you plan to use any social media marketing for job search, make sure you project the right image, offer a positive presence, and don’t sound like a repetitive stream of the same message.

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!

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You have never lived in a better time to be unemployed

Julie Walraven — Sun, 06 May 2012 12:34:41 +0000

Does that headline sound like ridiculous advice? “You have never lived in a better time to be unemployed.”But think about it. We have had recessions before. We have had economic uncertainty before. We have had tough times before.

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.

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What do I do if I hate my NEW job?

Julie Walraven — Sat, 05 May 2012 15:24:19 +0000

Yikes! You just went through an extensive time of hunting for the right job and it isn’t. You want to bail, right now, you don’t want to stay and stick it out.

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:

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Employers, are you missing the potential of LinkedIn?

Julie Walraven — Thu, 03 May 2012 14:19:05 +0000

One of the common questions from clients when we start talking about LinkedIn is, “My employer doesn’t like us on LinkedIn” or “what if my employer finds out?”

How big is LinkedIn?

Those are two different questions but both point to the same symptom.Take note of this information from the about section 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.

LinkedIn started out in the living room of co-founder Reid Hoffman in 2002.
The site officially launched on May 5, 2003. At the end of the first month in operation, LinkedIn had a total of 4,500 members in the network.
As of December 31, 2011 (the end of the fourth quarter), professionals are signing up to join LinkedIn at a rate that is faster than two new members per second.
The company is publicly held and has a diversified business model with revenues coming from hiring solutions, marketing solutions and premium subscriptions.

My philosophy is this — with that many members on LinkedIn, despite the global recession, they are not ALL looking for a new job. If an employer thinks joining LinkedIn threatens their ability to retain employees, they are vastly mistaken and missing a marvelous opportunity to grow their business.

Open potential new revenue lines using LinkedIn

My own profile on LinkedIn has enabled me to reach people who later hired me for their career marketing but career marketing is the tip of the iceberg on the potential of connections out there. If your company needs to network with a company to expand its market, what a myriad of possibilities LinkedIn opens up. You can check out if they have a company profile which makes it ultra easy to see a much broader spectrum of employees than you would on corporate websites. You can search for the company name using LinkedIn’s main search engine and come up with a bevy of references to people who either work there now or once did.

Employer LinkedIn bans detrimental?

I believe in using technology to your advantage. An employer who either bans you from LinkedIn or punishes you for having a profile has trust issues. Though jobs are still scarce, the market is turning and soon employers may regret not creating a welcoming atmosphere for employees that allows those employees to fully utilize emerging market tools. LinkedIn, in the realm of social media is not new. It is a tool for businesses everywhere to use in whatever creative way they can imagine.

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