Laura’s Winning Ideas

My brother is wondering whether he’ll have to launch a job search after 20 years with his employer. Over the last week, I’ve sent my missives written for my brother, to several more folks, as well as posting them here.

As a consultant, I look for work constantly. Here’s my advice for job hunters.

Next, you’ll need to set up your on-line search engine to look for opportunities and get yourself exposed to hiring managers and headhunters on-line.

Here are the websites I have on my computer. Visit them all, bookmark them and create an account for those which require it. Just look around a bit for now. You’ll come back to add your resume in the next step. Don’t buy any services from these sites. You may want to do that later, but use the free version first, and decide which ones specialize in good fits for you.

http://www.salary.com/
This site allows you to check on the salary range for many positions. You define the responsibilities, industry and location for the job and then see a good deal of information about salaries for that position. Run your current position and see what it pays in Detroit, as well as other parts of the country. Play around a bit and see how changing the job title and a few details changes the salary. This is important to have a sense of where the market is for your openings.

http://www.indeed.com/

http://www.simplyhired.com/
Search engines to search all job boards. I found this helpful, though not entirely complete all the time. Sometimes jobs don’t appear here, and sometimes the sort of jobs isn’t perfect. However, it sure saves time to see everything in one place instead of visiting multiple sites. You can set this up to search for a variety of parameters. Set it up VERY BROADLY for the time being. You’ll get too many results, but in the next few weeks you’ll work your way through the list and improve your ability to skim over the posts that don’t fit.

http://www.careerbuilder.com/

http://www.6figurejobs.com/

http://marketing.theladders.com/
Job posting websites for managers. The biggest websites (Monster, DetroitJobs, etc.) cause more headaches for employers than solutions. Because they get an avalanche of resumes to management posts, many no longer post these positions to the largest boards. These few, and there are probably more, try to solve the problem by focusing on the more highly compensated jobs rather than the entire marketplace. Some employers don’t use the job boards, but their own corporate website gets scoured by both the job boards and the previous job search sites.

http://www.us.manpower.com/uscom/index.jsp

http://www.kellyservices.com/web/global/services/en/pages/

Temporary work sites. Sometimes this is helpful because you can work for a firm on temporary assignment which sometimes turns into a full time offer, or gives you an insider look so you can decide whether to start targeting the firm for your job search. Since you are located in Detroit where you are among many looking, this is probably not the best use of your time. These might be helpful if you decide to move before you have a job. Yes, folks do that!

http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/savings/moving-cost-of-living-calculator.aspx

Cost of Living comparison. Bookmark this page because it is very hard to find. It is the best among many cost of living comparison charts, and gives you detail that will be especially helpful. For instance, the cost of living in Austin TX is lower than Milwaukee. However, on this page, you can see that this is true only for homeowners. House prices are lower, but living expenses otherwise are equal or a bit higher, and rent is higher. Good stuff to know before you negotiate a job offer.

My brother is wondering whether he’ll have to launch a job search after 20 years with his employer. Then yesterday, I met another fellow looking for work who is looking for tips.

As a consultant, I look for work constantly. Here’s my advice for the first few hours after you realize you might leave your current employment.

EMAIL – 0-5 minutes

You need an email address that is NOT your employer’s email address. Hard to believe, but folks actually start job searches using an email address that will be discontinued when they leave!

Free email is available at Google Mail (gmail), and is generally considered a professional address. Later, you’ll be able to forward your mail automatically to another address, so this can be a good choice long term. Do not use a cute family email address like BambisBabies@aol.com . Keep your address professional and exclusive to yourself. No employer wants to think that their correspondence is being looked at by stray family members.

FAX – 0 minutes

You won’t need fax capabilities. I hardly ever use my fax. Everyone emails PDFs, and if you must fax back, you can always make a trip to Kinkos to fax an acceptance letter.

My brother is wondering whether he’ll have to launch a job search after 20 years with his employer. Then yesterday, I met another fellow looking for work who is looking for tips.

As a consultant, I look for work constantly. Here’s my advice for the first few hours after you realize you might leave your current employment.

BUSINESS CARDS - 10-20 minutes and $15.00

Get business cards printed right away so you can start handing them out both to folks you know at work, and to others you meet along the way. Start handing them out at work ASAP. When you leave, you won’t have the same access to folks, and will regret not getting your contact information out before you lose touch.

Move fast on getting the business cards handed out. i.e. take them with you always, and give one to EVERYONE you see. You can’t predict the next layoff, and you want your card in the hands of folks who may leave before you. They’ll get the idea and soon there will be many of you exchanging cards. If an executive questions you, explain you don’t want to miss the chance to be on everyone’s Christmas Card list.

Don’t stuggle to come up with some pithy marketing phrase, nor claim to be a consultant. That’s silly, and everyone sees through it. Just keep it basic so you can hand it out liberally without wondering whether you want to expose your job search to each individual.

Have the cards printed with your name and contact information (Mailing address (for fedex), phone, email) and LinkedIn URL (see below). Cheesy “pitches” on a business card look desperate.  Don’t use a job title. Every firm has their own vernacular, and you don’t want to be typecast because you put a title on your card.

Leave the back of the card blank so folks can make notes on it about their meeting with you.

Don’t buy microperf paper and print your own business cards. They are expensive (you’ll be needing many cards) and everyone recognizes them as home-made. You need to look professional in your search.

VistaPrint.com is the printer I use. For $10 (to remove the VistaPrint imprint on the back of the business cards) you can get professional business cards that look great. If layoffs are already announced, walk to a local printer and get cards printed immediately. If you don’t have time to get your LinkedIn profile up, order 250 cards immediately and re-print when you have your LinkedIn profile available.

My brother is wondering whether he’ll have to launch a job search after 20 years with his employer. Then yesterday, I met another fellow looking for work who is looking for tips.

As a consultant, I look for work constantly. Here’s my advice for the first few hours after you realize you might leave your current employment.

RESUME MASTER FILE - 2 hours plus many hours over time

Here are several of my own resumes, using a template I especially like as a hiring manager, and my own master resume. Download these files and look at the differences:

1. Master Resume
2. Sample Resume
3. Electronic Resume
4. Another Sample Resume

You’ll see there are differences in each resume, tailored for the specific opportunity for which I was proposing. I would recommend that you begin by creating a “master resume” from which you can pull paragraphs for each job you seek. This way, you have one place where you put all the things you remember along the way, so they are available the next time you write a resume.

I’m a consultant, so I have to send a new resume with each new proposal for work. If you find work quickly, your master resume will be tucked away and waiting for your next job search. If this job search takes longer than you would like, having a master resume file will save you lots of time as you respond to opportunities.

As you go along, you’ll remember tidbits that help qualify you for a specific opportunity and which should be added FIRST to your master resume, and second to the resume which triggered the memory. Your master resume grows over time. The guideline I use is that you should have almost one page for every year of your career in your master resume.

A few months ago, I lost an opportunity because I was on deadline for a client and couldn’t respond with a proposal within 24 hours. Another person answered with a full proposal and got the contract.  If I’d been more hungry, I could have sent a resume right away, with the promise of sending a proposal the following week. The market is swift, and you need to make preparations that allow you to send a tailored resume out within a very short period of time.

No one prints a stack of resumes anymore.