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Guest Blogger John Sumser, a member of the Glassdoor Clearview Collection, is the founder and editor-in-chief of HRExaminer, a weekly online magazine about the people and technology of HR. Widely respected as an independent analyst, Sumser has been chronicling and critiquing the HRTechnology industry for eighteen years. During that time, he has consulted with more than 100 HR vendors on matters of strategy and positioning in the market. Prior to his involvement in the HR Technology industry, Sumser was a senior executive in Defense Technology. From large scale software development to naval architecture, he was the leader of tech development teams in a broad variety of settings. His passion is the intersection of people and technology.
Other ways to follow John: http://www.hrexaminer.com/ | @johnsumser
Developing a blog can be a pathway to amazing opportunities. By showing that you can develop an audience, communicate clearly, understand your niche and know how to network, you give potential employers the opportunity to see you in action. Personal blogs that focus on your industry are becoming essential tools for some job hunters.
Here are seven guidelines for building out a blog that will get you noticed and accelerate your career.
First, don’t make assumptions.
These days, most career development professionals will make a point of telling you to get with it in social media. The idea is that your various profiles are a gateway to a new job. Heartfelt advice about whether or not to include pictures of your last drinking binge or photos of your unmade bed is the new career coaching.
Please, get your social media profiles in order. It’s really your call. Be who you are or be willing to be someone else at work. Whichever decision you make, get your profiles together.
But don’t ever get the idea that using social media effectively will get you a job.
Getting where you want to go is much easier when you know where you want to go.
Here are some questions to ask yourself to clarify your next steps in your career. Knowing what you want isn’t usually an immediate thing. Rather, it takes reflection and a gentle set of movements in the right direction. These questions are designed to get your mind moving in the right direction.
You’ve been reading all of the stuff online. Apparently, we’re supposed to feel badly if our job doesn’t immediately match our expectations. The key to happy work, we are told repeatedly, is to have workers who are passionate. A job is not worth having if your passion does not precede your position.
It is not useful to share these notions with the landlord or other creditors.
For most of us, the idea of having a job that finely integrates our skills, talents, curiosities and self-concept is just that, an idea. We go to work and try to move things in the direction of our dreams. It’s our job to make the work meaningful.
It can be slow going.
Whether you are a seasoned real estate professional displaced by the downturn, an old school media employee faced with the reality of the web, a union worker in Detroit or a soon to be recent college graduate, the problem is the same.
How do you bring passion and enthusiasm to the job you have when it is not the job you want? How do you make your job meaningful and what do you do if you can’t.
Here are some starting points:
Things have really changed. Knowing exactly what you want is more important than ever. In the last generation, you could “parachute” into your new job. Today, it’s a guerilla war… clear, focused, targeted and opportunistic.
While you weren’t looking, job hunting became a direct marketing exercise.
“Who you know” matters less than “who knows you.” The transition between one job and the next is a matter of how quickly you can acquire and harness attention. You are now required to know what you want and where to get it. You are in charge of manufacturing your own luck.
Employers are buried in a sea of resumes they don’t want or like. If they acquire yours from a job board, they may consider you an “active job hunter.”
That’s a bad thing.
In his mid fifties, Sam took a job that was a little over his head working for a boss who was a real hard case. The situation got really uncomfortable for everyone involved. Both Sam and his boss lost their tempers a couple of times. Ultimately, Sam was offered the opportunity to leave before being fired.
All of the folks involved were very careful to never describe the job change as ‘being fired’ because that made it possible for Sam to collect unemployment insurance.
When the unemployment insurance ran out (sometime later we’ll talk about whether or not unemployment insurance is a helpful thing), Sam had to start to look for a job. His job search efforts were half hearted while there was a regular check coming in. A badly bruised ego and a tough economy put him in the difficult position of having to explain the firing and the employment gap.
When he finally got a hold of me, his panic was palpable.
I listened as he told me about how he’d screwed himself and created an impossible situation. He was certain that there was no way out. It wasn’t entirely my fault, he confided.
I gave him a few pieces of advice that you might consider if you have some ‘resume challenges’:
News Flash. Employers don’t want to hire people who are unemployed. Google it.
If you’ve been without a job for a while, you develop a kind of stink. You can see it when your friends back away from you at cocktail parties. You can see it as the ratio of interviews scheduled to resumes sent out continues to decline.
If you’re unemployed, you’re likely to be treated like a pariah. Basically, the mind set associated with being an employee is extremely unnatural. It requires you to smile happily while you choke down some ridiculous crap.
“Many are called but few are chosen.”
The business of matching people with jobs is horribly flawed, loaded with waste and abuse and impossible to navigate. While you may have heard about headhunters actively recruiting people from their current assignments, it’s a relatively rare thing. Fewer than seven percent of the workforce is ever contacted by a recruiter.
The odds are one in 12 that a recruiter will contact you, on average. In reality, the odds are way worse than that for most people. Recruiters work in markets where there are shortages and/or high demand. Most people work in occupations where there is relatively low demand. If you remove the seven percent who actually get calls from headhunters, the likelihood becomes infinitesimally small.
But wait, it’s worse than that…
I don’t know how prevalent age discrimination is. I do know that many of my middle aged and older friends seem to be having problems finding the next gig. They tell me that today’s hiring managers don’t give experience adequate respect.
I’m not so sure.
Today’s company is streamlined, data driven, performance oriented, increasingly transparent and accountability centered. Hiring organizations want and need people who embrace new technology, enjoy learning by making mistakes and are willing to give new ideas a try. A person who has all the answers, avoids taking risks, has more wisdom than sense or wants a direct conversion of experience into seniority or status is dead weight.
When they interview older people, hiring managers are looking for clues that the candidate can perform at the same level (or better) than younger people. It’s not so much that they are discriminating. They are wary because the stereotypes come from real experiences.
So, it’s up to you to prove that your age is an asset.
Here are some phrases that are likely to derail your job hunt…
It feels like you’re doing something wrong when work is hard to come by. Finding a job is supposed to be as easy as writing your resume, searching online for opportunities, sending in your resume, getting an interview, and then going to work. But if that doesn’t pan out, you’re supposed to be able to mine your network for opportunities. However there are often misperceptions and misunderstandings when it comes to professional networking and referrals. Below are three common myths I’ve come across:
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How To Take A Stand Against Workplace Bullying by Bonnie Low-Kramen May 13th, 2013
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How Self-Promotion Can Get You The Job by onTargetjobs May 6th, 2013