Regular conversation doesn’t happen in thirty-second chunks. A typical networking conversation tends to flow more like this:

YOU: Hi, I’m Jane - and you?

HIM: I’m Carl. Nice to meet you, Jane. What brought you here tonight?

YOU: Oh, my friend Maggie is one of the organizers. I’ve never been to a meetup before. How about you?

CARL: I come to this group occasionally, and always have fun when I do. So, are you a marketing person?

YOU: I’m an event planner, so I’m in the same vein. I didn’t see any event planning meetups so I tagged along with Jane at this marketing one.

CARL: So, what sorts of events do you work on? Do you work for yourself?

Nobody in this little drama gets more than ten or fifteen seconds of airtime before the microphone (virtually) shifts back to the other person. This is how the standard back-and-forth between two new acquaintances tends to unfold. So, where’s the moment for the interminable Elevator Speech? There isn’t one. Imagine if Carl and Jane had met one another this way:

YOU: Hi, I’m Jane – and you?

HIM: I’m Carl. It’s nice to meet you, Jane. What brought you here tonight?

YOU: Oh, my friend Maggie is one of the organizers. I’ve never been to a meetup before. How about you?

CARL: I come to this group occasionally, and always have fun when I do. So, are you a marketing person?

YOU: I’m an Events Planner. I work for High Point Events, a national event-planning firm, and I’m the local person here in Springfield. I plan and execute events from bar mitzvahs to corporate sales offsites, everything from choosing the venue to arranging the content, audio visuals and budget to create an unforgettable emotional experience for the participants. I work with most of the big hotels in town and many of our largest employers, from XYZ Labs to Charisma Confections and many others. I’ve been in the business for eight years, and I love what I do.

CARL: Wow….that’s outstanding. Gosh, you know what, I just spotted my old boss coming in – I’ve got to go say hello. Nice to meet you Angela — er, Paula? Sorry — have a great evening!

What went wrong? Jane’s carefully rehearsed Elevator Speech let fly into Carl’s face like a blast of bug spray. Most of us would rather be poked in the eye with a sharp stick than subjected to a new acquaintance’s audio business spiel. That’s why Elevator Speeches are so annoying for the recipients — they’re one-way aural assaults. Real conversations don’t include blocks of commercials that sound the way Jane’s Elevator Speech does. We can do better.

We can stay in a natural networking conversation and convey a bit of our business or career information by way of a less intrusive self-intro, called a Bumper Sticker. A bumper sticker is short — like the bumper stickers we put on our cars. It’s brief and pithy. It says just a little (not a three-fold brochure’s worth) about what we do on the job. It leaves the listener, if he or she is interested in our what-I-do-all-day story, in a position to ask us for more details. If the listener isn’t interested, that’s okay too! The Bumper Sticker doesn’t force information into the hapless newcomer’s ear canals. It says “If you want to know more about my job, just ask me.”

Here are some Bumper Sticker examples to illustrate the concept. Each one is an answer to the question “So, what do you do?”

• I’m an events planner - I specialize in big out-of-town events, like sales meetings.
• I help manufacturers get their process costs way down by simplifying how they build things.
• I run marketing, site content and PR for a very cool jobs-research site called Glassdoor.com.
• I’m the CFO for an organic chocolate maker here in Springfield.

A Bumper Sticker intro has five advantages over an Elevator Speech, namely:

• It lets the listener, rather than the speaker, decide how much information is enough and how much is too much.
• It keeps the focus on the two people in the conversation (or three, or more) rather than on anyone’s job description (which may well be the least interesting thing about you, in any case).
• It doesn’t hijack the conversation and turn it into a sales pitch, or run the risk of appearing to do so.
• It gives the new acquaintance just enough information to remember “Oh yes, Jane, the event planner.” It doesn’t overwhelm the listener with detail or sales-y overkill.
• It is polite!

Try a Bumper Sticker in place of an Elevator Speech at your next networking outing. If you’re on the fence, try holding your breath for thirty seconds and see how it feels. Thirty seconds, as it turns out, is an eternity. Remember that the point of networking is to create relationships, not to thwart them before they’ve begun, and you may swear off Elevator Speeches for good.

Elevator Speech Out! Bumper Sticker In: Advice For Career Networking is a post from: Glassdoor Blog

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2. How To Work A Reunion: Career Networking & Job Search Advice
3. Why Your Networking Isn’t Working

I’ve been at my job five years, and there are aspects of the job that I love and others I hate. It’s a job I could do in my sleep, and there aren’t really any opportunities for advancement. At the same time, I’m well paid and the benefits are fantastic. The leadership team is great and my manager has been very good to me. On the other hand, salary increases have been tiny for the past two years. It’s a family-owned company and the business is about as recession-proof as you can get, so I’m grateful for that. For the first few years in the job, I was learning a lot, but I’m pretty well versed now and the learning has tapered off dramatically. I basically drift through each day, dialing it in and doing what the job requires and no more, since the opportunity to get a significant pay increase is basically nil. Part of me wants to look for another job, but another part of me says “You’re about to vest in your 401(k) matching contribution, and why leave a stable environment for an unknown one?” What is your advice?

Thanks,

Fred

________________________
Dear Fred,

Management consultants tell their CEO clients, “Innovate, or die.” When my great-granddad pulled barges down the Chicago Canal, it was possible (and almost guaranteed, for many people) to do a job that required little to no intellectual heavy lifting and involved no complex problem-solving. Today, in the Knowledge Economy, people who don’t stretch themselves to climb bigger and bigger hills and who don’t learn on the job fall behind. They lose muscle tone, you might say – they’re just not as sharp, inquisitive or creative in their thinking as people whose jobs require them to untangle thorny issues every day.

There’s another issue worth pondering, too, one that you may not have thought about. Many people would say that it is unethical to accept a hefty salary and do as little for the company as you say you are doing. Can you feel good about yourself when you drift through each day, going through the motions, in a company that you say has treated you extremely well? I am certain that you hold yourself to a higher standard than that in your outside-of-work relationships, Fred. Apart from the mental and professional stagnation that you’re experiencing, don’t you want a job where you get up every morning full of enthusiasm, dying to get to work and dig into the interesting issues the company is facing? When you find that next assignment, it will be better for you, better for your employers (the old and new), and better for the currently-unemployed person who will get your current job when you move on to greener pastures. You are way too young, Fred (whatever your age) to go to sleep in your career. Two years in a rut is two too many. Get your job-search engine up and running again, Fred, get into your next challenging assignment and pave the way for a sharp, deserving someone to take over the role that isn’t making your heart beat faster anymore.

Best,

Liz

Is It Ethical To Stay In A Well Paid Job And Just Coast Through? is a post from: Glassdoor Blog

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That’s what we’ve all been told (and told, and told again).

I’m not so sure. Job seekers tend to forget what they bring to the party, and over-fifty job-hunters in particular tend to focus on what they don’t have (youth, ace Facebooking skills) rather than what they do. There are reams of horrible advice out there, advising over-fifty job-hunters to change their hair, get an iPad, learn to text, and otherwise spend their energy on pointless ‘just-for-show’ activities rather than zeroing in on what employers need. I see fifty-plus job seekers getting job offers every day, and here’s what I see them doing to get there:

• They forget about their age. Your age is your age. You can’t change it – so why stress about it? I don’t know about you, but I’d rather go to New York for the weekend than spend my money shooting Botox into my face. Successful fifty-plus job seekers (and entrepreneurs, and others) don’t focus on their age, and fret about it. They focus on the buyer’s/client’s/employer’s need, and how to solve it.
• They make the job hunt about the prize, not the obstacles. People who get great jobs don’t lob resumes into the void and fill out job applications online. They go after employers with the sorts of problems they reckon they can fix – because they’ve solved those very same problems before. When you’re talking with a hiring manager (via email, LinkedIn, snail mail or on the telephone) about his biggest problem, and you’re able to talk about how you slew that very same dragon before, do you think the hiring manager is going to worry that you’re fifty- or sixty-something? No way. He’s going to be delighted that someone showed up to save the day.
• They zero in on the employers they’re targeting. In order to get a hiring manager’s attention, we have to be able to talk about her business pain. Maybe supplier quality is a huge problem. Maybe the firm’s sales efforts are making gains against the competition. How can we get this “pain” information? It takes careful research – let’s say, an hour per employer – reading the company’s own website, checking out Google Web and Google News, and following message boards and blog posts to see what’s up inside your employer of choice. Every organization has challenges, and so does every hiring manager. Our task is to find out what’s keeping our hiring manager up at night. Once we get that answer, our age becomes a massive non-issue.
• They use the direct approach. The black hole is for people who want to job-hunt more than they want to start working. Don’t trust that wretched black hole with your future. You’ve got to approach hiring managers directly, and when you do, you’ve got to talk about their issues, not your own magnificent career. No one will care about you until you make them care, by talking about something that’s relevant to them – namely, the dragon they’re staring down and your own experience with similar dragons.

Smart job seekers of any age are also consultants. They dig in, before the interview and during it, to find out where a hiring manager’s pain is and whether that pain is the same type the job seeker has spent years alleviating. When they do that, the employer can’t afford to care if the job seeker is young, old, or Martian – they’re going to be interested in you. Revamp your resume for every opportunity, taking off the irrelevant stuff and beefing up what employers most want to hear about – namely, the problems you’ve solved that are most like the ones the employer is facing now. Your expert wisdom is needed. Your job is to locate those employers who could most use your help, and to reach out to tell them why. Go get ‘em!

Hope For The Over-Fifty Job Seeker? is a post from: Glassdoor Blog

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“Exactly!” she said. “I lay low. I follow orders and keep a smile on my face. That’s my deal.”

“So what’s going on?” I asked her.

“Listen to this,” Angie said. “I’ve been at my job for six years, working hard, trying to please the boss. Today my manager says to me, ‘Angela, you’ve been selected for a very desirable training program.’ He had to pick one person for this very sought-after training course, and he picked me.”

“So that’s good, right?” I wondered.

“It’s not that great,” she replied. “If I begin this training program, I’m giving up my Monday and Wednesday nights for six months. The company pays for the course, but not for my time. I could deal with that, but the other part of the deal is that I’m being trained for a specific, very specialized job. Once the course is finished, I’d start this job, and pretty much be locked into it for the long term.”

“And this job – it’s not your cup of tea…?” I prompted her.

“It’s a totally boring, pigeon-hole job that would bore me to tears in three minutes,” Angela said. “Plus, if I micro-specialize like that, I’m limiting my career possibilities like crazy.”

“So you told the boss to give the training course to someone else?” I asked.

“That’s right, and he was shocked,” she said. “He was actually speechless. Finally he said, ‘I can’t believe it. I hand-picked you for this role.’”

“How do you feel?” I wanted to know.

“I feel great,” she said. “I’m sorry for my boss, but he’ll find someone who’s dying to do the highly specialized work that the new job requires, and I’ll do the sort of work I should be doing.”

“But you asked me if I think you’re a risk-taker, a few minutes ago,” I said. “What does risk tolerance have to do with it?”

“Well, I’ve never been a risk-taker, as you said,” she answered. “I would never have questioned my career path, if it hadn’t been for this incident. My mantra has always been ‘If the company thinks I’m right for the job, I guess I am.’ But when my boss laid this training program on me, it hit me that I’d better take control of my own career path. My boss knows what’s good for him, but not what’s good for me. I’m in charge of my future. I can’t leave my career path up to my boss, or anyone else.”

“You’re driving the bus,” I added.

“You got it,” Angela said. “Now that I’ve had a thunk on the side of the head, I’m going to make some goals and start ticking ‘em off. My boss did me a huge favor today, even if it did require a minute or two of unpleasantness.”

“He’ll be fine,” I said.

“We all will,” said Angie.

Whose Career Plan Are You On? is a post from: Glassdoor Blog

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Note: We’ll be posting a transcript for those who weren’t able to join, but we wanted to offer you some of the resume examples Liz described on the call.

Resume Issue #1: Summary Vagueness

Problem: Your resume summary is too broad.

Solution: You have to customize it for each specific opportunity. Add a human voice to your resume and get rid of “corporate speak.”

Here’s a before-and-after example:

Before: Resume Summary

Results-oriented professional with a bottom-line focus and a proven track record of success in multiple industries including law, aerospace, marketing and human resources. Capable and proactive team player with a dedication to successful project management and effective team building skills. Able to work with all levels of staff and to solve complex problems effectively. I would like to make a contribution in a challenging position that will make use of my technical and people skills and allow me to learn new things on the job.

When we start our resume summary with “results-oriented professional,” it’s a strange kind of governmental/bureaucratic language that has no ‘person’ in it. We know that the phrase “Sally is a sweet girl” refers to Sally in the third person. “I’m left-handed” is written in the first person. What person is used by resume-writers? None at all. ”Results-oriented professional” is neither first-person nor third person. It’s a ghostly kind of no-subject language. Let’s get rid of corporate speak, and speak to the reader in the first-person in our resume summary.

After: Resume Summary

I started out in HR before discovering a love for marketing, and I’ve found the human aspect in every marketing project I’ve undertaken since. At a blue-chip law firm and a Fortune 100 aerospace manufacturer running $500M contracts, I’ve built nimble communications and PR engines that got our messages to the right people in powerful ways. In the law firm, we architected and launched a strategy to enter the burgeoning green-building industry and gained $10M in new billings in nine months. In the aerospace arena, I built a new-client-outreach campaign that put us in the top three vendors for a major space program contract. I’m looking for a new marketing challenge with a vendor in a highly competitive marketplace.

From the revised summary – we get a strong sense of the person behind the resume. There are zillions of job seekers in the market, but this person knows who she is. The first-person voice in her resume speaks directly to the reader, and it’s confident. On top of that, this person knows what she wants to do and what she’s good at. She is speaking very specifically about her talents without detailing her skills out of context in the usual boring, laundry-list approach.

Resume Issue #2: Blah vs. Powerful Bullets

Problem: There’s no ‘wow’ factor describing your accomplishments.

Solution: Show your skills, don’t just tell them.

Here’s a before-and-after example:

Before: Job Experiences Bullets

Acme Dynamite
Pasadena, California
Quality Control Manager
2002-2004

• Managed the Quality Control department of five employees.
• Created Quality Control processes and procedures.
• Led Quality Control task force to improve our dynamite’s effectiveness against roadrunners.

This section doesn’t help the job seeker. It’s more likely to put a reader to sleep than to help anyone get a job. It tells us what’s in the job description. We could have guessed at these duties, since they’re the typical tasks a person with the Quality Control Manager title performs. We can do better! We can bring more of our power and personality across in our resume. Let’s try it again:

After: Job Experience Bullets

Acme Dynamite
Pasadena, California
Quality Control Manager
2002-2004

• I was recruited to join Acme, the world’s largest supplier of dynamite to the coyote market, by a colleague of mine who knew Acme’s CEO. I was brought on board to build a QA team from scratch and allow Acme to penetrate the lucrative ‘toon market.
• Took apart the design-and-release process and rebuilt it with a team of hourly-to-senior-exec peers, taking three months out of the concept-to-ship cycle.
• Reduced manufacturing cost by 30 percent and slashed the defect rate by half.

How is this resume stronger than the first version? The second take has five advantages over the first one. For starters, it has a human voice. The job-seeker uses “I” only twice in this section, but he uses it to his advantage. He was recruited by a friend of the CEO of the company–of course he wants to tell that story, because it shapes the way we perceive him. Second, this job seeker tells us a story. He tells us why Acme Dynamite needed him. That’s huge. It’s clear that he understands the business ramifications of a strong quality program. He isn’t a guy who takes a job and just does what he’s told. He spots opportunities and problems and dives into ‘em. Who doesn’t want a guy like that on the team?

Third, this candidate doesn’t bore us with his job description. Every bullet in his resume describes an accomplishment he’s proud of. He uses numbers to showcase his results. He packs a lot of punch into those short bulleted phrases. Fourth, this job seeker doesn’t use abstractions to highlight his skills, such as “I’m a team player.” He tells us what he did with a team and lets readers see that he’s a team player.

Last, this fellow uses vernacular like “took apart” and “slashed.” He is confident. He uses business slang because he’s writing for a fellow business problem-solver, not a bureaucrat. This writing style honors the reader by signaling, “Look, we’re both in this game to make things happen. I’m not going to waste your time with corporate-speak gunk like ‘Seasoned leader of cross-functional teams’ and ‘Meets or exceeds expectations.’ I assume you don’t have time for that. I know for dang sure I don’t.”

Try a human voice and action-packed resume bullets the next time you revise your resume. If you’re looking for a job, try them today!

Thanks so much again to those who joined the Glassdoor.com teleseminar with Liz Ryan last night. It was great to have people on the line from all different locations including: Florida, New York, Illinois, Texas and California and down on into Mexico.

Resume Yawn vs. Resume Gold is a post from: Glassdoor Blog

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1. Try A Human Voice In Your Resume
2. Don’t Let Bad Advice Strangle Your Job Search
3. Resume Must-Haves: Relevance & White Space

This is surely the case in the matter of Imane Boudlal vs. the Walt Disney Company. According to the LA Times , Imane was hired to work at a Walt Disney theme park, where every employee who deals with the public is seen as a cast member. Each cast member is issued a costume (uniform) and required to wear it on the job.  Two years after she began working for Disney, Ms. Boudlal asked for permission to wear a hijab – a headscarf – to work, and when her request was denied, she sued the company for employment discrimination on religious grounds.

As a former HR exec and a workplace commentator, I tend to side with the employee in these matters. In this case, I didn’t have an easy time doing that. Why did Ms. Boudlal wait two years before deciding that her religion compels her to wear a hijab to work? It’s a theme park. Can Disney allow this employee to wear her chosen article of attire, and refuse Rastafarians who want to wear dreadlocks, or Orthodox Jews who want to wear curly forelocks to their jobs at the theme park? I can’t make the argument that an employer’s requirement to accommodate the religious requirements of its employees goes quite that far.

If I started a religion called the Church of Maximum Flamboyance and required my adherents to wear feather-studded Las Vegas showgirl costumes, I wouldn’t expect many employers to welcome my disciples onto their payrolls. (Apart from a few casinos in Las Vegas.) And could I blame them? If the dress code rules are made clear up front, then it seems to me that any employee who isn’t comfortable with the dress code can look for a job at a place that’s more hospitable to his or her needs.

By the same token, if you’re a pharmacist who doesn’t want to prescribe birth control pills, you shouldn’t have to. That means you shouldn’t take a job at a pharmacy where people walk in with prescriptions that need filling. You can practice your craft at a hospital pharmacy or anywhere you won’t be put in contact with birth-control-requesting patrons. If you voluntarily take a job with a place where the job requires you to fill birth-control prescriptions, you have to do it – the pharmacy can’t be expected to call in another pharmacist.

The law requires that employers make a reasonable accommodation to allow employees to uphold their religious obligations. That makes sense. If a theme park that requires customer-facing employees to be in uniform is compelled to allow employees to customize their uniforms in a bunch of specific-to-the-employee ways, that wouldn’t be ideal for the theme park’s image. So, I’ve got to side with Disney on this one. That’s my opinion. If you disagree with me, leave a comment below and tell us why!

Is There Room For Religion In The Workplace? is a post from: Glassdoor Blog

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I’m a call center manager in a small but busy company. I’m completely on my own when it comes to hiring. I have to place the job ad, screen resumes and interview people. I’m pretty much relying on my gut right now. What are some good interview questions I can ask the call center rep candidates to help weed out the people who couldn’t hack our high-volume environment?

Thanks,

Marty

______________________

Dear Marty,

Let’s start with what we know about the call center job. It’s busy, and your reps have to keep a smile in their voices while they talk to person after person during the day. They have to explain sometimes complicated solutions to people who may not be totally focused on the call, or may not be the brightest people in the history of mankind for that matter. They have to learn your new products and keep on top of other product issues. That’s a lot to ask for! We want to construct interview questions that will show you a person’s intellectual flexibility, and his or her emotional intelligence. A sense of humor wouldn’t be a bad thing, either!

Here are some interview questions that may work well for you, Marty:

Can you share with me what you imagine this call center agent job to be like? What do you think are the most important parts of the job, based on whatever you’ve read and heard and your own experience with call centers?

The candidate’s answer to this question will let you know how tuned-in he or she is. People who come to interviews for call center jobs had better have a good idea of what they’re walking into. If the candidate doesn’t get the volume, the pace, the high level of urgency (people who’ve been sitting in a telephone queue want their questions answered NOW, as you know) and the need for kid-glove customer service, he or she is not your guy (or gal).

As you think about working in our call center, what do you think you’d need from me, your manager, in order to be successful?

Here again, we’re checking to see whether the candidate has put him- or herself mentally into the job. If s/he has, the answer will be something like “I’ll need training, of course. I’ll need a way to find out what’s changing in the product mix, pricing, delivery or whatever else can change from day-to-day. I’ll need to understand the technology you use and I’ll need to know how to escalate a customer call to my manager if I can’t handle it. I’ll need to know the rules of the road, when I can take time off for instance, and I’ll need continuing training over time so that I can stay on top of the products. I’d love to also know the career path, and what it will take for me to get to whatever the next step in the organization is.” This imaginary candidate is on the ball. He or she has thought through what life on the job will be like, enough to be able to tell you what he or she will need to thrive. A candidate who’s done this kind of thinking could reasonably be expected to show the same initiative on the phones with your customers. If you ask this question and the candidate says, “I don’t really know — I guess I’ll need a desk and a phone,” e.g., you may want to keep looking.

What do you expect the biggest challenges or frustrations on this job to be?

This is about as close to a go/no-go question as you can get. If the candidate says “I haven’t really thought about it,” you’re taking a big risk extending an offer. If the candidate says, “Well, avoiding boredom could be one challenge, and keeping up with the volume of calls without ripping someone’s head off could be another one” you’ve got someone who has already thought through the most likely, daily scenarios on the job. This person has done more than just dash off a resume and send it to you. He or she has done the mental research to imagine what could be challenging on the job, and perhaps has developed some strategies for surmounting those challenges. (That could be your next question: “How do you think you can surmount those challenges?”)

Good luck with the interviewing, Marty, and good luck on your budding HR-not-by-choice career, too!

Yours,

Liz

Smarter Interview Questions For Employers is a post from: Glassdoor Blog

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One of the flavors of dangerous job search Kool-Aid making the rounds has to do with career change. This Kool-Aid gets people to believe that they have to give up massive amounts of salary by changing careers. Now, in some cases this can be true. If I’ve been working as the head of Obstetrics and Gynecology at a major research hospital and I decide to buy a pushcart and sell gourmet popcorn, I’m going to take a salary hit. There’s no question about it. For most people, though, changing careers is not an automatic ticket to the end of the salary ski-lift line. Here’s the thing to keep in mind: you’re going to send a resume, and the employer is either going to interview you or not.

If you get the interview, that means they think you’re qualified for the job. If that happens, and if you’re a career-changer, it means you’ve done a good job of showing how your accomplishments in another industry or function equip you for the role you’re pursuing now. You’ve already passed the biggest test of all, the one called “Can this person make it in a new career path?”

Once that happens, you don’t need to worry about a catastrophic career-shift salary reduction. You have to know what your new field pays. You can’t say “Well, I was earning a gazillion dollars a year in my old job, so you guys should pay me that sum, again.” Your new career arena has its own pay scale. You’re going to have to work with that reality. But if an employer was planning to pay its new hire — an Event Planner, let’s say — about sixty thousand dollars, and if you’re the person they’ve identified for the job, then sixty thousand is what you should be paid. The fact that you haven’t done event planning before is completely irrelevant.

If they don’t want you for the job, they shouldn’t hire you! Here’s how your post-offer conversation might go.

THEM: So, Ariana, we’re excited to get you on the team.

YOU: I’m excited, too. I have a lot of ideas I’m dying to share with you. We’re a ways apart on salary. Shall we brainstorm about that?

THEM: Well, I told you that the job could pay up to sixty thousand, but you’re coming in with no event planning experience…

YOU: I totally understand. And here’s my concern about that. You have a big event schedule in front of you. You need someone you’re confident can do a great job for you. Are you sure I’m the person you want to hire?

THEM: Of course you are! We love your energy and your experience in other areas, like trade show planning.

YOU: That’s great. In that case, if I’m the person you believe can best tackle what’s ahead of us, I’d be concerned to take the job without the vote of confidence that the designated salary level — sixty thousand — carries with it. In other words, I don’t want to come in as a provisional Events Planner. If I’m your guy — your gal that is – then that tells me I’m the person you chose above all the other candidates. Some of those folks undoubtedly had tons of Event Planning experience. But your team wants me in the job, and the designated salary for the right candidate is sixty thousand a year. So, that’s the level where I’d be comfortable. Does that make sense?

THEM: I see your point. Let me push some numbers around and get back to you this afternoon.

If you get the nod for the job, you get the salary that was established for the role. If your career-path-switch makes you too risky a candidate, that’s fine. Then, they shouldn’t hire you. They should hire someone else. If you get the offer, you get the money.

It’s a simple idea — or it would be simple, if the dangerous job search Kool-Aid weren’t rocketing through our veins!

How Much Salary Do I Give Up By Changing Careers? is a post from: Glassdoor Blog

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2. Changing Careers? Must-Know Tips On Customizing Your Resume & Taking Advantage Of LinkedIn
3. Negotiating Salary? Be Transparent & Know Your Needs

Does your resume speak to what you can really achieve? Are you having trouble connecting with would-be employers? Or, feel like companies are giving off the impression “don’t bother applying here” because of your current unemployment status? Glassdoor career expert Liz Ryan is here to help.

Join Liz for a live call on Wednesday, September 1 at 6:00 p.m. PDT/ 9:00 p.m. EDT.

Liz will explain how to effectively tell your career story in your resume, and she’ll offer up five ways to address any gaps in employment. So whether you’re unemployed or simply looking, you’ll walk away with useful advice on how to effectively talk about your experience and background.

To register for this one-hour “teleseminar,” click here. Spaces are limited so register early so you won’t miss the opportunity to get Liz’s advice and ask questions that can help you in your job search.

Look forward to seeing (or hearing) you there!

Overcoming Resume Time Gaps, Blemishes & Other Job Search Obstacles: Live Discussion With Career Expert Liz Ryan is a post from: Glassdoor Blog

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“Do you have another kind of leadership experience?” I asked. “I ran an animal shelter,” she replied.

Hurrah! Now we were in business. An animal shelter has lots in common with a call center. My client and I wrote a pain letter that said to the hiring manager, “I wouldn’t be surprised to find that your new call center manager’s typical day will careen between on-the-ground fire-fighting and long-range planning. When I ran a high-volume animal shelter I juggled the same competing short- and long-term priorities, enabling an average of 150 adoptions per week. At the same time, I trained and coached the staff, oversaw the animals’ health and vaccination schedules and navigated a web of complex regulations. I’m happiest in high-energy, high-stakes environments.”

No shock — the woman got an interview for the call center manager opportunity. She didn’t conclude that because she’d never set foot in a call center before, she had no chance at the job. She found the relevance between her old career and the one she was pursuing, and laid it out on paper. Who could resist a candidate who already has a strong sense of what her target job requires – who tells us clearly in her letter that she’s already played a role in that movie?

For twenty years or more, job seekers have been fed and have swallowed the Kool-Aid that says that only title, function and industry carry any relevance weight in a job search. That is a ridiculous fiction. There are huge areas of overlap between roles in completely different industries and business sectors. Our task as career-changers is to find that relevance between past and future, and spell it out. Once we do, hiring managers will roll along with us. They know what life on their open job is like. When we say “Yeah, I have a pretty good idea of what that new hire will be up against, and I’ve actually slain a similar dragon more than once in my career” we have a massive advantage over the typical candidate whose letter reads “I have sixteen years of progressively responsible experience in yada, yada, yada and poached eggs on toast.”

We have a name for the process of spotting and articulating the relevance between roles in different functions and industries. We call it framing. If you’re looking at performing work that is in any way different from work you’ve done in the past, you‘ll need a new frame. You have to first see for yourself, and then describe for the reader, how the Old You will fit comfortably into the New You’s chosen profession. It isn’t hard to find relevance. But if we don’t do that work, we won’t get hired. Employers will say “Why should I hire someone who comes from outside the industry and hasn’t even worked in this function before?” The relevance — the familiarity with the movie that plays out in the hiring manager’s organization every day — is the key, the bridge and the missing link. As soon as we see it, it seems obvious.

Thus a lifelong software engineer can build and step into the frame that says “I’m passionate about helping non-technical people understand and enjoy technology, and excited about the opportunity to become a math and science teacher at the Oakfield Academy” and get nary a raised eyebrow back from a headmaster, although the software engineer hasn’t officially taught school in his life so far.

A former Wall Street money manager can start a business helping artists, thought leaders and public speakers realize their creative and financial aspirations and say with 100% sincerity “I’ve been guiding people to plan for and reach their dreams for over twenty-five years.”

It is 2010, and left-brain thinking is reaching the limit of its usefulness in the career and workplace arena. Linear, data-driven analysis is out, and relevance, context and meaning are in. (Thank goodness.) Complex humans like us have every right (and thanks to whatever entity or evolutionary mechanism created us, also the ability) to see connections between situations and activities that might look disconnected on the surface. We don’t do it just for ourselves, but also to help employers gain the advantage that a fresh pair of eyes and non-stale perspective can bring. Framing is an essential ability for any job seeker in 2010, but a mission-critical tool for career changers. Try it!

Career Reinvention Starts With A New Frame is a post from: Glassdoor Blog

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