This blog is a job hunter's checklist, to assist and provide a basic and useful collection of tips, reminders and refreshers from various online sources. Compiled to create a directory of top tips and references from the UK/US/CAN sites found and through recommendations. I use this blog as a checklist from time to time for my own search! I hope fellow job seekers will find it useful too.
Plaxo is a social network that resembles LinkedIn to a certain degree. You’re able to create your own profile with a section about you, your contact information and your “pulse stream,” which is made up of your presence on social media sites such as Twitter. You’re even able to share your photo album and send eCards, which is a nice differentiator. Another online job search vehicle.
The real value in Plaxo is the address book that keeps track of all of your contact information, including a Yahoo! Map indicating where your contacts live. Plaxo, which is owned by Comcast, is also integrated with Simply Hired, which is a job aggregator that searches thousands of job sites and companies and aggregates them in a single location for you. After building your Plaxo profile, use it as part of the recruitment process when applying for jobs with Simply Hired for success. posted by Dan Schawbel
BranchOut brings career networking onto Facebook. Facebook isn’t all party pics and FarmVille, some of us do serious career networking on the site. BranchOut caters to the professionally oriented Facebook user. This relatively new application transforms Facebook into your personal career center. You can search through your friends by company to see which social connections can help you professionally, too.You can use the app to discover new contacts and business opportunities on Facebook, as well. There’s a friends-of-friends feature that will help you find connections at specific companies you’re interested in, and you can use the app to post and find job openings.
All in all, BranchOut is useful enough that we wonder why Facebook isn’t doing more internally on the career and job-search end. Here’s a brief demo video.The big question most would ask about this app is obvious: Why would you use a Facebook app when LinkedIn already exists to cover the same space of social/professional networking? And isn’t it risky to build your business on a pure-play app atop someone else’s platform?
LinkedIn has quite a few challengers these days, but none have the momentum or userbase of Facebook. Yet Facebook itself isn’t a direct competitor. We think building a career networking app on top of Facebook’s social network is actually brilliant because it taps into very real and vibrant connections within a social graph, not just the sometimes-stale professional Rolodex stored in a LinkedIn profile.
Facebook is also a network that many users check into every day, so if you’re job-hunting or trying to connect with specific people, your chances might be better than on other career sites, where the folks who check in daily are more likely to be other job seekers than your desired contacts.
As for the pure-play aspect, in most cases, we’d be extremely cautious and not so optimistic. In the event that Facebook decides to devote serious time and effort to career networking and job-search features, BranchOut’s goose may be cooked. But for the time being, there could be some interesting, creative and potentially lucrative things coming out of this startup.
And apparently we’re not the only ones who see promise in the BranchOut model; the startup, which just launched in July, has raised a healthy $6 million dollar Series A from Silicon Valley venture capital firm Accel Partners. What do you think of BranchOut? Do you or have you ever used Facebook to find a job, help someone else get a job or do general professional networking?
Found this on LinkedIn - Kevin Kermes's company. Please click link and sign up for his free webinars. Great advice. Different compared to others I have heard. http://www.careerattraction.com/free-webinar/
Keep positive, be systematic with your daily job search. Network hard on LinkedIn and get telephone and face to face interviews. Aim and target a 2-4 quality interviews a week if you can. Go through the JobBoards and sign up with agencies as well as contacting companies direct.
XING (named openBC/Open Business Club until November 17, 2006) is a social software platform for enabling a small-world network for professionals. The company claims that it is used by people from over 200 countries. Available languages include English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, Dutch, Chinese, Finnish, Swedish, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Polish, Turkish and Hungarian. By displaying how each member is connected to any other member, it visualizes the small-world phenomenon.
The platform offers personal profiles, groups, discussion forums, event coordination, and other common social community features. Basic membership is free. But many core functions, like searching for people with specific qualifications or messaging people to whom one is not already connected, can only be accessed by the premium members. Premium membership comes at a monthly fee of 5 € (around 9 USD). The platform uses https and has a rigid privacy and no-spam policy. Unlike many other networking websites, XING provides its paying members very easy email access to any members.
XING has a special Ambassador program for each city or region around the world with a substantial constituency. The Ambassadors hold local events that promote the use of social networking as a business tool, letting members introduce business ideas to one and other, and get to know each other on a personal level. XING competes with the American platform LinkedIn and the European Viadeo for social networking among businesses. XING also offers the system for closed communities, called Enterprise groups with their own access paths and interface designs. The platform serves as the infrastructure for corporate groups, including IBM, McKinsey, Accenture and others.
"You need to remember that everything that you do and do not include in your LinkedIn profile becomes your brand = how people perceive you. Is “unemployed” something that you want to include as part of your brand?"
"My answer is “NO!” You want positive qualities associated with your brand. And whenever I see someone with a Status Update that says they are looking for a job, I want to tell them what I am about to tell you."
To read more, please click on the link to the Windmill Networking Social Media Strategy website http://windmillnetworking.com/ & Buy the award-winning book on LinkedIn by Neal Schaffer.
Here is a selection of news from the recruitment world this month by "All Executive Jobs"
Executive Search Firms Predict Revenues to Rise
More than two thirds of executive search firms (67%) expect to see revenues grow in the second half of the year, according to research by the Association of Executive Search Consultants.The healthcare/life sciences and energy/natural resources sectors expect to see the most growth in the second half of 2010, followed by the industrial and financial services sectors.
Work-Life Balance is the Most Desired Employee Benefit
Research from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) reveals that 47% of the country’s workforce place a good work-life balance as their most desired employee benefit. The research, labelled “Managing Tomorrow’s People” shows that bonuses were the second most important benefit to staff, with only 19% considering them to be their number one priority.
Public Sector Executives Will Struggle
As public sector executive vacancies plunge, senior executives will struggle to find similar positions in the private sector, according to executive search firm InterExec. The firm says that it has seen senior executive vacancies in the public sector drop by more than two thirds in the three months from February to May. Kit Scott Brown, chief executive of InterExec, says: “Many senior executives who have had a lifetime in the public-funded sector are not going to have access to private sector positions which are the exclusive domain of headhunters.” Scott Brown continues: “These positions are almost never advertised and it is highly unlikely that an executive who is currently employed in the public sector will ever get to hear about them.”
Connect Directly With Top Executive Recruiters
Recruiters are the gatekeepers to both the advertised and unadvertised job markets. You can connect directly with top recruiters from the UK's largest executive recruiter network, CVtrumpet. As the UK's first executive and management CV sending service, CVtrumpet places your CV in front of pre-screened executive recruiters by salary, job function, job level, location, industry, and employment type. This enables you to reach multiple, targeted recruiters in just 3 minutes, rather than months, and ensures that you tap into the unadvertised job market immediately.
Did you ever wonder how job-seekers get screened out or eliminated based on someone looking at their resumes? When a job-seeker is being considered for an open opportunity, the first person who will read their resume is generally either a recruiter or an HR person. If it's a recruiter, it could be either a 3rd-party, agency-based head-hunter type, or an internal, company-based corporate recruiter. If it's someone in HR, it could be anyone from an entry-level screener to a Director of HR - depending on the size of the company.
This screening and elimination process also applies to proactive searches for candidates done on resume depositories like Careerbuilder, Monster, etc., or on Social Networks like LinkedIn. Basically, anyone who is looking for and screening potential candidates for an open job opportunity goes through this process.
Now I'm sure that you slaved over your resume for hours and hours, writing and re-writing it, revising, refining and retooling it's language until it’s as "perfect" as it can be. If you are like most serious job-seekers, you are hoping that the person who first screens your masterpiece will take their time and read it over very carefully absorbing every detail of your background, analyzing your qualifications and experience, and making a carefully considered and informed decision about your fit for the position they are trying to fill. Unfortunately, you would be wrong. I hate to break this to you but the average resume-reader will give your resume between 20 and 30 seconds of eyeball time on the first pass. They'll scan the first page of your resume diagonally, top to bottom, left to right - rarely progressing on to the second or third pages. If they don't quickly see exactly what they think they want or need right up front bye bye - delete button for you!
In my many years as a recruiter, I've certainly read my share of resumes. There were times when I went through over a hundred a day. I certainly know how this elimination process works! This process is even more brutal now in the current candidate-flooded market. So ... what follows is a peek behind the curtain. I make no apologies for how this process works, or how fair or unfair it is - like it or not, this is simply the way it is. I feel it's best for job-seekers to be informed about this to be able to better navigate the process and avoid obvious pitfalls as they move forward. Read the details at "Recruiter Musings" http://michaelspiro.wordpress.com/
"Seventy six per cent of British bosses would decide against a job candidate because of their clothes. Sixty seven per cent of bosses surveyed say that a good interview outfit should cost in excess of £300, with 94% saying an obviously cheap suit would have the candidate walking out of the door as quickly as they walked in. The team found that traditional formal interview attire says “hire” irrespective of market sector or industry"
"• For men, a tailored navy single breasted suit (51% hire), white or blue long sleeved shirt (48% hire), black leather shoes (56% hire) and black socks (77% hire), low key tie (35% hire) and cufflinks (37% hire) and no handkerchief (35% hire) will send you on your way to your second interview in minutes."
"• For women, a mid-length black skirt or dress (64% hire) with long sleeved and collared shirt or blouse (42% hire), tights (94% hire), high heels (69% hire) and pearls (56% hire) will leave a very positive impression on your future employer." Written by Careersite Advisor @ http://www.careersiteadvisor.com/,
"Career Success Radio is a global media network and founder of the career management and development portal – Career Success Mastery Network, an innovative and pioneering concept within the human development and potential arena. Career Success Radio launched in September 2008 and has been running a one-hour radio show which has attracted a regular listenership spread across 67 countries, with the shows podcast downloaded by over 40,000 avid listeners striving for career success and fulfillment."
Hi folks, someone tweeted me recently, thought I share it with you folks! There are a few of us Job Hunting, including myself! Some tips and sound advice to help us all in this tough competitive job market and economic climate. Written by http://careersuccessradio.com/
"When pressed for a tip for job seekers in a recent Careers Talk interview, Matt Rhodes from social media agency FreshNetworks said you "absolutely, definitely need a good LinkedIn profile". He feels LinkedIn is not only an essential tool for promoting skills and achievements but also for networking with peers."
"But a growing number of job seekers are learning the hard way how social media can hinder as well as help in the search for employment and with 45% of employers screening online profiles for prospective candidates you really can't afford to be sloppy in cyberspace." Kerry Eustice, http://careers.guardian.co.uk/
Take care folks what you put on your Social Networking Sites Facebook, Twitter, and personal Blogs etc, it might cost you your dream job! http://www.news.zdnet.co.uk/.
Yes, times have changed with regards to job hunting these days compared to 5 years ago, Drastic changes! Please check out the links for further information and reading for more top tips and advice. Check out link:
