10-A-Day

If you’re on the hunt for a new job, in this economy, with unemployment looming above 10%, you’re going to have to put some elbow grease into your search. Everyone’s vying for the perfect job, and you’ll have to consider that you won’t get every job you interview for. On top of that, you won’t get an interview for every job you apply for. So, you need to step you’re hunt into high gear.

While you’re not working, consider it your job to be finding a job. That’s where “10-A-Day” comes in. Every day, you should be applying for 10 jobs. Does that seem like a lot? Good!

Some estimates say that you’ll get 1 out of every 10 jobs you interview for. Well, how many jobs that you apply for will you get an interview with? You might not like those numbers. So think about it like this: If you’re applying for 50, or let’s say 70 jobs, per week, you’ve just significantly increased your chances of finding one.

If you’re applying for one job a day, that’s only 5-7 per week. Let’s look at those numbers again: 50-70 and 5-7. Need I say more?

Hop onto Employment Crossing today and search for jobs all over the United States. If there’s opening available, then it’s on Employment Crossing.

The people over at Employment Crossing are doing half of the work, searching for the best jobs, and the best opportunities in every sector. Whatever your skills are, Employment Crossing has the best jobs for you.

Tags: applications, apply, find jobs, Job Search, Jobs, unemployment

Let It Begin In 2010

Attention world: Let it begin in 2010!

Let what begin? Your career, your attitude, and the rest of your life. Put it in your head that this is your year. Allow yourself to succeed beyond your wildest dreams and reach heights yet unseen. How are you going to do this? Remember this phrase: It’s all in your head!

Your outlook on life will determine the quality of your mood, the company you keep, and most definitely your career. If you’re unemployed: change it! You might say to yourself, “But there are no jobs!”

THAT IS NOT TRUE!

Check out sites like Hound and Employment Crossing today. Don’t wait. The longer you allow yourself to go unemployed, the more problems you are likely to have.

There is no need to fear, log on and find a job that suits your expectations. If you are currently in a  job you can’t stand, cross over to a job you love with Employment Crossing.

You can have the life you want. Let it begin, in 2010!

Tags: 2010, Employment, get a job, hound, hunting, Job Search, Jobs, motivation, unemployment

Be Aggressive

Whether you’re in a high pressure sales position or do administrative work at a small start-up, there is one piece of advice that will apply everywhere: Be aggressive.

Now I don’t want you to start barking at your boss or co-workers, nor do I want you to cut-off every driver on the road, I simply want you to take control of your job.

When you go into work, get going! The best thing you can do is to have a list ready for you to work from. Start checking off the list right away. Your number one goal is to get things done before they HAVE to be done. Be on top of your tasks and you will see results.

Being aggressive also means finding things to do. Keep track of ideas you have to make your position more efficient and productive. Then, when you finish all of your tasks early, start implementing those ideas. Essentially, it all boils down to good ole fashioned hard work, but perhaps it will help you to think of it this way.

You want to make your way through tasks throughout everyday. Think of work like Tetris. You have to have a steady flow of completed lines to save room for all of the stuff piling on top. People around you will notice your hard work, guaranteed. You’ll be more likely to get promotions and raises because you will be seen as more dependable.
If you don’t have a job, then this methodology should apply to your job search. Sign up for sites like Employment Crossing. They have aggressive techniques of finding open positions all around the country. A month with them is sure to lead you toward some great work opportunities.

So get cracking!

Tags: aggresive, Employment, employment crossing, Job Search, job tips, work habits

Humor: What Job Ads Really Mean

From around the Internet — what those standard phrases in job ads really mean:

Competitive Salary: We remain competitive by paying less than our competitors.

Flexible Hours: Work 55 hours; get paid for 37.5.

Good Communication Skills: Management communicates — you listen, and try to figure out what they really mean. Then tell them, because they don’t know.

Ability to Handle a Heavy Workload: No whiners.

Career-Minded: You need to have your bosses’ career on your mind at all times.

Self-Motivated: Because we won’t motivate you.

Some Overtime Required: Some time each night, and some time each weekend.

Duties Will Vary: You’ll have eight bosses.

Competitive Environment: We fire people all the time.

Sales Position Requiring Motivated Self-Starter: We don’t provide leads, and you’re only paid on commission.

Casual Work Atmosphere: Dress however you like, subject to the incomprehensible whims of our HR manager. She’s bipolar.

PR or Marketing Experience a Bonus: Maybe you can tell us the difference between the two.

Seeking Candidates with a Wide Variety of Experience: You’ll be doing the jobs of three people we just fired.

Can Hit the Ground Running: No one’s been doing your job for six months.

Problem-Solving Skills a Must: Your boss will be too busy “taking lunch” and working on PowerPoint presentations to actually solve any problems.

Family Atmosphere: Everyone will blame you for the firing of your beloved predecessor.

3-5 Years Work Experience Required: You’re in your early 20s, so we can abuse you.

Excellent Benefits: It’s the same tired PPO plan from your last job. But we have a first aid kit in the supply closet.

Exciting Start-up Firm: We’ve been a “start-up” since 1997, and we’re still not making a profit.

Pay to be Dependent on Experience: Meaning you can experience the low pay we offer you, or you can experience the unemployment line.

Got any job ad phrases of your own? Let us know in the comments!

Tags: humor, Internet meme, job ads, Job Search

Unemployed? Start Blogging!

If you’re unemployed right now (or even if you’re not), there are some very good reasons for starting your own professional blog.

Especially if you are an expert (or an aspiring expert) in your field, you can use a blog to put your name out there as a go-to guru for your industry. It’s far better than just putting up a resume site, because the content of your blog will be propagated across the social networking community.

Having your own professional blog will show prospective employers and clients that you are a serious, dedicated professional in your field, who has expertise to share with colleagues.

Some advice for your professional blog:

Find a reliable web host. In other words, don’t use Google’s Blogger, or any other free blog hosting service. You need a host that takes customer support seriously. And using a professional, for-pay hosting service shouldn’t cost you more than $100 a year.

Find a host that has an application to automatically install blog software. That will save you a lot of trouble.

You don’t need your own domain name. If you want one, that’s perfectly cool, and shouldn’t cost you more than $10 a year. Buy the domain name through your web host  — that simplifies things immensely. But you don’t need one. People are going to find your blog through Google or Technorati, where domain names don’t matter.

Use WordPress. It’s simply the best blog software available right now. It’s easy to use, and it’s free (which in this case isn’t a bad thing). I’ve never needed technical support for WordPress in the years I’ve been using it. If you do end up needing support, however, you’ll have to pay for it.

Keep your private life separate. Don’t discuss your personal life on your professional blog. You can start a separate personal blog if you want, and talk all about your children, hobbies, or obscure sexual fetishes. But keep your professional blog on target. And certainly don’t write about anything you wouldn’t bring up around the water cooler at work.

Post new content every week. Visitors who like your content will bookmark your blog or add it to their RSS reader. But if there isn’t regular, new content, those people will stop checking. At the bare minimum, post once a week. Twice is better — and several posts per day is best of all!

Link to other blogs in your field. It may seem odd to link out to sites that are most likely competing with yours. But this is how blog software, and the blog search engines like Technorati, work. The more often you link out to other blogs, the more often they will link back to you, driving up your hits. When you do link to another blog, or add any outbound link, explain to your readers what the link is about, and what you think of it.

Don’t embarass or criticize former or current employers. This is death for your career. No firm wants to hire someone who will bash their company online, either while an employee or after they leave. Unless you’re blowing the whistle on some kind of illegal activity, don’t air your dirty laundry in public. If you want to criticize general trends in your industry, wihtout naming names, that may be okay. But if you have a current employer, they still may not approve. It’s a fine line — tread it carefully.

Tags: blogging, job advice, Job Search, unemployment advice

The Cover Letter: First Impressions Are Everything!

Some people think they can get away with submitting a resume, without including a cover letter.

These people are usually referred to as “unemployed.”

Of course you need a cover letter, even if a job ad doesn’t specifically ask for one. (On the rare occasion when you are asked not to send one, then don’t!) Including a cover letter that has clearly been personalized for the specific company and position tells the employer you care enough to take the time.

Also, the cover letter is the first thing an employer sees. It’s your introduction. Don’t mess it up!

Never send a generic cover letter. Sure, you may have some basic text you always include. But be sure to mention the company and the position by name in the body of the cover letter. And tweak the description of your experience and skills to match the requirements of the particular position. Use the same wording as the job ad.

Mention how you learned about the job. If it was passed along by a person at the firm, then name that person.

Describe the most important aspects of your skills and experience that pertain to this position. This is how you convince the employer to take a real look at your resume. Also, resumes are very formally structured — here’s your chance to lay out, in plain English, exactly why you’re right for the job.

Reflect your attitude. If you’re excited about the position, then tell them! The cover letter is also your opportunity to demonstrate that you are a professional person — by writing a very professional cover letter. Typos, misspellings, bad grammar, and a casual tone will not help you.

Provide anything else mentioned in the job ad. This may include a salary history, or a writing sample, or a link to your web site. (You don’t have your own web site? Hey, they also have this new thing called a “horseless carriage,” you should look into it. Also, did you know they cured polio?) Be sure to explicitly follow every instruction in the job ad.

If attaching files to an email as documents, keep your resume.doc and your coverletter.doc separate. Don’t combine them. This goes for uploads to company job sites as well.

Got any cover letter advice of your own to share? Let us know in the comments!

Tags: cover letter, Job Search, job search advice, resumes, writing

What’s Your Email Address?

Here in the first decade of the 21st Century, we may be lacking flying cars, personal teleportation and household robots. But what we do have is the Internet, which is taking over every aspect of our lives.

That’s why today, if you’re going to hear from a recruiter, you’ll most likely have your first contact by email, rather than by phone. Your email address needs to be on your resume and cover letter; it must be associated with any info you have posted on job search sites or company career pages; and it should be on your personal web site.

You don’t have a personal web site? What are you, Amish?

But it’s important what email address you provide to possible employers. Create an email account specifically for your job search, separate from any other accounts you use in personal life or your work.

Absolutely DO NOT use your current work email. Not only may your company be monitoring your email, they actually own any information you share via that account. Also, if prospective employers see you using your current company’s email for job searches, they’ll assume you would do the same thing to them.

Who hosts your email is important. If you have your own web site, let’s say jennywilson.com, then having the email address jennyw@jennywilson.com is pretty impressive.

If you can’t host your own email, the only real option for a free account is through gmail.com. Nobody will think less of you for using Gmail.

But on the other hand, DO NOT use any aol.com address. People who still use aol.com email come across as unprofessional. Maybe your grandma still uses AOL, but professional people do not. If you are still, for some unfathomable reason, using AOL as your service provider, then use AOL to sign up for a Gmail account.

Make sure you choose a professional-sounding email address. You’re not going to get an interview if the recruiter has to type in “ilovesex69@gmail.com” in order to contact you. Likewise, no one wants to hire spongebobfan@ or tonylovessylvia@.

Stick to your real name: johnsmith@, john_smith@, johns@, jsmith@. Lots of people like to add their birthdate (johnsmith1963@), but are you sure you want to advertise your age up front?

Don’t get cute. The address johnsmithworksrealhard@gmail.com might get a laugh - and then your resume hits the round file. Keep your email address short, easy to spell, and directly relevant to you as a professional.

Good luck with your search!

Tags: Advice, computers, email, Job Search, job search advice

The Median Isn’t the Message

While thinking about the current difficulties many Americans are facing in finding a job, I was reminded of an essay by one of my heroes, the famous evolutionary biologist and science popularizer Stephen J. Gould.

In 1982, Gould was diagnosed with abdominal mesothelioma, a rare and very deadly form of cancer associated with exposure to asbestos. Gould’s doctor told him the cancer would take his life in 8 months. The doctor’s exact words were that Gould had a “median mortality of eight months.”

Now most people, that is to say people who are not medical doctors, statisticians, or evolutionary biologists, would interpret the doctor to mean “you will be dead in eight months.”

Gould did not interpret it that way, because Gould was trained in statistics. He knew that the doctor’s estimate was a statistical distribution, a bell curve with a long tail. That is to say, Gould’s chances of dying the next day were very low; his chances of dying in less than eight months were good; of dying in eight months, excellent; of dying in five years, low, of dying in ten years very low.

But all those possibilities were covered by the statistical distribution. Gould did not have a bomb in his chest that would go off in eight months. He might die soon — but he might not.

So Gould did not live his life as if he were on the brink of death. And in fact, he lived another 20 years, finally passing away in 2002, just a few months after I met him at a Skeptic’s Society event in his honor.

That Gould lived another two decades is not a miracle. It’s a contingency covered by the statistical distribution. Gould’s chances of living two decades were very, very low. But the chance was there, and he lucked out — along with a lot of positive thinking and refusing to give up.

What does this have to do with finding a job?

This is a terrible time to look for a job. All the statistics tell us so. There are fewer and fewer jobs available, with an increasing number of job seekers. Your statistical chances of finding a new job are dropping every day.

But that’s just the statistical distribution. There are some jobs — and someone will get those jobs. Maybe you.

Pay too much attention to the statistics, and you might give up. Don’t. Just because a chart says job-seekers have a low chance of finding work, doesn’t mean you won’t find work. With right attitude and some hard work, you can “luck out” the way Gould did.

Tags: Job Search, job search advice, mathematics, medicine, science, statistics, Stephen J. Gould

Ahh, Celebrity.

Remember Knut, the cute little polar bear born in Germany last year? You know, the one who sparked a media frenzy and became a polar bear celebrity? Knut became the center of a media frenzy dubbed “Knutmania” after becoming the first polar bear to survive past infancy in captivity in more than 30 years. Zookeepers became pseudo-parents after baby Knut was rejected by his mom and the public lovingly adored him.

Last week, two more polar bear celebrities entered the world when twin cubs joined the animal ranks at Nuremberg Zoo, also in Germany. While the little twinsies still have an uphill battle ahead of them- they have a 50% chance of survival- the bundles of joy are sure to be just as large an attraction as their counterpart, Knut.

Celebrity is an interesting phenomenon. It has permeated nearly every facet of our world. We follow the sightings and sound bites of movie stars, singers, athletes, business men and women, and even animals like polar bear Knut!

The workplace doesn’t escape celebrity, either. Whether it’s related to an award or special recognition, a degree from a certain school, or even someone’s outward appearance, there is often a “celebrity” at work. And that’s okay. But don’t let it get you down. Don’t compare yourself to them or beat yourself up for something you can’t change. Maybe they are receiving preferential treatment because they graduated from Columbia and you went to the local community college, but there’s not much you can do to change that.

Keep persevering and you will be recognized, too. Whether you are in the entertainment industry (TVCrossing.com), construction industry (ConstructionCrossing.com), or you work on the admin side of things (AdminCrossing.com), EmploymentCrossing can help you find your place in the spotlight.

Maybe it’s time to switch things up and get workin’ on your job celeb status. Our free trial can get you on your way.

Tags: celebrity, columbia, Job Search, knut, polar bear twins

Great Balls of Fire! Targeting your job search, meteor style

The meteor that blazed across the Western Canadian sky last Thursday was, according to some Edmonton, Alberta residents, one of the most surprising, spectacular events they had ever witnessed. A dashboard camera attached to a police car captured what appeared to be a speeding fireball. Immediately afterwards, some people in their cars drove toward the general area where thought the fragments fell, “Twister” style (flying cows, anyone?).

The pieces of this meteor, if found, could yield valuable information about the history of the solar system. Other meteorite hunters hoping to locate these fragments–many of them from nearby University of Regina– aligned search parties to see what they can come up with.  To pinpoint approximate locations of the meteors, these folks will have to gather eye witness accounts and get information from the sky tracking cameras BEFORE they even go looking for anything.

Now here’s where we get all metaphorical–you knew it was coming. When it comes to finding a great job, some folks are like that police officer in little Devon, Alberta. He was just driving down the highway, making the rounds when. . .flash, bang, boom. . .he just happened to catch something on tape. He was just in the right place at the right time. Other people have an idea of the kind of jobs they want and they just sort of veer off into a general direction with no specific plan or guidelines. They might find what they’re looking for, but chances are they’ll be off the mark.

Finally, the job searchers that take time to gather their resources, talk to the right people, and figure out a plan are likely to find something that suits them really well. It may take a little longer, but their extra effort and planning will prove worth it in the long run.

After you’ve gathered your tools (killer resume, great cover letter–both of which you will alter for each new position), signing up for a free trial to EmploymentCrossing will be the first step in your strategic search.  You can browse mucho sites (100+ to be more precise) with so many jobs it’ll make your bowtie spin. Hello, SciencesCrossing! Almost  15,000 science jobs!

Tags: Job Search, meteor, twister, university of regina