job search – Page 4 – Segal Coaching LLC

I Don’t Want a Coach. I Just Want a Job.

My clients who have the most success are the ones that have or can acquire clarity, skills and readiness.

My daughter is nine. Lately, she wants to be an actress. She saw a casting call for Descendants 3, and she is ready to head to Vancouver (we live in Connecticut) to audition, if I will just say yes.

As we read through the requirements, among other things, you must submit a resume that lists your acting experience. My daughter has been in a few local shows at her school and the community center. It is “real” acting, but not necessarily the type that is valued by casting directors. I watch her scour the internet for information and other opportunities, quite devoted and pumped up (as only someone who is just reaching double digits in age can be).

An acting coach’s website pops up in one of her searches about whether a certain agency is a scam. “Oh, a coach could be helpful,” I tell her. “She could let you know how to prepare for your big break. What to learn, where to look for opportunities…”

My daughter turns to me, scoffs and delivers a classic line. “I don’t want a coach, Mom. I just want a job.” Other than the addition of my maternal moniker, she sounds like a few of my clients, if they would just be honest with themselves and me.

Yesterday a prospect pointedly asked me how fast my clients get jobs, as if that were a true measure of my success as a career coach. I gave her the honest answer, which is that “it depends.” I know there are some coaches who make promises – an interview in X weeks or a job in Y months. The truth is that I have clients who get an interview the same week we start working together, and I have others who struggle for some time after that. As I said to the prospect, there are three factors at play: (1) does the person have clarity on what he/she wants, (2) does he/she have skills that the marketplace needs and (3) is he/she ready to go?

Coaching is not a job placement service, but I do have prospective clients who contact me all the time wanting me to “find them a job” rather than help them do the tough but satisfying professional development to prepare themselves for their job search and interview process. They want a magic shot or shock to their system that will make the pain go away (pain of unemployment, pain of a toxic or numbing job, pain of not advancing, etc.) rather than being open to learning a better approach that will serve them in the short term and long term. By contrast, my clients who have the most success are the ones that have or can acquire the three points below.

Clarity. To be successful in a job search, you need clarity on what you are seeking and what roles will actually be a good match for you at the present moment. Notice I did not say “to find a job” you need clarity, but rather to be successful in your search. There are many people who are quite good at finding new jobs, only to be continually disappointed with the results, because they do not ask themselves what they really want to achieve in the short term and long term. There are others who struggle for months to find something, only to realize after starting a new role that it is not what they expected. In both cases, you are better able to find a match for your interests, talents and values if you have invested the time and energy (with or without a coach) to understand what those are.

Skills. What are the hard and soft skills, from strategic thinking to asset-backed financing or from stakeholder engagement to Hadoop – or, as in my daughter’s case, the ability to act, sing and dance – that are required by the targeted roles? Can you demonstrate that you have what it takes or are able to quickly get up to speed, closing the gap? In some fields and roles, in which skills are easier to acquire and there is a huge demand for each open position, you will almost always need to demonstrate your accomplishments in advance. In other cases, and with forward-thinking hiring managers, what you need to demonstrate is an understanding of how the role contributes to the organization, the ability to solve problems and an immediate aptitude and readiness to acquire the needed skills to make that happen.

Readiness. Let’s return again to that last point, readiness. I sometimes describe it as having the “light turned on,” like a cab that is free to pick up passengers. The single most important indicator to job search success, which I notice every day among my clients, is an ability to stand ready for the opportunities that life presents. In fact, cultivating readiness is often a central element to the coaching process – whether we discuss, for example, how to prioritize networking opportunities or present one’s value proposition to the specific audience at hand – and it can be the one that yields the greatest results. Readiness includes openness, self-confidence, responsiveness and an ability to (leave one’s baggage at the curb and) live/work/be in the moment.

Anne Marie Segal is a career coach and résumé writer for attorneys, executives and entrepreneurs.

Image above: Shutterstock.

Nine LinkedIn Strategies: Which One Matches Your Goals?

LinkedIn® is a lightening rod, charging up diverse opinions about the best way to approach it. At one end of the spectrum, you hear that being on LinkedIn is a waste of time or, worse yet, only for those who wish to commoditize themselves. For many others, LinkedIn is the best thing to happen to online networking, a free space to invite the world to hire you, connect with you, buy from you, etc.

I suggest you start with the end in mind: what do you want LinkedIn to do for you? Once you know your target, you can devise the best strategy to get there.

shutterstock_424534183 darts on target.jpg — Eyes (and darts) on the target. Shutterstock image.

I will not say that the truth lies somewhere in between, as I don’t think LinkedIn (like anything else) lends itself well to one-size-fits-all. Rather, when I teach groups or individuals about LinkedIn, I suggest you start with the end in mind: what do you want LinkedIn to do for you? Once you know your target, you can devise the best strategy to get there.

Here are nine basic LinkedIn strategies. Which one works best for you?

1) No Profile. The No Profile approach is favored by a range of individuals, from those who wish to signal they are too elite for LinkedIn to those who conduct business exclusively offline, whether by choice or association. If your professional strategy is to maintain a low online profile and let your reputation and in-person dealings speak for themselves, then LinkedIn may fail the cost-benefit analysis. If this strategy appeals well to your target audience (be it family offices or firemen) and doesn’t lead to a number of missed opportunities, then it is probably the best choice for you.

2) Stealth. Those who have a Stealth profile want to be able to search for others without revealing anything (or very little) about themselves. They are similar to the No Profilers, except that they want access to LinkedIn’s goods without making an offer in return. Like the No Profilers, the Stealth strategy is helpful if you believe that you have nothing to gain, and only something to lose, by putting your talents “out there” into the marketplace so that someone may discover you. Note that the Stealth Profile is often similar to the Just Getting Started Profile, which is not a strategy at all, just someone who has not bothered to understand or master LinkedIn. (Also note: beware Stealth connectors, who may be looking to hack into your network.)

3) Minimalist. A Minimalist profile, if done intentionally, also conveys that someone has “better things to do with their time” than be on LinkedIn. In some cases, this strategy is effective. However, like the profiles above, it probably will not generate interest (or new opportunities) among LinkedIn’s reported 100 million users. That said, having a Minimalist profile does allow you the benefits of building a network among your close connections. It also may be useful to have a minimal presence if your company actively restricts what you can post or obviously frowns on LinkedIn, as it does allow people to search specifically for your profile and find you (if they know what they are looking for). For those in finance or information technology, for example, a Minimalist approach is sometimes the only way to enjoy some of the benefits of the LinkedIn service without risking account or policy breaches.

4) Basic Professional. The straight-shooting Basic Professional LinkedIn profile includes a bit more information than the Minimalist profile, such as a professional picture, descriptions for some or all jobs, and possibly a summary. It may also include some keywords (i.e., important nouns that can match up to online searches by hiring managers and recruiters), and it has enough information to actually allow the reader/viewer to understand who you are and what you do professionally. It often does not give personal details (that could create a connection), and generally there is little or no creativity in the text or enhancement beyond completing the basic profile fields. Often, it is written in the third person.

The Basic Professional profile is most effective if your strategy is to use LinkedIn for “verification” purposes – giving the reader/viewer comfort that your profile matches the information they already have about you – rather than to generate leads through LinkedIn. It will not be sufficient to propel you to the top of LinkedIn search results (when someone is searching for an individual with your background and talents), so if that is your end game, you should consider a more robust strategy. That said, for certain individuals who want to maintain some distance with the public, as a matter of personal branding or due to the nature of their work, a Basic Professional profile may strike the right balance.

5) Inviting. The strategically Inviting profile can be a variation of the Basic Professional, or it may be more creative and “loose” in its presentation. Inviting profiles often incorporate keywords but are also geared toward making a connection. To that end, an Inviting profile, which is often written in first person, is written with a “human voice” to be appealing and develop a bond or kinship with the viewer/reader. Most job seekers and entrepreneurs benefit from Inviting profiles, especially if they are Active (see below), and thought leaders use them to their advantage as well.

Inviting profiles are in some ways what LinkedIn is all about. They say more than a résumé format ever could, and they encourage people to connect with you because they highlight your talents, accomplishments, interests and goals as an individual. In addition, they can facilitate an interview or other professional conversation (whether for networking, business-generation or employment), because you have already made a good first impression and answered some of the basic questions, including your value proposition, with your Inviting profile.

6) Highly Creative. A Highly Creative profile is similar to an Inviting profile, although rather than putting down a welcome mat for all, it goes all purple shag carpet to say, “Look, I’m different. I am on LinkedIn, but my way.” This strategy works best if you are the one to call when someone is looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack (rewritten, of course, without the cliché.) Like the earlier profiles on this list, the Highly Creative profile generally works best when your reputation precedes you, although the link can be included in marketing materials and”worked” that way, and keywords can be gently massaged into the message to increase the likelihood your profile is found by the right audience. Needless to say, this profile works best for those who are solidly ensconced in a creative field, where innovation is prized. It does not go over so well in banking.

7) Active. I include Active as a separate profile strategy, although it often piggybacks on one of the strategies above. An Active LinkedIn profile is one that includes all of the basic elements of LinkedIn (picture, summary, recommendations, keywords, skills, etc.), which are points that LinkedIn’s algorithm uses to “score” how high up you appear in any given search results. In addition, LinkedIn rewards its users (again, as far as search visibility) for being active within LinkedIn, such as participating in groups, sharing, posting and interacting with others’ posts.

A note about Active profiles: It is often hard to start up an Active profile without triggering a concern that you may suddenly be in the midst of a job search. Being at least minimally active on LinkedIn before you need it is part of the Active strategy.

8) Transition. A very light touch is needed for a Transition profile. The trick is to continue to appeal to one’s current audience without tipping your hand about a possible change, while adding enough keywords and information to your profile to hook and appear credible to your new audience as well.

A subset of the Transition profile is an analogous strategy that is often overlooked. Another goal of a Transition profile may be to use LinkedIn not to find a job at a new company but to highlight your talents within your current company – i.e., get promoted or make a lateral move – so that CEOs and others with whom you are connected can see not only what you offer to your current position but also what you will bring to the company in the new role. In many ways, LinkedIn is the perfect platform to reinforce your goal to have your talents recognized, because it is unlikely (unless asked) that you will be sticking your résumé under the nose of senior management. To be effective in this strategy, you need to highlight aptitude rather than simply focusing on what you have done.

9) Straddler. Like Career Changers, Straddlers target more than one audience, but a Straddler has one role he/she wishes to keep and another one to add. For example, a lawyer may also be a budding fiction writer or aspiring corporate board member, wishing to highlight both sets of talents and appeal to both networks. Rather than creating entirely separate profiles – which can be time-consuming and confusing – a Straddle profile is created by weighing the relative merits and costs of each element added to maximize the benefits of a combined profile while minimizing the risks that any key target audience might not find this approach appealing or effective. A Straddler must very carefully evaluate whether the “second part” of a profile enhances the Straddlers credibility for his/her main target roles or detracts from it. Each audience will respond to different aspects of your profile, and the trick is to highlight the relevant parts without appearing disjointed.

Unless you want to approach LinkedIn haphazardly, each of the above types of profiles represents a choice of how you wish to present yourself and what return you are seeking from LinkedIn. Whatever strategy you choose from the above, it behooves you to approach LinkedIn with your goal in your sights rather than simply writing about yourself and posting it to the world. As with anything in life, if you know your target, you are more likely to hit your target.

Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nine-linkedin-strategies-which-suits-you-best-segal-jd-ccmc-cprw

Five Cures to Resume Writer’s Block

Why is it that so many of us sit at our desks, writing away, deleting, rewriting and generally getting stuck on where to start, where to end and what to put in the middle? A blank page is a great source of anxiety and writer’s block for the majority of us, even those who call ourselves writers. Cure resume writer’s block. Don’t let your resume stand between you and your future.

We all read the articles – some of us more than others – about how recruiters take 30 seconds or less to review a resume, making a snap decision about whether or not to delve in further and actually recommend someone for a job. One came across my email just this morning, “A top recruiter on what anyone can see after 30 seconds with your resume,” by Ambra Benjamin.

Ms. Benjamin echoed what others have written, with her own take on the matter and a very readable article, giving advice like including keywords but not “stuffing” your resume with them, showing a career progression and minding the gaps. Armed with her and other key advice, it should be easy to know how to put a simple two pages together, right?

So why is it that so many of us sit at our desks, writing away, deleting, rewriting and generally getting stuck on where to start, where to end and what to put in the middle? A friend recently suggested that the only way he could revise his resume on his own was to start with a blank piece of paper and try to imagine each role in his head, without worry about names, dates and details. While this might work for some, a blank page is an even greater source of anxiety and writer’s block for the majority of us, even those who call ourselves writers.

Getting a resume professionally written is another option, of course, although if you don’t choose a high end writer who really takes the time to get to know you and has an understanding of your field, combined with a feel for resume writing and knowledge of the career marketplace, your resume can come out stale, miss the mark or, worse yet, sound like every other candidate on the block. (Full disclosure: I do offer high-end, personalized services and can work with you to improve your clarity in thinking and writing, prepare you for interviews and generally ease this frustrating process.)

For those who are stuck and cannot entice the resume muses to give up their secrets, here is a five-point plan to help cure the craziness:

1) Identify and focus on your target market. Who is your audience? What do they want to know about you? We tend to internalize and think about our resumes as an exercise in self-reflection. They are, but not to the point of self-indulgence. The very practical, immediate purpose of such self-reflection is to create a marketing document that communicates a narrative of our professional lives to others. To do that, take the attention off yourself and put it on your reader.

2) Take a current version of your resume, and cross off everything that doesn’t matter. Many of the resumes I read, especially ones from high-achieving candidates, are overloaded with information. If you follow my posts, you know that I have written about this. Emphasize the experience and skills that will make you the top candidate for the job you are looking for, which are also generally the ones that are the most important, complex parts of your job.

3) List your accomplishments. What did you accomplish in each role that went beyond showing up and doing what “anyone else in that same job could do”? Weave your accomplishments into the discussion of each job. Get specific, while still giving an overall picture of the role. Also, don’t forget that numbers are your friend. If you can quantify something, and it makes sense to do so, then include that information and be ready to talk about it in an interview.

4) Use a modern format. If you haven’t updated your resume for ten years, do your research to understand what modern resumes in your industry look like. If you are in a creative role, you can stand out with a creative format. If you are in a more conservative industry, stand out with substance, not form. In either case, don’t just dust off the old version and add new information. It’s like sporting an old suit that’s gone out of style.

Even if you are in the top 1% of candidates, don’t be fooled into thinking that you “don’t need a great resume” because “your experience speaks for itself.”

Stop and consider: who are you competing against for the same role?

5) Check LinkedIn and other online sources about yourself. As Ms. Benjamin noted, recruiters scour the web to make sure your presentation about yourself is accurate and consistent across your resume and other sources. If your online materials are detracting – obnoxious, needy, overly political and the like – this information will become part of the portfolio for your candidacy. Match your resume to LinkedIn and other sources, so you tell a consistent story, and take the same care to present yourself online as you do in your offline written documents. Also, take a fresh look at what you have already posted on LinkedIn. Sometimes, there is inspiration from a lingering, helpful “prior version” of yourself that can recharge your resume writing.

Using the five-step plan, you will be much closer to starting and finishing a resume that jumps off the page and says HIRE ME.

As a final point (and echoing #1 above), remember that while your resume is all about you, more importantly, it is also about what you can do for the employer in your target role. As children, we are loved for being cute, funny, special or just who we are. As job candidates, we are there to solve problems. What problems do you solve and how can you convince your readers – the recruiter, hiring manager, etc. – that they should choose you?

Anne Marie Segal is a career coach and resume writer. You can find her website at segalcoaching.com. This article originally appeared on LinkedInPulse.

Attorneys: Your LinkedIn Headline in 120 Characters or Less

You have 120 characters in your LinkedIn headline. (No, not 140. That’s Twitter.)

120 characters to sell yourself to the world. Yes, I said sell. LinkedIn is not where you find enlightenment. It is where you find clients, contacts or a job. If you are not already, you need to be crystal clear on the distinction, whether or not you like it.

Important Update in 2017: Following Microsoft’s acquisition and restructuring of LinkedIn, many of the features have changed. For example, only a portion of your headline and the first few words of your summary are visible in many cases until someone clicks to see more. This makes is critical to have the essential information that reflects your value proposition – or otherwise draws people in – right at the top. You can check this out for yourself by accessing your own profile through various devices.

So what should it say?

Should you opt for something short, try to get in as much as possible or meet somewhere in the middle? How “out there” should you be with your job search?

I hear these questions from clients every week, if not every day. One of the main goals as a résumé writer is to help my clients see how they appear to a third party, especially a potential recruiter, hiring manager/partner, interviewer or other job search facilitator. We are often so wrapped up in our own stories that we forget how we appear to the outside world.

Take a look at a range of possible headlines below, which could easily describe the same individual at various points in his/her career. Depending on how he/she wanted to be perceived, some of these headlines are clearly more effective than others.

Can you immediately tell which ones?

– Scroll down for commentary –

Capital Markets Attorney, Counsel | Derivatives | Global Funds | Dodd Frank & EMIR

ISDA/Derivatives Attorney

ISDA Attorney | Derivatives Counsel

ISDA Attorney | Derivatives Counsel | Hedge Funds

ISDA Attorney and Derivatives Counsel at [Name of Employer]

ISDA Attorney at *

ISDA Attorny [sic]

Contract Attorney

ISDA Attorney Seeking New Opportunity

Attorney Seeking a New Opportunity

Versatile & Business Savvy Senior Attorney with 20+ Years of Effectively Resolving Complex Issues and Managing Risk

Senior Business Savvy Attorney

Experienced lawyer seeking engaging legal employment

Attorney, actively seeking employment

VP, Legal

Vice President and Associate General Counsel

Associate General Counsel

Financial Transactions Attorney

Corporate Finance Professional and Attorney | Investment and Corporate Banking

Attorney | Advocate

Attorney

Financial Services and Trading Counsel

ISDA Counsel and Negotiator

Experienced Derivatives Attorney and Published Novelist

Attorney/Writer/Humorist

Clearing, Dodd-Frank & ISDA Attorney

Fixed Income and Derivatives Attorney, Contracts Negotiator

ISDA, Prime Brokerage, Securities Lending, Repurchase, and Futures Negotiator

Derivatives Attorney

ISDA/Futures/Derivatives Attorney

Financial Transactions Attorney

Senior Derivatives/Regulatory/Capital Markets Attorney

– Commentary –

Clearly there is much more to say than I can cover in a short blog post, but here are some general thoughts to guide you:

First, consider your audience. You’ll see that I highlighted some headlines above. Two of them are “hybrid” (the last two headlines highlighted in red above) in that they straddle multiple roles – legal and writing. This can be effective if you are actually selling yourself to both audiences, and you do not believe that presenting yourself as a hybrid will do damage to your brand. It should, in fact, support your brand, because it reflects how you present yourself in daily life. Again, LinkedIn is not about self-actualization or gratification, it is about presenting yourself to the world in a professional context.

Second, an incomplete headline (or one with errors) is probably the worst thing you can do. It reflects extremely poorly on you, because it implies that you will lack attention to detail in your daily work as well. The first two highlighted headlines above display this lack of care. In the first, the attorney did not realize that LinkedIn prompted an employer, so it simply ends with “at….” (The added asterisk is mine.) In the second, the word Attorney is spelled incorrectly! I would not trust you to draft a contract to purchase a popsicle stick, let alone a multi-million dollar transaction, if you can’t even spell your headline correctly. Yes, I have actually seen typos in headlines, although more often they are in the summary or elsewhere on LinkedIn.

Third, if you have a temporary job, you are not a “temporary person.” You do not need to sum up your current employment. Instead, your headline should indicate who you are, not your present role. To that end, I would avoid a headline like “Contract Attorney” at all costs.

Fourth, don’t sound desperate. I see many headlines that announce an individual is “seeking employment,” even in some cases for individual who appear to be currently employed. While I cannot say that there is no case in which this could be appropriate, in most fields, including law, you should eliminate this from your headline. There is an old adage that it is easier to find a job when you have a job. The same applies here. As a hiring manager, I would rather hire individuals who are self-confident in who they are and what value they add than those that appear they will take the next best “new opportunity” that presents itself. Among other reasons, I would not be convinced that, once hired, the person would stay.

Fifth, don’t try a subtle, back door approach that imitates #4 above. By that I mean a headline like the following:

Versatile & Business Savvy Senior Attorney with 20+ Years of Effectively Resolving Complex Issues and Managing Risk

If you read between the lines, this person also is clearly on the job market. There are so many things wrong with this headline that I don’t even know where to start. Here are two:

(1) It has a lot of words without saying much.

(2) Words like “20+ Years of…” scream résumé, so they announce your job search. In the case of this individual – this is a real LinkedIn headline – he also has clients who may be turned off by this presentation. You are always writing to your current situation as well as your target next role (if any). The headline also screams “keywords” although it is not clear that they are the right words.

(Note: You may also not want to highlight your implied age by stating 20+ years – a separate issue that I’ll cover in another post. In the résumé business, the unwritten rule is to go with 15+ years, although there are clearly exceptions.)

Sixth, always remember keywords. While you generally don’t want your current employer to know you are looking for a new role, you also want to have a headline that describes what you do and will cause you to be located when a recruiter or other individual conducts a keyword search, if possible (even if you have no intention of leaving – who knows what dream job awaits?).

This is another reason why “seeking employment” does not help much. If you have “employment” and “attorney” in your headline, you may come up in searches for “employment attorney” but not in searches for your substantive experience (e.g., derivatives, contracts, etc.). This can be cured somewhat with a robust summary or other sections of the LinkedIn profile, but the headline is a stronger place for this identifying information.

Seventh, a difficult situation arises when you are trying to sell yourself in many ways. Sometimes you do not want to pigeonhole yourself as a particular type of attorney, especially if you are looking to transition or branch out. This is when you should consider whether to write a “tighter” or “looser” profile, i.e., one that identifies you more as an expert in a specific area or one that paints a broader brush.

One last note about adding the name of your employer to a headline: Often it takes up valuable “prime real estate” because it is not a keyword. However, if you work at a highly recognizable and well-regarded employer – from Goldman to Google – or an emerging company or organization known for innovation or another key quality that matches with your brand, it may well be worth including part or all of the name in your headline.

In summary, it is your headline, so you should be comfortable with it. There is no one right answer. After considering the above, also consider what your gut tells you. Would you be comfortable presenting your headline across the various audiences that will see it? Will it raise your confidence level and appropriately broadcast your professional self to the world? I suggest you take a look at your headline again with all of these hard and soft factors in mind to find the one that is right for you.

The Three Basic Challenges in Any Career

At the heart of the matter, there are only three basic career challenges. How to get somewhere, how to leave somewhere and how to be somewhere.

At the heart of the matter, there are only three basic career challenges:

Finding a new job
Leaving an old job
Performing in a current job

How to get somewhere, how to leave somewhere and how to be somewhere. That’s it.

We go through our daily lives focused on one or more variants of these problems:

Bringing Our “A Game”

Playing to Our Strengths

Interviewing for a New Role

Surviving a Toxic Workplace

Managing Up

Cultivating a Leadership Presence

Setting Boundaries

Changing Fields

Getting Organized

Surviving a Layoff

Gunning for a Promotion

The truth is that each one of us needs to focus on each of these three basic career challenges on a regular basis, whether it is one or more of the variants I mention above or others. We often get focused on the specific “problem at hand, ” and often in a negative way – hating our boss, hating our hours, hating the product we sell, hating our commute, etc.

If you are consistently focused on the micro-issues, you can lose sight of these macro-challenges in your career: how to get somewhere, how to leavesomewhere and how to be somewhere.

As we all know, no job is permanent in today’s world. Even if you love your job or feel that you need (a relative term) to stay with a specific employer for the foreseeable future, your role is constantly changing and your current situation may not be forever. Being in a role, i.e., drilling down to understand what your company or organization is seeking to accomplish and how you can play a greater role in its continued growth and success, is a skill that is infinitely transferable and, in fact, the most important career skill one can have.

Many of us, however, are locked into the particular career problem de jour without keeping our eyes locked on these medium, long-term and ultimate goals. Others only muse about they would like to do or be next, without taking the time to consider logically each individual step to get them there or asking themselves how they can perform better in their current roles. If you fall into either of these camps, you will suffer from disengagement from your career, because you have relinquished the power to drive it. You may have your hands on the wheel, but your can’t ascertain your speed or direction.

Rather than thinking of each of these three basic career challenges (where you are going, what you are leaving behind and how to live in your current role) as individual hurdles, envision your career as a continuum. Each challenge provides the context for the others, and each stage of the process sheds light on the other stages.

1) Finding a new job

What is your target? Do you have clear focus on what you are seeking and why (specifically, what differentiates a new role from those you have previously held)?

If you can’t see what’s on your horizon, what can you do to gain focus? Exercises that help you clarify your own values and value proposition are very helpful in this regard, as is working with a career coach or mentor. (But remember that mentors, and some coaches, have their own biases and blind spots.)

Along with your increased focus, what can you do to present yourself as a compelling candidate? Your résumé is a core document, but don’t forget about cover letters, deal sheets, bios, websites and LinkedIn, to the extent that any of these can help you advance your goals. Beyond the documents, networking and interviewing skills are key, and they both build on the same principles of presenting ourselves well and being able to translate our message to our target audience. These “personal branding” muscles – to use a current buzzword – are ones we should be exercising every day, so they are strong when needed. Lastly, remember that the best momentum comes from what you are already doing – the current aspects of your professional life, written broadly – and that means all of your career accomplishments, talents and transferable skills, not only the obvious ones.

2) Leaving an old job

If you are familiar with change management, you may already recognize that all change involves loss, even changes from which we stand much to gain. Practicing the art of letting go and visualizing yourself in a changed space before you want or need to leave a job will help prepare you for taking that leap. If the choice to leave is yours, these actions can also help give you the motivation to make the change. The worst place to be in a career (relationship, etc.) is unhappy with where you are and unmotivated to do anything about it, which becomes a cycle that is hard to break. Staying attuned to the art of moving on and aware that you have the power to re-create your own circumstances are decisive factors in your career success.

In addition, even before you are on the crux of leaving a role, think about who and what will be left behind. How can you put yourself in a good place each day, as if it were your last day in the role? One example of such preparation is to cultivate key relationships that you would like to maintain after you leave. Another is to resolve or mitigate any disputes that should not be left to linger, if possible. The world gets metaphorically smaller each day, and former work colleagues can easily become future ones, sometimes for the better. In addition, if your new role will be within the same organization (e.g., a promotion), you will get more help, input and support from former colleagues by creating meaningful relationships before the change and maintaining them after your move. Even if certain colleagues seem to have no visible impact on your new position, you can never truly estimate or measure the value of having a solid base of supporters for your cause.

3) Performing in a current job

First, there’s the art of mindfulness and “being in the moment” to be truly productive, connected and alive.

Second, you really can take it with you. By that I mean that whatever progress you make in a current role, you are not only advancing the goals of your company or organization, you are also growing yourself. Unfortunately, as a career coach, I see firsthand how this is something we can easily miss. As I work on résumé writing with clients, for example, I often find they have not “connected the dots” on how their contributions and experience make them compelling candidates to their target audiences. I approach the résumé writing process not only an exercise in putting the right words on the page, but also in formulating the client’s strongest message (i.e., values and value proposition) in the first place.

Last week, for example, I worked with a client who had a junior-sounding “compliance analyst” role on her résumé. As we spoke further, it became clear that (at her relatively small company) she had not only drafted documents, trained staff and the like, she had also essentially co-lead the creation and formalization of the company’s compliance program. While her current role was not where she wanted to stay, it gave her a realm of tools to bridge and bootstrap to her next move. In addition, as she continued to stay fully engaged in the role, she then brought the company through a series of risk-reward analyses and improvements designed to laser-focus their risk-mitigation efforts on the changes that really mattered to their viability and bottom line. I gave her the language to discuss her experience in a larger context, and with that context she is able to more fully leverage her value proposition.

This client’s lessons, successes and wounds – garnered from the process of discerning, persuading and negotiating game-changing measures across business teams and other functions – will serve her well in any future career. As you reflect on your own career, you may find the same hidden gems are planted as you remain engaged and present, for your employer’s growth and your own.

Originally published as “The Three Macro-Challenges of Your Career” on LinkedIn Pulse.

Avoiding Resume Failure: Four Things Resumes Need to Do

While a résumé cannot make your career, it can certainly break it. Résumés fail every day. They make a candidate look too scattered, too junior, too specialized or too much of any other trait that is undesirable in general or a particular case and not enough of what an employer actually does want. In the hundreds of résumés I read last year alone, I can say that the greatest point of failure is that the résumé writer did not step back and consider what he or she was trying to communicate.

shutterstock_160082594 (dominos) Let’s be very clear, resumes are exceedingly important, but they are not everything. No one’s career chances have ever been made by a resume. You need much more than a great resume to succeed, and your entire value proposition as a candidate or employee is not locked in the document waiting to be read.

On the other hand, while a resume cannot make your career, it can certainly break it. Resumes fail every day. They make a candidate look too scattered, too junior, too specialized or too much of any other trait that is undesirable in general or a particular case and not enough of what an employer actually does want. In the hundreds of resumes I read last year alone, I can say that the greatest point of failure is that the resume writer did not step back and consider what he or she was trying to communicate.

When I say the “resume writer”above, I don’t mean a professional resume writer, who through experience and detachment generally possesses the big-picture perspective. (That’s a large part of why you might hire one.) I mean Joe, Sally, Larry, Latisha, Ricardo, Li-Shin and every other job candidate out there who is writing a resume on his or her own. If Latisha doesn’t put on her “resume writer’s hat” and Larry doesn’t put himself in the shoes of the reader, neither of them will be very effective at communicating through the resume medium.

Why is this task of writing a compelling resume so important? Without exaggeration, millions of employees worldwide are held in the shackles of their current employment, unhappy, unmotivated and unable to move internally or into new jobs, because they have not mastered the skill of communicating their value through their resumes. Millions of others are unemployed or underemployed for the same reason.

You have one or two pages to make your case. Without fail.

THE FOUR THINGS RESUMES NEED TO DO

CONVINCE
THE RIGHT AUDIENCE
YOU ARE COMPELLING
TO INTERVIEW

In certain limited circumstances, as a job candidate you are already a known quantity as a professional, and the resume serves more of a “confirmation” function. Most of the time, however, the resume itself needs to build your case. As far as we have moved as a society into business-driven social media (LinkedIn profiles, etc.), in most professional fields the resume is still the common currency and core document. We are a long way from the phrase “send me your resume” being replaced with “send me your Twitter feed.”

Resumes fail because they don’t convince the right audience that you are a compelling candidate to interview.

#1 – Know Your Audience

When I work with résumé clients, the first point we tackle is knowing the audience., which is #2 above. To know who is your audience, you need to first know what roles you are targeting. In the attorney field, for example, a litigator resume written to target a law firm won’t convey the key points if the candidate wants to move into an in-house role, public policy, human resources or education. The audience in each case is different, and what is needed to convince your audience that you are a good candidate is decidedly specific to each type of role. If you are writing a resume on your own and in doubt about what your audience is looking for, the first step is to find out as much about the actual “work” of the target position. Job descriptions, informational interviews and other investigatory measures will help you clarify what is expected in each role.

#2 – Convince

Second, once you know your audience, your job is to convince the audience you are a good hire. Too often, candidates try to do this by putting more on the page. They don’t know what to emphasize, because they haven’t taken the time to get to know themselves or their audience, and they expect the reader to sort it out. The resume in that case does not present a logical step-by-step narrative that walks the reader through the candidate’s strengths, talents, experience and value-add. The reader, of course, is busy and has much better things to do, like read the resume of someone who has figured out how to write one properly (or get on with the business of actually working).

How do you convince employers to hire you through your resume? Show them you can solve their problems and capitalize on their opportunities.

You can’t close the deal with readers/interviewers/recruiters/hiring managers/networking contacts if you can’t convince them you are a compelling candidate. And you won’t be a compelling candidate in most cases if you don’t know your own value proposition.

The most compelling way to close the deal is to know the problems, issues, opportunities, strengths, risks, threats, etc. of a particular employer (or class of employers) and present yourself as someone who can solve the problems and capitalize on the opportunities. Here are some concrete examples to make this clear. Imagine you had a class of jobs in front of you, and you needed to figure out what problems needed to be solved in each case: (1) the receptionist of a busy pediatrician’s office, (2) the safety manager at a manufacturing company, or (3) the execution trader for a hedge fund trading international equities. What are the so-called “pain points” of each? Does the doctor’s office need someone client-focused and organized? (Clearly.) Do they need to have experience in a similar setting? (Depends on what else they bring to the table and the employer’s biases, history of hires and successes/failures on that front.) What else does each role require and request of a candidate?

I have worked with many candidates who have not even considered what an employer’s needs are. So many, in fact, that I am no longer surprised by this omission of the key reason that companies hire in the first place – to fill a need.

Let’s think about #2 above for a moment – safety management. Say you want to move into (or move up in) this type of role, which is admittedly a very specific field. Here’s a sample job description (click here) from Lauren, an EPC contractor. If you were serious about this area as one or more possible targets for you, and this employer in particular, I would suggest you read related job descriptions to flesh out how “this type of job works.” While the present blog post is not about how to read a job description (stay tuned, one may follow), let me highlight a few key points that would help your resume communicate that you a compelling candidate for this job or one like it. Start not with the writing, but with the thinking, namely:

(1) What does this employer do? At a very basic level, what is EPC (engineering, procurement and construction), what is the heavy industrial sector, and how does this translate into their day-to-day operations?

(2) Who are their clients?

(3) What markets do they operate in?

(4) Who are their competitors?

(5) Since they are in a highly-regulated field that affects everything that they do, who are their regulators, what regulations are they subject to, etc.? (Note: see the references to OSHA, for example, in the job description. If you do not know what OSHA is and have not mentioned it on your resume, you will be a very hard sell. Find a cheap training online, at the very least, to get you started, or do the research on your own. In other words, if you don’t have what you need, find a way to get it.)

(6) Note that all of the above points are about the employer. Only after you have considered the macro-view – what are they trying to accomplish and how does that play out? – then ask yourself the question, how does your targeted role serve to lead, manage and/or support the bigger picture? How can you help solve the employers’ problems, issues, opportunities, strengths, risks, threats, etc. How can you make them money, save them money, raise their reputation in the marketplace, keep them out of trouble or otherwise add value to the company?

#3 – Be Compelling

You will notice immediately that this is a completely different approach to resume writing than creating a “laundry list” of what you have done in the past. If you are perceptive, you will also notice that “it’s about them, not about you.” Compelling candidates won’t just want to fill jobs because they need a paycheck. Compelling candidates are compelling because they move beyond what’s in it for them and are focused on what they can do for the employer. (Which is how and why we all get paid, after all.)

If what I am proposing sounds like a lot of work, it is. Yet if you cannot find the energy to be fully engaged at the outset of a job, how will you possibly summon it up once you are in the job? The same attention to getting you hired will keep you employed and progressing along your career. If you don’t have it and cannot create it, you are in the wrong field, industry or life.

Referring back to points 1-7 above, you may ask how each of these are reflected in your resume, which is the decisive question. The art of writing the resume is to translate the employer’s needs (without simply repeating words) to show that you have the “right stuff” to meet their objectives for the role and the company generally. If you are applying to a set of roles that are similar (e.g., safety management roles across a range of companies or industries), the communication of what makes you compelling may be quite similar for each employer that you are trying to “sell” on your candidacy. Keywords play a role, certainly, and the essence of a compelling resume is that it allows the reader to picture you in the role.

The essence of a compelling resume: allow the reader to picture you in the role.

#4 – Focus on Getting the Interview

On the fourth and last point of failure, resume writers often forget that they are generally competing for an interview with their resume, not yet competing for the job. In other words, not every single point about why a company should hire you needs to be in the resume. In fact, it shouldn’t run on that long, lest you run the risk of coming across as a candidate who cannot succinctly and effectively communicate. Remember: the resume is the appetizer, not the meal. Your resume’s job is to convert the recipient of your resume into a reader and then into an interviewer.

Once you have the interview, go back to those 7 points above (and others), and make the same sale all over again. Convince your audience you are a compelling candidate to hire.

Anne Marie Segal is a resume writer and a career and leadership coach to attorneys, executives and entrepreneurs. You can find her website here.

WRITING SERVICES include attorney and executive resume, cover letters, LinkedIn profiles, bios, websites and other career and business communications.

COACHING SERVICES include career coaching, networking support, interview preparation, LinkedIn training, personal branding, leadership and change management.

Sending a Bad Cover Letter is Like Taking Your Date to the Drive-Thru

Bad cover letters are like drive-thru dating. Here’s why: hastily dashing off a cover letter is as likely to make a negative first impression as asking someone out on a date and then failing to put in the effort.

A poorly written cover-letter lacks the three C’s: creativity, curiosity (about the employer and its needs) and care.

I would bet we can all agree that taking your date (especially a new one) through the drive-thru and munching on fries in the car – rather than an actual dinner that requires planning, some risk, thought and a small capital outlay – usually doesn’t bode well for a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship. The reason is obvious. A drive-thru date lacks the three C’s: creativity, curiosity and care.

A poorly written cover-letter lacks the three C’s:

creativity, curiosity (about the employer and its needs) and care.

Yet job candidates send what I would call “just plain bad” cover letters all the time to potential employers. That is, they send letters that clearly indicate they were in a rush, not wanting to take the time or spend the energy to understand the role or even make a good first impression.

Alternatively, they skip the stated requirement for a cover letter altogether, which is like saying to that same date, “let’s take a drive past the fast food joints in town and not eat at all, because I couldn’t be bothered to plan or pay for dinner.” While some employers (and dates) don’t fuss over such details or want you bad enough to overlook this faux pas, there’s an etiquette to job submissions that should not be ignored unless you’re fortunate enough to fit into one of the exceptions above.

While many roles do not require cover letters, a good deal do. In the latter case, unless you are a highly sought-after candidate by this employer (read: they want you badly enough to give you the upper hand), cover letters are often part of the job search etiquette and should not be ignored.

To put it very simply: if you don’t write a strong, well-worded and error free letter, you may cost yourself a $60K, $100K or even $250K+ job. Put into more specific monetary terms, if you are unemployed, each month you are out of work is 1/12th of that amount. Alternatively, if you are in a job you hate, that same lost month can make you more discouraged and less motivated about going to work, getting out of bed during the week or finding a way to improve your situation. Short answer: getting your cover letters nailed down, in style and substance, is essential to any job search.

How can I make my cover letter stand out?

I hear this question all the time from my clients: how can I write an amazing cover letter that will get their attention? Truth be told, when I first started writing résumés, I thought that if I got the hard part (the résumé) out of the way, the rest (the cover letter) would be easy. Yet it isn’t so. The mental block that accompanies cover letters is just as strong as the one for résumés. In addition, the potential for missteps is equally high, which is unfortunate for job candidates, since the cover letter is often the document that triggers a make-or-break first impression.

Here are some basic factors to consider as you are writing a cover letter:

First, your cover letter should be written to a person. It’s not a love letter (or an actual date), of course, but your cover letter should nonetheless engage your reader. While keywords are important for automated submissions, a simple rehash of your résumé with the name of the position listed above and a “please contact me” closing paragraph do not a great cover letter make.

You are writing to a person. Make sure he or she wants to read it.

I’ve mentioned this to clients and in groups, and I am always surprised when I say, “Imagine you are the person receiving the letter.” I see a lightbulb go off. Yes, you are writing to a person. Someone who got out of bed in the morning just like you, wants to impress his or her boss with a good hire and may have the office next to you for the next ten years. Write to that person.

If you don’t have a particular person to whom you can address the letter, you can direct it to “Ladies and Gentlemen.” But remember, while it is not addressed to a specific individual, it will be read by a person at some point in the process. If you were an actor on stage you may not know who comprises your audience, but you would know (or assume) there is an audience. In too many cases to count, I have seen cover letters which appear to have been written under the premise that they will never actually be read.

Second, your cover letter should indicate that you have actually read the job description and want the job. Put down the pen or keyboard for a moment. Imagine that you are the potential interviewer, and you have two cover letters in front of you. In one, there is a generic rehashing of the person’s résumé or watered-down description of his or her skills. In the other, the candidate exudes confidence and demonstrates an understanding of and genuine interest in the needs of the employer. Which one makes you want to move to the next step with the candidate? For the avoidance of doubt, my vote is with cover letter #2. The first one is destined for the trash can, with as little aim and initiative as its writer had showed when sending it.

Third, your cover letter should explain why you are the right person to fill the job. How specifically can you add value to the organization and what examples can you give to show that you have made similar contributions in other roles? I am not suggesting that you need to show you are a round peg to fit into a round hole, but you do need to connect the dots for the interviewer, rather than expect him or her to do that for you. Again, comparing to the drive-thru example, if you couldn’t be bothered to make even a basic plan for your date, what can you possibly expect in return?

Fourth, delete any language that doesn’t communicate why you should be hired. Space is at a premium. Use it well.

I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.
– Attributed to Mark Twain, Blaise Pascal and others

Fifth, if you need to explain a gap or other detracting element of your work history, give it a positive spin. Negativity is one of the biggest turn-offs in the job interview process, and starting a paragraph with “I am currently unemployed but….” or “although I have taken five years off from working….” can sound like you are someone who dwells on the downside. What can you offer to make yourself a compelling candidate while gently explaining what might otherwise be a red flag? Again, imagine you are the interview. What would make he or she excited about hiring you? How did you take that blow or setback and learn from it or create something positive with it?

Sixth, write well and proofread zealously. Even if writing won’t be a significant component of your job (and for most of us, it is), consider the cover letter an audition for how well you’ll write for the company.

Lastly, read it again and make sure you cover the three C’s. Does your cover letter show creativity, differentiating it from all the other cover letters on the block? Does it demonstrate a curiosity about the company and the role, as well as what you could add to it? Finally, is it written with care, rather than a simple “drive-thru style” of how many cover letters you could bang out in a day?

If your job search has dragged on or been unnecessarily delayed, you may feel sometimes as if quantity – i.e., number of applications submitted – is what matters most. In the current job market, in which there can be thousands of applicants for each job, nothing could be further from the truth. Take the time to get it right.

Anne Marie Segal is a résumé writer and a career and leadership coach to attorneys, executives and entrepreneurs. You can find her website here.

WRITING SERVICES include attorney and executive résumés, cover letters, LinkedIn profiles, bios, websites and other career and business communications.

COACHING SERVICES include career coaching, networking support, interview preparation, LinkedIn training, personal branding, leadership and change management.

This post was originally published on LinkedIn Pulse.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: