I recently started coaching someone who has been out of work for 2 years and has been in denial because she has won 12 marketing communication awards. Although her positioning rhetoric got more “sales-y” at 18 months, Mary’s search and networking activities were otherwise generic. The campaign did not offset prejudice about her age (a matronly 52) and being out a long time. Did you know 70% of hiring managers avoid candidates who are out of work? (a)

Long before she panicked, she should have been test-marketing alternative strategies to see which offered her the best ROI (Return On Investment.)

I asked her what she has been doing in her spare time. She admitted that she loves travel and gardening. Has won 5 awards for gardening. Would love a marketing job in travel or gardening but has no paid experience in either.

Here are strategies she is now exploring in order to create more options for herself:

• Create kick-ass “whitepapers” to demonstrate her marketing knowledge in depth in formats that will additionally showcase her award-winning publication design abilities.  Find ways to circulate them to hiring managers including those she has already met.
• Produce B2B or B2C publications on gardening or travel to be used to demonstrate that, although she has never been paid by those industries, she has lots to offer.
• She is going to quietly shadow a salesperson selling to resorts to learn more about VOC (Voice of the Customer) for the hospitality industry.

If what you have been doing is not working, have you considered something new?

(a) http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/16/news/economy/unemployed_need_not_apply/index.htm

Topics: career strategy, hidden job market, solving problems | No Comments »

Pursuing “what you really want to do” sounds totally impractical in the buyer’s market we are in. I just wrote several blogs on what you need to do to get ahead based on what the corporation and industry responds to. But consider this. You will perform best in the role and everyday activities that you excel at most and with the products you love. The right job is the one you would do for free if you could afford to. Your customers will be happier and respond to your sales pitch more often and with more fervor.

Some folks who are not finding jobs or promotions have set goals for years based on what they think they should be doing. But many do not want those results enough to remain fully committed to the goal. Hence they do not perform as well as those at top of the band. Or they may not know how they measure up against the most successful people in their band because they were promoted regularly in better economic times and didn’t spend much time thinking about emotional alignment as long as bigger paychecks continued to arrive. Men have been taught for hundreds of years that they are only successful if they can buy the family successively larger houses, cars, and boats. I can name a COO who is convinced he must be CEO to be deemed successful. (His co-workers all think CEO is entirely the wrong move.)

So however you got to the position you are in, if you are not being promoted and hired as often as you were, it is time to re-consider if your goals are in alignment with your priorities in life and your actual skill set. Maybe you would be MUCH happier as the owner of a Bread and Breakfast or as a woodcarver or at a non-profit. And much more successful.

Topics: career strategy, solving problems | No Comments »

Much of what we have been taught to do to make us valuable to “the job market” is more about the convenience and profit of the employer rather than giving the employee maximum control over his/her destiny and security. However, as company agendas will continue to be less and less stable for an individual employee, a “Portfolio Career” strategy is a concept you need to understand as a pro-active means of a establishing a foothold for you in a new industry in case your current job disappears or if you wish to change roles long-term.

On a simple level, a “Portfolio Career” means someone earns income from more than one simultaneous employer by choice or necessity. It is not a new concept. “Freelancers” in ad agencies and “Contractors” in IT have been doing it since the 1970’s as a means of gaining exposure to a wide variety of clients/technologies as quickly as possible. Folks with multiple jobs are easy to find in any industry in Europe.

Deliberately selecting unrelated simultaneous jobs spreads your risk if any one industry or skill area shrinks. Remember when the telecom industry shrunk by 70% in the 1990’s? Ad agency work has been shifting over 20 years from mass media like network TV and magazines to the Internet and other personal media. A Portfolio Career would protect you in similar transitions. Read the rest of this entry »

Topics: career strategy, hidden job market, networking, solving problems | 2 Comments »

I am in my 50s. Yes, age bias exists and, yes, it is illegal. You won’t always be able to avoid it. But age bias is sometimes not really about your actual age, it is about certain soft skills and attitudes that employers desire but older employees are less likely to value. And if you learn to address those issues, you can make concerns about age go away.

Read the rest of this entry »

Topics: branding + positioning, career strategy, interviews, networking, resume + cover letter, salary | No Comments »

The simple answer? Don’t do it.

• I have seen national studies that claimed about 70% of resumes have “mistruths” in them.
• Other studies state 25-50% of resumes have “embellishments” (an exaggeration but not lie.)

The most common lies:

• Length of employment gaps
• Titles
• Degrees completed
• Salary
• Reason for leaving
• Not mentioning a job from which you were fired
• Taking credit for an idea developed by the team
• When career started (age)
• Size of business or projects managed
• Rank as a sales person or total revenue you represented
• Claiming to be “Consulting” when you were billing zero hours

I could quote more studies, but the point is: Recruiters and Hiring Managers EXPECT there to be many lies in resumes and in the interviews we have with applicants so we look and listen for them. Read the rest of this entry »

Topics: branding + positioning, career strategy, interviews, recruiting, resume + cover letter, salary | No Comments »