The Undercover Recruiter

6 Ways to Catapult Your Job Search After a Layoff

If there’s one lesson the recession has made painfully clear, it’s that no one is immune from layoffs. The worst part? Many workers are blindsided when the ax falls. Coping with sudden job loss isn’t something they teach you in college or in any professional training program. There are, however, some strategies you can employ to stop being lost and take control.

Here are six tips to get over a layoff and back on the job:

1. Take a Few Days to Chillax

While it’s hard to even think about taking a break when worrying about so many other details, feeling overwhelmed will make your job search even more difficult. No one deserves to be laid off, but everyone deserves a break to refresh and refocus.

2. Get What You’ve Paid Taxes for

Apply for unemployment. Contact your COBRA, outplacement services and any other resources that might be available to you.

3. Kick off the Search

Look at job descriptions on job boards to understand the marketplace and where your skills might fit in, which you need to know to develop a breakthrough resume. If you haven’t already done so, create a job board account and save job listings you think are the best fit for you. Identify skills in these job postings, and make sure those skills are listed in your resume. The job posting can also give you insight into salary ranges, corporate values and more, so remember to use the posting itself as a critical tool in your job hunt.

4. Reinvent Your Resume

Anything you need to know about writing a resume — including industry-specific resume advice — industry-specific resume templates as well.

5. Create a Networking Strategy

Get out the contact list. As this article recommends, put each person into a tier of your formal networking plan. Your first tier will include the people you know best — such as current and past colleagues and managers as well recruiters with whom you have an established relationship.

Tier Two is your secondary network — individuals who know what’s happening within a particular business community or have clients who may be interested in your talent. Don’t limit yourself. Think of everyone you know, including family and friends. Sometimes, the most unlikely sources can help you get your foot in the door. Remember the most important concept about networking: Ask your contacts for help — not a job.

6. Hit the Job Market

Once you’ve identified your skills and refreshed your resume, start applying to positions that look like a good fit for your talents.

It takes more than luck to overcome a recent layoff. It takes a plan of action. And remember that while you can’t control a layoff, you can control making that layoff pay off. Even in a challenging economy, people are still finding jobs. Those who have success stories of finding the perfect job or general tips and advice are invited to participate in Monster’s Success Stories community.

Monster.com is the premier global online employment solution for people seeking jobs and the employers who need great people.

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This post is written by a guest blogger. If you are interested in submitting a guest post, check out our Guest Post Guidelines - we look forward to hearing from you!

Filed Under: Job Search Tagged With: Job Hunting

How to Create a Professional Email Signature

In prior blog posts I spoke about some rather sophisticated career management documents such a brag book, a networking newsletter, and a one-page biography. Today, I would like to focus on a more simple aspect of your job search toolkit but one that is many, many times overlooked: adding a professional email signature

Consider the following scenario:

You are a “heads down” corporate employee doing a good, no, make that a great job. Somehow, due to a perfect storm, you lose your job in a downright awful economy. After the shock wears off, you sit down at your personal computer and realize you have to start using your personal email as your “base of operation.” So, you make a list of everybody you know and you start firing off emails letting people know of your situation. Like any savvy job seeker, you begin the networking process which creates a lot more email activity.

What you may not have considered are three key issues related to your newfound “base of operation” – your personal email account. For the time being while in full-bore job search mode, your personal email account is really your work email account. Why? Because you need to put forth the same professional image in your email signature when you are in transition (unemployed) as you do when you are employed. Let’s look carefully at each component of a professional email box: the email address itself, your display settings and the email signature.

Email Address

This is quite obvious but so often overlooked. “WineKook10 {at} gmail.com” is not an email address that evokes professionalism, intelligence and competence! Instead, create an email address more in line with what you would see in a work setting, for example, “Firstname_Lastname {at}yahoo.com.”

Email Name Settings

In a prior article I ranted about one of my pet peeves regarding LinkedIn etiquette. Well, here is a second pet peeve. Often I receive emails that read in my email program like so: from “ronjones{at}hotmail.com.” Or just as bad: from “ron” with no last name. Emails should always be sent via “First name Last name” (or vice versa). Not only is it professional, it is also the only way that recruiters and hiring managers can find your email in their overstuffed email bins – by sorting or searching on your name. This setting is easy to find and adjust in your email program.

Email Signature

It also amazes me as to how many emails I receive that have no email signature whatsoever. At best, I might see the person sign their name. For example, “Thanks, Matt.” While on the job you used a professional email signature, now, while in transition, it is more important than ever to convey a professional image.

Here are instructions on how to create a highly professional and functional email signature when you are in job search mode. I bet you will keep the signature you create even after you land. After all, job search is not a one-time event during a time of need. Instead, you must incorporate a professional email signature and other strategies into your on-going career management. I am using my email signature as an example. Feel free to tailor these ideas to your own style.

Name and Title

Certainly lead with your name. Consider a larger point size and an attractive font and color. If you are in transition, consider starting your own consulting company. That way you can give yourself a title just like your last full time job! You may find yourself becoming a successful entrepreneur. If this strategy is not right for you, you can still add a tagline like the examples below.

Email and Phone Number

Include your telephone number and your email address. You want to make it extremely easy for recruiters and hiring managers to contact you. Don’t make it difficult to be reached. Believe it or not, there is some spontaneity in the corporate hiring process. Recruiters and hiring managers may call you on a whim, on a hunch, but you must make it easy for them. Having your phone and email address on every new, forward, or reply email can make the difference.

Tagline

Marketing is key for the viability of any business. Treat job search as a business. This means you must market yourself. When you are in job search you are not exclusively an information technology professional, sales professional, or engineer, you are also a marketer! You must market yourself because no one else will do it for you. I repeat… no one else will do it for you.

All successful marketing campaigns include a tagline or catch phrase. You need one, too. Your tagline should be just a few words boiled down to your professional essence.

Some examples:

Tax Accountant: In taxing times, count on me.

Web Designer: Visually translating your complex thoughts.

Training Professional: Amy is the name, Training is my game.

The one I used personally when I was in job search mode was:

Even better, give the consulting company, discussed above, a logo. If you do, you can include your logo in your email signature. (Starting a consulting company when you are unemployed is a great idea: you create a brand for yourself, it shows you are motivated, you can make some interim cash, it is an insurance policy against a future layoff and you can use the business as a soft landing upon retirement.) You can consider adding your own branded logo even if you are not associating it with your new consulting company. The logo can be simply your own personal logo.

Website and Blog Links

Adding your website and/or blog creates a brand of a busy, successful, current, relevant and technologically-savvy professional. This is the exact image that you want to project when in job search mode!

LinkedIn and Twitter Hyperlinked Icons

In this section you can really demonstrate your 2011 brand. Companies need professionals that can relate to all of the generations in the workforce. You will clearly be showing your connection and adaptability to the Gen Y and Millennial generations by adding social media hyperlinks to your email signature. It goes without saying that the content you link to must be of the professional variety only! LinkedIn is perfect because of its professional focus. Twitter is also being used extensively by professionals and executives to share cutting edge business information. Twitter is no longer just for kids to tweet about their favorite mocha latte.

You can find the full instructions for creating the clickable hyperlinked icons from this YouTube video. These instructions assume that you use Outlook as your email client. The time consuming part is finding the right LinkedIn and Twitter icons and resizing them so that they look appropriate for your email signature. Not to worry – I have already done this for you. You can download and save my LinkedIn icon here (click “download here” in upper right corner) and my Twitter icon here. Now open Outlook and follow these steps to complete the process:

1. Tools
2. Options
3. Mail Format
4. Signatures
5. New (or edit)
6. Click: Insert picture (on right hand side of screen) >> Insert desired picture
7. Now that picture is inserted into the signature click on the chain link icon (hyperlink) >>type in desired URL
8. Save

Finished Product

At this point, you have all the tools you need to create a professional, sophisticated, branded and technologically-savvy email signature. One last tip: don’t left-justify everything. Give it some visual appeal by using different alignment, fonts, point sizes and color. Here’s the end result, my signature:

Please leave a comment below with your new professional email signature!

photo by: Jerry Bunkers

Guest Blogger

This post is written by a guest blogger. If you are interested in submitting a guest post, check out our Guest Post Guidelines - we look forward to hearing from you!

Filed Under: Career Management, Job Search Tagged With: Career Advice, Email, Job Hunting, Signature

10 Hot Twitter Tips to Find Your New Job

We’ve given you Twitter, perhaps the most talked about social media site of the moment. Although Twitter is arguably perceived as being more about socialising than professional networking, it is still a hugely valuable tool for businesses, professionals-and job seekers. Here are 10 tips for using Twitter to get a job.

1. Fill in your bio

You only have 160 characters for your bio, so make them count. Make it clear what you want and what value you can bring, i.e. “As a qualified social worker for x years, I’m currently looking for a position in a y type of organisation”. See How to Write a Twitter Bio for more on this topic.

2. Use a real photo of yourself

It’s important to upload a photo on your Twitter profile and it’s just as important that it’s a photo of yourself. As hilarious as putting up a photo of a cat in a bow tie or Simon Cowell is, it doesn’t look very professional in the eyes of potential employers looking at your profile.

3. Follow the relevant people

Obviously if you’re using Twitter to tap into a certain job role, organisation, career or industry, it’s useful to follow tweeters associated with your target areas. There are a number of Twitter applications and directories that can help you find people in particular fields. The most established, popular and recommended one is Twellow.

4. Connect with people

Following people who could be beneficial to your job search won’t be of any help if they don’t know you’re there! Connect with potentially useful contacts by replying to their tweets, following tweeted links to their blog posts and leaving comments, and also tweeting them any thoughts or links that they might find interesting.

5. Tweet smartly

Once you’re interacting with people on Twitter and have some followers that are really listening to you, it becomes increasingly important that you tweet smartly. If you’re using Twitter as part of your job search this means giving off a professional vibe. You may only have 140 characters with which to tweet, but it’s still important to be interesting, avoid major controversy and to use correct spelling and grammar.

6. Offer your help

This is an important part of connecting with people and being a smart tweeter: You can show both your authenticity and your ability to fellow users by offering your help to them, be it by answering a question, voting on a poll, or even sending them a book that they’re looking for and that you have. Giving assistance by using your career expertise in particular will of course demonstrate your viability as a job candidate.

7. Ask for help

If people are asking for help, that of course means that you can also ask for help, especially if you’re looking for a job. Asking for help doesn’t necessarily mean coming across as desperate: it can be as simple and understated as asking a journalist who writes about your particular industry if they know of any organisations that are hiring soon.

8. Don’t spam

Unfortunately, as Twitter is such a popular platform, it does get its fair share of spammers. Even if you’re not intentionally spamming, other tweeters can be so sensitive to spam as to label you as a spammer and block/report you. It’s one thing to ask for help from a variety of connections on a variety of job seeking issues, but if you repeatedly address exactly the same question/request to the particular person or to the whole of Twitter, you may become a spam suspect.

9. Be cautious

Speaking of spam, if you do get a tweet or DM (Direct Message) from someone you haven’t been interacting with, or have never been told about, and they offer you a dream job opening, be wary. Ask yourself if what they’re saying is too good to be true and why the offer has come out of the blue. Be careful not to click on any links you don’t trust, as these can often be the main tool of phishing scams. Just as there can be non-existent, questionable, or even illegal jobs disguised as legit positions on listings websites, they can also appear on Twitter and other similar forms of social media.

10. Preserve your Twitter reputation

Spamming is just one way of ruining your reputation. As your online reputation as a job seeker is very important, be sure to also avoid swearing, lying, posting inappropriate photos, being rude, pestering famous (or any) tweeters and tweeting drunk.

Now that you have taken these steps you’re ready to check out the list of 140 companies tweeting fresh jobs.

Nisa Chitakasem is the founder of Position Ignition – a careers company dedicated to taking you to the next step in your career. Nisa is passionate about helping individuals find the right career path for them whether it involves finding a more rewarding career, making a career change, figuring out the right career plan or being creative about career directions.

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This post is written by a guest blogger. If you are interested in submitting a guest post, check out our Guest Post Guidelines - we look forward to hearing from you!

Filed Under: Job Search, Twitter Tagged With: Twitter

What Every Sales or Marketing Resume Must Focus On

Sales and marketing are a vital part in any business. Because of this, opportunities in sales and marketing will never run dry. These jobs would always be available no matter how bad the economy gets. But getting into this career is not always easy. For highly specialized technical sales positions, certain qualifications are required for you to get the job. So, if you want to apply for a these kinds of opportunities, revise your resume a bit to help you get the job.

These are the things your resume should focus on:

Business Development Skills

Employers are not only on the lookout for people who can sell. Expanding the business is just as important. Detail in your resume and cover letter what skills you have in networking, lead generation, sourcing and probing/pre-qualifying, as well as any experiences you have had organizing events in your previous jobs.

Numbers

It’s all about the numbers! Employers and recruiters scanning your resume will be keeping an eye out for any figures included in your resume. Highlight increases in sales, relevant industry rankings you have attained, number of years or months it took you to bring a certain amount of profit, percentage of increase in customers or product sales, costs you have reduced (if not eliminated), and other pertinent contributions.

Accounts Managed

Name the products or services you have promoted and sold (especially the complex ones). No matter how big or small the brand is, they count. Big brands are often accompanied by demanding decision makers, so highlight the abilities you used to win them over and deliver on your promise. Previous experience though not lengthy is still experience and is definitive proof that you can do the job.

Advertising Skills

If you have good advertising skills, then that’s considered a bonus to your already stellar resume! Copywriting talents and a knack for creating promotional materials tell employers that you can effectively execute their marketing strategies and reach the target audience for the products or services assigned to you.

Training

Some say that selling is an art. Because of this, a certain degree of education and training can be helpful to get into a job in sales and marketing. If you have taken courses for enhancing abilities in negotiation and closing, probing, presentation, account management, strategic marketing, print and other media advertising, then by all means include them in your resume. This tells employers and recruiters you have the tools to help you perform on the job and contribute to the bottom line.

A proven track record is often the requirement for a job in sales and marketing. However, the ability to manage multiple accounts, to communicate and interact with people are also of great value. So get to work and make sure that resume and cover letter sells the best things about you!

Jorgen Sundberg

The original Undercover Recruiter, after 7 years in tech recruiting Jorgen now runs Link Humans, a social media marketing agency in London.

Filed Under: Resume Tagged With: Resume, Resumes