16 Job Search Errors Often Made

By Rachel Farrell, CareerBuilder.com
From CNNLiving.com

Over the years, hiring managers have born witness to every hiring, interviewing, resume, cover letter and negotiation mistake there is. You know what these blunders are. Yet you (and hundreds of other job seekers) continue to make common job search mistakes.

From those who see your mistakes over and over, here are 16 common job search mistakes to avoid — and some of them may surprise you.

The 7 Noble Virtues of the Workplace

From Salary.com

Especially in this economy it is easy to feel alone. Coworkers can be very competitive and it may feel that going out of your way to put the team and your coworkers first is a wasted effort, but in the end people do remember your efforts and small kindnesses add up.

To see the survey results and list of seven noble virtues in the workplace, please click here.

2011 Best Places to Work

From Experience.com

Experience invited employers from across the country to participate in the 2011 Best Places to Work for Recent Grads survey, and the winners are in! This exciting initiative is dedicated to identifying and recognizing the best employers for recent college graduates. As a whole, these 20 organizations offered outstanding training programs, sweet paychecks, and extraordinary opportunities for rapid career growth. Here’s a detailed look at this year’s winners (sorted alphabetically) – including some new and familiar faces to the chart.

Career Amp – Use Facebook in a New Way

CareerAmp is a new application that makes professional networking possible in Facebook. Career Amp allows you to connect with friends and see what positions may be open at the companies they work with.  CareerAmp can help amplify your career and get the most from your Facebook network, in a professional setting.

What are the perks?

• Search Opportunities
• Update your profile and make it personal
• Browse connections on Facebook
• See where your friends work and what opportunities are available within their companies

To learn more, or to sign up, click here and fill your professional profile and job interests.

5 Ways to Use Google Alerts for Your Job Search

From jobhunt.org

Google Alerts will send you e-mail when new entries (or even a single entry) are added to the top search results for the specific search term you ask Google to monitor. Currently, Google provides 6 different Alert capabilities (see Setting Up Google Alerts) and you’ll probably find a need for all of them at some point.

To learn more about the different ways you can use Google to aid in your job search or career planning, please click here.

The Job Hunter’s Career Checkup for Graduating Seniors

From Vault.com

By Deborah Federico, Assistant Director of Undergraduate Career Services in the School of Management – Boston University

Ah, it’s spring semester of your senior year. If you’re like most college seniors, you’re probably in a mild state of panic right now about finding a job. Wow, how did this happen, you’re probably wondering, as you start to think about what’s next. Wasn’t I just a freshman trying to maneuver an uncooperative rolling cart, jam-packed with “dorm essentials,” into my new dorm room? It’s hard to believe that in a few short months, you’ll be expertly maneuvering that same cart as you leave your cozy college cocoon to embark on this scary thing called life. And just like Peter Pan, you may be inwardly declaring, “I won’t grow up. I don’t want to wear a tie. Or a serious expression in the middle of July.”

To make matters worse, I’m sure you were barraged with questions and advice from your parents and other adults about getting a job while you were home over winter break. You probably found yourself dodging questions such as, “So you’re graduating this May, do you know what you’re going to do?” Other “well meaning” relatives may have grimly shared the most recent unemployment statistics with you or said things like, “I heard there are no jobs in (insert your major here).” You might have even had to smile and nod as someone told you how his super-star son or daughter just landed a highly paying job with a prestigious company that involves traveling around the world. Ugh! It’s enough to make you want to turn that rolling cart around and stay on to get your master’s degree.

But wear a tie you must (well, maybe not in July), as well as do other grown-up things, as you go about this scary process called Looking for a Job. As an undergraduate career counselor in the School of Management at Boston University, I have seen my share of seniors who are feeling pressured and anxious about find a job and making the transition into the real world. Undoubtedly, part of my job is to calm them down, to give them inspiration and to motivate them to move forward. In addition, a large amount of my time is spent dispelling myths. I often hear statements like, “All of my friends already have jobs,” or “There aren’t any jobs,” or “I know I won’t get that position because of [fill in the blank].” After I debunk their myths with true information, bolster their confidence and provide them with a positive action plan to move forward, I can quickly see their anxiety melt away, and they leave my office recharged and reenergized.

So if you’re feeling anxious about finding a job after graduation, don’t take up permanent residence in Neverland. Rather than avoiding the issue and hoping it will go away, the best thing to do is to take action. Make an appointment with your school’s career counselor who can give you a career checkup and coach you onward to success. According to the NACE (National Association of Colleges and Employers) 2010 Student Survey, “…the more frequently a senior used career services, the more likely he/she would receive a job offer.  In addition, the study found that the likelihood of getting a job offer increased with the frequency of use.”

Here are some things that should be included in your career checkup, as well as things you can do to move forward in your job search:

Have your resume reviewed. Although you may think your resume is ready to go because there are no misspellings or typos, your career counselor can help you write your resume more strategically to target the career/industry in which you want to work by rearranging the components of your resume, highlighting accomplishments and using key words relevant to your industry.

Have your cover letter reviewed. I always tell seniors to come in and meet with me after they have written a cover letter for a real position.  (Remember: never use a cover letter template! Recruiters can spot them in a minute.) If their cover letter does a good job of stating why they’re a strong candidate, why they want the job and why they want to work at the company, then I usually send them off to write subsequent cover letters on their own.

Conduct a mock interview. Even if you think you’re a terrific interviewer, I would highly recommend that you schedule a mock interview with your career services office. There may be one little thing you’re doing or saying (or not doing or saying) that could mess up your entire interview.

Start thinking outside the (computer) box. Many seniors think that searching for a job means sitting at your laptop, latte in hand, and applying to as many positions as possible. It’s so easy to sit there and apply for positions, simply by clicking “send.” Remember I said you had to take action above?  This also means getting away from your computer and networking with professionals in your industry.

Attend events. Attend company information sessions, professional association meetings and career fairs, both inside and outside our school.  This is another great way to start building relationships with professionals in your industry.

Develop a list of target companies. Do some research and make a list of the companies you would really like to work for. Once you have your target list, bookmark the career pages of these companies, so that you can continuously check them. If there are no advertised positions, then you can send a prospecting cover letter and your resume to the HR departments of these companies. 

Establish a profile on LinkedIn. Establish a profile on LinkedIn, invite people into your network and join your college’s alumni group, as well as professional groups. Join in discussions and post questions in your groups in order to gain visibility and credibility.  LinkedIn is also a great way to find and reach out to alumni for informational interviewing purposes.

Have an open mind!  Explore all opportunities available in your college’s database and external job databases. Look beyond the brand name companies and explore opportunities at lesser known firms. Don’t just read a job title and assume you know what the job involves. Read the entire job description. When I have students do these things during counseling sessions, they are usually very surprised (and pleased) to discover the amount and variety of jobs available.

* * *

After obtaining your clean bill of career health from your career services office, I guarantee that you’ll be feeling confident and energized about embarking on your job search. Soon enough, you’ll be whistling, “Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work I go.” The ultimate cout d’état will be when you can look your relatives in the eye at graduation and proudly declare, “I have a job!”

Dos and Don’ts for Creating Your Online Presence

By Denene Brox, Salary.com contributing writer

Many of us live a large part of our lives online. So it’s no wonder that your online presence can have a major influence on your career success. If your present or potential employer searched for you online, what would they find? Would those search results reveal a professional with many marketable skills? Or could the results do more harm than good for your career?

Keep reading to learn the essential dos and don’ts for creating (or updating) your online presence.

Five Essential Online Social Networking Tips: How to Use LinkedIn to Your Advantage

From Job and Career Accelerator
by Miriam Salpeter

LinkedIn is more than a place to publish and store your resume online. It is a network that offers an opportunity to connect with thousands (even millions) of people who provide the potential for job leads and hiring opportunities.

For those who view LinkedIn as a “set it and forget it” network, it is time to revisit a site that is constantly updating and reinventing itself, and providing new tools for job seekers. Here are five of LinkedIn’s best features that jobseekers may be overlooking:

1. Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter of Career Trend collected several ideas to help use LinkedIn well, including advice from Hannah Morgan, career consultant and strategist at Career Sherpa, to “selectively join and participate in LinkedIn groups where you can give and receive value.” It is easy to join groups on LinkedIn. Just click on “groups” in the top navigation bar. LinkedIn even suggests “groups you may like” and provides a searchable directory. There are bound to be multiple potential groups to join, but it is a good idea to be selective. Encourage jobseekers to review groups and assess:

• How many members belong?
• How active the group is. How many posts and news items are listed? Do people seem actively engaged?
• Is the group carefully monitored? While a group that requires permission to join may seem like an unwelcome barrier, it is a sign that someone cares a lot about the group, and is willing to invest time in making sure it is useful and its membership is monitored.

Have job seekers choose several groups to join that seem to promise ongoing interaction, and then participate actively. Review contributions, make comments, add news and discussion items, and answer questions. Doing so helps raise a job seeker’s profile in a community of his or her peers, and may make it more likely to learn about useful job leads.

2.Did you know that you can follow companies on LinkedIn? Have job seekers navigate to the “More” tab on LinkedIn’s toolbar and select companies from the dropdown. This feature makes it easy to learn when people either join or leave an organization. Following a company also allows a job seeker to review activity from the organization’s employees. A user may be able to learn when and where a company’s employees are speaking at events, what conferences they attend, and what books they read (depending on how many share and update this information on their profiles).

3. LinkedIn recently introduced several new sections as part of their profiles. A user may now include the following information in its own section, which helps make it easier for people to find and search. Be sure to have job seekers add these sections to their profiles if they are relevant:

• Certifications
• Languages
• Patents
• Publications
• Skills

4. Job seekers should use all of their LinkedIn real estate to their advantage. By only including basic information or a few sentences in the summary and specialties sections, prime real estate is wasted.  It is important to include details that will make it easier for people to find the job seeker. I strongly suggest completing a profile with in-depth information that anyone who might want to hire a job seeker will find useful.

5. Remember, recruiters and employers will only find a job seeker if they use keywords in their profile. Craig Fisher, a former recruiter and current Vice President of Business Development at People Report explains, “As a job seeker, you need keywords in your Linkedin profile that will be specific to your niche, in order to help separate yours from the hundreds of less targeted profiles….Having these listed multiple times in your profile will help it come up at the top of the search results.”

Following these suggestions will help ensure that a job seeker is using LinkedIn’s tools to his or her best advantage!  It will also help to insure that one’s main areas of interests and skills are appropriately matched with the correct job leads and contacts, and ultimately the best job.

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Did you know that the Career Center has a Student and Alumni Career Mentor Network group on LinkedIn? To learn more about how you can join, please click here.

iGrad Best Career, Money, and Lifestyle Blogs 2010

From IGrad.com

To close out 2010, iGrad rounded up 30 of their favorite blogs for 20-somethings, on topics including personal finance, careers, lifestyle, and post-college life.

Best Career Blogs of 2010

• How to Use the New Facebook Profile to Get Hired
• Forget New Year’s Resolutions: How to Set Real Goals to Advance Your Career
• The Beginner’s Guide to Goal Setting
• Sorta Like Carmen Sandiego
• Spin Master
• The Worst Gift-Giving Guide Ever
• When Cover Notes Work Better Than Cover Letters
• TwitLink Your Way to a New Job

Best Personal Finance Blogs

• Hustlin’ case study: How to get into your dream organization – after getting rejected
• The Best & Worst of 2010: Money, Debt & Attempted Robbery
• All I Want for Christmas
• Financial Mistakes to Avoid in 2011
• How Do You Hope to Improve Your Finances Next Year?

Best Social Media and Blogging Blogs

• Conversation Starter: How do you feel about pimping?
• The Long Term Consequences of Your Short-Term Actions
• Bloggers Behaving Badly: Leslie A. Joy

Best Lifestyle Blogs

• Waiting for the Smiths
• Guest Post – You Don’t Need to Settle 
• The Nitty-Gritty of World-Changing Writing
• Standing Still
• Fear, Exposed – Featuring Susan Finch
• 2010 Annual Review: Braving the Rearview Mirror
• Mired in Quarterlife Crisis
• The Way I Travel

Best College, Post-College (and Beyond) Blogs

• A Letter from my Future Self
• 8 Job Search Tips to Remember
• Correlative Conjunctions: Can You Both Have Your Cake and Eat It Too?
• The Yummiest Comfort Food Recipes (That Aren’t Bad for You)
•  Transfer Friendly College Spotlight: Emory University

If you want to read more about these blogs, or write yourself for iGrad, please learn more by contacting them or visiting them on the web.

Students Must Stand Out To Make Out

by Bob Roth
The “College & Career Success” Coach

When college students simply tell employers what they can do and what they have done, they are putting themselves in the middle of a very large pool of job applicants. However, the best candidates will stand out when they describe the exceptional “results” that they have previously achieved. That’s important because employers believe that past results are the best predictors of future results.

Which statement of student involvement will be more impressive to employers?

a. Participated in the Marketing Club. (This simply tells employers what they did.)

b. As a member of the Marketing Club, initiated contact with the marketing department at the ABC Company. Arranged for the Marketing Club to tour their facility and meet with members of the marketing department. Assisted our Marketing Professor in negotiating an intern program at ABC. Chosen for the first internship assignment at ABC. (This statement describes the results that were achieved. – Tour, Meeting, Intern Program & Internship)

It is important for students to “show” employers what they have already done. Part-time work or participation in an activity or club are only the first steps. Participation merely offers the student an opportunity to demonstrate their capabilities. The best employers expect employment candidates to provide examples of their results and successes. It’s those accomplishments and positive “results” that enable students to stand out from the competition. Students will do that when they:

Do More Than Others – Quantity counts! Students who can do more than others will always stand out.

Do Something Better – Quality counts! When the student’s work is of superior quality, others will notice.

Do Something Faster – Speed counts! The ability to perform critical tasks or solve problems at a higher rate of speed can be impressive.

Do Something Less Expensively – Costs count! The student who has the ability to minimize costs will impress employers.

Generate Income – Money counts! Any student who can demonstrate the ability to generate income for a club, organization or employer will be in demand.

Demonstrate Creativity – Creativity counts! Employers are always looking for people who can see new ways of doing things.

Demonstrate A Unique Ability – When a student’s skill or ability is unique, employers will have an interest.

Demonstrate Leadership – Leaders are always in demand. If a student can mobilize others for a critical goal and then lead them to success, that student will stand out.

Demonstrate Exceptional Communication Skills – Powerful communication skills will always give students an advantage over those with average and below average communication skills.

Make Something Better – Whenever a student makes something better, employers will notice.

Overcome Obstacles – Employers need people who can get things done even in the face of obstacles. When students can provide examples of their ability to do this, they will have a leg up on the competition.

Solve Problems – Problems exist everywhere. Students who enjoy solving problems can be an asset in any organization.

Exceptional results in any of these areas will help students stand out, so they can garner the attention of the best employers. However, each one requires students to “achieve results” before they prepare their resume and begin their job search.

The best employers expect a lot from candidates. That’s why college students must offer strong and compelling reasons for employers to interview and hire them. When no compelling reason exists, employers will quickly move on to stronger candidates. Therefore, the question that every student must answer is: What “results” have I achieved that will impress employers? Their answers to that question will determine whether they will stand out and whether they will make out.

Visit Bob’s web site: www.The4Realities.com. Bob Roth is the author of three books: College Success: Advice for Parents of High School and College Students, The 4 Realities Of Success During and After College -and- The College Student’s Guide To Landing A Great Job. Follow his blog at: http://collegesuccess.blog.com.