Job Hunting

It’s the space where you spend 8-9 hours per day—staring at the same three walls day in and day out. Why not make the most of it? Unless you’re like some people who like to keep an empty cubicle! There’s a ton of ways that you can make your cubicle your own.    If you take the time to personalize your cubicle by adding your taste in décor, such as wall art, and organize it in a way that makes sense to you, you can lead a much happier day-to-day work life.  The fol Ge more info…

“You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you dont do too many things wrong.”

Flying back from a business trip and I got to thinking about the 30,000 foot view. You know, the big picture or seeing the forest for the trees and Im sure there are another 100 similar cliches. Sometimes you need to do that with your job search. Sometimes you are so buried in the details you forget about the task at hand. Maybe you are spending all of your time applying to jobs on one of the job search sites (most probably with very little success). Or maybe you are spending lots of time trying to cultivate contacts of contacts (you know, the six degrees of separation). Wha

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In March 2010, The Daily Reveille reported that Louisiana State University Chancellor Michael Martin wanted to develop a microbrewery on campus. A little more than a year later, the university announced it would launch its very own branded beer, just in time for their fall football season.

As reported by Good Beer Fest, the university is working with Tin Roof Company, which was started by LSU alums through the university’s small business incubator, to produce its very own blonde ale. When ready, the beer will be available in cans as well as on draft at local establishments.

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My Sunday Washington Post column is out, and its titled Note to investors: It takes longer to bounce back from a credit crisis The online version gets a different title, Wall Street analysts and economists have this recession recovery wrong.

In it, I discuss how the post WW2 recession recovery cycle is the wrong frame of reference for looking at post credit crisis recoveries.

And while most Wall Street economists and analysts have gotten this entire cycle dead wrong, two academic economists standout as being prescient, before, during and after the crisis.

Here is a quick excerpt explaining how post credit cycles differ from ordinary recessions:

Not only are credit crises different from other cycles, they also differ from other bubbles.

As Dan Gross explained in “Pop! W

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Most job seekers are operating at about 25% efficiency.  That’s because finding a job is a skill.  Your skill is what you’ve made your career out of.  It’s what you are looking for a new job in.  It’s not actually finding that job.

Part of the problem is no one ever tells you how to do things.  They tell you what to do, but not how to do it.  And if a strategy is going to work, you need to know how to implement it.  Otherwise it isn’t effective, you don’t get results, and then you become even more frustrated.

Conventional wisdom says networking is the most effective.  Well yes……….and no.  I say it wins by default.  In other words, not knowing how to read a job ad leads to excess optimism (and no results) and being overly discerning (and no results).  The more resumes you send to ads – especially the online black hole – the worse your ratio of sent:response rate is, the more dejected you become.  Improve your skill in understanding job ads and how to deal with the black hole and you up your response rate.

Here’s some advice: Contact companies you want to work for!  See if they have open positions!  Okay….how?  A few out there advocate sending out hundreds or thousands of letters.  Something is bound to hit, right?  Not really.  That’s the worst and most ineffective strategy possible.  Not to mention it wastes both your time and energy and again……….results in frustration.  But what if you knew how to do it?  How to select the companies that make sense for you, write a custom letter than will get read, follow up and get results?

Over 50% of my unemployed clients have found new jobs this way.  What’s more, often the position has been created specifically for them.

And what about recruiters?  Do you hate them?  Do you understand them?  Probably yes, and no respectively.  That’s okay – there are some very bad ones out there.  But do you know how to spot them?  Do you know how to screen them?  Develop a relationship with one?  Get them excited about working with and for you?  I’m always amazed at the number of people who are either not working with recruiters when they could and should be, or aren’t utilizing this resource as fully as they could.

I was one for 22 years.  I’ve seen over half a million resumes, developed relationships with exclusive clients, set and followed up on about 15,000 interviews and placed all levels of management.  Do you want to peek behind this curtain and know the reality of how they work and can help you?

And lastly, networking.  Got your one-sheet?  Throw it out.  Bringing your resumes to networking meetings?  Leave them at ho

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