Keppie Careers

Social media speaker, social media consultant, job search coach

How to make it easier to find you online

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Job seekers often hear how important it is to make it easy to find information about you online. Why? A Cross-Tab research study, Online Reputation in a Connected World, points out:

  • 75 percent of HR departments are expected to research candidates online
  • 89 percent of hiring managers and recruiters review candidates’ professional online data
  • 86 percent of employers believe a positive online reputation influences their hiring decisions—and nearly 50 percent say the influence is “to a great extent” and they expect it to increase

Further proving how important it is to be discoverable online is an ExecuNet Inc. research study, 2010 Executive Job Market Intelligence Report:

  • 90 percent of search-firm recruiters regularly Google candidates to help draw a complete picture of that individual—up from 75 percent in 2005

If you have a common name, it may be difficult to distinguish yourself online. About 2,000 people on LinkedIn share their name with someone on the FBI’s most wanted list, says James Alexander, founder of Vizibility.com, a company that creates tools to help professionals and companies stand out on the Web.

Read the rest of the post on my U.S. News blog….

photo by dunkr

Should you leave dates off your resume?

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Regular readers know I always tell my clients there is no ONE RIGHT way to conduct a job search. Best practices? Yes. Opinions on the best way to do things? Absolutely! The trick is to identify people who provide opinions based on actual information from people involved in hiring. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people advising job seekers based on nothing but their own experience, which may or may not translate effectively to others.

One slightly controversial piece of advice regarding resumes is about using dates. Typically, when I hear arguments about including dates or not on a resume, the focus is on graduation dates, but I’ve recently become aware that some people are advising job seekers to list some of their job experience without dates.

Graduation Dates on Resumes

Some people believe if they graduated from college too long ago, hiring managers will pass over their resume, assuming them to be too old, too inflexible or too expensive to hire (based on the number of years of experience).

Advice to remove graduation dates targets younger and younger people! I had one client tell me he’d been advised to take the years off of his schooling since it had been more than five years ago. That is an extreme piece of advice. Generally, anyone over 50 may be told to make themselves “look younger” by removing graduation dates.

Need help knowing what to say and how to say it in job search?
Check out my new book: 100 Conversations for Career Success

Should you leave graduation dates (years) off of your resume? I’m not a fan of this practice. Why? Because, if you leave off the date, you allow the reader to assume when you may have graduated. The hiring manager will naturally believe you are “more experienced” — perhaps even much more experienced (read: older) than you actually are! If your goal is to look younger, that’s what we on Twitter would label a major #FAIL.

Are there circumstances where leaving off graduation dates may make sense? Possibly. If you could have retired 10 years ago, you probably can’t hurt yourself leaving off your graduation date!

Dates for Experience

I’m working with a client now who has been advised to list certain jobs she held in the past without dates. Not all of her work experience, just a few older positions. At first, I thought she had misunderstood the previous career advisor’s instructions, but from talking to a few people, it appears as if this advice to omit dates on certain job experiences is typical.

My bias is to always include dates on experience; I thought it was crazy to advise a job seeker to leave dates off of certain work experience. (My preference would be to leave off the jobs altogether if they were not crucial to the candidate’s time line. For example, account for the last 10-15 years of experience and omit older jobs that don’t add anything to your candidacy.)

I’ve spent a lot of time with recruiters who influence some of my advice to job seekers. Granted, most jobs are not filled via recruiters, but I believe their take on resume norms is valuable, since they constantly evaluate candidates. I posed the question of dates on a resume to my Twitter community, saying, “#Recruiters -I have a client who’s been advised to list jobs withOUT dates on resume. Planning to blog about this. Love to quote you!”

These are the replies I received. Read them from the bottom up to follow the conversation.

While @RapidBi, an organizational change consultant, believed there could be a case for a resume without all of the dates, clearly the trend in this unscientific survey points toward including dates or risking attracting suspicion.

If someone is telling you to leave dates off of your resume, only do so after carefully considering the possible ramifications. Have I heard of people who removed certain dates (typically graduation dates) and still landed interviews? Yes, I have. Be sure to make your decision from an informed perspective. Ask you advisor or coach why he or she recommends one way or another; don’t be afraid to inquire why. Anyone who knows what they are doing will welcome the opportunity to explain.

— If you’re looking for a job and could use a boost, be sure to pre-order a copy of my book, Social Networking for Career Success AND consider getting your own, personal website – a social resume!

photo by Caro’s Lines

What one person’s bad luck shows about the power of Twitter

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No doubt getting fired for something said, posted or tweeted often makes the news. This week in Atlanta, Chadd Scott, a radio personality, lost his job for tweeting disparaging things about Delta Airlines, an Atlanta based company that also happened to be a key client for the station where Chadd worked. 11 Alive News, the NBC affiliate in Atlanta, reported Delta threatened to pull their ads from the station. 680 The Fan Radio fired him for tweeting comments such as:

“The bean counter who saved Delta a few bucks in st. lou hoping he wouldn’t need more de-icing fluid this year screwed a lot of people today.”

“Not a big quote tweeter, but #delta should remember ‘when you fail 2 prepare, you prepare 2 fail.'”

“New #delta strategy on de-icing planes in st. louis: wait ’til it melts. well, the company is based in atlanta.”

While it’s unfortunate these tweets landed Chadd in such hot water, the most important lesson job seekers can learn from this story: companies ARE listening! It’s possible to get someone’s attention via Twitter, and to use it to your advantage.

11 Alive reporter Jaye Watson interviewed me about what Chadd did wrong and how people can use Twitter to attract positive attention.

picture by xotoko

Chosen as “Career Mastermind”

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I want to thank Dr. Randall Hansen and Dr. Kathy Hansen of Quintessential Careers for including me in their list of “15 Quintessential Careers Career Masterminds” in honor of the 15th anniversary of the founding of Quintessential Careers.

This is a real honor, as I have been using and recommending Quint Careers as a resource for my clients for just about that many years! I remember meeting Randall and Kathy several years ago at a conference — it was a “brush with career fame” for me, which makes this honor even more special.

Their announcement notes:

As part of the 15th anniversary of the founding of Quintessential Careers, we are honoring and celebrating some of our favorite career visionaries, gurus, and experts — people who truly want to help job-seekers understand and succeed in the job-search.

We’ve selected these 15 career experts, folks we are honoring with the title of Quintessential Careers Career Masterminds, because of their career and job-hunting know-how — and their passion for sharing that knowledge with job-seekers, career-changers, and the entire career community.

It’s especially nice to be recognized for sharing information and resources with the career community, so thank you very much!

Learn about everyone on the Quint Careers list and stay tuned for our involvement on the site in the coming months!

Simply Hired reports opportunities up for job seekers

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In Simply Hired’s February Jobs Report, there were some silver linings for job seekers.

They reported growth in 17 of 18 industries; only Technology was down a bit (-2.0%). Reported large growth areas: Military (22.7%), Travel (20.9%) and Agriculture (20.0%)

Month-over-month, growth in job openings (based on posted jobs on Simply Hired) were up 3.8% and year-over-year (compared to February 2010), they were up 49.7%.

There are (statistically) 4 people for every 1 job opening nationwide. Top hiring companies nationwide included:

  • Home Depot
  • HCA
  • Securus
  • Starbucks
  • U.S. Air Force

Top hiring sectors based on jobs listed on Simply Hired included: agriculture, automotive, construction, education, financial services, government, health care, hospitality and legal.

Statistically, the most competitive place to land a job was Miami and Fort Lauderdale, where there are 9 candidates for every one opening. Washington D.C. has one job for every one candidate. (Remember, this is a statistical analysis, which doesn’t necessarily mean you will or will not be able to land an opportunity.)

Daniel Greenberg, CMO, SimplyHired.com, explains how they calculate these ratios and what they mean for job seekers:

SimplyHired.com’s unemployment ratio is calculated by taking the average of the total number of currently unemployed persons in the U.S. (as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics) over the total number of job openings listed on SimplyHired.com each month. In February, the unemployment ratio was 4:1 nationally. This means that on average there were four job seekers for every one job opening. What this means for job seekers varies by location, if you’re looking for a job in an area like Miami, the unemployment ratio is actually 9:1, and in Washington, DC the unemployment ratio is an ideal 1:1.

This ratio also includes every job opening, meaning that part-time and contract work is considered – not just full-time jobs. Everything else being equal, job seekers in highly competitive job markets would be well served to relocate to areas that have more favorable job seeker-to-unemployment ratios.”

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If you’re looking for a job — or thinking you need to start using social media to propel your career, my book: Social Networking for Career Success is available on Amazon (at a great discount). Please order now!

 

photo by Redvers