Kudos to Seattle Business Monthly!

When it comes to job hunting, networking, and career management in general, it usually pays dividends to monitor the local press and stay current on the things that are going on in your local business community.  Not only can a steady news regimen help alert you to important new trends and emerging opportunities, but it also will enhance your small-talk skills immensely, in addition to providing you with a much deeper arsenal of information to “trade” with the people you encounter in your daily travels.

Along these lines, one of my favorite long-time sources of Puget Sound business news has unfortunately gone away, which is Washington CEO Magazine. This excellent publication folded its tent last month and published its final issue.  The good news, however, is that Washington CEO was purchased by another publishing company, Tiger Oak Regional Publications, the outfit that publishes Seattle Business Monthly — and many of the writers and staff from WCEO will be moving over to this other title to help enhance its local business coverage.

The January 2009 issue of Seattle Business Monthly is already out, in fact, and had a great article discussing the power of networking and featuring five of Seattle’s top “connectors” in the business community.  These individuals were Geir Hansen of Silicon Valley Bank, Charlie Hafenbrack of GLY Construction, Eric Liu of Guiding Lights Network, JJ McKay of JJMcKay & Company, and Janis Machala of Paladin Partners (go Janis!).  For those of you who are in transition and aren’t familiar with Seattle Business Monthly, this would be a great first issue to pick up, since this well-written piece does a great job of explaining the mindset of top networkers and the incredible degree of creativity they bring to connecting people and building quality relationships.

The magazine’s website can be found here and subscriptions, if you can believe it, appear to be absolutely free!  So what are you waiting for?  Get on their distribution list today and plug yourself into some GREAT content related to the local business scene…

Question of the Month: December 2008

Question: “I’ll confess, I’ve never really had to look for a job before, so it feels really strange to suddenly find myself unemployed and to now have to go ’sell myself’ to somebody and ask them to hire me. Is this unusual?”

Despite what many people might suspect, the majority of people we encounter who are seeking career coaching and counseling are not ne’er-do-wells or individuals who possess a consistent track record of workplace failure. Instead, we’ve found that most of the people we work with actually have been highly successful to date in their chosen fields — and have only recently had their careers “pop out of gear” due to current economic conditions or other factors. And while in one sense such a career history should foster tremendous pride, since many of these people have engineered a track record of employment that is statistically well above average, it’s also understandable that such individuals tend to feel unusually unsettled by finding themselves suddenly among the ranks of the unemployed.

As a further consequence, we’ve noted that it is precisely these successful sorts of people who also have the most difficult time adjusting to the rigors and challenges of the job search process. For starters, the out-of-control feeling and perceived “lack of success” that comes with needing to look for work often turns out to be a tougher pill to swallow for high-achieving individuals who are used to always being on top and in control of their destiny. Additionally, such folks are also far more out of practice in terms of understanding how to job hunt properly and with regard to the tools, techniques, and resume methodologies that are most productive in the current work climate.

So given this common dynamic that so many people express, here are five key thoughts for any of you out there who may be approaching this process for the first time in a number of years:

– Brace yourself; it’s hard to see incremental progress. Unlike diet, exercise, and the pursuit of other important goals in life, the process of looking for work rarely produces positive feedback on a consistent and predictable basis. There are simply too many variables in play outside of the job hunter’s control. One can send out a batch of 30 resumes, for example, and experience a zero hit rate without this necessarily meaning anything is wrong either with your resume, your cover letter, or your qualifications. So it’s critical that “rookie” job hunters take a patient approach to the market and set up a daily routine that will keep them moving forward — and putting out constant feelers — instead of allowing their activity level to fluctuate or be driving solely based on the feedback level they receive.

– People will be flakier than you expect. Another common observation our clients make is that many of the people they were counting on to help them find work are suddenly exhibiting distant, flaky, or uncharacteristic behavior. Again, while unfortunate, this development is also one that can be anticipated as part of the process. Were it limited to just a few reports, from a few people, we’d simply chide the handful of people exhibiting such behavior. Given that the phenomenon is so widespread, however, we can only conclude that there is something about the world today (e.g. lack of time, multiple competing priorities, cover-your-rear behavior…) that causes people to be less responsive than we remember them being in years past. So don’t be shocked if you experience this same reality when kicking off your job search. Anticipate it, take more personal responsibility for following up with people, and factor it into your overall networking and search strategy.

– Job requirements are inflated and excessive. To an individual who last looked for work in the days of the Sunday want ads, the new breed of Internet employment websites will seem incredibly daunting and discouraging! Now that companies don’t have to pay for every word they publish, they are able to dump dozens of knowledge/skill/ability requirements into each advertisement, with the end result being that almost nobody feels qualified to do anything, anymore, once they read through these “wish lists” of what employers are ideally hoping to find! So remember that most modern published job descriptions are, in fact, idealized, and don’t let this stop you from applying if you have at least the basic set of requirements requested — or feel that you could perform the job at hand.

– Interviewing takes longer. Think your job search is likely to be over in a month or two? While it’s certainly within the realm of possibility, it’s also not highly probable given that the interviewing process itself has now emerged as a time-consuming bottleneck for most organizations. Simply put, given the speed at which organizational priorities now change, hiring managers tend to drag their feet more on shepherding candidates through the interviewing process. As a result, we’ve had clients fight their way through as many as 5-6 months of interviewing before receiving a formal offer, and would encourage newbie job hunters to be prepared for this eventuality, as well.

Alas, while the above four factors would not generally be considered “positive developments” from the standpoint of the typical job seeker, they are, nonetheless, the reality out there — and the faster that transitioning professionals come to accept them, the more they can tailor their search strategy, attitude, and mindset accordingly. And lest one think that everything about the process has changed for the worse, we’d leave you with one final, hard-to-argue-with observation that might provide you with a small degree of comfort, as well as some fresh food for thought…

– There are more opportunities than ever before. Despite some of the annoying new wrinkles we’ve mentioned above, with regard to the job search process, the window of opportunity has also never been more opened more widely to a greater number of professionals. This sweeping statement is based on a number of elements, including the profound increase in diversity hiring (remember who recently won the presidency?) to the availability of information/training on various occupational paths to the fact that successful global companies can now be launched for the low, low price of building a basic website. Additionally, due to the increased turnover and turbulence within organizations, you rarely see situations anymore where capable professionals get “blocked” for years behind unyielding layers of management that clog up the promotional ladder for decades at a time. So while yes, all of us in the Gen X and Baby Boomer ranks will have to mourn the passing of certain workplace rules, etiquette, and traditions, the new marketplace that’s emerging is not without its advantages, as well, for those who proactively recognize and capitalize on them!

Book Review: Outliers (Malcolm Gladwell)

While there are few authors in this world that I follow religiously, the quality of the two books that Malcolm Gladwell has written previously, The Tipping Point and Blink, compelled me a few months ago to get on the pre-order list for his newest book — Outliers. And since it arrived just in time for a relaxing read over the Thanksgiving holiday, now seems like a perfect time to review it!

Subtitled “The Story of Success”, Outliers weaves together a variety of fascinating anecdotes and social science findings to try and explain why some people go on to brilliant achievements — while others, even those with abundant natural talent and near-genius intelligence, live out their lives in relative obscurity and mediocrity. Examining an array of high achievers ranging from Bill Gates to The Beatles, the author uncovers a number of hidden cultural, social, and demographic factors that often get overlooked in the common belief that it is purely individual talent, or merit, that leads a person to rise to the top of his or her field. For example, in this book, you’ll learn why the vast majority of professional hockey and baseball players have birthdays in January, February, and March. You’ll learn why the person with the highest IQ in America was utterly unsuccessful in college. And you’ll learn why scientists from multiple countries have found “10,000 hours” to be the magic number that transforms a talented person from being merely “good” at something to truly great.

All in all, while critics have pointed out that the book is more disjointed than Gladwell’s previous works, and Outliers seems to be more of a collection of essays, as opposed to a unified publication, I promise you that you’ll still find the author’s insights mesmerizing — and great small talk for your networking and interviewing activities, if nothing else! Highly recommended…

Cheapest Price We Can Find: $16.79 on Amazon.com

Website Review: PayScale “GigZig” Application

Current career path getting you down? Feel like you’re stuck in a rut? If so, the popular salary-survey website Payscale.com has built a nifty little tool called “GigZig” that can help you ferret out the career shifts that similar professionals to yourself have made in recent years. As to whether this is a new tool the site offers, or something that’s been around a while, we suspect the latter scenario is more likely — and that many people (including ourselves) had simply not noticed this feature previously, since it’s not mentioned on the site’s home page and is more or less buried off to the side of PayScale’s remaining pages.

Regardless of the navigational difficulties in finding it, however, the GigZig tool provides a fascinating slice of data about the modern job search marketplace. Simply type in your current job title, or any title you wish to research, and the system will tell you the most common positions that people held five years ago — before landing the job title in question — as well as the titles that the people who USED to hold the target job title now hold, five years into the future. All of this data is based on the thousands of people who visit Payscale.com each year to research salary information, and as a result, the data strikes us as being much more “real world” in nature than the commonly-available info which is bandied about on academic and government websites.

So again, if you’re thinking about making some sort of career change, pay GigZig a visit and try searching on a variety of occupations relevant to your interests. If you’re a marketing specialist, you’ll see options come up such as graphic artist and event coordinator. And if you’re a technical writer, you might follow in the footsteps of your peers who have become instructional designers or business analysts. Are the career alternatives that come up breathtakingly surprising, in most cases? Not really, but then again, this is consistent with the fact that most people tend to stay roughly within the same occupational “cluster” for most of their career — for obvious reasons — and this information is still useful for validating your most viable options and for researching the salary increases/decreases that would be associated with each move. Give it a try — it’s addicting!

The Top 25 Recession-Proof Jobs (According to JobFox.com)

In a time when many people are considering some form of career change, in order to pursue a line of work that they feel might offer increased stability or satisfaction, we thought it would be helpful to share this recent “Top 25 Recession Proof Jobs” list that was published by leading employment website Jobfox.com. This list can be reviewed by clicking here and appears to be a well-researched resource that not only shows the current rank of various occupations, in terms of stability during recessionary times, but also includes their previous month’s ranking (a useful statistic) and the median salary level for each career path.

Among this mix, you’ll find Sales and Business Development jobs leading the charge, along with a combination of careers in accounting, technology, healthcare, and education. All in all, the occupations featured seem consistent with our own observations about the relative demand for various types of workers these days — with the one exception being the claim that Seattle is still a hotbed of activity in the “retail banking” sector. Given the recent news that has impacted Washington Mutual, we suspect this particular data point would change a bit if the survey were conducted in recent weeks…

Ultimately, too, we’d emphasize that these kinds of lists are not only just interesting curiosities, but also underscore the fact that we all still have the power to make smart strategic choices about our employment futures — and to act on the kind of data that this Jobfox list represents. While granted, certain professions (like Electrical Engineer) require a larger degree of additional schooling than most people would consider at a mid-point in their working lives, many other paths are well within the reach of people who are willing to make a short-term sacrifice in order to set their careers on course for long-term improvement. Intelligent “careering” is going to rely more and more on people thinking ahead and using this kind of data to stay relevant and employable in a changing world, so this Jobfox list is a good start for engaging in some what-if brainstorming!

The Best Companies in Seattle: The People Have Spoken!

Are you looking for an exciting, stable, fast-growth organization in Puget Sound that operates ethically and takes great care of its employees? If so, you’re not alone, since virtually every job seeker who has gone through a layoff or rough patch in their career longs to find just such an employer!

The question, of course, is whether such organizations are simply the stuff of legend or whether one can actually track them down via careful sleuthing. Thankfully, the folks over at NWJobs (the career-focused offshoot of the Seattle Times/PI newspapers) have made things much easier by conducting an extensive survey that ranks Seattle organizations as the “best” in over 30 distinct categories ranging from “Most eco-friendly company in Seattle” to the company with the “coolest office space.”

The results of this survey can be found here and we were not only impressed by how NWjobs has presented all of this data, but also by the diverse range of smaller companies that were featured in the report, as well, since this opens up all kinds of possibilities besides the “usual culprits” that always seem to show up in these kinds of surveys. With the recent demise of Washington CEO Magazine, as well, a magazine that has historically led the “best companies” charge with its annual “Best Companies in Washington” report, we’re glad to see that NWJobs is stepping up and filling the gap!

Time On Your Hands? Invest It In Upgrading Your Skills!

Without question, those individuals who are going through a career transition phase will usually find themselves experiencing a shortage of certain assets, such as (surprise, surprise) economic income. One often-overlooked asset they tend to have in spades, however, is TIME — and time, like any asset, can pay tremendous dividends if one invests it wisely!

As the new year approaches, therefore, we’d encourage any of you out there in transition to think seriously about how you can best invest the windfall of time you might have on your hands at the present moment. Should you invest a large chunk of it in the job hunting process? Clearly, this makes sense in most cases. But there are also many other usages of your time that can lead to beneficial results, as well, such as spending some time re-building various networking relationships, focusing on accomplishing a personal goal you’ve procrastinated around, or getting involved with local charities and volunteer organizations in order to gain some perspective and make a difference.

One additional investment you should strongly consider, too, is to seek out some new learning opportunities. Whether this involves signing up for a certification or formal degree program — or simply taking a few ala carte training classes that interest you — is totally up to you. What we know for a fact, however, is that continuing education and professional development usually pay off for a time-rich job seeker in numerous ways. Not only does new education have the potential to add some updated, sought-after skills to one’s resume, but it can also lead to some fresh career avenues and ideas, as well, and serve as a great networking opportunity with students and course instructors.

So if you’ve got some free time on your hands, and are feeling the uneasy sense of restlessness that so many people report in these situations, we’d encourage you to browse through the collection of links below to see if anything interesting catches your eye:

Bellevue Community College Course Catalog
Lake Washington Technical College Continuing Education Catalog
UW Extension Certificate Catalog & Course Catalog
Seattle Community Colleges – Combined Course Catalog
Craigslist Directory of Seattle Classes (lots of get-rich-quick stuff here; buyer beware!)

Now granted, one of the things that we hear frequently from our clients is that they feel much busier now that they’re unemployed than when they were working full time, but that still doesn’t mean that the average person couldn’t squeeze in at least one training class per week if they put their mind to it. So give the idea some consideration, and if the links above can help jump-start you on a few possibilities, and lead you to a useful training opportunity, all the better!

Alerting All Job Seekers!

While we’ve never stated it outright, one of our commitments at Career Horizons has always been to keep our clients — and newsletter readers — abreast of the latest and best technologies for enhancing career success, while stopping short of evangelizing every single flashy new website or hyped-up tool that hits the market. As a result, our hope is that all of you out there who DON’T pay attention to this stuff on a regular basis (and why in blazes would you?) can fully trust our endorsement of various technologies and add them to your career and job hunting toolbox at the appropriate time.

Along these lines, while we’re not quite ready to throw our reputation behind certain hot commodities such as Twitter and video resumes, we do want to pay homage this month to the humble “e-mail alert” feature that many sites now offer as standard practice. For those who may not currently be using such alerts, they simply allow you to have the results of various web-based keyword searches delivered to you on a regular basis via e-mail. This passive delivery method offers a tremendous number of advantages for professionals in transition, ranging from the time savings of not having to retype various searches over and over again to the benefit of exposing yourself, automatically, each day, to a steady stream of news and information that might help unearth potential job leads.

And while the “alerts” technology we’re talking about is now pretty universal, and by no means limited to any one particular site, here is a small sampling of the alerts that we find to be most beneficial to the average cross-section of job hunters…

Indeed & SimplyHired Alerts: After figuring out which keyword searches generate the best job lead results for you on these two leading employment sites, you have the option to save your search as an automatic e-mail alert where new results matching your criteria will be delivered to you each day. We highly recommend you follow this suggestion, since setting up these automated searches will not only help you establish a streamlined routine for following up on leads, but will also prevent you from needing to retype your criteria each time. We’d also recommend that serious job seekers set up an additional alert on each of these two sites based on various corporate/industry keywords relevant to their goals, creating exposure to some fresh, relevant target companies on a regular basis, as well!

Craigslistwatch Alerts: Next to the two sites mentioned above, Craigslist is the third most useful job lead website for most professionals, since many employers are finding that the dirt-cheap pricing and high volume of traffic on Craigslist make it a worthwhile option even for sourcing senior-level and executive talent! What most people don’t realize, however, is there is a third-party website (several, actually) that allows you to set up an automated daily alert on Craigslist — since the site itself doesn’t offer this functionality. Check out www.craigslistwatch.com and in a few clicks, you’ll be all set!

Google Alerts: Lastly, one of the most popular and useful alerts many professionals should create for themselves is to program Google’s built-in alert tool with the names of any target companies, executive contact names, or subject matter areas that the job hunter might benefit from tracking on a daily or weekly basis. This step will ensure that any breaking news item or website related to these fields will be delivered right to your e-mail inbox, where you can learn from this information and act on it immediately to give yourself a competitive advantage.

One other nice thing about setting up these kinds of alerts is that you can program them, in most cases, to the frequency that makes the most sense given your current situation. So if you’re a job hunter, you’ll probably want to check your “crabpots” every day and see what new job leads or information have been posted. If you’re already working full-time, on the other hand, you can set the frequency to longer intervals to keep at least a periodic pulse on developments relevant to your career goals.

Holiday Hiring: Myth or Reality?

Each year, when this time of year rolls around, we get asked by many of our clients whether it makes sense to continue hunting for work actively in December — or whether it would be smarter, instead, to suspend one’s job search campaign until January, given the conventional wisdom that nobody hires for full-time positions during the holiday season. Well, once again, conventional wisdom turns out to leave a little bit to be desired! So in the spirit of “going green” we’re going to recycle part of our response from this question from LAST December’s newsletter, which we felt addressed this issue fairly effectively:

“Unless you are the spitting image of Santa Claus, or have phenomenal gift-wrapping or bell-ringing skills, you don’t have a chance of getting hired during the holiday season, right? WRONG! While this is certainly a common perception, this assumption just doesn’t ring true in our experience, since December is actually one of the months during which we’ve witnessed the most hiring and interviewing activity over the years, at least based on our client statistics. Whether this is due to people being in a good mood, trying to fill end-of-year hiring quotas, or simply thinking ahead to the challenges of 2008, we’re not sure. All we know is that each year, we expect things to get awfully quiet as Christmas approaches and this prediction never seems to come true. So if you’re planning to slow down or suspend your job search until January rolls around, this is an absolutely brilliant decision, just as long as you do it because you choose to do so — not out of any misplaced notion that employers aren’t adding any staff during this time frame!”

Now granted, this sage advice is a year old and things may not play out in precisely the same way as they have in previous years, due to some of the economic issues the country is facing — but at the same time, we don’t know that they won’t, either. Retail sales were up much higher than anticipated last Friday, after all! So we’ll stick to our guns and encourage everyone, again, to take as much time as they need to during the next 30 days to celebrate what really matters to them and spend time with their loved ones. But if continuing to look for a job is another top priority you’re addressing at the moment, don’t be afraid to sneak some of this activity onto your calendar, as well!

P.S. On a completely separate note, we should also mention that we’ve shifted our newsletter distribution over to a new online service, so if you experience any unusual delivery problems with our newsletter, please let us know — and if you know somebody who would like to join our 1,800+ member distribution list, you can steer them to our new on-line subscription form here!