Six Tips to Keep Your LinkedIn Profile "Reference Friendly"

The age-old process of submitting resumes and applications has changed from filling out paper forms, copying resumes and mailing them both by snail mail to a prospective employer. Today, job sites, like http://www.phillyjobs.com/ make it easy to search job openings and apply for jobs online in one easy process. While the process for applying for jobs has changed, employers are also using new tactics to screen applicants and delve into their backgrounds using social media sites.

Employers know job fit is a more important job success factor. How well a person fits into the company culture, relates to and communicates with others, and is open to continuous learning and feedback are critical factors job-fit criteria. Skills and processes can be taught. Personality and work ethic are part of a person’s nature. The best way to uncover these characteristics is through references.

Employers know that the three references listed on a job application are hand-picked by the applicant according to how complimentary they can be about the applicant’s prior work experience. Most likely, the references have been coached ahead of time to highlight skills or traits that relate directly to the current job opening. As a former HR Director, it was almost a waste of time checking these references, since you knew they would be rave reviews. However, more HR recruiters are using social media for finding other reference sources. With that in mind, here are six tips to make your profile work for you:

1. Be sure your resume on LinkedIn is the same as the one you submit with applications. Discrepancies or contradictions will work against you.
2. Keep your job history up-to-date and concise. Listing every job since high school in detail is too much information. Keep your history targeted to your target job market.
3. Solicit good referrals. The best way to do it is to write a positive referral for someone else. They are likely to return the favor.
4. Examine your contact list. An employer can do a people search and most likely find mutual connections. You want your contacts to know you well and have good things to say about you. How well did you get along with your 447 contacts? Which ones may reveal how you used to shop online for hours or help yourself to office supplies for your kids? Delete contacts that could do your job search some harm.
5. Send invites to friends, former managers or co-workers that would act as good references. Build a contact list of cheerleaders.
6. If you are changing careers, add relevant skills and training to your profile. Post updates about your new career goals and the steps you are taking for the transition. Join groups in your new career field or industry and ask for information or advice to create a presence and generate interest.

How has social media affected your job search? Share your experiences in the Comments section below.

Mary Nestor-Harper, SPHR, is a consultant, blogger, motivational speaker and freelance writer for phillyjobs.com. Based in Savannah, GA, her work has appeared in Training magazine, Training & Development magazine, Supervision, BiS Magazine and The Savannah Morning News. When she’s not writing, she enjoys singing with the Savannah Philharmonic Chorus and helping clients reinvent their careers for today’s job market. You can read more of her blogs at phillyjobs.com and view additional job postings on Beyond.com.

3 Ways To Stay Excited About Your Job Search

Re-energize your job search.

I know it sounds sort of crazy to think about excitement and job searching in the same sentence, but being enthusiastic is important. When you're out of work, it's sometimes hard to feel anything other than desperate. With the unemployment rating staying at 9%, who wouldn't be?

The thing is, employers want to hire people who are enthusiastic and excited about working for their company, not just those who are excited about getting a job. When you feel desperate, it shows in everything you do. Instead of focusing on showing an employer why you are the best choice, you start to send out generic resumes to every job opening you see, which just wastes time and doesn't show anyone anything real about who you are.

If you are starting to feel desperate, here are 3 ways to get more excited about your search:

• Do some research - Think about what you are good at and which companies you really want to work for. From there, target those companies and keep up with what's going on in the industry. Make connections with others who work there and find out about any new job openings. You can write a cover letter explaining who you are and why you want to work for the company. By focusing on what you want, you can show an employer that you want their job.

• Mingle - Build a strong social and professional network. Get involved on sites like Twitter and Linkedin. Look for people who are talking about your industry. Participate in conversations and help others who are looking for jobs. Don't rely on social networking entirely. Look for ways to meet other professionals in your area. Networking opportunities like workshops, job fairs and even public speaking classes can be great ways to make connections with other who can help you along the way.

• Volunteer - Especially if you've been out of work for a month or longer, find a way to use your time and talents to help others. Not only is volunteering great for your self-esteem and gives you some sort of schedule to give structure to your week, it's a great way to make connections with others. For example, if you are an accountant, offer to help a non-profit organization or do tax workshops for poor people. Whatever you pick, it will help you keep your skills sharp and give you something to talk about when an interviewer ask what you have been doing recently.

Staying excited about your job search is so important and really difficult. It's tempting to just sit at home combing the job ads and feeling like a loser. Don't fall into this trap. The job of your dreams isn't going to knock on your door. Instead, do things that will keep you motivated and make you more excited about your future.

What things do you do to stay enthusiastic? Please share your thoughts and tips in the comments.

By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer for HealthcareJobsiteBlog and Beyond.com.. Along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.

Related articles

• 5 Creative Ways To Use Linkedin To Find a Job (administrativejobsblog.com)
• 4 Things on Your Resume That Make You Look Bad (healthcarejobsiteblog.com)
• 5 Ways to Improve Your Job Search Today (logisticsjobsiteblog.com)
• Rethinking the Workplace and Taking Responsibility for Your Career (phillyjobsblog.com)

The Many Ways That Recruiters Find New Talent

One of the coolest things when you already have a job is getting a call, out of the blue, from a recruiter. It can be unsettling making you wonder where they got your contact information. The first time it happened to me, I got a little paranoid. See, I was actually looking for a new job, but I was keeping it under wraps until I had a job offer. I worried that maybe someone had given them my name, especially since they called me at work.

After it happened, I did a little research to find out how recruiters get leads. Of course, you could ask them where they got your name, but you would only get a generic answer about someone who wants to remain anonymous, but who thinks that you would be perfect for this job opportunity.

I don't think that most recruiters expect anyone to buy that line. Trust me, no matter what they say, this is most likely not what happened. Most people don't recommend their friends or co-workers to job recruiters; even on social networking sites like Linkedin. The reason is that referring peoples' names to recruiters tends to be risky and unless they are 100 percent certain that the person is actively seeking new employment, they don't want to step on any toes. Doing something that might offend a valuable contact serves no purpose, and there is no real pay off for them to refer you.

What I found out was that recruiters have great research skills. They are experts at finding the right group of candidates to present to an employer, which is why companies hire them. Here are a five ways that recruiters find you:

• You have applied to one of their job postings- Recruiters post on various job boards to advertise the positions they are looking to fill. What surprised me was that even after they have found the candidate for the position, they hold on to most of the remaining resumes to use when they have a different job opening to fill.
  
  
• Your name is in a recruitment database- Some agencies keep a database of resumes and even buy information from other recruiters. Buying and selling of leads is common business practice. Taken alongside number 1 on this list, the odds are good that you have sent a copy of your resume to a recruiter. Sometimes their information is out of date, but if they think you might be the right fit, they will try to find you using other methods.
  
  
• Social Networking- This is becoming one of the fastest ways to get found. Linkedin and other social networking sites make it easy for a recruiter to search for people in specific areas who have specific skill sets. Once they find you, it's just a click away to contact all of your coworkers and business associates. When you make your online profile, you are making your information fair game.
  
  
• Corporate websites- Recruiters often look at corporate websites to find employee lists. Often the websites contain a full list of all the employees in directory format. For those that don't, often specific employee names are listed in news articles about the company.
  
  
• Cold Calling- This is typically a last resort, but it is still done. Basically, this method involves cold calling a company and making up a story to get information about who is working in a certain position. Often a recruiter will try to chat up a receptionist or a low level employee asking a lot of questions. This takes a lot of time and often doesn't get anywhere, so it is less likely that a recruiter would go this route.

Recruiters have many ways to find talent to fill their job openings. Even if you don't want to change jobs, being recruited isn't always a bad thing. When you are working toward a promotion or a raise, letting it leak that you have been contacted by a recruiter might make your current employer a little nervous about losing you. That nervousness could even lead to being given a raise.

Of course, if you are unhappy with your current job, and want to be found by a recruiter, making yourself easy to find is a good start. A good recruiter works very hard to find the best talent, and also will work hard to get you the best employer as well.

Have you ever been contacted by a recruiter? Did you take the job? Let me know in the comments.

By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer for PhillyJobsBlog and Beyond.com, along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.

Related articles

• 5 Ways to Make Your Resume a Winner (healthcarejobsiteblog.com)
• 5 Ways to Find The Job of Your Dreams (manufacturingworkersblog.com)
• Are They Even Reading My Resume? 5 Reasons Resumes End Up In The Trash (phillyjobsblog.com)

5 Marketing Tips You Can Learn From Lady Gaga

Image by ama_lia via Flickr

You can learn a lot from Lady Gaga's marketing machine



If you had the chance to watch Mtv's Video Music Awards, you probably saw Lady Gaga's marketing machine in action. During the pre-show, she was the number one trending topic on Twitter and everyone was trying to guess what she would be wearing or how she was going to make her entrance. After keeping everyone in suspense, she started the show dressed in drag. As Gaga's supposed boyfriend, she gave a monologue talking about how Lady Gaga only cares about image, how she just wants the spotlight. This built up energy that fed her rousing performance. Throughout the night, she never dropped character and even after the show, everyone was talking about her.



Whether you love her or hate her, there's no denying that she is a marketing machine. She has taken personal branding and social networking to the next level. If you are looking for a job or just trying to excel at the one you have, then you know how important it is to build a personal brand and a reputation that lets people know exactly who you are and what you're all about.



So, let's take a look and see what we can learn from her media machine:

• Be memorable - There isn't anyone who hasn't at least heard about Lady Gaga. They might just remember her crazy outfits or the time that she came to an award show in an egg, but either way, they remember her. Of course, I don't recommend doing something outlandish, but still, it's important to not be someone who is easy to forget. Look at what you do that is special and find a way to incorporate that into your personal brand.

• Be great at what you do - If you set aside all of the crazy outfits and theatrical performances, Lady Gaga still makes great music. Her fans love her for it and her dance tracks are so catchy that even people who don't like her can't help but hum along. She has sold millions of records and no matter who you are, you don't reach that level of success based on hype alone. At the end of the day, you have to be really good at what you do.

• Know your audience - Lady Gaga knows who her audience is and when she performs, she is singing to them. Not only does she target her audience but she is willing to stand up for her views even if it causes her to lose money. For example, as a major gay rights advocate she recently had a battle with Target about their support for organizations that lobby against gay rights. She told the department store that if they didn't commit to end the practice, she wouldn't allow them to sell her products in their stores.

• Build brand loyalty by giving back - Lady Gaga's fans love her. They watch her every move and are the first to tweet about what she is doing, blog about her and spread the word. While it's great that she has such a loyal fan base, in her case, the love goes both ways. Anytime you see her making a public appearnce, she always mentions her "little monsters". She even has Little Monsters tattooed on her arm to honor her fans.

• Leverage social media - Lady Gaga interacts with her fans daily through social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. She has over 10 million Twitter followers and 35 million Facebook fans. It isn't enough to just have a Twitter or a Facebook, you have to engage and connect with your target demographic.

It doesn't matter if you are a "Little Monster" or not, there are still many things you can learn from Lady Gaga. If you're lucky and follow these tips, maybe you can manage to capture just a tiny bit of the success she has.

What do you think about Lady Gaga? Do you think she is a marketing genius or just hype? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer for PhillyJobsBlog, along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.

Related articles

• 5 Ways to Find The Job of Your Dreams (manufacturingworkersblog.com)
• Are Men Better At Social Networking? LinkedIn Says "Yes"! (phillyjobsblog.com)
• Should You Include Social Media Contact Info in Your Resume? (healthcarejobsiteblog.com)

Are Men Better At Social Networking? LinkedIn Says "Yes"!

Are men really better at social networking?

Are you a woman? Do you use social networking sites like LinkedIn? If so, you might be part of a growing minority.

According to a recent survey conducted by LinkedIn, it seems that while most professionals know how valuable the professional networking site is when it comes to finding a job, many women still aren't “getting” LinkedIn.

LinkedIn's study compared the usage habits of both men and women on its site and compiled an extensive report. They found that on average, men are doing better at making connections and furthering their careers through social networking.

The site's study suggests that women are more reluctant to network out of a fear of being pushy or overly “schmoozey”. I am not sure that I would agree with their findings. Building a social network is all about connecting with people and building relationships before you need them, but what I don't understand is how they would measure what “effective networking” is.

As I looked into their criteria further, it seems that they measure successful networking by the percentage of one-way connections that men have versus the ones women have. Next, they look at the ratio of men to women on the site.

The thing is, out of all of the social networking sites, women seem to be joining LinkedIn in fewer numbers, even though they dominate other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Here is a graphic of how the genders stack up across the world of social media:

As you can see, the LinkedIn is the only site where the majority is male. In an attempt to make their study a little easier to understand, LinkedIn has put together this nice infographic. Take a look:

My issue with the study is that comparing the way that men network with the way that women network is like comparing apples and oranges. Women in general tend to focus more on building actual relationships with others and care less about collecting business cards. Men are typically more straightforward when it comes to networking and are more direct with each other about the process. When women try to imitate this type of behavior, they are often seen as pushy.

Networking is important for any professional, and using sites like LinkedIn can certainly help further a career. They key is to network in a way that feels authentic to you, regardless of gender. And, for the ladies reading this, if you haven't gotten the hang of LinkedIn yet, get back on the site and get networking. If there is a shortage of professional women there, there are bound to be more opportunities.

Do you use LinkedIn? Do you think that men are better at networking? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer for PhillyJobsBlog, along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.

Should You Have Your Own Website?

While many businesses often have a website, usually individual job seekers do not have an online web presence. As a personal website is an excellent way to make you stand out among other job candidates, perhaps creating a personal online presence is not such a bad idea.

Why Should You Create a Website?

A personal website can showcase your portfolio of work and prove that you are a professional in your field. Besides these points, a personal website can also more clearly show potential recruiters and employers the benefits of working with you. Testimonials from satisfied clients and case studies on your website can further enhance these statements. Additionally, when a recruiter is looking online for a candidate to fill a potential job opening, a website is a must if you want these recruiters to find you. Also, since your website can be updated at anytime, you have the flexibility to make any appropriate changes and enhancements.

How do You Go about Creating a Website?

Many people believe that building and maintaining a website is a complicated and expensive undertaking. However, this situation does not have to be the case at all. For instance, you can buy a domain name of your first and last name for fewer than ten dollars. Next, you can set up an account with a free service such as WordPress. Besides being a blogging platform, Wordpress also offers personal website templates that can help you with developing your online presence. Once you have signed up with the service, you can then enter your content onto the website. What should you include? Well, an “about me” section, information about the skills and benefits you bring to employers, a “contact me” section, links to examples of your work - and so on - are great items to include on the website.

Create a Blog

While not necessary at first, you may also want to consider including a blog on your website. After all, a blog is a great way to showcase your expert knowledge in a particular area. Do remember that posts do not have to be lengthy as long as you are providing useful information. For instance, besides writing a full blog post, you can link to a video of interest or comment on recent industry-related news headlines.

Link to Social Media Sites

Besides these points, having a website is also a great idea as a website is a great “launching point” for social media networking. For instance, your website can link to social media networks that include LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook – and vice versa.

All in all then, while creating a personal website may seem like a daunting task to some, the “pros” of creating a website definitely outweigh the “cons” hands down.

Ready to supercharge your job search? Visit PhillyJobs.com.

Larisa Redins is a full time writer and editor with degrees in both Arts and Biological Science. She writes about career issues and other topics for a variety of international websites, magazines, and businesses.

Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile

There is doubt about the value of having and maintaining a strong and current LinkedIn profile and network. Finding ways to increase your network and cultivate great business contacts is one of the best ways to make yourself attractive to recruiters. Recruiters used LinkedIn aggressively, in fact, a recent Jobvite 2010 social media report, found that LinkedIn is one of the most popular social media sites for recruiters with 75% of respondents saying that they use LinkedIn regularly to look for new talent.

In an earlier post here on PhillyJobs, I talked a bit about using LinkedIn groups to find your next position. But once you have your profile set up, there are ways to make sure that you are using it to your best advantage and ways to maximize your presence on the network.

Here are some tips for optimizing your LinkedIn profile.

• Make your profile as important as your resume- Don't think of your Linkedin profile as an informal resume, but rather be sure to keep it current and updated whenever you update your resume. Be sure to use action verbs and keywords as well. By keeping it current and using keywords you will be more accessible to recruiters that are searching profiles to find matching candidates.

• Getting Recommendations and References- One of the key things you can do to make your profile more appealing to a recruiter is to have great recommendations and references. You want to have both character references and professional references. Make sure that you have several of each, but don't overdo it. Don't be afraid to ask for recommendations from people that you have worked with in the past and past professors etc.. Remember to thank them for the reference and offer to reciprocate if you think it would be useful to them.

• Make connections- Don't be afraid to ask people for a connection and don't refuse a connection unless you have good reason. Sometimes it helps to look at a friend's connections and find people on their lists that may be good contacts for you. Never underestimate the power of “a friend of a friend”.

• Use you LinkedIn account for research- Before your next interview, take the time to look up the company or the hiring manager that you have an appointment with on LinkedIn. Read over their profile and get a feel for who they are and what they are looking for. It can set you apart from other candidates if you are able to come to the interview armed with information about the company, the position and/or the interviewer. This isn't invading their space, because you can be sure that the interviewer will have looked over your profile before the interview as well.

Think about LinkedIn networking the same way as you would think about your personal network. Many of us have found jobs when we were just starting out by someone's mom knowing someone that knew someone that was hiring. This is exactly the same thing. Putting yourself out there can be difficult, but the rewards are worth it. By optimizing your LinkedIn profile it raises the odds of finding a new job that fits your skills and talents. And isn't that what we are all looking for?

By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a freelance writer and regular contributor to several websites and other publications, a volunteer, a full time mom and an active job seeker.

The Laid-Off Life: All Atwitter over Social Job Hunting

“For the uninitiated, here’s how Twitter works: I have no freaking idea. I have no idea how it works – or why it exists." – Jon Stewart

RT @Bogie99: @IngridBergman: Here's looking @you kid #PlayItAgain.

PhillyJobs.com recently posted an article about Twitter and the job search. I decided that it was time to address the great world of Twitter in my column. You can’t escape it. I mean, how else would you know where Kourtney Kardashian is partying to or what Lady Gaga is eating or what time your friends went to bed? (And seriously? Britney Spears is the most followed person on Twitter? Not sure if that says something more about Britney or about America).


According to the latest statistics, nearly 142 million Americans use at least one social networking site. That’s nearly half your neighbors. Over 120 million of those are on Facebook. But Twitter only has 20 or so million users in the US; that’s a sixth of what Facebook has. That’s even a third less Americans than those still on MySpace (but statistics indicate that only 18 million are ‘active MySpace users’, and most of them are probably your 11-year old niece and some annoying emo band.) But even so, Twitter (along with LinkedIn and its 35 million domestic users which I’ll get into another time) seems is the go-to place for job hunting the in social network world.

I happen to really enjoy Facebook. I think it’s a wonderful innovation for many purposes, from connecting to former kindergarten classmates to tending to fake farms and mafia families (which, I’ll tell you, I don’t get). But it’s also a great job hunting tool for networking - I even got this gig that way - but not optimized to do so. I was an early adapter of MySpace and Facebook and all that Web 2.0 stuff, but I never warmed up to Twitter. I mean, I just didn’t get it. Unless I wanted to follow famous people (which I really don’t), wasn’t it the same as posting and reading Facebook updates without all the other cool features? And, if you’ve ever read my columns before, I am not one to often limit what I say to 140 characters. It takes me just that long to say hi. Twitter, it seemed to me, was for twits.

But as I eased into the Laid-Off Life, I reached out to my social network for advice in the job search. One particularly astute friend, who was a professional in the human resources field, suggested some ways to look using Twitter. The idea didn’t really excite me, but I figured it couldn’t hurt. I created an account, looked up a smattering of friends to ‘follow’ (friends clearly more interesting than I), and there I was, a full-fledged resident of the Twitterverse. Let the cyber-partying begin.

My HR friend suggested a couple of the top job search tools on Twitter for me to try: tweetmyjobs and tweetajob. I didn’t know that Twitter had this kind of interaction. The sign-ups were rather similar to creating traditional searches on CareerBuilder or PhillyJobs.com. Plug in the location where you’re job searching and the field you wish to be employed in, and bam, you’re following ‘Philadelphia writing’ or ‘South Jersey carpentry’ or ‘Schwenksville barista’, and boom, it’s right there in your feed along with Justin Bieber’s hair report. A tweet will appear in your stream like: “Jobs_in_Philly #jobs Creative Graphic Designer - Horsham, PA US: Categories: Media: http://bit.ly/cHE26W”, with a shortened URL link right to the job posting. And another site, TwitJobSearch, is a great search engine that aggregates the listings from a lot of these sorts of Twitter job feeds. What could be simpler?

But don’t confuse simplicity with effort, or as the late, great UCLA coach John Wooden said, “Do not confuse activity for achievement”. Just because all these great job leads are being funneled directly to you doesn’t mean that you just mass-apply for every interesting job and wait. Twitter is very immediate, but it’s no different than finding jobs in any other way. The word ‘lead’ is the proper terminology here. Because that’s all they are, just leads. Now you must apply the effort. Take these job suggestions and do the same due-diligence you would applying for any other job. Research, plan, follow up. And it’s not just job services; your Twitter (and other SNS's) friends can help you find a job, point you towards a job lead, or give you a reference. And honestly, it doesn’t even have to be people you know. These sites allow you to connect with people you don't know, based on common interests or career fields.

But just because I’m on Twitter and I use it to help find jobs doesn’t mean I understand the point of Twitter or the relative mass appeal of it. I feel I could stand outside Girard Station and yell “I’m having waffles for breakfast!” at passersby and get the same results. I even recently learned that 60% of Twitterers quit the service within the first month, presumably because they just don’t get the allure either. But I’ll stick with it. I have RW (that’s ‘real world’) friends that I follow, and I do follow a couple famous people I find interesting. I highly suggest you follow the actor Josh Malina (@JoshMalina) - he's hilarious - and author Elizabeth Wurtzel (@LizzieWurtzel) - she's brilliant - and you can follow me there too (@PhillyPartTwo). But, back to my point, I am indeed using it for things like the job search, and with good luck and my own due-diligence, maybe one of those leads will turn in to a job.

In the meantime, hopefully I can use my newly-found knowledge that "This week's Real Housewives of NJ was a little too real" from @teresa_giudice for good instead of evil.


Michael Hochman
LaidOffLife@yahoo.com ◙ Laid-Off Life on Twitter ◙ Laid-Off Life on Facebook

Michael is a Copywriter, Creative Marketer, and Broadcasting Professional still in search of full-time employment after 11 months of full-time job hunting, thanks to an “involuntary career sabbatical”. A Philly native and Syracuse graduate, Michael will gladly accept any job offer you may have for him. Any. Really. Please give me a job??

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"Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called everybody, and they meet at the bar." - Drew Carey

The Laid-Off Life: Congratulations, You’ve Been Rejected!

“The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, [rather] in what direction we are moving.” – Hon. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

I have recently uncovered an unusual truth of the modern job hunt: Rejection can be a good thing. Progress. Better than the alternative. Ah, you say, but isn’t acceptance the alternative to rejection? Sure, in the real world. But this is not the real world, this is the job search, and there are more alternatives than what you see in the Matrix, Neo.

The job application process, broken down to its component parts, is fairly straight-forward. You find a job listing, you write a pretty little cover letter, maybe fill out an online questionnaire, and ship your résumé off into cyberspace. Web, email, US Mail, carrier pigeon, whatever the means of transport. Send it in, cross some digits.

And wait.


But job search etiquette clearly states that after submitting an application, you should follow up on it. How else will you stand out among the rest of the proletariat and huddled masses? Call up the decision-maker, humanize your submission, bestow the 3-1-1. And address it to a specific person. But these days, unless you are high-end, career-excelled, head-hunter material, you will likely not even know to whom you are applying.

Job search sites, online classifieds, Twitter listings, LinkedIn updates, they’re full of disinformation and covert ops. Hiring managers and human resource professionals are going in to hiding. It’s an epidemic. They don’t want to be found. They don’t want you to contact them. They don’t want questions. They don’t want follow ups. Anonymous listings. Agency contact only. No phone calls, please. They don’t even want you to know their name. What’s a job seeker to do?

Options abound:

• Google the company name and “HR manager”.
  
• Search their Facebook fan page.
  
• Ask an alumnus.
  
• Ask your networking contacts.
  
• Find the company on LinkedIn and search for human resource employees. (LinkedIn is an amazing resource for uncovering covert persons, but even that, HR people are getting wise to. Fuzzy references and vague titles have replaced real people’s names in searches.)
  
• Dial up the company’s switchboard and ask for a name. Good luck connecting with a human (even hitting zero now often gets you ‘you have pressed an invalid key’).

If you’re fortunate enough to escape the auto-attendant maze, new company security policies often preclude the switchboard from giving you a person’s name. Suck it up and sadly ask for “Human resources, please”. But I guarantee you a Pete Rose bet you will get voicemail. So you leave your name, spelling out your last name. Leave your phone number. Spell out your email address. Rinse. Repeat.

And wait.

Why don’t HR people return phone calls? You’re not calling to sell them a timeshare. You just want to humanize yourself to them. You want to place a voice to a résumé. You want to tell them how perfect you are for them. You want to show interest, ask about the company. All the things you’re supposed to do. Please, Ms. HR Manager, just call me back. We were taught to follow up, let us follow up!

But do you want to know a secret?

Spoiler alert!

There’s a good chance your application never even got as far as HR, or any human being for that matter. These days, at larger companies, and even smaller ones using such software, your résumé simply gets dumped in to a database upon arrival, where it is pulled apart, dismembered, and dismantled. Stripped down to its protons and neutrons, like matter into a black hole, and sifted through for keywords. That self-portrait you bled sweat over is now mere ones-and-zeroes in an intelligent keyword-categorized search. If the proper terms in your résumé match an optimized keyword search, it may go in to the pile an actual person may look at. If not, it will forever line the bottom of their hard-drive's proverbial birdcage. So, if you’re not suitably SEO’d, you’re DOA. Take 'em away boys, there's nothing more we can do. I’ll let the experts at PhillyJobs.com tell you how to do this, but you best be doing it or that beautiful résumé of yours may have a half-life shorter than spam.

Then one day you’re cleaning out your inbox of emails about half-off flowers and your cousin’s trip to Paraguay when that flashing ‘new mail’ message blinks, and an email titled ‘Re: Your Resume’ arrives from noreply@pleasepleaseiwantthisjob.com.

Dear Michael: We have carefully reviewed your application. While your résumé is impressive, we have decided that you do not fit our needs at this time. Good luck on your search for employment. We will keep your résumé on file for 90 days if anything comes up that matches your qualifications.
Sincerely, Mr. Robert Notyourboss.

(Bytheway, has anyone ever had anything “come up” later that matched their qualifications? Ya, me neither.)

Rejection, yes. But triumph nonetheless! You may actually only get a 10-15% response-of-any-kind rate from your submissions, so good for you! Progress! Use this little victory to stay positive and stay on track. You’re that much closer to a magical email that says someone loved your résumé and when can you come in for an interview. And in that moment, you’ve discovered how rejection in the Laid-Off Life is an encouraging alternative to silence.

Please Note: if you’re a Human Resources Professional, please take my witty criticism with a handful of salt. I think you are all very, very wonderful people and I strongly encourage you to give me a job. However, if you’ve ever been laid off or otherwise unemployed yourself, remember how much it completely and utterly stinks on this side.

And if you get my voicemail, rest assured I will promptly return your call.


Michael Hochman ◙ LaidOffLife@yahoo.com ◙ twitter.com/PhillyPartTwo

Michael is a Copywriter, Creative Marketer, and Advertising & Broadcasting Professional still in search of full-time employment after 10 months of full-time job hunting, thanks to an “involuntary career sabbatical”. A Philly native and Syracuse graduate, Michael will gladly accept any job offer you may have for him. Any. Really. Please give me a job??