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 SWOT Analysis for your Career

A basic tool used in strategic planning is SWOT analysis. This is where you take a hard look at your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats and plan accordingly. I am a firm believer that you should perform this analysis on your career at least once a year.


 Handling Salary Requirements

I am often asked by my clients how to handle requests for salary requirements. Many employment ads request salary requirements and some ads even insist on them.


 Power Career Moves

The new year is here – budgets are fresh, positions are open and every statistic points to aggressive hiring. Here are 5 sure-fire steps that will get you a competitive edge and land you that job.


 Following Up – What To Say

So you’ve sent your resume to a job you’re very excited about and a week has gone by without a word. Or perhaps you’ve had an interview and are waiting to hear how it went. What should you do?


 Save Your Numbers

I often come upon a situation that is a real wake-up call for people. When I am preparing a resume, especially for managers and executives, we need to impress potential employers by highlighting the achievements that were produced. That boils down to showing percentage increases in sales, profits, productivity, market share and so on. Yet many people haven’t bothered to save their numbers, particularly when they are trying to remember past year’s accomplishments.


 Parents – Add $200 to Your College Bill

Every week I get a number of calls from recent college graduates who are interested in our resume writing service. But when I tell them the cost is about $200 for a complete package, they say they can’t afford it. Does this make sense?


 But I Don’t Have A Degree

Every week people tell me that they are not getting interviews because they don’t have a college degree. Degrees are great, but to hiring managers, experience counts more. So how do you get around this obstacle?


 Simple Tip for Managing Office Politics

In the last couple of weeks, I have coached a few people who lost to “office politics”. However these cases stand out because a few basic tips could have helped them avoid losing their jobs.


 Job Prospects Look Good for Executives

According to ExecuNet’s survey of executive search firms, job growth will accelerate in the second and third quarters of 2007. In fact 67% of all recruiters report there is already a shortage of qualified talent in the market and the market will improve in the next 6 months.


 CareerBuilder Announces Video Resumes

CareerBuilder will begin taking video resumes in June they announced. That means that candidates who have video resumes can upload them to the site. So I wonder, is this good?


 Tips for Return to Work Mothers

I frequently work with women returning to the workforce after 1-14 years of managing the home front. If that sounds like you, here are some tips on how to reflect this period on your resume.


 Tips To Get Noticed

You see a job posting and you think you are a perfect fit. Yet, as excited as you are, you know that if you just send your resume to the listed address, you’ll be in a pile of over 1,000 resumes. Here’s a neat tip to move your resume to the top of the pile.


 Enjoy the Music

Does your cell phone have a message, “Enjoy the music while we locate our subscriber”? I recently called a potential client who was complaining that their resume for an Executive Assistant position was not working. I got that message and then was blasted by rap music about girl’s booties. So I asked the person, is this the number you have on your resume? She said it was.


 Is the Job Market Picking Up?

Yes, yes, yes. My barometer tells me that the job market is picking up due to the fact that this week I have had about 2 calls per day from employers asking for access to my "database" so they can find new hires. (For the record, I DO NOT give employers access to my client information as it is 100% confidential).

This would suggest that they are not finding enough candidates through traditional methods and it's certainly a good sign for the job seeker.


 Do Job Boards Work?

I have often maintained that the giant job boards are an important step in one’s job search, but they have far less effectiveness than you would think. In fact, for manager and executive jobs, Monster.com has about a .7% effectiveness rate. That means you have less than 1 chance in 100 of getting a job through Monster. Someone recently pointed out some interesting facts about CareerBuilder that would support this same theme.


 Interesting Statistics

Here are a bunch of statistics I've found interesting.


 Great Time of Year to Get Jobs

Most people think that the holiday season is a dead time for getting jobs. Not true. In fact, the weeks in between Thanksgiving and Christmas are 1 of the best times to get noticed. And smart job hunters are taking advantage of the fact that few people know this.


 How to Get the Best Reference Letters

A client is being downsized from her employer, a Fortune 100 firm. Knowing that she will be leaving in 4 weeks, she asked me if she should be asking for reference letters from her peers and managers. My answer surprised her.


 Spending Time on Your Career

Isn’t it interesting that we spend the least amount of time planning for that which we will be spending the most amount of time in our lives. I’m referring to your career. Perhaps you read my other articles on “Happenstance Careers” – that most of us arrive where we are by happenstance. Extremely few people go through a formal exercise of actually planning their career path in a proven, methodical way. And this nonchalance often extends itself to resumes.


 Happenstance Careers

Most people manage their career by happenstance. They happen to meet someone… they happen to see an ad…they happen to get a call from a recruiter. And all of a sudden, they are 40 years old and not sure what they really want to do for the next 20 years.


 Senior IT Workers on the Decline

According to a survey by AFCOM (Association For Computer Operations Management), there is a trending lack of senior IT employees for data center operations.


 Hey what’s up, pup, pup, pup?

This is the voice message I received when calling the phone number a potential client had on their resume. The message continued to say she would return the call “if the caller were worthy”. She is applying for a Financial Analyst position that requires interfacing with senior executives. Just imagine how an employer would react to this.


 When to Use a Career Coach

Career coaches can clarify your strengths, identify your preferred work environment, balance the quality of your life and help you build a plan to realize your dreams. Nonetheless, most people do not use career coaches. There are, however, some situations that provide a compelling reason to use a career coach. Ask yourself these questions:


 Inside Secrets to Writing a Cover Letter

In interviews with hiring managers and recruiters, many confess they don’t even look at the cover letter. If they do, they only glance at it for a few seconds. So the trick is to have a cover letter that quickly captures their attention.


 What Do You Look Like Online?

According to a 2005 survey of 102 executive recruiters by ExecuNet, an executive job-search and networking organization, 75% of recruiters use search engines to uncover information about candidates, and 26% of recruiters have eliminated candidates because of information found online. What does your online profile look like?


 Simple Trick to Stand Out When Responding to Jobs

When you are responding to advertised positions through email, employers are getting hundreds of responses. Here’s a simple trick to make yourself stand out from the hordes.


 Job Seekers Expect Success in '06

In a recent CareerBuilder.com survey, 54 percent of respondents said they plan to increase their staffs in the coming year. Only 9 percent anticipate staffing cuts.


 Spam is Hurting Blogs

I think blogs are a great way to express yourself and share information with a wide audience. Although they are supposed to allow virtual communities of people with similar interests form, the spammers are killing us.


According to Computerworld. 2006 should be a good year for IT professionals. In fact the numbers of jobs posted on Dice.com from January through September for developers, project managers and help desk technicians rose 40%, 47% and 45%, respectively, compared with the same period in 2004. Interestingly, with all the talk of outsourcing, less than 5% of the 10 million people who make up the U.S. IT job market had been displaced by foreign workers through 2004. The survey also indicates the top 4 jobs that employers seek.


 Good News for Young Professionals

Fast Company has an article citing a yearlong study conducted by McKinsey & Co. indicating that the most important corporate resource over the next 20 years will be talent. It's also the resource in shortest supply, which is good news for the job seeker.


 Now's the Season to be Networking

As you consider all the parties and gatherings you will be going to this holiday season, are you remembering that this is a great opportunity to network? Do you have the tools to do it effectively?


A Computerworld article indicated that in a recent survey of 210 senior IT executives at Global 1,000 companies and 242 executives at outsourcing service providers, the percentage of users satisfied with offshoring providers fell from 79% to 62% over the past year. Even more telling was the number of customers who prematurely ended domestic or offshore outsourcing contracts within a year: That figure jumped from 21% in 2004 to 51% this year. Yet, in a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey, 74% of the respondents said they plan to increase their use of offshore contractors. So while outsourcing is not living up to its expectations, it is still a growing trend. What does this mean to the IT professional?


 Writing a Thank You Letter

I can’t tell my clients enough the importance of sending a Thank You letter after an interview. In a recent survey of hiring managers, nearly 15% say they would not hire someone who failed to send a Thank You letter after the interview. And 32 % say they would still consider the candidate, but would think less of him or her.


 How good is the job market?

I am asked this question at least 5 times each week. And to me the answer is simple. There are probably 2 million less jobs than there were 5 years ago. But you only need 1 so the odds are good. What has changed is the way you play the game.


 Making a Bad Job Good

The number one reason a person likes or dislikes their job is their boss. You can work for a company listed as one of the best places to work, and if your boss is a jerk, you’ll be miserable. Conversely, if you have a supportive boss in a lousy company, you’ll be buffered from the issues that arise there.

So what do you do if you are suffering under a micromanaging, egocentric, abusive, lying and untrustworthy creep? There are only a couple things you can do.


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