50 Career Tips for College Students

by Tom Denham

College teaches you how to think.  However, unless you are engaged with your campus Career Center, college teaches you virtually nothing on the subject of career development.  Think about how many courses you took in your major, and then think about how many semester-long courses you took on career development?  A rare few colleges offer, at most, one or two courses on the topic.  You spend time more time at work than in any other aspect of your life, but college teaches you barely anything on how to start, build and manage your career.  Without the Career Center, you will be left on your own to figure out what you are suppose to do with your life.  The transition is difficult because there is no syllabus for success.  Here are my 50 tips to prepare you for the realities of working.

1. Go to the Career Center on campus at least once a semester and then every month when you are a senior.
2. Believe in yourself, believe in something and have someone believe in you.
3. Success comes from inside of you.
4. In addition to your college degree, employers will want to see multiple internship experiences.  Your competition has them.
5. Start building your resume early in your college career.  Don’t wait until you get back from spring break of your Senior year.
6. Be nice to your faculty.  You’ll need them someday to serve as a reference for graduate school or a job.
7. Get clarity and focus on the three types of jobs you will pursue: 1) Ideal Jobs, 2) Back-Up/Realistic Jobs, and 3) Survival Jobs.
8. Come up with your own personal and professional definition of success and don’t let anyone else define it for you.
9. Your first job is a period of adjustment.  It’s like being a freshman all over again.  Be patient and learn the ropes.
10. Think of your first job as a stepping-stone that can help you get closer to your Ideal Job.

Tips 11 - 50 and complete article

10 Tips to Beat Job Search Burn Out

by Vault Careers


The weather's heating up, but are your job hunting efforts cooling off?
Fight the urge to abandon your search—stay on track and refresh your motivation with these tips:

1. Do Something You're Awesome At
One of the best ways to right burn out is to feel A. successful, and B. energized. This is most easily and effectively achieved by doing something you enjoy, and you kind of rule at. Be it table tennis, interpretive dance, or beating your niece at Crazy Eights, do it. The sillier (and most different from sitting in front of your computer, applying to jobs), the better. Extra points awarded for physicality.

2. Set Smaller Goals
If your goal is simply to get a job offer, you don't have a lot of control over your success. Which stinks, considering how long and arduous a job search can be. Instead, set smaller goals—quotas for resume send outs, or events attended, or "check ins" with contacts, so you can have little victories to celebrate on your way to the big one.

3. Stay Social
Burn out, by definition, means feeling tired and unmotivated. Your natural response may be to withdraw further, spending more time alone so as to avoid drains on your already low energy. But resist the urge: not only is it vital to your mood and attitude to stay connected, making the social rounds increases your chances of finding a job:  it gets you circulating, and keeps you fresh in your friends' minds. After all, if they haven't seen you recently, how will they remember you when an opportunity arises?

4. Seek Support
Job hunting is a rejection game. No matter how hard you try to stay objective, the fact of the matter is, it's going to start feeling personal when you don't get call backs.
If you keep in touch with others who are also on the hunt, you can compare notes on what's working, what's not working, and best of all, who's getting rejected--because no matter how much it can feel that way, it's not just happening to you.

Tips 5 - 10 and complete Vault article

Google interviews: would you get a job with the search giant?

In an extract from his new book, William Poundstone considers the logic puzzles, trick questions and mind-bending riddles that make Google interviews notoriously hard. Would you make it through to the next round.

William Poundstone

We live in an age of desperation. Never in living memory has the competition for job openings been more intense. Never have job interviews been tougher.

For some job seekers, Google is the shining city on the hill. It's where the smartest people do the coolest things. In the US, Google regularly ranks at or near the top of Fortune magazine's list of 100 Best Companies To Work For. But unsexy firms also find themselves with multiple well-qualified applicants for each position. That is very good for the companies that are able to hire. Like Google, they get to cherry-pick the top talent in their fields. It's not so good for the applicants. They are confronting harder, ruder, more invasive vetting.

This is most evident in the interviews. There are, of course, many types of questions traditionally asked in job interviews. These include the "behavioural" questions that have almost become clichés: "What is your biggest failure in life?" Questions relating to business: "How would you describe Holland & Barrett to a person visiting from another country?" And finally, there are open-ended mental challenges, such as how you would weigh an elephant without using a scale – something for which Google is particularly known, an attempt to measure mental flexibility and even entrepreneurial potential. The answer? Nudge the beast on to a barge. The elephant's weight will cause the barge to sink several inches in the water. Draw a line on the barge's hull to mark the water level. Then direct the elephant back on to land. Load the barge with 100lb bags of sand (or whatever is handy) until it sinks to the line marked on the hull. The elephant weighs as much as the sand.

The style of interviewing at Google is indebted to an older tradition of using logic puzzles to test job candidates at technology companies. Consider this one: the interviewer writes six numbers on the room's whiteboard – 10, 9, 60, 90, 70, 66. The question is, what number comes next in the series?
Most of the time, the job applicant stumbles around, gamely trying to make sense of a series that gives every indication of being completely senseless. Most candidates give up. A lucky few have a flash of insight.

Forget maths. Spell out the numbers in plain English, which gives you the following: ten nine sixty ninety seventy sixty-six. The numbers are in order of how many letters are in their names. Ten is not the only number you can spell with three letters. There's also one, two and six. Nine is not the only four-letter number; there's zero, four and five. This is a list of the largest numbers that can be spelled in a given number of letters.

Now for the payoff: what number comes next? Whatever number follows sixty-six should have nine letters in it (not counting a possible hyphen) and should be the largest nine-letter number. Play around with it and you'll probably come up with ninety-six. It doesn't look like you can get anything above 100, because that would start "one hundred" requiring 10 letters and upwards. You might wonder why the list doesn't have 100 (hundred) in place of 70 (seventy). "Million" and "billion" have seven letters, too. A reasonable guess is that they're using cardinal numbers spelled in correct stylebook English. The way you write out the number 100 is "one hundred".

At many of these companies, the one and only correct answer is 96. At Google, 96 is considered to be an acceptable answer. A better response is 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000. Aka "one googol".

That's not the best answer, though. The preferred response is 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Ten googol.

Puzzles such as this have drawbacks as interview questions. The answer here is a simple matter of insight: either you get it or you don't. There isn't a process of deduction to relate, and thus no way to distinguish someone who solves the problem from someone who already knew the answer. At Google, of all places, anyone applying for a job knows how to use a search engine. It's expected that candidates will Google for advice on Google interviews, including the questions asked. Consequently, Google encourages its interviewers to use a different type of question, more open-ended, with no definitive "right answer".

Read the complete Guardian article for more questions and answers. 

3 Secrets of a Zen Job Seeker

By Tony Morrison



Feeling frantic, stressed, and overwhelmed by your job search? The job search is uncertain, and the time and effort required is overwhelming.

If you are searching for a job and feeling this way, then you’re not alone. There are over 12.8 million Americans currently unemployed. Of those, over 1 million last month reported giving up on their search entirely, citing that they believe no jobs are available to them. You may even be close to giving up, too.
Instead of giving you more career networking tips and job search advice, let me provide a few different ways of thinking about your job search.

Eastern philosophies for centuries have taught open-mindedness is essential to attaining clarity and enlightenment. Zen, for instance, is experiential wisdom, realized through meditation and disciplined self-realization.  It is a practice that is concerned with what is, and not what you feel or think about what is.  Combining Zen and the job search can provide you with new insight and clarity about what is really important to you here and now, while reducing job search anxieties.

To attain the ultimate job search enlightenment, here are three secrets of a Zen job seeker:

1) Let Go. You cannot do it all and you cannot control everything related to what you do. The one thing that most job seekers believe is that unless they do everything under the sun to land a job, they will miss their opportunities.  If a person is so busy doing this and that and worrying about what happened yesterday and what might happen next month, then they will miss opportunities.  Focus on the things you can control and forget the rest. Some things (like hiring decisions) are simply out of your control — no matter how many resumes you send, cold calls you make, or tweets, blogs, and emails you write.  Accept this, focus on the things you can control, and you will experience less stress when things don’t go your way.

2) Know When To Shut Off. - tips 2 - 3 and complete CareerRocketeer article

9 tips for successful networking

• Posted by Robert McIntosh

It’s no surprise that when you read articles like Nine Tips for Networking for Business Success they apply nicely to the job search—as in nine tips for networking for job search success. This is because the job search is like running a business…namely yours. That’s right, you have a marketing campaign which heavily relies on your ability to network your way to the perspective buyer, the employer.
So when one of my LinkedIn contacts shared with me the aforementioned article by Kaarina Dillabough, I thought, this sounds similar to networking for job search success. And when Kaarina Dillabough asks in her article for suggestions for other networking tips, I thought, instead I will offer some networking tips for the job search.

1. You don’t have to like it, but you have to do it. Networking is not everyone’s favorite idea of spending an evening. To some it causes anxiety and utter fear—not just for the introverts, mind you. So get over the idea that you have to like it and remember the times your mother told you sometimes you have do things you don’t like.
2. Call it what it is, Connecting. Related to tip # 1, the word “connecting” seems gentler and more accurate. When you connect with someone, it’s more than a physical face-to-face encounter. With a connection there’s warmth and sense of accomplishment.
3. Make it natural for your sake and the sake of others. I hate to say this, but that 15, 30, 60 second commercial is not what people want to hear in most instances. At a natural connecting encounter (on the side of a soccer field, for example) the person with whom you’re speaking will be abhorred if you go into your memorized personal commercial. Relax and let the conversation unwind slowly and naturally.
4. Don’t forget about the little guy. - Tips 4 - 9 and complete article

7 Personal Branding Trends for Job Search in 2012

By William Arruda

Give yourself an edge to attract the attention of recruiters and hiring managers with these tools and techniques.

I’ve been in the business of helping people build their brands for a decade and each year, I publish my personal branding trends for job seekers. Take a look at this year’s trends and decide which will help give you an edge and attract the attention of recruiters and hiring managers.

1. Headshots Everywhere

Do you have a professional headshot?
People want to connect a face with a name. We have come to expect a photo alongside a blog post, Facebook profile and online article. People are less likely to click on a photo-less LinkedIn profile; and they’re less inclined to believe Web-based content if the picture of the person who contributed it is missing. Yet many people are still reluctant to post their photo to the Web. Some fear age discrimination in hiring; others just aren’t happy with the photos they have. Since it’s becoming common for hiring managers and recruiters to use Google and social networks to find candidates, your first impression could be your LinkedIn profile or other online content.


What does this mean for you?
Ensure those who are researching you get to connect a face with a name and credentials. Because there are so many places where your photo will appear — from your Google profile to your You Tube channel or about.me page — get a series of professional headshots and upload them to your social network profiles and Flickr or Picassa account. You don’t want someone doing a Google image search and seeing one photo replicated 30 times.

2. Crowdsourcing for Professionals

What do others say about you?


You’re only as good as the collective opinions of those who know you. Consultants have always understood the value of client feedback. Now, with the ease of requesting and providing recommendations, you too must be mindful of the power of external reviews. Virtually every new social network or app includes the opportunity to request and display reviews. LinkedIn calls them recommendations, BranchOut and BeKnown call them endorsements. 


Honestly.com calls them reviews. Regardless of what you call them, they’re extremely important to those who are making decisions about you. A Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey determined that 90% of consumers trust peer reviews. Although no research to my knowledge has been done about this topic as it relates to people, I predict we will quickly become accustomed to using crowdsourcing to make decisions about each other.


What does this mean for you?
If you are looking for a job, what others say about you will be critical to getting hired. Get out there and get testimonials, recommendations and endorsements and make them visible through various social media and your own Web site. Hiring managers will be dubious of those without any external recommendations.

3. Personal QR Codes

Do you have a QR code?

QR codes are taking off in all kinds of ways that weren’t originally anticipated. For example, according to brandchannel.com, it’s now possible to place extremely large QR codes on the tops of buildings that will be photographed by the satellites that feed Google Maps. The QR code will cause a logo of that company to appear when someone looks at their building’s images on Google. Putting a giant QR code on the top of your house may not be the best way to land a job. But you do have the opportunity to use QR codes to point those who are evaluating you to your Web sites, blogs and other relevant career marketing content. I have seen QR codes on the top of resumes, on business cards and on networking name-badges. Vizibility.com allows you to customize what people see when they click on your QR code – and change it often, so you can direct hiring managers to the perfect presentation of your capabilities.

What does this mean for you?
You have a great opportunity to direct recruiters to the content you want them to see. If one of your brand attributes is 'innovative,' think about how you can use QR codes to tell others what you want them to know about you. If you’re a more seasoned professional and want to demonstrate that you’re innovative and on top of the latest trends, using QR codes on your resume and business card is like digital Botox. It will demonstrate that you are connected to what’s happening.

4. Job Postings R.I.P. Trends 4 - 7 and complete TheLadders article

The secret meanings of buzzwords in job ads

or decades we have been aware of the term “buzzwords” and how important they are in job search.  Do you know what the “buzzwords” are really communicating in job advertisements? Are you reading between the lines or missing significant clues? To be fair, not all employers are up-to-date in verbiage or techniques to effectively advertise positions. Some tend to fall back on the same old language used decades ago.  The significant thing to note is that the intention of these words has changed over the years. And, many employers are using all the latest languaging techniques to attract the best candidates to their organizations. Being able to decode a job advertisement today is crucial for executives. Here is an example of some common words that show up in advertisements and what they are really saying:

Detail-oriented – we are control freaks – your every move will be closely monitored.

Team player – take one for the team – work on whatever the boss demands.

Fast-paced work environment – you are going to work more hours than we will pay you.

Multitask – we may change your job description without telling you, and you will need to quickly prioritize initiatives and figure out which task is most important without reducing performance.

Self-starter – given no direction, pull direction of work out of thin air.

Results-oriented or self-motivated – must have incredible drive (motivated to work hard to make commission).

Read the complete CareerHub article for more BuzzWords

Stand Out in Your Job Search by Giving Clues

By Judi Perkins


You’re selling a product and the product is you. So much of what I teach involves advanced sales techniques as they apply to job hunting. That’s because job seekers are too “me” focused when the buyer, which is the hiring company, wants to know what’s in it for them. When the buyer is about “me” and the job seeker is about “me,” the interview won’t be very successful because both parties are thinking “what’s in it for me?” They’re neglecting to take into consideration the other side of the equation. That’s okay for the company to do, but it’s not okay for you.

Failing to consider the other person’s side extends to following up on resumes. “Hi my name is Mary Johnson. I sent you my resume last week, and I was wondering if you received it.” The response, invariably, is “If you sent it, we have it.” And Mary hangs up the phone frustrated, no wiser than before she called.

The reason is that she was expecting the person to remember her. Failing that, she expected the person to invest their time in finding the answer. The odds are very low on both. Had she said, “Hi my name is Mary Johnson. I have 10 years experience in marketing, specialize in product rollouts and spent last summer in Italy. I sent in my resume for the Director of Marketing position and was wondering if you’d received it?” She’d have had better luck receiving an answer.

The reason this method is more successful is because first, she clued the person in as to the position to which she was connected. Secondly assuming product rollout experience was a requirement in the ad, she indicated she had relevant experience. And third, she’s mentioned something that probably has made her stand out among the others who sent in a resume.

The memorable fact doesn’t need to be related to the position, but it does need to be something unique so it’s likely to cause a bell to go off. Odds are very few resumes listed spending any time in Italy. And lastly, she hasn’t assumed anything. She’s made helping her convenient for the person with whom she’s speaking by giving that person a clue as to who she is.

Get more advice by reading the rest of the CareerRocketeer article

After The Job Interview: Five Crucial Steps To Seal The Deal

Jenna Goudreau, Forbes Staff

You did it. Your resume stood out from the stack. You landed an interview and expertly dodged the hiring manager’s trick questions, smartly answered the toughest queries and even asked a few good questions of your own. Think your work is done? Think again.

“Each step along the way is critical,” says Steven Raz, co-owner and managing partner of recruitment firm Cornerstone Search Group. “Just because the interview is over, don’t believe you’re no longer being interviewed.”


In an age when communication and building relationships are key business skills, how you handle the interview follow-up can help you stand out from other candidates. But being overly aggressive or thoughtless about following up may get your resume tossed. Job experts offer these five crucial steps to seal the deal—and point out the dangerous pitfalls.

Immediately Send A Follow-Up Email
Regardless of the type or experience level of the job, a thank-you email should always be sent within 24 hours of the meeting. “Time is of the essence,” says Raz. “You want to make sure your email gets to them quickly.” If you’ve collected a business card from each person you spoke with, you’ll have the correct titles, email addresses and name spellings. Raz warns that any correspondence needs to be impeccable, noting that too often qualified people send off a quick email riddled with typos and grammatical errors. He advises always asking someone to proofread it first.

The follow-up email doesn’t need to be long, but it should be personalized enough so that it doesn’t read like a standard form letter. Interview coach Pamela Skillings suggests using the email to thank the interviewer for their time, reference what was discussed in the interview, highlight again your interest and key selling points, and reiterate how you can be contacted. It should be no more than three paragraphs of two to three sentences each.


Check In With Your References - Read the rest of the Forbes Article for steps 2 - 5

How to Lunch Your Way to a Job in 3 Steps

By Tony Morrison
Breakfast may be the most important meal of the day, but lunch is the most beneficial meal for your career. In the professional world, talk over a mid-day meal often means business. You can even seize the lunchtime opportunity to advance your job search.

You heard right. Scheduling a lunch is a great way to get the inside scoop about your favorite company, potential job leads, or some job search advice. Scoring some one-on-one time with a seasoned professional from a big company is not a direct guarantee to a job (nor will it always result in a job interview), but it is a great way to make a potential career connection, make a lasting impression, and possibly get some clarity and direction for your job search.

So how can you request a lunch meet up? Here are three steps for making it happen:

Find a Connection. If you have your target company in mind, try finding any mutual connections you have with an employee and ask for an introduction. If you find yourself not having any insider connections, try utilizing tools like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, social job search apps, or your alumni network. You’ll want to be selective about which employee you approach.  Your best bet is to meet someone at, or just above, your career level with a similar professional experience and background. Be sure they have both the time and the knowledge to help you out.

Steps 2 - 3 and complete Career Rocketeer article

Linkedin and the Talent Economy: Every Employee is a Recruiter

Posted by Jorgen Sundberg

This is a post written by Dan Shapero, Vice President, LinkedIn Hiring Solutions.

Like many functions in the organization, the way in which companies identify and recruit talent has changed more in the past 10 years than it did in the last century. According to Jobvite, 89 percent of companies planned to use social media to recruit in 2011, a source of talent that didn’t even exist at the start of the century. This trend has big implications for both the recruitment profession and the ways companies compete and win overall. But what forces are driving this change, and what can we learn from the companies pioneering this age of recruiting?

Over the past 100 years, there has been a fundamental shift in the way companies compete. 

Historically, the market winners were those who had access to capital and financing. With capital, you could build the biggest plant, make the largest IT investments, or run the most impactful marketing campaign. Capital was important because size, not speed, was how companies won. Today the basis of competition has switched, as technology and the global economy both continue to accelerate the rate of change for businesses worldwide. While in the 1920s and 30s companies could expect to stay in the S&P 500 for 65 years, by the end of the 1990s this tenure dropped to 10 years.

In a world where speed wins, talent is the critical asset. A high performing workforce can see what is on the horizon, reacting and adapting to the environment before the competition. Even in a world of high unemployment, high quality talent has never been in such fierce demand.

At the same time, the tools and services available to professionals to help them take charge of their own careers have never been so prevalent, or so powerful. Professionals have flocked to online networks like LinkedIn, built their professional brands, connected to their peers and, critically, are updating their profiles even when not looking for a job. For the first time, recruiters have access to quality information on passive talent at scale. This has vastly increased the potential candidates available to recruiters beyond the minority who are active job seekers and, according to a recentLinkedIn study with Lou Adler, make up a mere 17 percent of all professionals.

These two trends have come together to change the face of recruitment, and are shifting the recruitment function within the organization. With talent as the critical factor, the best recruiters are becoming strategic assets to the business, and the leaders of talent acquisition close advisors to their executive team.

We recently announced that there are now more than 9,000 companies worldwide using LinkedIn Hiring Solutions: companies like Wal-Mart, which was able to source and on-board an entire senior team in Asia in two months, and companies like the communications provider Polycom, which saved $3.1 million in one year by recruiting through LinkedIn. These companies all offer some vital lessons on how to embrace these trends.

More advice and complete LinkHumans post

Don’t Leave Resume Questions Unanswered

Posted by Elaine Varelas

Q. If a resume should be brief, how can I present myself to a prospective employer as someone who is employable? I have previous employers who have merged with out of state companies, or gone out of business. They cannot be contacted for references, so what do I put on my resume?

A. Resumes have evolved to help job seekers tell their story, as so many stories have become much more complicated. More data is acceptable to be included in a resume. Hiring managers welcome answers to the questions resumes can create regarding a candidate – the same kind of questions that can tank a candidate during the initial screening process.

With mergers and acquisitions, employees may have worked for multiple employers without changing their job, office or desk chair. You may have been laid off from your last 2 or 3 employers, and have gaps in employment. How you represent your value, contributions, and potential on a resume is based on the difference between telling the story of your skills, and documenting time.

The description of each job can include a brief statement on the company at the beginning of the entry. Make sure you represent your entire time at this company, not just job by job time. One big mistake candidates make is to showcase dates for each job which make people look like job hoppers when the story could be told in a much more positive way. Highlight longevity, promotion, and increased responsibility. The content of the job must include quantifiable information on results achieved while in the role. Show as many positive accomplishments as possible. At the end of the job description, add why you are no longer there. “Company acquired by NewCo; Reduction in Force of 20%” or “plant closed”.

Follow the same process for your other jobs. - Read the rest of the answer and the complete Boston.com article

GET HIRED: How To Use Facebook To Land Your Dream Job

Julie Bort

Facebook can be a secret weapon for those looking for jobs. And not just by posting: "Hey, I'm looking for a job."


Facebook can also harm your job search. Recruiters will go to your Facebook profile and judge you.
Their judgments can be pretty spot on, too, reports NIU Today, citing a study from Northern Illinois University’s College of Business.

Knowing that, here are the top 10 tips for using Facebook to land your dream job.

1. Use applications like Simply Hired, BranchOut, or BeKnown to expose your Facebook profile to recruiters. Simply sign in to these apps with your Facebook login.

2. These apps also let you sift through your network to find friends who work at companies with job openings so you can hit them up to put in a good word for you.

3. Use Facebook to get noticed by the companies you want to work for.
"Facebook offers you ways to engage with companies you like. You can Like pages, participate in discussions, participate in groups in occupations, locations, discussions which are about the company," Gautam Godhwani, CEO of Simply Hired.com, told Business Insider.

4. Scout out the likes of other employees at the company. Make your profile show similar interests by liking  similar groups or pages. (And if you don't like those pages -- why do you want to work with those folks?)

5. Fill out the education and job history parts of your profile. Turn your job history into a resume, similar to how you would fill out a LinkedIn profile.

Read tips 6 - 10 and more advice: http://www.businessinsider.com/get-hired-how-to-use-facebook-to-land-your-dream-job-2012-3#ixzz1oK6uqlO7

The Best 25 Jobs of 2012 Rankings

These 25 high-opportunity jobs have competitive salaries and strong job satisfaction

By U.S. News Staff

ll of the occupations on our Best Jobs of 2012 list are outstanding, but the top 25 make for a particularly great career choice. We’ve ranked them by comparing their projected growth up to the year 2020 with the current employment rates of the industry to which they belong. Other components that contributed to each job’s overall score and rank include its average salary, predicted job prospects, and a quantitative assessment of the job satisfaction of those who are currently or have previously worked in the profession. Here’s our list of the top 25 jobs of 2012:


#1 Registered Nurse
Salary:$44,190-$95,130
Also ranked in: Best Healthcare Jobs

#2 Software Developer
Salary: $87,790-$54,360
Also ranked in: Best Technology Jobs

#3 Pharmacist
Salary: $82,090-$138,620
Also ranked in: Best Healthcare Jobs

#4 Medical Assistant
Salary: $20,810-$40,190
Also ranked in: Best Healthcare Jobs

#5 Database Administrator
Salary: $115,660-$41,570
Also ranked in: Best Technology Jobs

#6 - 25 and complete USNews article

How to Keep a Job Search Discreet

by Amy Gallo


Looking for a job while you already have one can be stressful, especially in the age of social media when privacy is scarce. You don't want to rock the boat at your current company but you want to find the next great opportunity. Should you tell your boss you're looking? How do you handle references? If you get an offer, is two weeks notice really enough? Since how you leave your current job can be as important to your career as how you perform in the next one, you need to know the answers to these questions.

What the Experts Say
The job market may be bleak, but that doesn't mean you're stuck. If you've heard rumors of layoffs or you've simply outgrown your current job, it's ok to look. Priscilla Claman, president of Career Strategies, Inc., a Boston-based firm offering career coaching and management services, says the job market is more active than most people think. "For some people it's truly terrible but I know plenty of people who are leaving jobs and finding jobs." Of course, searching for a job while trying to stay employed is tricky. But if you manage it skillfully, you'll be able to move on without burning bridges, strengthening your professional relationships in the process, says Claudio Fernández-Aráoz, a senior adviser at Egon Zehnder International and the author of Great People Decisions. Just follow these principles:

Do your homework
Fernández-Aráoz says that the first step to any job search is a thorough analysis of what you're good at and what you love to do. Get clear on what you're looking for in your next position. Then reality-check that with the market. Are there jobs out there that have the characteristics you're searching for? Do you have the right qualifications? To help you assess, turn to trusted advisors such as friends in your field or search consultants.

Consider internal options first
Once you know what you want, start your search inside your company. "In my experience, all too often people don't work enough on trying to redefine their job and career prospects with their current employer, and prematurely decide to start looking elsewhere," says Fernández-Aráoz. There may be internal opportunities that will satisfy your needs, such as reshaping your job, moving to another team, or taking on a special project. If opportunities are limited or you're certain you want out of the company, then take your search outside.

Keep it secret if necessary - More tips and complete HBR article

How to use Pinterest during your job search

By Debra Auerbach, CareerBuilder Writer


The social networking website Pinterest seems to be all anyone can talk about these days, including me. This "Virtual Pinboard" allows users to create pinboards on any topic they want and pin things they find interesting onto said boards. Users can browse pinboards created by other users, re-pin their images or follow them to see all of their pins.

Naturally we here at The Work Buzz were intrigued by Pinterest and wanted to explore it from a job-seeker perspective. While the site is still relatively new -- and we're still learning new things about it ourselves -- we wanted to share some ways we found to use the site during a job search.
You can use it to:


Discover your passions. Perhaps you're a job seeker who is just starting out, or maybe you're a workforce veteran but are looking to change careers. Let's say you're pursuing a job in architecture; you can go to the architecture category on Pinterest and get inspired by the different images you find. Or if you aren't sure what you're truly passionate about, you can browse through the different categories -- ranging from women's apparel to photography to art. If you are drawn to a certain category and keep going back for more, perhaps that's an industry worth exploring for your next job.

Get the facts. Pinterest can be used to find information about any topic under the sun. Not only do people post images, but they also post articles, infographics and how-to videos. If, for example, you're interested in social media jobs, you can type in "social media trends" in the search box and related pins/boards/people will pop up in your results. If you're a recent or soon-to-be college graduate, you can check boards from The National Association of Colleges and Employers to find relevant employment statistics. Or head to CareerBuilder's infographics board for economy and job-related facts.

Build a portfolio. If you're in a creative or design-related field, Pinterest is a great place to build your portfolio without having to develop your own website. You can create a board showcasing your design work or pin your visually-appealing résumé. It's an easy way to share links with potential employers, and it also shows that you're up on the latest social media and networking trends. One note of caution: Pinterest can't be used solely to sell yourself or your products; therefore, you'll need to diversify your pins by including other non-personal images or ideas that inspire you.

More Advice and Complete MSN article

Why Your Next Job Interview Might Make You Sweat (Even More)

By Amanda Abella


Lots of job candidates are talking lately about slightly unconventional things they had to do at job interviews. Some of these new techniques are geared toward helping the candidate feel comfortable, while others may just totally catch you off guard.

We can thank top companies like Google for some of these new techniques, including asking really bizarre questions; other employers seem to be following their lead.

We can also thank the current state of the economy. You see, companies aren’t necessarily looking for the most capable candidates anymore – they’re looking for candidates that best fit their company.

In a boom, companies can try their hand a several different employees, and know employees who don’t work out will likely soon move on. But these days, employees hang on to their jobs for dear life – because they know it will be difficult or even impossible to find a replacement. That makes employee screening more important than ever before.

So for those of you who are on the job hunt or simply looking for a change of scenery, get ready for some new interviewing techniques your mom and dad didn’t have to deal with.

Group interviews

Apparently the days of one-on-one, straight-to-the-point interviews may be somewhat numbered; group interviews are becoming increasingly popular. You may have to do a panel group interview, where you are interviewed by several members of the company, or a candidate group interview where you and other viable candidates are interviewed for the same job.

Companies are doing this to see how you react with a group already in place or how under pressure with complete strangers. Both help your potential employer decide whether you’d make a good fit in the current environment.

Role playing

If you’re applying for a sales job or any position where you’re dealing with people one-on-one, you may be asked to role play – otherwise known as situational interviewing. This method actually isn’t all that new, but it’s making a serious comeback.

The pretense is simple. The interviewer puts you on the spot to see how you deal with stress. A common example is when an interviewer asks you to “sell me this pen,” where you have to convince them that you can not only handle pressure, you can also sell their products or services.

Interviews in public places

Don’t be surprised if your potential employer asks you to meet them at Starbucks, a Marriott hotel lobby or McDonald’s. Companies want to see how you act in public.

They then take that as an indication of how you will interact with others within the company’s already established culture. They’re particularly likely to schedule a public interview if you’re applying for a field position, B2B or outside sales.

Skype interviews - Find out about Skype interviews and the rest of the BrazenCareerist Article

How to get a job at Facebook

The social network eschews the puzzles favored by other tech giants. But, proving that you have what it takes to live up to the firm's hacker ethos may be even harder.

By Miguel Helft and Jessi Hempel


FORTUNE -- For engineers hoping to land a job at Facebook, here's the good news: Facebook is not Google. You don't need a computer science degree from Stanford or Carnegie Mellon. You don't need a Ph.D. You don't need a quasi-perfect GPA, and you may not have to chase copies of your SAT transcript. After all, Facebook was started by a college dropout with a passion for hacking, not by a pair of doctoral students working on the seemingly intractable problem of finding relevance in a sea of Web pages.

Now here is the bad news: none of that means joining Facebook's engineering ranks is easy.

As the company has grown, and Mark Zuckerberg has moved from coder to curator, he has needed a never-ending supply of engineers who are not only smart programmers but also embrace Facebook's hacker ethos. Many have come through the company's vast recruiting operation, which has reached well beyond the top schools. "I'd rather have the top student out of U.T. or University of Central Florida than the 30th best from Stanford," says Jocelyn Goldfein, an engineering director. To reach students in schools where it cannot send interviewers, Facebook has set up online programming puzzles that students can try to solve in hopes of getting noticed.


Those lucky enough to make the first cut should be prepared to show their hacker chops: the first interview will involve coding, not brainteasers first popularized by Microsoft (MSFT) in the 1990s. "There's no hand-waving your way through a coding interview," Goldfein says. "So it's just sort of a great first litmus test that we're dealing with someone serious."

Read the rest of the Fortune article

Do You Need a Second Career?: Older workers face a working crossroads as they near retirement age

Jada A. Graves


When Art Koff retired from more than 45 years in advertising and consulting in 2003, he still wanted to work and remain challenged. "My last years in advertising were very much involved with getting clients to spend more of their budgets on the Net," he says. "I wanted to continue this effort and felt that other than AARP, there were few places where boomers, retirees, and people planning their retirement could find the kinds of information of interest to them." So he started the website RetiredBrains to serve as a networking outlet for older workers to find employment opportunities.


Koff also included a wealth of information on subjects that would interest his target demographic. "When I first started, a large percentage of our traffic came to areas like memory loss ... arthritis pain, travel for seniors, senior discounts, financial and insurance services, etc.," he says, "but since the recession, the great majority of our visitors come [to the site] to look for a job, get advice on how to find employment, as well as [visit] our work from home and start your own business pages."

Managing the website has been an opportunity for Koff to stay active. "I'm in my late 70s and still put in 50-plus hours a week," he says. "But this is not work for me--it's fun."

Koff is part of a growing population who are choosing to stay employed after the traditional retirement years. According to a recent Department of Labor report, all baby boomers will have reached age 55 or older by 2020. Many of them will choose to retire and live on Social Security benefits and their personal savings. But a large portion of the boomer population will continue to work; due to financial obligation or desire, or even a little of both. A 2011 survey by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies shows that 39 percent of workers are planning to work past age 70 without retiring; 54 percent of workers intend to keep working once they retire. "Pensions are a thing of the past," says Marci Alboher, vice president of the retired workers website Encore Careers. "The best way to ensure a continued stream of income is to continue to earn it."

Instead of earning money working the same occupations as before, many older workers are choosing to start second careers. "If you retire at age 60, you legitimately could have 10 or 15 years to pursue another career," says Kerry Hannon, a career transition expert and author of the book What's Next? Follow Your Passion and Find Your Dream Job. "It could be worthwhile to get an education or certification to do something different. It opens up more possibilities."


More Advice and Complete Chicago Times Article

Two-pronged job-search strategy

By SANDRA GUY sguy@suntimes.com

Kiel Henry spent two months working with a recruiter and applying online for jobs at more than 50 companies before he landed a systems administrator position at SingleHop, a fast-growing Chicago data center and web-hosting company.

Henry, a 29-year-old Batavia native, took advantage of an irony of today’s job-seeking environment: He combined an aggressive email strategy with an equally outgoing habit of telling friends he was looking for a job. He found out about SingleHop from a friend at a bachelor party, called the company to get the chief operating officer’s email address and eventually found out about SingleHop’s hiring open house through Reddit.com, a social news website where users generate links.

“I saw on Reddit that SingleHop was promoting a “meet and greet” at Goose Island. I thought, ‘What’s it going to hurt to show up there? That was my first interview for the job,” said Henry, who earned a bachelor’s in networking and network security from the University of Advancing Technology in Tempe, Ariz., and is pursuing a master’s in computer information and network security at DePaul University.

Henry learned that job openings often aren’t posted on company websites, and that it pays to be what he deems “shameless” in contacting executives at companies that look like good places to work.

Complete SunTimes Article and more great advice.

Networking, 21st-Century Style

This is a guest post by Heather Taylor. This freelance writer, consultant and radio producer has served as a job coach in the AARP Foundation WorkSearch Program since January 2011, helping adults 50+ who are unemployed to find satisfying work.



Networking is frequently cited by career and job coaches and in job search books. And the reason is pretty clear: networking works. Why? Since most job openings aren’t advertised, already having contacts in your particular field can give you an advantage over other job seekers.

“By effectively building a network of colleagues, business associates and more,” says Inc. magazine contributor Lou Dubois in How to Network Effectively, “you are ensuring that whenever you need a new client, a new job, or to develop your skills further, you can call upon your network to help you.”


Sounds simple, right? Make contacts and develop a network that you interact with regularly, not just when you’re looking for a job. So if networking can yield such good results, why do so many job seekers put networking in the same category as having a root canal or public speaking?

Job seekers I spoke with said that networking was one of the most challenging parts of the job search process. They found it harder than writing or revising a resume, preparing for interviews or researching companies.

So what is it about networking that bothers even the most committed job seeker?  
Reid Hoffman, co-founder of the professional networking site LinkedIn, and entrepreneur and author Ben Casnocha, offer some insight to this question in their new book, The Start-Up of You:  Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself and Transform Your Future. 

Many people are turned off by the topic of networking. They think it feels slimy, inauthentic. Picture the consummate networker: the high-energy fast talker who collects as many business cards as he can, attends networking mixers in the evenings… [These networkers] pursue relationships thinking only about what other people can do for them. And they’ll only network with people when they need something, like a job or new clients.

More advice and the complete AARP article

New Job Search Service Helps Job Seekers Penetrate Applicant Tracking Systems

By Meridith Levinson, CIO

The biggest hurdle job seekers face today is attracting recruiters' and hiring managers' attention. This challenge has grown more difficult over the last three years, as the recession forced millions of people onto the job market and as employers increasingly turned to applicant tracking systems to manage all of their job openings and the sea of candidates applying for them.

Applicant tracking systems are in widespread use across midsize and large enterprises. "I don't think you'll find a Fortune 1000 company that doesn't use them," says Josh Bersin, CEO and president of Bersin & Associates, an Oakland, Calif.-based research and advisory services firm specializing in enterprise learning and talent management.

One of the primary features of applicant tracking systems is the ability to evaluate which candidates may be best suited to a particular job, based solely on their resumes. Bersin says applicant tracking systems rely primarily on parsing software to make this determination. They identify specific keywords and phrases that are unique to a given job description and try to find those same keywords and phrases in candidates' resumes to evaluate which ones are most relevant.

Recruiters like applicant tracking systems because they offer a fast, easy way to identify the top 10 candidates in a pool that frequently consists of 100 applicants for professional positions, according to Bersin.

But most job seekers despise them because they believe these applicant tracking systems unfairly screen them out. If a job seeker's resume doesn't contain any or enough of the right keywords and phrases, the system won't rank the job seeker as a good match for the job, regardless of how qualified they may be. (A study conducted by Bersin & Associates confirms this.) Thus, applicant tracking systems can immediately quash job seekers' chances of getting called for interviews. That's why job seekers refer to applicant tracking systems as "black holes." Their resumes enter them, but they never come out.
A new service for job seekers, launched last September, aims to prevent your resume from getting sucked into the black hole. Preptel's "ResumeterPro" service claims to increase job seekers' chances of landing job interviews and offers, first by helping job seekers get through applicant tracking systems, then by providing job seekers with job interview advice and intelligence on other candidates competing for the same job. Preptel was founded by a former general manager with SumTotal, a maker of applicant tracking systems.

How Preptel's ResumeterPro Service Works

The first thing you do after signing up for ResumeterPro, which costs $24.95 per month, is upload your resume to Preptel. Then you can search for jobs via Preptel's Website, which pulls job ads from all the major job boards (including Monster.com, Indeed.com and LinkedIn). If you find a job opening through someone in your network or through an employer's Website, you can upload the employer's name, the job title and job description to Preptel's Website.

For more information on how ResumeterPro works and complete NetworkWorld article

Ten Interview Questions Designed To Trick You

Jenna Goudreau



For the long-term unemployed or those workers looking for a change, getting an interview in today’s market may feel like a win in itself. But once you’re in the door, interviewers often put you through an obstacle course of deceptive questions with double meanings or hidden agendas. Do you know how to read the subtext?


“On the other side of the desk, hiring managers spend countless long hours interviewing candidate after candidate,” says Joyce Lain Kennedy, a nationally syndicated careers columnist and author of Job Interviews For Dummies. “A tricky question may be used as a time management tool to quickly eliminate a less qualified candidate.”



No. 1: Why have you been out of work so long, and how many others were laid off?
This question may also be followed by the more direct, “Why were you laid off?” Kennedy says it is an attempt to figure out if there’s something wrong with you that your former company or that other potential employers have already discovered. The interviewer may be trying to determine if themes of recession and budget cuts were used to dump second-string employees, including you. Rather than answering the question directly and chancing an emotional response or misinterpretation, Kennedy advises punting. Respond: “I don’t know the reason. I was an excellent employee who gave more than a day’s work for a day’s pay.”


No. 2: If employed, how do you manage time for interviews?
“The real question is whether you are lying to and short-changing your current employer while looking for other work,” says Kennedy. The interviewer may wonder: If you’re cheating on your current boss, why wouldn’t you later cheat on me? She suggests placing the emphasis on why you’re interested in this position by saying you’re taking personal time and that you only interview for positions that are a terrific match. If further interviews are suggested, Kennedy advises mentioning that the search is confidential and asking to schedule follow-ups outside of normal working hours.



No. 3: How did you prepare for this interview?
The intention of this question is to decipher how much you really care about the job or if you’re simply going through the motions or winging it. Kennedy says the best way to answer is by saying, “I very much want this job, and of course researched it starting with the company website.” Beyond explaining how you’ve done your homework, show it. Reveal your knowledge of the industry, company or department by asking informed questions and commenting on recent developments.


Questions 4 - 10 and complete Forbes article