Are you shooting yourself in the foot?

About two weeks ago J.T. O'Donnell wrote this piece for LinkedIn about job seekers taking advice from the wrong person.  Ms. O'Donnell is the CEO of CAREEREALISM a career coaching site on the web. In this article she sites a study by the non-profit Career Advisory Board that found that 58% of job seekers are not seeking professional advice, instead they are looknig for work on their own. She then links to a story she wrote about her own experience when she did this as well.

Now as the CEO of CAREEREALISM she has a vested interest in all of us job seekers using professional services for help in our searches. If we all did her company would get some portion of that business, a.k.a. her bottom line would improve. But I don't want to sound too negative, the advice is still sound... just consider all the professionals out there.

1) The workforce development office in your community (or whatever the name may be)
2) The career services at any college you attended
3) Professionals companies like the one MS. O'Donnell founded.
4) Librarians

Now the first three will make sense to all of us, but the last may take a bit of explaining... I have worked with the career service units at several colleges I have worked at. In every case I have heard the anecdotal evidence that they receive from employers: '...the students are academically smart/qualified, but they don't know about my company/industry...'

I have paraphrased here, but the sentiment has been expressed to me and others I have worked with many times. This is actually one of the reasons I started this blog, to try and write about ways the average job seeker can improve their research skills to improve their knowledge about the companies/industries they want to work for/in. With this increased knowledge it is easier to tailor your resume and cover letter to the job. This then increases the chances of getting the interview. Once you have the interview you can conduct additional research to find more information that will strengthen your answers to the interview questions.

For all these reasons I believe that most librarians can be a valuable source for helping the job seeker understand how to conduct quality research. My posts about research tips are a great place to start, but actually seeing them in action and having someone to walk you through the use of the tools can be invaluable.

Almost everybody in should live near a public library, and as I pointed out here 49 of 50 states have programs to either purchase these tools for all their citizens or help the libraries purchase the tools. My biggest caveat is that depending on the public library they may not make the connections I have made in my career. If you go in asking for job related help you may get pointed to job ads, or local resources for finding jobs. But if you ask them to teach you how to effectively search their databases to find information you can then apply that skill for any need, career related or otherwise.

Good luck, and let me know how it turns out.

Does your career Zig or Zag?

This piece (Does your Career Zig or Zag?) by Caroline Dowd-Higgins discusses the trend of more frequent career and/or company changes. She dubs this trend as becoming a zig zagger. It describes a phenomena I have highlighted before of the changing employment landscape. That is that the days of hiring into a company young and working for that company for a 30+ year career are over.  Several of the tips Ms. Dowd-Higgins suggests fall in line with the mantra of this blog: you need to be prepared with knowledge of the company before interviewing to help present yourself and your skills in the best light.

Even though we are moving away from the era where several jobs in several years is a red-flag, companies will still be looking for the potential to benefit from hiring you. Therefore you need to know as much about them as possible to help present your skills. This is especially true if you are coming from another industry. It is then up to you to present the skills you have acquired as transferable to their industry/business.