The Hidden Job Market – Why Did They Hide It? – Part 1

How to locate and find the dream jobs which are hidden.

With 80% of the jobs being filled by some sort of referral, it is becoming more difficult to find a job on line. Leaving 100% of the people fighting over the 20% posted.

If “spray and pray” is the only way you are looking for a job, we hope you are lucky. Another way is to locate the hidden job market. And focus on the hiring process by aligning your skills and capabilities with the needs of the hiring companies.

Job Searchers Work Opposite to What Hiring Managers Do Naturally

If you were a hiring manager, would you place an ad in the local paper? “Hoping” to find a new employee with all the skills and capabilities required. Knowing it is 50/50 a person hired from outside will even fit the job.

What is it hiring managers naturally do? They first look inside their own company and then talk to friends and peers about people they know. Continue reading “The Hidden Job Market – Why Did They Hide It? – Part 1”

Ready to Jump In and Start Applying for Jobs?

What the experts recommend for a job search

I started this article back in 2012 and have been hunting for the current answer ever since. At first I figured a quick 30 minutes to refresh my knowledge. Boy was I wrong…

Type in “job search”, (use quotations for an exact match), on Google and 170 Million hits show up today in 2018. Using “job search experts”, the search results drop to 19,000.

The job search is like building a movie one frame at a time.

You land, turn the page, and keep going. Slowly a pattern emerges.

Use what the Job Resource Experts have already found to work the best in the job hunt.
In the 170 million job search links, tons of stuff is repeated over and over and over.
Many of the millions of pages want one thing, your money.
The “true experts” provide content with depth and experience which is mostly free.
Continue reading “Ready to Jump In and Start Applying for Jobs?”

Networking for a Job or a Career Change via LinkedIn

A solid network will help you advance your career.

I sure wish I had listened to these words as I walked down the road of life. Yet the hard truth, I was too lazy and really did not see the advantage. Networking was always something I would do later.

My early days begin when we were using “printed” phone books to look up numbers and had boxes stuffed with business cards.

My recommendation, don’t follow the path I walked.

In the business world, networking is now much easier today and it is required. Continue reading “Networking for a Job or a Career Change via LinkedIn”

Use Street-Smarts to Avoid Jobs You May Hate

Have you ever driven down a road and realized you are at a dead end?

To travel is in my blood. Regardless if it is a road trip, take off for months with a back pack, or take a 3 year stint to see the world. Having a slight wild streak in me, you run into numerous dead ends, usually when you “think” all is right.

Some dead ends have signs to slow us down, beware of what lies ahead. Other times it is much more dangerous, such as a path which ends at the edge of a cliff. Just one more step and you can kiss your back side good bye.

Use your sweet spot to help avoid landing in a job you may hate. Continue reading “Use Street-Smarts to Avoid Jobs You May Hate”

Define Your Sweet Spot Before Interviewing

If you played or watched baseball you may know there is a sweet-spot on the bat.

“A place where a combination of factors results in a maximum response for a given amount of effort.”

Part of being street-smart is to discover and understand where in the business world does “your sweet spot” exist. One method is to create a list of skills and capabilities, both strengths and weaknesses. Based on this list, you can create a short list which begins to define your own sweet-spot.

Your sweet-spot defines where you can have the maximum impact by using your strengths in a career you choose. While “thriving” by providing your normal effort. Super human effort burns us out over time, choose wisely, using your street-smarts and your strengths. Continue reading “Define Your Sweet Spot Before Interviewing”

Interview Successfully Being Prepared to Sell

An interesting twist is to go into an interview considering your primary role is to sell your skills and capabilities.

Lets start with the definition of a “sale”. According to wiki: A sale is the act of selling a product or service in return for money or other compensation. Considering we are going into an interview with the desire of landing a new job with a pay check, based on the definition, to interview is selling. The objective of the interview is to sell our “capabilities” as a new employee.

Now let’s use street-smarts to figure out what role we need to play during the interview process.

If you ask a group of people how many of you like to “buy”, most people will raise their hand. Now ask, how many of you “like to be sold to”, very rarely is there a lone hand left in the sky. What’s the difference? Continue reading “Interview Successfully Being Prepared to Sell”

How to Avoid Landing in a Dead End Company

Use your sweet-spot to consider which companies line up with your strengths and weaknesses.

There are two courses of action, and before we get started, let’s review both.

The first method, what we refer to as “spray and pray“.

Send your resume to as many companies as you can locate who are running ads for open positions. Using the 2011 statistics off NAICS, there are ~16 million businesses in the US.

Worst is the statistic, ~80% of all hires are now done via some sort of an internal referral, indicating most of these jobs are not advertised outside the company. The nightmare are those companies who have to advertise to find employees because no-body inside the company would refer a friend to work there. Continue reading “How to Avoid Landing in a Dead End Company”