Employment Network Plus

By Federal and many state laws we are supposidly protected from age discrimination as it is illegal after we turn 40.

Yet we all know that age discrimination exists.

What is the best strategy to counteract this bias if we are looking for a job after age 40? First, age discrimination is not about your actual age but rather how old do you appear, how do you present yourself and what you say and how you say it.

If you’ve been out of work for awhile, have you been exercising regularly? Do you weigh more or less over the past several years? If you weight more and are not exercising regularly, now is the time to start. Of course after you’ve seen your doctor.

Are your clothes up to date. If you’re a guy do your ties date you? I used to buy a new tie for every job interview. It gave me a lift and an additional level of confidence.

What about your reading and study habits? If the interviewer asks you about the best book you’ve read in the past year, I hope you have several you can discuss in depth. And make sure they relate to the job, management, or the industry.

If you come across in the job interview as energetic, confident and up to date you’ll get hired no matter what your age.

Job Interview Tips: After you’ve been self-employed.

If you are self-employed and want to jump back into the job market and find something that may offer benefits and health insurance job interviewing may be a challenge.  This is a great step for some, but it can also be disconcerting at first. 

In your job interviews, make sure you focus not on your lack of traditional work experience, but rather your self-motivation skills and your ability to solve problems on your own.

Your self-employment experience brings good business sense to the work place.  Since you need to be able to handle your own invoicing and taxes, you can mention these as skills in an interview.  Many bosses look for people who are self-starters and those who do not need a superior looming over them to motivate them to get their work done. 

People with self-employment experience are masters of self-motivation: if they aren’t motivated, they don’t get paid.  Another thing to focus on is organizational skills: your ability to organize your own business will quickly make you an asset to any company.

One tricky question that you will sure to be asked is why you want to move from being self-employed to being an employee. Spend some time on working out your answer. Think of the answer from the prospective employer’s point of view. You are not moving to get health insurance but you’ve taken your business as far as it will go and you would like to take the skills and experience you learned in another direction.

To often we think of job hunting and resume writing to be an easy, quick exercise.

If it only were as easy as we see in the commericals. Find and punch the easy button and the resume is written, and sent to a prospective employer and the job is ours.

Many times the resume writing exercise, the research and the self analysis allows us to grow as a person and identify the right job and right career with the right employer.

Here are the two key tips to writing the effective resume. You do know that the well written resume’s goal is to get the job interview and not the job.

Tip #1 is to clearly indicate your job objective with a summary of your qualifications to do the job.

Tip # 2 is to indicate quantifable results that you have achieved from your accomplishments. Please do not cop out by saying you had a job that the results could not be put in any sort of quantifable measure.

For example, one job seeker, an experienced librarian, looking to change careers, claimed there were no measurements taken regarding her job. After some discussion we came up with three measurements, improve processing and inventoring of new books and other materials, survey of library patrons on improved and added services, and adding an author’s roundtable. Later she came up with a half-dozen more.

It isn’t going to be easy to draft the effective resume, but with research, a proper plan and a willingness to keep an open mind you will come up with a resume that will lead to the job interview and the best job for your interests and skills.

One last extra tip, you will come up a list of quantifable achievements that will exceed the one or two page limit of the resume. Use the extra accomplishments to redraft each resume to more closely match the employer’s job requirements.

For more information on careers, career change and career development visit our career network plus site.

Interview questions to ask to improve your chances to get the job.

Interviewing is not a one way street. Yes, the employer will ask a lot of questions. And to move to the top of the class you have to shine in answering these questions. However, there is one area many applicants fall down. They simply do not ask questions.

Near the conclusion of the job interview you are usually asked, “Do you have any questions?” Don’t freeze up, or think that if you ask the wrong question it will hurt your chances for the job.

If you’ve done your research on the employer (you have done in-depth research haven’t you?) you will come up with several questions that show interest in the employer and the job.

Questions like-”how will I be involved in the new quality control program?” or “what opportunities are there for personal and professional advancement?” or “briefly explain how the company rewards performance?” You get the idea.

Even if the question is answered in the interview-plan to ask follow-up questions. Remember, the employer is also trying to sell you on the job. Be alert for evasive or incomplete answers.

In your thank you letter after the interview, use it to add to your answers that may have been incomplete or not clearly understood by the interviewer. Of course leave the door open or you to call or email if you have additional questions.

Do you pay to get your resume written or write it yourself? That is the question facing many looking for a job or a new career.

Writing an effective resume may only happen two or three times in your career. Plus, there is usually many years between resumes, and standards of effective resume writing may change. So what looked good and was effective ten years ago may not get you the desired interview this time around.

All resumes start from the same place. Your accomplishments, skills and abilities. If you pay someone to write the resume you have the assignment of putting together information concerning your work history, and what skills you bring to the prospective job.

After you’ve done this level of work, it seems to me, that the formatting and writing of the resume can be researched. From this research you can build a current resume that will get you the desired interview.

One of the resume writing problems is that to many resumes lack the one necessary ingredientthat addresses the prospective employer’s needs. For example, if the employer is looking for a customer service manger; who can manage people and improve customer relations, to say you managed eight customer service reps in a busy customer service center doesnt say much. However if you said, you managed eight people and in three months developed an program which reduced the time to answer a customer inquiry from 8 minutes to less than 30 seconds without adding staff. Now you’ve got the employer’s attention.

Accomplishments should always be quantifable; you didn’t improve morale your reduced unwanted turnover by 34%, you didn’t just improve the safety record you reduced work related accidents by 22%. You get the idea.

If after your resume is proofread by a friend, or better yet by several friends, and you are not satisfied then you may look to a professional to help you out.

Job Search: Networking your way to a great job.

Everyone these days talks about networking for job searches.  But for those who are just starting their initial job search, they might not know exactly what networking is.  While it sounds like a computer term, networking is actually utilizing the people you know to find jobs in your field. 

For example, if you have just graduated from engineering school and your father has a friend who is an engineer at a nearby firm, ask him to look into any openings at his firm. 

Then perhaps he can mention you to his boss or to personnel, and it just might get you in the company.

Networking is by far the most common way of finding jobs in larger corporations. Since large companies and corporations receiver thousands of résumés for each job opening, they rely on word-of-mouth and personal recommendations from good employees of the company. 

This is how many people end up with terrific jobs: they know someone else who works for the company.

This networking approach works for any size company. Many job openings are never advertised but you come along with your skills and education and the employer makes room for you. He has a need but just hasn’t formulated the need into a job advertisment.

Good luck on your networking your way to a better employment opportunity.

Educational growth will win the race.

If you are going back to work after an absence, or if you are thinking of starting a new career, to look into your educational history. 

It is a big benefit to be able to add a two year degree or a bachelor’s degree to a resume that formerly had no higher education listed. The problem for many who want to further their education is that you many times do not have the time to go back to school.

Some options for you could be Saturday and weekend classes or online classes.  Many degrees are currently available through online universities or through brick and mortar universities that have online programs.  Saturday and weekend college are generally all day events, but many companies pay all or a part of the costs for their employees to take these classes.

Don’t overlook self-study.  A well planned out reading and study program can pay big dividends. How may books have you read in the past year? Resolve to increase the number to one or two a month. What should you read? Things that have a relationship to your career, current events, history, management, and biographies all are good starting points.

Another tip is to keep a journal of things you have studied and read, and ideas for further study will be a record of your accomplishments.

You’ve just been offered a new job. You’ve gotten the offer in writing, with the salary and other information. You’ve accepted and now the question: “When Can You Start?”

Accepting a new job is a terrific feeling.  But if you have been looking for a while, or if you have gotten the offer for a dream job, you may be skittish about answering the impending question: “when can you start?”  You may want to tell the company that you can start tomorrow, and then are stuck not giving your current employer any notice. It’s never a good idea to burn your bridges.

In meetings where candidates were being evaluated, I can recall a number of occasions where an otherwise qualified candidate was not hired because years before the individual left a job without giving proper notice.

Employers will understand if their newly hired candidate needs two weeks to give their current employer proper notice.  In fact, many employers will see this as a sign of respect on the part of the new hire.  They will know you take the company’s policies into consideration with your decisions, and this will make you even more attractive as an employee. 

One additional tip, if you have a number of resumes in the job hunting pipeline and you are called and offered an interview for another position what do you do? Do your research on the new company, go to the interview and if offered a job you now have two options. Carefully consider your current new positon with the new job offer and then make you final decision.

There is no doubt if your new employer had a change in direction, you would be one of the first to go.  

An employer may get several hundred resumes for a very desirable job. If you get to the interview stage, almost without exception, all selected for the face-to-face interview would do well in filling the job opening.

What will win in the job interview? One tip to consider. Prepare to answer the inevitable question,”Do you have any questions?” 

At the end of most interviews, the interviewer will often ask you if you have any questions. 

Many candidates are reluctant to ask a question, fearing that they will either not like the answer or that the interviewer will not like the question. 

The thing to remember is that most interviewers like it when candidates ask questions.  This shows them that the you were listening and are genuinely interested in the position.

Research the company before the interview. Newspaper and magazine articles are good sources of general company information. If you have the time call the company and have them send you copies of annual reports and sales information.

Are you being considered for a new position? What are the main challenges? Does the new position tie in with a new product or expansion of existing products?

If you are replacing someone, did they get promoted or did they leave the company? What are the top two or three challenges for the position? Promotional opportunities? What is the competition doing? How is the company reacting to the marketplace?

You get the idea. What came up in the interview that you need additional information? Ask questions during the interview to clarify information but hold two or three questions for the “wrap-up” stage.

When you get back to your car, write out your notes regarding each person you interviewed with. And do not forget to send thank you notes to each individual you spoke to. If necessary use the thank you note to elaborate on areas that may require clarification or to emphasize you strengths and experience relative to the demands of the position.

With this job interview preparation you’ll be steps ahead of the competition.

Finding a Job: Study the Job Descriptions

After you have registered with a job search engine, the state employment office, the career center at school, and several recruiters, you will be ready to start looking over the posted job descriptions. 

A few good things to remember are not to underestimate your abilities, but to be realistic about the written job requirements.  Be aware of what you are qualified to do and what you have little or no experience doing. 

Don’t apply for an engineering job when you do not have either the required degree or a great deal of experience: it is a waste of your time and the interviewer’s time. 

But don’t hesitate to apply for jobs in your field that will be a challenge; career challenges can keep you from becoming bored at work and can further your career.

Make sure you meet all of the criteria for the job; if the position requires 4 years of experience, you can apply if you only have 3 years of experience, but don’t bother if you only have 1 year of experience. (There is always an exception to this rule if your 1 year of experience was highly relevant to the job requirements: ie: you worked on the leading edge of a new process, etc.)

For more about using this strategy to your advantage visit my employment or career sites.