Bo’s posterous

On Day 15 of the Job Hunt I wrote about keywords.  On Day 19 I put that into action by adding a "Summary of Qualifications" section to my resume to better accentuate the keywords that I wanted to be associated with.

Today I read a very interesting article from The Ladders titled "Resume, Meet Technology: How Your Story Gets Read by Machines"

This article goes beyond keywords. It explains the process of how resumes are input into Applicant Tracking Systems or ATS. It's worth a careful read because you will definately pick up on very important details about the process of handling resumes. An example of one of these details is "If you’re on an ATS that gives you the option to either upload or cut and paste into a text box, it’s better to upload." Other gems are explaining how the many ATS gives more weight to a resume that was refered by an employee or trusted recruiter.

So make sure you read this article very carefully and start tweaking your resume!

It's a short day for me and I'm running out of cell phone range so ill make this quick.
 
I reviewed a previous post I did regarding keywords and took action this morning. I added a new section to my resume titled "Summary of Qualifications." I will update my resume online on Monday so you can look at it.
 
I used my new resume to submit applications to 4 jobs.
 
Have a great weekend, I will be completely out of touch in the Texas Hill Country.

I went to a "tweet-up" today. It was really nice to get out of the house and network with people I know on Twitter. It was also nice to put faces to the tweets.

Tweet-ups are a great way to expand on the 140 character limited conversation stream. I talked to people who have been on Twitter longer than me and talked to some that have only been on for a month.

Donna Tuttle (@writeontime) did a great job on helping people understand Twitter lingo. I remember when I first started using Twitter I had no idea why some tweets starte wth "RT".  Here is a good list in Twitter Lingo Demystified! by Mari Smith (@marismith).

There were a number of people who stood up and talked about personal branding in social media. Nan Palmero (@nanpalmero) stressed on how important it is to use the same photo across all social media sites. He also gave me a valuable tip; I've been complaining about TwitterBerry for months, so he turned me on to UberTwitter. Great twitter application for the BlackBerry!

I've been thinking of updating my avatar picture since my current one is from 2006! I use it across all my social media sites including my resume.

Do you use the same picture across all sites? Is your picture a clear, friendly and inviting?

Today I had no activity on the job hunt. However, I want to share a revelation I received.

Today we visited the College of Architecture at Texas Tech in Lubbock Texas. While talking to one of the advisors and I asked a question that had an answer that clearly applies to the job hunt.

I asked about the College of Architecture at Tech if it typically concentrated in any particular type of architecture. I've heard that A&M's program concentrates in hospital designs.

His response was that the focus of Tech's program is based on the market and preparing students for getting a job. So if the market is trending toward government supported health infrastructure, then by all means, focusing on hospitals is not a bad thing.

Lets apply this thought to the job hunt; think about the market and where the jobs will be in the future. With a trillion dollars of spending by the government, think of your skills. How might you reposition yourself to be in the path of this money stream?

On the next two days, the job hunt is taking a back seat because we are taking our son to visit Texas Tech.

Someone turned me on to a blog call JibberJobber. There I found a great article titled "Depression Clouds Everything" and a follow-up article titled "Dealing With Job Search Depression"

I definitely recomend reading both because job search depression is a serious issue, even for the toughest job hunters.

I'm on my 15th day of the job hunt, I can't even tell you how many times I've posted my resume and I have not received ONE call.  I know the times are rough and I continue to hear of people getting laid off.

The something dawned on me this morning.How many people are doing the same thing? For every job I post for, I never get a response. I just heard someone tell me the other day that they posted a job offer on Monster.com and within hours they received over 100 resumes! How can recruiters go through resumes to pick out qualified candidates?

What I've been doing since last week has been to read the job descriptions a lot closer.  I pick out keywords from the required skills and qualifications and incorporate them into a cover letter. I'm begining to think, it might be even better to include the cover letter within the resume file. My point is: Regarding a job you are applying to via the web, how much time are you spending to make sure that your resume or cover letter includes the keywords that the recruiter might be looking for?

A more important point is: Are those keywords condusive to what you see yourself doing in the future? In other words, if you want to be a national sales person, do the words in your resume weight heavy on those terms?

It's been almost three weeks since my job hunt started. Today was a great day because I know that I've been dilligent in the work of finding a new job and things are in the works.

I tittled this message "settle down" because I need to remind myself that I'm on a journey to a better place. It won't happen instantly, it won't necessarely happen fast. I have to know that there are things at work, things beyond my control, things that only God knows how they will turn out.  I've planted seeds every week and I continue to water them, its what I must continue to do.

"Settle down" is about not letting anything steal my joy. Its about having confidence as this week closes to an end knowing that great days and breakthrough are to come next week.

If you are on the job hunt like me, do yourself a favor, settle down! Settling down is getting rest this weekend to recharge your batteries for the next week.

So settle down!

I have a friend that keeps asking me, "did you make at least two good contacts today?"

On the job hunt, we all need a friend like that to make sure that we continue our persistance even when we don't want to.

Today I made three good contacts with three of the companies I mentioned that I wanted on my top ten list.

Not only do we have to make contacts, but continue to follow up on them. Today, my wife reminded me that I had not call someone back.

Is there anyone you should have called already but you haven't? What are you waiting for? Maybe they don't even know you are looking for a job.

Work your contacts!

Today, I started to think about companies I would really like to work for.  Rather than blindingly looking through job boards, I started to dig deep in my memory banks and think of companies that I have come across in the past. I think I have a lot of work to do in this area. I think it would be a great exercise to list the top ten companies you would like to work for and make a matrix of things you need to consider.

Possible candidates?

Still thinking about it. I need to consider industry, type of company, size of company.
Industry: I've worked telecom, technology and financial services.
Type of company: I've worked in Fortune 100 and Big 4 consulting
Size: I've work in very large corporations, silicon startups and owned small companies.

As for the industry, I'm pretty much open to anything. That's what I like about consulting, it gives me the opportunity to work in different projects in different industries. I'm also most comfortable with very large global corporations.

So have you ever thought about your top ten?

Here is Fortune's top 100 list: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2009/full_list/

After a friendly scolding from my good friend Bob I had to re-group and re-focus myself today!

Re-group: The recruiter that I've been working with has not contacted me despite my attempts to contact her.  I re-grouped today by contacting another three recruiters today.

I like to give recruiters an opportunity to market me but in the recruiting business, finding a job for a candidate can be a tall order.  Often, recruiters are more effective in finding a candidate for a job they have listed. A great friend of mine in Seattle is a recruiter and although he knows lots of candidates, the way he makes placements is by finding the job then drawing upon his candidate database to find the right candidates. There is also something very important to know. Most of the jobs he gets filled are not advertised anywhere.

Today I watched a segment on the NBC Today show called New realities of the job market (http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/30322940#30322940) They mentioned that 90% of jobs are "hidden jobs" just like the ones my friend places all the time.

So re-focus for the day is to get back to my network. Contacting friends, looking for opportunities in companies that don't necessarely have a posted job and contacting more recruiters.