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Hiring managers are overwhelmed with applications, so yours should quickly and clearly demonstrate that you're a great fit for the position.
A unique, yet interesting way to have yours stand out is to use a two-column section within the body of your cover letter.
After your opening paragraph (of only two or three lines), begin your two columns. On the left side, list the job's major qualifications; on the right, say how you meet each requirement.
End your letter with a full closing paragraph and your signature.
For more job search help, visit our web site: StartNowCareers.com
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Showing posts with label hiring manager. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hiring manager. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
How to Best Prepare for a Job Fair
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More often than not, today's job seekers face many disappointments. The most frustrating is not getting an acknowledgement when a resume is mailed to a company or posted on the many job web sites that are out there.
Equally disappointing is attending a job fair and not quite finding the responses you had hoped for. Part of the reason is that the job seeker goes into a job fair somewhat unprepared.
Company hiring managers say that preparing for a job fair requires more than just creating or updating a resume. It's recommended that you:
Target specific companies: Apply to the companies that are the best fit for your skills and qualifications.
Do your homework: Be ready to talk about the company and their products. Do an Internet search before the job fair so you will be well versed on challenges facing the company you're applying to.
Clarify goals: Don't expect an on-the-spot offer unless you are pursuing a job through a temporary agency. Interested companies will be in contact with you for on-site interviews.
Present a realistic resume: Companies typically find out when a resume is padded.
Avoid salary and/or benefit questions: The initial interview should be about selling your skills and how you can help the organization.
Sell yourself: Prepare a short "commercial" about yourself. Provide background and clearly state your career goals.
Ask for contacts: Inquire about specific names and phone numbers. Typically the person at the job fair will not be the one making the hiring decisions.
Dress for success: Though it should go without saying, in this economic climate some people still arrive at a job fair dressed too casually. Wear conservative business attire, provide a firm handshake, establish eye contact, and - above all - smile!
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More often than not, today's job seekers face many disappointments. The most frustrating is not getting an acknowledgement when a resume is mailed to a company or posted on the many job web sites that are out there.
Equally disappointing is attending a job fair and not quite finding the responses you had hoped for. Part of the reason is that the job seeker goes into a job fair somewhat unprepared.
Company hiring managers say that preparing for a job fair requires more than just creating or updating a resume. It's recommended that you:
Target specific companies: Apply to the companies that are the best fit for your skills and qualifications.
Do your homework: Be ready to talk about the company and their products. Do an Internet search before the job fair so you will be well versed on challenges facing the company you're applying to.
Clarify goals: Don't expect an on-the-spot offer unless you are pursuing a job through a temporary agency. Interested companies will be in contact with you for on-site interviews.
Present a realistic resume: Companies typically find out when a resume is padded.
Avoid salary and/or benefit questions: The initial interview should be about selling your skills and how you can help the organization.
Sell yourself: Prepare a short "commercial" about yourself. Provide background and clearly state your career goals.
Ask for contacts: Inquire about specific names and phone numbers. Typically the person at the job fair will not be the one making the hiring decisions.
Dress for success: Though it should go without saying, in this economic climate some people still arrive at a job fair dressed too casually. Wear conservative business attire, provide a firm handshake, establish eye contact, and - above all - smile!
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Sunday, September 6, 2009
Do You Have "Digital Dirt"?
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Do you have digital dirt? If so, it might be time to start cleaning it up. Your on-line Web pages could cost you a chance at a job.
Digital dirt is the information about you - your hobbies, your photos, your rants and raves - that's available on the Internet through personal Web sites, profiles on popular social-networking sites, and comments on blogs. What you might not realize is that employers are reading what's out there and in many cases these things can derail your job prospects even before you're called for an interview.
According to Tory Johnson, a recruiter who recently published an article on this topic for ABC News, this all started with Google. The popular search engine enabled all of us to become private eyes. We can look up anyone and anything on the Internet with the simple click of the mouse. “This is a great tool for job-seekers,” Johnson said. “They can Google an interviewer to learn something about that person in hopes of using it to establish a rapport during the interview.
“But there's a flip side," Johnson says. "Those same employers check out prospective hires. With basic on-line searches, they're finding risqué photos posted on personal Web sites and social networks. They're reading brags about excessive drinking and promiscuity, and plenty more.”
With the high costs of recruiting, training and retaining top talent - from entry level to senior executives - employers must be cautious about who they hire. As a recruiter, Tory Johnson says, “If I'm considering two college seniors for the same position and I come across an on-line profile for one of them that brags about rowdy parties and drunken escapades, I might think twice about that person. And I will likely lean more toward the candidate who has a clean on-line profile - or none at all.”
Several college career service offices have begun aggressively warning students that recruiters monitor what they post on-line. In a competitive job market, students need all the ammunition they can get. And a heads-up on this growing trend has allowed many students to start pre-emptively dusting their own dirt.
(Incidentally, many college admissions offices now review the on-line profiles of high school seniors when determining their eligibility for admittance. Ask your son and daughter if they would want to miss out on the college of their dreams because they're boasting about skipping class and underage drinking.)
Not Limited to the College Crowd
All of us - regardless of age or position - are subject to on-line searches by current and prospective employers. Many companies that have ruled out candidates - and even rescinded offers - because of what they found on-line.
Digital dirt included misstated academic qualifications, radical political views, objectionable jokes posted on personal Web pages and even negative comments about former employers submitted to blogs.
Narcisurf Today
Johnson advises that you do some narcisurfing! It's a term that's cropping up relating to Internet searches that we conduct on ourselves. Not only can you Google yourself, but you should go to dogpile.com, too. Dogpile retrieves information from multiple search engines and gives different results than Google or Yahoo! does.
Johnson gives this advice: “If you have an on-line profile on any of the social networks, carefully review its contents to see if there's anything that would make an employer wince. If there's information on your personal Web page that you wouldn't want your current or future boss to see, then change it. If the objectionable information about you is on another site, you can contact the webmaster about having it changed or removed. And if that's not possible, you'll have to be ready to explain it if asked.”
Consider Professional, Not Social Networks
Johnson further advises, since there are indeed great advantages to on-line networks - including promoting your professional strengths and personal interests as well as connecting with like-minded people, consider creating a free account on a site like LinkedIn. Unlike the social networks like MySpace, Facebook and Friendster, this service, which has 5 million registered users, focuses much more on the professional than the personal.
1
Do you have digital dirt? If so, it might be time to start cleaning it up. Your on-line Web pages could cost you a chance at a job.
Digital dirt is the information about you - your hobbies, your photos, your rants and raves - that's available on the Internet through personal Web sites, profiles on popular social-networking sites, and comments on blogs. What you might not realize is that employers are reading what's out there and in many cases these things can derail your job prospects even before you're called for an interview.
According to Tory Johnson, a recruiter who recently published an article on this topic for ABC News, this all started with Google. The popular search engine enabled all of us to become private eyes. We can look up anyone and anything on the Internet with the simple click of the mouse. “This is a great tool for job-seekers,” Johnson said. “They can Google an interviewer to learn something about that person in hopes of using it to establish a rapport during the interview.
“But there's a flip side," Johnson says. "Those same employers check out prospective hires. With basic on-line searches, they're finding risqué photos posted on personal Web sites and social networks. They're reading brags about excessive drinking and promiscuity, and plenty more.”
With the high costs of recruiting, training and retaining top talent - from entry level to senior executives - employers must be cautious about who they hire. As a recruiter, Tory Johnson says, “If I'm considering two college seniors for the same position and I come across an on-line profile for one of them that brags about rowdy parties and drunken escapades, I might think twice about that person. And I will likely lean more toward the candidate who has a clean on-line profile - or none at all.”Several college career service offices have begun aggressively warning students that recruiters monitor what they post on-line. In a competitive job market, students need all the ammunition they can get. And a heads-up on this growing trend has allowed many students to start pre-emptively dusting their own dirt.
(Incidentally, many college admissions offices now review the on-line profiles of high school seniors when determining their eligibility for admittance. Ask your son and daughter if they would want to miss out on the college of their dreams because they're boasting about skipping class and underage drinking.)
Not Limited to the College Crowd
All of us - regardless of age or position - are subject to on-line searches by current and prospective employers. Many companies that have ruled out candidates - and even rescinded offers - because of what they found on-line.
Digital dirt included misstated academic qualifications, radical political views, objectionable jokes posted on personal Web pages and even negative comments about former employers submitted to blogs.
Narcisurf Today
Johnson advises that you do some narcisurfing! It's a term that's cropping up relating to Internet searches that we conduct on ourselves. Not only can you Google yourself, but you should go to dogpile.com, too. Dogpile retrieves information from multiple search engines and gives different results than Google or Yahoo! does.
Johnson gives this advice: “If you have an on-line profile on any of the social networks, carefully review its contents to see if there's anything that would make an employer wince. If there's information on your personal Web page that you wouldn't want your current or future boss to see, then change it. If the objectionable information about you is on another site, you can contact the webmaster about having it changed or removed. And if that's not possible, you'll have to be ready to explain it if asked.”
Consider Professional, Not Social Networks
Johnson further advises, since there are indeed great advantages to on-line networks - including promoting your professional strengths and personal interests as well as connecting with like-minded people, consider creating a free account on a site like LinkedIn. Unlike the social networks like MySpace, Facebook and Friendster, this service, which has 5 million registered users, focuses much more on the professional than the personal.
1
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Posting Your Resume? Wait!!
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You’ve heard it said, “You only have one chance to make a first impression.” For the job seeker, that impression is your resume.
At the end of a job fair held in Greensboro, NC on February 25, 2009, an HR Director was interviewed on one of the local news stations. “The biggest problem applicants have,” he said, “is their resume.”
He went on to indicate how vitally important it is to make sure your resume is:
- worded properly,
- kept concise,
- typed in proper font size and style, and most important,
- matches your objective to the position you’re applying for.
This may mean a few resumes that are tailor made for the specific role you’re going for.
Start Now! Career Guide helps you create the strongest, most effective document that will shoot your resume to the top of the pile.
We’ll help you discover experiences and qualifications you may have overlooked… talents that will have hiring managers take notice. And we’ll show you how to make it look picture perfect.
The guide also contains every letter imaginable that’s needed for an effective search, from networking letters to the thank-you and acceptance letters.
Plus, there’s a full section devoted to sharpening your interviewing strategies and skills.
Visit our website: http://www.startnowcareers.com/
View the samples on the site, and if you don't feel this guide provides what you need in your search, e-mail us at our web link or here on our blog and tell us why. Our goal is to help you get the job you’re seeking!
Start Now!
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