Job Search - The Voice of Job Seekers

Do Employers Understand You?

Without a well-written résumé, cover letter, and virtual profiles a job seeker will remain a question mark. You may say you’re misunderstood, but employers want to recognize the future in a candidate no matter the position grade. Employers want clarity from potential employees and see their investment flourish in a short period.

The question: Is it clear to employers that you are the one? Let us count the ways.

1. Are employers clear about what job you want?

There are many ways to say “I need a job” without forming the words. One way is to apply to massive amount of positions without any brand statement clarity or targeted functionality on your résumé. Today’s job seeker has to offer appreciating value first.

2. Are you relevant?

Employers want to know, “What skills do you offer that solve the problems we have now?” They want to envision solutions, results, and the impact you’ll have within the company.

3. You don’t speak the lingo

It doesn’t take an interview, or an extended conversation to realize that you don’t fit because you don’t know the language. Saying “lingo” is an anomaly because you are just keyword-ing your way in hopes that the lingo alone establishes your worth. On the contrary, this fails because no one speaks your language.

4. An unclear personal brand

Stating that you are a dynamic, hardworking, and competent individual describes the other 200 candidates applying for the same position. No one hiring cares that you fit in with the other candidates. The hiring manager wants to know what makes you different from everyone else. Without clearly demonstrated strengths, core competencies, or purpose offers a perspective that someone will employ you.

Read: 7 Job Tips From Your Future Self

5. You don’t ask questions to the company

Employers can only see that don’t care about the company when you don’t have questions. It speaks volumes that you didn’t research the company, you won’t personally invest effort, and you lack enthusiasm about working for anyone. Prepare questions to ask such as, “What are the measurable expectations of my job in the first 90 days?” Or, “What career path have others in this position pursued in and outside of the department?”

6. You lack likability

You have a personality and you don’t show it. Why? Don’t know. You have achievements and accolades, but 20 other candidates do too. People hire others they like, and that you stand out in their minds. Lack of personality matters, but so does tone, and eye contact.

Read: Book Review: The 11 Laws of Likability by Michelle Tillis Lederman

7. No quantity, quality, cost or time results

Without measurable performance or visible achievements is similar to watching an empty home depreciate. How will you show value without showing a $ or %?

8. No competitive mojo

Competitiveness in a job search is part desire, but mostly follow-up from the initial application to receiving the job offer by mail. Otherwise, you’re competing for a tie in the career race.

There are other ways to alienate employers. You can offer suggestions below. To launch a career search campaign without clear goals and objectives compares to a politician campaigning for an office that doesn’t exists.

The question: Is that you?

About Mark Anthony Dyson

I am the "The Voice of Job Seekers!" I offer compassionate career and job search advice as I hack and re-imagine the job search process. You need to be "the prescription to an employer's job description." You must be solution-oriented and work in positions in companies where you are the remedy. Your job search must be a lifestyle, and your career must be in front of you constantly. You can no longer shed your aspirations at the change seasons. There are strengths you have that need constant use and development. Be sure you sign up to download my E-Book, "421 Modern Job Search Tips 2021!" You can find my career advice and work in media outlets such as Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, Glassdoor, and many other outlets.

by Mark Anthony Dyson

4 Ways to Bring The Job Hunt Game to You

You should have several ways to splinter your job hunt. Of course, most of it must be the connection with people. There are many active job search methods a job seeker can use such as the deliberate grind of obtaining informal interviews, incessantly networking, and creatively capturing job leads. There are passive ways to stumble upon job leads non-traditionally in just a few hours a week. I thought of four ways to get leads to come to you, and at times, to your mail box without filling out long applications, and remaining glued to your laptop screen.

1. Try TweetMyJobs. com

After talking with Lauriana Zukowski (@LaurianaZ), co-founder of TweetMyJobs.com via e-mail, I am convinced that job seekers lack urgency to get results. You should be networking, pursuing informational interviews, and create a positive online image with social media in addition to using this site. Read the February 13 article here for why I recommend it wholeheartedly.

2. Dial up Google Alerts religiously

Most frequent online users own a g-mail account including YOU! Google Alerts can come to your g-mail box daily, and as frequently as you’d like. Play with keywords to get alerts that fit your inquiries.Entering a keyword phrase like “Industrial engineer jobs in Chicago,” alerts will arrive with a combination that uses all four words. An effective job hunt should yield results from unseen resources too! That’s why this is a solid strategy for passive results only.

3. Discover the “Who?” on Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a Twitter client that also can search Twitter for alerts from users promoting open job positions. You can search different position keywords with and without hashtags. It is the same idea as Google Alerts except that you can directly engage the twitter user inquiring more information such as the name of the hiring manager, culture of the workplace, introduction to a key person in the hiring process, and other un-posted information you can leverage for the job hunt.

This is an example of a stream I created in Hootsuite using “federal jobs (without hashtags)” and “#federaljobs.” Below is a useable live stream of related job information from Twitter. Hoosuite allows the user to copy a code to embed on a blog on any subject, especially useful for jobseekers.

What’s cool about the average tweet about jobs from a regular user is unlikely posted on a job board, and possibly the hiring employer. It is hard to say how often it happens, but chances are that fresh leads appear timely and useful.

4. Follow Twitter users who frequently tweet jobs

There are many twitterers who love to tweet job openings. The two that I see regularly is @anitasantiago (Anita Santiago) and @fleejack (Fields Jackson). I love following them because they care less about recognition, and more about connecting people to opportunities.

Anita is also the curator of the Facebook page The Job Connector, a page that perpetually streams job openings from all over the U.S.

Fields Jackson is the CEO of Racing Towards Diversity Magazine and a diversity thought leader.

You can set up Hootsuite to follow people who are tweeting jobs. If you need some information and tips, I also recommend using YouTern.com’s top 100 list of career professionals to follow on Twitter.If you follow all 100 then you can have a stream of job tips, and openings 24 hours a day.

Did I miss people who tweet leads, or other passive means to find leads? Please let me know by commenting below.

About Mark Anthony Dyson

by Mark Anthony Dyson

Job Search Hints—MLK’s Letter From A Birmingham Jail

America is still deciphering and contemplating Dr. Martin Luther King’s message in 2012, or at least looking to understand it. If the only message you gleaned out of it was that black people demanded equality, then please, revisit the link below. There’s grit in the job search. I’m hoping you will glean it from his letter.

A Letter From A Birmingham Jail by Dr. Martin Luther King

Dr. King’s ability to communicate across the color lines is a model for all of us. I look at Dr. King’s letter from the Birmingham jail with awe, and admiration—eloquence, courage, and vision. This was an answer to eight white clergymen who wrote, “A Call to Unity” to temper and to stop the protest portions of Dr. King’s appeal, largely because the result of the marches ended with violence. His ability to communicate and respond with poise and persuasion captures the strands of my intellect and emotions. From this, I was able to extract some points of my own, applicable to the job hunt, or anything else:

Answer questions with tact, and without airing frustration

By addressing all questions asked, you earn attention and respect. Dr. King answered every issue addressed in the letter (keep in mind this was the only draft he wrote). It frustrates most people, and it drains the answerer’s credibility. This is the hardest for most people, that is, asking an unanswered question several times. It is more of an indictment when he or she passively refuses to answer a direct question.

Make the best of having less

Dr. King wrote the letter on the margins of newspaper, scraps of paper, and eventually a pad that his lawyers were permitted to leave him (the letter was smuggled out of jail). Unlike today’s culture, he did not curse, did not sarcastically engage in name calling, or retaliation of any type. He did not retaliate with inappropriate sarcasm. His letter to me was grammatically perfect, eloquent, factual, and honest. He used facts. We may not have the best of every skill, but we should bring the best to the fore front of every opportunity. The facts. It is not bragging when it’s the facts. It’s persuasion, a lost art that has lost its essence. Check the grammar once more, examine your heart once more, and find your reason to remain resilient until you succeed.

Understand the unsolicited arguments of why you can’t

I don’t know why there are people who open doubt others wish for change other than jealousy, lack of faith, or the willingness to understand. We can look at Dr. King as he was told to stop marching, protesting, and being indifferent to injustice. In essence, he was told by his fellow clergymen give being abused for freedom. His fellow ministers plead, ”

… we are now confronted by a series of demonstrations by some of our Negro citizens, directed and led in part by outsiders. We recognize the natural impatience of people who feel that their hopes are slow in being realized. But we are convinced that these demonstrations are unwise and untimely. We agree rather with certain local Negro leadership which has called for honest and open negotiation in our area.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/King//frequentdocs/clergy.pdf

Dr. King answered this statement with understanding of his peers,

Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters;

http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

There are time people will question your abilities, will, or lack of demonstration to succeed. You can only answer and validate your desire is by success. Until then, embrace those who question out of love and concern. If he or she fits that category, embrace them, because they will appreciate you more when you succeed, and will tell you the truth when you get off track.

Convinced of why he must

Dr. King prepared everyone for the worse. As I would say, jobseekers would need to prepare for the worse from a place that will prepare for success. And, the worse does not have to be you. But I digress. Dr. King thought carefully how to endure physical, mental, and verbal abuse and wondered how others with him will respond.

We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self purification. We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves: “Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?” “Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?”

http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

Are you prepared for the hardest part of your search? Is it the training? Is it your background? Do you fear failing? Unfortunately, job seekers look to careers that are easier to obtain, achieve, and train. Is it really a satisfying and fulfilling if it’s easy?

I grew in Harlem and Washington Heights, parts of New York that were high in crime, but abundantly rich in diversity and culture. I lived in the Bridge Apartments where Haitians, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans Jews, Greeks, Blacks, and Whites lived peacefully, well, at least most of the time.

My second through sixth grade classes also had a diverse mix of students. My friend Miguel and I went to the same church. My friend Derek and his Mom bought me homework when I was sick. When my Stepmother told me that there was a distinct difference between black and white people was when I first noticed who Derek and Miguel were…my friends.

I regret looking at the world in black and white, and times I suffered when racial indifference were obstacles. I am glad that someone told me that there were obstacles to hurdle, sidestep, and avoid. And no one said it was easy.