1st Place in the Job Search Race

Happy New Year! It’s time to make Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes!

David Bowie’s song , Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes, Turn and face the strain, Ch-ch-Changes…is playing in my head.  Now, anyone that knows me is reading this  entry and is shocked that I would even know about David Bowie’s songs, especially my husband who is a musician and thinks that I am musically challenged in every way possible. I would have to agree with him.

Because it’s a new year I wanted to share some interesting facts with you about job searchers and how  they think when they find themselves without a job or in a career transition.

1) They always visualize themselves in last place in the job search race.

Ok what does t his mean? It means that they feel that because they are unemployed that they have to take $10-20K less.

It means that they feel rejected, devalued, lost, and most of all insecure about their skillset. They will make a lot of concessions to hiring managers just to get their next job. It’s normal to feel this way but it won’t help your job search.

I ask my clients to do the following to overcome this type of thinking and behavior.

1) Visualize yourself in 1st place in your job search race.

What do I mean by this? When I was a kid  I loved to play sports. I wasn’t very good but I wanted to be.  I tried out for every sport in elementary and middle school. I loved to run track, play baseball and basketball.

I had a great attitude but I was an average player. I wasn’t a fast runner but I had a lot of spirit. I loved to swim and joined the Gilroy Gators swim team. Once again I was average. But when I stepped onto the block to dive into the water,  I always visualized myself finishing in 1st place. When I started running in the race and passed the baton to my running partner I always visualized myself finishing in first place. I ran as hard as I could. I never finished in first place in sports but that didn’t matter because I always believed in myself and never gave up.

So what does this mean to you and your job search? Don’t visualize yourself in last place when you start your job search.

1) Know that you deserve and can get the right job for you at the right time.

2) Know that you will get the right salary and earn your market value.

3) Know that you will find the right hiring manager and team to work with at your new company.

4) Know that their is a company out there waiting for you and ready to make you an offer.

5) Know that you can reject job offers.

6) Know that you are interviewing them and that you deserve to work with smart, kind, intelligent, professional and compassionate people.

7) Don’t give up!!!

I wish you success in 2011!

Rebecca, Career Coach/Advisor and your partner in this Job Search Race!

The Mature Approach to Job Hunting

The Mature Approach to Job Hunting

A how-to for older job seekers hoping NOT to act their age

By Rebecca Martin

Losing a job is traumatic for anyone, but it’s especially so for mature and older workers aged 45 to 70. While the current economy presents challenges for all who seek employment, middle-aged and older individuals who find themselves without work have a set of obstacles all their own to overcome.

The good news: Resources exist to assist them in doing so. Some simple steps can help job seekers in their 50s, 60s and 70s face their challenges, get noticed — and get hired.

Challenge #1: Fear

After years of financial and emotional security, mature and older workers who lose their jobs fear losing their spouses and homes as well because they simply can’t imagine that anyone will hire them at their age.

Solution: Career or psychological counseling and grief support can help older job seekers move beyond their fears to a more productive stage in their job search.

Challenge #2: Technological Illiteracy

Often, older workers haven’t had to look for a job in decades and don’t know how the Internet can facilitate their search. They feel daunted by competing with 20- and 30-somethings in an unfamiliar job market using technology foreign to them.

Solution: Local employment development departments (Google “employment development” and your state to find them) offer older workers who feel aimless in the face of technology much needed direction — as well as tips on finding the specific (and often free) computer training they need. So, too, can the 1,782 One-Stop Career Centers in the U.S. These facilities, located in all 50 states, provide job seekers across the age spectrum a full complement of employment-related services.

Furthermore, exploring Web sites like www.craigslist.org, www.careerbuilder.com and www.monster.com — perhaps with a young mentor — will demonstrate the role of job boards in today’s employment market.

Challenge #3: Cultural Disorientation

Mature and older workers typically approach employment expecting hierarchical structure, authoritative leadership and closed communication. However, today’s workplace involves tremendous diversity, collaboration and an openness they may find uncomfortable.

Solution: Again, career coaches serve to bridge this gap for mature and older workers. They can provide much needed perspective on what hiring managers — many of whom are in their 20s and 30s — are looking for, both in a resume and during an interview. In addition, a career coach can prepare job seekers of any age for the negotiating process they’ll face when they do land a job, an especially critical service for older workers who haven’t had to hammer out salaries and other details in years.

Challenge #4: Networking Lapses

Individuals who have worked long-term for the same company — particularly mature and older workers who banked on staying with their employer for life — often let their well of networking contacts dry up over time. And in an era when who you know, actually or virtually, matters ever more than what you know, a dearth of social connections can limit employment options.

Solution: Attending meetings of professional associations for a given industry will build knowledge of current trends in the field as well as relationships invaluable in a job search. Creating virtual connections, too, with both acquaintances and potential employers via social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace will help older job seekers both enhance their technology skills and find jobs that never make their local newspaper’s classifieds.

By mastering these job search challenges through career coaching, computer training, employment assistance and networking, mature and older workers will improve the odds of attracting hiring managers’ attention and garnering the respect they deserve for their loyalty and intellectual capital. And with that attention and respect, they can and will find work worthy of their abilities and experience.

Rebecca Martin founded Dear Jane…, a Livermore, Calif.-based career advisement company, after more than a decade’s experience as a headhunter and corporate recruiter in Silicon Valley. She guides clients through career assessments, resume writing, interviewing and salary negotiations.

HOT TIPS FOR JOB SEEKERS IN TODAY’S Market – 2009!

Job Searching in 2009

When you’re competing with thousands, get a job with these guerrilla tactics

Let go of all assumptions about how job searches worked in the past — or even last year. The rules have changed. It’s a new game, so pull out your playbook and build an offense that works NOW.

1. Work with recruiters or hire a career coach to reduce the amount of time you will be out of work.
2. Document all your job search activity in a career journal so you can be honest with yourself about how much effort you are really putting into finding work.
3. List consulting in your field, with your name as the company name, as your current job on both your LinkedIn profile and your resume — and tell everyone you know that you will consult for a fee or pro bono if necessary. It shows that you are driven and will do whatever it takes to get work.
4. Use your resume to communicate both your quantitative and qualitative accomplishments. To land you an interview, your resume — a representation of who you are — must be GREAT and filled with your value proposition.
5. Fill gaps in your resume with education or expertise — and if you are light on both, use persistence and cold calls as your main tool to get noticed.
6. Get more hits on your resume by posting it for both permanent and contract employment. Most of my clients are getting full-time consultant and contract work because companies don’t want to hire permanent employees — it’s too much of a risk in today’s economy.

Visit www.dearjane.info or contact Rebecca.martin@dearjane.info for more information — and check out our blog at www.dearjanedialogues.com.

Cold Calling to get the interview! You have to be bold!

Hi Everyone, Well it’s Academy Award night and all of the actors, actresses, and producers, etc. are waiting to see if they will receive the most significant award of their careers, THE OSCAR. I call this show my super bowl! I love it and being a former actress and entertainment junkie I can’t say enough about the entertainment industry and how much I have enjoyed watching the classic movies over the years.

Ok, so you are asking yourself, what the #$$$$!!!**%%%$$ does this have to do with cold calling for the interview. Well everything, I have been coaching clients in todays market to BE ASSERTIVE and DIFFERENT, to be the BEST THEY CAN BE and start contacting hiring managers, human resource professionals and recruiters to schedule the interview and close the deal as they say (get the offer).

Job seekers have to give their best performances in today’s market. They have to be delivering their Oscar winning interviews. How does this translate? Never take things for granted, this job market is like nothing we have ever seen. In acting, my coach used to say, “Rebecca even if you have one line in the film, commercial or on the stage, you have to deliver an OSCAR winning performance! It was great advice and I have always remembered it. So don’t just sit back and wait for the calls from recruiters, etc. CALL THEM and get the Interview! Meet them Face to Face so you can show them exactly who you are and why they should hire you. I guarantee you that your competitors aren’t doing this.

Write your cold calling script, rehearse it and call! You won’t be wasting your time and trust me you will be taken seriously and get the job. Good luck.

In this Economy, What challenges and resources are out there for the Mature and Older Workers

I just recently responded to a request on www.helpareporterout.com regarding the challenges and resources that mature and older workers face and what they can look forward to as far as resources available. Below is my response.

I have had my own business as a Career Coach and Advisor for the past 4.5 years. Prior to that I was a recruiter and headhunter for 8.5 years, and I coached thousands of people into jobs throughout the United States and several in Europe.

I work with clients that are between the ages of 20 and 70 years old.

My clients are in different stages of their careers and have all been employed at one time or another. I work with people that have been terminated, reentering the job market, laid off and/or just want to make a career change. I work with all types of individuals who have different educational backgrounds and salary levels (8^th graders to Ph.D.’s from Harvard). I work with people who make $40K and up to $3M and even though this is a tough job market there are so many jobs available and I coach people into jobs everyday.

Mature and older workers who are between the ages of 45 to 70 are so worried and anxious about their age and lack of technology skills. They are also gripped with fear about their spouses leaving them and losing their homes.

They don’t feel knowledgeable about the job market, and the interviewing, resume writing and salary and negotiating processes. They haven’t had to look for a job in 10-30 years so having to go out and get a job and pound the pavements (while competing with the 20 and 30 years old job seekers) terrifies them.  

They are faced with age discrimination by the 20 and 30 year old hiring managers, because most hiring managers in that age category will not hire mature (ages between 45-58 years of age) and older workers (ages between 58-70 years of age) because they prefer to work with people who have their same values, like to communicate openly and collaborate on work projects, etc. We are dealing with a multigenerational workforce like never before. There are many challenges job seekers are facing because of it.

Another challenge older workers (ages between 58-70 years of age) have is that they just don’t know how to get a job because they haven’t had to look for one in a long time. Their other challenge is that their “Networking Contacts” have dried up and cease to exist because they never thought they would need to network because they were employed and already had a job.

Older workers (ages between 58-70 years of age) are also challenged by their own attitudes that they have towards younger and middle-aged workers. For example, mature and older workers have grown up in a different generation and their working experiences are very different. They worked in a hierarchical structure with authoritative leadership and management styles and with closed communication. The younger, middle age and some of the mature workers are committed and used to working with open communication, technology and collaborating with their peers. They work in a highly diverse culture where the older workers worked in a very homogeneous culture and they lack technology expertise.

I coach mature and older workers and the same questions come up over and over They say, “I’m too old and no one is going to hire me.” They are afraid that they won’t be able to hit the ground running because of their lack of technology experience and because they aren’t up-to-date on what other companies, organizations, institutions want from them and/or how they operate.  They feel that they won’t be able to compete with younger and middle age workers (22-38) and that they will lose their homes and spouses.  They are tired and never dreamed of being laid off at the age of 52-70 years. They feel devastated and traumatized because they really don’t want to have to go out and get another job at their age.

There are a lot of resources for them today and some of the most important things they need to know are THEY CAN GET HIRED AND WILL GET HIRED, they are valued and respected by hiring managers because of their loyalty and intellectual capital.

They should hire a career coach, attend the local job search support groups in their area, and definitely attend professional associations within their industry. They need to hire a resume writer or coach because they have no idea of what is expected of them and how they should write a resume. They need to be trained on computers and the rest of the job search process like, how to negotiate, interview and get a job today.

Some of them want to do something totally different like change industries and professions. Some want to pursue opening their own businesses and consult for a living. They also need to know the value of working with recruiters.

I would suggest getting a personal image consultant to help them update their image if they are worried about it. I would suggest they start networking right away and join www.linkedin.com. They need to get real familiar with how the internet works relating to their job search, for example they need to post their resumes on www.craigslist.com, careerbuilder.com and monster.com. Most of them don’t know what the function of job boards are. Most people get hired off of the internet today. And I would suggest some counseling or grief support during this time.

Most large corporations will contract with companies that provide outplacement services. If they are so lucky to go through outplacement services, they will be given the opportunity to work with a company that will help them through their job search process and be assigned a coach to help them find employment.

 

It’s important that they sign up with their local EDD office. The Employment Development Department will train them at no charge and introduce them to local employers and provide free computer training. Our country also has 1781 One Stop Career Centers that also offer free career coaching services.

Attending professional associations like the American Marketing Association is a great thing to do so you can get up-to-date on their profession and industry.

So I hope this information is helpful. Please contact me if you need anything else.

 

 

Bragging! You need to do a lot of it during your job search process.

One of my clients just finished a great [short] book that you may find helpful,  Brag! The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn Without Blowing It.  Peggy Klaus is a communications coach who works with individuals and Fortune 500 companies on a national/international basis.  My client has known Peggy for many years through a professional woman’s organization and seen her coaching in action!   Her book is a quick read and builds on some of the concepts that we’ve talked about in the dear jane blog. Peggy is especially effective at crafting short “brag bites” and “bragologues” that we can use in just about any situation. Many of the local libraries carry her book (non fiction, 650.1 K).    You can buy it on amazon.com as well.

The Fearless Resume… It’s a process…

“You have to figure out where you have been and what you have done, in order to know where you are going.”

 

 

 

The statement above pretty much captures my philosophy on resume writing. I have been writing and editing resumes for 12 years. I never get sick of it because I am always telling a new story about an interesting person. I learn a lot too!

 

 

 

 The goal of the resume is to get you interviews, so you can get that much closer to the offer.

 People ask me how my clients are getting jobs everyday and every week. I tell them it all starts with the resume. I help my clients tell their professional story and communicate a factual and multidimensional view of who they are. 

 I am writing resumes based on my client’s history not their mothers, fathers, neighbors, etc. It is their story on paper. 

I believe that you need to be in an exploratory mode when you are writing your resume. The first step is writing the outline which is basically documenting all of your jobs and titles, etc. Second, do the Brain or Data Dump or some clients call it a Cranial Plunk! Transport yourself back to each job in your mind and write everything you did in that job. Third, go back and then ask yourself two questions. How did I do it (document your strategy) and how did I help my company or client? Your resume should be at least a couple of pages during this process. Then you can go back and edit the entire document so you can produce a final document.

 The resume is your first interview advantage! Recruiters, Hiring Managers and Human Resource Professionals believe in the concept “Neat on Paper, Neat in Person.” It is shocking to me that job seekers don’t spend more time on their resume.

 Below is a list of what you don’t want to do when writing a resume.

            Don’t try to figure out what the other side is thinking, meaning the hiring managers or recruiters. Just write the facts about your professional story. Remember, like attracts like and if they don’t like what you are writing then they won’t hire you and that’s what you want. You want to attract people that value you and your history.

            Don’t write a one page resume when you have 10+ years. A two to three page resume is acceptable. People don’t realize that hiring managers only read five resumes per position. The recruiters do all the screening.

            Don’t let anyone else write your resume. They can edit it for you all day long but only you should be writing your resume.

            Don’t forget to spell check the document!

            Don’t forget to add your awards, professional associations and volunteerism, etc.

            I could go on and on but the most important thing to remember when writing a resume is to represent your story and just write the facts. That’s all you have is your story and its good enough. Don’t try to figure out what the Hiring Manager wants because you will never know. Good luck.

 

What the Economist says about the “Net Geners” and Multigenerational Workforce

Managing the Facebookers

Dec 30th 2008
From The Economist print edition

The balance of power between old-school managers and young talent is changing—a bit

THEIR defenders say they are motivated, versatile workers who are just what companies need in these difficult times. To others, however, the members of “Generation Y”—those born in the 1980s and 1990s, otherwise known as Millennials or the Net Generation—are spoiled, narcissistic layabouts who cannot spell and waste too much time on instant messaging and Facebook. Ah, reply the Net Geners, but all that messing around online proves that we are computer-literate multitaskers who are adept users of online collaborative tools, and natural team players. And, while you are on the subject of me, I need a month’s sabbatical to recalibrate my personal goals.

This culture clash has been going on in many organisations and has lately seeped into management books. The Net Geners have grown up with computers; they are brimming with self-confidence; and they have been encouraged to challenge received wisdom, to find their own solutions to problems and to treat work as a route to personal fulfilment rather than merely a way of putting food on the table. Not all of this makes them easy to manage. Bosses complain that after a childhood of being coddled and praised, Net Geners demand far more frequent feedback and an over-precise set of objectives on the path to promotion (rather like the missions that must be completed in a video game). In a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, a consultancy, 61% of chief executives say they have trouble recruiting and integrating younger employees.

For the more curmudgeonly sort of older manager, the current recession is the joyful equivalent of hiding an alarm clock in a sleeping teenager’s bedroom (see article below). Once again, the touchy-feely management fads that always spring up in years of plenty (remember the guff about “the search for meaning” and “the importance of brand me”) are being ditched in favour of more brutal command-and-control methods. Having grown up in good times, Net Geners have laboured under the illusion that the world owed them a living. But hopping between jobs to find one that meets your inner spiritual needs is not so easy when there are no jobs to hop to. And as for that sabbatical: here’s a permanent one, sunshine.

Today’s narcissistic layabout is tomorrow’s talent

In fact, compromise will be necessary on both sides. Net Geners will certainly have to temper some of their expectations and take the world as it is, not as they would like it to be. But their older bosses should also be prepared to make concessions. The economy will eventually recover—and demographic trends in most rich countries will make clever young workers even more valuable. Besides, many of the things that keep Net Geners happy—such as providing more coaching to young employees or embracing cheaper online ways to communicate—are worth doing anyway. But for the moment at least, the Facebookers are under the cosh.

Generation Y goes to work

Dec 30th 2008 | SAN FRANCISCO
From The Economist print edition

Reality bites for young workers

 JESSICA BUCHSBAUM first noticed that something had changed in May 2008. The head of recruitment for a law firm in Florida, Ms Buchsbaum was used to interviewing young candidates for summer internships who seemed to think that the world owed them a living. Many applicants expected the firm to promote itself to them rather than the other way around. However, last May’s crop were far more humble. “The tone had changed from ‘What can you do for me?’ to ‘Here’s what I can do for you’,” she says.

The global downturn has been a brutal awakening for the youngest members of the workforce—variously dubbed “the Millennials”, “Generation Y” or “the Net Generation” by social researchers. “Net Geners” are, roughly, people born in the 1980s and 1990s. Those old enough to have passed from school and university into work had got used to a world in which jobs were plentiful and firms fell over one another to recruit them. Now their prospects are grimmer. According to America’s Bureau of Labour Statistics, the unemployment rate among people in their 20s increased significantly in the two most recent recessions in the United States. It is likely to do so again as industries such as finance and technology, which employ lots of young people, axe thousands of jobs.

This is creating new problems for managers. Because of the downturn, Net Geners are finding it harder to hop to new jobs. At the same time, their dissatisfaction is growing as crisis-hit firms adopt more of a command-and-control approach to management—the antithesis of the open, collaborative style that young workers prefer. Less autonomy and more directives have sparked complaints among Net Geners that offices and factories have become “pressure cookers” and “boiler rooms”. “The recession is creating lower turnover, but also higher frustration among young people stuck in jobs,” warns Cam Marston, a consultant who advises companies on inter-generational matters.

Such griping may reinforce the stereotype of young workers as being afraid of hard work—more American Idle than American Idol. Yet a survey of 4,200 young graduates from 44 countries published in December by PricewaterhouseCoopers, a consultancy, found that they want many of the same things from work as previous generations, including long tenure with a small number of employers. And they are willing to put in the hours to get them, if they are treated well.

Indeed, Net Geners may be just the kind of employees that companies need to help them deal with the recession’s hazards. For one thing, they are accomplished at juggling many tasks at once. For another, they are often eager to move to new roles or countries at the drop of a hat—which older workers with families and other commitments may find harder to do. Such flexibility can be a boon in difficult times. “In the economic downturn what we are really looking for is hungry 25- to 35-year-olds who are willing to travel,” says Frank Meehan, the boss of a fast-growing mobile-phone applications business that is part of Hutchison Whampoa, a conglomerate based in Hong Kong.

Net Geners’ knowledge of internet technology can also help companies save money. Consider the case of Best Buy, a big American consumer-electronics retailer. Keen to create a new employee portal, the firm contacted an external consultancy that quoted it a price of several million dollars. Shocked by this, a group of young Best Buy employees put together a small team of developers from their own networks who produced a new portal for about $250,000. Another Net Gener at the company cobbled together a mobile-phone version of Best Buy’s website for fun in seven days in his spare time.

Best Buy, which announced in December that its third-quarter profit had fallen by 77% compared with the same period a year earlier, is also betting that its Net Geners can come up with new ways of boosting sales using the web and other means. “We’ll weather the storm and be stronger because of the Net Generation,” says Michele Azar, Best Buy’s head of internet strategy. Estée Lauder, a cosmetics firm, is also encouraging Net Geners to help it innovate. It has launched an initiative called iForce which brings together young staff to dream up ways of marketing products using emerging technologies.

Programmes such as iForce are based on the notion that Net Geners are well placed to encourage their peers to dip into their pockets. According to a recent survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit, a sister company of The Economist, Net Geners place more emphasis on personal recommendations than on brands when deciding which products and services to buy. Hence the importance of hanging on to clever youngsters who have grown up with Facebook, MySpace and so forth, and who know how best to create buzz among their peers.

Net Geners who find themselves out of a job are likely to use the same know-how to create a buzz about themselves so they can find another one. Charlotte Gardner, a 25-year-old Californian who was made redundant by a financial-services firm in November, has since been using online job and social-networking sites, as well as micro-blogging services such as Twitter, to promote her skills to potential employers. Ms Gardner, who is optimistic she will find another job soon, describes herself as “a glue kid”—someone who can get different kinds of people to work well together.

Firms battling through the recession will need plenty of “glue managers” who can persuade Net Geners to stick around and work with their colleagues on important projects. They will need to provide regular feedback to young staff on what is happening in the workplace and why—as well as plenty of coaching on their performance (see article). Companies that keep Net Geners in the dark will find themselves the targets of unflattering criticism both inside the firm and online. “These kids will scrutinise companies like never before,” explains Don Tapscott, the author of several books on the Net Generation.

In the end, compromises will have to be made on both sides. Younger workers will have to accept that in difficult times decisions will be taken more crisply and workloads will increase. Their managers, meanwhile, will have to make an extra effort to keep Net Geners engaged and motivated. Firms that cannot pull off this balancing act could see an exodus of young talent once the economy improves. That, to borrow from Net Geners’ text-message shorthand, would be a huge WOMBAT: a waste of money, brains and time.

Don’t start your job search out in last place!

Remember when you were a kid and you played sports or participated in some type of competition? Did you ever visualize yourself in last place? NO! probably not.

Well then why do you start your job search out in LAST PLACE IN YOUR MIND? Everyday I hear my clients say the following:

I know I will have to take a cut in pay because this is a terrible job market.

I really don’t mind taking less money I just want to get in and prove myself to the company and management team and then they will see my value.

It’s too risky in this market to change industries or professions, even though I am miserable I will just stay put and ride this out.

If I have to take a lower paying job and a lower position (i.e. going from director to manager or manager to supervisor) that will be fine, I just need a job.

WELL YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT DOING ANY OF THE ABOVE.

When you start your job search first you will want to build a career action plan, some people call it a marketing plan. Define exactly what profession or title you are seeking. Then define your core competencies, location of the job, size of company, etc. Go for your dream job. Now you are saying, Rebecca you are crazy, I will take my TRANSITION job or my clients are calling it their Recession Job. NO, I won’t let my clients do this. I first ask them to define exactly what they want and put the work towards getting it. Most clients, say 98% of them get exactly what they want in this market. They are really focused and working hard.

There are many jobs in our country and a lot of them are in California and other major metropolitan areas. Don’t give up on yourself. You can do it. Me and my colleagues coach people into wonderful jobs everyday. Guess What? We aren’t having to take a cut in salary either. Most of my clients are getting raises. Do you know why? Because most people that have been employed for at least 5-30 years are seriously underpaid by $10,000-30,000. Yes, believe it because it’s true.

 

emails, photos, voice mail messages – how professional do they have to be?

If you have a linkedin.com, facebook, or myspace.com profile make sure if you are job searching that the information you have on these social networking sites is appropriate. Most recruiters will seek out your sites and check them to see what you are really like outside of the office.

Photos – make sure you place a professional photo on all of your online profiles. Why? Because you need to be a professional so when hiring managers and recruiters look at your sites they see a professional, fun and interesting person. First impressions are important. So if you are holding your children at a wedding you might not be taken seriously.

Email- make sure that you don’t use your personal email that looks like this:  peachesandcream@hotmail.com or ilovebeer@yahoo.com. You might want to change your email to a more professional email. You can get a separate job search email at yahoo.com or gmail.com for free.

Cell Phones -Make sure that you change your cell phone and home phone messages to a more professional message. Please don’t have a message that plays music for 2 minutes. We as recruiters might hang up. Just identify your name and ask them to leave a message. It’s that simple.

Tips like these can make a difference to hiring managers and recruiters. So restrict your myspace, edit your facebook when you are in job search and make sure you upload a professional picture on linkedin.com. Don’t forget to change the cell phone message too!

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