January 4, 2016 Leave a Comment

Ask the Employment Specialist: The five worst words to use in your Linkedin summary

Dear Joanna,

I’m preparing my LinkedIn summary. I’ve been warned not to use the word “I” in the summary part by the employment counsellors yet I have read opposing advice about what to write and what NOT TO write on my summary. What do you recommend?

Signed: Worst Words (WW)

Dear WW

That’s a great question. In addition to the feedback that I have received from employers as a job developer, as well as Liz Ryan’s blog on this topic, here are five approaches to consider NOT using, when writing your LinkedIn Summary:

1. **“I am a motivated and experienced professional“**

Stay away from fluffy soft skills language including “I’m savvy, smart and strategic”. The same applies for the resume and cover letter. LinkedIn is viewed by many recruiters and potential contacts, who don’t have time to read your whole profile. You have less than 5 seconds to grab the readers’ attention. Make your profile strong. You can do this by building your professional brand in your summary.

2. “I am a Jack / Jill of all trades“

Don’t be a generalist. It is impossible to do everything well. I agree with Liz Ryan when she says that this is a “desperate message that doesn’t give anyone confidence. It’s up to you to decide what kinds of jobs you want and to brand yourself for those opportunities”. Be specific and detailed. Professionally brand your skills, experience and qualifications in a clear and concise way so that the reader understands your expertise and value quickly. Write about your career path – the one you are on and one you want to achieve.

3. “I’m an expert/guru/virtuoso/wizard/smart“

Confident people don’t praise themselves. Fearful people brag about themselves in praising adjectives — savvy, strategic, insightful, and more. What you should do is present your experiences, skills, qualifications, achievements, publications, projects and other concrete and relevant information in your summary for the readers, who might not know you.

4. “I’m open to all job opportunities“

Impossible. No one is open to everything. You sound desperate and unprofessional. Also, the reader has no idea how to connect with you. Focus in on certain jobs and certain organizations, the way good salespeople focus on their most important prospects. It’s not a recruiter’s or hiring manager’s job to decide what you’re supposed to do next in your career; that’s your job!

5. “I…”

There is mixed feedback from employers regarding the use of the first person vs third person in your summary. Most recommend that the content should be consistent with your resume and in the third person. This aligns with your efforts to professionally brand yourself in terms of the value added service and expertise that you can offer employers and your current and potential contacts. Using “I” might make you sound egotistical — as if you are telling a story which has far less credibility than showcasing the facts of accomplishments, skills, experience and qualifications. That said, some sectors respond well to a more friendly tone.

In addition to listening to advice from professionals, make sure to review other LinkedIn summaries of professionals in your field. Look for the successful, well-connected, well established fellow professionals and learn from their profiles.

Joanna

December 21, 2015 Leave a Comment

Ask the Employment Specialist: Careers options for Introverts

Dear Joanna,

I am always working on contracts as an IT consultant for different companies. The nature of the job is working with employees who have all types of personalities. The problem is that I am an introvert who likes to work alone. If I may be so bold as to say that I really don’t like people.

I’d like a career change. Any suggestions of careers where I can work alone most of the time, preferably in a remote office?

Signed: Alone Again Naturally

Dear Alone,

I’m impressed how self-aware you are of the type of workplace culture and environment you prefer. Finding a job today that does not require people skills is challenging.

Rachel Gillett, in her blog on The 13 Best Jobs for People who Hate People. Gillett also recommends another site, which offers you the option to research jobs based on how much the jobs require to be in contact with others.

However, if you are looking for a long term, meaningful and sustainable career that has minimal contact with people, look for career decision making supports. At JVS Toronto, we offer a range of Career Exploration programs, which include individualized career counselling provided by a professional Career Counsellor, assessment of individual strengths, skills, interests, values, personality factors and areas for development, development of immediate and long-term career action plans and completion of Career Assessment Profiles to examine career options. JVS also offers, as part of Employment Ontario services, a one one week, career exploration program, free to unemployed or underemployed residents of Ontario (unemployed or working under 21 hours).

In the meantime, here are Gillett’s “13 best jobs for people who hate people”:

Economists
Potters
Transportation-equipment painters
Forging machine setters, operators, and tenders
Fallers
Hand-grinding and polishing workers
Geological sample-test technicians
Moulding, core making, and casting machine setters, operators and tenders
Garment or textile pressers
Craft artists
Poets, lyricists and creative writers
Farm workers and crop labourers
Hunters

On a side note, it may be worthwhile to try and challenge yourself to work better with people — learning to get along with a diverse group of people would expand your career options and may be rewarding for many aspects of your life.

Consider joining groups through sites such as MeetUp.com where you can meet people near you, with whom you share interests. You might find that volunteer in a meaningful setting would be an enjoyable way to meet people. Also, there are some excellent opportunities to gain certification diplomas or bachelors degrees in adult education, toastmasters, intercultural communication, Personality Dimensions Facilitation, Life Skills Coaching, to name a few.

Best of luck,

Joanna

December 14, 2015 Leave a Comment

Ask the Employment Specialist: The challenges of remote work

Dear Joanna,

I’ve been working remotely over the past five years with a large financial company. I show up at the office one day a week as well as for mandatory meetings. I love the freedom and being to have a work-life balance. I’m always available for my boss with whom I am in constant contact. I get my work done.

However, I’m concerned about being so removed from the other team members and that I’m missing something. What is your opinion of working remotely?

Signed: Missing Something

Dear Missing Something

Alex Turnball, CEO/Founder of the blog GrooveHQ presents the bad and the good about working remotely in start-up companies. I would argue that the same negatives apply to working outside the office.

Let’s examine the challenges of working outside of the office:

It’s a skill.

Not all employees make a great remote employee. Most people don’t have the organization, focus and motivation to be productive working remotely. Being a successful employee working from home is a skill. It takes time and a commitment to develop that skill, and the traditional office culture doesn’t give us any reason to do that.

Integrating into the Company culture.

There’s a lot more to the workplace culture than having an office. At the end of the day, culture is about shared values and goals. But having everyone in one place makes it a lot easier to build that culture. Research shows that most learning is informal – through conversations at the water cooler, in the lunchroom, or in the hallways. Same applies to building relationships. It happens organically through networking, gathering information, and keeping up to date on the latest in the company. The more exposure team members have to each other, the more developed and defined that culture becomes.

Communication gets harder.

With team members in different time zones and on different schedules, and you are working from home, there are very few times when everyoneis available. When you work alone from home, it gets harder to access the information you need to get the job done. When you are at the office, it’s much easier to walk over to someone’s desk to obtain the information you need, or find out who the right person is to ask, especially when there is urgent fixes. In an office, if someone isn’t responding to an email, it’s easy enough to stop by their desk and get what you need.

Collaboration can be a challenge.

Typically, employees work best together with people they know, like and trust. When you work remotely, you miss out on building deeper professional networks with your colleagues, and perhaps even the boss. Unless the company offers different programs that encourage collaboration such as retreats, or community events, you run the risk of not getting the information that you want and need or knowing the key players in your team or company.

So, when deciding whether to work remotely, it is important to consider all the advantages and disadvantages. Don’t underestimate the challenges posed by working remotely. If the company will allow you the choice, make sure to spend some meaningful time at the office so that you are able to gain from the opportunities that come from team work and collaboration.

Joanna

November 30, 2015 Leave a Comment

Ask the Employment Specialist: Handling a bad reference

Dear Joanna,

I’m very worried about the last five job interviews after which the recruiters have asked for my three work-related references. In each case, I have been rejected and have not received the job offer. These opportunities are exactly in my field and I meet all the qualifications required.

I think that I might have bad references! How do I check this out and overcome these possible negative references in my job search?

Signed: Reference Blockage (RB)

Dear RB

When you’re looking for jobs, a bad employment reference can make or break the final job offer, even if it’s inaccurate or biased. I found the best advice on this issue from speaking to my colleagues at JVS, as well as this blog post.

Based on that, and my experience with job seekers and employers, here is what I recommend doing:

Verify your references.

Find out what kind of references you can expect from your previous employers, especially if you left on bad or uncertain terms. Have a script ready and ask a friend to pose as a prospective employer. Your friend can call the human resources department or your old boss to get a sense of what kind of employee you were, and although the tactic has a sneaky element to it, your former employer has nothing to lose, while you, on the other hand, could lose a job offer

Be proactive with recent negative references.

If you use your current boss as a reference, you could be in trouble. Did you ask permission to use them as a reference? What was the response? What was your relationship like? Prospective employers almost always want to know about your most recent job experience, and usually you can’t hide it, so be proactive.

Either way the facts will come out, so know how to tell your side of the story to a prospective employer. Be polite and congenial, and focus on conveying yourself as someone who has learned from past mistakes. Think twice before challenging the validity of the bad reference directly – even if you’re in the right, you would hate for your prospective employer to interpret your challenge as egotism or stubbornness.

Consider whether you want to use older references, if they are negative.

If you have a bad reference further back in your employment history, it’s easier to gloss over it. Don’t volunteer the information, though. If a prospective employer asks you directly whether they should expect a bad reference, you can say you had a job sometime in the past that didn’t end well. In a sentence or two, succinctly lay out the crux of the bad reference, explain what you learned from it, and finish up by noting that your overall record speaks for itself. Additionally, be creative with your resume. If subsequent employers or the passage of time gives you an opportunity to cut off your resume at the point of the bad reference, do it.

Reach out to bad reference sources

If you’re dealing with a particularly negative reference that has cost you multiple job offers, consider reaching out to your former employer’s human resources department. Let them know that their reference is costing you the opportunity to get work – after all, human resource workers tend to have a greater appreciation of the legal risks of defamation and slander.

Be level-headed and polite, and ask if you can work out an agreement on a less-negative reference. Any time you learn that a former employer has issued a factually inaccurate reference, it’s important to call the human resources department immediately to correct the record. If the company has no human resources department, then call your old boss or his replacement — or, if the two of you have too much bad blood, call their boss. Try to proactively approach bad references before they get the best of you – and your future career.

Bring in new fresh references.

Find opportunities (volunteering or consulting) that can help you meet and use new and positive references. Never stop networking, even with current and former co-workers. Consider with their permission using them as references. Hopefully you have built some solid connections with your co-workers or even a manager from another department. See if you can use them as references.

Best of luck with your job search,

Joanna

November 23, 2015 Leave a Comment

Ask the Employment Specialist: How to respond effectively to the weakness question at a job interview

Dear Joanna,

How do I respond to the question at the interview that requests that I explain my weaknesses or what I would like to change about myself at work? This is by far the hardest question that I have been asked at the job interview.

Signed: The Weakness Question (WQ)

Dear WQ

I love the piece written by blogger Aja Frost from an excellent career blog called The Muse (although I beg to disagree with her about the intent behind the question — I do think it’s often meant as a trick question). Regardless, you need to be prepared to respond in job interview in a way that presents what we might call “your best self” yet demonstrates that you are open to learn and improve, as well as able to accept feedback and criticism with self-awareness.

[Read more…]

Ask the Employment Specialist: The five worst words to use in your Linkedin summary