JVS Toronto

DONATE

Leave a Comment

How To Use LinkedIn Company Pages to Enhance Your Job Search

Laptop Screen Showing Linkedin Page

In previous posts about the uses of LinkedIn for job seekers, I have focused its uses for building your professional network, as well growing that network through LinkedIn Groups. Another, often underutilized service, is Company Pages, which provide job seekers with access to detailed in-depth information about potential employers. Companies are listed under “Interests” on the LinkedIn menu.

What information is available on Company Pages?

Company Pages offer job seekers a unique source of valuable information, because it includes data from three sources:

  1. Company description (provided by the company itself) which may include background information, as well as careers/job postings and lists of services.
  2. Insights (drawn from data provided by employees on their personal profiles, as well as their activities), such as employee skills — collected and reported under “Top Skills & Expertise” — plus, lists of those employees who get the highest number of LinkedIn recommendations — reported as “Most Recommended”. Also included is information about how you are connected to staff members, including 1st and 2nd degree contacts (which can be very useful for the job seeker who’s looking to expand their network strategically).
  3. User/customer reviews, provided by your contacts and others.

How to use Company Pages?

1. Start off by searching for companies in which you are interested. You can narrow the search, using these criteria:

  • Relationship — if you want to identify companies in which you know someone, or can expand your network, by finding those in which you have degrees of connections: 1st, 2nd or 3rd
  • Location — if you want to identify companies where you would like to work (you can narrow the location down by adding the name of the city, such as “Toronto”)
  • Job Opportunities — to identify those companies which post jobs on their LinkedIn page
  • Industry — to narrow down your target industry, e.g. Information Technology and Services, Computer Software, Staffing and Recruiting, Marketing and Advertising or Financial Services, or add other industries — remember that sometimes you can do the same job — such as accounting or administration — in multiple industries
  • Company Size — if you have a preference for larger or smaller companies
  • Number of Followers –to identify which companies are more popular or active on LinkedIn
  • Fortune — to identify companies as rated and listed by Fortune magazine

2. Follow the companies that interest you by clicking on the follow button. Every time the company updates its page, shares information or makes announcements (including posting new jobs), you will be notified on your news feed/home page.

3. Read up on each company — you can gather information, extend your networks and many other uses, as outlined below.

How can Company Pages help with job search?

Company pages can provide you useful information at all the stages of job search, from making career decisions, to finding jobs for which to apply, and preparing for interviews:

  • Employers expect you, as a candidate, to have researched the company and be able to talk about it intelligently in job interviews. The succinct and up-to-date information provided on LinkedIn Company Pages can be a unique source of this data.
  • Figure out whether you have any contacts in the company, both current employees, as well as former employees you may know (listed under “Insights”), from whom you can gather inside information, referrals and tips for applying for jobs. Perhaps they can also refer you to others, so you can expand your contacts in the company. Keep in mind that people can also be excellent sources of career information, as well. Learning about the top skills and expertise of staff in the company can help you figure out which of your skills are your greatest assets.
  • Jobs are sometimes posted on company pages with information about who posted the position and whether you have any connections to them. If the company does not post on LinkedIn, it might direct job seekers to where jobs are posted elsewhere on the Internet.

Finally, LinkedIn now offers companies an opportunity to post status updates which provide their followers with opportunities to learn about new developments, as well as interact and engage with the company by responding to the posts. Read more about this here, from the LinkedIn blog (which is always a good source of ‘know-how’ information about LinkedIn).

1 Comment

A Senior Executive Looking for Work

Proud middle-aged man in a suit sitting at the head of a conference table

We are excited to welcome a guest blogger, Sharon Barney, to share with us her unique perspective on job search. Sharon is a senior executive with more than 20 years of experience leading organizations through transformation. She is contributing to the JVS blog from both the perspective of a job seeker as she is currently searching for a new career and from the perspective of a senior leader who has hired senior staff. Her dream job is a leadership position developing diversity in thought and action throughout an organization. She believes that human resources are strategic assets. She is particularly interested in how we create personal value through online networks.

This blog is about my experiences as a senior executive doing an online career search. I want job candidates to appreciate the many opportunities for personal growth through the process; and especially to maximize the opportunities of online communities and networking. I understand that most people view job search as a bad thing, and it certainly has its downside; however one of the key rules of job search is to stay positive!

JVS Toronto is an agency which runs five employment centres and welcomes job seekers from all backgrounds. The counsellors are excellent, sympathetic and totally honest about how to conduct a career search. I was asked to contribute because of my perspective from both sides of the career search process.

The first workshop that I attended at JVS was about Social Media Networking. I arrived at the Social Media Networking seminar hoping that the process would not be too difficult. The first thing that Karin Lewis told us is that we MUST develop our LinkedIn profile. She went on to tell us that 89% of companies use LinkedIn to recruit and so we don’t really have a choice. Whoa! It was overwhelming!

But, I’m happy to report that developing my LinkedIn presence has been a totally rewarding experience. I recommend that you get your basic information onto your LinkedIn page ASAP.

Once you sign in, LinkedIn will prompt you; so it’s a simple case of answering the questions. Once you get this done, then you can refine your profile, get your picture loaded up, and start networking. The most rewarding aspect is “seeing who you are.” I know this may sound strange, but you have a chance to see everything that you have done professionally and what motivates YOU.

You have to list your work history chronologically. However, if your most recent position is not relevant to your current job search, then highlight your successes in jobs and volunteer positions that are more relevant by developing those descriptions in more detail.

LinkedIn also gives you the opportunity to join groups of like-minded professionals that show the world what is important to you. Joining groups is easy to do. You want to demonstrate to future employers that you are a dedicated professional. Your groups will be shown on your profile as well as any other groups you have volunteered for.

But the most rewarding aspect really has to be the networking.

By having a LinkedIn profile, you create an online professional network that allows you to meet new colleagues and to reconnect with old ones. You will feel enriched when you see what your professional colleagues are doing; and the career possibilities that are out there.

You can start your network by connecting with your email contacts. But this quickly expands through 2nd level contacts. I found colleagues that I had lost contact with. And even more rewarding was that colleagues I had “forgotten” found me. It is so great to get a LinkedIn notice that a friend and colleague wants to connect. It has truly been amazing.

Leave a Comment

Keep Your Skills Current: Identify Top In-demand Skills and Ways to Learn Them

Image of laptop displaying the words "Never Stop Learning"

Are your skills considered valuable by employers now and into the future? Do you know what careers are most valued? What skills do you need to add and how? Questions about job trends are frequently asked of employment and career counsellors, and answering these questions is never easy. Right now, as we face an even more unpredictable and fast changing economic landscape, those questions have increased and become even more fraught.

Some of us might think that these concerns come mostly from high school graduates, but often they come from career changers of all ages and stages, facing concerns about job instability in a changing labour market, and their ability to adapt to it and stay ahead.

Canadian Job Trends

Finding the data necessary to answer these questions isn’t easy. To get a sense of labour market trends, present and future projections in Canada, the federal government has put together a Job Trend Analysis website that draws from sources such as the five-yearly census, annual taxes, and unemployment insurance claims. This site is part of Employment and Social Development Canada’s Job Bank, and is worth exploring for anyone who is rethinking their career or wanting to learn more about potential jobs.

However, the site does not necessarily present the entire picture — the information tends to be a little behind the curve, as it takes time to compile and present the data; it’s also, of course, restricted to Canadian data, which is an important limitation at a time when careers and jobs are global and increasingly unbound by geographic limitations.

10 Most In-demand Careers

A new initiative by LinkedIn and Microsoft presents another useful perspective on this issue. Drawing on LinkedIn’s huge database of millions of users, companies, job postings, and skills on their platform, the career platform has compiled a list of the 10 most in-demand jobs in the current (2020) global market, which are most likely to continue to grow in the future.

Based on steady growth patterns in previous years, wages and whether the skills can be learnt online LinkedIn identified the following 10 jobs and skillsets:

  1. Software Developer — programming, storage, networking, security, and deployment; HTML, CSS, SQL, Javascript, Python.
  2. Sales Representative — negotiation, CRM, new business development, B2B, storytelling, social media.
  3. Project Manager — program management, process improvement, project performance.
  4. IT Administrator — manage systems, subscriptions, configuration, and identity; Windows Server, Active Directory.
  5. Customer Service Specialist — customer satisfaction, customer experience, data entry, CRM, admin analysis.
  6. Digital Marketer — social media, content strategy, SEO, marketing channels; Google Analytics, Google Ads.
  7. IT Support/ Helpdesk — troubleshooting, deployment; Active Directory, computer hardware, Microsoft Windows Server.
  8. Data Analyst — data analysis, analytics, visualization; Microsoft Excel, SQL, BI, Tableau.
  9. Financial Analyst — financial analysis, risk management, accounting, analytical skills, data analysis.
  10. Graphic Designer — design systems, layout, colour; Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop.

Best of all, with the limitations of the current pandemic in mind, LinkedIn put together 10 sets of Learning Paths, based on these careers, to offer free online video-based training to users (free until March 2021), provided by industry-expert instructors. Upon completion of each path, users receive a certificate of completion, to share on their LinkedIn profile.

Soft Skills

As we have mentioned in previous blogs, the focus is on a balance between hard and soft skills, including a focus on collaboration, change, diversity and inclusion. To that end, LinkedIn also provides a Master In-Demand Professional Soft Skills set of free online courses, including:

  • Emotional Intelligence – for enhanced personal performance and effective work relationships
  • Resilience – bouncing back from difficult situations
  • Dealing with change — keeping change in perspective and adapting
  • Critical thinking – rational and effective decision-making, good argumentation and judgement
  • Relationship building – personal and professional trust
  • Teamwork – building healthy and productive teams
  • Communication skills – effective use of meetings, email and presentations
  • Listening – learning to listen actively
  • Persuasiveness – being heard, having an impact and getting people to agree
  • Writing skills – using simple, clear and plain written language to be understood
  • Creativity – learning to be more fearless and unleash creative thinking

Think through your target jobs and read through descriptions of them in job postings to identify the most valuable skills for your field. Pick a couple (two to three, perhaps) of key skills and focus on them. Remember to mention them in interviews, preferably with specific example of where you have used them in your past.

Other Sources for Learning Skills

Skills training is increasingly available online often at low cost or even free for those seeking an opportunity to enhance their skills. Multiple sources of training, such as colleges, universities and private schools are now offering the flexibility of multiple start dates and greater course choices, as detailed in a previous blog I wrote earlier this year.

Make Sure to Show Off Your New Skills

Don’t forget to add these new skills to your resume, your LinkedIn profile and to mention them in cover letters, when relevant to a particular job.

Whether you’re still in school or already working, it’s never too late to put yourself on the path to a career you love.

Career counselling at JVS Toronto will help you identify your interests, skills, personality and values to build a clear picture of what will make you feel happy and fulfilled in your career. Find out more at jvstoronto.org/career-exploration

1 Comment

Remote Work Skills: Do You Have What Employers Need?

Woman working remotely in her home

You might worry that you’ve wasted 2020 by *merely* surviving a pandemic instead of learning a new skill in your supposed free time, but turns out that — without even thinking about it — you’ve acquired a whole repertoire of unexpected new skills that might come in handy for your next job. (Not that surviving a pandemic isn’t an admirable achievement on its own, of course.)

Think about it: whether you’ve been working remotely from home, or just using your computer to stay in touch with family and friends using video and social media, buying stuff online and so much more, you’ve mastered a whole new set of remote work skills in which an increasingly large number of employers are going to be interested.

Working from home brings a whole new set of challenges that most workers (and employers) never considered as we transitioned from the workplace to home in March 2020. In addition to the ongoing insecurity employers continue to face regarding the viability of working in the office in the short to medium term, they are also increasingly aware that there are clear ongoing benefits to remote work. This means that more remote opportunities will be offered, and job seekers should expect to be challenged by employers to convince them of their ability to successfully work remotely.

Assess Your Remote Work Skills

Working remotely requires a balance between both soft (personal) skills, and hard (knowledge and technical) skills. Employers are going to look for both, though they know full well that hard skills can be learnt, whereas soft skills are harder to teach.

Think through what employers would like a remote worker to be able to do. The best way to assess what employers expect is through job postings. If you use the keyword “remote” in your online job search, you’ll find something like this (adapted from an actual posting):

Remote – Phone Sales Representative

Are you a great phone sales person who is self-motivated, goal oriented and loves to work independently? We are only looking for talented and motivated Sales Representatives to join our booming Sales Team.

The job:

  • Enthusiastically present and promote our services to potential clients
  • Assess the requirements of potential clients and provide them with a solution that best fits their business needs
  • Develop creative sales strategies for potential clients and initiate agreement discussions
  • Participate in virtual sales meetings and remote training
  • Be organized and enter all relevant information and communications into our database
  • Perform all other related tasks based on the needs of the organization

Requirements and qualifications:

  • Windows computer/laptop with headset, webcam, minimum Processor Type i5, Four core/AMD A8 Quad Core, 16GB RAM, high speed internet, 30mbps download, 15mbps upload,
  • Phone sales experience, familiar with B2B sales
  • Perfect command of the English language
  • Strong sales focus and loves a great challenge
  • Demonstrates a competitive drive and a desire to succeed
  • Assertive, persuasive, and self-starter personality
  • Strong phone presence and conversational skills
  • Self-motivated to exceed all quotas and goals
  • Ability to handle stressful situations professionally and appropriately

Reading through posts such as this, certain generic skills can be noted:

Technology skills:

  • Able to operate and manage communication technology and related software
  • Enthusiastic and capable learner of new skills; able to master new tools with ease

Personal skills:

  • Self-motivated / self-starter
  • Goal oriented
  • Confident, enjoys a challenge
  • Works well independently
  • Organized and reliable
  • Skilled time manager – punctual, able to prioritize
  • Able to follow instructions, and respond quickly to requests
  • Independent, cool headed problem solver
  • Strong interpersonal skills (online these include maintaining eye contact, projecting your voice, speaking clearly)
  • Strong phone presence and conversational skills
  • Strong language skills
  • Flexible and adaptable
  • Able to handle stressful situations professionally and appropriately

Review these skills and add the ones that best describe you to your resume, cover letters and LinkedIn.

Make sure employers know that you have the skills they need

If you want to stand out from other candidates, it’s not enough to simply list skills on your resume and LinkedIn profile — you are going to have to be able to show your remote work abilities. These behaviours can be demonstrated through how you conduct your job search and what you talk about in interviews, as well as what references say about you.

Whether you have worked remotely or not, try to prepare thoughtful answers to questions about how you will handle the challenges of working remotely. Think through various scenarios that might arise, and how you would handle various situations. Whether you have worked remotely or not, try to prepare thoughtful answers.

Of course, it is always best to be able to draw from experience to answer interview questions, but otherwise think though how you would handle various situations. Remember that your virtual job search might be a source of examples.

Here are some of the scenarios you might get asked about:

  • Teaching yourself new software — Video conferencing software – Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, GoToMeeting, and scheduling, using a shareable calendar such as Outlook or Google Calendar
  • Organizational methods — systems for managing time, meeting deadlines and prioritizing, using tools, task tracking methods, lists, colour coding, spreadsheets
  • Staying focused and motivated — describe your personal challenges for keeping motivated and how you work to overcome them, such as balancing independent work with collaboration, teamwork and accountability, structuring your time
  • Handling challenges – independent problem solving vs consultative work; think through how you have/would handle teamwork challenges across distance, for example
  • Adaptability and managing changing demands – your philosophy, methods and experiences in working with colleagues and managers on their schedules with their preferred tools

Think through how you’d talk about these situations. Draw on examples where you have done this, if possible.

Demonstrate your skills by how you handle the remote hiring process

You will be evaluated based on how you conduct yourself in the remote interviewing process, so make sure you are prepared, following through, reliable and punctual, and that you have mastered the video interview and other tools.

We posted this blog about Acing the Video Interview in 2018 (we were ahead of the game, apparently!). It includes tips on ensuring you maximize the opportunity to be interviewed remotely:

Prepare your interview space:

  • Set up your interview space; the room should be tidy, well-lit and quiet
  • Position your computer so that doesn’t face a window; that way, there will be no reflections on the screen
  • Make sure that the room is silent; no crying babies, barking dogs or loud traffic

Make sure your computer (hardware and software) works:

  • Long before the interview, test your computer, camera and microphone with a friend
  • Bring the microphone near and test that the speakers are on
  • Test for sound; can you hear the person and can they hear you?
  • Set up the camera, make sure it works, and that you are not too close or too far
  • Set up the video so you can make eye contact. When you are being interviewed on video, you will want to look at the face of the interviewer, which isn’t necessarily where the webcam is positioned. Tip: to ensure that you are looking at the interviewer, resize and move the window with the person’s video image up or as close to your webcam as possible.

Plan what you are going to wear:

  • Prepare an outfit as you would for an in-person interview – simple and professional
  • Neat and clean (unwrinkled) clothes
  • No busy patterns (e.g. stripes) – they don’t always look good on video
  • Bright or dramatic colours also can become even brighter on screen (including black); grey, blue and pastels look best
  • Avoid sparkly dangly jewelry – it’s distracting and can make noise

Bottom line

Remote work has taken a huge leap forward in the last year, and we can expect employers to continue to want to employ staff who can manage such changes well beyond the pandemic. Make sure you are able to tell employers and demonstrate to them that you have these valuable skills and are available to adapt to change in a nimble and competent way.

Leave a Comment

A Video Resume: Do You Need One?

A woman appearing on a laptop top screen in a video

Recently, we have been hearing from job seekers that some employers are starting to ask for video resumes before considering them for an interview. Mostly, employers are asking for videos to be submitted as part of an application, often with the usual resume document.

This trend isn’t altogether surprising given the current context of increased use of remote technology in hiring, including video interviews. But it is quite a new trend—requests for video resumes are generally not that common as yet, with only 3 percent of employers reportedly asking for them. However, considering the pace of change in hiring technology, job seekers should not be surprised if asked to submit a video as part of the job application process.

Generally, it seems that video requests are primarily coming from employers in specific sectors—specifically, for sales and communication roles, which are the types of jobs where communication skills, use of video technology, and creativity might matter more.

In some cases, candidates choose to include a video with their resume, even when the employer does not request it, as a way to stand out, but this is not always a good idea, depending on the type of job to which they are applying and the nature of the industry.

What is a video resume?

Video resumes are an opportunity for the job seeker to present a short (up to about 90 seconds, or so), personal introduction of themselves to the employer.

The purpose of a video resume is not necessarily to replace a regular resume. It is often used as a screening tool to help employers select candidates — employers might request it with the resume so they can decide whether to invite you to an interview. Some employers might ask for a resume video or a pre-screening device before inviting candidates to send in their resumes. In rare cases, employers might even request a video instead of a resume.

Some risks with video resumes:

Considering Marshall McLuhan’s famous line that “the medium is the message,” candidates should use video resumes only if they deliberately tell the employer something they need to know. Generally, unless requested by employers, video resumes can be a risky option. Not all employers appreciate having to watch a video; this might depend on the culture of the industry or company or the tools and skills required for the job.

Making a video is a risky endeavour. A poorly made video can undermine an otherwise strong application – if you are going to make a video, make sure to do it well.

More importantly, video interviews could contravene labour standards, legislation, and human rights guidelines. The Ontario Human Rights Commission, for example, has been clear about the fact that asking for photos on application forms contravenes the rights of candidates to be protected from discrimination based on appearance or other irrelevant factors: “It has long been the Commission’s position that employers should not request photos of potential employees, since they may provide information related to a number of Code-related grounds, such as race, colour, sex or age.”

As far as we know, video resumes have not been tested in court or tribunals. Of course, with LinkedIn already enabling the posting of photos on profiles, sharing personal images of job seekers is already common practice. Based on this, it is possible that candidates would be well within their rights to refuse to share a video with a potential employer.

How to make a video resume

The challenge facing candidates is that the video must be high quality. It is worth investing extra time and effort to do it properly.

1. Get your script ready: what do you want to say?

Think of a video resume as a cover letter on video – a pitch for why the company should hire you. As you would with a cover letter, start with the job posting to determine what this particular employer is most interested in. Think through what you want to say and write it all out – you will sound more coherent and organized if you’ve thought through everything you want to say in detail. Then practice, practice, and practice some more. Be prepared to re-record the video a few times before you’re satisfied. Of course, putting care and attention into the video tells employers about your work ethic and commitment to excellence.

Use these guidelines to write out your script:

  1. Thank the employer for the opportunity
  2. Introduce yourself and your relevant background and qualifications
  3. Describe why you are the best candidate for this position — skills, interests and unique assets
  4. Explain what makes you a good match for the company — the match between the company’s and your values
  5. Outline briefly your hopes for how you can contribute to the job
  6. Thank them again, and express enthusiasm about the position

Think of how you want to do this. It’s better not to bore the viewer by sounding like you’re reading off a script, so either write out every word or practice it until you know it, or just have some talking points you can speak to. Avoid silly jokes or gimmicks—focus on being natural but professional.

2. Get your equipment ready

Choose the equipment that takes the best quality video – possibly your newest device (a laptop, cellphone, tablet or computer). Test it for sound and image quality. Make sure to stabilize it so it’s not shaky or moving around (don’t hold the camera).

Here are some good tips for preparing the video: https://youtu.be/BgUAlw4myrs—watch and listen to how the presenter speaks, in addition to his useful tips.

3. Get the space ready

Use a well-lit room where your face is in the light. If possible, make sure the background is tidy and not distracting and that no personal items are visible. If you must use your bedroom, ensure the bed isn’t visible.

Sit at a distance from the camera that shows your head and shoulders, where your face is visible but not too close to the device.

Find a quiet place without noises or distractions. Keep in mind that if you are applying for a remote job, it’s best to film the video in the space you will be using for the job so that the employer has an image of you on the job.

4. Get yourself ready

Your goal is to come across as professionally as possible. That means thinking through your appearance, including what you will wear, hair, makeup, etc. Keep it simple and neat – you don’t want to distract from what you are saying. Dress as you would for a job interview, which means dressing slightly more professionally than on the job.

Give yourself enough time to practice and re-record the video until satisfied. Be a perfectionist.

5. Get it done

Generally, a simple, clear presentation of you speaking for 60-90 seconds (1-2 minutes) is perfectly appropriate (and appreciated by employers, who are busily sorting through many applications). But, if your job requires creative or technical skills, the video might be an opportunity to showcase your skills using text, slideshows, music or other relevant media.

Some tips for a good video:
  1. Make eye contact with the camera directly, as if you are talking to someone
  2. Smile – make sure to look and sound enthusiastic
  3. Project your voice clearly and consistently
  4. Pronounce every word
  5. Speak naturally – try to sound conversational
  6. Keep it short
  7. Check the video with friends and family
Tools and samples:

There are an increasing number of platforms online that help users make videos, such as https://animoto.com/, Biteable, Camtasia 2020, and https://vimeo.com/create/video-maker

Here’s a good sample of an effective and simple video: https://youtu.be/OZzEBa9cHN0

Remember:

A video resume doesn’t necessarily replace your traditional resume — you might still need a tailored 2-page resume and possibly even a cover letter if the employer asks.

While video resumes can help you make a great impression on the employer, a badly produced video can seriously harm your chances. So, if you decide to create a video resume, take the time to make a simple, professional, and appropriate video that communicates why the employer should hire you.

 

JVS Toronto

For general inquiries, contact:
T: 416-787-1151
E: services@jvstoronto.org

Find a Location

More Information

Follow Us

Imagine Canada Trustmark JVS Toronto is accredited under Imagine Canada’s national Standards Program dedicated to operational excellence.
Imagine Canada Trustmark