Secrets of the Job Hunt

Louise Kursmark is an award winning resume writer for senior execs. I sat down with her at the recent CDI conference. (10 min)

Saw this article tonight which I thought offered some good tips for applying to those "black hole" online applications. Read & Enjoy.

Question: How does a job hunter prevent getting into "an online black hole?" Most of the jobs that I have been seeking require me to go online to apply for the job. When I get e-mail confirmations, I'm told not to e-mail back. When I follow up with a telephone call, I am told not to leave a message because they are overwhelmed with applications. When I do talk to someone live, they tell me the hiring manager will call if interested. Through all of this, I feel totally powerless.

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I sat down with the Director of Marketing for Southworth Paper and asked him if the paper resume was dead. Hear his answer in this 6 minuute podcast.

Barbara Safani gives commentary and reviews the various online networking sites. Lots of sites discussed. She also gives 'shoutouts' to Jobster, JibberJobber and the CareerHub blog.

There's a few audio issues in the beginning, but I promise its well worth a listen.

I sat down today with Barbara Safani, a verteran career coach and resume writer, just after her talk on Networking Strategies for the 21st century. She'll give some insight on networking and what its like to work with a career coach.

I'll be leaving shortly to cover my first ever conference as a member of the blogosphere. Tonight I'll be in Orlando Florida where I'll be attending a conference of career coaches and resume writers run by Career Directors International.

I'll even be doing my first ever podcast!

While there I''ll be talking with some well known career professionals such as Louise Kursmark and covering each and every session chock full of job hunting tips and tricks;

Some of the sessions will focus on;

* Personal branding and blogging
* Career research
* Networking strategies
* Interviewing techniques
* New trends in Resume Writing

So stay tuned thursday, friday and early next week for some more secrets of the job hunt!

Today's job hunter has a variety of new tools and sites to make their search more efficient while maximizing their hunt and saving them time. Here's my list of the next generation.

Tools for Finding Jobs
* Indeed
* SimplyHired
* Jobster

Tools for Networking virtually
* LinkedIn
* Facebook
* Professional Associations

Tools for Personal Branding
* Blogs (i.e. blogger)
* ZoomInfo
* Ziggs
* Jigsaw
* RepVine
* WetJello

Tools for Career Management
* emurse
* JibberJobber
* CHIMBY
* MyJobTips
* JobSearchLog
* Isabont

Here we go again. Another young person's MySpace page has gotten her into trouble. This time its not a potential employer whose mad, but the United States Secret Service.

She appears to have learned her lesson but now her "digital dirt" is a permanent stain in the world of cyberspace. She's probably not thinking about a career yet but I wonder what employers will think when they begin googling her after college?

Here's the story,

SACRAMENTO – Upset by the war in Iraq, Julia Wilson vented her frustrations with President Bush last spring on her MySpace.com page.

She posted a picture of the president, scrawled “Kill Bush” across the top and drew a dagger stabbing his outstretched hand. She replaced the page last spring after learning in her eighth-grade history class that such threats are a federal offense.

Too late.

Federal authorities had found the page and placed her on their checklist. They finally reached her this week in her molecular biology class.

The 14-year-old freshman at Sacramento's McClatchy High School was taken out of class Wednesday and questioned for about 15 minutes by two Secret Service agents. The incident has upset her parents, who said the agents should have included them when they questioned their daughter.

On Friday, the teenager said the agents' questioning over her page on the popular teenage Internet gathering spot led her to tears.

“I wasn't dangerous. I mean, look at what's (stenciled) on my backpack – it's a heart. I'm a very peace-loving person,” said Wilson, an honor student who describes herself as politically passionate. “I'm against the war in Iraq. I'm not going to kill the president.”

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Checkout Las Vegas jobs at NV Job Search.com.

Manufacturers are having a hard time filling jobs. Seems they just can't find enough people with the skills a they need. A new national training program is trying to address those needs.

I came across this article which details the story...

While automakers are cutting thousands of positions, 80 percent of manufacturers across the country report trouble finding qualified people to fill factory jobs that increasingly require both basic academic knowledge and some high-tech skills.

To partially meet that need, the Manufacturing Skill Standards Council has created a nationwide program to train, test and certify workers in entry-level skills for openings among today's 10 million factory jobs. Its goal is to credential 4 million workers in the next 10 years.

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A student from Yale, Aleksey Vayner, has become a "laughingstock" for the video resume he recently sent to some NY investment banks in hopes of landing a job.

Here's a couple of news stories about it here and here.

The resume includes various claims and achievements which are dubious to say the least. The video appears to show Vayner benchpressing 495 lbs, dancing with a scantily-clad woman and hitting a tennis ball 140 mph. It appears that his face is super-imposed over someone else. He also claims to be a CEO.

In between his athletic stunts, Mr. Vayner takes the opportunity to opine on his success.

This is a great case of how NOT to make a video resume. For one, you should be describing your VALUE to potential employers rather than boasting of your "skills". Secondly, you should'nt deceive people into thinking you are someone else.

This guy now has a trail digital dirt that could haunt him for a long time to come.

CollegeRecruiter.com offers the latest on internships and entry level jobs.