How to use Twitter in the job search?

1. Create a professional twitter background page, with a sensible avatar and personal summary.
2. Your personal summary should include KEYWORDS that are relevant to your job search and your situation.
3. Include a link to an online website where your CV can be viewed [suggest LinkedIn] or perhaps a networking site where you have your own space, your website or even Facebook
4. Use your twitter feed to present yourself as an expert, share your job search and ask questions.
5. Build relationships with people you know, your network and recruiters. Use them wisely and offer support and ideas as well.
6. Follow #Tweetmyjobs  and  look on their website as they offer a free service for job hunters.
7. Use http://tweettabs.com/  or http://www.twellow.com/ to search for hr professionals and recruiters – use keywords such as executive search, sourcing,  talent management etc to search within your industry and within your location.  You can then search different profiles and follow them if they are right for you.
8. Sign up for RRS feeds from Jobsites and http://www.twithire.com/
9. Get listed in http://justtweetit.com/ . You can expand your choices and network so you are linking with others who have shared interests.
10. Don’t ignore the benefits of  searching using the hashtag # and abbreviations like NAJ or HAJ; also words like job, hiring, employment.
11. Give out positive messages on twitter: “Looking for an opportunity” reads better than “wondering whether to have another glass of … ”
12. Be honest, open and act with integrity at all times. Employers do not want surprises.
13. Follow @Microjobs – a profile set up to link recruiters and job seekers.  Depending on your sector and location you might find it a useful connection.  NB: they do not follow you back.

There will be a number of twitter accounts that are dedicated to job listings in different sectors, locations, and more. If you specify your own criteria you can get mobile alerts to your phone / e-mail and be amongst the first to get notifications.

I can’t repeat enough times that it is seriously hard work job hunting, so investing time and strategy in twitter needs a fool proof plan. Use it in combination with other social media and networking, build strong connections and it could prove to be a successful addition and help you find opportunities, get you interviews and land you a job.

It’s a well researched fact that if your career interests match your work or job interests then you are statistically more likely to be satisfied and successful whilst working.  Using the Career Interests tool is an easy and quick way to identify where you sit on the Holland Occupational Theme for Career Interests.

Based on the theory of John Holland, Ph.D., people with the same or similar interests are often found in the same work environments. To discover the work environments suited to your career interests, abilities, and personality, consider the following categories/themes.

Holland’s Career Interests Definitions

REALISTIC people are characterised by competitive/assertive behavior and by interest in activities that require motor coordination, skill, and physical strength. People oriented toward this role prefer situations involving “action solutions” rather than tasks involving verbal or interpersonal skills. They like to take a concrete approach to problem-solving rather than relying on abstract theory. They tend to be interested in scientific or mechanical rather than cultural and aesthetic areas.

INVESTIGATIVE people prefer to think rather than to act, to organize and understand rather than to persuade. They are not apt to be very “people oriented.”

ARTISTIC people value self-expression and relationships with others through artistic expression. They dislike structure, prefer tasks involving personal or physical skills, and are more prone to expression of emotion than others. They are similar to investigative people, but are more interested in the cultural-aesthetic than the scientific. SOCIAL people seem to satisfy their needs in teaching or helping situations. In contrast to investigative and realistic people, social types are drawn more to seek close interpersonal relationships and are less apt to engage in intellectual or extensive physical activity.

SOCIAL people have high interest in other people and are sensitive to the needs of others. They perceive themselves as liking to help others, understanding others, and having teaching abilities. Social people value social activities, social problems, and interpersonal relationships. They use their verbal and social skills to change other people’s behavior. They are generally cheerful, scholarly, and verbally oriented.

ENTERPRISING people are verbally skilled and use this skill in persuasion rather than support of others. They also value prestige and status and are more apt to pursue it than conventional people.

CONVENTIONAL people don’t mind rules and regulations and emphasize self-control. They prefer structure and order to ambiguity in work and interpersonal situations. They place value on prestige or status.

Understanding Holland’s theory about Career Interests will help you make good choices – decisions about which occupations, careers, or training programs best fit you.

Holland’s theory can be summarized in six statements:

1. In our culture, most people are one of six personality types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional.

2. People of the same personality type working together in a job create a work environment that fits their type. For example, when Artistic persons are together on a job, they create a work environment that rewards creative thinking and behavior — an Artistic environment.

3. There are six basic types of work environments: Realistic,Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventionalnal.

4. People search for environments where they can use their skills and abilities and express their values and attitudes. For example, Investigative types search for Investigative environments; Artistic types look for Artistic environments, and so forth.

5. People who choose to work in an environment similar to their personality type are more likely to be successful and satisfied.

For example, Artistic persons are more likely to be successful and satisfied if they choose a job that has an Artistic environment, like choosing to be a dance teacher in a dancing school — an environment “dominated” by Artistic type people where creative abilities and expression are highly valued.

6. How you act and feel at work depends to a large extent on your workplace (or school) environment. If you are working with people who have a personality type like yours, you will be able to do many of the things they can do, and you will feel most comfortable with them.

What are your Career Interests?

If you’d like to complete a complementary Careers Interests Questionnaire contact us.

Your CV / Resume needs to include Keywords that are relevant to the role you want and the experience you have.

CV / Resume Keywords are essential for job hunters

Uploading your CV / Resume so recruiters can find you is one of the key actions for job hunters, but making sure it is found  by recruiters is another important tactic.

For job seekers, the “Keywords” that matter are the words and phrases a recruiter uses while searching, like the words you type into Google when you are searching for something.

So what Keywords should you be using?

A simple question, however the answer has to be “use Keywords that apply to you and your experience”

Some top tips for getting the right Keywords on your CV / Resume:

• Use nouns with their descriptive adjectives – don’t sidestep or omit the action words and power language however you now need to focus on the job title and roles that the recruiter will be searching on.
• Pick up job descriptions of job roles that you want and identify the Keywords of  nouns and noun phrases that are relevant and make sure that you are able to include them in your own CV / Resume
• Brainstorm Keywords for your CV / Resume by developing a long list of possible Keywords.

Ideas for Keywords  include:

1. your next job title, standard job titles and non-standard job titles
2. names of job specific, industry specific and profession specific tools that you can use because of your education and experience
3. software & hardware resources and unique techniques that you are qualified to use
4. use professional and technical acronyms
5. include your qualifications, education establishments and certifications
6. name drop about conferences and publications where you have demonstrated your expertise

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

I’ve got a guest blog on JobMob that looks at tricky interview questions – click to read it.

Why are you interviewed? What is the interview process all about?

Basically the purpose of a job interview is to find out whether or not you [the candidate] have the qualities, experience and knowledge to carry out the job you have applied for.

It gives the potential employer sometime to discover whether or not you will [a] fit in and [b] are suitable for the job.

What you must not forget is that it is a TWO WAY process. And yes, this is YOUR opportunity too.

The Interviewer wants to determine
• Can the candidate do the job?
• Will the candidate fit in?
• Is this the best candidate for the position?

The Candidate needs to determine:
• Do I want this job?
• Can I do this job?
• Does this job offer me the opportunities I want for advancement experience?

You may well have gone through a telephone interview before meeting face to face.  That’s the first stage.

You will be asked questions that are relevant to the role you are applying for, and you need to be prepared to answer them with ease and fluency; giving substantial examples of when, how and what you can do/did.

The reasons for questions is obvious – the interviewer needs the following evidence:

General Traits:

• Mental ability:  your ability to learn and process information
• Personality: how you perform and behave
• Interest, goals, and values: what motivates you and how you would fit in to the company

Job-relevant knowledge Factors:

• Previous Work Experience:
• Prior Education:
• Former Training:

Core Job Elements:

• Declarared knowledge: your learned knowledge
• Procedural skills and abilities: your ability to complete the tasks required to do the job
• Motivation: your willingness to exert the effort required to do the job

Preparation is the key. The interviewer needs to know you can think on your feet, reply without hesitation, give strong substantive answers to possible challenging questions. Whilst they don’t want to compromise you, they interviewers need to put you under pressure to see how you perform.  Your answers are important.

I’ve written a guest blog about  10 Tricky Job Interview Questions and How to Answer Them which could give you some ideas about the possible pitfalls of questions that might be out of the ordinary.  Please CHECK it out .

Please Stumble this and comment below.

Image by Doc Nero via Flickr

Yes, we all have one.

How do you discover what yours is? One way is taking a psychological assessment or simply an online quiz.

If you could do anything in the world – what would it be?

• Tasting chocolate?
• Helping others succeed?
• Selling ice-cream?
• Working at a race track?
• Singing in a band?
• Managing a country park?
• Running a zumba class?

Confucius said “Find a job you enjoy, and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

This might not be entirely true as even a dream job can be hard work despite your passion. However, job satisfaction comes from working where you are passionate,  where you have a high interest and is much easier if you are enjoying yourself.

So what’s your dream job?

Let me know @LynnTulip

So, a few suggestions for first-timers:

• Give potential employers some credit – the document you present to them is your CV/resumé– you do not need to headline it with ‘curriculum vitae’
• Use your white space and set the information out clearly. Be consistent, list dates on the right hand side of the page.
• Use a contemporary font [verdana for example] and make good use of bold, underlining and capitals.
• Make the document look professional, check for spelling mistakes and grammatical errors and ensure that there are NONE.
• Do not make up anything – it is essential to tell the truth.
• Position yourself in the first couple of sentences under your contact details. Write a short profile. Look on the internet for examples or ask us for help. Make yourself special.
• Extract your skills. Employers want to see what you have to offer. Your education is important but essentially, they want to employ people with good social skills, customer service awareness and even financial abilities. Think of examples when you have proven that you have these qualities and highlight them in a section.
• Include voluntary work or experience, social activities or sports that demonstrate leaderships and team work.
• Use bullet points to bring these to the attention of the reader.
• Avoid using a table format for the CV/resumé, it makes it harder to upload to the internet should you want to submit the document to job sites.

ASSESSMENT4POTENTIAL, specialise in working with students and supporting them into work.

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• temporary or part-time work to enhance your marketability and industry knowledge and to meet people in your target sector;

• voluntary work to build experience and show your commitment – be clear about what you are offering to do and for how long;

• industry intern-ships, keeping in touch with colleagues you met on your placement;

• professional associations, which may run networking events or useful training and conferences where you can forge new links;

• careers events at university or elsewhere, speaking with representatives from many organisations in one place;

• online professional networking websites – LinkedIn is a popular example that allows you to build an online profile, widen your network and join groups within your industry;
• following up, on not only applications you have sent, but also with people you meet at events, etc.

1. the type of work where you can use your skills and experience and feel that you have achieved something
2. a job that provides security and continuous employment
3. an organisation or company that has a good reputation and that one enjoys and feels proud to work for
4. having the opportunity to progress in your career, being able to have career advancement
5. working with people who are like-minded, amenable as well as competent
6. being paid a fair wage that meets your personal needs and is aligned appropriately with your colleagues
7. having a good manager or supervisor; someone who is considerate, competent and fair
8. working hours that give you a reasonable work/life balance and allow you time to enjoy your preferred lifestyle
9. enjoying benefits that meet your needs and are comparative to others in our situation
10. having a safe, comfortable and unstressed working conditions.

So self-awareness, exploration and research are key factors when you are job searching.

1. Be specific in your job search. Narrow the search and only apply for jobs you really want and/or are qualified to do. Don’t waste your time. Use it wisely to ensure that you prepare tailored applications for roles you are interested in.
2. Understand precisely what you want and what you can offer. Once you decide exactly what job you want you need to be very clear about what experience, skills and knowledge you can offer an employer. If you need to clarify this, do some simple analysis and draw up a couple of list including key words to help in the job search.
3. Be objective and set clear goals. Long-term goal may be finding the right job but short-term goals will help you develop and maintain your motivation. Hold yourself accountable. Examples might be improve your networking and join a new professional group; contact your alumni and seek out advice or look to attend an event.
4. Develop new strategies. Try a multifaceted approach. Don’t just job search on-line, develop relationships with recruitment agencies and use industry specific contacts.
5. Reappraise your skills. Whilst you are unemployed you have an ideal opportunity to gain more skills, and there are possibilities of funding. Consider carefully what skills would enhance your existing skill set and what skills are missing that would make it worthwhile enrolling on a training course or continuing education.
6. Research research research. If you find a suitable job vacancy and you are tempted to apply; do everything possible to stand out from the rest of the applications. Discover who is the decision maker, the hiring manager, the possible subordinates. Use LinkedIn for searching and make personal approaches to the right people. Include the organisation’s language and vision in your application.
7. Keep your professional edge and keep up to date. You need to be reading current trade publications, industry specific media and contributing to online blogs and forums. This will ensure that you have something to talk about with interviewers and that you are fully aware of new developments, changes in legislation or technology; all of which could be relevant to your job search success.
8. Build your online reputation. Use social media wisely, professionally and consistently. Having a LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook profile, populated with comments relating your field of expertise can position you as highly proficient. And recruiting managers are more than ever before likely to search your name online. Using social media effectively will bring up good results.
9. Have your own website. Write a blog, showcase your talent in different ways. Use wordpress or similar to build your credibility and professionalism. It can be a cost effective way of marketing.
10. Prepare prepare prepare. Keep practising for potential interviews and rehearse your answers. Use competency and behavioural examples. Remind yourself continually about your successes and achievements. Think about the situation, task you did, actions taken and the results and make the response fluent. You are the only person who can can sell yourself well. You must forget modesty and be prepared to shine.

Keep optimistic for as long as needed; looking after yourself and keeping focused will avoid the frustrations of the challenging job search. Join a career transition programme for support as maintaining a positive attitude will help you overcome and learn from any setbacks. It will be tough but it is achievable. Being proactive means you are increasing your chances of landing your ideal job.

Boost Your Confidence

If you’ve been displaced it’s harder to keep a positive perspective whilst looking for work so here are a few tips for you:

• Think Positive – yes, affirmations can make a big difference and you could replace negative thoughts with positive self instructions to limit any negative thoughts and behaviour
• Deal with the Negatives – unfortunately there might be rejections and disappointments. Learn from the experience, question what you could do differently and how you would change your approach
• Understand Yourself - don’t listen to what others say about you, or let their ideas influence you.  Recognise your talent, your strengths and your potential.  *
• Use Your Nerves – think of the stress as positive, take deep breathes to control anxiety and work with the adrenalin to deliver your best. Nerves are normal
• Believe in Yourself and Stop Making Excuses – this is a challenging time for you but you have your own unique knowledge, experience and capability which will lead you to success

I recommend Cavendish Films DVDs, which are proven to make candidates at least FOUR times more successful at interview.

*Psychometric tests can give you an in depth understanding, ask me for more information