The purposes and promise of an internship are well-known. Hopefully, you’ll gain some valuable, real-world experience in an actual work environment. And of course, an internship is a golden opportunity to try to impress a real employer. The hope is your internship might turn into an actual job offer. To that end, the third thing a lot of people focus on during their internship is finding the right mentor who might further your career or become a life-long coach and sounding board.

But over the years I’ve worked with young professionals, I’ve seen one other really valuable aspect of a successful internship that a lot of people tend to overlook: the other interns.

If there is one bit of advice I’d give to anyone entering an internship this summer it would be to also pay attention to your fellow interns. Make friends with them. Keep in touch with them. Is there someone in your internship cohort that seems to be destined for bigger and better things? He or she might be more valuable to you in the long term than any mentor.

The reason why is quite simple: your fellow interns will be the people you will be crossing paths with again and again for the next 30 years of your career. Someone in the cubicle next to you might be a superstar CEO in 20 years time. Another might be a future competitor or vendor. The buddy you make during your internship might be the one who gets hired when the internship is over, and if you’re good buds, they might prevail upon the company to bring you along. But forget about the immediate future… if you keep in touch with your fellow interns over the years, as they rise through the ranks, you’d be surprised how often you can turn to this connection you’ve made to bring in a new client or land a new job when you need one.

In short, your fellow interns can be like an alumni community, but one that is focused specifically on your career field or industry. And one that you’ve built yourself.

I can’t tell you the number of times I hear clients say to me, “You know so-and-so who just got named the new partner at the firm I’d love to work for? I interned right along side her 8 years ago.”

There’s a reason why fraternities, academic societies and alumni networks exist: they’re about helping the next generation keep ties and keep touch and help each other get a leg up as they move into positions of power over the decades.

Your fellow interns can provide a similar sort of networking framework, but only if you recognize them as such, and take advantage of your shared connection.

So, as your internship begins, be sure to work hard. Learn as much as you can. Try to impress. Be on the lookout for who it’s most important to impress and position yourself accordingly.

But don’t forget to extend a hand and lend a hand to your fellow interns as well. Make connections with them and keep in touch. After all, you’re hoping to be much more than a lowly intern some day, and so are they. Odds are some of you are going to be right. So play the odds and make some connections that will pay dividends for your career for years to come.

How do you find a job after your startup has failed?

Obviously, this is a tricky question for the entrepreneurial types of this world. If the venture that you’ve poured your heart and soul into doesn’t make a go of it, what do you do? Try, try again? Or maybe it’s time to consider NOT flying solo for a while and joining someone else’s team.

How do you translate your skills as a leader into a “normal” position. I suppose these are questions that are applicable to any leaders looking to take their skills to a new venue.

As the founder of successful AND unsuccessful startups over the years, these two points really stuck out for me:

4. Avoid HR departments – go direct to the founders

HR people often look after recruitment for an organisation, and act as gatekeepers to the founders or management team, who you would meet at the later stages of an application process.

Unfortunately, HR people will have defined roles that they need to fill, and a list of requirements for each role. In my experience, if you can’t tick all of those boxes, and they have a pile of other applications, you’ll get rejected. There’s little attempt made to look at the potential of a candidate based on previous experience, and they’re much less likely to see your startup as a positive experience.

Founders, on the other hand, are much more open minded. They get how difficult starting a company is, and know just how much you’ve achieved, even if it didn’t work out. They’ll be able to empathise with your position, see your potential and be more willing to take a chance of you.

And…

5. Be clear about wanting to work for someone else

A lot of people expected me to go away and start another company. Other founders asked what my next idea was, and a few VCs said they were looking forward to seeing me come back and pitch within 12 months. I was clear about my financial need to find employment and support myself, my need for some time off the emotional startup rollercoaster, and desire to learn from other founders and businesses.

Some prospective employers expressed concern about my ability to work for someone else, largely having been my own boss for a long time, and with just a couple of years experience working for others. When challenged on this, I’d point out that as a startup that has raised money you still have accountability (and nowhere to hide) – it’s just to your Board and investors instead.

Read the whole thing here.

Great news. It seems the job market is finally finding it’s feet again.

But how hard is it to find a job right now? Other indexes and data points tell you how many layoffs there were last month, or how many job openings were posted.

But if you’re right in the middle of a job search, how hard is it going to be? How long is the job search likely to last?

Well, we’ve started the ResumeWriting.com Job Market Health Index to try to answer this question.

Every single day, our network of Resume Writers are right there on the ground, working with live job seekers. We can see, in real time, what the state of the job market is across more than 80 industries. Often, we can see changes in the job market months before it registers in other forms of data.

So, our Job Market Health Index is an attempt to tell you what we’re seeing. The index represents our best guess forecast of the health of the job market right now. Across 25 major industries, we estimate how relatively easy (or hard) it is to find a job right now, how long you can expect the job search to take, and our commentary on the unique situations affecting each industry.

Check out our inaugural Job Market Health Index here.

Still, being most viewed on a site like LinkedIn is nothing to sneeze at. After all, if your profile is coming up more often on searches, then you’re more likely to be hired, right? It’s worth bragging about.

So what are some LinkedIn people doing right that you’re not? How do you get into the top 1%? It all comes down to keywords and keyword searches.

A Brief History of Keywords

Keywords have been important to job seekers since the 90s. Various software platforms allowed employers to scan applicants’ paper resumes into databases so they could better sift through the mountain of hopefuls. No more did they have to organize resumes into various piles and flip through them one by one. Now they could search by keyword to drill down to a micro level. A search could be done for “sales”, then “inside sales”, then “inside sales” plus “online chat” to  narrow down the pool of candidates to help fill a specific need.

The rise of the online job boards only increased this practice, as all resumes were essentially now electronic. Today, platforms like LinkedIn have taken keywords to the next level. Your online profile is your online resume, and the keywords on your profile are essential for you turning up when employers search the web. There are all sorts of advanced (but not too complicated) strategies for using keywords to help your profile be more visible. It’s almost like SEO for job seekers.

A lot of job seekers confuse keywords on a resume or profile with meaningless action phrases or power verbs like “self starter” or “detail-oriented.”

This is not a useful keyword strategy.

Your job titles are keywords. You skill sets are keywords. Your experiences are keywords. Your degree, major, specialties and certifications are all keywords.

To be successful, you need to think like a hiring manager thinks when she begins a search. The hiring manager has a specific job to fill, with specific skill sets required. She won’t be searching for a “self starter” or anything vague like that. She’ll be searching for her specific need and then narrowing down from there.

So, she’ll be looking for someone with “oil and gas” experience. Specifically, experience with “shale.” She also needs someone who is experienced in “right-of-way negotiation.” Oh, and the territory that she needs someone to work in is down in Mexico, so she might search “Spanish,” because having someone bilingual would be a big plus.

That’s how keywords work. Having a resume with oil and gas experience is one thing. But having a resume with keywords on it that will trigger searches for specific experience and skill sets is what gets people found and gets people hired.

Want To Get Into The Top 1% Of LinkedIn Users, These Are The Keywords To Use:

So, this whole LinkedIn top percent story got us thinking: what are the most effective, most in-demand resume and profile keywords right now in 2013?

What are the “hot” keywords that will help land you in the LinkedIn top 1%? What are the skill sets that employers are snapping up?

We polled our writers to find out, and based on their experience working with clients across more than 80 different industries, these are the ten hottest keywords we came up with.

Put simply, if you have the following keywords, degrees, job titles or skill sets on your resume or LinkedIn profile, you can expect to come up more often in employer searches:

Mandarin

We’re using Mandarin as a placeholder, because it’s the language employers seem to be looking for the most, but really any language is the most successful keyword on resume across all career fields. There’s almost no job where having a bilingual employee isn’t a bonus. More and more, we’re seeing employers doing keyword searches for multilingual job candidates. You might be a run-of-the-mill salesperson, but if you have mastery of another language on your resume or LinkedIn profile, you’re going to come up in keyword searches more often than you would think. Even something like a simple receptionist profile will come up more often if a phrase like “Spanish” or “Korean” is keyword loaded as well.

The bottom line is, across almost any industry or job niche you can imagine, job candidates with a mastery of other languages on their resume or profile are greatly in demand.

Math, Statistics or Data Analysis

What’s the most popular and in demand major we’re seeing these days? Believe it or not, it’s math. Advanced math. Statistics. Modeling. Economics. Math and Computer Science.

It’s no surprise to anyone that we now live in a world awash in data. It seems to be a major trend across all sorts of industries that businesses are hungry for smart people to help them manage, organize and tap into that data. No longer destined only for academia or research positions, young professionals with math degrees are by far the most successful young job seekers we work with. From Wall Street firms to Silicon Valley blue chips to staid old Fortune 500 conglomerates, corporate America is eager to snap up anyone who can help them use data to transform their business operations.

Supply Chain, Logistics

Possibly related to the previous “data” based keywords, job seekers boasting advanced experience with supply chain management and logistics experience are often the first searched for. Companies are always looking for ways to cut costs and be more efficient. Especially if you can load your resume or profile with industry and scenario-specific logistics keywords, you can expect the headhunters and hiring mangers to come to you.

Social Media

A newer keyword we’re seeing clients have a lot of success with is social media management. Companies and brands are hungry for people that will help them manage and expand their presence in all forms of social media. If the organization you’re applying for is somewhat old school, then a simple proficiency with Facebook, Twitter and the like might be impressive. But those that truly stand out are candidates boasting keywords and proficiency with cutting edge and next wave social media platforms and trends. Either way, if you do profess social media expertise, make sure you have active, public-facing presences on the keywords and platforms you mention. The hiring manager will definitely want to research and see that you’re practicing what you intend to preach about social media.

Telecommute

One keyword that is definitely growing in demand and popularity is telecommuting experience. What once was a workplace luxury you hoped to talk your boss into is now very much an in-demand feature that employers are eager to implement as an efficiency and cost saving measure (Yahoo aside). But employers want experienced telecommuters that they know can be productive without too much training and supervision. There are specific job titles where we are seeing employers keyword search for telecommuting experience first… even before searching for other skill sets.

CRM

Customer relationship management platforms have exploded over the last 15 years and are key to operations for almost all industries in the private and even public sector. Keywords showing proficiency with the major platforms (Salesforce, SAP, etc.) will be the first things hiring managers will search for when looking to fill open sales and marketing positions. But proficiency with niche and even industry specific CRM platforms can really make you stand out. In fact, if you’re looking to be seen by a specific employer, make sure you know the platform they use and have that keyword on your resume or profile.

SEC

Another placeholder keyword, think of this as a catchall for keywords like: compliance officer, regulatory management, etc. Having keywords on your resume or profile like “SEC” or “Dodd-Frank” can be especially valuable for folks in finance, accounting and consulting. There are certain industries where the regulations and oversight have multiplied, and the ability to help companies navigate this new world is a skill set very much in demand at the moment.

Crisis Management

Keywords related to crisis management will make your resume or profile very popular amongst almost all career fields. Related and complementary keywords would be: emergency management, public safety, public relations, operations management and even brand management. A popular if tangentially related keyword is risk management.

P&L Responsibility

An excellent keyword that helps a general management candidate stand out is “Profit and Loss” or “P&L Responsibility”. Any sort of manager can be expected to have expertise managing personnel and operations. But managers who can demonstrate direct responsibility for revenue development and cost control are snapped up far quicker.

New Business Development

Finally, a perennial standout keyword for salespeople, marketers and the like. Companies are always searching for candidates who can go above and beyond managing existing clients. But keywords that suggest you can bring in new business are always sure to help you stand out from the crowd.

Some of the key data points?

• Thirty-nine percent of workers said they have dated a co-worker at least once over the course of their career.
• Three in Ten Workers Who Had Office Romances Married Their Co-Worker.
• 29 percent of workers who have dated someone at work said they have dated someone above them in the company hierarchy, and 16 percent admitted to dating their boss.
• The number one place that office romance starts? After work happy hour.

But to us, the most surprising finding was this one:

Thirty-five percent reported they had to keep the relationship under wraps.

We would have thought that number would be way, way higher. As office-place amore can lead to HR nightmares, plenty of companies at least disapprove of co-worker romances. Some companies are so strict that the revelation of a personal relationship can be grounds for immediate termination.

How many of you have had an office romance? And how many of you have had to hide it?

A better question might be: how many romances do you think are going on in your office right now?

How can you spot a covert office couple? Here are 10 surefire signs:

The Flirting Stops

Does your office have an obvious and notorious Pam and Jim? Always flirting, always together? What if suddenly the giggles and goo-goo eyes stop? That’s a good indication that the flirting has gone to the next level of an actual relationship and both parties are consciously or subconsciously trying to keep things under wraps.

By the same token, if the office lothario suddenly stops his advances, it could be that he’s gotten a talking to from HR. Or… it could be that he’s finally snagged someone in the office.

They Never Get To Work, Or Leave Work, At The Same Time

If two people are still trying to keep a relationship under wraps, they’re not going to want you to know they spent last night together. So they’re still likely arrive to work in separate cars, even if that means they had to drop by and pick up the other person’s car.

Also, the couple in question might be heading home for a snuggly night of Netflix streaming, but they will make sure to stagger their departure times to ensure plausible deniability.

Lots Of Inside Jokes

Have you ever been around people that seem to laugh at each other’s eye rolls and seemingly unsaid jokes? If two co-workers are so on the same wavelength that they seem to be reading from a private joke book, then you have to wonder when and where those jokes got started.

They’re Too Formal

We all know people in the office who have obvious chemistry. Work might have brought them together, but you get the sense that they’d be pals in the real world too. They’re chummy, chatty and completely simpatico.

But if you see just such a couple suddenly and ostentatiously being formal and professional to each other at work, then you have to wonder why. If the pals suddenly stop speaking to each other, then they might be compensating to hide a secret.

You Always Stumble Across Them Together

The same two people always at the coffee machine? The same two people always taking lunch together? Oh! What’s this? The supply room is occupied, and by the usual suspects? So many coincidences can’t be all that coincidental.

They Disappear At The Same Time

Your boss comes in and says, “Where’s Jim? Where’s Pam? Whenever I need one of them, I can’t find the other one either.” Mysteriously synchronized absences are a sure sign there’s some extra curricular scheduling going on.

The Same Two People Always Seem To Work Late

Sometimes the best place to hide an office romance is… in the office. If it’s after hours and the office is deserted, then that can be the perfect time for secret admirers to spend quality time together under the cloak of overtime or project deadlines.

Lots Of Time Behind Closed Doors

The same two people always work on projects together. Nothing suspicious about that. Maybe they’re a good team. But if they always find a way to “work” behind closed doors and drawn shades, then it might not be all work going on in there.

Vacation Days And Sick Days Coincide

Most people take their vacations around the same time every year. But isn’t it odd that he suddenly takes a week off in March?

That’s unusual. No one in the office has ever vacationed in March.

What’s more unusual is that she took a week off at the exact same time!

Sudden And Unlikely Office Allies

Sometimes the subtle changes in office politics can be a tip off about secret love affairs. One co-worker suddenly and energetically defends another in an strategy debate. Or a co-worker who has never been recognized for much is loudly and lavishly praised by another. Sudden and unusual office alliances/feuds can be a big tip-off that there’s more going on then you can see at the surface.

First, the job market seems especially grim for Millennials (workers under 30):

Millennials are hard hit by the economic crisis—62.9% are currently working, of which 31.2% work on a part-time basis.

And that’s a cohort of Americans with massive student loan debt to payoff. Source:

“Millennials” Play a Central Role in our Nation’s Civic Health, but Who are They?

But things don’t sound any better for older workers either:

Of those laid off in recent years, nearly a quarter said they still had not found a job. Re-employment rates for older workers have been particularly bad, with nearly two-thirds of unemployed people 55 and older saying they actively sought a job for more than a year before finding one or had still not found work.

Or consider this astounding fact. How many people do you think actually suffered a layoff during the Great Recession?

While about 8 percent of Americans are unemployed, nearly a quarter of Americans say they were laid off at some point during the recession or afterward, according to the survey. More broadly, nearly eight in 10 say they know someone in their circle of family and friends who has lost a job.

Source:

Profound Weight of Layoffs Is Seen in Work Trends Survey

A large part of our job is to counsel these clients down a path that makes sense for them. We’ll have to find ways to translate their previous experience and skill sets into their new career path. But first and foremost, we often end up just helping them decide if a career change is really a good idea.

Are you considering chucking it all and taking your career in a completely different direction?

Below is an internal list I compiled years ago. These are the 12 situations and circumstances when I think a career change makes the most sense:

1. You’re no longer excited about your career.
   This probably falls into the “no duh” category. But seriously, life is too short. If you find you just can’t hack it anymore… if getting motivated to get up every day is becoming too much… if you’re just not having any fun anymore, then what are you waiting for? Job happiness is out there for everyone. Being too timid to take the leap is no one’s fault but your own.
2. There’s no future in your current career path.
   Sometimes it’s not you that’s the problem… sometimes it’s your job that has run it’s course. Maybe you still love your job and you’re proud of all you’ve accomplished, but you’ve gone about as far as you can go. Why not look for new challenges and new horizons? Your only alternative is to sit around resting on your laurels and living in the faded glory of past accomplishments.
3. Your industry is struggling.
   Just last week, I was working with a young journalist, who was plain tired of looking for work. He had come to the conclusion that even if Journalism wasn’t exactly dead, then it wasn’t as healthy as he would like. He wanted to try to go into the HR field, where he felt it was easier to find work. He had just decided that there weren’t enough jobs for journalists anymore. He reminded me of all the clients I worked with in the mid-2000s who went into real estate. A few years later, they were back looking to switch career again because the housing bust meant jobs were scarce. If you find yourself in an industry with a questionable future, then why wait out the bad times?
4. You’ve identified a new challenge.
   Again, maybe you’re perfectly happy where you’re at. Still… still… there’s this THING out there… this new idea or this new job… it’s gotten under your skin and you’ve become fascinated. You want to give it a try. You can’t help yourself. Isn’t that part of what makes life great? Chasing those new interests and new dreams?
5. You can afford to cut loose from what you’ve invested in your old career.
   I’m speaking here in both a financial and an experience/reputation sense. Sometimes you’ve reached a point in your career where you can afford to take new risks, and it’s almost silly not to. If you fail, you’re not really out all that much. And besides, isn’t this what you’ve worked so hard for all these years: to earn the freedom to take chances now and then?
6. You have skills and experiences that can transfer.
   Here you’ve been sitting in this career backwater for years and no one’s been looking for you? Suddenly, there are all these new opportunities and your skills and experiences are in great demand. If you’ve got a skill set that you can suddenly utilize in a new or exciting way, it’s at least worth considering if the grass is greener elsewhere.
7. You’ve reached a state in your life where this career path doesn’t fit with your lifestyle.
   Trying to start a family? Need more free time or (conversely) more money? Maybe you’re in the latter half of your career and you want to slow the rat race down a tad. When your job doesn’t mesh with your lifestyle, that’s always a good time to reassess. You never want to be living to work. You want to be doing the opposite.
8. If you don’t make the change now, you never will.
   Sometimes opportunities come around that are once in a career or once in a lifetime. If you let them pass you by, you might find yourself wondering what if. This is also a situation to consider when addressing time-of-life issues. Maybe you’ve got the opportunity to do something now that financial, family or even career considerations won’t allow you gamble on in the future. If it’s now or never, then it’s worth thinking hard.
9. Better income, greater recognition.
   This one’s another “no duh” situation. If you can make more money while getting at least the same level of satisfaction, then why not? And if you’re at a place where no one appreciates you, why would you sit around and hope everyone wakes up one fine day? Why not go now and get the recognition you deserve for your hard work?
10. It’s good for your career in the long run.
    These days a variety of experience and the ability to adapt to new situations is an overwhelming advantage. It’s no longer about working your way up from the mail room. Jumping from job to job and even career to career is now very common. Here are just 2 examples: IT… you need to be the fluent with of lots of different technologies and languages, master of a variety of positions and projects. Or take the young woman dreaming of being a CEO some day. Meg Whitman cut her teeth at Procter & Gamble and Disney before eBay came calling. She didn’t know much about the web, but it was her experience in other industries that eBay was really looking for.
11. The idea of starting from scratch is appealing.
    Some people discover the career ladder is not for them. Try testing your entrepreneurial mettle. Become your own boss. Or jump ship to that cool new startup. Your career could use the shakeup.
12. It’s time for a geographical move.
    Finally, is it time for you to start over in a new town in a new part of the country? That’s often the best time to start from scratch with everything and make a start on a completely new career path.

But the proper job search attitude is important, and I’ll tell you why. You can’t land the sort of job you deserve if you don’t think you deserve it. Here’s what I mean.

The Wrong Attitude

All too often, I’ve seen clients approach a job search in the same way they would the welfare line. They feel embarrassed or unworthy. They feel like they’re asking for a handout or, to quote Scarlett, relying on the kindness of strangers.

The fact is, we all have to look for a job some time. And more often then not, a job searcher is in a quest to improve his or her career lot, not because they’re in desperate dire straights. Think of your own reaction to learning that a friend is looking for a job. Your first thought is not, What a loser! Your first thought is: I wonder if I can help?

We all have to look for a job some time

Yet still, people act like a job search is some great, arduous quest where you, the supplicant, are always on bended knee waiting for some all-powerful hand of fate to pluck you up and save you only by some great accident of chance.

This is absolutely the wrong attitude.

The Situation Is In Your Favor

First of all, no one gives anyone a job out of pity or charity. A person is hired because an employer has a need to fill. In essence, the true job search balance is the other way around: the candidate is doing the employer a favor by agreeing to provide his or her labor at a fair market value.

Secondly, it’s the hiring manager who has his butt on the line, not you. If you don’t get hired by a given job, it’s no sweat off of your brow… you just move on the the next interview. But if the hiring manager can’t fill the position – or worse, fills it with the wrong person – then operations will suffer, profits will suffer, the hiring manager’s reputation will suffer.

Thirdly, notice the formal way in which a job search transacts itself. The employer makes “an offer.” You are free to accept or decline. In fact, you are the one with all the decision making power. You can come and go at any time. It’s the employer who is sitting there with an unfulfilled need until you come along to solve his problem.

I make all the above points to try to disabuse you of the wrong job search attitude. You are not powerless. You are not a beggar. As the jobs seeker, you, in fact, hold all the cards.

The Proper Attitude

This might seem like a trite bit of mumbo jumbo, but it’s actually quite important to have a properly confident mindset.

Think of yourself like an NFL free agent. You never see a cocky, highly paid, famous wide receiver begging a team to hire him (you might see him cry if his team loses to the Ravens, but that’s another story). Just the opposite: the NFL free agent takes the attitude that he is a rare, prized commodity. He can score. He can help a team win. He’ll be doing the team a favor if he deigns to sign with them.

NFL free agents don’t fear a job search. Hell no! They dream of free-agency. That’s when they make the big bucks.

Think of yourself like an NFL free agent

You’re just like that free agent. You are a skilled and talented professional. You can bring success and innovation to any job you sign on to. You will improve any team you join. I’m not suggesting you take on the prima-donna airs of an NFL star, but you should take on his air of confidence. This is your year of free-agency. This is your chance to sign a better five-year deal and join the franchise you always really wanted to play for. This job search is actually a very good thing. This is your chance to move up and make the big bucks.

Remember, the employer has a need to fill. You are a possible solution to the problem. The quickest way to get hired is to get across to the employer that they will be immensely glad they hired you. You will not just fill their vacancy, you will improve it. You will solve some of their problems. You will take the position and make it perform like it never has before. You will help the company earn more money. You’ll help the company shave costs. You’ll bring dynamism and new, brilliant ideas to the team. In fact, you’ll be such a great hire, the hiring manager will see his reputation enhanced just because he was the one who was smart enough to hire you.

This is the impression you want to leave in the hiring manager’s mind. And you obviously can’t do that by projecting an attitude of neediness, desperation or embarrassment. You need to be relaxed, and more importantly, confident.

I used to do this simple exercise with my clients. Imagine three candidates interviewing for a job:

1. Candidate A interviews with a hiring manager and leaves the impression that, hey, she’s a warm body and she’s better than nothing.
2. Candidate B interviews with a hiring manager and leaves the impression that they are competent and can fill the position adequately.
3. Candidate C, however, convinces the hiring manager that he is a potential superstar, someone who can transform this organization and make everyone rich and make the hiring manager look good.

All three candidates can be hired in various situations. But who do you think gets hired EVERY time?

You want to be Candidate C.

So every time you begin a job search, you want to start with confidence. Keep reminding yourself:

• I am a rare and valuable free agent.
• I have something to offer them.
• This is my chance to move up and make the big bucks.
• I can convince them that if they sign me, we’ll all be winners.
• They’ll be lucky to hire me.

This is the proper attitude for a successful job search.

A lot of people toil away in their jobs, doing good work, working hard… only to see lesser, stupider people jump ahead of them on the career ladder.

If you find yourself not getting any credit for the good stuff you’re doing, it’s time for a refresher course on that area of office politics known as Getting Credit For Your Brilliance.

1) Don’t Be Shy.

All those jerks who aren’t half as good as you but are the office darlings… they’re not afraid to toot their own horn. You think they’re arrogant for doing it, but clearly a little arrogance works. Claim credit for your good work. When you score big time, don’t be afraid to let others know it.

2) Join A Better Team.

If you want to be a big fish, start swimming with them. If there is a team or a division that has superstar status in your organization, try to get on board. The worst that can happen is that some of their superstar status rubs off on you by association. The best that can happen is you impress the superstars and start getting credit from the credit hogs.

3) Pick A Better Mentor.

Similar to the above. If there is a superstar manager on the way up in the world, that is who you should be tagging along with. Very often, the underlings or the pet team of a superstar manager has some of the superstar magic rub off on them. If you worked closely with the superstar, then you must be like her in some way. People will try to poach you or promote you to get some of your mentor’s mojo. And even if that doesn’t happen, when your mentor becomes the big cheese, chances are she’ll have a plumb role for you.

4) Do Something Unexpected.

So you’re toiling away month after month, getting terrific results time and again, and no one seems to care. Maybe that’s because they have come to expect this level of production from you. It’s ho hum. So switch it up a bit. Surprise people. I don’t mean suddenly stop doing good work. I mean, branch out. Excel in a new area. Pick a project normally outside your ken and find a way to kick ass at that. Solve a problem that has been hanging over your team’s head for a while. Bring a project in unexpectedly early or under budget. Find something that will make people turn their head. Even though it’s just another example of you doing your usual good work, people will take notice because it was so unexpected.

5) Give Credit To Others.

This doesn’t always work. Sometimes people will just take any compliments and sit on them. Still, it’s worth a try. Giving praise to others might prompt them notice what you’re up to and return the favor.

6) Make Your Boss Look Good.

Sometimes the powers that be don’t notice the good work you’re doing because it doesn’t reflect on them at all. If you can stroke their ego a bit, they might start to value your contribution more.

7) Always Be Learning.

The modern business world is a dynamic, constantly changing environment. You never know what The Next Big Thing will be, but if you keep your ear to the ground and are constantly open to learning new things, when The Next Big Thing comes around, you can position yourself as a guru.

But a lot of people, at various times in their life, will find themselves job searching in a new or strange city. This can present a lot of problems, including the obvious travel issues, time issues, cost issues and just the general confusion of having to research and navigate in a community you might know very little about.

But one big issue job seekers might not even know they face with an out of town job search is what we like to call out of town bias. It’s hard enough to have your resume stand out from the crowd. Any little detail can give the hiring manager to pass your resume over in favor of another one.

Being an out of town-er might be just such a reason.

Why?

Well, it’s simple if you think about it. If you had two equally qualified candidates, who would you call for the interview? The one that lives 5 minutes away and can show up at an interview with 24 hours notices? Or a candidate 1,000 miles away that might have to schedule and fly in for the interview? Would you be more interested in the candidate who is already settled and invested in the community? Or one that might have to uproot their family and learn the ropes a bit?

It’s not a malicious bias. It’s just simplicity. It’s human nature to sometimes favor local candidates.

So what should you do if you find yourself job searching in a new city and don’t want to play the odds of the out of town bias?

Well, if it’s a cold job search (i.e., you’re not being recruited… if you’ve been recruited, then you’re fine… the hiring manager knows your situation) then you need to consider tweaking your resume to avoid the out of town bias. After all, the resume is all the hiring manager has to go on at first, so you’re going to want to tweak things just a bit to avoid any out-of-towner red flags.

The Address On Your Resume

Obviously, an out of town home address can be a big red flag. So you have several options here.

Now-a-days, it’s not such a big deal to leave your home address off the resume. After all, 99% of the time, you’re gonna get a call or an email. They’re unlikely to send you an interview offer via certified mail.

So, instead of your home address, why not put just the city and state move to down on your resume. Trying to land a job in Chicago? Leave your current address off, and just say “Chicago, Illinois” on your resume header under your name. It’s not lying. You INTEND to move there… that’s what this application is all about. You want to land this job and move to Chicago.

Do you have a friend or family member who lives in the city in question? Great! Put their address down instead of yours.

Finally, if you really, really want to be meticulous, you could get a PO Box or mailbox at a FedEx/Kinkos or UPS in that city. Some of these boxes even offer real addresses, not just PO Boxes.

The Phone Number On Your Resume

This used to be a much, much bigger deal than it is now. After all, if you’re applying in NYC and instead of a 212 area code or  a 917, the hiring manager has to call a 734 number? Well, that used to be a dead giveaway that you weren’t local to NYC.

This is not such a big deal anymore. Not in the age of cell phones.

I can’t tell you the number if young professionals in their 20s or even 30s who still have the same cell number that they received with their first cell phone. That may have been in high school or college. They might have lived 3 different places since then!

Everyone has a different area code now. Especially in major metropolitan areas, it is not unusual at all to have a “strange” area code. Now that your number moves with you, why change it?

So if you think this isn’t a big deal, then don’t sweat it.

But if you WANT to sweat it, maybe because you’re targeting a small town or a rural area where unusual area codes would stick out, then consider getting a 2nd or temporary number..

Get a temporary number in the local area code you’re targeting, put that on your resume, and have the number forward to your existing number.

It’s more and more common for job seekers to set up a Google Voice number just for their job search. It’s easy, it ensures privacy and better organization. We encourage it. And we’ve written about it before, so check that post for the details.

Any Local Work You Can Highlight In Your Career History?

Finally, there’s your work history. You can’t change the fact that your last job was in Phoenix. But then again, you could leave off the location data for your employers. You’ll still be listing the job title, the employer, the dates employed… but maybe just leave off the Phoenix, AZ part. It’s just leaving off some data you don’t think is relevant.

A super easy advantage would be if your current position (or any previous positions) included some occasional, out of town work in the city you’re now trying to target. If you have such experience in your background, then I’d be sure to highlight that on the resume. It will show some familiarity with the community.

When To Come Clean

So, let’s say you’ve successfully shielded yourself from out of town bias using some of the tweaks above.

You’ve gotten the call or the email, and now the employer wants to meet you for an interview. At this point my friends, you should consider coming clean.

There are several ways you can handle this.

You could come clean right now. Let them know you’re gonna need to fly or drive in, but assure them you’re so eager for this job, so you’ll pay for it.

Or, suggest a phone or even a Skype interview. It saves you time and money, and it saves the hiring manager time and money.

Or, finally, you could punt. Do you have the money to get a quick flight into the city? If you can schedule things for early next week, then you have plenty of time to set up a flight and no one needs be the wiser.

Come Clean In The Interview

Whichever path you take, at some point in the interview, you’re going to have to come clean about the fact that you’re relocating to take this position.

When you do, it’s better to have a firm move date to give them. Just say, “Oh, we’re moving on the 30th. It’s already lined up.”

Why?

Well, if you get the job, then great! You would have had to move anyway, so this just finalizes everything with a firm date.

And if the job falls through? Well, then, you don’t move on the 30th after all. It’s no skin off of anyone’s nose.

But definitely have a move date to give them. It will remove any lingering doubts the hiring manager might have.