When you face a job search setback, such as not getting hired after an interview, where do you place the blame? The economy? Your age, race or gender? The foolishness of hiring managers?  Blaming external factors over which you have little control may be convenient, but it probably does little to advance your job search.

Acknowledge Reality

It’s true, the economy is struggling. There is a lot of competition for every job opening. It’s OK to acknowledge those factors.  But consider: When you apply for a job and are not hired, someone else got the job. How did they overcome all the obstacles to getting hired and succeed? The most common reasons include:

• They presented themselves as the best person to solve problems for the company
• They had chemistry or “fit” with the hiring manager, the team and the work environment
• They came highly recommended
• They highlighted their match to the job requirements
• They effectively tied their past successes to the current needs and as a promise of future value

The reality is someone got the job because, out of all the applicants, they did the best job at most or all of the items above.

Don’t Assume

With those factors in mind, there is little reason to assume you were not hired due to an external factor such as age or the number of applicants.   By jumping to that conclusion, job seekers prevent themselves from self-examination and improvement. A job seeker recently said to me “I matched all their requirements. I had the experience they wanted. I did a good job in the interview. So it must be my age. What else could it be?”   There are a lot of things it could be:

• You matched their requirements but didn’t make that clear to them
• You had the right experience but didn’t tie your past success to future value for the company
• You believe you interview well, but you haven’t checked that with anyone by doing a practice interview
• You were so confident you were right for the job, you came off as arrogant or off-putting
• You failed to create rapport and connection with interviewers
• You didn’t find and use an inside connection to learn more about the position or to introduce you to the company and hiring manager

There are many reasons why people don’t get hired. Assuming it’s an external factor may stop you from uncovering the true underlying problem and resolving it.  Learn more about how to uncover the real reasons and learn from them by reading “Handling Rejection”.

Don’t Bother With Blame

When my child loses a soccer game, he is likely to say “Boy, that referee was really unfair,” or “The other team sure played dirty,” or “It’s not fair they have a better practice facility.” Any of those statements may or may not be true. The tough-love in me comes out when I say “Don’t waste time placing blame. The other team won because they got more points. They got more points because they played better.”   All you can control is your own performance on the field, and in your job search.  Play the best game you can. Practice harder than anyone else. Show up with the most energy and enthusiasm. Apply a better strategy. Own your own success.

Editor’s Note: Need help organizing your job search? With Jobfully’s productivity suite you can learn to manage your job search in a more efficient and effective way. Learn more by visiting the Jobfully homepage.

Today our guest blogger is Matt Youngquist. Matt is the President of Career Horizons, serving Northwest individuals and organizations dealing with the unique challenges of job hunting and employment transition.  Matt is a recognized expert in the field of career coaching, job hunting, and professional employment counseling.  You can follow him on Twitter @mattyoungquist.

As I’ve stressed to quite a few clients over the years, anybody looking for work today should consider Craigslist as one of the absolute top sources of published opportunities they check on a regular basis.

Surprised by this?  Do you associate Craigslist more with used cars or tracking down garage sales?  If so, let me point out the two key reasons why the site is such a unique and important job resource:

1. Almost every company uses it in their hiring efforts today, especially small-to-mid-sized companies, since the price of running a job listing on Craigslist ($25) is a tiny fraction of what it cost to run job leads on other sites like Monster.com, CareerBuilder, etc.
2. Additionally, and just as importantly, Craigslist (unlike other job sites) has never let its leads get picked up by aggregator sites such as Indeed.com or SimplyHired.com; so with Craigslist, you typically find a “pure” pool of listings you won’t see mentioned anywhere else

But here’s the rub.  The Craigslist search interface is remarkably crude and unsophisticated.  Not only can you not construct precise searches using the common “Boolean syntax” rules supported by most other sites, but Craigslist doesn’t even have an automatic “alert” feature you can program to send you new matching leads each day — unless you count RSS feeds, which are tricky to use if you’re not familiar with them.

Luckily, though, I’ve recently found workarounds to both of these issues.  So whether you’re an existing client of mine or merely a casual follower of my blog, I wanted to share these tips, since they’re likely to save you a bunch of time and aggravation in the job-finding process.

With regard to Craigslist not offering automatic “job alert” functionality, I’ve discovered that you can now use a free third-party site called List-Alert.com to set up daily alerts on Craiglist — to find job listings that fit you or to get notified about anything else on that site (camera equipment, used furniture, etc.) you might be seeking!  Visit the List-Alert page, and you’ll see a simple interface where you specify WHAT you want to find on Craiglist, the section of the site you want to search through (e.g. Jobs, For Sale, Housing, etc.), and the geographic location you’re targeting.  Enter these parameters, hit the “create alert” button, and you’re in business!  You’ll start getting any matching leads to your search sent to you automatically via e-mail each day.

As for HOW to search properly?  Again, Craigslist doesn’t allow you to chain keywords together in the same way as most other sites on the Internet.  For example, you can’t use the standard Boolean “OR” command to link keywords of interest together.  Without this functionality, you’re forced to run a whole bunch of separate searches for jobs in sales, business development, account management, marketing, and the like.  Recently, however, I finally wised up and did some research around this issue, which led me to discover that you can actually use a different character — the “vertical pipe” symbol “|” — to provide the “OR” functionality.  Hallelujah!

Given this “breakthrough” discovery (ha ha) I’d now advise many of you to set up an automated daily job alert on Craigslist that looks something more or less along these lines:

Search that finds anything related to sales:
sales | “business development” | account | territory

Search that finds anything related to software testing:
“software testing” | “software quality” | SDET

Search that finds project, program, or product management jobs:
(manager | management) AND (project | program | product)

Search that finds senior financial openings:
CFO | controller | (director | VP | vice | chief) AND (finance | financial | accounting)

Search that finds mid-to-senior-level marketing positions:
CMO | (marketing | advertising | brand | branding) AND (manager | director | VP | vice | chief)

Definitely note that when running these kinds of searches, though, you’ll usually want to check the option box (on either Craigslist or List-Alert) that limits your search to job titles only— so you’re not combing every word in the full body text.

So there you go.  Mystery solved.  For years, I’ve been wondering why Craigslist didn’t permit more advanced searching, but as usual, it turns out that the site just marches to the beat of a slightly different drummer!  Hope this tip helps you find some great employment listings for yourself, with a minimum of muss and fuss…

Editor’s Note: Organize your job search with Jobfully. With Jobfully’s productivity suite you will have a more effective and efficient job search. Learn more by visiting our homepage. 

Many job seekers use Twitter to follow recruiters and companies, learn about job search, and uncover job leads. They are “passive” users in that they follow and read, but do not post. As a result, they may feel like they are in stealth mode and have not bothered to put together a professional Twitter profile. This is a big mistake. Here’s why:

When you follow new people, most receive a notification that they have a new follower. Often that notification includes the follower’s name AND profile. Some busy tweeters pay no attention to these notifications, but what about those who do? Your profile is your chance to get on their radar screen and let them know your value and what you’re a match for. Why pass up this opportunity?

Consider a busy recruiter with three new followers on Twitter.

1. CatLover84, has a profile noting she loves old movies and cats.
2. MSmith has no profile.
3. PMPro, has a profile noting he is a program management professional with proven success in increasing annual revenue by $1.2m in the field of leasing, currently exploring new opportunities in the Midwest.

Which profile do you think will stick in the mind of this busy recruiter? Which job seeker is most likely to be contacted by the recruiter with a job opportunity?

It will only take you a few minutes to add a professional profile on Twitter. Take your summary from LinkedIn and cut it down to Twitter size. Remember, the Twitter profile needs to be extremely brief. This forces you to share your value quickly and concisely, which is always a good thing. While you are updating, add a professional photo. It makes you even more memorable.

Updated your Twitter profile today and open yourself up to more opportunities!

More on using Twitter in your job search:

• 5 Twitter Tips to Get Your Next Job
• Using Twitter Hash Tags
• Tweet Your Way to a New Job

Editor’s Note: Need help giving your online presence a boost?  Jobfully can help. Learn how our productivity suite can make your job search more effective by visiting our homepage. 

A recent job description called for five years experience using Twitter. Since Twitter did not publically launch until July 2006, that requirement would be very hard to meet unless you happened to be one of the initial users.  Job descriptions often give very specific time requirements for certain skills. Should a job seeker apply even if they don’t have the exact number of years? YES!

Hiring managers often specify years of experience as an easy way to screen people or as a substitute for specifying the level of competency they require. It might be easier to just give a number of years of experience than it is to elaborate on what the ideal candidate is able to do.  But, it might not be a meaningful measure. Hiring managers should think carefully before taking this shortcut and instead of focusing on number of years, find out the real competency level of a candidate.

What’s a job seeker to do when the job requirements ask for certain number of years of experience?

1. Understand the level of competency the hiring manager is expecting
2. Clearly demonstrate you meet or exceed that expectation, and show proven results

For example:

• If the job specifies years of experience using a specific skill, share related training and certification. Give results-oriented examples of successful work you’ve done using that skill.
• If the job asks for years of experience in a specific industry, demonstrate how the work you did in another field is directly related and highlight the value you created. Give examples of results that could carry over or be replicated in your target industry.
• If the job asks for years of experience doing a certain job, focus on the skills that job requires and bring out how you exhibited those skills and created success regardless of the job title you held. Your examples should show results at the level of the job you’re applying for.

Never lie or exaggerate your experience. It’s possible your truthfulness may cause your resume to be rejected by resume screening software or applicant tracking systems (ATS).  It’s unfortunate these systems sometimes screen purely based on time spent doing a certain thing, not level of work and achievements. The best way around this is to also have your resume submitted by a company insider or someone with connections to the recruiter or hiring manager. This is another reason why having your resume advanced by a connection is the best way to get noticed.

Number of years of experience is irrelevant compared to achievements. Whether you’ve done something for many years or just a short time, bring out the value you created and the exact number of years will not be a factor.

Editor’s Note: Organize your job search and find a career faster with Jobfully’s productivity suite. To learn more visit our homepage. 

If you’re having trouble viewing the video, you can watch it on YouTube. We have lots more informative videos on our YouTube channel.

Editor’s Note: Visit our homepage to learn how Jobfully can help organize your job search in a more effective way. With Jobfully all your job search questions are answered. 

Are employers discriminating by refusing to consider unemployed people for open positions? It’s unclear whether this practice is illegal and how widespread it may be.  It does happen and it’s important to understand why.

Employers are trying to hire the best and brightest people with the sharpest, most up to date skills. All things being equal, they are likely to favor an applicant with recent experience over one who has been off the job for some time. If you were looking for someone to repair your computer, would you pick someone who fixed a similar machine last week, or someone who hasn’t fixed a computer in 18 months? Recent experience is often viewed as more relevant and valuable than distant experience.

This does not mean that the unemployed are doomed and can’t get back to work. It means they need to work very hard to demonstrate new achievements, ever growing knowledge and fresh skills.

• Take classes
• Get a degree or new certification
• Volunteer
• Mentor
• Intern
• Coach
• Teach
• Consult
• Freelance

Demonstrate you are keeping up, not stagnating. Pay attention to your online presence and make sure it is up-to-date, highlighting your expertise.  When you are interviewing for a job, you are likely to be asked “What have you been doing since you left your last job?” Make sure you have an answer that shows you are using this time well in order to bring even greater results to your next employer.

Don’t get mad. Get busy!

Read more:

• Productive Ways to Fill Resume Gaps
• Overcoming Long-Term Unemployment
• Answering “What have you been doing since your last job?”
• Answering “Why did you leave your last job?”
• When the Ad Says “Unemployed Need Not Apply”

Tell us: What are you doing to sharpen your skills and gain new achievements while looking for a job?

Editor’s Note: Organize your job search with Jobfully’s productivity suite. With Jobfully you will have a  more efficient and productive job search. To learn more visit our homepage. 

We’ve all heard you should come to an interview prepared to ask questions. But asking the right questions and responding to what you hear can be the secret to landing the job.  While questions show your preparedness and interest, they are also a critical way to learn what the hiring manager is really looking for. Once you know, you can position yourself effectively and better bring out your match. Here are some revealing questions you can ask:

1. How is success measured for this position?
2. What did the last person in this job do to make him or herself successful (or a failure)?
3. What would your ideal candidate look like?
4. What skill do you think would be most valuable in this position?
5. What do you think are this companies most valuable strengths (or greatest weaknesses)?
6. If hired, how would you measure my first 90 days to be a success?
7. What activities are most critical for this position?
8. What aspect of my resume looked most important to you?
9. What do you expect to be the companies biggest challenges over the next five years?
10. How and where does this position fit in to the structure of the department?

By asking revealing questions during the interview, you can take the insights you gain and relate them to your skills and experience, positioning yourself as the best person for the job.   Start using this technique and you will greatly improve your chances of being offered the job.

For more interview preparation, learn how to answer these interview questions:

• What Have You Been Up To Since Your Last Job?
• Why Did You Leave Your Last Job?
• Who Has Inspired You?
• How do You Deal with Conflict?
• Where Do You See Yourself in Five Years?

Editor’s Note: Looking for coaching to help you improve your game? You will find it in Jobfully’s Job Search Productivity Suite, along with a winning game plan. Find out how Jobfully can help you succeed in your job search by visiting the Jobfully homepage.

A job seeker responded to a recent blog about the importance of face time by asking “Who are all these people I am supposed to be meeting with? How do I find them, approach them and set up meetings?”  This job seeker, like many others, held a job that didn’t involve a lot of person-to-person contact. After being laid off, she is left feeling she has no network and isn’t sure how to get started creating one.  Recent college grads and people who have been out of the professional world for awhile may relate.

Start Close to Home

You probably already have at least a small network, even if you don’t realize it.  Begin with your inner circle: family and good friends.  Let them know you’re building a professional network and ask them to be a part of it. Add them to your professional network on LinkedIn. (If you don’t already have a LinkedIn account, you should start one. It’s a powerful job search tool and a great way to build and track your network.)

Adding relatives and social contacts to your professional network is a very normal practice in today’s interconnected world. Also don’t hesitate to have people join your network who are in completely different fields, appear to have no connections to your career goals, or have a very limited network themselves. Get started with people you are very comfortable with.

Each time you add someone to your professional network:

1. Ask for insights on their area of expertise and start learning about their professional world
2. Let them know about your job search by sharing your value proposition (what you can do) and your goal (what you are looking for)
3. Ask who else they recommend you network with
4. Thank them

Social Contacts

Now expand that circle by considering those you cross paths with in social pursuits, hobbies, sports, book clubs, neighborhood and school activities.   If you are on Facebook, consider every one of your friends a member of your network. Further the relationship by inviting them to join your network on LinkedIn. For more ideas on including social contacts in your professional network read: Recognizing Unique Networking Opportunities.

Past Professional Contacts

Think back to each job you have held and locate colleagues, former bosses, clients and others you crossed paths with, even if you’ve been out of the work world for awhile. LinkedIn makes it very easy to reconnect because you can search by company. Recent college grads should consider dorm mates, sorority and fraternity friends, professors, advisors and fellow students. Stay-at-home parents may reach out to other parents and their partners, along with school teachers and administrators.

Expanding the Circle

The most challenging, but critical part of building your network is to include people you do not even know yet. Some great contacts include: Industry and thought leaders in your field, recruiters, and people with expertise in your job type.   Easy ways to initiate contact with people like this include following them on Twitter, joining professional groups and making contact through LinkedIn. Learn how to reach out to new people on LinkedIn by reading Using LinkedIn Groups to Make Connections.

Goal Setting

Because building a network is so critical to job search success, set goals. Consider targets for adding new people at each level. It’s quicker and easier to add people from your inner circle but push yourself to expand at all levels because it’s the people you do not yet know that are most likely to uncover hidden jobs for you.

Now It’s Face Time!

As you grow your network, begin practicing in-person meetings. Start with having networking get-togethers with people with common connections. Get a feel for how those meetings work and how they can benefit your job search. Then expand to holding similar conversations with those you don’t know as well and people who are completely new to you.  Learn more about holding in-person meetings by reading Making Informational Interviews Work for You.

More on networking:

• Questions to ask when Networking
• The Art of the Cold Contact
• Turning Social Events into Networking Opportunities

Editor’s Note: Jobfully can help you become an expert on networking and many other proven job search strategies. Learn more by visiting the Jobfully Home Page.

You find a job that looks interesting, you go to the interview looking your best to see if the job is a good fit, you go home and wait by the phone for the call back… Sound familiar? Maybe like a first date? If you think about it, the process of getting a job is very much like dating. For both dating and job searching, there are the do’s and don’ts. Not surprisingly, there are many parallels between them.

Today let’s talk about the don’ts.

1. DON’T be late! The worst thing you can do is to be late to an interview. As it would on a date, it sends the message that you are not serious about the job. Before an interview, always leave early to ensure you have time to deal with traffic or finding parking. Always arrive at least 5 minutes before the interview and you can wait in your car to get settled in and comfortable.

2. DON’T be pretentious. It’s unattractive when people brag about themselves. While having confidence is great, being cocky is not. Talking about your accomplishments is important during an interview, but keep your story relevant to the position and to the company. Don’t go rambling on.

3. DON’T reveal too much information. There are two types of information you should avoid during interviews and dates: the negative and the uninteresting.

• Never bad mouth your exes, i.e. your past employers. When you show bitterness, it’s a big turn-off for any potential partners.  If you have to talk about your breakup, keep it positive.
• Don’t bore your date, i.e. your interviewer. While small talk can be good for making connections, remember you are selling yourself to the company for a specific job. Keep the discussion relevant to keep them interested.

Keeping these tips in mind during your job search can help you secure additional dates (i.e.  interviews) and eventually a marriage proposal (i.e. job offer).

We’d love to hear about what you think.  Do you see any similarities between dating and job searching?  Share your insights and let us hear your thoughts.

Editor’s Note: Jobfully’s productivity suite can organize your job search more effectlivly allowing you to find a career faster. To learn more visit our homepage. 

If you’re having trouble viewing the video, you can watch it on YouTube. We have lots more informative videos on our YouTube channel.

Editor’s Note: By using Jobfully’s productivity suite you will learn how to market yourself and organize your job search in a more efficient matter. You can learn more by visiting the Jobfully Home page.