Master Career Counselor

This current contracting job market has forced two words to be removed from our career lexicon: security and stability.

These phrases sound ideal: 


From an employer: "Your job is secure, no worries!"


From self-talk:  "Thank goodness my job is stable." 

Technology has ended the world of work we once knew. 


Long term security and stability are nonexistent. A global economy has formed new rules as technology shifts business processes.  A successful company today erases inefficient and outdated systems of yesterday while developing  quick, easy and inexpensive products or services tomorrow.


These processes have required workforce reduction. This shift will likely not change in the future.  As the industrial age fades and the information age matures, today's worker must embrace the very reason they became obsolete: technology.


WHAT TO DO


First, add two new words to your career lexicon: adaptable and teachable.


The information age connects you to unparalleled access to resources.  In essence you must become a data miner extracting opportunities and knowledge you would otherwise never see.  To successfully accomplish this you can:

• Learn the basics of Internet navigation by using Google
• Develop a professional identity through Linkedin and Twitter
• Consider how you can work from home as the Internet has made this viable
• Study the influence of social media and how it impacts business and career opportunities
• Take computer classes to learn new applications or software at your local library

HOW TO DO IT


 The most crucial task is to be open and adaptable to new information. Consider these important strategies:

• View any learning opportunity as professional development
• Attend online webinars available in your industry or profession
• Join organizations that promote innovative ideas and approaches
• Connect to professional colleagues through web portals,  blogs and sites such as You Tube and Live Stream
• If you have an iTunes app on your phone, delve into the endless podcasts available in your professional field.

Embracing technology and using it as a tool for success certainly adds two words never erased from your lexicon:  

CAREER SAVVY

Today's job market is similar to thousands of puzzle pieces that don't seem to fit together and are scattered randomly across a kitchen table.

Whenever you're frustrated with the consuming and meticulous work of putting a puzzle together, pieces don't naturally fall into place. You have to work at finding the linkage. To expedite the process, you can do one of the following:

1. Complete the border first and work from the outside in.
2. Match the color patterns together especially if they are stark.
3. Default to examining the picture on the box.

Isn't that what we do with a job search or a career choice when the future is unclear?

Of course, we are more than a piece of a puzzle but the metaphor resonates with today's job market.



Think about the following similarities between you and a puzzle piece:

• Each of us have boundaries and can only go so far

• Each of us have a specific role to play in an organization with our unique fit

• We must be highly interconnected as we need one another

• We are unique in our nature, shape, size and color 

• Like a puzzle, we can be fragile and breakable if pulled too hard

• The whole of the puzzle is greater than the sum of its parts just as we can accomplish more together than individually.

• There are natural groupings of a puzzle based on color, size, shape and border. We tend to migrate toward others like us.

• The puzzle completion needs someone with an overall vision, the one looking at the cover of a puzzle box.

Do you have a lesson to add to my list?  There are employers needing your unique contribution. The key is how you intentionally connect and convince how your skills fit.

Hello.  My name is Carla and I'm a twitter-holic.

My first gulp of it was not all that great.  Micro-blogging initially appeared a waste of time and energy.  What could I possibly say of value in 140 characters? Twitter seemed irrelevant.  I was sorely deceived.

After having an inactive Twitter account for several years, I committed to learning its value as my new year's resolution. I had tweeted 25 times in three years and had 99 followers. I began by searching for people like me and watching my preferred news feeds.

The hook occurred on January 8th when I watched my twitter news feed relay tweets of Rep. Giffords' shooting. In angst, I ran to the TV to watch and no news station reported it at the time Twitter did. The power of this tool became obvious.

Through trial and error, I discovered the power of a hash tag (#) and the multitude of experts that tiny character unveiled.  #Hash tags led me to people, ideas and knowledge that I care about and want to learn.

Here are lessons I learned that engaged me most with Twitter:

1.  Be real, engaging and consistent.  This means putting a thoughtful bio and picture on your account. I spend at least an hour a day with it in spurts and realize that I get what I put into it.

2. Use a Twitter directory to discover people that share your interests. Place yourself in the directory for people to find you.

I use Twellow:

http://www.twellow.com/

3.  Build your Twitter from the moment you open your account with at least two tweets a day.  People are on Twitter all day and night so don't worry about the timing. Just tweet.  

Tweet quotes that are meaningful to you. 

Tweet news articles you find interesting.

Tweet blog posts you enjoy.

One of my favorite Twitter users is Lolly Daskal.  She's an author and expert on leadership.  I don't just follow her. I listen to her.  Reading her tweets is inspiring.  I also participate in a chat she facilitates on Tuesday nights.  For one hour, I watch my twitter feed explode with great insight and opinions on leadership.  It is worth your time to find a chat that interests you. Here is a link:

http://www.tweetchat.com/#leadfromwithin

4.  When you follow someone, they'll have the opportunity to follow you back.  I read every follower's bio and stream of tweets to decide if I will follow them.  If they don't tweet, I don't follow.  If they don't spam I will listen until they turn me off with a constant barrage of selling or marketing.  Everyone has a chance to engage me until they start to annoy.

5. Don't get caught up on the number of people who follow you.  This is a BIG deal.  Twitter has engaged me by WHO to follow and who follows me.  I enjoy connecting to career experts, moms, coaches, entreprenuers, social media professionals and yes, my daughter Annie.   What matters on Twitter is that you listen and are listened to by people who value what you have to say. 

The first kiss: My re-tweets

There is something about putting a tweet in the twitterverse and having it re-tweeted.  A re-tweet affirms that you're saying something others want to pass along. When the re-tweeting started happening to me, it was like a first kiss that sealed my attention and effort.

Finally, the best thing about Twitter is that I have NO IDEA where it is going.  I can't speculate about the potential it has for me or my company because it can't be estimated.  What is certain is that I can't underestimate its importance.  The beauty of Twitter's power is how it harnesses one short blurb that can topple a government or change the way I think. It is @awesome.

Today as the competition is fierce and only getting fiercer with a tight job market, I have an illustration for you to consider.

Imagine you are driving in the car and listening to your favorite radio station. It plays the music genre you prefer and it is the only station you listen to on a drive. But, is it the only station out there?


People treat seeking employment the same way. They tune in to their most preferred genre of finding and applying for jobs in one of the following ways:

Job boards

Newpaper ads

Trade journal openings

Online web crawlers like Indeed or Simply Hired.


The stark reality is that employers have veered away from most (but not all) of the above and are on another frequency. You can tell this by job seeker frustration:


"I've applied online to 99 jobs this week alone and haven't heard back from one."

"I keep seeing the same job posted every week in a recycled fashion. Why are they not interviewing me?"


As a jobseeker, you have to crank it up a notch and migrate to the station where employers advertise their openings.


Their station is simple: their current employees are the frequency used to refer potential candidates for the position which likely lessens the risks involved in a new hire.


In discussing this strategy with someone who does it, I understand their reasoning and logic:



1. Our new hire is referred by someone we value and know.



2. By seeking the candidate from an internal search, we minimize the public response to an opening which could be overwhelming (think hundreds of responses to one opening).



3. We are likely to retain the person because they were referred by someone who knows our culture.


4. We have more success this way since jobseekers have become adept at interviewing but poor at the actual job.


Re-read #4.  That is the major reason employers are emphasizing new hires from current staff.   A decision-maker of one organization told me that this strategy has reduced turnover and saved money.



If you respond to an opening you see on the Internet or anywhere else it is a REACTIVE mode. That means you are in a battle for attention with many others. Your struggle becomes one of how to differentiate yourself from the pack.
If you hear of an opening from a contact, friend, colleague, etc. that works for the company you have an intentional opportunity to get an interview. The likelihood of your success is much, much higher.


All of this to say you must consider the following strategies for a successful job hunt:


1. Get out of your house and mingle every single day with people through lunches, coffee, networking events and opportunities for interaction.  Don't let one day go by without seeing other people in some way.


2. Limit the time you spend to only 15% of your day on the computer. The rest of it should be spent with others in some capacity. Think creatively on ways to interact and be seen.


3. Volunteer your time to your community. Build a house with Habitat, tutor a child at school, walk the dogs at the animal shelter and help in any way possible.


4. Always follow up. It is one of the most critical tasks you will do in the search. It shows you are serious.


Tune in to where the employers are or you will have a very long search in front of you. As long as it is their market, they have dibs on being tight with their choices. The difference for you will be what steps you take to land on their radar.  The best and most effective way is for their employee to recommend you for an interview.  The other alternative plays music you might not want to hear.

Today's google search of you is now your resume for an employer.  Your identity, pictures, words, ideas and expression can be accessed online with a simple click of the button. Employers are certain to google you when considering an interview.  Through Facebook, You Tube, Twitter and any other social media tools, your web presence is their quick access to your character, activities and friends. 
As technology progresses, all of us will be quickly identified by our online "word cloud".  This is critical for you to understand.

A word cloud is a constellation of descriptors gleaned from your presence on the web through social media.
My word cloud contains these hash tags:  #career #interviews #job #resume #workforcedevelopment #counselor #life #careercounselor #coach #blogger #entreprenuer #trainer #author. 

What's in yours? 

Finding the word cloud of your resume

Using wordle as an integral part of your word cloud identity is a key to your success.  To begin, copy and paste the text of your most current resume into wordle and let it give you a word cloud of your skills. What words appear?  What words are missing?  This tool can harness your talent and help you articulate what you bring to an employer.  Hash tags (descriptive words that start with #) are going to only increase in defining your online presence. 

Social media and the power of it is here to stay.  Make certain you know how to use it wisely.  The absolute worse than you can do is ignore it.

Economists and politicians have myriad diagnoses regarding the job market’s chronic anemia. The forecast appears dismal with no apparent cure. This is the great American quackery.

Sure, the unemployment statistics hover around 9% reflecting a significant contraction in jobs becoming obsolete. But what about the stable careers planted deep in American soil not being shipped to India? Such jobs are under the national radar because of a covert operation to hide them from our younger workforce. There is a dark side to the cause of unemployment better known as “parental aversion”.

It is a stealthy systemic infection plaguing our job market. Symptoms include college graduates washing dishes at the local diner. Harvard’s recent report, Pathways to Prosperity addresses the 21st century demand for every worker needing a high school diploma but not all jobs require a four year bachelor degree. This is an understatement.

Most parents, educators and guidance counselors have tainted the career selection pool. Typically, the smart, affluent and successful have a navigational GPS destined for careers requiring a bachelor’s degree while job titles needing a vocational certificate are for the dumb, lazy and unmotivated student or worse, the drop-out.

Vocational education has become the “wayward child” alternative that a typical parent would thumb their nose at. This unspoken vow not to let children consider it as optional is a root cause of our perceived debilitated job market. Think about it. Where are the current openings? They’re in occupations parents refuse to allow their children to consider.  Yes, parents may not consider manual labor as a job that pays the bills, but ask your local utility company how desperate they are to find workers. Call up a plumber and ask how business is. You’ll quickly discover the critical lack of skilled employees especially for the future. In addition, the Harvard article also admits startling facts about how much money can be made without a college degree.

Universities have over-marketed the bachelor degree. Parents have bought a bill of goods that saddle their children with debt promising to be the next financial crisis. As a result, the job market languishes while a skeletal crew keeps the lights on as smart, affluent and successfully unemployed college graduates move back home.

We parents must confess that a bachelor degree has become a safety net for our children. The reality is students who get the degree are likely to land a menial job than a dream career because of woeful job preparation. After all, competition is ferocious. The new graduate with a four year degree vies for a job representing no more than 20% of the market. The rest of work opportunities belong to the plumber, electrician, HVAC repairer and the mechanic.

To complicate matters is the overall inept national high school guidance model that exacerbates the crisis. The title “guidance counselor” is a total misnomer. Monitoring student progress and completing necessary forms is not career development. Our children need direction and decision-making skills for a lifetime of hard choices. Guidance counselors who do spend time with students may be inclined to assist the ones likely to receive the bachelor badge. This coupled with parental snubbing has caused an oversupply of college educated job seekers who can’t find work. Meanwhile, the significant chasm between older workers in vocationally certified jobs and younger workers to replace them continues to widen.

So what’s the cure?

Let’s start with a wake up call not to educators or politicians, but to parents. Vocational education must be considered a viable option for our children’s career choice. Stop branding it as the alternative school for the dumb kids. A vocational education provides the foundation for a sustainable wage that can outpace the worker with a four year degree.

Next, America must demand for high schools to equip guidance counselors with the critical career development competencies necessary to facilitate a life long pursuit of making sound occupational choices. To not equip our children with fundamental career counsel is a travesty.

Finally, if your children sense the gravitational pull to work with their hands and get dirty, what’s the risk of letting them sweat? We need a serious injection of reality to stimulate our energy for adapting to the needs of the workforce.

After all, ask the Wall Street broker when his electricity goes out who he calls or the politician who she will dial when discovering the air conditioner doesn’t work. It may just be your child.

We parents must embrace the career path our children choose to marry. Let’s no longer allow universities to be the match-maker and end the quackery of our misguided career perception.