POSTED: 5:09 PM, Feb 13, 2015

UPDATED: 7:06 PM, Feb 13, 2015

TAG: business | mildred l. culp

WorkWise: Trending secrets from recruiters

Recruiters have some of the best secrets to share with you during a job search, even if they don’t place you. Their knowledge of the market positions them as rich sources of information. An awareness of hiring trends from their perspective gives you an overview with which to plan your campaign.

Reinvention

Job growth and creation are the key trends now, according to Chicago’s Lynn Hazan of Lynn Hazan & Associates Inc. (https://lhazan.com/) She qualifies that needs tend to be very specific. “Candidates have to constantly reinvent themselves,” she reports, “recreate their skill sets and become current with tools and technologies,” even while job hunting.

Hazan recommends studying job specifications for a match. “Learn how to de-code what’s written in the job details,” she explains. Be specific about where you have global experience, not just drop that you have it.

Expect to be part of the 98 percent of candidates she says have to rewrite their resume. Don’t rely on keywords, Hazan indicates, because overuse has made them almost meaningless. Rather than listing your software skills, describe how your use of software benefited a business.

‘Always on’ searching

Develop what Mike Travis of Travis & Co. Inc. (www.travisandco.com) in Newton, Massachusetts, calls “a post-recession mind set, with an active profile on LinkedIn and an ‘always on’ job search, even when happily employed.

“For people in an active search,” Travis notes, “the numbers show that the vast majority of jobs are filled through personal connections. The (most productive) tactic is talking in-person to all the people you’ve worked with, letting them know you’re looking for something new and asking for help.”

Be prepared to job hunt off the job, evenings and weekends, suggests Kim Bishop of Kimberly Bishop Executive Search (www.kimberlybishop.net) in New York City. While not two-timing your employer has always been ethical, if you’re even tempted now, you may be stopped. “Many companies block usage of LinkedIn at work,” observes Bishop. That means that social media is declining during the day, as is personal business on the job at work.

“I also think that for some phone calls and interviews,” she says, “candidates don’t want to be distracted, running outside on a coffee break to do a phone call, because they’re not at their best.”

Travis mentions that the accelerated pace in hiring now prompts you to take action when you know you’re not ambivalent about a job and you receive a satisfactory offer. He considers a week “entirely reasonable, but longer than that sends a message to an employer that you’re not really interested.”

Once on the job, don’t simply coast. Hazan advises to continue in the same spirit. “The expertise you bring must be continued to be reinvented to create value,” she points out, “because businesses are reinventing themselves constantly to survive.” In other words, gain awareness of trends inside your new company, inside the industry and in business overall outside of it.

Meet the primary objective of your job search by using the most intelligent tactics possible. These include reinventing yourself as you go, communicating with your best contacts, analyzing job details so you can provide specific information and re-tooling your resume. Allocate time in the evenings and weekends for your search. Accept a good offer within a week.

(Knoxville News Sentinel syndicated columnist Dr. Mildred Culp writes WorkWise® and THE RIDE®. Contact her at culp@workwise.net. © 2015 Passage Media.)

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