Career Tip: ONET – The Career Exploration Resource

If you are looking to change careers, have never known what you truly want to do for your career, or know a high school student deciding on a college major to pursue, then ONET http://www.onetonline.org/ is your source.  We all realize to make a truly good decision, it is all about the data, and you can gather a great deal of that data for a career path determination on the ONET site.

Whether you search by an SOC code (Standard Occupational Classification) or a job title, an impressive summary of over 12,000 different job types awaits.  From the knowledge, skills and abilities needed for a specific job, to expected salary, related professions, hot tech skills, green jobs, jobs with a bright future, and typical education needed, it is your go-to research resource.

Give ONET a try and discover a wealth of information concerning your next career. 

A portion of this post was originally posted in July of 2015.

Top 10 Ways to Cope with Job Transition

Job transitions can be stressful—whether they’re due to layoff, a new job or working extra hours because others workers were laid off.  If you’re facing one, consider the following.

1. Take an honest look at yourself.  What are your strengths, weaknesses, skills?  How did those influence, positively or negatively, your transition?

2. Step up your self-care.  Major changes are physically and emotionally taxing.  You need self-care now more than ever.

3. Engage your curiosity.  What went wrong, or right?  What could you have done better?  What worked really well?

4. Focus on what you want… and less on what you don’t want.  Keep your eye on the prize.

5. Find support.  Since your transition affects your family as well, it may be better to seek the outside support of friends or professionals.

6. Work on your thoughts.  Calm your fears and reinforce your sense of hope and happiness.

7. Reassure (or avoid) those who are threatened by, or jealous of, the change.

8. Create your own rite of passage.  Ceremony and ritual, religious services and communing with those of similar faith, all can help with transitions.

9. Let go of how things were “supposed to be” and accept “how things are.”  Find appreciation for what is and where you are going with your career.

10. Keep things in perspective. Or try on a new perspective. Don’t get stuck. Remember, the only constant is change.

Author’s content used with permission, © Claire Communications

Join a LinkedIn Group

Besides having a great profile, there are multiple other ways to use LinkedIn to help in career management or job search.  One of those options is to join a LinkedIn Group(s).  From professional to hobby-related, there is a group for nearly everyone.  You can contribute to ongoing discussions, start a discussion yourself, see what jobs a particular group has advertised, learn from industry experts, and find potential connections. 

Just go to the Interests Tab at the top of the page and click Groups.  LinkedIn will make suggestions based on your profile.  My suggestion is to join local groups (this is where the jobs will be advertised), professional groups that have a LinkedIn Group as well, alumni groups, and company “alumni” groups.  LinkedIn will allow you to join up to 50 groups, so you can have quite a selection.  Always look at the group description first, how many members are in the group, and how active it is to make the right selections for you.  To your job search and career success!

Job Search Quotes of the Week!

"A goal should scare you a little and excite you a lot."

Joe Vitale

"The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on 

fighting the old, but on building the new."

Socrates

New Year, New Job?

It's a common practice - a new year brings the desire to change jobs.  If you have decided to hunt for a new job in 2016, let's get our job search house in order:

1)  Update your resume and make sure there is appropriate detail.  A resume is not a duties and responsibilities document - but a marketing document.  Tell the potential employer the successes you have had in your current and past jobs, and be sure to include appropriate key words and key phrases to your career target.  Also, don't fall for the one-page myth.  A two or three-page resume is fine, and is what most jobseekers will have after they have been in the workforce for a few years.  Your experience, education, professional development, technical/computer profile, and professional and civic involvement warrants a depth of information.

2)  Consider more than one resume.  You are not a one-trick pony and most likely have two or three different career types your can pursue.  Don't try to make one resume fit two or three career choices. Instead, tailor a resume and cover letter to each career type to ensure your career marketing documents work for you and not against you.

3)  Use job board aggregators, not single job boards.  Indeed.com and LinkUp.com are my two favorites.  Why search ten different job boards when you can search thousands at a time.  Sign up with just an email and a list of job titles (you may have two or three searches per site depending on your career choices) and let these sites do the search for you and send you a digest of new jobs that posted daily.  Then you can go direct to the company or recruiter site and apply for your job at the source.

4)  Set a specific amount of time for your job search and plan it into your schedule every week.  If you do not make time for your job search, and just work on it when you feel like it, you will have a long job search indeed and typically get very little done.

5)  Set up or update your LinkedIn profile, including a professional picture, and completed profile. You can make your updates private so they don't show to your connections unless they go directly to your profile page (just go to the Privacy and Settings area).  Once your profile is up to date, target individuals from the organizations you have the most interest in and recruiters in your field(s) of expertise.

6)  Keep at it, a job search is not a short race, but a marathon.  That new job could be just around the corner, so don't give up.

To your job search and career success!

Changing Careers: Is it really the career causing the problem?

Before you change careers assess why you might want a change.  Often it isn't a change of career that is necessary.  Here are some questions you can ask about where the dissatisfaction exists:

--Do you like your current company?

--Do you like your current boss?

--Do you like your current fellow employees?

--Is there an issue in your home life affecting your work?

--Do you like your daily work?

--Do you like the potential of working at a job related to your current career?

--Do you prefer to work alone, in a team, or a bit of both?

Frequently a person wants to change careers when the issue is the company the work for, the boss (one of the most common reasons), or fellow employees and their actions.  You must first analyze whether your unhappiness is truly with the career or another reason.  Sometimes the motivation has nothing to do with work, and is something happening in your personal life.  If, after evaluating the above, you determine the reason is still the work, then you need to ask yourself if you might like a related career,  something different within your current company (maybe you aren't challenged anymore in your current role), or if you are working within an environment that isn't ideal?  Too many people have changed careers when the real issue was something else entirely.  Make sure you investigate all the possibilities before reaching a decision.  To your career success!

How Long Does It Take To Find A New Job

We have all heard it from someone who recently lost their job “Oh, I should have a new job in a couple of months.”  Unfortunately this is rarely the reality.  While I certainly know individuals who have found a new job quickly (two months or less) after being laid off, that is not the case for most job hunters.  Even a job hunter who is currently employed, a much better situation for a job search, will take longer than two months.    

So how long should it take?  Although giving a number can be a bit of a challenge, I have found the common belief that for every $10,000 of income you want to earn, you will spend at least one month looking, is a nice rule.  If you want to earn $40,000 a year, then expect at least four months in a job search.  The more you earn, the longer it will take to find that new job.  Giving someone in a job search this data can be a bit depressing, so I offer a little additional advice.  If you want to have a faster job search, then network both in person and online, apply for jobs that you are qualified to pursue (not every job that strikes your fancy), and search five days a week using job board aggregators, networking contacts, job fairs, and other venues.  My last bit of advice:  don’t allow every rejection to turn your world upside down.  Since it has been reported that the average jobseeker interviews with 16 different companies before getting a job, you will most likely be turned down for few positions.  Maintaining a positive attitude throughout the job hunt will increase your success.  

Keeping Track of Your Job Search

Have you ever experienced that awkward moment of getting a call from a potential employer, and you didn't remember applying to the company?  This is actually a very commonplace issue.  Up to 60% of companies either start interviewing or finally fill their job requisition three months of more after first posting it online.  Why you say?  It's a simple matter of money and/or time.  First, if a company waits longer to fill a position, they save thousands of dollars for those months the requisition remains open.  Second, if they are inundated with work already, it often takes that long to do resume review, phone interviews, in person interviews, second interviews, make a decision, send the offer letter, and get the new employee on board.

As a jobseeker, you need a simple way of tracking your applications, and I recommend keeping a Job Search Notebook.  Any three ring binder you have around your house with sufficient room for lots of papers will do!  With this handy little tool you can keep track of the following:

--Each company/organization you applied to and a copy of their job advertisement.

--The tailored/personalized resume and cover letter you used to apply - please take this version to the interview, not a generic version (or worse yet, one with another company's information). 

--Date of application OR date of handoff/email of resume to a networking contact or recruiter for forwarding to HR or another company contact.

--Date of application confirmation.

--Company research (never apply to a company you haven't researched, this way you can give a complete answer to the question:  "tell us what you know about our organization?")

--Communications from the company (still in consideration, rejection email/letter, additional questions).

--Date of phone interview.

--Notes from the phone interview.

--Date of in-person interview.

--Notes from the in-person interview.

--Thank you note written to the interviewers.

--Follow up information.

--Contact information, including names, email addresses, and phone numbers.

Now, when you get that call two, three, or even four months after applying, there is ample documentation for you to refer to, and refresh your memory for, a good phone or in-person interview.   Try the Job Search Notebook idea, as it will keep you organized, and avoid the embarrassment that comes with not remembering where you applied.  To your job search success!

ONET – The Career Exploration Resource

If you are looking to change careers, have never known what you truly want to do for your career, or know a high school student deciding on a college major to pursue, then ONET http://www.onetonline.org/ is your source.  We all realize to make a truly good decision, it is all about the data, and you can gather a great deal of that data for a career path determination on the ONET site.

Whether you search by an SOC code (Standard Occupational Classification) or a job title, an impressive summary of over 12,000 different job types awaits.  From the knowledge, skills and abilities needed for a specific job, to expected salary, related professions, and typical education needed, it is your go-to research resource.

Give ONET a try and discover a wealth of information concerning your next career.