Professional Moms: How to Get Ready to Re-Enter the Workforce
Finally! Your youngest is in school and you are ready to hit the job market after an extended absence. As you scrape the last of the Fruit Loops from the kitchen table, you ponder a few unfortunate truths: ? Your network has gone stale ? Your industry contacts have moved on ? You are not in the loop anymore. Face the facts: you are at a disadvantage compared to those who have been in the job market continuously. You need a winning job search methodology to jump-start your career. Most job seekers use only one or two methods to cover the marketplace, and miss 75% of available opportunities. In order to get maximum exposure you will need to use multiple job search methods simultaneously. Let's get started! First, assess what you have to offer. Take a personal inventory of your: ? Knowledge ? Skills ? Accomplishments If you can't think of many accomplishments, ask those around you to give you feedback on your talents and abilities. Often those close to us are more aware of what we have to offer than we ourselves are. When you have completed your skill and accomplishment review, use the results to write a compelling resume that clearly shows your value to a potential employer. If you have been out of work for a while, you many be wondering if your skills are still relevant. You can burnish your resume by taking on some volunteer work in your area of expertise. Here's a great example. Is your niche public relations? There is bound to be a community group or local non-profit that would really benefit from having a professionally designed newsletter. Or, you could volunteer to serve as a media contact to publicize the organization's events. Is marketing your area of interest? Approach a local school and volunteer to design some marketing materials to promote their programs. Local organizations are hungry for talent. Only your imagination will limit what you can accomplish. While you are volunteering your skills, you will also be gaining exposure in the community, and you are likely to make a few contacts that can help you with your search. Those contacts will make valuable additions to your network. Think you don't have a network? Think again! Start with any people you know. Here are a few places to start: ? Organizations to which you belong ? Church ? PTA ? Sports leagues ? Voluntary associations Make a list of everybody you know. Ask those people whether they know anyone who has re-entered the workforce after a long absence. Talking to people who have done what you want to do will increase your confidence that you can do the same. Now you're moving! Next, you need to start thinking about where you would like to work. Mass mailing your resume is a waste of time and postage. What you need is exposure to the companies that can make the best use of your skills. Identify five of them and research them thoroughly. Decide where you could provide the most value in each company, and identify the decision maker who has the authority to hire you. Focus on the needs of each company; identify the relevant decision maker; and you position yourself ahead of those who limit themselves to the want ads and the Internet. You may even have an opportunity to create a position around your skills! When you reach a decision maker before an ad is published, you have obtained exposure that most will miss. Another method of increasing exposure is to search for spot opportunities. Follow the industry news, check company websites, and learn about new initiatives or changes that could affect the business climate. Armed with this knowledge you will appear well-informed to your potential employers. Informational interviews are another way of targeting areas where your skills might fit! Try approaching someone who is working in a job you think you would like, and ask them how they got their position, and if they could give you some advice on your job search. People will be amazingly helpful, especially when they can identify with you and your situation. When you have reached this point, your confidence will be increasing daily. By using multiple methods to approach the market, you are being exposed to opportunities that others can only wish for. You are making new contacts, learning more about the needs of companies, and identifying the individuals that have the power to hire you. You are ready to use your knowledge of the company's needs and your inventory of skills, abilities, and accomplishments to demonstrate your value to the organization in an interview. Sometimes all of this can seem overwhelming. If this is the case for you, you might want to consider hiring a professional to guide you in your search. But remember, you are not the first to be in this position. Others have successfully re-entered the job market after an extended absence, and you can too. Using multiple simultaneous methods to cover the entire market, and reaching decision-makers before an ad is published can be the key to your success no matter how long you have been out of work. Lynn Green is a Senior Consultant for R.L. Stevens & Associates Inc. http://interviewing.com/ For over 24 years R.L. Stevens & Associates has been the Nation's most successful privately-held firm, specializing in executive career searches generating quality interviews through both advertised and unadvertised channels.
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Why Choose A Professionally Written Resume? Good question, considering that nowadays you can find many useful resources to help you write your own resume (including many located at http://www.impressive-resumes.com). Dissatisfied With Your job? Stop Trying To Go It Alone! Being dissatisfied with your job is a cycle, a very long and undesirable cycle. Here's how it goes: How to Become a Real Estate Agent If you're wondering how to become a real estate agent, the basic process is fairly simple, although it does vary a lot from state to state.. You will need to take classes, pass exams, earn a real estate license, find a broker to work for, then find sellers or buyers as clients. Crafting A Stellar Career Summary For Your Resume Are you a career changer? Or, are you satisfied with your stable career but interested in updating your resume? Are you a professional who has tried different things but are still searching for the kind of work that best suits you? Whatever your career situation, what your resume most needs is a stellar career summary. Telecommuting Interview Tips Telecommuting Interview Tips- By Nell Taliercio Ten Things To Do If You Really, Really Hate Your Job 1. Begin focusing on what you want instead of how much you want to escape. When you find yourself sharing the latest horror story, stop in mid-sentence and say, "What I want to have is..." Want to Work for Yourself? Those Dream Jobs Dont Just Happen, Theyre Created While traveling in northern California last October, I happened to tune into a local newscast. The newscaster was telling his co-anchor that the speaker at that morning's Rotary Club meeting had to cut his presentation short because he was being flown down to Disneyland to carve elaborate Halloween pumpkins for the park festivities. The newscaster wrapped up the story with the familiar quip, "Nice work if you can get it." He got the first part right. For a creative kid-at-heart, being a professional pumpkin carver is a dream come true. It was his serendipitous "if you can get it" thinking that missed the mark. The fact is, people rarely "get" great work; they create it! Despite all the emphasis on growth in the "job sector" I am continually amazed at just how many fascinating alternatives there are to the whole 9-to-5 schtick. And just as traditional job seekers can't wait around for "Mr. Job" to knock on the door, people who want to do satisfying work ? and call their own shots ? need to be proactive as well. Francis Bacon defined a wise man as one who "makes more opportunities than he finds." Here's a couple of other wise entrepreneurs who made it by going for it. Sports-lover Don Shoenewald was just 18 when he went to the Philadelphia Eagles management wearing a homemade Eagle costume and asking for a mascot job. They weren't interested. Undaunted, Shoenewald kept showing up at Eagles football games. Pretty soon the fans adopted him as the unofficial (meaning, "unpaid") mascot. Thirteen paid team mascot jobs, four mascot character creations (including ones for the New Jersey Devils and the San Jose Sharks), and 18 years later, Shoenewald started Mascot Mania, the only professional training school for mascots in the world. Despite what your high school guidance counselor might have told you, showing up invited in a bird costume isn't the only route to self-employment. For Dan Zawacki it all began when he was working as a sales rep for Honeywell and decided to give away 120 live lobsters as gifts to his customers. Dan was so bowled over by the response that he decided to open a small side business shipping live lobsters complete with pot, crackers, butter and bibs to crustacean-lovers from coast-to-coast. That is until his boss heard him pitching Lobster Gram, Inc. on a local radio station and promptly fired him. In the beginning, Dan worked out of his bedroom, storing his lobsters in a used tank in his father's garage. His first year he netted only $4,000. Ten years later, his company sells about 9,000 lobster packages a year for $99 plus shipping. All and all, not a bad tale. If you dream of making the transition from employee to self-bosser, the first thing you need to do is belief that you can. Then, the next time you see some entrepreneur doing what they love, try thinking: "Nice work ? now, all I have to do is get it! Creating Traffic Jams It's hard to imagine why anyone would pick up a newspaper to find a job any more. With a seemingly endless array of career sites, mailing lists, corporate sites and newsgroups, job seekers have more options online than ever before. And the credit goes to the growth and advances in Information Technology (IT). What is a Career Anyway? A career is the sum total of all of your work-related contributions to society in a lifetime. This includes time and effort spent to provide goods, services, or benefit to others. A career includes paid, un-paid, volunteer, part-time, and full-time positions. Your career includes many life roles you may not think of: student, homemaker, babysitter, office worker, doctor, lawyer, etc. A career encompasses all the roles you play and duties you perform. You may have many jobs or positions that make up your career, but you only have one overall career. There are various career options in the modern world of work: Self-Employed, Organization Employed, or Project-Employed. Thankk-You Notes: An Integral Part of Your Career There is one little practice that is vital to generating the interest of potential employers. It is critical, but very few job seekers actually do it. 20 Ways to Advance Your Career To survive and thrive in today's competitive environment, it is not just what you know. You also need to be competent. You must stand out from the crowd - be memorable, impressive, credible, trusted and liked. How Much Can You Earn Working As A Proofreader? Thinking of a career as a proofreader? Then you will most likely want to know about salaries. Are you hoping to hear that you will make thousands and thousands of dollars a month in this field? It is very possible that you will barely make a few hundred when you are first starting out. There is no guarantee of a paycheck in this field. If you do not provide quality work, you probably will not have many clients returning for repeat work. Proofreading as a career is hard, but when you get in the door, you may do fairly well. Proof reader salaries are not glamorous, but they can be fairly good. Don?t Be Too Passionate About Your Work Of course, she then offered me a six-month process, costing thousands of dollars to get me back on track. However, I must say she was ethical in her approach and suggested I get a medical check up to rule out any physical or mental-health issues. Three Steps to Writing Your Own Resume While most professionals hire a professional resume writer, some draft their own resume. People who write a lot for business usually have more success in putting together a sharp, focused presentation; still, anyone can learn the basic steps to prepare his or her own resume. Conducting an Effective Interview An employment interview is a goal oriented conversation in which the interviewer and the applicant exchange information. Even though interviews are a poor selection tool for most jobs, they are often the primary method used in evaluating applicants. The main players in the job interview are the interviewer and the applicant. Three Tips for Successful Networking I generally shy away from using the word "networking" when it comes to our business. As professional "headhunters", we are constantly practicing and performing the art of networking in our daily operations. Many only consider the subject of networking when they are either seeking a new job or seeking new business opportunities. From our perspective, networking should be a daily event in your life. Networking is the art of building relationships that create benefit for yourself. Here are three tips to becoming a top notch "networker". Employment Under A Microscope A certain amount of oversight is involved in almost any job. The more important, the more highly skilled, the more successful the position, the lower the degree of oversight. At the bottom rung of the economic and social ladder - the laborers, the maids, the easily replaceable positions - the more watchful are the powers that be, the less secure are the workers, the more personally vulnerable are they to any mistakes made. Internships: Bonkers or Brilliant? I have something to say that's driving me batty. It's regarding graduates who fuss about not getting a job they like or not getting a job at all for that matter. Blah blah di blah? Career Searching: A Vision Without A Plan is a Hallucination Success is not always something you necessarily find when you arrive. It may be the journey that gets you there. Active Listening Skill Tips for Interviews During a job interview, a potential employer asks, "Can you take on more than one project at a time?" If you respond, "Yes," you may want to rethink that answer. According to Dynamic Listening: Interview Skills, a computer based training module from Mindleaders in Columbus, Ohio, you should avoid one-word or one-sentence answers. |
home | site map |
© 2008 |