12 Ways to Speed Up Your Job Search

12 Ways to Speed Up Your Job Search Finding a job can take a long time, even when you do everything right on your end. This becomes painfully obvious at times when you have to wait for an employer to sort through information they collected from your resume, get back test scores and go through multiple interviews. Luckily, there are ways to expedite the process, at least when it comes to your own side of the equation. If you play your cards right, you can move the process along. Here are 12 great tips that can help you speed up your job search: 1) Apply  as soon as possible: Dont procrastinate or wait to apply for an opportunity youre interested in. Apply as soon as possible, which in most cases should be when you find the job posting. According to a 2011 study by StartWire, 50 percent of new hires had applied within the first week a job offer had been posted. Just imagine, that study is outdated now and the job market is much tougher. There are more people out there looking for work, which means youll have to work harder to land something. 2) Be consistent and dont give up: You may end up searching for a long time, but dont let that get you down. Remain consistent and dont give up. Continue your search, and continue applying to opportunities in droves. Attend as many interviews â€" in person or via Skype â€" as it takes. You may have to give up some of your precious personal time, but it will pay off and save you time down the road. 3) Practice makes perfect:   Even if you absolutely bomb an interview, you still learn something from the experience. When it comes to interviewing with potential employers, practice makes perfect and the more experience you have, the better. That doesnt mean you should enter an interview expecting to fail. Be prepared, and be sure to study beforehand. Do your best to ace the interview, even if you dont feel confident about it. Practice interview questions and explore potential topic discussions, wear the appropriate attire and be sure to thank the interviewer when its all over. 4) Introduce yourself and contact the appropriate parties: Your best bet is to find the name and email of the hiring manager and send a greeting to them specifically. If you find that difficult, find your next best option, such as a shift manager or comparable member of management. Its a great idea to do this before you turn in your resume. When you make contact, introduce yourself and do a brief sales pitch for yourself. 5) Put together a cover letter:   Always include a compelling cover letter with your resume. Try to remember that you should never just rehash your resume and call it a day. This is where you can take your experience and explain its relevance to a potential employer. You can also provide insight into employment gaps and careers changes, along with plans for the future. Most employers will want to know more about you than a list of previous experience and work. The cover letter is where you can show some of your personality. 6) Respond to emails and phone calls ASAP: Communication is important, but perhaps more important is reliability. Follow up with any and all connections in a timely fashion. Dont burn any bridges, and dont waste time when it comes to responding to messages. 7) Take advantage of social networking: During your networking, if you encounter someone that promises to introduce you to a potential employer, take full advantage of it. In turn, this means being ready at the drop of a hat. Have your resume, cover letter, headshot and personal pitch ready to go. Its not bad to rely on friends, family or previous colleagues to get you into a job â€" if they can truly help. Always be ready to pass out contact information and a brief sales pitch, which should hopefully be passed on to the right people. 8) Create a portfolio or professional website:   Depending on what field youre shooting for, youll want to set up a portfolio or professional website. A portfolio allows creative folks to share previous work. This is where freelancers and designers can show off published content, media or other creative works. If you dont work in a creative industry, then go with a professional website instead. Here, you can showcase your online resume, social network links, a blog and much more. The idea is to build up your character and provide an interesting backstory. More importantly, you want to ensure that backstory and content is relevant to a potential employer. 9) Look everywhere:   The Internet has made us all extremely lazy, and we owe it all to search engines. When it comes to looking for jobs, there are dozens of job search engines like Monster, Indeed and many more. Those are the obvious places to look, but dont stop there.   LinkedIn is obviously a good place to network, but did you know that 89 percent of recruiting professionals in a Jobvite survey say they have hired from the site? Be sure to actively use LinkedIn as a job search tool by maintaining your resume and publishing your thoughts to establish yourself in the industry. Staying on top of your social accounts is crucial, especially if you work in a field that requires social media experience. Don’t stop there; visit websites and blogs of companies youre interested in working for. Visit â€" in person â€" local businesses that could be a great opportunity, or call them on the phone. Scan the classifieds for work, online and off. Just make sure you broaden your horizons by searching in as many places as possible. 10) Use a good headshot: No, you dont need to run out and hire a professional photographer to get a good shot of your mug. That said, you want to have a professional-looking headshot or photo available. This image can be used for contact info pages, social media profiles and accounts, Google+ and Gmail profile pics, and much more. Youll get bonus points if you can get a creative or unique shot that gets others to remember your face. 11)  Dont forget to follow up: No matter what happens â€" even if youre told you didnt qualify or were dropped from a candidate list â€" always follow up. Thank contacts for consideration, and request that they keep your information for future openings. You never know who is going to help you find work in the future. Not to mention, no one likes a poor sport. 12)  Recruiters can help: For many people, there seems to be a stigma with asking for help, especially when it comes to finding work. Dont be afraid to get aid from recruiters. They can help you find excellent job opportunities at places you may have never even considered otherwise. They can also help you spruce up your resume and clean up your act, where applicable. Following these tips should help move your job search along, so you can hopefully land your ideal position that much sooner. Author: Sarah Landrum is a freelance writer and career blogger sharing advice on finding happiness and success in the work world. You can find her dishing out advice with a side of wit on Twitter @sarahlandrum and her career advice blog,  Punched Clocks. Image credit: #Speed202

What Can the Best Resume Writing Chicago Companies Do For You?

What Can the Best Resume Writing Chicago Companies Do For You?The best resume writing Chicago firms can provide is first of all they should offer you as much assistance in the hiring process as possible. Their first priority is to ensure that your resume gets printed out and is seen by their company's clients. Then it should be researched, looked at, and if necessary, rewritten or modified to help you land the job.Adobe jobs is always the best. You should always go with the programs that are most compatible with your type of writing. Some tools allow you to work online and some allow you to work locally while a third tool lets you work both ways.Professional resume writers have a way of making their job easier. They can figure out exactly what you need to put on your resume, and it will be made for you.Don't be shy when writing your resume. If it was one thing that I could say is 'Write Your Resume and Keep It.' It's very easy to get caught up in the technical stuff and forget about what it's really about: what you have to offer them in the job. That's not so hard to do, but you must keep reminding yourself that it's supposed to be for you.There is no such thing as a bad time to take the initiative and rewrite your resume. Now, I'm not saying you should do it all the time. But it can be very important to some people to know that their resumes are being looked at and are getting consideration from other companies that may be interested in making an offer. So make sure you take every opportunity to do that.Also, don't overlook the fact that people can be moved in their careers. Moving down a level in the organization can open up positions that can really change the direction of the company. It can give you the opportunity to move up within the company and to see a new thing on the horizon.People aren't going to hand you the keys to career opportunities that may be waiting for you just around the corner. There is no other reason why a company should ever pass over you, because of a first come first serve system.The goal of your job search is to get hired and to be hired, so take advantage of every advantage. You want the company that you're working for to be willing to give you an opportunity. Once you get there, you will be prepared to go and to be a serious candidate in the field you want to work in.

Your Social Media Accounts Clean Them Up Before Job Hunting or Leave Them As-Is - CareerEnlightenment.com

The verdict: When recruiters try to evaluate a candidate’s personality through social media, they might be turned off by a profile with no personality. If you’re applying for jobs with certain companies or in creative industries, make sure that your profiles maintain some personal flavor. The picture of you at a wedding, standing with friends and holding a glass of champagne, shouldn’t be a problem. That video of you vomiting in the bushes after a frat party? Definitely hit “delete.”Finding the Right BalanceBefore applying for a job, review your social media profiles, and keep the following tips in mind:Use privacy settings, but remember that they’re imperfect. To be safe, never post a photo that you absolutely wouldn’t want a future employer to see. Social networks change their privacy settings all of the time, and your supposedly private photos could end up embarrassing you.Know what might be considered questionable in your industry. If you’re applying for a job as a political consultant, don’t bother deleting political posts that express your positions as long as they display good taste. Do delete profanity, references to illegal drugs, racist or discriminatory comments, evidence of illegal activity or anything that suggests you lack good judgment.Be yourself. If something you’ve posted is integral to who you are and you feel that taking it down would compromise your authentic values, leave it alone. A company that would reject you for the post might not be a place you’d want to work anyway. Alternatively, a company that sees your authentic personality and likes it could be the perfect workplace for you.The TakeawayTake the time to clean up your social media presence. It could be the difference between earning a steady paycheck and sitting at home spending too much time on Facebook.

96 Shivani Gopal - The Remarkable Woman - Jane Jackson Career

96 Shivani Gopal - The Remarkable Woman - Jane Jackson Career I recently read  an article in the Sydney Morning Herald and was intrigued by the story featuring  Shivani Gopal who has started a movement called The Remarkable Woman. I found her story so fascinating that I was compelled to contact her for an interview. This episode is an exciting one, especially for women!Shivani Gopal is an Australian Business Woman and Entrepreneur, who is leading the charge for female business networking events with her new social enterprise, The Remarkable Woman, which is guaranteed to shake up the way in which women connect and empower themselves and one another.Shivani sees The Remarkable Woman as an evolution of women’s networking business, by taking the extra step to provide the necessary support to ensure its members are truly in the drivers’ seat steering their life towards their desired destination.After many years struggling for equality as a female within the male-dominated Financial Services Industry, Shivani was accustomed to facing discriminati on because of her gender, and because of her cultural background as a Fiji-born Indian Australian.Shivani’s fire to inspire women was ignited several times throughout her career with several unfortunate incidents highlighting the need for mentoring and empowerment for women in the workplace.She says she was born into a culture where the norm for women is to study, get married and have babies and pursuing a career and choosing to put motherhood on hold was not encouraged.Let’s find out about Shivani’s career journey and how The Remarkable Woman is empowering women to become all they are meant to be!Where to find Shivani:Website:  www.theremarkablewoman.com.auFacebook:  @theremarkablewomanTwitter: @beremarkable_au

Get a job using Twitter -

Get a job using Twitter - Research shows employers benefit from using social media to attract candidates. According to Jobvites 2013 Social Recruting Survey, 94 percent of recruiters use or plan to use social media to hire, and 49 percent of them assert that they’ve found better-quality candidates via social recruiting. Jobvite is a consulting firm that studies how employers source and hire candidates. While it may seem obvious to job seekers to turn to LinkedIn, the go-to professional network, for job search activities and to apply for positions, some companies are accessing channels like Twitter to recruit. Recently, the global IT provider HCL Technologies completed a three-week Twitter recruitment campaign called #COOLESTINTERVIEWEVER, during which HCL human resources executives conducted a series of interviews exclusively over Twitter. Get my free white paper:  5 Mistakes Preventing You From Landing a Job This Week   Candidates in more than 62 countries from India to the U.S. participated in the interviews, and the company is selecting five of them to evaluate for the final slot. HCL will offer the winning candidate an opportunity to work on a year-long strategic project with the company’s top management. Prithvi Shergill, chief human resources officer at HCL Technologies, offers some tips for engaging with employers on Twitter â€" many of which serve as lessons for traditional in-person interviews as well. 1. Stand out. During HCL Technologies’ #COOLESTINTERVIEWEVER campaign, more than 88,000 tweets employed the hashtag, yielding more than 266,000 retweets and subsequent conversations across different social channels. Due to the sheer volume of tweets and participants (at its peak the hashtag was trending in 19 cities), it’s important to make yourself stand out so that the person on the other end of the computer has a reason to remember you. One way many candidates helped themselves stand out was by engaging before and after interview questions had been asked. They took the time to share their enthusiasm for the campaign and shared bits of their personality by sharing photos, writing poems or other creative tactics to ensure that they would stand out. 2. Perfect your elevator pitch. During a Twitter interview, you only have 140 characters to communicate your skills and areas of expertise. While it may seem like an impossible task, it forces you to succinctly describe yourself. This can help in all interviews, whether they are via Twitter, Web chat, over the phone or in person. 3. Focus on relevant skills. The most successful way to do this is to feature skills and expertise that are most relevant to the job to which you are applying. In a case like a Twitter interview campaign, where you are up against thousands of other applicants, remember to highlight what makes you stand out. 4. Be human. Remember that you’re interacting with a person. During the #COOLESTINTERVIEWEVER, HCL employees, not computers with auto-responses, were engaging with participants in real time. While it’s important to answer the questions required, it’s also important to show a little bit of your personality. Not only do you want to show that you’re qualified for the job, but demonstrate how you’d be a good fit for that company’s culture. 5. If at first you don’t succeed, tweet, tweet again. Persistence also pays off. Avoid spamming the company on Twitter, but don’t give up. Some of the standout candidates from HCLs campaign participated much longer than they were required to by sharing their enthusiasm for the campaign and HCL. Just like in a standard job interview, it’s important to show a certain level of enthusiasm for the company for which you’re interviewing and demonstrate your interest to help you stand out. Get my free white paper:  5 Mistakes Preventing You From Landing a Job This Week   Some of the candidates who stood out the most were those who continued to interact with the hashtag even when questions weren’t actively being asked, helping to demonstrate their interest in the company and the campaign. 6. Have fun. More companies may be looking for candidates on social media platforms because they know it’s a successful way to reach creative individuals who are willing to try new things. Not only are they looking for qualified candidates, but they’re also looking for personalities who match their company’s innovative and fast-paced environment.

5 Ways to Make a Business Resume That Makes a Resume Stand Out

5 Ways to Make a Business Resume That Makes a Resume Stand OutOne of the best methods to making a business resume is to put together a practical and working resume which will help to get the attention of potential employers. One way to work on a resume that will stand out is to think about how a person would describe themselves on a resume. You can start by including the following elements on your business resume:* Professional and Resume History of Your Work Experience: This portion of your resume should describe all the experiences, promotions, certifications, or accomplishments of a person that you worked with in the past. You can include the following elements in this section of your resume: * Recent awards and recognitions * Presentation Skills * Special skills that can be used in the present * Skills to assist with a current position * Skills that will aid in getting you to the next level of your job search. It is very important to give a full and accurate description of the wo rk that you have done.* Your Experiences: This section of your resume should tell the employer about your previous work experiences. For example, it is common for a person to work in several different industries in a period of time. You can include this section of your resume, as well as your training, experience, and certifications. It is common for a person to complete an apprenticeship in order to get more experience.* Employment Record: This part of your resume should describe all of the jobs you have worked for, the position you have held, and the type of job that you were hired for. It is also good to list any education that you have received that relates to the job for which you are applying.* Educational Background: Your educational background should be a major part of your resume. If you have been educated in college and have been going back to school to improve your skills and knowledge, this can be an advantage to employers. You can include a course description to tell th e employer the name of the class, when it was taken, and what was learned in it. You should also include your transcript from your education.* A Particularized Knowledge of Your Own Business: This part of your resume should discuss how you came to become interested in a particular type of business or have an interest in that business. It should also talk about the skills that you will need to get the position that you are applying for. It is common for a person to have several degrees, certifications, as well as have prior work experience with the job in question.* Aspects of Previous Work Experience: This part of your resume should talk about the successes, or failures, of the positions that you have held in the past. If you are currently working as a computer repair technician or some other similar job, you should talk about the difficulties you have had with your current employer, as well as the advantages that you have found. It is also good to give a brief description of how yo u would benefit from working at a specific organization.

The Debate Over Skills for Technical Writing Resume

The Debate Over Skills for Technical Writing Resume Finding Skills for Technical Writing Resume Online No matter where you include your skills section on your resume, you can be sure that the hiring manager will find it and definitely likely to ask about doing it. 3 First, you have to pick the best skills for your resume. Make certain your resume looks clean. Skills for Technical Writing Resume at a Glance Technical writing has at all times been an essential part of the product lifecycle. It Writing Many jobs that involve written communication require you to explain complex things in a way that is easy to understand. Technical skills are either something you've got or you don't, but they're always something which you're able to learn. Technical documentation is made for users of some item or support. Hard skills aren't skills that are tough to learn. They are quantifiable and often learned from school or on the job. Different soft abilities or non-tech skills might als o be required. Hard abilities, also called employability skills or technical abilities, can be quantified by your degree of expertise in the topic or years of experience working with a particular technique or program. Done correctly, it will help you acquire the job. You might need to change the skills you list based on the responsibilities of the job. For more specific technical jobs based on a specific skill, it is a lot simpler to demonstrate. You need to understand how to include technical skills on your resume if you'd like to make the most of your odds of getting hired. Skills for Technical Writing Resume and Skills for Technical Writing Resume - The Perfect Combination When creating an effective resume, you will need to understand how to compose a skills section as it is but one of the very first things a prospective employer will start looking for to find a fundamental comprehension of what you, as a possible employee, can bring to their company. You'll find more details on various sorts of skills for a resume in the previous section. If your work necessitates analysis, there are particular small business analysis technical skills you will want to showcase. Depending on the industr y you're in, you might need to possess technical skills that range from project management and data technology to data analysis and management. Like all skills, you've got to work on writing to acquire far better. Read through it a couple of occasions and you'll probably spot three or four essential skills mentioned repeatedly throughout the document. Thus when writing down your job skills take some time to strategize and find out the very best approach to organize them in your resume. Finally, you should have excellent writing skills.