Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Don’t Choke the ATS!
ATS, Resumes, Cover Letters, Strategies, Tactics
ATS,
Cover Letter Writing,
Resume Writing
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Utilize many tactics in your job search, not just one.
There are millions of job seekers
suffering with the search process today. Many, if not most, are spending the
majority of their time on job boards. If you are one of those using this
approach as your primary search tactic, you are probably wasting much of your
time. I'm not saying you can't find a job that way, but you need to realize the
probability of success is extremely low. But you certainly can and should use
job boards and company websites for research purposes.
If you are searching on company
websites, the probability of getting a job may be better, but is still very low.
The application process used by many companies includes the use of ATS software
designed to have a computer filter you out. Furthermore, you can get rejected
for things that have nothing to do whatsoever with the wonderful text you write
in your resume. Also, the process will usually require you to spend a lot of
time answering questions that are already on your resume. You may be asked to include
your salary expectations. If you refuse you probably will not be allowed to
proceed further. If you comply you may be
rejected for not fitting in a range the company wants you to be in. At the very
least you will be in a poor negotiating position if they want to make you an
offer.
Other search tactics should be used in your search and
a higher percentage of you time should be devoted to working them. For
instance, dedicated networking, properly executed is far better.
So is doing a superior job on
your LinkedIn profile and using LinkedIn as an inbound marketing tool. Setting your
profile up properly consumes comparatively little of your overall search time. The nice thing about it is that once done, you can allow it
to work for you as companies search for people with your skills and experience.
You only need to update it occasionally with improvements you think of.
Using external (3rd party) recruiters is also a better
approach, AS LONG AS you get connected with the right recruiter. You can learn how to make sure the recruiter
you are working with can really help you. There’s plenty to learn about how
external recruiters work and what to watch out for. But just don’t sit back and
think they are going to work for you full time. Quite the contrary is true! So
keep on using the other tactics in your toolbox.
The best tactic of all is talking to hiring managers
BEFORE you send in any documents. There are many techniques you can learn for
identifying potential hiring managers. You should learn how to cold-call. It is
not easy for many people but is a highly successful approach. How to cold-call
requires a lot of learning and practice in order to do it properly. But cold-calling
is the most rewarding, highest probability of success approach of all. And it
will differentiate you from your competition, which is an ideal situation for
you. If you have networked properly,
often cold-calling can be replaced by warm-calling.
It is said that nothing really worthwhile is easy.
Learn how to identify hiring managers and how to conduct cold-calls. You will
be way ahead of your competition. By the way, cold-calling technique is a skill
you can apply to many things in life besides job searching.
If you want help, I offer consulting service on all of the above search tactics.
If you want help, I offer consulting service on all of the above search tactics.
Get help with this and other topics by emailing me at kl@hoochresumes.com and by visiting http://www.hoochresumes.com. And add a comment if you like this post.
ATS, Resumes, Cover Letters, Strategies, Tactics
Search Execution Tactics
Monday, July 9, 2012
Make sure you want to work for a company before you apply to it.
The hiring authority surely will check you out
thoroughly. You owe it to yourself to vet them too.
If they are a publicly traded company there is a
strong chance you can find out lots of information about them. If they are
public but small there may not be a lot of information, but there are still ways to find out about them
even if they are a private company. LinkedIn is just one of them. Often
the company website is the place to start.
What should you want to know? Perhaps the first
question should be, “If I get the job, are they likely to be around for a while
or am I likely to be job searching again soon?” A close second might be
"What is the company culture like?" "Do people like working for
them?" Another is "Would I like working for them?"
Wouldn’t it be wise to learn what the hiring
manager is like? Find out how to identify the hiring manager and talk to that
person before you apply.
And there are many more questions of course:
Why is this position
open?
What is the most
significant problem you have to solve?
What are your three
most important goals to achieve this year?
What are
characteristics of the ideal employee in this position?
How will you measure
the performance of the person in this position?
Can I meet the other
employees I’ll be working most closely with?
Can I take a tour?
What are my opportunities for growth and
advancement within the company?
If I am the successful applicant, who will my
supervisor be?
What is the management style and culture of this
firm?
Can you tell me what you like best about
working for this company?
Is there anything you do not like about working
here?
What are the biggest challenges of this job?
What is the normal workweek?
And many more of particular interest to you.
Vet the company too. They will vet you. Links for assessing a company:
Make sure you are ready to make informed decisions, not uneducated mistakes.
http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html company 10K filings
http://money.msn.com/stocks/
research a stock
http://biz.yahoo.com/p/
list of industries and sectors
http://www.hoovers.com/
pay site- get private company info as well as public companyMake sure you are ready to make informed decisions, not uneducated mistakes.
Add a comment and get more job search help by visiting http://www.hoochresumes.com or by emailing me at kl@hoochresumes.com
ATS, Resumes, Cover Letters, Strategies, Tactics
Interviewing,
Job Search Strategy,
Search Execution Tactics
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I have spent a considerable amount of time researching this topic and have developed a set of rules I use in writing resumes that have a very strong chance of being compatible with the parsing inability of all ATS software applications. Applying my rules for writing resumes does not bypass ATS, but rather, it causes the resume to conform to the limited capabilities of ATS parsing software so that it is not rejected because of attributes in it.‘Attributes’ means formatting, graphics and even file types as opposed to the actual text in the document. And when the application process requires an ASCII text file, even those need to be edited to assure compatibility and proper parsing. I have developed rules for editing txt documents for ATS as well.
By investing my time in ATS research I have become a Subject Matter Expert on ATS parsing software. ATS software is developed and marketed by over 100 companies. Some of it is good and lots of it is bad. One only has to join some of the ATS groups on LinkedIn to see that every day many companies are searching for better ATS software.
at kl@hoochresumes.com or by visiting http://www.hoochresumes.com. And leave a comment if you like this post.