Wednesday, August 04, 2010

I Got a Contact Name. Now What???

People often tell me they were on LinkedIn, or went to a networking group, or met someone when they were out-and-about and got a name of a potential contact for their job search, but don’t know how to reach them.

“What good is the name without their phone number or email address? It doesn’t do me much good if I can’t connect with them!”

It’s great if you are given a phone number and/or email address with a name, however, with a little creativity and initiative you can certainly find other ways to get in touch. Here are some ideas and techniques to make those connections:

~ Call the main number! Often people forget the simplest and most obvious solution to getting in touch with a new contact… call the company and ask for them! It’s ideal to have a direct-line phone number to the person you’re trying to reach. However, if you don’t, it’s generally pretty easy to find the main company phone number (either from their website online, a phone book, or calling 411), call and ask for the person by name. Generally a phone receptionist won’t put you through to anyone if you ask a general question like “May I speak to the Accounting Manager, please?” However, if you ask for someone by name, they will always put you through. Even if the person works at another company facility than the one you are calling, they generally have the overall company directory and can put you directly through to that person. Call and ask for them by name.

Additionally, if you call after business hours, many companies have an automated answering system with a company directory that will often tell you the extension of the person you are trying to connect to. That’s often a great way to gain the direct-line number of someone.

~ Google! As with so many things… Google is a tremendous resource to find contact information. More than half of the time I'm trying to find contact information, I’m able to do it by searching their name and company name through Google. If, for example, I’m trying to find John Mansky at XYZ Company… I simply search: "John Mansky” “XYZ Company”

I make sure to put his name in quotes to avoid unwanted results like John Smith and Bill Mansky

Scanning down the list of results, I often find some document or site that has their phone number and/or email address. If there are too many results, I may try to narrow the search by trying his name with their web domain. For example: “John Mansky” “xyzco.com”

Their email address is likely to include their web domain, so if the address is “john.mansky@xyzco.com” the search is likely to find it.

If that doesn’t work, I may do a search to find ANY email address at that company to discover what their standard email format is. For example, I may simply search:
email “xyzco.com”

If someone else’s email address pops up that is in a format of 'firstname.lastname@xyzco.com’, for example, I know it’s a very high likelihood that my contact’s address is in the same format. If it’s wrong, their email server will simply bounce the email back to me and no one is the wiser. If it does bounce back, I simply try other common formats like:

firstinitiallastname@xyzco.com
firstname_lastname@xyzco.com
firstinitial_lastname@xyzco.com
…or other combinations.

~ Check emails4corporations! Another great resource to help you find the standard email format for the company where your contact is employed is emails4corporations. Someone has compiled a tremendous list of standard email formats for companies all over the country.

You can find them at: http://sites.google.com/site/emails4corporations

Enter the company name in the search box at the top right corner of the homepage and it will show you the company, email format, address, and phone number. It doesn’t cover every company, however, is a great help if yours is included.

~ Try JigSaw.com! JigSaw.com is probably the worlds largest ‘Rolodex’. It includes the business card information of millions of people. It rarely lets me down and is the last resort resource for me when trying to find someone’s contact information. You can either use it by paying for the service, or for free on a give & take point system. So it take a little money or some effort on your part. However, for me as a recruiter, or you as a job seeker, I believe it’s a very worthwhile resource when you need contact information you can’t seem to find anywhere else.

~ Paid Services. Certainly there are a number of additional paid services (Spoke, ZoomInfo, and others) available online that can provide the information for you as well, however, I’m generally a big fan of “FREE”. It’s pretty rare that I can’t find someone’s contact information through one of the means listed above. Try those and then depending on how badly you need it, a paid service may be worth it.

Generally, I don’t recommend contacting someone directly through LinkedIn’s system. Many people receive a lot of communications through there and have become conditioned to treat them like Spam. It’s generally best to reach them by phone, a professional voicemail, or email first. However, if none of those works, as a last resort, you have nothing to lose by trying the LinkedIn contact system as well.

As always, make sure your communication is professional, well prepared, and succinct!
You can gain more help with that by reading Keys to a great email in your job search! or What to do in an effective networking call!

Be creative, take the initiative, and find the way to connect with those job search contacts!

Author:

Harry Urschel has over 20 years experience as a technology recruiter in Minnesota. He currently operates as e-Executives, writes a blog for Job Seekers called The Wise Job Search, and can be found on Twitter as @eExecutives.


View the Original article

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

10 Confidence Boosting Tips for Interviewers

Job interviews can be intimidating and nerve-racking in a crippling way. But allowing your personality to show through –even if you’re faking it—is the only way to take charge of your interview and have any hope of landing the job. No matter what kinds of qualifications you have, employers want to sit down with an individual who can conduct themselves professionally and charismatically, and if you can’t even hold yourself together to keep up your side of the conversation, you may go unnoticed altogether. Instead, prepare to manage the interview session in a way that puts you in control and limits any awkward moments. Here are 10 confidence-boosting tips to help you do just that.

1. Understand the importance of an in-person interview. An interview is your opportunity to brand yourself in front of your potential boss and really lay down the line for how you’d like to be treated in the office. Don’t come across as cocky, but understand that acting meek and embarrassed during your interview will immediately make your boss feel like he or she can get away with dictating your every move.

2. Smile the very first chance you get. A warm, natural smile exudes confidence and sets the tone for a professional but friendly encounter.

3. Practice your handshake. A good handshake can be exhilarating and empowering, but an awkward fumbling or weak handshake dashes any hope of a dazzling first impression. Practice ahead of time so that it comes naturally.

4. Research the company. Be ready to talk about the company and position you’re applying for by doing a little web research ahead of time.

5. Come with questions. If you have a list of questions to ask, you’ll be ready in case of an awkward silence.

6. Realize that they probably already like you. The very fact that you’re even sitting in the interview seat means that someone liked your resume and believed you’d make a good candidate for the job.

7. Dress professionally. Wear something that makes you look professional and neat but is still comfortable. Something that’s too tight or too bulky will make you feel uneasy. A good tip is to wear something you’ve already worn few times, so you won’t be caught off guard by any wardrobe malfunctions.

8. Sit up straight. You want to appear alert and confident, so sit upright in your chair with your hands folded. Leaning back to far will make you appear arrogant, while hunching over will make you seem nervous and self-conscious.

9. Value the opportunity for what it is. The more you value the interview as its own learning experience and opportunity to practice your interviewing your skills, the more natural and confident you’ll feel asking questions and talking with the interviewer.

10. Review your resume. You may take it for granted that you know everything on your resume since it’s your experience, but understand that all the questions your interviewer will have for you are going to come directly from that resume. Take a few minutes to look over the skills and experience you’ll be expected to discuss.

Guest Expert:

Rose Jensen writes about the best online universities. She welcomes your feedback at Rose.Jensen28@yahoo.com.


View the Original article

Monday, August 02, 2010

How to Apply Perfectionism to Your Career and Life

In business school, if not earlier, we've all learned about Maslow's Hierarchy of Human Needs, and we've been told that what's called "self-actualization" is the highest, or rather, most pressing human need, on which all other "lower" needs serve as only building blocks. While Maslow's theories have earned their fair share of criticism, I'd like to defer instead to a broader set of ideas in moral philosophy collectively called "perfectionism" and then discuss how these ideas can be successfully implemented in your daily life as well as your career.

I'm sure we've heard our friends, family, or perhaps even ourselves referred to as "perfectionists," with little thought to what that may actually mean. The image of the perfectionist in modern society is often marred with a hint of criticism. We think of perfectionists as compulsive, almost neurotic. This image should perhaps be more rightfully attributed to a person who struggles with some form of obsessive compulsive disorder, and it is not the image to which I am referring when I say "perfectionist." To give you a basic idea of perfectionism as a philosophy, Wikipedia offers the following: "…perfectionism is the persistence of will in obtaining the optimal quality of spiritual, mental, physical, and material being." Sounds tough, huh? Impossible, you say? Well of course, attaining perfection is certainly not possible in one lifetime, but a philosophical perfectionist completely understands this. The key word here is "persistence."

Of course, what counts as perfection will inevitably be based on what an individual values most, but in terms of your career, perfectionism is simply striving to do your very best, every single day, no matter what the size or import of your task at hand is. Surely, the bigger picture does matter, but the successful completion of the optimal life is all in the small things. The devil may be in details, as they say, but so is god, the personal god in each of us that longs to order our lives by standards of excellence.

Although it can be difficult to appreciate the necessity of doing the small things right, I usually defer to my favorite sport, golf. When I focused too much on the outcome of the total score—I'd constantly be adding up figures as I'd step up to the tee box—I'd get hung up on the big picture, and my final score would suffer. However, one day I tried something different. I focused on only each single shot, and told myself that this one shot was the only shot I'd have to take. When I placed greater importance on individual shots—on the small things—I noticed I was doing better on each hole. Still I didn't add up scores. I just marked the number of shots per hole, threw the scorecard back in my bag and moved on. By the time I finished up on the eighteenth hole, I had tallied the totals and—not kidding—it was the best round in my life.

In the final analysis, perfectionism is not an end goal, but a state of mind. If you strive for a systematic approach to perfection, one that keeps in mind the details with a steady, reasonable approach to the big picture, then you will find that unexpected aspects of your life—career and personal—will begin to fall into place as if by magic.

Guest Expert:

Angela Martin writes on job search topics at Job Search Websites. She welcomes your comments at her email angela.martin77@gmail.com.


View the Original article

Sunday, August 01, 2010

Body Language: Be Careful What You Don't Say

What your body language says is often more important than what you say verbally, especially when the two conflict. When they’re in sync, your movements are a reflection of what you’re thinking and what you’re feeling: your conscious and your unconscious. But when they aren’t, the unconscious prevails.
Why? Because while people will make themselves conscious of their words, few are conscious of their feelings and how that translates into body language, much less what that body language is saying. And in an interview, that can result in sending a message opposite what you intend.

A person who was recently fired or laid off is a good example of this dichotomy, especially when the termination takes place for reasons that have little to do with any situation the individual instigated. You did nothing to cause the severance, but you feel responsible anyway.

Since few job seekers know how to put a termination in perspective and handle it appropriately, it comes out how they move and how they conduct themselves. Almost every action is an apology. You knock gently on the door when the administrative assistant says, “Mr. Jackson can see you now.” You not only ask permission to sit, but you ask which chair. You either over explain or under answer.

Instead of speaking smoothly in a relaxed manner, your voice is too loud or can’t be heard. You say “um” or “ah” at the beginning and in the middle of your sentences. Everything about you screams insecure, even though you’re managing to articulate your accomplishments.

The result is that the hiring authority is puzzled as to how you managed to achieve so much, when your manner isn’t conducive to making things happen. It leaves him with a question about you. Hiring authorities don’t like to be left with questions; they want to be 100% confident of who they hire. So you’re out of the picture.

But this conflict doesn’t only occur with those have been dismissed by their employer. It can also happen when someone doesn’t have a degree, but has excelled in their career and frequently ends up competing with those who do. Or when you’ve been unemployed a long time, and you really need a job. Or if you’ve had your eye on being part of this company and finally you’ve snagged an interview. Or if you’re just plain insecure.
There’s a plethora of articles that list hundreds of body language cues you should pay attention to. But that’s like trying to learn the different interview styles and how to respond to each one. It’s a waste of time. You’ll spend so much time trying to remember what to do, how to do it, when to do it, if what you’re doing is correct or not, that it becomes difficult to focus on selling yourself and learning if the company is compatible with who you are and what you want.

It starts with your head. If you don’t feel confident, then stop thinking you aren’t. Find the reasons why you’re an asset to a company. List your skills and contributions. Put together a sales pitch on yourself, and then take it to heart. Actions mirror thoughts and thoughts mirror actions. When you’re thinking confidently, you behave confidently and vice versa.

At the same time, you can program one to follow the other. Pay attention to yourself, what you’re feeling and what’s going on around you. If you notice yourself shuffling in through the company door, pick your head up, put a smile on your face, and walk into the office as if you belong there, because you do. You have an interview, and they’re expecting you.
An interview is a sales presentation. You’re the product, and the hiring authority is the buyer. If you’re communicating that you’re not good enough to be hired, why would a company think differently?

Guest Expert:

Judi Perkins, the How-To Career Coach, was a recruiter for 22 years, consulting with hundreds of hiring authorities throughout the hiring process. She’s seen over 500,000 resumes, knows how hiring authorities think and how they hire. As a result she understands and teaches what other coaches don’t: why the typical strategies in finding a job so often fail, what to do instead, and why. She’s been on PBS’s Frontline, will be in the May issue of Smart Money magazine, and has been quoted frequently in numerous articles for CareerBuilder, MSN Careers, Yahoo Hot Jobs, and the New York Times, among others. She’s also been featured as an expert in numerous career books. Sign up for her free newsletter at http://www.findtheperfectjob.com/!


View the Original article