The Ten-Minute Job Search
By Lisa Correu, Principal/Job Search Advocate AfterSchool Career Workshops
Looking for a job doesn’t always have to be an all-day, um, job. There are things you can do in just a few minutes that will take the edge off the anxiety when you might not have time for a deeper commitment. Here are five things to choose from that you can do in ten minutes to keep your momentum going.
Photo Courtesy of Jon Jordan
Are You Afraid of Employment?
By Lisa Correu, Principal/Job Search Advocate, AfterSchool Career Workshops
Are you derailing your career before it’s even begun? On the outside do you look like a gung-ho job seeker, sending out resumes, networking with a vengeance and plotting world domination while on the inside (and in reality) you’re hesitating, procrastinating and really only plotting your next Facebook post? It happens a lot more than you think and one reason can be sheer size of scope.
Using Action Verbs To Dress Up Your Resume
By Lisa Correu, Principal/Job Search Advocate, AfterSchool Career Workshops
Once there was a little sentence that no one noticed. It was bland and boring and sort of sad. It lay on a resume just hoping to be noticed. People read it and then went on with their lives, never remembering what it said or even who wrote it. It was a lonely little sentence and when it finally admitted it needed help (for admitting you need help is the first step) it went looking for an active verb or two to turn its life around. It discovered an active verb list in the land of Internet and began to add them to itself. It ventured out and invited more active verbs to join it.
Do Your Online Homework!
We are proud to debut a new blog series, "How I Stopped Worrying and Got the Job", guest posts from past workshop attendees, new acquaintances and other clever job seekers who used their noggins and landed their first job.
Jacklyn Cremer attended one of our first AfterSchool Career Workshops sessions and graduated from KU with a Bachelors in Marketing and now has a full-time job in account services at ER Marketing. More about her job search can be found at JacklynCremer.com. This is how she used the Internet to search more than job boards.
“You don’t stand a tinker’s chance of producing successful advertising unless you start by doing your homework. I have always found this extremely tedious, but there is no substitute for it. First study the product you are going to advertise. The more you know about it, the more likely you are to come up with a big idea for selling it.” – David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising.
As a marketer searching for a job, I was the product.
The hunt is about finding a job that really fits with what you want to do and will help you to reach your career goals. If you do your homework, then you will find a company, a job description, and a location that fits your interests and skills. When you know everything there is to know about the company and the position, it’s easy to let the company know that you are the right choice for the job!
Does Your Resume Bore Even You?
By Lisa Correu, Principal/Job Search Advocate, AfterSchool Career Workshops
How’s your resume? Have you read it, really read, it in the past month? If not, open it up and dust it off. A resume is a living document and should be reevaluated regularly. And if you're not getting the responses you expect from it this is definitely the time to examine the content.
Read it carefully and think about what you’ve learned in your job search since you created it, asking yourself these questions:
What If You Don’t Want a Job? (…Or Can’t Find a Job?) Consider Making Your Own.
By Kathryn Lorenzen, Principal/Career Development Coach
Not everyone is cut out to be an employee. Some people would rather gnaw off their own foot than sign on to someone else’s rules, mission, 
and payroll. They’d just feel too trapped or like they’d sold out.
And not everyone who wants a job upon graduation will be able to find one quickly. The unemployment rate for young adults age 20 to 24 is uncomfortably high (15.4%, by a recent government estimate, compared to 8.9% for the general population).
So, what’s the alternative? Since minimum-wage jobs will generally not allow you to be self-supporting, some new graduates make the decision to become entrepreneurs, providing a basic service to individuals or businesses. And some do quite well, thank you, as either a freelancer or a dedicated business.
What are the qualities that help you succeed if this is the road you choose, or that chooses you?
Know Your Industry And Impress Your Boss
By Lisa Correu, Principal/Job Search Advocate, AfterSchool Career Workshops
Are you up to speed on your industry? Do you know what the bigwigs are up to? If you want to catch the eye of your employer or interviewer and blow them away bring up current trends, recent market shifts or industry predictions and watch them melt into stunned little puddles of joy. When you can speak about matters pertinent to an entry-level position that's fabulous. When you can speak with knowledge about matters that go beyond your pay grade then that’s just fabulouser. Way fabulouser. Yes, I made that word up.
You Are What You Say You Are
By Kathryn Lorenzen, Principal/Career Development Coach
When you get further along in your career, your track record is everything and can carry you far. But when you’re just graduating, to get a promising first job, you need to be able to convey clearly what you can do for your potential employer.
We geezers have called it the “elevator speech,” which has always been cheesy, even when it meant something (that you need to be able to get your message across to someone you meet in an elevator before you get to their floor). Lisa and I call it your Personal Marketing Statement, which is also not ideal but closer to accurate.
So let’s explore a little more about how you can land on the “must be interviewed” list with just what you say to introduce yourself, either in person, on the phone, or in email.
Would You Ask Employer to Plan Your Career?
By Lisa Correu, Principal/Job Search Advocate, AfterSchool Career Workshops
I think there’s a saying somewhere that trying to be all things to all people results in being no things to no people. I probably (undoubtedly) have that all wrong but you get the point. When I was recruiting for an ad agency I would frequently get resumes with covers that read, “I’m open to whatever you think I’d be qualified for.” Or something to that effect. I could only guess that their strategy was to be flexible and willing to help with whatever need that I might have.
This is wrong on about fifty-nine levels.