The Importance of Targets in Your Job Search
I see a lot of new job-hunters who are unfocused about their job targets. They feel that their background allows them to do many things (e.g., I can be a project manager, marketing director, or a corporate trainer). So their whole approach to the search is to position themselves as generally as possible, in the hope that others (recruiters, network contacts, etc.) will decide for them.
This approach doesn’t work for a couple of reasons. First off, you need to make it as easy as possible for people to help you, and that means pitching yourself appropriately for a specific position. Don’t ask them to do the work to translate your varied background into specific targets– do this for them! Second, targeting is all about the benefits that accrue throughMore
Age discrimination, or something else?
by Robert Hellmann •Job-Search Strategy Tags: Job-Search Strategy •
A recent article in the NY Times focused on how particularly difficult it is for job-seekers over 45 to land jobs in this market. I and others at the Five O’Clock Club have discussed this article and strongly disagree that this group should be singled out. In fact, everyone has been impacted by this “buyers market”, but some older workers, when they get discouraged, may misinterpret concerns about salary level as age discrimination. Personally, I’ve seen a similar rate of success among older job-seekers vs. other age groups, and have witnessed the power of a positive, can-do, energetic attitude in clients landing positions, no matter what their age.
The Times article also suggested that those older workers discussed in the article were getting turned down when “applying”. Welcome to the world we are all living in, no matter what the age group. Those older job-seeking clients who I have witnessed land jobs and interviews are not just “applying” for positions. They are taking a far more proactive approach (one that all job-seekers should be taking)– aggressively using networking and effectively contacting people directly who they don’t know to build relationships, and not just waiting for jobs to appear via ads and recruiting firms.