February « 2010 « Vitaver & Associates, Inc.

5 Tips to Give your Linkedin Profile a Quick Makeover

Posted on 25th February 2010 by Jörgen Sundberg in Articles

Your Linkedin profile has become something of a billboard for you and your skills. Although your resume and cover letter are still crucial, Linkedin is your number one tool for personal branding. Maximizing your profile has become a science in itself and here are the top five tips for boosting your profile today.

1. Photo
Elementary you might say, but do you have a professional photo uploaded or is it a random picture you copied from Facebook? As the photo space on Linkedin is small, you want your photo to be a head shot taken in a professional environment with no distractions in the background. Take a good look at your picture today and ask yourself what an employer’s first impression would be.

2. Employment History
A basic field that needs to be filled out properly. Transfer your resume data to Linkedin and make sure you get all dates right. Include all jobs you have done, unless it’s more than ten, in which case you only include the most important ones.

3. Summary
This section is often overlooked. In the summary section you want to put your elevator pitch. Write who you are, what your skills are and most importantly what you can do for the reader. Always think how you can add value and structure your skills and experience with bullet points to make it pleasing on the eye.

4. Specialities
Another overlooked section, mainly because nobody knows what it means. The specialities box allows you to throw in all the keywords that reflect your experience and skills. The beauty here is that every keyword is searchable, meaning you increase your chances of being found by recruiters.

5. Recommendations
Endorsements from peers can be essential for your job search. Although not a knock out factor in the early stages of a hiring process, it can be a deciding factor at the last stage. If there are two final candidates for a job, the number and quality of Linkedin recommendations can be the decider. Get two to three recommendations per job you have had. Aim high and ask previous managers and other people with impressive titles as it will look better on your profile.
That’s your five tips for today. Once you have updated all of these, you should strive for continual improvement and ensure your Linkedin profile does you and your skills justice.

Getting Your Resume Noticed or Writing a High Impact Resume

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Posted on 19th February 2010 by admin in Articles

career tips, looking for a job, Resume, Writing a good resume

Over 50 percent of recruiters spend two minutes or less reviewing resumes. The judgment on whether or not to hire you, however, is typically made within five seconds. A number of steps can help you position your resume for high impact.
Resume Style
Chronological Resume: By starting with your work history, with the most recent position listed first, employers can easily see any gaps in your employment, and when and where your skills and experience were applied. The chronological resume works well for those with at least several years of work experience in related fields. While following you career path, the recruiter will be able to see how you progressively advanced in experience, training and responsibility.

Functional Resume: If you are changing careers, a new job entrant or have gaps in your employment history, a functional resume will place the focus on your skills and experience. The functional format provides flexibility to creatively repackage your skills for the desired position. A business consultant, for example, may tailor his resume around the redesign of financial processes, functions and departments, as part of larger projects, for a position in a finance department.

Combination Resume: Increasingly, job seekers are taking the best of both approaches by listing skills and experience first to highlight relevant skills for the job applied for, followed by employment history. An Oracle systems analyst may demonstrate his high level of knowledge and skills in enterprise-wide systems in the opening bullet points and then support his expertise with a chronology of well-rounded experience and training in systems integration.

Targeted Resume: Customizing your resume to specifically highlight experience and skills relevant to the job will get you noticed. Making the perfect skills and experience match is extra work but well worth the effort. If you are a human resources manager applying for a job as a facilitator, detailed experience and training in group dynamics and consensus building may take priority over staff recruitment and retention skills.

Keywords
At some point, your resume is going to make it into a database and be retrieved (or not!) by someone running a query on keywords. Resume data is routinely collected from resumes posted to job boards. Your paper resume also may be scanned by a recruiter or prospective employer. To ensure you are captured in a database search, use professional terms to describe positions, skills and experience. Be sure to fill your resume with professional job titles and functions — “software development manager,” for example, not “manager of programmers.”
Format
If you are webpage designer, your resume is an opportunity to display your skills. Show off but do not deviate from the standard information presentation format. If the telephone number is not at the top of the page following the address, your resume may be put aside and forgotten. The recruiter’s eyes should flow from strength to strength. Avoid fancy fonts and formatting, such as columns and tabs.

Update your resume regularly
Update your resume on a regular basis with relevant courses, training programs and other academic qualifications that you might receive along the way. Be mindful of industry trends, current training programs and professional designations. Your resume should communicate to the prospective employer that you are on top of industry developments.

Positioning a resume for high impact takes more effort. Keep in mind that those who make the effort to tailor their qualifications to meet the specific criteria of the job posting have a higher response rate than the cut-and-pasters.

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The American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan

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Posted on 18th February 2010 by admin in Articles

Are You Management Material or Leadership Potential?

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Posted on 11th February 2010 by Vitaver Associates in Articles

Human resource consultancy Hewitt Associates has just released its Top 25 Global Companies for Leaders 2009. Not surprisingly, some of the world’s largest and oldest companies are on the list – General Electric, Deere & Company, Cargill, Procter & Gamble and General Mill are just a few of the names that both your grandparents and even great grandparents grew up with. In explaining their leadership strategy, one common theme emerges. In good times and bad, these companies continue to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in developing leaders.
These leader builders are some of the largest employees in the world. From the very first interview, these smart companies are screening for leadership potential. How would you measure up among other potential leaders? Are you a manager or a leader? First, let’s look at how they differ. Managers are technicians and operational experts; their job is to get things done. Leaders are motivators and visionaries.
There are a number of common traits that human resource experts look for in leaders. A leader is committed to continuously learning and likes to take on challenges. Leader is a team player and good communicator. Importantly, a leader is not only guided by vision but also a moral compass that is pointed in the right direction. Leader is a person of integrity.
In your next interview, sell up the traits of a leader. The world’s most successful and sustainable companies invest in those who are born to lead.

Leadership Ahead

How to ‘Stretch’ Yourself

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Posted on 10th February 2010 by admin in Articles

Career choice, stretch

An important people development strategy has emerged among companies that invest the most amount of money in developing leaders. These breeding grounds for leaders like to ‘stretch’ the talents and capabilities of their employees across diverse positions, levels of responsibility and geographies. The overseas assignment that has become de rigueur in global companies, for example, is a chance to show that you are multifaceted and love to take on challenges.
So the next time a resume consultant tries to streamline your resume, and even suggests tossing a few hard earned job experiences off the resume to show focus, stop and reflect upon what the HR recruiter is looking for – stretch.
On the job, do not be afraid to take on new challenges but stay within reasonable boundaries. Here are a few caveats on how to extend your reach while adding value to your job and career.
• Do not wander outside your area of competency but do show that you are eager to learn and master new jobs.
• Do not dilute your brand. Stretch while maintaining your focus on developing expertise in specific jobs, skills and traits.
• Do not overstretch your position. Take on lateral challenges and do them well. Over time, your efforts will be rewarded with more responsibility and promotions.

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The Online Job Board Market Can Be a Monster

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Posted on 9th February 2010 by admin in Articles

career, monster, searching for job

As someone who is navigating around the social media world, I find the number of new sites cropping up to be intimidating. The same is true of online resume posting sites. Which ones do you target? Your time is valuable and your online reputation invaluable.
Monster.com deserves credit for helping to create the medium of online job searching but the site has thousands of smaller competitors nipping away at its virtual market share. Monster has just gobbled up Yahoo’s HotJobs placing it back on top of the job market. 600 newspapers nationwide are associated with HotJobs.
While LinkedIn is preferred by the executive market, MyWorkster has grabbed the college graduate social media jobs market. All the social media tools are provided – video, messenger, a Facebook connection and even personal blogs. By leveraging the College Networks you can remain true to your alma mater and work those alumni contacts.
To narrow your search, a good start is About.com’s exhaustive list of online job search engines and sites further broken down by geography and career field.
As always, keep checking back with us for updates. The short history of the online job market has taught us that the hotspot today may be replaced by an even hotter spot tomorrow.

monster

Multitaskers Wanted

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Posted on 8th February 2010 by admin in Articles

career, HR, job search, multitask, multitaskers

On both sides of the Atlantic, surveys are reporting low job satisfaction numbers. According to a recent Conference Board survey, a low of 45.3 percent of US workers are satisfied with their job. YouGuv reports that only 35 percent of British workers are content at work.
A column in this week’s Financial Times may have pinpointed the cause of the discontent, “multimultitasking.” With fewer people doing the same work, more demands are being placed on employees.
One solution to overworked multitaskers is to ask employers to consider flexible work hours. Flexible employees find more time to accomplish more. Meanwhile, 72 percent of US workplaces surveyed by global consultants Watson Wyatt are focused on providing stress management and health coaches to help employees cope with higher workloads.
Multitasking remains a controversial workplace practice with an equal amount of studies for and against it. Recent studies show that drivers who multitask by also using cellphones are overloading their brains. Yet scientists now report that people who use the multitasking area of their brains live longer than those who are singularly focused.
In the workplace, human resource recruiters are continuing to place more emphasis on multitasking skills. Recent research has demonstrated that training can improve multitasking skills and speed up work. The New York Times has interviewed a number of workplace multitasking experts who offer up a number of tips on how to be a good multitasker in Your Career: How to Get Organized as Work Piles Up.

Take a career test and find out what job would fit your personality most

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Posted on 5th February 2010 by Vitaver Associates in Articles

career, career test, Holland codes, personality types

BBC offers a short and fun test to find out what career choice suits your personality. You can take it at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/careers/

The test itself is based on one of the best known theory of career choices – Holland Codes. To make a long story short, American psychologist John L. Holland came up with an idea that there are 6 types of personality and work environment types which are as follows:

Realistic (Do’er) – practical, physical, hands-on, tool-oriented
Investigative (Thinker) – analytical, intellectual, scientific, explorative
Artistic (Creator) – creative, original, independent, chaotic
Social (Helper)- cooperative, supporting, helping, healing/nurturing
Enterprising (Persuader) – competitive environments, leadership, persuading
Conventional (Organizer) – detail-oriented, organizing, clerical

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The key point is that Holland’s theory does not assume that each person is one type (let`s say – Do`er). Instead it is considered that each individual is a combination of all 6 types with few of them dominating. Because of this the theory allows to distinct 720 different personality patterns. When applied in interest inventories and job classifications, it is usually only the two or three most dominant codes that are used for vocational guidance.

So, how about you? Do you think you are a Thinker or Helper ? To read more about this theory please visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland_Codes

Job interview tips – Job interview questions and answers (Video)

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Posted on 4th February 2010 by admin in Articles

Rehiring Redundant Employees

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Posted on 2nd February 2010 by Vitaver Associates in Articles

Understandably, you are confused when the call comes. Being told you were redundant was like being told you were worthless. Officially, you were part of job cuts due to the drop off in business in the down economy. It would have been easier, you thought, to have been fired for cause, like messing up a major project. Now, the HR manager is offering you your job back and commending you on your exemplary HR record with the company.
It could happen to you. With the economy picking up and businesses still facing a skills shortage, there is no better person for your old position than you. The news headlines may soon be filled with announcements of the rehiring of laid off workers. Gulp! Swallow your pride. Joining the ranks of the unemployed was difficult but you now have the bargaining power.
Did you like your old job? Do you want a new challenge? Take the new offer for your old job as an opportunity to work towards your career goals. Will the company send you on training courses to prepare for the position you were working towards? Is the company willing to provide you with more perks, such as flex time? Do you want to transfer your skills to a new department? View the job offer from your old employer as a chance to create your own job. Smart HR recruiters will seek to leverage perks and options that do not add to the bottom line.

Where are the Green Tech Jobs?

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Posted on 1st February 2010 by Vitaver Associates in Articles

find jobs, Green jobs, green tech jobs, Tech jobs

In President Obama’s State of the Union address on Wednesday, he once again called for green jobs to create job growth. He backed up his jobs strategy with $2.3 billion in tax subsidies for clean energy jobs.

Where will these green jobs come from? More green spending and financial incentives will give a boost to all green tech sectors. Nuclear power plant engineers should be in demand. Obama has called for 100 new nuclear plants. Clean coal technology and biofuels are areas of focus. Among the 183 companies receiving the tax breaks, there are at least six solar companies and a number of battery makers. The US Department of Energy breaks down the sectors receiving green funding here.

For an aerial view of what is happening in the green jobs market today, here is a good navigation tool for recruiters and jobs seekers. Clean Edge Jobs now offers a map that enables users to see where the activity is in green tech jobs. A view of today’ job map shows large clusters of jobs on the East and West Coast. Colorado also looks like a hotspot available to download for free, breaks down clean tech jobs by sector and geography.