Career Marketplace Blog

In this article for LifeHacker.com, Melanie Pinola writes How Long You Should Wait to Hear Back About a Job Application.

Read an excerpt of Pinola’s article below. Read Full Article

It’s a tough job market, so you might expect to wait a long time to hear back from a company after sending your resume or having an interview. But how long until you give up hope altogether? CNN Money has a general rule of thumb.

Annie Fisher writes that jobs generally stay open for about 45 days, according to research fromStartWire (a service we’ve highlighted previously for delivering status updates on job applications). So counting 45 days from the job posting date, you might assume you didn’t get the job.

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In this article for HR Bartender, Sharlyn Lauby reports, What HR Won’t Tell You About Online Applications.

Read an excerpt from Lauby’s article. Read Full Article

Today’s post has a little back story.  I hope you’ll indulge me.

Several weeks ago I received a comment here at HR Bartender.  It was a long, frustrating remark about applicant tracking systems (ATS) and how these online systems are preventing applicants from a fair chance to get a job.

After reading the remark, I thought it would be a good idea to share with readers why companies use applicant tracking systems.  That way if you’re looking for a job, or know someone who is, you’ll understand what human resources is doing with the information you’re sending them.  So I reached out to recruiting pro Jessica Miller-Merrell at Xceptional HR and asked if she would collaborate with me on this post.

Meanwhile, I discovered that Laurie Ruettimann, author of The Cynical Girl, received the exact same comment.  And that embedded in the comment was spam.

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About.com Guide Alison Doyle lists the Top 50 Job Interview Questions

Some of those questions are

• What are you passionate about?
• What did you like or dislike about your previous job?
• Describe yourself.
• Are you the best person for this job? Why?
• What interests you about this job?
• Why are you leaving your job?
• Why should we hire you?

In this article for LifeHacker.com, Whitson Gordon explains, How to Make (and Sustain) a Good First Impression Every Time.

Read an excerpt of Gordon’s article below. Read Full Article

In a perfect world, friendships, relationships, and business contacts would all develop naturally and blossom exactly how you’d like, but that’s not the world we live in. In reality, we’re all busy people, and relationships take work—work that sometimes slips our mind. Rather than leave it all to chance, here are a few things that can help you leave a great first impression, and form that into a lasting relationship.

How First Impressions Work

People often say “you never get a second chance to make a first impression”, and that’s actually quite true—which is why it’s so important to start on the right foot. In fact, one popular study showed that those impressions can form in just a few seconds:

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In this article from LiveCareer.com, More Ohio Jobs Expected to Go to Those with Advanced Postsecondary Degrees.

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According to a report by the Georgetown University Center on Education and Workforce, more than half of the jobs in Ohio will go to workers who have an advanced postsecondary degree on their resume by the end of the decade.

The report found that 57% of all jobs in the state will require some training beyond secondary school, with the number of positions to go to those with a high school diploma or less expected to grow only slightly.

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In his article for Psychology Today, Ray Williams explains, Why Networking is the Essential Professional Skill.

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Networking is increasingly being promoted as both a business and personal social skill. There’s no doubt that both the social media form of networking and personal face-to-face networking has become a fundamental part of the modern landscape.

Brian Uzzi and Shannon Dunlap, in their article entitled “How To Build Your Network,” in the Harvard Business Review, contend “Networks determine which ideas become breakthroughs, which new drugs are prescribed, which farmers cultivate pest-resistant crops and which R& D engineers make the most high-impact discoveries”. They cite the work of Randall Collins of the University of Pennsylvania who showed that breakthroughs from icons such as Freud, Picasso, Watson, Crick, and Pythagoras were the consequence of a particular type of personal network that promoted exceptional individual creativity.

“Networks deliver three unique advantages: private information, access to diverse skill sets, and power. Executives see these advantages at work every day, but might not pause to consider how their networks regulate them,” Uzzi and Dunlap argue. They show in their research how developing diverse, rather than “self-similar” network contacts through shared high-stakes activities builds a more powerful network.

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By Kat Krull

“Whenever it is possible, a boy should choose some occupation which he should do even if he did not need the money.” This commencement quote from William Lyon Phelps is food for thought for those beginning their careers. Maybe the message to all those college graduates out there looking for work is…consider pursuing employment in a small business.

What’s the correlation, you might ask? A survey by the Trade Union Congress found that employees in small businesses are the most satisfied at work. They were found to be the most committed and loyal to their organizations. They also felt most engaged by their employer and had the most freedom to choose their working patterns. There were lower stress levels and far fewer complaints about long working hours.

Here are some other positives to consider:

You can make a difference: Employees in a small company wear many hats – treat that as a benefit and you’ll succeed. “Employees of startups tend to have more varied duties, which can mean a chance to develop a host of valuable new skills,” writes Aaron, a community manager at ResumeBucket. “One day you may be designing a product, the next day closing a sales deal. It’s up to you to seize the many challenges and opportunities that come your way in such a fluid environment.”

Networking: Small business employees have more networking opportunities than large corporation employees. They tend to meet clients face-to-face much more frequently.

Experience: Small companies are the ones that have a total workforce of 500 or less. These companies are generally fast-paced and it is easier to excel. At a large corporation, you may work on one or two projects a year. At a smaller company, you’ll have more variety, earlier responsibility, and more opportunities to work on your own initiative and to have your work noticed.

In small businesses, a new employee often has a higher profile and is more appreciated than in a large company. You are also more likely to have opportunities to collaborate with senior management.

Flexibility: Roles are often less rigidly defined and the working environment may be more informal and less bureaucratic than in larger organizations. Many small employers provide alluring trade-offs such as shorter workweeks, less travel, and work-life balance incentives, including telecommuting arrangements and flexible schedules.

Pete Czech, owner and editor of www.peteczech.com and a self descruibed Web guru, developer, CTO, theorist, idea generator, social media enthusiast, and entrepreneur says, “A small business will be more lenient and more willing to negotiate (simple pleasures like work from home, unusual schedules, etc. as long as you can prove there is a value-add to it.”

So, as you move your tassel and toss the mortarboard, remember Phelps’ thoughts, “Do some occupation which he should do even if he didn’t need the money.” In other words, find a job you love…which may mean giving small business a chance.

Kat Krull is the Marketing Manager of Resunate, the world’s only automatic resume tailoring tool. You can find Kat and Resunate on Facebook and Twitter.

The New York Times article, Sifting the Professional from the Personal, Randall Stross explores the current trends in Social Media networking.

Read an excerpt from Stross’ article. Read full article

AMONG online networking sites, LinkedIn stands out as the specialized one — it’s for professional connections only.

That distinction has given it staying power as Facebook’s predecessors have dropped away and as Facebook has grown to dwarf other sites. By keeping professional identity pristinely separate from the personal and the messy, LinkedIn, which is now publicly traded, has grown to more than 135 million members in 200 countries.

But challengers have arrived, in the form of apps. Rather than starting from scratch, independent software developers are trying to add a professional layer to Facebook — and are hoping that users will accept a less-than-complete separation of the professional and the personal.

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In this article from LiveCareer.com, New Report finds Accounting and Auditing Jobs on Road to Recovery.

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According to a new report, professionals with accounting, auditing and bookkeeping experience on their resumes may have an easier time finding a job, as the industry is beginning to rebound from the height of the economic downturn in 2009.

The Global Industry Analyst (GIA) global outlook report found that accounting firms hit hard during the financial crisis are starting to slowly see an increase in business with service providers playing a more active role as trusted financial advisers as the market also begins to recover.

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In this article from U.S. News and World Report’s On Careers, Lindsay Olson explains The Ins and Outs of Providing References.

Read an excerpt of Olson’s article below. Read full article

You’ve likely been asked for references in an interview or during the application process. Rather than scrambling to pull a few together, you should have these all prepared well in advance and keep the reference information in one place.

Step 1: Create a Separate Document

You shouldn’t include references in your resume. You don’t want to risk a recruiter or hiring manager reaching out to your references prematurely or without permission. Instead, guard your references’ time and contact information as if it were your own. Fielding too many calls could make them think twice about offering their experiences working with you. To avoid this, keep your references noted on a separate document and send them along only when asked.

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