LinkedIn hired me to write three articles for their job seekers audience to offer guidance on how to build a target company list for a job search and then locating the right contact at those companies to approach.  Here are the links to my recent articles published  on LinkedIn.com:

How to Build a List of Target Companies for Your Job Search http://bit.ly/K2RXbR

Finding the Right Contacts for Your Job Search http://bit.ly/JfBzpi

Savvy job seekers are sending email correspondence directly to new and existing contacts to follow up on job postings, to ask for job lead referrals and to inquire about exploratory job interviews. Normally, job seekers know what they want to say and get to the point in the body of the email on the email’s purpose. But then they get to the subject line…..”What do I write in the subject line?” is the question I am often asked.  After all, it is the email’s first impression—it is critical to get it right! Well, here are a few ways to successfully tackle this head scratcher of a dilemma. NOTE: no tactic will work each and every time, but using your judgment to choose which tactic can work best to capture the reader’s attention can improve the odds that your email is read. Continue reading…

The Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz

Review of an Advanced Reader Copy by Lisa Rangel

Earlier this quarter, I received an advanced reader copy of The Pumpkin Plan, Mike Michalowicz’s latest book that is out on July 5^th. I was excited to read it after learning quite a bit from his previous book, The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. I found The Pumpkin Plan came at the right time for me and does not disappoint for jobseekers looking to become an entrepreneur, the fledgling entrepreneur or the semi-successful entrepreneur that wants to take things to the next level.

In the first chapters of The Pumpkin, Mike describes the hard working entrepreneur, who after years of working so hard, looks tired, beat-up and  is just far enough ahead to stay afloat. This poor soul is  making money (however, in some cases, may not be) executing all aspects of the business, sales, marketing, fulfillment, accounting, etc, and saying yes to almost any client who wants to hire him. His business revolves around him, and without him would be nothing. This can happen to someone in business for years or even just a couple of years, Mike states.

I resonated with this book right away, as a sole proprietor in business going on three years. I felt, while blessed on many levels, things have grown where I have reached a point that I cannot execute everything all the time and make everyone happy.  I needed help and direction to structure my business to still cater to my core market and earn a sustainable living that would continue well beyond me. Here are the suggestions Mike makes to fine tune your business (and job seekers, take notice this list can help bring more action from a job search):

(1)    Define the characteristics of your ideal client and target market benefiting from your business.

(2)    Ask the ideal client target what services of yours they want and do not want. Learn about what helps them make a decision to buy.

(3)    Structure execution processes within your business around those needs and likes of your client. Set up systems and staff to service those needs likes/needs  that enable you to deliver above their expectations consistently.

I learned from The Pumpkin Plan that to grow the business further, I need to say ‘no’ to the client prospects that are not within my target market and extract myself from the execution process of the business focusing on the strategy. For this do-it-yourselfer entrepreneur, that sometimes seems counter-intuitive: to grow I have to do less of the business myself and say no to prospects? But I have started to these steps over the past month and a half and I can already see an increase in productivity and a decrease in my stress levels. Profitability in the short term has not been affected and I am positive good change is coming resulting from these practices.

For the job seeker, the spray and pray method of find a job by saying yes to every interview and sending your resume everywhere there is a ‘send’ button on the web, is not effective. Fine tune the job search company target list and craft correspondence to people (not submit to job boards) to gain a human response to move your job search forward. There are many practical analogies a job seeker can gather from this book, as well.

The Pumpkin Plan is a highly tactical, small business growth resources that can help entrepreneurs with product or service businesses grow their business by learning how to work on their business and not only in their business.

If you are an entrepreneur looking for an Executive Bio and creative branding services to catapult your personal brand, click to learn about our Entrepreneur Packages.

As a former search firm recruiter, I am often asked “How long do you take to screen a resume and what do you look for when reading resume?” There is the first incorrect assumption: Resumes are not read by most recruiters. They are scanned the way most of us scan websites looking for information. Think about the last time you looked at a website: We don’t read websites, we scan them looking for specific keywords and phrases and assessing the visual feel to decide if we should keep clicking through the website or move on to the next search result. If we don’t see words we like/need or we don’t like the visual feel of the website, we move on to the next result happily provided by your search engine. That process can take most of us as little as 15 seconds.

When performing the initial scanning of resumes determining which candidates I would call, I always looked for (and trained numerous recruiters to seek out) the following initial pieces of information:

1. What Job Are You Applying For? – Have a Target Title: In your summary section, have a target title outlining the job you are pursuing. Don’t risk letting the recruiter have to decide what job you are applying for within their company. It is possible they won’t decide and just put you in the ‘no’ pile and move on to the next candidate who spells I out for them. Or they may wrongly assume the role you are pursuing. Or worse, they may realize what job you are applying to but think you are a poor communicator in doing so in an unclear manner.

2. Where Did You Work? Knowing where you work gives the recruiter context to your targeted job title. The Director of Marketing at the local doctor’s office and The Director of Marketing at a Fortune 500 company are two different jobs despite having the same title. Make your employers names easy to read and identify, as it helps the recruiter place your experience into context.

3. How Long Did You Work There & When? Recruiters need to know the chronological order of your employment. Period. Functional resumes and any format that disguise the dates do the exact opposite of what job seekers want in using these formats—and it annoy recruiters since they have to work to find the dates and put things in context.  If you were a Director of Marketing 15 years ago versus a Director of Marketing today—those are two different jobs even though they share the same title.  If you had the job for 10 months versus 10 years, that tells a recruiter two different stories. A recruiter must have time frame for your resume to have meaning.

4. Where Are The Numbers? Recruiters may not take the time in this initial screen to read every stat and detail, but recruiters want to see numbers on a resume upon first scan.  When I scan a resume and see no numbers present in the content, it automatically makes me wonder if this person is achievement driven. Companies do not want to hire task masters—they want achievers. Having numerical measurement in some form, does not have to only refer to money, can set forth a subliminal impression that you are an achiever and you can express yourself comfortably in that manner.

5. Where Did You Go To School? Again, knowing where you went to school helps recruiters put things in context. This is not to assume recruiters always want to see that you went to an Ivy League school.  If you attended a local regional school and went on to a Fortune 100 management job that tells a great story. If you went to a prominent school and are engaged in a start-up initiative, that tells an intriguing story. All the pieces, of which education is one, contribute a valuable piece to your story.

6. Does Your Resume Look Good And Is It Easy To Read? When a recruiter reads your resume, are they thinking, “What was he thinking with this format?” – Is the format dated, poorly formatted, visually unappealing and simply hard to read or understand? If a recruiter does not notice anything about your formatting, then you are at least not doing damage to your presentation. Ideally, you want something to think, “This person gets it” when they click open your resume. You have less than 5 seconds for that first impression and only one shot to get it right.

One of the best online sites for jobseekers is indeed.com. Indeed is the #1 job site worldwide, with over 60 million unique visitors and 1 billion job searches across more than 50 countries each month. I recommend it to my clients and use it in my job search coaching process. Indeed lists jobs from a huge assortment of job boards and company listings, so rather than visit all the popular job boards and employers’ websites one by one, you can “one stop shop” at Indeed. It can save precious time that you can use to contact people directly—a key activity of a successful job search. You can set up Job Alerts from Indeed with pre-determined, filtered job searches of jobs you want to be emailed to you. And best of all, it’s all free. But many jobseekers don’t take advantage of all the capabilities that Indeed has to offer. Here are a few that can help you take your job search to the next level:

1. Indeed Resume – Indeed has over 60 million visitors each month. Millions of job seekers have created a Indeed Resume. Creating an Indeed Resume is an extremely easy way to help you get noticed, as simple as uploading your existing resume to your profile. “Because Indeed Resume is open to all companies and free to search, your resume can be found by many more employers than would be possible with a traditional job board’s resume database,” says Sophie Beaurpere, Director of Communications for the company. And another bonus, she adds, is that “you can also use your resume to apply to jobs directly through Indeed.”

2. Indeed Mobile: If you’re one of the millions of people with an iPhone, iPad, or Android smartphone, there’s an Indeed app for you. Actually, says Mike Werch, a Communications Manager with Indeed, “you can use Indeed to find jobs and save your searches on the go with any web-enabled mobile device.” And as with the regular Indeed site, the apps are free. Go to indeed.com/mobile for more information. Continue reading…

Whatever your reason for embarking on your upcoming transition, whether it be a layoff, economic incentive, professional frustration, divorce, empty nest syndrome or you simply have a great business idea to put to market, realize that you are in an exciting position!  Yes, you are.

This can be the beginning of what will become your Great Story.  I can imagine that you may feel petrified about starting this process and overwhelmed about where or how to start. Don’t worry. It is this uncertainty that holds all the promise and possibility that lies before you. Embrace it and don’t fight it. Don’t believe me? Need proof? Continue reading…

WEBINAR: “Interview Confidently & Get Hired: How to Prepare Effectively for Interviews” 

Investment:  $35   

 Tuesday, April 3^rd, 2012, at 12 Noon (Eastern Time)   

•  Are you getting interviews, but not landing the job?
• Do you stumble when answering the same question on interviews?
• Do you have the right first impression to help set you apart from the crowd?

It is extremely critical to ‘wow’ the interviewer the first time in this competitive environment.  This interviewing workshop will prepare you for the most basic interview banter to the toughest hard ball questions with style and confidence. In this class, you can expect to learn the following tactics:

• What to do to prepare before the Interview – Learn what to research about the company, interviewer and job
• Know about your resume and how to answer questions from it
• Successfully answering both the common and uncommon questions
• Preparing the right questions to ask the interviewer
• What to wear, what to bring and how to impress the first time around

(You need not be online at the time of the seminar and may access it for up to 1 month after the actual presentation.)

Investment Fee: $35

Once you remit payment, please click the “Continue Shopping” button at the bottom of the confirmation page to be re-directed to the GoToWebinar registration page for you to enter your information to receive the webinar call information.

Once payment and registration information are accepted, you will receive an email with the webinar login details. Any questions? Send an email to info@chameleonresumes.com.

How to Create a Branded Resume that Gets You Noticed –
Recorded Webinar: $35  

• Is your resume not generating calls to you for interviews?
• Do you feel like your resume is unfocused and weak?

Listen to this webinar to have our resume and job search expert, Lisa Rangel of Chameleon Resumes, give you concrete, constructive feedback on how to fix common resume mistakes to make your resume get noticed by hiring managers. We will cover optimum formatting, word choice, achievement-driven language and tactical solutions to ensure your resume will generate interviews for the jobs you want.

Often when you have a job interview, you have to meet with HR first. As a former staffing manager for a Fortune 500 company, and a career and job coach, I have seven insights to share about what HR is thinking as they interview you. Knowing these will help make your interview with HR count.

1. How prepared are you? We hope you did not only check our website.
The last thing that Human Resources wants to hear is you asking us how many employees we have or what states we are in, since you can easily find that information online. Before you go to an interview, learn something about us – our products, our history and our challenges, and apply that knowledge to formulate thoughtful questions or ideas. Asking for information that can be easily found on our website will ensure you will sink to the bottom of our list and may not even make it to the next step. Continue reading…

Consulting, Temporary, Freelance, or Contract Work—these terms can mean different things to different people. While each word can conjure an impression of a different level of employee with various employment arrangements (Contract/Consulting work can imply higher skill level and longer term assignments; Temporary work can mean seasonal, short-term, lower skill level jobs; and Freelance work brings about the image of a free spirit creative soul floating from one inventive endeavor to another), these terms meant the same thing to me when I was a recruiter:  the work was interim and the employee was not a direct hire employee of the firm.  For the sake of this article, these four terms will be used interchangeably, but I acknowledge each can be defined differently by various organizations and people.

So why should job seekers consider this type of work?  The main reason is because employers of all types are employing this way of hiring talent as part of their year-round staffing strategy.  The chances are the job function you perform is now being classified as a consulting or temporary job within that organization.  If you don’t consider positions in this classification, you may miss out on a number of great opportunities.

Why would an employer make a previously direct hire position now a contract job? Here are some of the benefits experienced by an employer when they hire a contract employee. By knowing these reasons, you can devise a strategy as to how and why a company should hire your skills set as a contractor increasing your chances of being hired: Continue reading…