Do you have community management skills? Can you set up and man listening posts? Are you an expert at setting up and processing Google Alerts? Can you cleanup, size and manipulate digital pictures and graphics? Are you a PowerPoint Ninja? Do you have more than half of the PC Keyboard macros for Excel under your fingers? Can you write a SQL query? Can you craft custom reports in salesforce? Do you have expertise in a particular kind of CRM software? Can you interpret and respond to questions regarding Google Analytics? Are you facile with FTP software? Are you a master of digital communication in your industry?
These are just a few of the questions you might field in a job interview this year. I just listed a job opening for an administrative assistant and, to be honest, I am appalled at the lack of understanding of how to apply for a job, let alone what might be required to obtain one.
Here are a few tips to applying for a job in the information age.
Cover Letters Matter -- Your cover letter should be in pure text and in the body of an email. No fancy fonts, no images, just text. The topic sentence should be awesome and separate you from the pack. The supporting paragraph should make me want to hire you without looking at your resume. It must, must, must mention the things your prospective employer is seeking and describe why you are the perfect candidate. Proof read this document several times. "I lernt frm xperience that i'm a realy grate receptionist," is an actual sentence from an actual cover letter I received this week. I have no idea what this person's résumé looked like, I just copied the sentence for this article and deleted the email.
Résumés Matter -- Take the time to craft the résumé for the job you are applying for. If you haven't worked in the industry before, say it in the cover letter and say why you think your experience will apply. If you have worked in the industry, take a moment and figure out what your résumé should look like for this opportunity. Résumés should be .pdf files -- do not send word documents or .txt files or PowerPoint documents or anything other than a one-page (two page max) .pdf file.
Honesty Matters -- Don't put "Expert in Microsoft Office" on your résumé if you are just "proficient." During our telephone interview, I will ask you a question that an expert can answer, when you can't -- you're out. I have no time for people who cannot do honest self-assessments of their capabilities.
Skills Matter -- This is the Information Age, you need Information Age skills. Yes, you will learn a great deal on the job, but you need to come to the opportunity with very high-level digital skills. Why? Because there are literally a dozen digitally skilled candidates that will apply for this position. They are more cost-effective for me to hire because they can do more for the same money I will have to pay you.
Work Ethic Matters -- I want people around me who are self-starters and who know that the sentence, "Can I help you?" is the least helpful sentence you can utter. What's the right way to impress me? "Shelly, I've identified this issue. I have three solutions, please tell me which one you would like me implement." I will do anything for people who approach work in this manner -- they are awesome!
Understand What Work Is -- If you are looking for a skilled job, understand what work is -- a mechanism to translate the value of your intellectual property into wealth. This is a non-trivial distinction between a "job for a paycheck" and a career. If you want a job, you are not someone I want to hire for a full-time position. If you have a career, and you are looking to grow by acquiring knowledge, tempering it with wisdom and forging it with failure, I want you on my team!
Understand The Value of What You Know -- There's an old cliché, "Youth is wasted on the young." When you're looking for a job in 2012, don't waste the value of your youth. Yes, you may be young and inexperienced, but you have a valuable asset in your age. If you are born after 1989, you are a digital native. This means that you think differently, act differently, and, in fact, are different than the middle-aged hiring manager you're speaking with. Your inexperience and youth is also a liability. Get smart and use this combination of strength and weakness to your advantage. Our culture aspires to be young -- it's news you can use.
What If You Don't Have The Necessary Skills -- This is the key to everyone's future. You must acquire them. No one can afford to hide behind the affectation that "Digital is for the kids." It's nonsense, and it is a virtual guarantee that you are unemployable in the 21st century. You no longer have the luxury of saying it. In fact, you cannot even think it. Social media are being used to "Occupy" places and overthrow governments. If you're not a social media expert, you are at a strict disadvantage. Facebook and LinkedIn (and 500 other social networks) are replacing email. Google is mapping the interiors of retail stores. Amazon is giving people $5 off of any purchase made by taking a picture of an item in a brick and mortar store and then making the purchase via your mobile device. There is no more analog -- the world is digital. And, more to the point, there are now only two kinds of people and two kinds of devices: connected and not connected.
Job One -- I'm still looking for an administrative assistant with awesome digital skills to work for my executive admin. Will we find the right person? Of course we will. For all of the horrible résumés and cover letters submitted, there were several gems. But the sheer volume of worthless communication from unemployable candidates has been remarkable. If job creation is our number one national priority, maybe we should start by helping people learn how to properly prepare for employment in the Information Age and then, teach some basic job-hunting skills.
Follow Shelly Palmer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@shellypalmer
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And how horribly unprepared most people are during THE Interview. I am a tool maker
And after 12 years working for a business that did not give me a decent raze for those 12 years
I loved my job I did and it was vary hard to go out and find a job that would challenge my well developed set of skills. So 14 years ago I found a job coach she asked lots of questions about my skill set and took notes and then a few days later I went to see her to look at and refine my new resume. After we talked about what she created and made some changes it was done
And I thought this is all I get for 200.00 bucks. No there was more a lot more. Things like what to wear how to look (get a hair cut) andhow to talk to interviewers and what kind of interviewers are out there. One of my interviewers had a degree in psychology (fount that out later)
But most of all she taught me to be honest with my self and what I can do for my new employer
So I go to this interview and felt out of plase looking around the 25 or so candidates did not look like me remember
Have you heard that there seems to be some kind of employment issue in this country?
Unemployed, underemployed.
Knocking on doors, setting up interviews makes for proper job searches for those that need employment. Otherwise they are called lazy, unkempt, drains on society. So now they are called unprepared, unintelligent, unemployable. Employers seem to think that there should be a multitude of highly trained individuals for every occurrence of potential employment.
There are about three million unfilled jobs. That is less than 2% of the workforce. Unemployment is 9%, and many more are either underemployed or have given up. Clearly, no matter how hard people work on their "employability", there will be tens of millions of unemployed, due to no fault of their own.
We don't have jobs available for several reasons:
1. Our economy is based on cheating people rather than producing things.
2. Corporations are rewarded for shipping them oversees.
3. Cutting labor costs results in short term profits for companies, which allows executives to claim "performance bonuses".
4. There is less demand for goods and services because of the poor economy.
5. In some areas, illegal immigrants can be found who will work for less money.
Keep the blame where it belongs - on the government and the corporations who bought it.
well as tevye said, it seems "you are also right"
And, they are competing with literally dozens of equally qualified people for one single opening.
If it were just a matter of doing what you suggest, and being persistent, the unemployment rate would be much, much lower.
Sorry. I know you mean well. But I only wish it were a matter of being better organized and focused.
this advice is for all but obviously there are few who can type up stellar topic sentences. but if everyone wrote stellar topic sentences, then none of them would be stellar, so then it would follow that only people who wrote unbelievably stellar topic sentences would get those highly competitive, cutthroat 300 wpm, photoshop & autocad wiz (really?!) asst admin to the exec admin jobs
Proofread is one word. Given all of your demands for the perfect employee, I think the employee should be able to ask for perfection from you as well.
Doesn't matter. People like Shelly will continue to fail to grasp that many people are employable--highly employable--across all sectors, but there just aren't jobs. I don't know how many times one has to say 4:1 ratio to be understood. The truth speaks for itself, and is a far greater truth than paragraph after paragraph of finger pointing at the unemployed and underemployed, who already know most, if not all, of this crapola anyway.
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Oh, fantastic. We get to play Trivial Pursuit, Microsoft Office Edition! You could have greater Word skills than the employer would ever need, but fail to answer that gotcha! question about some obscure feature in tables that nobody ever uses anyway, and -- you're out.
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You know, each of those "questions" used to be a job in itself, in some cases an actual profession. Today, it's all heaped on the overworked admin, who gets paid $28k for 55-hour weeks. And since all those jobs and profession are taken care of by the admin, there's basically no more career path available. There's the admin, and then there's the VP or the Department Manager. Well, obviously, you're not going to get promoted to department manager no matter how good an admin you are. There's just no career growth possible.
But of course, the real problem is the low quality of American workers.