WOW, thinking back over a year of everything I've done is a time consuming effort. I come across numerous things I hadn't realized I have done, but nevertheless it is what was part of my saga.
During my search I did speak to several people who has got all my respect and who has helped me with little things here and there. They do come from a discussion board that I've been part of for almost 2 years. They are well worth their weight in gold. Not to mention I gave up on family and friends support when people started acting like it wasn't their problem. These discussion boards are worthy of sticking to them if for anything the support these people give you. How amazing it becomes when you actually start finding out how truly your friends are that you've grown up all your life with. Family is the same way.
One thing I have to say is you need to put the negative people out of your life and hang with those that are positive. Yep, positive influence will get you through this. Majority of friends and family will tell you they don't understand and how they can't figure out why you won't go back to work. They really have no clue what you're going through unless they themselves has experienced it. I've had family that has mention everything to try since they were looking for their first job. BING... things have changed, nothing last forever in the realm of job searching. What use to be is far gone nowadays. The basics might be there but the technique and the arsenal one must use is clearly over the hill in trying to make anyone understand. So forget those people. They will bring you down. They figure you should be able to find something, anything for that matter. Many will tell you to take this or that minimum wage job, but has no clear understanding that you've applied you cannot make people hire you. Your experience is out of the ball park for what they want to pay anyone. The old tale of you will find something better when things get better is typical the way companies see those with experience and qualifications.
I have applied for retail jobs, wholesale jobs, oil and gas jobs, building products, construction, trash dump jobs; you really have to work the system and find your niche' to find people who want your skills. In the old days you could go sit in front of a hiring manager talk one on one, get to know each other and either walk out knowing you have a job or at the bare minimum know that this wasn't the one. Everything is a science nowadays.
Moving on, I have used the famous job boards. Some are worthwhile where some I wouldn't go to if they paid me to be on them. Here's a list of quite a few I have been on and in most cases my credentials still float amongst their system.
Careerbuilder, Monster, Bridget Bits, Employment connection, Resume Poster, Beyond, Jobfox, Jobboard.asme.org, CBC jobs, Execbuddy, my jobhunter, vault, wafbjobline, salesgravy, Rigzone, Perficient Openhire,Indeed, Hotjobs, HireDiversity, Batonrougebetterjobs, Geowebjobs, Hotmail, jobsonline, realmatch, resume360, thejobspider, Houstonhires,PCRecruiters,Jobsradar,Novotus, Preparetohire.me, TalentTrust, jigsaw, Jobinsider, sciencecareersite,Badon's Employment,inc., Business Workforce,
To give you an idea of working the company job boards I've used the following.
Fastenal, LehighHanson,Aramark,Owens Corning, Armstrong World Industries, Champion Technologies, Akzonobel, Johnson Controls,Aerotek, TransUnion,Vitrura, Shell, Robert Half, Dish Network, Owens Corning, Home Depot, Masco Home Services, Newell Rubbermaid, Bluelink, Georgia Pacific, MSC Industrial Supply,Sims solutions, Culligan, Waste management, wilsoncombat,Sabic Innovative Plastics,United Rentals, Dollar General, Wis International, Solar Turbines,British Petroleum, Love's Travel Store, HB Rentals,Haliburton, Fifth Gear. This is just part of the list.
Other areas I've become associated with is LinkedIn, Praxair,Facebook, Twitter, Yolasite.com, Brightfuse,Wix, MySpace,QuietAgent, Naymz(visible.me).
These are just some. Honestly, I was tracking every site I launched on and have a pocket book I keep everything in because I can't remember them all so I started writing them down. Some might not even exist any longer.But the reason I pointed all these sites out is simply to show it is a full time job keeping up with each, monitoring them and following up to stay at the forefront. My job search became quite serious over a long haul. I knew I had no one to depend on but me. I had many sleepless nights getting up and plugging away again. When I've told people I spent 14 hours a day behind my computer or beating the streets, that was not fictitious. My poor old mother who I tend to had no understanding why I stayed on all the time. Her most redundant question every time she came around was find anything else, you find anything to apply to. I'm typically a quiet person. She can't handle that. She wants conversation. It's hard to converse when you whole world is wrapped up into finding work.
The whole entire point to this message is you have to make you a plan, work the plan continuously changing the plan no different than you change a budget statement as time goes on, so you'll always be ahead of it. It's definitely not a lazy man's game. Each site I've been associated with whether it was a social site or a job board or a specific company's career site I have sat down and filled each and every profile out as they've wanted. Now don't take that wrong as I give everything away. I do not deal well with anyone asking me for personal information like my social security number or my references. Forgetaboutit. I respect my references to much to throw them to the wolves. I am cautious. But here's the thing. First I make sure if it's a social site I know what I placing on it. I never say anything that will draw a red flag. Even like on Facebook. It's personal but business oriented. I love many things that of interest, but you have to stop and think, "is it politically correct"?
You know we all been taught the ole adage of "don't put anything you wouldn't want your grandma to see", well that goes double dose for employers. You have no idea how and if they can get into your site. If someone wants you bad enough, they will go through hoops to find out all about you. Is your political standings in line with theirs? Is your religious thoughts in line with theirs? Hey no one said they had to be. I'm quiet but I tend to voice my opinion when riled, but I know certain things people will take out of context and won't give me the benefit of the doubt such as being my own person with my own thoughts. So, I don't put it on any posting. I watch each and every move I make on the internet. Now if I could ever get my kids to buy into that, which is another blog.
The thing is in my experience I had one goal and that was to be known and get known across the web. Have I succeeded. I think I have. When I Google myself, I pop up first in many agendas. It wasn't always that way, but I had to work many long hours to get there. Will it ever help me, maybe one day, who knows. In regards to recruiters who contact me and find out I'm on a job board. That doesn't bother me at all. They might have the stroke in the company to get me seen or get me an interview, but there's other ways of skinning a cat! It's called determination and persistence.
You know I use to go with my wife to stores, now she was a tiny lady 5'1 and little. But she wasn't one to reckon with. When she felt she was getting screwed she let you know about it and it wasn't what one would consider happy times. How many times did I say, "baby, you don't need to do that, it's not the clerks fault, they just following policies". She felt if you worked for someone you represented them and since no one else was around guess who's going to hear her out? Well on numerous occasions a supervisor or even clerks would approach listen to the problem and here her and her voice getting louder attracting other customers to stare. I guess when you have a mission statement that says something like "we want everyone who shops here to have a pleasant experience", that pleasant experience is not exactly happening at this point. So they would simply give her what was required just to get her out of there. She was never nasty or threatening, just factual, and expected to be treated like a decent paying customer. Well I did that once myself thinking what the hell, the store I was in pulled something totally off the wall with my 13 year old daughter and followed her around and then when she got scared she looked at me and said daddy, those men are following me. Now I can take a lot, but don't ever do anything to mess with my kids, especially my girls. So after questioning the so called security and knowing that she didn't take anything, I came unglued and told them are we finished here after them speaking with me in front of her. They said yes, I had $300 dollars worth of goods in my hands holding 2 credit cards to pay, the child had money in her pocket and I gave them permission to search her purse as she said also she didn't do anything. Crying, I dropped all $300 worth of goods right there on the floor and told them if we are finished here do not try to stop me when I walk out the door or you will be hearing from my attorney. Amazing how people react when you become persistent.
The deal here is with any company, you show enough interest, you keep sending resumes, making calls, learning who the right people are to contact, eventually (not always) someone will take notice and say "let's talk to that person" if nothing else to get you to move on. There's your cue to a quick interview. It works, but you have to have things in order. You can not be a stalker, you cannot be ugly. But you can be professional, determined, learn who the right people are to contact.
Getting out and making your name known is key to any place you choose to want to work. Talking to current employees on your skills when something comes available you made a contact, they might even throw it out there that they know someone the company might want to talk to. Also, many company's have a referral policy where the employee might get a certain amount of bonus just for introducing someone who stays with the company 3 or 6 or even an year. If they stay you get the bonus. Many employees love that. Why wouldn't they want to know you as a prospect? And yes company's do do that. My last company I worked for gave out $1100 if the new hire stayed on for 6 months. The current company I was told that if you introduce an underling and they stay once hired you can get up to a couple hundred dollars and if it's a manager up to $2000. So it does help to get to know the current staff.
If you know people who has left the company, talk with them. You can learn lots. Not the begrudged or disgruntled, but the positive things. The disgruntled however will give you ideas on what was disheartening, why they weren't happy, why they moved on. This might help you in your interview skills about the company and what to stay away from or rather capitalize on. Positive attributes will help you when you do get an interview because you'll know what's important to the culture.
I'm doing it today working. Getting to know new people and listening to older people who has been there a while. Learn from them. They have a lot of information that will steer you in what to do and what to stay away from.
One thing I want to bring up for the interview process. We've all been told never to bring anything to an interview. I somewhat don't always agree with that. Yes I dress professional, but I usually have brought 2 things with me besides a pencil. My portfolio with a tablet inside along with several extra resumes and my brag book. What's a brag book one might ask.
A brag book is all my certificates and write-ups of things I publishes, created, designed, company newspaper articles, copies of evaluations, memos that capitalized on my successes, and certificates of things I've learned. It's about 2" thick in a nice black binder in clear sheets so they can be pulled in and out. My portfolio as I said has a tablet in it. I'm not bashful about taking notes. But you have to weigh out the interview when you get there. Based on whom you're interviewing with and the personalities involved you might just leave it closed, but on the other hand dependent who you're interviewing with, I have no problems asking if you mind if I take notes. Wait until they throw something at you like figures or need to know stuff. I politely ask do you mind if I take notes.
I have also kept in my portfolio things like matrix (excel sheets) I've designed myself like monthly financials, budgets and process maps. Why would I carry that. You know how many times in the positions I have applied for someone ask the question can you do this, are you familiar with this. Now the one's I drum up all all fictitious. I would never use a past employers information since majority of the time those items are privy to the past employer not to be shared. I create my own and when the subject is brought up, I can show them without a doubt, yes I can here are some examples of what I can do. One thing though, if you're doing financials like a budget statement make sure all your calculations and formulas coincide with the information you have on paper. Last thing you want is them to think you can't do a formula in and Excel spreadsheet, or your adds and subtracts are wrong. It's embarrassing let alone after you're gone and if they choose to review it thy might be checking you out for accuracy.
One more thing I leave behind and I have given it earlier during the process so they can follow along in case something of sorts is asked is a black folder when you open it, it can have your business card in it, but in one pocket it has a packet of all my recommendations, and in the other pocket it will have a nice fresh copy of my resume. NO REFERENCES. Those signed recommendations doesn't give them the right to contact anyone, besides some of those people may not even work for the company anymore. Simply let them know this is for your review if you're interested in learning more about me.
One last thing on this post and I'll break. I use to be a hiring manager. I've seen everything one can imagine when it comes to hiring people. One thing that has always aggravated me and if it aggravated me, I can only imagine how it aggravates other hiring managers. Bring a pen and a pencil. You are a professional. A professional never ask for the utensils needed to comply unless it's something they want you to do and they'll supply what's needed. Don't get caught with the eye-roll from the receptionist or the HR or hiring authority when you ask for something to write with. It's embarrassing and very unprofessional.
Until next time.... more to come!
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