Monthly Archives: July 2010

Applying For Employment At A Previous Employer’s Competitor

Posted on by
Reply

Among any employer’s worst fears is the one that their prize employees will be lured away by a competing firm offering higher salaries and more attractive privileges. This is a very real possibility; after all, what better way is there to get trained, motivated employees than by attracting those very same employees over from a rival company? This very same desire also provides anyone looking for employment with a unique opportunity.

While you were working with a company, you are sure to hear about and get to know about other companies operating in the same industry. This information will serve you very well if you are now looking for employment in the same market but can no longer work for your previous employer.

Approaching Old Competition

As someone who used to work in a competing company, you might even be acquainted with people from rival firms. These are the first people you should look up if you are now looking for a job in their companies. This is because you are likely to have built up a name or reputation for yourself while you were working in the industry, and in most industries, people are at least aware of the other professional working in the same markets. If you are able to leverage on respect that you might have earned as a worthwhile competitor, then you might be able to secure a job with ease. If not, then you will still have to go through the regular job application process.

Do not be discouraged however, if you find that you have to send in your resume like any other regular job applicant. As long as you have listed your previous firm under your prior employment, you are sure to be granted an interview almost immediately. This is because employees who are familiar with the business and do not require the same amounts of training as brand new employees do, are considered extremely valuable to a business.

At your interview, you should emphasize the fact that you know the ins and outs of the business and the markets in which it operates. Your interviewer is sure to appreciate the fact that you know what you are talking about and that you can be a valuable asset to the company.

You also need to make sure that you are clear about why you left your previous employer. If it was not by choice, then you can downplay it by saying that you had a falling out with your previous employer or something along those lines. If it was because you had a problem with the organization or with your fellow employees, then make sure you are explicit with the details. The one drawback of coming from a competing firm is that prospective employers will be wary about whether you are honestly applying for a job or are a corporate spy tasked to find out more about the inner workings of a rival company.

All in all, applying for a job at a previous employer’s competitor is a great way to get yourself into a relatively high-paying position without having to start at the bottom rung and work your way up the corporate ladder.

More Jobseeker Advice from CareerRush.com

Sample Resumes: Human Resource Resume

Posted on by
Reply

The humble resume is becoming more and more a form of art, which jobseekers need to master before they even stand a chance of being invited to a company for an interview. Previously, resumes were simply documents that listed a person’s achievements and qualifications, for no other reason than to let a prospective employer know about such details. Today, however, writing a resume is an exercise in discarding draft after draft and fine-tuning it to the extent that it resembles a thesis more than a document containing some personal information. If you are finding difficulty in writing your own human resource resume, then you can find help on the internet in the form of sample resumes.

To most people, using a sample resume is about finding an appropriate sample and filling in the blank spaces. They simply use the standard sample and fill in the blanks with their personal details, educational qualifications and professional achievements. While this is one way to write a resume, the result is a resume that looks identical to the resume of whoever else made use of the same sample resume. This is most definitely not a good thing when you are trying to distinguish yourself from the crowd of people who are applying for the same job you are.

Using Sample Resumes Effectively

There are ways of making use of sample resumes without making it obvious that you did so. Of course, this involves a lot more time and effort than you would take to simply fill in the blanks, but this balances out in terms of a better chance of you getting whatever job you apply for. Writing a human resource resume is not particularly different from writing a resume for any other job, but there are differences that you must be aware of. These differences are absolutely essential in getting your resume noticed and bettering your chances at becoming employed.

The first difference is that, unlike applying for other jobs, your human resource resume will go straight to the department that you are also applying to join. As such, your interviewer will not only be an expert at interviewing prospective employees, he or she will also be looking at you from the standpoint of whether or not you have what it takes to be a colleague in their department. This means that your resume will undergo even closer scrutiny.

Thus, instead of treating sample resumes as standard format resumes that merely need to have their blanks filled in, you should look at sample resumes as sources of guidance. Most sample resumes will have laid out the requisite sections that you should include in your human resource resume. Take note of these sections, but create your own layout and order for your resume. This will ensure that your resume is entirely original and not merely a slightly edited copy of an online sample.

This same principle applies to all other areas of writing a human resource resume using samples – use the sample as a guide but write your resume in your own words, with your own layout and using your own design. This will help you greatly in making your resume stand out amongst the inevitable crowd.

Check Out the CareerRush Human Resource Resume Example

Jobseeker Tips: Avoiding Age Discrimination Within Your Resume

Posted on by
Reply

Sure, everybody knows that with age comes wisdom; however, this truism is often disregarded in the recruiting world. When applying for jobs, age discrimination is a harsh reality that older jobseekers have to face as most employers think of older applicants as people who have passed their prime. In fact, even younger job applicants who have just graduated from college tend to face age discrimination in that they are typically dismissed because of lack of experience. It is Catch-22 situation.

The truth is, an individual’s employability peaks midway through their working years. There are ways to downplay the age angle however and avoiding age discrimination within your resume is merely another exercise in proper resume writing.

Navigating the Age Minefield

The main factor driving the reluctance of employers to consider older workers is that employers are usually concerned that older employees would be too set in their ways and would be stuck in older methods of getting their job done. Employers are constantly seeking out new and innovative ways to change systems, so as to stay ahead of the competition. As a mature job applicant, there are ways for you to respond directly to this need by constantly renewing yourself and your working habits, thus aiding you in avoiding age discrimination.

One good tactic in avoiding age discrimination within your resume is to leave out any details from which your prospective employer might be able to glean your age. Your date of birth, for example, is something that you can safely leave out. While most people include their date of birth in their resumes, it really isn’t necessary. If you have a family of your own, leave their details out of your resume. Your prospective employer hardly needs to know whether you have kids when you have not even reached the interview stage yet. These tips will help you keep your resume professional but without any hint of your age, so your prospective employer will judge your resume based purely on the merits of your achievements and qualifications when deciding whether or not to interview you.

Keeping Up With The Times

In recent years, one problem that mature workers tend to have has quickly become a chief reason for employers seeking younger employees – computers. Use of modern computers only became widespread after many of today’s mature workers joined the workforce. As such, many of them had to learn through painful trial and error how to perform even the most basic functions on a computer, and many remain barely computer literate even today. The fact of the matter is that computers have become an integral part of the modern workplace, however, as the improvements they bring to productivity simply cannot be ignored.

It is not so difficult to learn to be more than merely literate when using computers. Common office applications such Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint are good starting points. Becoming proficient in their use will help you improve your productivity and score huge brownie points with current and future employers.

By updating your skills regularly, you can include these skills in your resume and show prospective employers that you are just as current with modern advancements as fresh job applicants. This is one of the best ways of avoiding age discrimination within your resume.

How to Avoid Age Discrimination When Searching for Employment

The Importance Of A Strong Resume Objective

Posted on by
Reply

You have most probably heard of the phrase ‘if you fail to plan, you plan to fail’. This happens to be rather appropriate to the situation when you are thinking about the importance of having a strong resume objective included in your resume. Unfortunately, many people overlook this important facet of resume writing and there are some who are do not even know what exactly a resume objective is.

What is a Resume Objective?

A resume objective is simply a statement that you include in your resume which sets down your employment goals. Employment goals can be simple – to gain employment as a department manager in the information technology industry. Or it can be fairly complex – to contribute to an established information technology company and also gain the necessary leadership skills to successfully lead a software development team. How complex or detailed a resume objective you include in your resume is entirely up to you. As a general rule of thumb, however, you want to go beyond simply saying that you want to be employed in the job you are applying for. Your application alone is evidence enough of that, without you needing to state it as an objective.

What Having A Strong Resume Objective Tells Prospective Employers About You

Your resume objective will serve as a form of introduction to your resume, highlighting the type of job you are looking for and the reasons for which you are applying for that job. This will be the very first thing that your prospective employer looks at, so you need to put careful thought into what will go into your resume objective. Having a well-written and focused resume objective will give prospective employers a good impression of you even before they start reading the rest of your resume.

Focus: The first thing you need to take note of is focus. While a strong resume objective can be a great boon to your chances of landing a job, having an unfocused resume objective would be akin to sinking your own ship before you even set sail. Focus refers to how appropriate your resume objective is for the job that you are applying for. You hardly want to have a resume objective that talks about working in a human resource department when you are actually applying for a job in sales. A focused objective is one that is tailored specifically for the job opening that you are applying for, and also anticipates what your prospective employer is looking for in an employee.

Detail: Detail is another important factor that can make or break a resume objective. A strong resume objective will contain a certain amount of detail, which a weak resume objective will lack. A lack of the requisite amount of detail will make it look as if you wrote your resume objective entirely without effort. A good example of the amount of detail you should include in a strong resume objective would be – the specific position you are applying for, the industry it is in, the skills you can contribute, the skills you wish to hone, and what you want to do for the company.

A strong resume objective will greatly increase your chances of landing a job when you send your resume in to prospective employers, so you should definitely take the time and effort required to write a detailed and focused resume objective.

See CareerRush’s Sample Resume Objectives by Industry

The Ever-Important Thank You Letter After An Interview

Posted on by
Reply

A thank you letter after an interview for a job is like the icing on a cake. While a cake may look and taste good on its own, a layer of decorating icing will instantly elevate its status. In much the same way, your thank you letter will make you look that much better to your interviewer and also make you stand out from the rest of the interviewees.

What Exactly does A Thank You Letter Do?

First and foremost, your thank you letter after an interview will let your interviewer know that you are knowledgeable about the formalities of job applications. Your interviewer will immediately be better disposed towards you than towards those job applicants who neglect to send thank you letters. Beyond that, your thank you letter will serve as both a form of continuation of the conversation you had during your interviewer and as an effective conclusion to that conversation.

During any interview there are sure to be questions that catch you off guard or that you just wish you’d answered better than you did. These particular questions can be a source of great distress post-interview, as you replay what went wrong over and over again in your mind. This is where your thank you letter after an interview can be of great use to you.

What To Include In Your Thank You Letter

1. First, you should clarify any doubts that you think you might have left your interviewer with and answer any questions that you did not handle well or properly. If, as you step out the door from your interview, you suddenly think of something you should have mentioned when answering a question, then include it in your thank you letter. This will serve to round off the interview process on a positive note, as a discerning interviewer will distinguish between those interviewees who merely mouth platitudes in their thank you letters and those who make the effort to write a useful and informative thank you letter after an interview.

2. Next, be sure to include a summary of the salient points of why you want the job and what your qualifications are. You must be careful with this part, however. Remember that you are writing a thank you letter after all and that you should not bore your interviewer with a reiteration of every single one of your achievements since the fifth grade. Instead, identify a few key qualifications that you think will make you stand out from the other applicants.

3. Finally, you should approach the entire process of writing a thank you letter after an interview as an exercise in sales. You are selling and marketing yourself to your interviewer, and your marketing effort must be coherent. No matter what style of writing you may have, make sure it is consistent throughout your thank you letter. It simply will not do to have curt and formal sentences in the first part of your letter and fill the rest of it with long and rambling paragraphs. Pick a style that works for you and stick with it. 

With that, you should now be better able to write your thank you letter after an interview for a job. By following the guidelines laid out above, you will impress your interviewer with a well thought-out thank you letter, thereby increasing your chances of landing that job you want.

Check Out the CareerRush Job Thank You Letter After Interview Example

How To Ensure That Recruiters Find Your Uploaded Resume

Posted on by
Reply

With advances in technology, more and more people are coming to discover the sheer power of the tools that are widely available on the internet. There are tools to help you in almost every aspect of your daily life, from online shopping helpers to resume builders and databases. If you are looking for a job, then online resume builders and databases are perfect to help you in your search for a suitable career. You need only know the right way to craft your uploaded resume such that it will attract the attention of the right recruiters.

What is an Online Resume Builder?

An online resume builder is a simple yet powerful tool that will help you in crafting your resume. It consists of a series of forms that you fill in with all your personal details including employment information, achievements and educational qualifications. Once you have done that, the resume builder will automatically compile and format a complete resume for you, which is stored online on the website’s servers. Many websites also offer services where your completed and uploaded resume will be made available to recruiters who regularly trawl resume databases in order to find prospective employees.

There are certain tips and tricks to using online resume builders and databases however, in order to ensure that your uploaded resume is noticed by recruiters. These tips and tricks will help your resume stand out among the hundreds of thousands of resumes that are stored on resume databases.

Making Your Uploaded Resume Stand Out

The first thing you need to do is to make your resume specific to the industry and type of job that you wish to work in. This is because most websites sort resumes according to the industries that they are targeted at. This makes it much easier for recruiters to sift through the many hundreds of resumes contained on a single database.

You can make it even easier for them to find your resume by making your resume as industry-specific as possible. The best way to do this is to use industry-specific terms throughout your resume. Every industry has its own jargon, with terms that are not known to people operating outside the industry and that are not used in everyday life. These are terms that recruiters will be on the lookout for, because they identify prospective employees who are interested in the particular industries which the recruiters come from.

A good resume objective is another way to ensure that your resume draws the notice of recruiters. Most recruiters simply cannot afford to take the time to read through each and every uploaded resume they come across, so they skim through the resumes and only stop when one catches their eye. Thus you need to make it easy for your resume to catch the eye of recruiters. A good way to do that is to state your employment goals in a resume objective that you put right at the front of your resume. This gives recruiters a quick summary of what you are looking for in a job and how you might contribute to a potential employer’s company.

By following these tips, your uploaded resume is sure to catch the eye of many a recruiter and you will be able to land that job you are dreaming of in no time.

Making a Recruiter Search Friendly Resume

Finding Work Directly By Skipping The Classifieds

Posted on by
Reply

Chances are that you have watched a movie or television show before, which involves one of the characters frantically searching for a job, poring through the classifieds everyday and following up on all those leads only to get nowhere. While you may have thought that this only happens in television shows and movies, the reality is that those shows are based on real life. Too often, jobseekers find themselves scrambling about, responding to one classifieds ad after another to no avail.

The key to finding a good job lies in knowing exactly what you want. You can hardly expect to find appropriate work opportunities if you have no inkling of what it is that you are looking for in a career. You need to take the time to decide what industry, position and department you would like to work in, and use this as the starting point for your job search. Knowing exactly what you want will also come through when you write your resume, and employers like job applicants who are sure about themselves and their chosen career path. Once you know what you want, you can begin your search in earnest.

Most people who scour the classifieds for job openings are usually people who have no idea what they want. This is why other methods of job hunting will not work for them because those other methods require a person to be sure about what they want to work as. These other methods of finding work are much more direct than circling advertisements in a newspaper.

Jumping Straight Into The Job Market

The internet is an excellent tool for finding work if you know how to use it properly. In recent years, many websites have been created that are great for finding the right job. These websites are also known as resume databases. Despite their somewhat banal-sounding name, resume databases are actually an exciting new development. With a resume database, you need only craft your resume to reflect the exact type of work and workplace that you are looking for, and wait for an employer to come to you. Contrary to popular belief, many employers are constantly on the lookout for new employees. They merely hold out until they find employees that they think are worth hiring. By listing your resume on one or more resume databases, you greatly increase the chances that an employer will find your resume who thinks that you would be the perfectly addition to his company’s workforce.

Networking is another effective method of finding work directly by skipping the classifieds. Even if you are currently unemployed, you are sure to have contacts from your previous workplaces, family, relatives, and even friends whom you can talk to. You never know which of them might know of a job opening somewhere that suits you, or who might know a friend of a friend of a friend who is looking to hire someone such as yourself. The power of networking as a job seeking tool is often underestimated, but by putting feelers out, you will soon find that there are a great many job opportunities right below the surface just waiting to be found.

More Job Search Tips from CareerRush

Important Jobseeker Tips: Email My Resume

Posted on by
Reply

In this day and age, sending anything by regular post is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Email has left regular post in the dust when it comes to communication over distances, not least because of its reliability and speed. The same can be said of sending in resumes. Earlier, the only way to send your resume to a company was to send it by means of regular post. Nowadays, however, it is considered acceptable or even standard for prospective employees to email their resume to a company’s human resource department. In short, it would be best for you to simply select an ‘email my resume’ option instead of sending it by post.

What do I mean by ‘email my resume’? The answer is simple – with so many people having trouble writing their resumes, enterprising individuals have developed a wide range of online tools to help jobseekers with resume writing. Among these are resume builders, which allow a user to input their information and details, which the builder will use to construct a complete resume. These powerful tools are extremely useful for people who truly struggle with writing a resume. Besides that, they also offer a host of other features, among which is usually the option to ‘email my resume’.

With most resume builders or databases, once you have completed your resume you have a few options. Among those are the options to print your resume, or to email it. The first option is for those people who are not comfortable with approaching a company by email and would much rather do it the tried-and-tested way – through regular post. The second option is for people who place more faith in technology and would prefer the convenience of not having to print their resume, seal it in an envelope, buy and stick on stamps, and head down to the post office to post it. If you are thinking about applying to more than one company for a job, then you should definitely make use of the ‘email my resume’ option.

Why Email My Resume?

One good thing about choosing to email your resume instead of sending it by post is that you communicate directly with the human resource department of the company you are applying to. Sending a resume by post is a relatively impersonal way of sending in your resume as compared to emailing it, because the person who receives your resume immediately knows your email address without even having looked at your resume. This makes it that much easier for the company to get in touch with you if they have questions or would like to schedule an interview with you.

Another thing to consider is that statistically, email is far more reliable than regular post. The computer code and hardware that controls emails has been refined over the years to the point that it is almost unheard of for an email sent by someone not to arrive in the intended recipient’s inbox. Regular post, however, is still subject to human errors and as such is far less reliable.

When it comes to your resume, you should not take any chances. So what are you waiting for? Get online, create your own resume and hit that ‘email my resume’ button.

More Tips for Emailing Your Resume

Information Technology Cover Letters: Be Specific About Your Experience

Posted on by
Reply

If you are looking for a career in information technology, then there are some things you need to take note of when writing the cover letter for your resume. Information technology cover letters differ slightly from cover letters for other jobs, simply because of the nature of industry. The information technology industry is highly focused on technical aspects and as such your cover letter needs to reflect this focus.

Be Specific with your Information Technology Cover Letter

The first thing to remember when writing information technology cover letters is that you need to be specific. One of the most important things you should include in any cover letter is past experience. Do you have prior experience in a job or is your experience garnered from when you were working whilst in college? Be specific about your experience. Your interviewer will be interested in knowing as much as possible about your working experience, and you should oblige them by providing examples and detailed descriptions of where you worked, what position you held and what responsibilities were given to you.

Some points to focus on when listing your specific experiences are your leadership capability and positions of responsibility. Employers love job applicants who are able to demonstrate leadership skills, because every company is always in need of people who are able to lead others and elevate their departments to greater heights. So if you possess any of these desirable characteristics, do not be afraid to list them out when writing information technology cover letters.

Making Use Of Industry-Specific Terms

One trait common to those working in the information technology industry is their preference for the use of technical jargon. Their idiosyncratic nature stems from the need to use technical jargon in their day-to-day activities, because of the sheer volume of different objects and concepts that require names in the information technology industry. Many interviewers who interview applicants for jobs related to information technology are skeptical about those applicants who are unfamiliar with the regular technical jargon used in the industry. For the interviewers, this indicates a lack of familiarity with the industry itself, and a likely lack of suitability for the job.

When writing information technology cover letters, you should never replace a technical term with layman’s language if you can help it. You can rest assured that the person reading your cover letter will have a firm understanding of any technical terms you might use.

Furthermore, if you intend to place your resume on job search engines so you stand the chance of being found by prospective employers, then using industry-specific terms will help generate those hits that you require. Employers will find those who use industry-specific terms first, because they would rather look through the small pool of candidates savvy enough to use those terms than the large group of candidates with more general resumes.

So if you find yourself writing information technology cover letters, take note of the advice provided above. It will give you a better chance of making a lasting impression on your interviewer and landing your dream job in information technology.

Check Out the CareerRush Information Technology Cover Letter Example

Job Interview Questions: Going Above And Beyond At Work

Posted on by
Reply

When conducting job interviews, employers will inevitably look for employees who display their eagerness to go above and beyond at work. The best employees are always those who take the initiative to do more than just the basic requirements when dealing with their responsibilities. There are some employees who simply follow their instructions to the letter. While they may do their jobs well, employees who merely follow instructions and never innovate when carrying out their tasks will never be of the same standing in their employers’ eyes as those who are used to going beyond the call of duty.

The important thing at your job interview is to be able to convey the message that you are the kind of person who will always go above and beyond at work. The tricky part lies in working that aspect into your interview without sounding arrogant or desperate. The best way to do this is to subtly let it slip in when answering a question that your interviewer asks you.

How To Work Going Above And Beyond Into One Of Your Interview Answers

You need to remember not to rush to insert your description of yourself as someone who goes above and beyond at work. Some people are so focused on saying what they want to, that they forget that they are there to answer their interviewer’s questions and not to make a presentation. The key is to respond appropriately when you are asked a question.

A good example of a question where it would be appropriate to give a description of yourself as going above and beyond at work is if your interviewer asks you to list your strengths or describe your best attributes. This would be an excellent opportunity for you to include your best personal characteristics, including your inclination to go beyond the call of duty.

You also need to frame your answer properly. If you were to simply tell your interviewer that you go above and beyond at work and leave it at that, you will most probably not leave a lasting impression on your interviewer. If you include a concrete example in your answer however, you will have a much more lasting impact on your interviewer. If you are just entering the workforce and do not have prior job experience, then you might wish to use a college project or something similar as an example.

Be sure to use the right tone of voice when answering this question. You do not want to come across as cocky but you also want to add the right amount of enthusiasm so your interviewer knows you are telling the truth. Take pride in your work, but also be humble in realizing that your achievements would probably be outshone by those of your interviewer.

Going above and beyond at work is a trait greatly desired by employers and if you are able to show your interviewer that you possess this trait, you will be well on your way to making a good impression and landing that job you are applying for.

Examples of Going Above and Beyond at Work

More Job Interview Videos…