Career Angel

Whether you consciously think about it, work on it or not you have a brand – and it’s in EVERYTHING you do.
How you present your resume
How you answer the phone
How you dress for an interview
How you send an immediate follow up letter after an interview OR NOT…

So what’s your BRAND – are you PERCEIVED as hard working, confident, willing, creative, problem solving, helpful, knowledgeable, well connected, punctual….. and so on

OR is it more like

“whatever!”

both are brands, and so is everything in between.

Which do you think will work for you better when you out there job hunting?

Which brand will help you go from being a job hunter to a job getter and then a job keeper?

How do you find out what your “BRAND” is?

Well, ask those who know you well see what keeps coming up consistently – there’s part of your brand.
take some of the qualities listed above as a start and give yourself 3 ratings
the first is 1 – 10 with 10 being high on how you see yourself now,
your second rating will answer the question is that good enough for ME – yes or no
and the third is do I want or need to improve this?
hard working,
confident,
willing,
creative,
problem solving,
helpful,
knowledgeable,
well connected,
punctual,
organised,
quick thinking
adaptable

think about other qualities as well and add them to your list.

then it’s just a matter of choosing one quality that you want to improve and then making the commitment to
improve just 1% per day on that one quality for the next 30 days, now that’s not so hard is it?

and guess what some of you will be thinking OK, I’ll have improved that quality by 30% over those 30 days – pretty cool – BUT NO, each day you are improving on the previous day so the first day your improvement is 1% then next day your improvement is 1% of (your baseline + 1%) the next day 1% of (your baseline + 2%) and so on. It compounds – BEAUTIFUL thing – Einstein even called compound interest the 8th wonder of the modern world.

It’s like anything, consistency and perseverance are one of the keys to success – I love something I heard the Robert Kiyosaki said once aim to “UNDER ACHIEVE” EVERYDAY – not try and be a hero then be so overwhelmed by it all that you STOP and do nothing.

So what’s your brand? What do you stand for and how are you going to build that brand even more so you can more uniqueness and value in the services you perform for the world. Share your thoughts in the comment box below.

Shelley Cox
Arch Angel of Career Transformations

That’s the big question and one you need to keep in mind when looking for work.

Take a look a the online career and job service sites such as
seek.com.au
careerone.com.au
mycareer.com.au

use keywords around your industry and location and see what sorts of things come up.

for example if put in a search for retail sales, just as an example, is there a specific industry that has lots of opportunities in this area?

At this stage of the game it’s all about SUPPLY and DEMAND – what is in DEMAND that you can SUPPLY and if you find there is NO DEMAND or very little perhaps it’s time to cross or upskill to an area where there is DEMAND and less SUPPLY.

’til next time

think!

Shelley
Arch Angel of Career Transformations

What? 90,000, yep well that’s the zenith of the rule of 300. Basically the rule of 300 says that each of us knows approximately 300 people. Ministers plan for 300 people at weddings, funerals, christenings..

So what if, in your job hunt you contacted all of the 300 people you know and they could be family, friends, acquaintances, workmates, teachers, former workmates, club members, business owners, the list goes on and on – I mean EVERYONE you know.

And each of them knows 300 people, do the math 300 x 300 = 90,000.

Now is it realistic to expect that EVERYONE of the 300 people you know and contact will talk to their 300 people as well.

NOT A CHANCE. and there will be OVERLAP of people that know you too.

However IF you do it right – know what you are looking for and ESPECIALLY what you have to offer and present it in a succinct, polite manner AND – this is the really important bit

FOLLOW UP. FOLLOW UP, FOLLOW UP
- my nine word speech that echoes Sir Winston Churchill’s
NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER GIVE UP
- oh, and don’t you EVER do that either!

you’ll hopefully achieve a few outcomes
1. people who respect your organised, disciplined and well presented approach, and who know you, may very well be inclined to provide you with the leads you are after.
2. you’ll have a fantastic system for tracking and following up on projects that will be a fantastic addition to your resume.
3. and lastly and the point of all of this, you will hopefully get a job.

To summarize
1. make a list of EVERYONE you know – a spreadsheet is probably best for ease of tracking
2. schedule a regular time each week to work on this and stick to it
3. create a polite, succinct written letter outlining what you are after, what you have to offer and requesting their assistance in putting out the request to their contacts as well.
4. send out your letters / emails (you may like to stagger this say to 20 per week)
5a. 7 days after you have sent the first batch of letters
b. FOLLOW UP with a polite phone call and at the same time
c. Send your second batch of letters / emails
d. Follow up any leads your network provides you
6. 7 days after this repeat 5a. – d with your third batch and follow ups

It’s all about knowing what you want, knowing deep down inside you that you will get it, (this or something better) knowing what you have to offer, knowing that it is an in demand skillset and putting it out there and following up until you hit a job and hopefully one that fulfills your bailiwick (love that word it means A person’s specific area of interest, skill, or authority).

If you’d like some help to put together your own job getting campaign email me for details at careerangel@gmail.com with “Yes I’m ready to have up to 90,000 people on my team” in the subject line.

Next post I’ll talk about how to do this via social media as another way to spread your message.

I’m excited, I hope you are too.

Shelley

That’s right, no one wants to give you a job.

But if no-one wants to give you a job, how are you going to live.

What they’re after is someone who can solve a problem for them, make them money, save them money and build teams
(but that really comes into problem solving doesn’t it?)

So there’s your answer, if you want a job you have to show your potential employer that you can
1.make them money
OR
2. save them money
OR
3. solve their problems
OR
4. build and lead teams

and you can do it at a price that is LESS than what they will make from your work.
It’s called providing value.

The more value you can provide the more you have to offer and the more you are worth to a potential employer.

So next time instead of asking someone “Do you have a job for me?”
why not try “How can I help you make more money?”
or better yet do some research and find out what they want and then go to them with
“I can help you make more money by XXXXXX”

When you can supply what people want and are willing to pay for you will never have to worry about being out of work.

Life gets exciting then too.

til next time.

Shelley
Arch Angel of Career Transformations

Oh, dear, I was just doing a bit of competitive research on a local resume writing company, their site looks good but when I started reading I found several spelling mistakes, including one right where they are saying they guarantee 100% accuracy in spelling and grammar. Not a good look, at all!

Spelling and grammar are still a very important part of the presentation of your resume and cover letter and, in some cases, may even be the factor that gets you into the NO pile. If you see any spelling errors on my pages – let me know! By the way the owner of this particular website business had his mobile listed, so I rang and left a voice message advising him to check his site for spelling errors. (No, I didn’t mention what they were or where they were – come on I’m not going to hand it to him on a plate) would you?

Now you might be wondering why would I do that? Why alert my competition to something that could potentially send people from them to me? Well, what it really boils down to is that I don’t believe in “competition” as such and neither should you – you have a uniqueness and value to share with the world and be remunerated for in accordance with your value and uniqueness.

Til next time,

Shelley

I’m currently privileged to be playing the role of Coach for a Job Club at the moment and the greatest thrill I receive is when one of the participants comes to realise that just because someone says NO to them that it doesn’t mean they are a bad person or don’t have skills or anything like that at all. It just wasn’t right NOW. By the end of a session I can see and feel the shift of energy in the person that is a lot more buoyant, positive and self affirming.

Now that’s when magic can start to happen in your job hunt.

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of hearing Dr John DeMartini speak on the state of the economy. His message was clear – the person who recognises that both perceived good times and perceived bad times also have within them the gem of the opposite is able to weather the ups and downs so much better than others who ride the roller coaster full tilt and and when at their lowest are completely swamped by it all.

He also said that at times of recession / depression it’s an opportunity to re-discover what you really want to be doing, getting in touch with your purpose and ridding yourself of jobs and situations that are holding you down.

So I suggest, like he did to see the duality in everything and find the space in the middle as the only place where growth can occur.