Dream job

I always envy people that know for 100% what they want to do in their life and what exactly turns him/her on. When I was made redundant I felt a bit lost for a good while. I could not identify for myself at that time – what is exactly I want to do career wise in future. I had some experience in my professional life so I could judge what I liked what I didn’t. However, my knowledge was not enough to answer my question – “what I want to do in future career wise”.

All that free time while redundant really set me on thinking about my future. I could not decide which path I should take and that was making me angry and stressed. To ease my pain I was looking through web trying to understand what profession may suit me

www.prospects.ac.uk
www.howtochooseacareer.com

I went further to see what profession I may suit:

www.humanmetrics.com

However, the real thing that helped me and set me going was an idea that came to my mind one day “Maybe, I worry too much about what to do instead of doing anything at all”. At the end I realized that I could not decide in advance what I want to do and where exactly I see myself in 5 years time. There are so many things that attracted me and I was changing my plans every day… Eventually, I decided simply to let it go and start doing some things that I could do and some things that were interesting for me to do at this particular moment of time. The search is yet to be finished, however I feel much more optimistic now. If I see position that I may like – I apply. If I see education program that I can afford and I am interested – I apply… Maybe, your dream career is waiting for you with the next CV you sent.

Thank you but no

If you are looking for a job for a while now you probably heard this a lot then : “Dear…. Your skills and qualifications are so great, you are definitely number one. However, you most certainly don’t suit this position. We will let you know if any openings will arise in future…”, and they never come back.

It is very hard to stay positive at most of the times while looking for a job when redundant, specially, when all you hear is constant and loud “thank you, but NO”. Continuous anticipation of rejection can lead to the false believing that there is something wrong with you or your personality. Be sure it is not true! There is nothing wrong with you or with your personality. There 100 mil small details that may or may not influence your interview or CV screen check such as: today mood of HR persons, weather, or something as complicated as your nails or your knowledge in comparison to theirs.

I would like to share with you few examples from my personal or stories that I heard:

1) I passed successfully 3 stages of very difficult interview to big corporation. However, something went wrong and I was rejected on the fourth stage. I called HR asking to find our more details. That is what she said: “You are very good for the job. You have strong profile, etc. However, manager of this particular department feel you would not suit this job in his department. Again, you are very good for the job, but not for this department…” The only way I could interpret this – it was something personal that lady, who was interviewing me didn’t like. In fact HR called me later to ask me to go through interview to the same company, same job, but different department.

2) My friend was looking for new person along with his boss to his team. There were official requirements to the job, however, manager of the department had his own extra criteria that candidate had to match. It was need to be a man (because there were all girls in the department, so boss wanted to mix the crowd) and he need to support manager’s favorite football team. In fact new person was not as strongly skilled as some (females and males) candidates; however, boss is a boss.

3) One of the lad, who passed interview very successfully was on his way out from the office. When secretary asked him “which of the jackets is yours” he said “the one that is the best one”. Of course, guy was just joking. Unfortunately, potential employer didn’t share his scenes of humor and rejected him.

4) I passed one interview to the company of my dream, and thought I was getting closer…. However, they didn’t call me back again. As I found out later they decided don’t hire new person and just transferred work to different country.

Looking for a job it is hard process weather you have been made redundant, or simply can’t find job you like. Don’t get disappointed in yourself when you start to receive all those NO from potential employers. Because you never know all reasons for rejection, there is no point to blame yourself. Being rejected at interview or on CV screen it is just part of the process. The more you send CV the higher chance you have to win lotto called “new job”.

Please share how are you facing NO.

The hardest interview in my life

I have experience of being interviewed as well as interviewing. Usually the process is straight forward – there is set of standard questions that normally asked, you simply prepare the best possible answers and make sure to cover it all in interview. Of course, there are some tricky questions as “what is your biggest disadvantage? Or why do you think we should hire you?” Answers for those questions should be found in the job description itself. Basically your task is to show your potential employer that you suit job perfectly. At the final stage of interview process it will all come down to weather you have established connection with your potential employer or not.

However, my last interview to one of the IT Company was the most difficult interview in my life. The difficulty was that employer built up questions from my answers and was looking for more and more details on every statement I was making. At the end of the day I didn’t get a job, I am not sure what the reason was exactly. Nevertheless, there are few key points that I picked up from that experience:

1) Be prepared! Even though I did my homework before interview there were some tricky questions like: what you want to do in 5 years? Why you want to do it? What do you think this job will involve? What expectation you will have from that job?....
2) When you are answering question make sure that you are answering true and you would be able to explain any detail of your answer. For example: I did training on one of the sales techniques and the question was please describe what this technique all about. Because training was nearly 4 years ago, I barely remember about it. In this case it is up to you weather you want to go along and try to remember and explain or just simply say – Sorry it was so long time ago, I simply don’t remember- which is also good option.
3) Don’t say too much, simply answer the question. If you will go in too broader answer you are risking ending up with too many questions that could be difficult to answer.
4) Try answering in sort of directive/navigate way – to make sure you are asked questions you want to answer. This is very hard to do on practice, however with lots of preparation possible. For example: I was doing training on one of the sales techniques few years ago and remember perfectly what it was about. Even more, I finished it with distinction. It is a good time to mention that I finished training and end result was marked. Be sure, question – what was your grade will follow, that will give you extra opportunity to shine!

I absolutely encourage you t o share your interview experience! Just write me...

“Get creative” – from unemployed that is earning money

Here is true story from friend of a friend. Lorraine is 28 years old. She was working as HR in one of the small companies in Ireland until last year she was made redundant. Now being unemployed, Lorraine started to look for something new. One day she saw this course about making jewelry, got interested, and started to do it for money. It is not very expensive and time consuming to do. Jewelry she is making unique and nice. As the distributors Lorraine is using her friends, who simply bring made jewelry at work and sell it to the fellow co- workers.

Unfortunately, it is not big money at the moment. However, she is making enough to keep her going and happy. There is always a room for enlargement and improvement in this industry!

Hard truth about employment

Some of the guru of HR may give you the below advise when you have faced redundancy:

"Find a job that makes you happy"; "Follow your dreams and the money will follow"; Discover your passion and that will lead you to success"; "Go to college, discover what you love and a career will follow."

However, how Joyce Lain Kennedy (syndicated columnist focusing on business and career issues) said”-

Not wrong, but not necessarily so. Even when the job market was happily employee-driven, there were holes in that advice -- as I remind people: "If you can't hit high C, you can't sing opera."

In the times of economic crisis EPLOYERS become more and more PICKY. For example, I currently work in the bank. There were several positions opened in my company, so I decided to recommend some people. In spite of the fact that there are currently few employees in the bank that don’t have collage education requirements to the possible newcomers were very high. They were meant to have specific industry qualification! Some of newcomers have even PHD…. People that had accounting background but not in the bank were not considered….Total amount of people my company was looking for was about 30 people… As to me this is a sign that there are lots of well qualified people out there that competing with you for a job… These days if you don’t have specific qualification within certain business area or you are looking to change industry things may be harder then you thing. There is something to think about and to consider….

The best interview tip

"Find a job"- from ex unemployed

Larry Hughes is a poster story for many out there struggling their way to find a job. His innovation that hasn't been tested by the vast majority of professional and managerial job seekers: is blogging.

Hughes is a master book publicist whose talents are legendary in the publishing industry. Until two years ago, he directed publicity at HarperCollins, a major book publisher. But when HarperCollins folded the Collins division in early 2009, Hughes and many other people were cut loose.

Taking action. In a job-emaciated economy, Hughes -- who understands the long game of career management -- analyzed his situation and became a "book flack at large" (his term). A big part of his strategy was the launch of his own blog (bookflack.blogspot.com) to publicize himself into a new position. As he explained in a recent posting:

"Competition for jobs (was) so fierce that I knew I had to do something beyond sending out resumes, searching job sites, pressing for 'informational' interviews, and all the traditional things you do when looking for a job. So being a publicist, I decided to publicize myself."

Success. Hughes also scored mentions in national and industry media. The whole idea was to help keep his talents in front of the publishing industry.

The result: Hughes is starting a great new job as associate director of publicity for the Free Press, a part of book-publishing giant Simon & Schuster.

Evaluation. Were blogging and all his self-promotion responsible for his new job? "Hard to say," Hughes recalls:

"In the end, it came about the way it often does -- through a friend, who alerted me to an opening and connected me to the appropriate party. Still, I have to believe that the publicity I generated played a part, even if it was a subliminal one. No one ever said, 'I saw you on CNN and I'd like to hire you.' But I like to think that if someone in the industry was looking to fill a position, and my name came up, they would at least say: 'Oh, yeah -- I've heard of him.' "

Shortcut. When you want to reach out in new job-finding directions but aren't able or willing to spend the time on your own blog, you can always contribute occasional postings to blogs other maintain.

Even more time-conserving is to find someone who is blogging for a company where you want to work and make comments on that person's blog. As career coach Fred Whelan (whelanstone.com) says: "People who blog really appreciate response and doing so will raise your profile with that person. You may develop an inside contact who will let you know of unadvertised jobs and see to it that the hiring authority receives your resume."

True, inspiring story from ex unemployed who managed to find his way to job! Great example to follow and consider....

Continuing education/study abroad

Study abroad can become great opportunity to explore world, learn new culture, maybe even new language, and just simply enjoy life. Here are some concerns that may arise with that decision.

1) When choosing university make sure it is well recognized in the world. If you are planning to stay in the country of your university to gain work experience then there is no problem. In country of your chosen university it will have enough value and will be well accepted by your potential employer. However, if you want to go back to your native country or any other country where received education have high value, here are some problems may come. For example, most of people will know Oxford, however very few will know about International Christian University –Kiev.

2) Take a good care into choosing of the program. Every country has its own standards and you need to understand at least approximately what you want to get out of this education at the end.

3) Because it is not your own country, it will be harder to make correct decision regarding university. Look for information on forums and sites to understand what is a general impression of students about any particular university. However, all that information can be in foreign language, there are few sites that can help you with that: http://www.studyoverseas.com/, http://www.eilireland.org

4) It could be more expensive in comparison to study local. All those extra costs that arise from travel abroad, renting, clubbing, and etc. More expensive does not mean not possible! Just take this into consideration when making choice.
From the other hand studying abroad it is great experience. Most of multinational companies would certainly appreciate international cooperation environment that you will be part of while study. Because people are coming from different cultural environments you will need to learn to collaborate, solve problems, avoid conflicts, and etc.

All and on – it is good fun and great experience that worth thinking about!