Job Seeker's Handbook: Don't Wait!

Education, family, the workplace, the Internet - there's a lot of information out there about how to be a good employee, but did anyone ever teach you how to be unemployed? This is the first installment of an ongoing series of advice from people who have been there.

When a job comes to an end, it can be easy to find yourself stunned and dazed. Looking at a buyout offer, a severance check or an unemployment award letter can take the pressure off, giving you a chance to breathe and a few months before paying the bills will be a problem. Some people use it as an opportunity to take time off.

Tip #1: Don't wait. 

Yes, by all means, take a short breather if you need to, a week or two, think about what your next step might be, and work through the emotions associated with whatever happened to bring your career to a temporary halt. But be careful of taking too long, and extending that time beyond what you should.

Why?

• It will take time to land another job. Employers, mindful of the cost of a poor hiring decision, are taking longer to make decisions than they have historically. There are often multiple rounds of interviews, tests and even assignments. In the same time that you spent interviewing with 5 or 6 companies in the past, you may be lucky to interview with 1 or 2. 
• You risk creating a gap on your resume that gets more difficult to explain as it expands. Job interviews can be nerve-wracking under the best of circumstances - why make it harder?
• Employers want workers who have their head in the game and are ready to jump in with both feet. If you're in the groove of scheduling meetings (interviews), getting reports (resumes) out on time, drumming up business (job leads) and treating the hours of 9-to-5 like business hours, you're more likely to present yourself as someone who can make a smooth transition than someone who's gotten used to sleeping late and watching TV until noon.
• In our culture we tend to define ourselves by our jobs, so the further we get away from doing that activity on a regular basis, the less confident we feel and act. Put yourself in the employer's shoes: would you want to hire someone who's unsure of themselves, or someone who presents confidence that they can get the job done? The more connected you are with the memory of yourself as a working professional, the easier it will be to sell yourself as one.
• The longer you wait to ask friends and family for help, the harder it is. Yes, pride will be a factor. How many job seekers have heard that awful line, "You still haven't found a job?" or some form of it! Your network will also need time to understand what you're looking for (yes, not everyone understands what you do, even when it seems like it should be perfectly obvious), and to get feedback from their network.
• If you're tapping in to government resources, like unemployment payments or state-sponsored training, that takes time too. You may run into unexpected delays due to paperwork that's required, or you may miss the start of classes by putting off investigating your options, for example. Contact your local EDD or WorkSource center as soon as you know you're looking for a job (even if you're still employed) so that you will know what's available to you and what's required.

Instructors in the LA Fellows program will assign "action steps" to help the participants keep momentum. In our experience, the LA Fellows who land fastest are the ones who jump on the job search the fastest, try everything they know to do, are open to learning. Getting employed takes time. Start now, treat your job search like a job, and be prepared to put in a full week of search related tasks and activities every week. And don't wait.

Top 10 Reasons A Job Seeker Might Need LA Fellows

10. You know there has to be a better way to move yourself out of unemployment than answering job postings on the internet, but you're not sure what it is.

9. The closest you come to using social media in your job search is borrowing your neighbor's newspaper when they're finished.

8. You break out in a cold sweat at the thought of "networking."

7. You've heard so many different opinions on your resume, you're not sure what's right anymore.

6. You've started to avoid people who might ask how your job search is going because you don't have anything new to tell them.

5. It's been months since you had an interview.

4. When you splurge on Starbucks, you're more excited about being around other people than you are about the coffee.

3. You're starting to think that you aren't applying for the right positions.

2. You tell time based on which daytime talk show is on.

1. You're still reading this...

If what you're doing isn't giving you the results you're looking for, it's time to try something new. The LA Fellows program has a proven track record of helping people move out of unemployment faster through a unique combination of training and project-based volunteerism. LA Fellows helps you focus your job search and add new skills as you continue to search. Come to our orientation, listen, ask questions and decide for yourself if this might be helpful for you; see our orientation schedule here: www.lafellows.org/apply.

Are you ready to change for the better?

That Something Extra

A recruiter called our office recently asking if we knew of any job seekers that knew shorthand for a position that she needed to fill immediately where the candidates would be taking notes for board meetings. She has a deep rolodex of contacts but was having difficulty finding someone who could take fast, detailed, accurate notes. I checked the resumes of recent LA Fellows and found that we didn't have anyone who included that in their skill set.

She related a story of a job she landed earlier in her career. As she sat in the interview taking questions thrown at her from more than one interviewer, she took notes in Gregg shorthand. The manager asked what she was writing. She responded that she was writing down not just the questions asked but her answers so that she could refer to them later. The manager asked her to read back the last question and answer, which she did, word for word. He was impressed. She was hired on the spot.

The moral of this story?

(No, the moral is not necessarily "learn shorthand" - although it is a handy skill to have.)

The moral is two-fold:

1.) Cultivate skills that are valuable to the needs of the employer, that make you stand out from the crowd. Think about your target career, the challenges of that industry and even the future of where it's going. Think about jobs that might be consolidated in the event of an economic downturn and who would most likely be kept to fill those. If you're looking to take classes to get into a new field, consider: if there are a flood of programs for a particular skill, and a flood of students for those classes, what will the market be for that skill by the time you finish and how will employers pluck YOU from that sea of new faces?

2.) Let employers know about your skills. Include it in your Additional Accomplishments section of your resume, and make sure it's mentioned on your LinkedIn page. If it's relevent to the type of work you do, make sure people know about it. Make it easy to answer the question "Why should we hire YOU?"

The LA Fellows Experience by Jonathan Berger

At the informational orientations that are held to introduce people to the LA Fellows program, former Fellows come in and share their experience in the program to give job seekers who are considering applying the inside scoop on what they can expect. Jonathan Berger of Cohort 8 spoke at a recent session and agreed to share his thoughts for the blog as well:

Why did you apply for the LA Fellows program?
 

I am an attorney. I went to UCLA undergrad and then USC Law School.  I even did a semester at Notre Dame.  So I always have someone to root for on a Saturday afternoon.  In my career I’ve worked for several large hospital and healthcare companies, most recently a 12-year stint with a large pharmaceutical company.  Everything was going quite well for me until the division that I was working for was closed down by the parent company.  I was laid off, and went on unemployment for the first time in my life.

 

In many ways I was very lucky.  I was given a generous severance package in light of my length of service, and I was even brought back for a time as a consultant to help with the wind down.  I was provided “outplacement” services including a private coach for interviewing skills and job search strategies, a resume consultant to revise and improve my resume, and similar services.  It was a great “package” – but it didn’t work!

 

I thought that I was doing all the right things, sending out resumes, using the job boards like Indeed, Monster and Simply Hired. I was going to some networking meetings and things like that.   I had some interviews with some good organizations here in Los Angeles, up in the Bay Area, even Arizona.  I came close several times, but nothing clicked.  Over time I settled into a routine of half-heartedly applying for jobs that I didn’t expect to get.  Getting comfortable with being unemployed.  Finding things to occupy my time but not really getting anywhere.

 

Then I heard about the LA Fellows.  I came to an Orientation to find out more about the program.  I didn’t really know what to expect, but I had a feeling that this program was what I needed to get myself back on track.  There’s a famous saying that goes:  “90% of success is showing up”.  I showed up!

What you gained from the training portion of LA Fellows?
 

It may be a cliché that we’re tired of hearing:  “You only get out of something what you put in” – but that sums up the LA Fellows program very well.  Allison Silver and her team have assembled one of the best groups of instructors that I’ve ever seen and put together a series of classes that are more than simply a job search boot camp, they actually provide an education on not only how to be the candidate that will be selected, but how keep that job and continue to build your skills and your network to prepare you for the job after that, and the job after that, and so on. 

What were the benefits of being a part of Cohort 8?

 

There were twenty-two Fellows in Cohort 8.  It wasn’t quite the cast of the movie “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” but we were a very diverse group.  We did, however, have a few things in common: We’re serious about improving ourselves professionally and we look out for one another!  We are willing to learn, and we are willing to help each other.  Whether it was looking over each other’s resume, conducting practice interviews, staying after class to help with setting up a LinkedIn profile or sharing job leads, the Crazy Eights work as a team.  It was nice to be part of a team again.

 

It was also really good to have a regular schedule.  It may seem strange to say, but having things to do, assignments with due dates, etc., are exactly what we needed to get our minds back in shape.  The instructors know that there’d be nothing worse for us than to land a job and then fall flat on our faces on a task, or have attendance problems with being late.

 

The class schedule is rigorous.  The days are long and the breaks were short.  But that’s what the “real world” is like, isn’t it?  This program will get you in shape – believe me.

Where did you volunteer and what did gain from your nonprofit volunteer experience?

 

I came from the for profit sector.  I didn’t have much experience with nonprofits, at least not with how they operate and what the internal dynamics are like.  As part of the LA Fellows program, and in return for the education and training that LA Fellows receive, they are required to perform 100 hours of service for a nonprofit organization.   The LA Fellows program has a network of nonprofit organizations that are eager to have bright, motivated folks work as interns to gain work experience and make connections.

 

In order to get your internship you have to apply for the jobs the same way you would a “real” job. I got valuable experience applying for the internship positions, tailoring and sending resumes, scheduling interviews, showing up for interviews, being on time, not spilling my coffee, having a spare resume with me and remembering what it says, all that good stuff.

How did being an LA Fellows help you land your job/get more interviews, etc.?

 

The nonprofit internship interviews were a very positive experience.  In particular, it felt nice to be “wanted” and for it to be more of a “two-way street”, where I was actually interviewing the nonprofit and deciding if it was a good fit for me. 

 

My volunteer work was done at The Center for Nonprofit Management in downtown LA.  It is a “capacity builder” helping other nonprofits in Southern California with management and organization strategies, consulting services and executive coaching.  My work there has given me valuable experience in my sector, healthcare, and it has given me something real and current to talk about in interviews, networking conversations, etc.

So, did the LA Fellows work for you?

 

Yes, it worked!  Just recently, I had a three-hour interview with a small law firm downtown.  It  was great to feel so prepared and confident.  I used my STAR stories (where one gives an example of a “Situation, Task, Action and Result” that demonstrates one’s skills and experience) and I presented a strong and well-reasoned case for how the hiring manager would be glad to hire me.  So, I was delighted to be offered a job as an attorney working on healthcare and corporate transactions, which is exactly the kind of work that I wanted to do! The job is starting out as a part-time position, which is actually good so that I can ease into it.  But I get the feeling that it’s going to be full-time fairly soon.

 

I would advise candidates for the LA Fellows program to take the application very seriously, especially the essay or personal statement portion. Even if writing isn’t your strong suit if you’re honest about who you are and what you want to do then that will come through.  Allison and the LA Fellows team spend many hours on the selection process, and there really are many qualified people who don’t get in – so don’t be discouraged if you don’t get chosen the first time, you can apply again.

I can honestly say that I don’t think that I’d have gotten my new job without the training and support that I received from the LA Fellows program.  If you want to really take your job search to the next level then this is the program for you.