Happy Monday, Recessionistas!

So here is our inaugural post from our certified Job Expert. Lauren Friese from Talent Egg will be joining us on a weekly basis, answering all your job hunting questions and giving free, wicked-awesome advice on how to score a job you love. The first tip? Don’t say wicked-awesome.

 

Lauren will be writing a weekly post each Monday so feel free to e-mail us with your questions and we’ll pass them along.

Job Hunting is like Selling Yourself

 

Hello screwyourecession-ers! I’m Lauren and I’m here to write about job hunting.

 

A brief intro: In my job, I live and breathe entry-level careers. Over the past year, I have developed a major chip on my shoulder and some pretty controversial points of view. For example, I think traditional resumé writing is ridiculous when you have no relevant work experience, campus career fairs are so 1985, and I generally advise students against going to grad school (even though I have a Masters myself).

 

I also think that career advice is at its best when it’s based on personal experiences. And so at TalentEgg, instead of giving straight-up advice, we share our own life experiences – what’s worked (and not worked) for us.

 

And that’s what I’m going to do here. Relatable, practical, you-can-do-something-about-it-right-now job searching tips.

 

With that, it seems practical to start with Step 1 in recession-time job searching: Realizing that when you’re looking for a job, what you’re actually doing is conducting a sale where the product is you.

 

Now I know this sounds kind of sleazy, but it isn’t. Think about it – The concept of treating your job search as a sales transaction can be applied to the whole process….

 

· Finding companies and jobs that fit = Gathering + prospecting leads

· Resume writing = Preparing custom proposals

· Interviews = Sales meeting – your best opportunity to

          a) ask lots of questions to figure out fit

          b) ask lots of questions so you can answer their questions properly

· Job offers = Closing the sale and negotiating price (salary!)

 

Once you accept this, you’ll be in a fantastic position to confidently move forward toward an awesome and ideal job. More importantly, once you accept this, GET STARTED! Here are 3 things you can do right now:

 

· Take stock of your Lead Sources: Who do you know that might be able to help you with a reference or referral? What job boards are available? Who’s blogging in your industry i.e. where might there be community around your industry/job target? What kind of networking events can you attend?

 

· Figure out your Qualifying Criteria: What are the make-or-break factors about the job and company you want to work for? i.e. Are you willing to work weekends? Do you want to work for a big company or a small company? What kind of role would you be willing to accept? What kind of pay range?! Basically - Figure out exactly what it is you actually want to do, and what kind of environment you want to do it in.

 

· Determine your competitive advantage and Unique Selling Point (USP): What can you offer your target job/company that blows the competition out of the water? What’s your angle?!

 

Each Monday I’ll build on these core job hunting principles, showing how you can leverage all this soul-searching you’ve done to absolutely smash your job hunt.

 

A few topics you can expect include:

 

How to write a Career Launching Resume – based on a personal experience involving dressing up like a little boy for a production of Macbeth…when I was 15.

 

Why going to grad school is probably a bad idea – including my personal story of the London School of Economics and some pretty hefty opinions.

 

How to become Google friendly really, really quickly – So that employers find the stuff you want them to see instead of those embarrassing pictures of you in university/college (we all have them).

 

How to get a (good) job when you have an Arts degree – I have two of them (Arts degrees).

 

In the meantime, feel free to get in touch with any questions or leave a comment below!

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 6th, 2009 at 9:31 am and is filed under Jobs, Living, Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Tags: Add new tag, job hunting, Jobs, Recession, Recessionista, Screw You Recession, talent egg