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The Savvy Networker

Liz Ryan, Yahoo! HotJobs

There's more job-search mythology being passed around than even the ancient Greeks could have imagined. Some of the most well-traveled and persistent myths are also the most dangerous ones -- because following this faux wisdom could sabotage your job-search efforts.

Here are 10 of my favorite job-search myths, and the reality to replace each one.
MYTH: In your resume, you should talk about how you're great at everything.
Have you ever seen a job posting that said, "We want to hire someone who's good at everything"? Individual department managers get approval to hire people to perform certain specific duties. The last thing you want on your resume is a message that says, "I can do Sales, Marketing, Finance, Customer Service, or Manufacturing!" No one will believe you, and you won't be the best fit for any job, anywhere.
Reality: Use your resume to talk about how you're really strong in two or three areas. If you need more than one resume, so be it.
MYTH: The people who get jobs are the ones who apply for the most jobs.
The people who actually get jobs are the ones who create thoughtful, targeted approaches to the jobs they're especially well suited for. Lobbing dozens of random resumes with boilerplate cover letters into inboxes across America doesn't help you.
Reality: Approach each job opportunity with a targeted letter and, if necessary, a customized resume that links your background and the job's requirements.
MYTH: The more information on your resume, the better!
Editing is an important business skill. If your resume includes the details for the jobs you held before 1990, your resume is too long. Two pages in an absolute max for non-academic resumes, and in those two pages you want to tell us the most important bits, not every task and duty you've ever been responsible for.
Reality: The best resumes are concise, pithy and specific. Less is more when it comes to describing your strengths and talents.
MYTH: If the job ad says "No Calls," you should call anyway -- it'll show that you're really interested.
The quickest way to get your resume thrown in the "not now, not ever" pile is to ignore the instructions included in the job ad. Don't antagonize overstretched HR people by doing what they've expressly asked you not to do.
Reality: Email and snail mail are great follow-up mechanisms. Calling people who've specified "No Calls" is a bad one.
MYTH: A great way to network for a job is to contact people who work at your target companies, and ask them to get your resume into HR.
Here's the scenario: You're sitting at your desk. You're doing your job. The phone rings, and on the other end is a person you don't know, who wants you to hand his resume into your HR department. This random, bizarre scene replays itself every day. Calling strangers to ask for help -- and worse, an introduction to the HR department, notwithstanding the fact that the "conduit" doesn't know you from Adam -- is not networking, it's telephone spam.
Reality: Your own friends, friends-of-friends, and friends-of-friends-of-friends can make introductions for you. Leave everyone else alone.
MYTH: When you get a call from HR and they ask you your required salary, you should lowball them to get the interview.
HR people envision a special place in hell for candidates who say on the phone, "I'd love to come in and interview, and I need to make $50K per year" when in fact, after three interviews, they decide that they need to earn $75K per year. You can give a range on the phone, but you can't say that you're OK with a number that you're really not OK with.
Reality: If you're asked for a salary range, be truthful.
MYTH: In a cover letter, you should quote the job ad as much as you can to show that you're qualified for the job.
Quoting the text from the job ad doesn't say you're qualified. It says that you can read, and type. Rather than quoting the job ad, use examples from your career history that illustrate your ability to perform the job.
Reality: Don't parrot terms from the job ad, but address the elements in your cover letter with specific examples from your past.
MYTH: If you get a call from a phone screener, you say it's not a good time to talk -- that shows that you're in demand.
If you really can't talk (the baby is crying, the dog needs a walk, or you're not feeling well) then ask for a reschedule. But if you can take the call, do it! The more quickly you can get through the phone-screen process and be scheduled for a face-to-face interview, the better for you.
Reality: Don't find excuses to delay phone screening -- if you can manage to take the call when the phone rings, do it.
MYTH: You shouldn't use a "summary" section on your resume -- it's a waste of space.
A summary on your resume is an absolutely critical element, as it ties together what you've done over the course of your career. A well-written summary shows your judgment, your writing skills and your ability to determine what's salient in your background. Without it, you're saying to the reader, "I've done a bunch of jobs, and here they are -- you figure out what it means to your company."
Reality: A concise, specific, and no-boilerplate summary is a critical element in your resume.
MYTH: The job market will improve this spring -- you're better off waiting out the next couple of months.
This may be the most dangerous job-search myth of all, because if you're not working, the last thing you want to do is wait until your unemployment runs out before beginning your search. Employers won't be impressed by your explanation of how you took time off to hang out while the job market improved. There's no guarantee that things will get easier a few months from now. Don't delay -- get your job search engine in gear, now!
Reality: Don't let moss grow on your job search -- get your plan together now and jump into action!

Liz Ryan is a 25-year HR veteran, former Fortune 500 VP and an internationally recognized expert on careers and the new millennium workplace. Contact Liz at liz@asklizryan.com or join the Ask Liz Ryan online community at www.asklizryan/group.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely the author's.

Events for the Week:

9/24	Fed Reserve Deadline
9/29	Navy Lunch & Learn
	11:30-1 East Cafeteria in Union
9/30	Benedictine College Fall Career & Graduate School Fair
	11-2 Ralph Nolan Gym
10/5	Wishy Washy Majors Workshop
	1:00-1:50 in 212 Union
10/6	Missouri Western State University
	1-3:30 Fulkerson Center
10/7	Federal Reserve Bank
10/11	Cerner Interview Sign Up Deadline

Etiquette Tip of the Week:

If you have a little bitty fork resting at a diagonal in the bowl of your soup spoon on the right side of your place setting, it is not for your baby carrots or your baby squash.  It means the first course will be a seafood course, such as oysters, shrimp or crab. 

If the little fork has two prongs instead of three, the seafood course will be escargot (snails).

   As you know, giving credit to the Culture and Manners Institute at http://www.cultureandmanners.com/ is the polite thing to do.

Quote from the Office:

“Why does your shirt look like you got attacked by a chicken?” - Manny

Just Another Week on the Hill...

Hopefully your week has been going well! We have lots of things going on this week!


Job search ends where it started
By Tammy Joyner
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
8:27 a.m. Monday, September 14, 2009
It might pay to hang on to your former employer’s phone number.
Doing so helped William Grube of Lawrenceville get his old job back.
Grube lost his job last fall after business slowed at specialty auto parts provider Mustangs Unlimited, where he sold restoration parts for the classic Ford muscle cars. He and a few other people were let go.
Grube spent the next four months trolling the Internet looking for work, doing the networking routine and applying, he estimates, for some 120 jobs. The result? Nothing.
“So I decided to circle back around,” he said. “I knew they had a small turnover from time to time, and I hadn’t checked with them. I decided to place a phone call to them to see if they had anything going on.”
That was back in February. As luck would have it, the company had just lost a salesperson the week before. Grube was hired — or should we say, rehired.
“He was a good employee to begin with,” said Andrew Allen, the general manager who rehired Grube. “When it came time to refill a position he was someone we wanted on the sales floor. He knows the product pretty well.”
Atlanta career expert Rick Smith called Grube’s job search “fascinating.”
“With the amount of [job] shuffling going on, clearly it pays to stay in touch and keep as many bridges open as you can,” said Smith, author of the book “The Leap: How Three Simple Changes Can Propel Your Career From Good to Great.”
Smith, founder and president of an Atlanta-based global executive networking firm called World 50, noted that research shows that 80 percent of jobs are found through networking.
“The broader and better your reputation is, the more likely you’ll find a job,” he said.
And it can’t hurt to make sure your network includes former workplaces, assuming you haven’t been fired for cause or burned your bridges when you left.
As for Grube? He hasn’t missed a beat at work. In the last month, he said he was the third best-selling salesperson on the staff of 12.
“Timing is everything,” he reflected, noting, “They didn’t have to train me. That’s good for them.”
And for Grube, he not only got his old job back, but earns the same salary and was assigned the same cubicle, where, he laughed, “Most of [my] sticky notes were still on the wall.”

So you can see that networking is very important to your career. You can come get your Free Networking Book from Career Services Office. Be sure to attend all our events to expand your career network!

Events for the Week:

9/17	Etiquette Dinner RSVP Deadline
	$20
	Mock Interview
	Sign up on eRecruiting
9/21-22	Vector Marketing
	10-2 / 11-2 in the Union
9/22	Etiquette Dinner
	6-8:30 Four Points by Sheraton
	Peace Corps
	5:30-6:30 UMKC
9/23	Greater Kansas City Employer Fair
	10-3 UMKC
9/24	Fed Reserve Deadline
9/29	Navy Lunch & Learn
	11:30-1 East Cafeteria in Union
10/5	Wishy Washy Majors Workshop
	1:00-1:50 in 212 Union

Etiquette Tip of the Week:
In a business meal, the host -- the person who has issued the invitation to the meal -- orders last. The guest orders first. Wait until after you order before you begin discussing business, or you will seem too pushy. With a business breakfast or lunch, talk small talk for 10-15 minutes before ordering. At a business dinner, talk 20-25 minutes before ordering.
As you know, giving credit to the Culture and Manners Institute at http://www.cultureandmanners.com/ is the polite thing to do.


Quote from the Office:
“Would you like some prizes to go with your knowledge?” -Katie

Welcome to the new Career Services blog!

Welcome to the new Career Services blog! We hope that this will be a form of newsletter resource for you. So check back every week! Posts on Thursdays!!

In Kauffman Foundation video, economics bloggers share blame for misreading depth of recession

By DIANE STAFFORD

The Kansas City Star

More News

·          

Seventeen of the country’s leading economics bloggers, invited to meet in Kansas City earlier this year by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, now star in a Kauffman-produced video.

The video, available at www.entrepreneurship.org, is hosted by Tim Kane, a senior fellow in research and policy at the foundation.

Kane, a blogger at Growthology.org along with Kauffman Vice President Bob Litan, stitches together a patchwork of opinions by economists.

Among them: The blogosphere was only slightly better than the mainstream media in forecasting the depth of this recession.

Mike Mandel, whose Economics Unbound blog is at BusinessWeek.com, said writers “looked to others and found supporting cues which basically said, ‘Well, this guy is optimistic like I am, so that validates my view.’ And we all creeped further and further over the edge.”

Blogger Arnold Kling said part of the problem was that “people knew stuff that wasn’t true,” including such faulty truths as “regulators knew that their capital regulations were working really well for banks.”

Mark Thoma, who blogs at EconomistsView.typepad.com, said the legacy of this recession will be pronounced.

“We’re going to look back and say our models were inadequate. They need to be changed. We didn’t predict it coming. … We looked in our toolbag for ways to manage it, and they weren’t there.”

But Yves Smith, the author of NakedCapitalism.com, defended the blogging community.

“There was more realistic talk out in the blog world,” she said, pointing to pressure “in the media to tell a happy story. People don’t really like hearing bad news in business.”

The video’s end theme, as might be expected because of the Kauffman Foundation’s advocacy for entrepreneurship, is that business startups will create jobs and industries.

“We are right now in a financial crisis based on our determination that old industries are too big to die,” said Robert Cringely, a technology blogger at Cringely.com. “That’s crazy. They’re too big to survive.”

To reach Diane Stafford, call 816-234-4359 or send e-mail to stafford@kcstar.com.

Posted on Mon, Aug. 31, 2009 10:15 PM

Events for the Week:

9/11	US Marines Pull Up Challenge
	10-1 in the Union
9/14	Fed Experience Info Session
	9:30 212 Union
9/15	Mentor Program Orientation
	5:45-7 in 304 WSC
9/17	Etiquette Dinner RSVP Deadline
	$20
	Mock Interview
	Sign up on eRecruiting
9/21-22	Vector Marketing
	10-2 / 11-2 in the Union
9/22	Etiquette Dinner
	6-8:30 Four Points by Sheraton
	Peace Corps
	5:30-6:30 UMKC
9/23	Greater Kansas City Employer Fair
	10-3 UMKC
9/24	Fed Reserve Deadline

Etiquette Tip of the Week:

Wait for hot items to cool. Do not blow on your soup to cool it, because you might splatter on someone else. Do not take the ice from your beverage and use it to cool hot soup or a hot beverage.  Never use your spoon to scoop ice out of your beverage and do not even think about using your fingers. 

If you are in an interview or an important business meeting -- waiting for hot soup or a hot beverage to cool demonstrates patience.
   As you know, giving credit to the Culture and Manners Institute at http://www.cultureandmanners.com/ is the polite thing to do.

Quote from the Office:

“Why is my backpack back on?!?!” –Manny