Job Search: Interview Articles...

Two great articles showed up on Yahoo the other day for the interview process of a job search. It is well worth your time to read these, it is basically the same advice that I would give:

The Interview That'll Bag a Job

Answering One of the Trickiest Interview Questions

That's when a couple of bones were thrown my way....

So I have been posting lightly this week due to some interesting circumstances.

Tuesday: Went through the first steps of getting my mortgage loan readjusted with the bank. It looks as if it may go through, I should get a call for the next steps some time in the next two weeks. Yay unemployment!

Wednesday: Worked on taxes, I still need to do state but so far $1300 from federal coming back. Will finish this on Saturday. Yay new home purchase and student loans!

Thursday: Two interviews, yeah TWO interviews today. The first was a first round phone interview for a project manager position and the second was a first round face-to-face interview for a manufacturing engineer position. Both in Kansas City. I don't know if I will get called back from either, but I know that gave the best interview I could for each. Yay possible employment!

Overall I am pretty happy with this week, I feel like something was accomplished.

Job Search: Making Connections

I have been searching for a job for about two weeks now and I can officially say that my personal job skills in the manufacturing and project engineering arena is not so hot. Not really all that surprising considering that my two job focuses are on factories and capital projects, which for the most part have been halted for every company out there. So my options are thin, yet some things are starting to pop up.

I consider myself a super sleuth when it comes to finding jobs for myself and I thought, hey in this employment crisis I could give out a few tips to finding a job so:

1. Find good recruiters:

In my line of work I have been called a hundred times by recruiters of all types trying to make a buck off of my back. Most are absolute meat peddlers, but some really are looking out for you. How do you shake out the good from the bad? First most of the bad is obvious, you can hear the urgency in their voice and if you don't fit their exact search criterion, they try to get off of the phone faster than the falling Dow. Good ones will probably do a long phone interview and then a face to face if they work in your town. That is typically a good sign, but the ultimate way to tell if a recruiter is good is when they give you feedback from the potential employer after an interview. That is the surest sign that they care. Those you keep in touch with and they will take care of you, sometimes for a lifetime. It must be said that some recruiters are good at getting interviews even if they are not always representing your interests fairly. They are pushy, and I dislike them greatly but sometimes that is just the nature of the beast.

When I got laid off I spoke with three recruiters immediately, and they are all beating on doors seeing if anything is available. Two are local and one is national, and they all had some possibilities. Like I said, the good ones, who know you, will take of you.

2. Know your boards:

Kansasworks.com, Careerbuilder.com, EngineeringJobs.com, CoatingsJobs.com, Monster.com, KansasCityHelpWanted.com... There are a lot of boards out there and choosing which are the best for you can be difficult. I have two tips to find the best in your area. First, figure out which board partnered with your local paper (for the KC Star it is Careerbuilder.com), it will typically have most of the jobs in your area. Second, find the state sponsored job board (Kansasworks.com for me). This can be the most effective resource because it is typically tied with the unemployment office for your state, meaning it searches a wide swath of other job boards to find you an opening. The state really wants you to make your own money. Go through the motions of creating your resume and then just search and search and search.

3. Make connections and call them:

I have met a lot of people over the years and do my best to keep in touch with lots of them. Why, because you never know when you will need a favor. A favorite target of mine is contractors. They work with lots of companies and typically have a good ear to the ground on companies that are needing people like you. One that I have dealt with quite a bit may hire me as drafter for awhile, which may be what I have to do to pay the bills. I had a good interview at a place a few years back that I didn't just quite fit the position but the plant manager said to keep in touch, and who do you think I called when I noticed that they have some openings now? That is how it works sometimes.

4. Buy the paper every Sunday:

This is how I have found 2 of my last 4 jobs and continues to be maybe the best source for open jobs and direct contact with an employer. It is old fashioned but still really effective. Even though my paper does partner with Careerbuilder, I find that positions posted in the paper are not always online or maybe I didn't enter quite the right search criteria or whatever. The paper works.


That's it folks. Good luck and keep your job.

My Job Search Update...Things are looking up.

Well today I am writing before my phone call with a particular company to accept a position as a Project Design Engineer. It is a little different from my last job working as a Project Engineer doing capital projects for a factory, but it definately falls into the realm of rounding out my experience. It is hard to believe as engineer that I haven't done much literal design, but I haven't. That makes this job a little exciting, but I also have some reservations about the position. Basically, I will be the guy I used to hire at my last job to design, build, and install specialized pieces of equipment. This includes my skills as contractor negotiator, project manager, and will now push my engineering design skills forward. It should be exciting.

What is unfortunate is that no other company moved with the speed as this company did. There are several really good Project Engineering positions available in the KC area, but none of them really showed any interest until late. This company has acted quickly, throwing me in a couple of interviews in a short period of time and making an offer a week later. I definately don't want to be unemployed for a long period of time in this economy either, so this is a good fit for now.

Long term who knows, I still love the idea of the corporate jet-setting Project Engineer, but we will work this angle for now. I need to start preparing now, I have a few things to negotiate with HR before I accept the position. More job search series coming...

Job Series #1: Back to Basics

When hitting the search circuit it's best to get yourself ready for the war. There are some basics that everyone needs to prepare for.

1. Get your suit / interview-ware together. Check your shirts, belt, shoes, and suit. It is simple but if a interview happens tomorrow and you have a suit with a jacket that doesn't fit, brown shoes for a blue suit, a tie that doesn't match, and a wrinkled shirt, what the heck kind of impression are you really presenting? Get the basics covered. For kicks once a year, go to the nice part of Dillard's and get a few items like this and then you should always have something that fits. My GF's brother made me walk through there one day 4 months ago and convinced me to get a discounted Hugo Boss suit. If he wouldn't have done that then I wouldn't have had a perfect fitting suit for an interview I had last week. By the way it is the nicest and best suit I have ever owned.


2. Brush up on your resume. I always tell my friends to update their resume every six months at the least (I probably do it every 3 months). It just keeps it fresh, but also think about how you want to have your resume laid out. Most people do the whole, this is where I worked and this is what I did resume but there are other styles like topical that can be even more effective dependent on your past. I will write more about this topic in the next series to cover resume writing more clearly.


3. Contact your references and ask new people (privately) to become new ones. As you age through life, you will learn new skills, keep track of those that are impressed, those that become your friends, and those that you can count on. I have an odd background, and a wide swath of experiences but sometimes people just don't believe that I have seen and done all that I have seen and done. So I have a good friend that I can always count on for a recommendation, an old mentor that has never let me done, and now that plant manager that choked up when he was firing me, he is on my list. Through your life it is so important to know these types of people that you can count on for good recommendations, it can be a deal breaker in the negotiations, so don't use people that you cannot trust.


4. Join and post your resume on the online job boards. I am amazed at the current work environment. I haven't seen as many postings with company positions as I have seen stuff posted by recruiters this time around. However, what I did notice that once I posted on on some of various job boards, they began talking to me. Granted, papers are still a decent place to look, but make sure to notice who they have partnered with. Mine has posted with Careerbuilder which is way better than Monster and Hotjobs in my area (KC, MO). But there are even better boards out there than that. In KC or Kansas you can use http://www.kansasworks.com/ and search everything, not just those big three, but the state boards, company boards that don't list openly, and all of the odd other boards that may be specific to your job speciality. I think it has to be do to the fact that Kansasworks is state run, and if you are applying for unemployment this is a way to show that the job search is occurring. Either way it is by far the best way to search around here. Again more on this when I talk about resumes.


5. Evaluate your short comings. You want to leave your job, you got laid off, you got fired, something bad happened with your business group, frankly you have to get that behind you, but before you bury that hatchet evaluate yourself. There are things you suck at, things that you lack, or things you can do better. Put that to paper and work on improving that at your next job. I know that two jobs ago, I befriended the floor workers before I ever did the upper management. It cost me a lot there, I changed that at my last job. True I lost my job, but it wasn't because I didn't work well with the upper management, it was due to company consolidation and the plant manager and engineering manager have both said for me to use them as a reference, that was a distinct change. On my next job, I am going to work on pushing contractors harder, being a better estimator of project timing and pricing, and get better at AutoCAD.


6. Treat finding a job as your job. Get up everyday like you were going to work: shower, get coffee, and for the next two to three hours prepare your resume, make some contacts, and search the boards. It will keep you fresh, then the rest of the day try to enjoy some of day to do something productive. Exercise, mow the lawn, that sort of thing.


7. Interview everything. Good advice straight from my father. So what that the job is in Alaska milking penguins, act like that is what you have always wanted to do and interview your best for that job. Why, because when you really find a job that you actually want you will be well practiced and ready. Also, those who struggle with the interview process will need all the help that they can get to reach that comfort level talking about themselves around strangers.


8. Know your spiel, practice your story. Work and work on your story. The more you talk it out the more comfortable you will be with it. If there are sketchy things about your past, be prepared to answer and explain away those problems.


9. Never turn down a job not offered yet and never expect an offer that hasn't arrived. This is another of my dad's wisest advice. I try to never get my hopes up or down for a certain job. There have been times that I thought that I have nailed an interview only to never hear from the company again or likewise written a company off before I had completed the interview. Keep a cool head and keep searching until an offer is in front of you. No use worrying about the decision you don't have to make.


10. Look for a better job! Chances are you have more experience now, that translates to being someone with something definite to offer. So when looking, look for something that is better it may just work out. Sure, if the economy is bad, or your field is competitive, it may be difficult and you may have to take a step down, but you won't move up unless you try.

Next up in the series: Modern Resume

Job Search Series

So to continue on the job search theme, I have always wanted to do a complete write up on how to get a (better) job. So over the next weeks I am going to write up blogs about each step of a employment search process. Being the son of a long time HR Director and constant guy that friends go to for resume write-ups, I feel that I may have some really good advice for anyone going through the process. A goal that I had for this blog was to make posts about finding a job and then eventually reworking it into a practical guide. It looks as if I have a little more motivation for the process now and maybe a little more time to develop it.

Hope you all will find it useful...