In Australia, the winter months are typically a flurry of activity for jobseekers and recruiters.

June 30, the end of the financial year, signals new beginnings. Employers, having put off making hiring decisions until now are typically cashed up and motivated to seek new talent. And, as a handy coincidence, workers are getting itchy feet and long for something new and exciting.

So on one hand we have workers wanting a new job, and on the other, we have employers seeking new talent. Theoretically, this is a match made in heaven where demand meets supply.

Or does it?

Have you been looking for a job for a few months without success? If, so, let’s do a mid-year job search checkup.

Are you sending out hundreds of resumes and not getting an interview?

It’s time to look at two things: the jobs you’re applying for, and your resume.

You need to be absolutely realistic and honest with yourself. Are you applying for jobs for which you are well qualified? And… is your resume 100% targeted to the role you want to pursue?

Solutions: 

1. Apply for jobs where you have recent experience in the right industry. For example, if you are a Pharmaceutical Sales Representative and you want to break into the horticulture sector as a Tree Doctor, then you need to be aware that this is unlikely to happen overnight. Pursuing a change of career is an indulgent move for people with a financial buffer, not for those who are desperate and short of funds. If you need a job immediately, then apply for jobs where you are an exact match and put the dream job on the backburner until you can look from the luxury of a pay-packet.
2. Look to your social network and stop your sole focus being on advertised jobs. What friend or former colleague can introduce you to a company and influence decision makers? An advertised job attracts hundreds, and sometimes thousands of candidates. Don’t put yourself in the largest pool where you are unlikely to be seen. Instead, leverage your relationships with people you know and who can act as your unpaid workforce. It is easier to get before decision makers through a recommendation, than to compete where you cannot climb high enough to get a competitive advantage.
3. Review your resume critically. Is your resume targeted towards the position you want to get now or is it eulogising your past? Is your resume too long, too short; does it focus solely on duties and responsibilities instead of achievements? Perhaps it is so general and so dull that you’d have a hard time trying to convinced yourself to hire you! If you look at your resume and realise that it just is not selling you, then the next step is researching professional resume writers and paying to have professional help.

Are you confused after a highly successful telephone chat with a recruiter didn’t eventuate in an interview as promised?

Often you’ll receive a phone call from a recruiter and the two of you will just click. You have a laugh, the recruiter sounds impressed, you have the skills her client (the employer) needs. You know you’re going to get an interview. But then a week goes by and you start to wonder. Your call to follow-up yields a brick wall with the recruiter either being too busy to speak or you’re given a pretty lame excuse as to why you haven’t been considered.

Look to three things. People who know you and your reputation in the industry, someone who has stumbled over your online persona and doesn’t like what they see, or the job brief either being changed or filled internally.

• People who know you personally, and your industry reputation. It wouldn’t be the first time, particularly in tight-knit industries, to bump into people you know and didn’t like from another job. It is quite possible that when your name came up in front of the employer, he or she knew you (or an influential offsider did) from a previous life in another company. If that’s the case, there is not much you can do, other than to remember that the next time you throw an immature hissy fit, or undermine someone’s authority, it’s likely to come back to greet you later. The mere mention of your name will most likely stop your application in its tracks and no amount of pleading and stalking the job search consultant is going to get you before the employer.
• Your Online Reputation: Enthusiasm from your call melts when the recruiter returns to her desk and Googles your name to see a series of negative, angry rants across the internet on Facebook, Twitter, blogs and more. Your online persona will indicate “TROUBLE” and particularly for high-profile positions, the job search consultant will not be advancing your application to the employer. Angry calls will only reinforce their beliefs of your unsuitability. What can you do? Attempt to rebuild your online persona. No swearing, no off-colour photos, no name-calling, no promoting questionable sites or activities. Instead replace the negative with a positive. Profiles on Linkedin, Google and starting a professional blog, along with more positive tweets will start to rebuild your online reputation.
• The job has changed, has been filled or never existed. Yes, it’s not fair. The company may have been looking to see whether external candidates stood up against their internal candidate and decided they liked their guy better. The employer may have revised the brief by adding extra experience and skills that you don’t have, or the agency were really just looking for business. Unless you want to antagonise recruiters, just accept it and move on. Sometimes things just don’t work out. It’s a pain, but you need to live with it because no amount of anger or whiny stalking is going to change the situation.

Are you getting an interview, but not getting to the job offer stage?

Forget about  tweaking your resume. The sole job of your resume is to get you into an interview. If you are consistently getting interviews, then the resume has done its job. Save yourself the time and effort and instead….

Look at your interview skills. If you are always getting interviews and missing out on the final cut, then there is probably something amiss. If you are getting similar responses such as: you’re over qualified, you don’t have enough local experience, your skills are too broad-based, then you are clearly failing to communicate your value.

Think of regular communicators; for example, telemarketers.

Telemarketers are trained in the art of handling objections. They have a solution for whatever excuse you come up with, that (typically) aims to calm concerns and build trust.

It is the same with interviews. If the interviewer has doubts and objections after your interview, then you haven’t closed the deal. You haven’t calmed your interviewer’s concerns or provided a compelling reason to hire you.

The solution to this problem is not to leave the country in a huff, not to tweak your resume (again), but to do something different. Seek out an interview coach who can help you frame your experience and responses to negative perceptions. Recruiters/employers are looking for someone to make their jobs easy. If you provide them with an unbeatable proposition that answers all their concerns credibly and truthfully, then you’ll no longer be in that holding pattern of being the bridesmaid and never the bride.

So there is your mid-year check list. If something isn’t working for you, then take a new approach to resolving the problem. Continuing to repeat actions that have not worked before is quite simply, wasting your time.

I’m part of an incredible group of career professionals. We call ourselves the Career Collective and we post once a month on a specific career-related topic. See all my colleagues articles below. You can also follow us on #careercollective at Twitter.

• 4 Summer Strategies to Step Up Your Job Search, @DebraWheatman, #CareerCollective
• Putting Your Job Search Up On The Rack For Inspection, @dawnrasmussen, #CareerCollective
• Mid-Year Job Search Checkup: Are you wasting your time? @GayleHoward, #CareerCollective
• What is your unique value proposition? @keppie_careers, #CareerCollective
• It is Time for Your Check-up Ms/Mr Jobseeker, @careersherpa, #CareerCollective
• Mid-Year Career Checkup: Are You “On Your Game?” @KatCareerGal, #CareerCollective
• How to Perform a Mid-Year Job Search Checkup, @heatherhuhman, #CareerCollective
• Reposition your job search for success, @LaurieBerenson, #CareerCollective
• Mid-Year Job Search Checkup: What’s working and What’s not? @erinkennedycprw, #CareerCollective
• Mid-Year Job Search Check-Up: Getting Un-Stuck, @JobHuntOrg, #CareerCollective
• Mid-Year Check Up: The Full 360, @WalterAkana, #CareerCollective
• 5 Tips for Fighting Summer Job Search Blues, @KCCareerCoach, #CareerCollective
• Are you positive about your job search? @DawnBugni, #CareerCollective
• Where Are The Jobs? @MartinBuckland, @EliteResumes, #CareerCollective
• Mid-Year Job-Search Checkup: Get Your Juices Flowing, @ValueIntoWords, #CareerCollective
• When Was Your Last Career & Job Search Check Up? @expatcoachmegan, #CareerCollective
• Is Summer A Job Search Momentum Killer? @TimsStrategy, #CareerCollective
• Is It Time for Your Resume Checkup? @barbarasafani, #CareerCollective

Let’s not sugar coat it. Changing careers is not for the fainthearted.

You are always competing against people who have strong, progressive experience in your desired job or industry, and often, your competitors will have an established network of influencers at the ready to verify reputations and credentials, and recall praiseworthy career moments.

Compounding the problem, is the issue of job search consultants who fail to acknowledge you as anything other than the role you last performed. Convincing recruiters that you have the transferable skills to transition successfully to a new role or industry sector has been likened by some as bashing your head against a brick wall; only twice as painful.

Assuming you manage to convince a recruiter of your potential, you have to make a case to an employer who no doubt would be nervous taking on a novice in favour of a proven performer. The obvious concerns such as the cost and time needed to train the new person and taking on an unknown entity, seem, at least initially, to vastly outweigh the benefits.

Why would anyone want a mature age, career changer? Why would you want to put yourself through the inevitable mood-crushing rejections and longer-than-normal job searches?

The answers to those questions are as diverse as people themselves, but one thing is true.

People do it everyday.

What’s more, against all odds, they actually succeed.

One of those people could be you.

A while back, I wrote about Sharyn, an over 50s job seeker, who gave up a stressful executive lifestyle for one as a Legal Assistant. Two things stood out in Sharyn’s story: she had a plan for what she wanted and she had the determination and perseverance to never give up.

Don’t dismiss these important attributes as simplistic as they are at the core of any job hunt and in particular, they are vital in a successful campaign for change.

It’s not good enough to simply hate your job, or want change.

• You need to have real direction. You need to know exactly what type of job you want.
• You need to be prepared to be in it for the long haul. Patience is a virtue in changing careers.
• You have to want this for something other than money. The old adage is true, money can’t buy happiness.
• You need to visualise yourself doing that job, being in that role and interacting with others. It needs to fit your personality, your values, your preferences for how you like to work and interact with others. If you can’t see it, you need to learn more. How can you find out about the mission, values and environment of companies or people in this line of work?
• You need to have conducted research into what it means to be in this type of role. Is it the type of engagement that requires you to work long hours and be available at the end of a mobile phone seven days a week? A job like this may be exciting, may give you an international reputation and a jet-setting lifestyle, and it may give you the type of remuneration that you can only dream about now, but it could be incompatible with family life or a pre-existing health issue. If you’re pulled in different directions, you may fail to give both sides what they need.

Once you have done your homework on the personal side, you need to be qualified for the job you want.

It’s not enough to say

“Trust me. I can do this.”

With the average investment of a new employee costing up to 130% of the first year’s salary before you get started, the employer needs more than personal assurances and a gift of the gab. (Costs span recruitment (interviews, tests, induction training), plus payroll tax, workers’ compensation, paid sick leave, vacations, superannuation and more).

If technical qualifications such as IT certifications are important, then you need to have them if you want to be considered. If business management degrees are mandatory in this line of work, then you better start studying if you’re serious.

You also need to look into all areas of the job.

For instance a Business Development Manager needs more than just the ability to influence and build relationships. If you can do that, but you have never used a spreadsheet, don’t have a driver’s licence and can’t read maps, then you will only know how to do half the job. (And the employer is not going to teach you things that should be second nature).

Finally, the practical side. You can read more about this here. Going through the traditional channels of job boards and classified advertisements is rarely a successful strategy for a career changer. Changing careers means networking with people you know, using social media as a way to raise your profile, perhaps creating a blog or website, and leveraging the talents of a professional resume writer to rewrite your career in a way that places emphasis on the right skills that make you stand out in a sea of more qualified candidates.

Changing careers can lead to a resurgence of your energy, it can transform your attitude, your financial well-being, and your life. The emotional process can be simultaneously soul destroying, ego crushing, frustrating, exhilarating and exciting. How well you cope and whether you reach your goal is as much about being pragmatic, optimistic and determined as it is being prepared, realistic and qualified.

Some say it’s not a ride for the fainthearted; others say “I did it!”

What do you say?

————-

I am a proud member of the Career Collective, a group of career bloggers who unite once a month to discuss a common topic. This month’s topic is “Best Advice for Career Changers”. Please see links to other articles by these talented professionals below and follow the hashtag #CareerCollective on Twitter.

• Are You Ready for a Career Change? @Debra Wheatman
• Changing Careers? Ask yourself these questions. @erinkennedycprw
• Changing Careers: Not for the Fainthearted, @GayleHoward
• Career Change Isn’t An Exact Science, @careersherpa
• The 10-Step Plan to Career Change, @KatCareerGal
• When it’s Time to Recycle Your Career, @WalterAkana
• Best Career Change Advice: Target & Plan, @JobHuntOrg
• How social media can help you change careers, @keppie_careers
• Expat Careers: You Are Not Your Job Title, @expatcoachmegan
• Changing The Direction Of Your Career, @EliteResumes @MartinBuckland
• Career Changer: Can You Quell Bottom-line Ache? @ValueIntoWords
• Top 3 + 1 Tips for Making a Successful Career Change, @KCCareerCoach
• Changing Careers: Look Before You Leap, @barbarasafani
• 10 Commandments for Career Changers, @LaurieBerenson
• Is Career Change for You? @WorkWithIllness

According to Albert Einstein, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

Consider John.

John has been unemployed for about four months now. He’s had two interviews that came to nothing and has no plan or strategy for moving forward. He keeps sending the same resume and cover letter to the same type of jobs, and finds jobs from the same newspaper and job board weekly. If he’s said “I just don’t understand it!” once, he’s said it 100 times. And that’s just today.

Attempts by friends to offer suggestions, contacts or a chat and a coffee are dismissed by John with a rueful smile and an internal conviction that they just don’t understand the predicament he’s in.

John is living that definition of insanity.  He’s doing the same thing over and over, trying nothing new and hoping against all obvious pointers to the contrary, that this “strategy” will actually work!

Four months is enough time to indicate that something isn’t working. Assuming there are no obvious challenging situations such as a period in jail, a serious workplace injury in his field, or an easily identifiable and turbulent work history of drugs or absenteeism, then there should be no reason that at the very least, John isn’t getting shortlisted for a job.

If this sounds a little like you, then it’s time to conduct a job search audit and review what’s working, what is not, and then take the steps necessary to resolve these problems. Keep doing what you’re doing and you can only expect the same result!

• Audit problem No. 1. One impediment to getting interviews is that you are applying for jobs for which you are not qualified. Remember this: it is not just a lack of skills or education that makes people unqualified. A General Manager applying for a factory job or an entry-level customer service role because he or she is desperate for work, is as equally unqualified as a high school student applying for a management role with a multinational. The best way to get a job, is to apply for roles for which you have a recent history, and that are age and skills appropriate. If you’re not doing that, then change your mindset. You can do the “dream job” or the risky career move later from the safety and comfort of a regular pay packet. For now, you need to pay the bills so apply for jobs where you are an expert (yes even if you’re sick of it! Do you want to be bored or unemployed?
• Audit problem No. 2. If you are perfect for these advertised roles, tick all boxes and yet you still don’t get interviews, then it would be a good idea to re-visit your resume. Has it been created professionally? Does it sell your skills? If you are unsure, do some research. Look at top resume writing sites and review their samples. Look at the formatting, look at the content. Does this reflect yours? If not, you may want to revisit the resume with the aim of making it more contemporary, branded and persuasive.
• Audit problem No. 3. Have you been waiting for the classified advertisements in the newspaper on employment day and looking at SEEK? Have you been doing anything else? If not, you know what they say about putting “all your eggs in one basket”! Shake up your approach! By applying for advertised jobs, you’re placing yourself in the largest pool of candidates available. That’s where the greatest competition lies. Keep that up, but add another string to your job search bow. Try networking. Accept the offer of a coffee from employed friends; you never know what insights they can offer about upcoming jobs or people leaving their companies. Follow up, find out who to approach from your friends who have the inside knowledge and see if you can get before a decision maker.
• Audit problem No. 4. Your resume should not be the only way to communicate your value. Are you using social networking to its advantage? How is your Linkedin profile looking? Are you updating the status, creating persuasive, compelling content to woo people looking for a person like you? Are you joining groups online in your industry? What about Twitter? Are you following every recruiter in your area, state and country? What about resume writers and coaches? This information is free and is yours for the taking. Did I mention this valuable information is free?
• Audit problem No. 5. It’s normal to miss out on the job when you’ve been called to an interview. After all, only one person can win it. But just how many interviews are you attending? If you attend a lot of interviews, it is usually a good sign that you’re applying for the right jobs and that your resume is working. What is it about you then that never gets you to the short list? It may be worth doing a bit of role playing with an interview coach or looking at your responses in greater depth. Are you turning off people because you’re too aggressive, too negative and whiny? Do you look defeated and miserable? Are you giving off a desperate puppy vibe? Are you too confident? Too timid? If you can’t look realistically at yourself, then an interview coach can work wonders in helping you see where you are letting yourself down. (Especially if you have a challenging background to communicate).

You’ve read the top five ideas to help you redefine, re-tool and re-energise your job search when it goes off track. Is it time for you now to conduct your job search audit?

I am honoured to be part of the Career Collective, a group of career professionals who band together to speak out on job search topics once a month. Please see links below to other career professionals and gain insight into other perspectives for tossing out old ideas and retooling your job search. Please also search Twitter for the #CareerCollective hashtags.

• Personal Branding to Fire Up Your Job Search, @DebraWheatman
• Succeeding in a “Final Jeopardy!” World, @WalterAkana
• 5 Steps to Retool & Jumpstart Your Job Search, @erinkennedycprw
• Checklist for Spring Cleaning Your Job Search, @careersherpa
• 5 Ways to Spring Clean Your Job Search, @heatherhuhman
• Ten Surefire Ways to Organize Your Job Search, @KatCareerGal
• Put Spring Into Your Job Search, @EliteResumes @MartinBuckland
• Toes in the Water, @ValueIntoWords
• How to Revitalize a Stale Job Search, @KCCareerCoach
• How to re-think your job search, @Keppie_Careers
• Wake Up and Smell the Flowers: Spring Cleaning Your Resume, @barbarasafani
• Spring Cleaning and Your Personal Brand, @resumeservice
• Spring clean your mind clutter first, @DawnBugni
• Managing Your Career 2.0: On Giving Something Up To Get It Right, @Chandlee
• Clean up, Chin, up, Shape up, @LaurieBerenson

“It’s my age, that’s what it is”, Joan lamented. “I need to come to terms with the fact that I’m just of ‘that age’. No-one wants a person of my age in the workplace!”

Joan is wrong. Sure, if she wants to be an actress in a teen comedy, yes that’s probably true. If she wants to be a top-level fashion model, it’s probably true too. But a retail manager of a fashion store? A real estate agent? Just about any supervisory or management role in a range of industries for which she is highly qualified? Of course she has the same chance as anyone else with equal skills and knowledge.

It’s not so much Joan’s age that’s holding her back from securing a new job, it’s her outdated way of thinking.

Using antiquated job search methods, believing in truisms that were outdated thirty years ago, and then complaining of age discrimination when you’ve done everything possible to reinforce people’s ideas about what it means to be “old” is an exercise in self sabotage.

Let’s look at some outdated job-search beliefs that may be holding you back.

Outdated Language. Reinforcing your age by talking about “the young girls in the office” or “of course, back then we used to use [insert antiquated piece of technology], or “in my day…” is going to widen the divide between you and younger people with whom you may work. Just as you no longer wear leg warmers, a headband or do Jane Fonda workout videos, don’t live in the past in the way you communicate either.

Pouring over the classified job ads. Spending hours examining classified job advertisements is old-fashioned and one of the most difficult ways to get a job. Hours can be wasted while you find a job and prepare an application only to find you’re one of hundreds who have applied. Sure you have a chance, but putting yourself in that pool of candidates means you’re fighting a losing battle from the start. Of course job boards and classifieds have their place, but your professional network can influence and fast track these engagements if you nurture it well. Don’t scoff at social media; it’s not a young person’s game. It can be a savvy candidate’s ticket to a job offer. Ignore it to your detriment.

Resumes must be [insert number] pages. At some point you heard some sage advice and it stuck with you and now you believe it. It may have been true when you first started looking to join the workforce, but it’s no longer true now. By sticking to this outdated piece of your own advice, you’re limiting your potential for scoring an interview. Just how many of your achievements and experience do you want to sacrifice so you can reach an arbitrary number of pages? I’m not giving you carte blanch to create a 50-page resume, but adding half a page to a two-page resume to tell your whole story and create a compelling value proposition for your services, needs to be considered.

Mature job seekers don’t need to put on the fake persona. No-one likes someone trying to recapture their youth by wearing inappropriate clothing and hairstyles or trying to be “cool”. In fact, it can be downright embarrassing for everyone in the workplace. But reinforcing your age by stubbornly clinging to outdated ideas and methods of the past, may very well have potential employers re-thinking your candidacy. After all, will you show those same antiquated ideas in a young and vital workplace?

It’s not your age that gives people pause for thought, it’s your inability to move with the times.

I’m thrilled to be part of the Career Collective, a group of professionals who meet monthly to blog about a certain topic. Please return in the next couple of days to read some other articles on this theme and look for #careercollective on Twitter.

• Juice Up Your Job Search, @debrawheatman
• Want a Job? Ignore these outdated job search beliefs @erinkennedycprw
• Job Search Then and Now, @MartinBuckland @EliteResumes
• Break the Rules or Change the Game? @WalterAkana
• The New: From The Employer’s-Eye View, @ResumeService
• Job Search: Breakable Rules and Outdated Beliefs, @KatCareerGal
• Job Hunting Rules to Break (Or Why and How to Crowd Your Shadow), @chandlee @StartWire,
• Shades of Gray, @DawnBugni
• 3 Rules That Are Worth Your Push-Back, @WorkWithIllness
• Your Photo on LinkedIn – Breaking a Cardinal Job Search Rule? @KCCareerCoach
• How to find a job: stop competing and start excelling, @Keppie_Careers
• Be You-Nique: Resume Writing Rules to Break, @ValueIntoWords
• Modernizing Your Job Search, @LaurieBerenson
• Don’t Get Caught With an Old School Resume, @barbarasafani
• How Breaking the Rules Will Help You in Your Job Search, @expatcoachmegan
• Beat the Job-Search-Is-a-Numbers-Game Myth, @JobHuntOrg
• 25 Habits to Break if You Want a Job, @CareerSherpa

The New Year’s fireworks have heralded a new beginning. For many, it’s the continuation of a long and frustrating job search that carries over from the previous year. For some, decisions have been made to take action and throw off the constraints of a job that now holds little appeal or that failed to live up to expectations.

Regardless of your personal situation, it is important to acknowledge that things have changed. If you’ve been on the job hunt for some time, then re-evaluate your methods. If it didn’t work for you last year, then a change in the calendar is hardly going to deliver something different. Or, in the words of Albert Einstein: “Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

What you should know and do:

Applying for the largest, most prominent job advertisements means you are throwing your hat into the largest pool of applicants possible. Recruiters have hundreds of qualified candidates at their fingertips with these jobs, so if you don’t tick every box, you’re likely to be out of the running. Yes, you may score the role. You could also be hit by lightning or win Lotto. No need to stop the practice entirely, just understand the limitations of this strategy and have other alternatives ready.

Job Search Consultants will go to the internet to search your name. What will they find? Do your negative opinions and comments on blogs, Facebook and Twitter about everything from poor tradesmen to inedible restaurant food, your last employer and your cynicism about companies and people abound? These all combine to build a rather unflattering portrait of the type of employee you may be. Perhaps you can’t find anything. In today’s world the lack of a personal or professional online footprint may be of concern to recruiters—particularly when searching for executives where a good reputation and a solid centre of influence is highly regarded. Work on getting your online presence cleaned up and consistent. You can thank me later for this insight.

The hidden job market is alive and kicking and remains the best and strongest way to get a job. How do you access it? Through people. That’s right. People. Why be one of a hundred equally qualified people vying for one prominent advertised job when you can be the only candidate? Who do you know? Where would you like to work? Where are your former work buddies working? Have you had a coffee with them lately for a catch up? Do you know what projects they are working on? What problems they are experiencing? Getting inside knowledge through casual conversation is one of the most successful ways to spin yourself into the fold. They need someone with your talents and experience; they just don’t know it yet. It’s up to you to make that connection. Maybe they just need a contractor or a consultant to get them through; that’s fine. Once you’ve proved your worth, they’ll be reluctant to let you go.

Take a long hard look at yourself. In fact, write it all down on a piece of paper. How do you dress? Are you a relic of the ’80s? Do you still act like a wayward teenager when you’re 30? Have you turned into a grumpy, cynical, complaining person that you’d never thought you’d become? Are you obsessed about your age so much so that your constant references to it force people to re-evaluate you and hire someone younger? Are you carrying around emotional baggage? Still angry and bitter about how you were treated? It shows. Do something about it. Be ruthless with what are your best and worst attributes. At worst, you’ll need to commit to an attitude readjustment and a new suit. At best, you’re perfect. Congrats.

Come to terms with the fact that that you are not an expert in everything. You may be the best at what you do, but that doesn’t mean you are an expert at tax returns, financial planning, dentistry, or writing your own resume. Admit that you don’t know everything and delegate the things that matter to professionals who can do it better than you. Less time unemployed means more money and a return to normalcy for you and your family.

There are hundreds of services for people wanting work. From coaching to resume development, through to interview preparation services, and more. But if there was one definable “something” that characterises job search now and in the foreseeable future, it’s “Communication“.

• Communicating your value to others at interview
• Communicating with your business and personal networks to expose hidden job opportunities
• Communicating your value online at places such as Linkedin and Twitter and most of all…

Communicating the truth to yourself so that you can get the most out of who you are, your life, your career and enrich the lives of the people around you.

I’m thrilled to be a member of the #CareerCollective. A group of professionals who share their combined expertise with the job search community in the form of articles on a specific topic once a month. Job Search Trends in 2011 is this month’s topic. Please visit the links below for other articles by these talented professionals. Oh! and please follow the hashtag #careercollective on Twitter

• Social Media Recruiting to Grow Further in 2011, @debrawheatman
• Another Year, Another Job Search Begins, @GayleHoward
• In 2011, Increase Your Prospects With Better Differentiation, @WalterAkana
• 4 Lessons Learned From Job Search in 2010, @Careersherpa
• Your Career Action Plan for the New Year, @KatCareerGal
• Trends Job Seekers Should Look For in 2011, @erinkennedycprw
• Things Every Job Seeker Should be Thinking About in 2011, @expatcoachmegan
• Let your presence be known or send out a red flag, @MartinBuckland @EliteResumes
• How to find a job in 2011: Pay attention to emotional intelligence, @Keppie_Careers
• 2011 Employment Trends Supercharged with Twitter, @KCCareerCoach
• 3 Traits for Facing Weather, Employment and Chronic Illness, @WorkWithIllness
• Everything old is new again @DawnBugni
• Career Trend 2011: Accountability + Possibility = Sustainability, @ValueIntoWords
• Career Tools to Check Out in 2011, @barbarasafani
• What Was in 2010, What To Expect in 2011, @chandlee
• The Future of Job Search: 3 Predictions and 2 Wishes, @JobHuntOrg