In 1990 I launched my business. It wasn’t much, but enthusiasm made up for a lack of desks and equipment. 1990: the first known World Wide Web page had just been written, “SEEK” was part of a game children played, and the term “Yahoo” was Australian slang for a loutish person. Australia’s total population had almost reached 17 million, the average annual salary was $27,227 and the unemployment rate was 5.8%.

Twenty years is just a blip in the grand scheme of time, but in terms of job seeking methods and resumes, it is almost an eternity!

Back in 1990, resumes in Australia were multi-page presentations. An entire page could be devoted to three lines of education placed strategically in the middle of the page. Personal details extended across all of page one and were strategically listed:

Name:

Address:

Telephone Number:

Place of Birth:

Date of Birth:

Marital Status:

Interests:

In those days we called it “white space”.

Today we call it a wasted opportunity.

In 2010, a vastly different methodology is in play. The talk is about personal branding, the resume is referred to as a career-marketing document and colour has revolutionised what used to be “plain Jane” formats with graphs, text boxes dividers and more. Documents are a sixth of the size of their 1990 counterparts; they are more concise and the emphasis on results and achievements have replaced responsibilities and duties almost completely.

Social media has captured the imagination of jobseekers, employers and recruiting firms alike and this is evident in the way people show knowledge of and interest in having a Linkedin profile created, and how jobseekers are routinely sourced by human resources departments, job search consultants and employers.

The service Twitter, barely heard of two or three years ago, has strengthened into a global phenomenon swept along by celebrities, politicians and even the British Monarchy. As a interesting by-product Twitter has changed the way people communicate. It has enriched the way we get our point across without embellishment and this has cascaded into different forms of writing such as emails, cover letters and resumes. People now have little patience for flowery descriptions, lengthy paragraphs, and dull writing—opting instead to make “every word a winner”, with content that is both concise and compelling.

The term “personal branding”—–essentially unknown to all but trailblazers keen to promote the concept just two or three years ago, has now penetrated the broader community. Today, most people know that communicating their personal brand is important to maintain an edge over the competition (even if they don’t exactly know what a personal brand is!)

With public demand for the next big thing continually growing, a revolution has occurred in the job search arena. Resumes now feature branding statements, personal philosophies and testimonials that distinguish candidates as unique “products” about to be launched on the market. This new form of consumerism allows the purchaser (employers and job search consultants) an opportunity to assess whether this individual would be a good match with existing team dynamics.

Standing still is no longer an option in the job search world of today. Professional resume writers are always on the lookout for new methods to distinguish candidates from others in a highly competitive arena. A couple of years ago I noticed an emerging trend in newspapers where the key points were placed strategically in one-line bullet points that provided the summary of the story, followed by the article or report.

I saw this as a strategy that could be transferred beautifully to resume development: a three bullet point summary, with each point no longer than one line, bolded and setting the scene for the narrative of employment experiences following. You’ll see in the example above what an impact this “Key Outcomes” section can make. Even if the reader just scans the document, these three bullet points are going to provide the reader with all they need to know in fewer than 20 seconds.

As a pioneer in placing “Snapshot” text boxes on resumes a few years ago, I notice now that many other resume writers have adopted this way of highlighting important information.

That’s the beauty of this industry where there are the rules, but at the same time innovative ideas can be developed and interpreted within the parameter of these rules to pitch a compelling business case for candidates.

One thing is for sure. The traditional ways that ruled jobseeking when I first started in the nineties (and even a good part of the last decade) have evolved to embrace change through the rapid march in technology and networking.

Experimentation in career marketing when used in a risk-averse environment and within the frameworks of contemporary job search can allow jobseekers to present themselves in ways that are both edgy and sophisticated, yet that play by the rules.

The question is, do your career marketing documents look more like 1990 or 2010?

This article contributes to a topic covered by the Career Collective—a group of seasoned career professionals joining forces to provide advice to jobseekers at all levels. All Career Collective articles surrounding the Christmas job seeking theme will “go live” on December 10 and links will be posted at the conclusion of this article. Please return on December 10 for full links from all Career Collective members!

Who can forget the poignant scene in the movie Kramer vs. Kramer when the character played by Dustin Hoffman schlepps his advertising portfolio from office party to office party on Christmas Eve desperate for a job so he may retain custody of his young son?

As “Ted Kramer” depressingly dodges the eggnog, inebriated staff members, streamers, merriment and absent decision-makers at company after company, he finally corners a senior executive, pushing for the only vacant job available—an embarrassingly low entry-level role well below his talents and experience.

Many jobseekers see the Christmas/New Year period as depicted in “Kramer vs. Kramer: a waste of time where decision-makers have departed and businesses maintain a holding pattern even for new hires until the “business of doing business” is again restored well into the new year.

In countries such as Australia where summer dictates the festive season from well before Christmas to almost February, this holding pattern extends agonisingly for jobseekers as they wait for vacationing stragglers to return from annual holidays and ramp up for the year ahead. In the United States the wait is fortunately not as long as it is in Australia, with new budgets forging a quick ramp up of activity for the year ahead.

So is Christmas for jobseekers just a matter of “HO HO HO Hum”?

• Should jobseekers pack up and go camping for the holidays and put their job search on hold?
• Should they, like Ted Kramer, show their hand and their levels of desperation by crawling around office Christmas parties begging for an opportunity?
• Is there any hope to secure a job in the festive season and if not, what is the strategy for moving forward?

Well, yes there is, and no you really shouldn’t lose momentum. In fact, Christmas and the weeks just prior can present outstanding opportunities for networking. If you’re embarrassed that your networking attempts during the year are being seen as an obvious attempt at job seeking, Christmas is an entirely different situation. People expect others to reach out, look up old friends and colleagues and it is here, as good times and laughs are shared over a glass of wine, that you may be exposed to a business unit’s future plans on which you can form a strategy to get in the door.

No, Christmas is not the time to pull back from the networking part of the job search. In fact, it’s the time to accelerate your efforts!

Generally, a feeling of optimism pervades companies in the new year, with positive earnings reports for the last quarter driving momentum and investors looking at businesses with renewed interest.  In the US this typically leads to a tsunami of hiring activity in the week following new year where employers seek great personnel capable of immediately adding value. In Australia, it takes a little longer to get moving again, but the opportunities are there upon the return of the decision maker, and sometimes before—when and if disaster strikes.

Disasters for companies often strike in the new year.

There are some definite advantages in not “shutting up the job seeking” shop during the festive season. The key one is your immediate availability.

The new year represents a period of change for many. How many people commit to their New Year’s resolution that this year will be the year they leave their job, look for opportunities abroad, or take a chance on starting their own business? While not everyone follows through on those goals, many people do make life-altering decisions at this time of year and, with a smaller pool of candidates available, the odds of you seeing and responding to a recruiter’s call or advertisement when these people leave their positions is significantly improved. With job seeker numbers down, your chances of being a successful candidate looks considerably better and the recruiter can benefit too by placing staff at a time of year where commissions are few and far between.

Why then would you even consider not being part of that smaller group of candidates?

For many, the seasonal gift-giving season can intensify feelings of failure and disconnection for jobseekers. These feelings can erode self esteem and negatively impact the “face” you present to recruiters and employers. The best way to deal with this is to maintain momentum, create your Christmas networking strategy, have fun with friends and colleagues, and always be listening for an opportunity.

Career Collective Members respond to the Christmas Theme for Jobseekers here:

As a member of Career Collective–a community of resume writers and career coaches, this article is one of many responses to Quintessential Careers “Job Action Day”. I encourage you to visit other members’ responses, which will be linked at the end of my article on November 2nd. Please follow our hashtag on Twitter: #careercollective.

Challenging times call for new ideas and new ways. The classic job search of newspaper job classifieds and resumes sent through the postal system seems like a lifetime away.

Today’s enlightened jobseeker is “connected” to people on Linkedin, is “tweeting” on Twitter, joins industry groups on Facebook, comments on industry blogs and is constantly forming relationships through these forms of social media to get access to information that frequently is not even yet listed in newspapers or  job boards.

All very fine and good to say, but for the novice this can feel like a different language and a whole new world and jobseekers are often confused. Why is it done? How do you go about it? What is the point of it all?

The Point of it all

The point of getting involved in social media is to be exposed to people who know something you do not and find out information on jobs and hiring that is not readily available through bulletin boards and newspaper classifieds. Can you imagine how helpful it would be to see a person casually remark on Twitter something like this? “Looks like the network administration job is finally going to be advertised. Thank goodness. Things have been a mess here for ages”

How handy would it be to pop off a private message to your “follower” to ask where that job may be? Yes, that company may advertise, but being first with that knowledge coupled with some detective work on your part in looking up contact details and company addresses, and your resume can be emailed before the job advertisement has been published.

Why is it done?

Being the first to find out information gives you a decided advantage in these challenging times where numerous people are vying for the same job as you. If you can be emailing and tailoring your resume to fit the company before anyone even knows about it, you may find yourself the only candidate.

The How.

We will start with LinkedIn.

What is LinkedIn? LinkedIn is a site for business people where you can reconnect with people from past jobs, search for people you would like to get to know, pose questions on industry-specific forums and use your knowledge and expertise to respond to questions from others. This allows you to become known as a subject matter expert and will elevate your profile which in turn may get the attention of hiring authorities and decision makers. Signing up to LinkedIn is straightforward, requiring only your name, email and a password for logging in later from this link.  Once you have done that, you can start by creating your profile: adding in where you have worked, dates, education and so on. When your profile is created, start looking for past colleagues and people you know. You’ll be surprised how many you find. Feel free to play around on Linkedin. You can’t “break” anything and the best way to get to know something is to use it. You will find ways to send direct private messages to catch up with old friends and ways to become active. Recommended reading: Jason Alba has created a great DVD of webinars on ways of optimising your presence on linked in. You may want to read more about it here.

Twitter.

You may have heard about Twitter. People call it a micro-blogging platform. Simply it is a way to make friends and connections in a way that is short, concise, fun and informative. Now you may have heard some people scoff saying “Why do I want to know what people are eating for breakfast?” as if that is all anyone does on Twitter! Finding out what people are eating is not what today’s enlightened jobseeker has in mind! Job search can be vastly enhanced by gaining access to a vast array of experts in their fields–from recruiters to resume writers and coaches, through to hiring managers and business owners. You can seek these people out by searching for key words such as jobs, recruitment, recruiters, hiring managers, HR and industry-specific words and phrases. Once you find these professionals you can be exposed to volumes of interesting information and in many cases see jobs that are being advertised that you may not have otherwise been exposed.

The key to building relationships on Twitter is being friendly and open. Never cause fights, don’t argue, don’t be rude or discourteous, and while others may swear or say off-colour things, as a job seeker this is the last thing you want to do.

Signing up to Twitter is simple. Click here to create a username and password, add your email and that’s it! Next go to find people here and you can look for friends or people you know. Following people means that you are “subscribed” to what they say. So whenever one of the people you follow makes a statement or asks a question (that’s called a “tweet”) you will see it on your Twitter area in your web browser. Sending a tweet is easy too, you just write something that is no longer than 140 letters in the Twitter box marked “What are you doing?

The way you can search for words or items of interest, is to click on “search” and look for a word preceded by what is called a hashtag which looks like this: #

So if you’re looking for the word jobs, type #jobs in the search field. Also look for #recruiters #recruit #hiring #jobseekers #jobsearch #hiring and any other related search criteria. You will never know what information you find that could be the beginnings of a new job for you. (You don’t have to use the web browser to use Twitter either. There are a lot of different software applications for accessing Twitter too including some for your mobile telephone. Just “Google” Twitter applications and search away for what suits you).

Blogs.

Blogs are another way for today’s enlightened jobseeker to elevate his or her profile and get noticed in a specific industry or sector. The easiest way is to visit corporate or business blogs and read information or articles. Most blogs have a comment feature below each article where you can respond to what you have read and include your name, website (if you don’t have a website you can use your Twitter address) and make a brief comment. You can add to the conversation by providing information not given in the article that will show you as an expert, or you can re-affirm the blogger’s words in a positive manner. Never be a troublemaker or disagree rudely in a public forum. Potential employers could be watching!

Another way blogs can build your profile as an expert in your field, is if you create your own blog. Blogger is probably the easiest place to start if you are a novice and like LinkedIn and Twitter it is free and easy to use.

Make your blog specifically about your area of expertise. For instance, if you are a network administrator you may want to talk about problems you’ve  resolved, equipment recommendations and special tweaks you have developed. You can also include a download link to the PDF version of your resume to make it more of a work portfolio. Search engines index Blogger blogs quickly so hiring managers can have the opportunity to “google” your name and find your blog, your Twitter service and your LinkedIn profile–all showing you “on brand” as a person who understands and is savvy to the value of social networking.

Words of caution:

• Never say anything or upload any picture that you wouldn’t want your grandma or your next employer to read or see. The internet is forever. Don’t ever forget it!
• Don’t exploit people by pushing for information when you haven’t established a relationship (or really even when you have).
• Don’t repeat your own needs ad nauseam. If you follow recruiters on Twitter be respectful and don’t push for jobs. You’ll find yourself unpopular and blocked from receiving information in no time.

There is a whole new world out there for the savvy jobseeker and information is the key. Today professionals provide information and insight that you would otherwise never receive without significant resources at your disposal. Use these free and powerful tools wisely as only an enlightened jobseeker should!

Check out other articles by Career Collective members on today’s jobseeking trends including green jobs, entrepreneurship, cutting-edge job search techniques and more.

Meg Montford: Job Action Day: Finding Your “Mojo” After Layoff

Debra Wheatman: Plan B from outer space; or what do you have in case your first plan doesn’t work out?

Heather Mundell: Green Jobs – What They Are and How to Find Them

Erin Kennedy: Cutting Edge Job Search Blueprint

Grace Kutney: Securing Your Career While Navigating the Winds of Change

Hannah Morgan: Career Sherpa Why Our Job Search Advice is the Same but Different

Heather R. Huhman, Take Action: 10 Steps for Landing an Entry-Level Job

Laurie Berenson: Making lemonade out of lemons: Turn unemployment into entrepreneurship

Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter: You Can Thrive In, Not Just Survive, an Economic Slogging

Rosalind Joffe: Preparedness: It’s Not Just for Boyscouts

Rosa E. Vargas: Are You Evolving Into The On-Demand Professional of Tomorrow?

Dawn Bugni: Your network IS your net worth

Miriam Salpeter: Optimize your job hunt for today’s economy

GL Hoffman: The Life of An Entrepreneur: Is It for You?

Katharine Hansen: Job Action Day 09: His Resume Savvy Helped New Career Rise from Layoff Ashes

Martin Buckland: Job Search–The Key to Securing Your Future Career.

Chandlee Bryan: Where the Green Jobs Are

Barbara Safani: Where the Jobs Are 2009 and Beyond

J.T. O’Donnell: Actions that got people jobs in this recession

Ever tried to create a custom name for your Linkedin profile and found it was taken? Here’s an idea, use your position title with your name. It helps differentiate you and stamps your brand at the same time. Instead of say, Linkedin/John Smith, try JohnSmith-CEO, or JohnSmith, Operations Manager, or JohnSmith, General Manager (Telco Multinationals).

The buzz today is about networking. Everyone networks as we have been told it is the key to penetrating the hidden job market.

That’s true. Absolutely.

You find out more through talking to people than you ever could ploughing through the classified ads, which let’s face it, represents the largest pool of candidates for one job you’re ever going to be up against and where competition is the strongest. When someone says to you: “There were 800 candidates for that job” I’ll bet you it was advertised in the paper or on the internet. Makes sense doesn’t it?

Yell the loudest and you’ll get the most attention. From everyone.

Then there’s networking.

Today, savvy jobseekers are posting profiles on Linkedin and Twitter, Facebook, Naymz and more all trying to connect with people who they hope will be able to do something for them. The problem is, no-one exactly seems to know what they are doing. Sure, add someone to your Linkedin list. Go for it. Now where’s the job?

To many people, networking means asking for a job.

For example: “I found Fred Smith. He used to work with me ten years ago at ADD Corporation. I asked him to be my buddy on Linkedin, he agreed, I asked him if he had anything at his company and he said ‘no’! So I guess this networking thing doesn’t work at all!”

This is common. People are running around adding contacts to online networking sites and then not knowing what to do or why they did it!

Let me share a recent success story of one of my clients. A senior executive, you’d think it would be relatively easy to pick up a new gig right? Wrong. Senior executives get the “You’re too qualified” tag daily. Once an individual has been a C-Level executive then recruiters and employers pigeon-hole him or her immediately. And when you’re at the top of the pyramid just how many opportunities that are within that narrow confine do you think there are? The average unemployed executive looks for his next gig solidly for a period of between 6 and 12 months. 6-12 months of wasted talent while “needle in haystack” jobs arrive. (And then of course you still have to be the successful candidate even when they do come up).

Here’s how my client, used his network to create a job that didn’t even exist.

First, he made contact with vendors, clients and past colleagues. Of course he made it known he was seeking a new opportunity, but there was no pressure. They didn’t have to do anything for him. There were no expectations or obligations. They were off the hook so free to accept a catch-up over coffee without the need to act.

In one particular conversation, the networking contact talked about the challenges of his job; just as we all do from time to time he bemoaned a project that had started out badly and was continuing to go “pear shaped”.  The candidate’s ears pricked up.

A project not going well? Had he just heard an opportunity?

One casual coffee and the candidate knew that there was a problem to be solved.

He also knew he could solve it.

Now the challenge. How could he get before and convince the main players that he was their knight in shining armour? The candidate contacted his network that he knew would have access to information on this project. More casual coffees and lunches, helped him build a greater understanding of this high profile project from a diversity of sources. Piece by piece the candidate started to put together the jigsaw. Snippets of information slotted together and key decision makers were pinpointed.

It was time to leverage his network to get an introduction from his friend on the project who was by now keen to involve someone else to take the pressure off.

At first, the meeting with the senior executive was just a “Let’s have a chat” session. However as the candidate demonstrated an in-depth knowledge of the project based on the picture he had put together, it was clear to the decision maker our candidate was going to be valuable.

The company was interested. Very interested.

In fact, after internal discussions, a position was created to deal with this project’s problems.

Guess who got the job? And from a candidate pool of one. Why start a recruiting campaign when the solution was before them?

This is the power of networking.

A job that didn’t exist, exists now. Cobbled together from some casual coffee and chats, a keen ear, insight and the confidence to find and present a solution to the person who needed it most and at the time he needed it the most.