5 Tips to Make Yourself More Accessible to Recruiters

In the 2013 job market, it’s extremely challenging to stand out as a job seeker. There are thousands of job applications online and hundreds of people apply to each position. You need to make yourself readily available to recruiters. Not going above and beyond is the easiest way to fall through the cracks in your search.

There are a number of things you can to do make yourself more accessible and get noticed by recruiters. Here are suggestions:

1. Create a strong personal brand. You need to build a solid reputation for yourself both on and offline. Take advantage of social media, your personal website or blog, your resume and cover letter, personal references, and more to paint yourself in a positive and memorable light. That way, when recruiters look for more information about you, they will be impressed enough to want to set up an interview.

2. Be open to meeting with employers. A really great way to establish relationships with recruiters is to reach out to them for informational interviews. These are the perfect opportunity to build your network, and indirectly put yourself in the running for jobs. Set up an informational interview with a recruiter at your ideal company. Ask lots of useful questions and build a relationship. While you won’t be asking for a job right away, the relationship you foster could lead to one down the road because you’ll be remembered. Since 40 percent of hires come from referrals, having a strong network is a great way to be more accessible to recruiters.

3. Attend job fairs. There are lots of opportunities all of the time to attend job fairs. They could be run through your university, township, professional organization, and more. Recruiters are making themselves extremely accessible to you, so take advantage of it. Showing up to a job fair puts a face to your name and allows you to have a conversation with a recruiter, rather than simply sending your resume into a virtual vortex.

4. Promptly return emails and phone calls. In many companies, the job search process is conducted very quickly. Employers want to hire the best candidate for the job, as soon as possible. They need to fill positions effectively, but efficiently. By responding to emails and phone calls quickly, you will make the process easier for recruiters and you will be looked at more favorably. Waiting more than a day to respond with the information they need could cost you a position, so follow the 24-hour rule (send your response within 24 hours of receiving any communications) to be more accessible and keep yourself in the running.

5. Send follow-ups. After you submit an application or attend an interview, it’s essential to always send follow-up emails. For an interview, send a thank you note immediately. In all instances, if the application deadline, or another deadline set by the recruiter passes and you haven’t heard anything, send a concise follow-up note to remind the interviewer about your qualifications and interest in the job. After that first follow-up, you can try again every week up to two more times for a total of three follow-ups. Sending these emails will help keep your candidacy fresh in the recruiter’s mind. Make sure you’re not forgotten.

It’s really important to keep recruiters’ needs in mind by becoming an accessible job seeker. By doing things to make a recruiter’s job easier, you are setting yourself up for success in return. There are lots of little ways you can be more accessible, and you should take advantage of all of them to set yourself apart from other candidates. With a little luck, your efforts will turn into the best job you’ve ever been offered.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2013/11/12/5-tips-to-make-yourself-more-accessible-to-recruiters/

www.integritalent.com

IntegrITalent

Over 16 years of experience in professional IT recruiting, supporting industries such as Technology,Energy/Utilities, Financial Services, Commercial Real Estate, Retail, Health Care, Telecommunications, and Hospitality.  Successful consulting with “C” level executives at Fortune 200 companies on market shifts and strategies necessary to win the war for talent. In-depth involvement in human resources and resource management initiative across several lines of business.  Fully committed to the concept “People First” in business and personal relationships.

5 Common Resume Mistakes and How to Fix Them

Writing your resume is simple, right? You just open up a Word document and start dumping your responsibilities, a few metrics and just the right amount of keywords onto the page. And voila, that pesky task is done. Wrong! Resumes are strategic marketing communications that must be created thoughtfully and with oomph.

Books are written on the subject and still careerists struggle. One blog post or article cannot comprehensively guide you on building that perfect resume. That said, in bits, bytes and chunks we can construct tips and strategies and highlight everyday mistakes to avoid to help you get out of the resume-writing starting gate. Following are five common resume mistakes along with solutions to fixing them so you can more readily land that next great job!

Mistake #1:

Using an objective. For example: “To leverage my past experience and education to secure a finance management position.” Objective statements traditionally are about you, but today’s resume should be focused on their (employer’s) needs.

How to fix: Replace the objective with a focused headline and profile summary that markets your value to alleviate a company’s pain. Example headline:

Financial AnalystTransforming complex business problems in technology sector into focused, data-backed solutions.

Driving down costs, elevating reporting capabilities and improving decision-making processes.

Mistake #2:

Not including your most persuasive information above the fold. While the resume doesn’t stop after the first paragraphs or bullets or even after the first half of the page, ‘above-the-fold’ marketing does matter.

How to fix: If you want to hook the reader, don’t bore them right out of the gate. Grab their attention with sizzle. So, instead of the profile summary just saying that you are a skilled financial manager with 15 years of experience, power up the message with an achievement. Example:

Most recently, contributed as financial manager for a large automotive group in Kansas City, MO, a position acquired by rising through the ranks of ABC Automotive Company from the sales floor. In this leadership role, consistently performed in top 5% of the company’s pool of 20 finance managers.

Mistake #3:

Writing in the 3rd person. For example: Kevin Jones offers extensive experience as a project management professional.

How to fix: Convert to implied first person. Example:

Offer more than 10 years of project management experience with expertise in applying novel efficiency and productivity solutions.

Mistake #4:

Including a picture. While the value of LinkedIn rises when you post a photo to your social media profile, the same is not true for your resume. When it comes to pasting a picture into your resume file, don’t.  Doing so may create problems for human resources screeners in regard to equal opportunity issues.

How to fix. Simply do not include a photo. Paint vivid word pictures and stories, instead. And if you like, add a few splashes of color, a chart or graph or other impressions that add value while adding flair.

Mistake #5:

Using overused words. For example: visionary, dynamic leader, results-oriented, passion, integrity.

How to fix. Because some of these words regularly are woven into formal job postings, it is difficult to avoid using them altogether if you want to meet the applicant tracking system (ATS) needs some companies have. So, if you do use these buzzwords, be sparing. As well, when you DO use them, be sure to build a contextual story around those words either at the time of use or later in the resume. In other words, prove, through concrete achievements, that you are visionary, or that you have integrity. Example:

Leadership Impact: Captained a mission and vision focus on profitability. Engineered a>$15 million turnaround in one year, shifting unit from quarterly loss of ($8 million) to $7 million profit in Q4 2011.

www.integritalent.com

IntegrITalent

Over 16 years of experience in professional IT recruiting, supporting industries such as Technology,

Energy/Utilities, Financial Services, Commercial Real Estate, Retail, Health Care, Telecommunications, and Hospitality.  Successful consulting with “C” level executives at Fortune 200 companies on market shifts and strategies necessary to win the war for talent. In-depth involvement in human resources and resource management initiatives across several lines of business.  Fully committed to the concept “People First” in business and personal relationships.

How to Impress Your Boss on Your First Day

Want to make a great first impression on your first day of work? Then you must put yourself in your new manager’s shoes.

The perspective you have as a new employee can be very different than that of your manager’s. While on the first day you want to impress your new boss, you also want to distinguish yourself as a new hire who will be a valuable asset to the company. Not only will this help you establish a good first impression (and also job security), but also you’ll get your career with this new company started on the right track.

Here are some things you may want to think about as you prepare for your first day at your new job:

Professionalism.

The way you carry yourself, your attitude, and the way you communicate with others will illustrate your level of professionalism to your boss. You should be prepared to hold yourself to the level of excellence your boss expects from you and should also possess a sincere attitude. Your new boss is instilling trust in you, so strengthen that trust by being genuine and professional.

Accountability.

There are going to be plenty of ups and downs during your first few weeks on the job. On the first day, you want your boss to understand you are a responsible person. Your boss is going expect you to hold yourself accountable for learning your new job and meeting deadlines. Regardless of the ups and downs you experience, make sure you hold yourself accountable for your actions. There isn’t going to be time for you to place blame on outside factors that prevented you from completing a task or project.

Innovative.

Your employer hired you because you have new ideas to bring to the table. Your boss and coworkers are going to expect you to have fresh ideas and contribute your input to the rest of your team. Even if your ideas seem a little crazy, your boss will appreciate your effort to contribute to the company’s success.

Enthusiasm to learn.

Enthusiasm on the first day is a great way to start your new job. Your boss is going to want to see you are excited to work and passionate about what you do. Display your enthusiasm by asking thoughtful questions and taking notes. Your boss will see your desire to learn more about your position as a sign you are genuinely interested in the job. You should also be open to opportunities your boss presents you with and run with them, too.

Ask for help (but make sure you truly need it first).

Managers expect their new employees to need help, but they also expect them to be resourceful. On your first day, you’re going to have numerous questions and need some crash courses about your new position. Your new coworkers are there to assist you, so as long as you tried to use your resources first, there is nothing wrong with asking for help along the way.

Be prepared to bring results.

Remember, you want to show your new boss you are ready to bring the results you promised in your interview. This is your opportunity to scope out your new job and look for solutions to any problems. Your manager is going to expect you to accomplish goals and drive results for your department. To do this, you’ll need to have an attitude that’s willing to work hard to achieve desired results.

Your first day is your chance to show what you have to offer as a professional and how you will continue to add value to your company’s goals. If you implement these different ideas, you’re bound to make an excellent first impression on your new boss and coworkers.

www.integritalent.com


IntegrITalent
Over 16 years of experience in professional IT recruiting, supporting industries such as Technology,
Energy/Utilities, Financial Services, Commercial Real Estate, Retail, Health Care, Telecommunications, and Hospitality.  Successful consulting with “C” level executives at Fortune 200 companies on market shifts and strategies necessary to win the war for talent. In-depth involvement in human resources and resource management initiatives across several lines of business.  Fully committed to the concept “People First” in business and personal relationships.

5 Job Search Tips Going Out of Style in 2014

During your job search, you’re going to receive a lot advice. Some of this advice is going to help you land jobs, while some of it might set you back.

Whether it’s advice you receive from your mother or even a tip you get from a recruiter, some of it won’t guarantee job search success. When searching for jobs, it’s important to know which tips work for you and how to use them to their best potential. Once you’re able to weed out the bad advice from the good, you’ll be on your way to more interviews and landing a job.

To help you decide which job search advice to ditch this year, here five job search tips to avoid in 2014:

1. Only focus on your resume and cover letter.

A common piece of advice you’ve probably heard over the last year is to focus on customizing your cover letter and resume to every position for which you apply. This is a very important piece of advice to follow (and you should always do this); however, there some other important pieces of the job search puzzle you’re missing.

During your job search, you must also focus on marketing yourself as a professional and the value of your personal brand. Your resume and cover letter definitely serve as tools for landing an interview, but what’s going to seal the deal is your credibility as a professional. In addition to crafting the perfect resume and cover letter, make sure you also have a stellar online presence. This means making sure your LinkedIn is current and you’re utilizing the best social media platforms for your career. This not only will help you build credibility as a job seeker, but also help you become discovered by employers who want to hire you.

2. Make sure your Facebook profile is unsearchable.

If you’re worried about employers finding you on Facebook, chances are you’ve probably gone out of your way to make it private. If you’ve changed the spelling of your name on Facebook and applied every privacy setting to make it impossible to discover you, this could send a red flag to employers.

As a job seeker, you need to be as transparent as possible on social media. Why? Because employers want to feel confident that you have nothing to hide from them. Do your best to be your true self online and you won’t have to worry about blocking employers from your Facebook.

3. Keep your personal and professional online presence separate.

You may have been told the safest way to utilize social media for your job search is to create separate accounts (such as two Twitter accounts). While this seems like sound advice, it could have a negative impact on your online presence. Employers want to see that you’re able to blend your personal and professional lives as one on social media. By blending the two, you’re able to show employers your experience as well as your personality online.

As mentioned earlier, it’s important to be transparent as a job seeker because you want employers to see your genuine personality. If you’re worried about employers finding dirt on you, make sure you are only posting appropriate content online. This will save you a headache from having to manage two separate social media personalities for yourself as a job seeker.

4. Apply to as many jobs as you can.

No matter how desperate you are to find a job, don’t apply to every job posting you think you are even remotely qualified for. People land jobs because they show employers they are qualified for the position through their experience, not because of a single qualification or skill.

If you want to land a job, you need to carefully research positions that would be a good fit for your skills and experience. Once you find some jobs you feel are the right fit, begin networking with those companies. When you’re ready to apply and you’ve made some connections, customize your cover letter and resume to each position. This will show employers you are serious about working for their company and will give employers a reason to want to interview you for the position.

5. Use as many buzzwords as possible in your resume.

You’ve probably been told to use as many buzzwords as possible such as “driven” and “innovative” to spruce up your resume and help you win over resume screeners. However, this is actually a job search tip you need to avoid. In 2013, LinkedIn revealed their top 10 list of resume buzzwords you should avoid using in your resume. Regardless of how “responsible” or “analytical” you may believe yourself to be, no employer is going to believe you unless you can support your qualification with an accomplishment story. When writing your resume, make sure you are using relevant keywords that are tailored to the position. This will help you stand out to employers and make your resume appear more credible.

If you can avoid some of these tips during your job search, you’ll be on your way to landing more interviews and jobs. Your job search is more than sending a resume or hiding your personal life from employers online. It’s about being persistent and thoughtful when applying for jobs and making the right connections. Hopefully you’ll be able to use some of these tips to tweak your job search this year and lead yourself in the direction of landing a job.

www.integritalent.com


IntegrITalent
Over 16 years of experience in professional IT recruiting, supporting industries such as Technology,
Energy/Utilities, Financial Services, Commercial Real Estate, Retail, Health Care, Telecommunications, and Hospitality.  Successful consulting with “C” level executives at Fortune 200 companies on market shifts and strategies necessary to win the war for talent. In-depth involvement in human resources and resource management initiatives across several lines of business.  Fully committed to the concept “People First” in business and personal relationships.

3 Rules For Remote Workers

Work in blocks of time

Take your day and break it up into chunks of time. Spend a few minutes every morning (or afternoon if you’re a Night Owl like Aaron Levie) to map out your day. Give yourself reasonable amounts of time for each task with some breathing room between tasks. Give yourself space to check your email and to read industry articles. Know that you don’t need to be productive with every second of your day, you need to be super-productive with your productive time.

I like to structure my days around one major task and three or four smaller tasks. I can focus and work on one task for an extended period of time, usually two hours around 10:00 a.m. to noon and another two hours from about 2:00-4:00 p.m. I can then get the smaller tasks done during the other times.

In structuring weeks, I just list the items that I’d like to get done, then I map those into my daily routines. I try not to be too forward looking in my tasks because at a certain point, my crystal ball simply cannot factor in all of the potential changes that tend to occur.

Get out of your house

Cafes and coffee shops are sometimes awful to work from, but seriously, get out of your house. If you spend all of your time in isolation, you’ll eventually go stir crazy. It’s fine to unplug and take your laptop to a park on occasion, it’s a great place to get writing work done. If you’ve got your day mapped out, you know when you can turn off the internet, get some sunlight and write. Search out other places that you can work from, you may be surprised at some of the local places where you can get great wifi and great food.

“You time” is sacred

Just because you’re working from home doesn’t mean that all home time is work. Work time has a tendency to encroach on your personal time when you’re a remote worker, don’t let it. For me, Saturday and Sunday are off limits unless I have to travel. I don’t do any work, I try not to respond to email, weekends are my personal time. Nights I’m somewhat more lenient with because I have the flexibility to take some mornings and make them personal time. When I had stricter working hours, my nights too, were off limits beyond 6pm. You need to make sure you’re taking the time to do things that you enjoy, otherwise, why work? - Originally posted on Personal Branding Blog by Nick Ingli

www.integritalent.com


IntegrITalent
Over 16 years of experience in professional IT recruiting, supporting industries such as Technology,
Energy/Utilities, Financial Services, Commercial Real Estate, Retail, Health Care, Telecommunications, and Hospitality.  Successful consulting with “C” level executives at Fortune 200 companies on market shifts and strategies necessary to win the war for talent. In-depth involvement in human resources and resource management initiatives across several lines of business.  Fully committed to the concept “People First” in business and personal relationships.

How To Get A Job Before It’s Posted

It’s a story every job seeker has to tell. You find the perfect job opening. You apply. And then you wait. And wait. And wait.

Just because an organization wants to hire doesn’t mean it’s in any rush to fill its open slots. But a new study by three economists underscores that the flip side is also true: firms frequently hire even without having a formal opening.

To better understand how vacancies relate to actual hiring, Steven Davis of the University of Chicago, Jason Faberman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and John Haltiwanger of the University of Maryland dug into the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. This survey samples some 16,000 establishments each month, asking firms how many people they are looking to hire, what sort of advertising they’re doing to find workers, and more.

Looking at data from 2000 through 2006, the researchers found that 42% of hires were happening at establishments that had said, just the month before, they had no vacancies. The take-away for job-seekers: companies often move fast to fill positions as they open. If there’s a place you want to work, find a way to introduce yourself before a job opening is even posted. Because once companies decide to hire, you might not have much time to sell yourself.

And a short window of opportunity is actually the best case scenario. The survey asks companies about vacancies at the end of the month, and then tracks how many hires happen in the next 30 days. This means that the raw numbers don’t differentiate between a company quickly filling an opening, and a company hiring a person without ever officially logging a vacancy. Using some fancy economic modeling, the researchers found evidence that for a full 27% of hires, establishments never recorded a vacancy. What’s going on there? It’s possible to come up with different stories, but one is that establishments hire when they see someone they want—even more reason to try to get your foot in the door before the door is open.

The researchers also took a look at how fast different sorts of firms fill open positions. Construction outfits were the fastest to fill openings. Retailers, leisure and hospitality firms, and transportation establishments were fairly speedy, too. At the other end were employers falling into the categories of government, health and education, and finance. These sorts of establishments took more than a month on average to fill an open position. That’s not to knock certain employers. As the researchers note, some industries are subject to laws and regulations requiring formal search processes, while others survive on constantly filling short-term positions.

In fact, the notion that some outfits are constantly and quickly hiring meshes with another finding: the higher an establishment’s worker turnover rate, the more likely it is to fill positions quickly. That is to say, the firms that get back to you immediately about your application may also be the ones where employees are frequently leaving.

Perhaps that’s something to keep in mind the next time you are waiting and waiting to hear back about a job application.

www.integritalent.com


IntegrITalent
Over 16 years of experience in professional IT recruiting, supporting industries such as Technology,
Energy/Utilities, Financial Services, Commercial Real Estate, Retail, Health Care, Telecommunications, and Hospitality.  Successful consulting with “C” level executives at Fortune 200 companies on market shifts and strategies necessary to win the war for talent. In-depth involvement in human resources and resource management initiatives across several lines of business.  Fully committed to the concept “People First” in business and personal relationships.

How To Find a Job On Google (And Bing)

 Hey job seeker! Let me see if I can challenge your thinking a bit. Do you know how many employment web sites there are online? Take a guess. If you said ten, fifty or even a hundred, you would be wrong. Actually, you would be very wrong. According to the International Association of Employment Web Sites, there are 40,000 employment sites that serve job seekers, employers and recruiters worldwide

With so many employment sites out there, do you think it’s possible to search them all? Pretty unlikely? Well, not so fast. Even though there are 40,000+ job boards out there, Google has done a pretty good job of indexing their jobs content. As such, if you search Google a certain way, you will be able to search a lot of those employment sites.  For example, let’s say that you are looking for an accounting position. This is how you could look for that job on Google.

intitle:accountant (intitle:job OR intitle:jobs OR intitle:careers) (apply OR submit OR eoe)

At this writing, there are 1,230,000 results! Not bad and since… what? (My spider sense is telling me that you have no idea what I just did.) Hmm… Let me explain to you what I just did by breaking down the search bit by bit.

intitle:accountant – Google look for web documents that have accountant in their title

(intitle:job OR intitle:jobs OR intitle:careers) – Hey, Google, while you’re at it, look for the words job or jobs or careers in the title of web documents as well.

(apply OR submit OR eoe) – Just before you show me anything, check those webpages for the words apply or submit or EOE (Equal Opportunity Employer). Why? Job descriptions typically say “apply for this job” or “submit your resume” or have EOE on it somewhere.

Just in case the light bulb is flickering in your mind (but not quite fully lit), here are a few more examples to spark your online curiosity.

I would find an accounting job in Atlanta by adding the area codes for Atlanta:

(404 OR 678 OR 770 OR 912) intitle:accounting (intitle:job OR intitle:jobs OR intitle:careers) (apply OR submit OR eoe)

This is how I would find an accounting job with great benefits:

“excellent benefits” intitle:accounting (intitle:job OR intitle:jobs OR intitle:careers) (apply OR submit OR eoe)

This is how I would find an accounting job where I could work from home:

(intitle:”work from home” OR intitle:virtual) intitle:accounting (intitle:job OR intitle:jobs OR intitle:careers) (apply OR submit OR eoe)

Although I am using Google on these searches, these same searches can be run on Bing. I wonder how well Bing has done indexing jobs from various online job boards. For giggles, let me do a bit of a comparison to see which ones give the most results. Bing it on! Wait… have you heard of that? Hmm… I better explain that.

Microsoft has been running this commercial promoting “Bing It On,” which is a blind search engine taste test (of sorts). A user enters their searches and is presented with two sets of results; one from Google and the other from Bing. However, you don’t know which search engine is giving you which set of results. You choose which set of results is superior and after five tries, you discover which search engine you chose. Supposedly, it will be Bing.

We’ll see.

These are the searches I am testing.

• intitle:accountant (intitle:job OR intitle:jobs OR intitle:careers) (apply OR submit OR eoe)
• (404 OR 678 OR 770 OR 912) intitle:accounting (intitle:job OR intitle:jobs OR intitle:careers) (apply OR submit OR eoe)
• “excellent benefits” intitle:accounting (intitle:job OR intitle:jobs OR intitle:careers) (apply OR submit OR eoe)
• (intitle:”work from home” OR intitle:virtual) intitle:accounting (intitle:job OR intitle:jobs OR intitle:careers) (apply OR submit OR eoe)
• intitle:sales (“submit your resume” OR “to apply”)  (intitle:job OR intitle:jobs OR intitle:careers)

Bing it on!

Unfortunately, my searches could not be compared due to technical issues with the Bing it On website. (Bummer) I tried it multiple times, but no luck there or on BlindSearch.net, which lets you do comparisons between search engines as well. There was also a site I considered called “Bing vs Google,” which did work for me. However, it was not a blind comparison, so I could not judge.  Oh well.

I would be interested in learning these results. Maybe you can do the comparison for me and leave your findings in the comments? I would appreciate it

http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/find-job-google-bing/

www.integritalent.com


IntegrITalent
Over 16 years of experience in professional IT recruiting, supporting industries such as Technology,
Energy/Utilities, Financial Services, Commercial Real Estate, Retail, Health Care, Telecommunications, and Hospitality.  Successful consulting with “C” level executives at Fortune 200 companies on market shifts and strategies necessary to win the war for talent. In-depth involvement in human resources and resource management initiatives across several lines of business.  Fully committed to the concept “People First” in business and personal relationships.
.

How To Reinvent Your Career in 2014

For many people reinvention is front in center in their minds as we enter the New Year. While most focus on losing weight and saving more money, reinvention can also be about your career. Whether you are star employee looking to move up or dealing with a bad reputation there are multiple ways to reinvent yourself in the workplace.

“The beginning of a new year is always a perfect time to take stock and think about what you may want to achieve in your career,” says Cali Williams Yost, CEO and founder of Flex + Strategy Group/Work + Life Fit and author of Tweak It: Make What Matters To You Happen Every Day. “But it’s not enough to define what the change is. You have to put a plan in place to make the change happen.”

One of the main reasons people fail when it comes to New Year’s resolution is they don’t figure out realistic ways to reach their goals. Take weight loss as an example. Many people resolve to lose weight but they don’t think about how they are going to achieve it whether it be going to the gym five days a week or forgoing the desert at night. Same can be said about reinventing yourself as it pertains to your career.  Let’s say you want to move into another department. It’s not enough to say you are going to do that in 2014. You have to figure what skills you may need and you have to identify the right people to network with.

But before you can even put a plan in place, career experts say you have to engage in some self- reflection, especially if you are struggling within your job or company. “One of the first steps in reinventing yourself is taking a look at yourself and acknowledging some short comings you might have or development areas that need improvement,” says Paul McDonald, senior executive director at Robert Half. After that, McDonald says to make a list of the areas you think you need to improve  and then seek out advice from your mentors or trusted advisors who will be willing to give you unbiased advice. You want people who aren’t afraid to tell you the truth and not yes men and women who will simply reaffirm whatever it is you think about yourself and your work.  “Talk to people who know you well on a professional and personal level,” says McDonald. “Some people will give you an honest answer and some won’t.”

Doing a self-assessment and asking for advice is one thing, but in order for you to be successful in your reinvention you have to be willing to take the advice, criticism and feedback you are getting, even if you don’t agree. According to Neil Lenane, business leader of talent management at Progressive Insurance, employees have to be open-minded to the feedback, particularly if it’s a different perspective than their own. “In today’s business environment people have to be agile and willing to do different things even when they are performing well,” says Lenane.

It also pays to be a good observer when you are trying to reinvent yourself. McDonald says to find someone you admire in the office and observe how he or she handles themselves in meetings, with other co-workers and out with clients. Keep in mind when emulating someone to make sure it’s an employee who is respected within the organization. The last thing you want to do is take a page from someone who is despised or is close to being on the chopping block.

With your feedback and plan in hand, the final step is breaking down your goals into small manageable pieces instead of trying to do it all at once, says Yost. Let’s say your goal is to learn a new skill to move up the ladder in your organization. Part of reaching that goal could include taking a class to learn the skills, finding opportunities to test those skills and identifying a mentor to help you progress. Once you have the basics you then have to figure out ways to make those different goals manageable so you stay committed to the reinvention. “It’s really about breaking it down into small actions and priorities and then intentionally and deliberately making it part of your work life week to week,” says Yost. “Over time you’ll get to your goal.”

Rightly or wrongly, often employees in an organization develop a reputation of either being a good or bad worker. If you fall into the latter, it’s not too late to turn that around, granted your reputation isn’t tarnished beyond repair. If you made a few mistakes along the way you can overcome negative perceptions and improve your personal brand within the company, says Amanda Augustine, the job search expert at TheLadders. A surefire way to do that is to demonstrate your improvements rather than talking about them. It’s not enough to proclaim you are going to be on time every day, for example. You actually have to do it. “Actions speak louder than words. Don’t tell people how you have changed; prove it through your actions,” says Augustine. “Look for opportunities to add value. No matter how you ended up damaging your brand, it goes without saying that you should strive to be the model employee for the foreseeable future.

http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/reinvent-career-2014/

www.integritalent.com


IntegrITalent
Over 16 years of experience in professional IT recruiting, supporting industries such as Technology,
Energy/Utilities, Financial Services, Commercial Real Estate, Retail, Health Care, Telecommunications, and Hospitality.  Successful consulting with “C” level executives at Fortune 200 companies on market shifts and strategies necessary to win the war for talent. In-depth involvement in human resources and resource management initiatives across several lines of business.  Fully committed to the concept “People First” in business and personal relationships.
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