What it Really Takes to Land Your Next Job – Part 2

–Text from Career Thought Leaders Consortium “Findings of 2010 Global Career Brainstorming Day: Trends for the Now, the New & the Next in Careers.”

Multicultural identities are more important than ever. As the world of work becomes more global with each passing day, employers are looking for candidates with diverse backgrounds, bilingual skills, and multicultural experiences. Be sure to include any information that is the least bit relevant to communicate a message of cross-cultural qualifications in resumes, cover letters, LinkedIn profiles, career bios, and all other career marketing communications.

Master job applications are a valuable tool in today’s job search market. A “master job application” includes all of the data that job applications require: job titles, employers, dates of employment (months and years), locations, phone numbers, contact names, salary, reasons for leaving, and more. This comprehensive document will be each job seeker’s single source for all online job applications. As career professionals, we provide a valuable service when we help our clients create the master application. Do it once, do it right, and they’re all set.

In discussing salary, timing is everything. Most career professionals around the world still concur that it’s best, whenever possible, to move the salary discussion further back in the interview process so it’s not used as a way to eliminate candidates. We want the companies to know the real value of our clients before they have the money discussion. With that said, a great suggestion for getting around salary requirements in an online application is simply to fill in “1,” with the expectation that a hiring decision maker will still be interested in that particular candidate based on experience, credentials, achievements, and other qualifications.

Candidates face scrutiny like never before. With so many qualified candidates in the market, companies and recruiters today are doing background checks that are the most thorough ever. Hand-in-hand with this reality is the fact that job seekers must be able to discuss their entire career histories and not just the past 10–15 years. Hiring authorities want to know now if there are any skeletons in the closet, even if they go back as far as 20 or 30 years.

Snail mail makes a comeback. A few years ago, sending resumes by traditional postal mail was considered passé. Today, however, many think it can be a great differentiator, depending on the specific hiring audience. Think strategically about “who” the job seeker is and “what” types of organizations he’s applying to. Then, make the determination if snail mail might be the answer. Consider a corporate management trainee position with 400+ resumes uploaded in response to the job posting. If your client’s resume arrives on the hiring manager’s desk, he has made it easy for that manager to invite him for an interview (assuming he has the qualifications). Likewise, a CEO applying for select opportunities might also find that she gets better leverage with a snail-mail resume that is sharp, conservative, and distinctive.

–Text from Career Thought Leaders Consortium “Findings of 2010 Global Career Brainstorming Day: Trends for the Now, the New & the Next in Careers.”