Valuable Tips for Would Be Job Seekers

Today’s job market has many job seekers in unfamiliar territory. Employers have tighter hiring practices and the good opportunities are tougher to find. Many employees are in under-employed positions, having more skills than the current job requires.  Another big challenge for many job seekers is the decline in home values throughout much of the country that has presented new challenges for people looking to sell a home and relocate.

The following are a few tips that should help in preparation for a job change.

1.   Make a clear plan. The smartest move that you can make is to carefully map out an effective career-change strategy. Keep in mind that a successful job change can take several months or longer to accomplish.  Patience is the key.  This should include a detailed action plan that takes into consideration personal finances, your own research, your education, and training.

2. Wait for the right time. The best time to consider a new career is while you are safely working in your existing position. A steady paycheck can relieve a lot of pressure while you look. There are many ways to take steps toward your new career path.  Volunteer for a special assignment.  You can offer yourself as a freelancer or consultant. This can help you to “test the waters” in your desired new field.
3. Be sure of your reasons. Just because you’re unhappy in your current job isn’t a strong enough reason to make a total career break. Carefully analyze whether it is your actual career you dislike or whether your employer, supervisor, or office situation is the problem.
4. Do your research. Be sure to examine all possibilities before attempting a career jump. Talk to people in your network, read career and job profiles.  Talk to a career management professional, such as your Ag 1 Source recruiting consultant. The more information with which you arm yourself beforehand, the more successful you will be.
5. Decide what’s important. Ask yourself what it is you really want to do with the rest of your life.  Have you found your purpose?  Take an honest inventory of your likes and dislikes, and evaluate your skills, values, and personal interests. Many people who are looking to change careers do so to find a balance between their personal and professional lives, to accomplish the right mix of meaning and money. You may want to consider taking a career assessment test since you may find that you’ve been working in a job not really fitting your best skills all this time.
6. Examine your qualifications. Do you have the necessary experience and education to be considered a qualified candidate in your desired career field? If not, you need to find a way to bridge the credentials gap. This might mean making your goal more long-term while you take additional classes or schooling to get additional credentials such as an MBA, or receive additional training in your field. 
7. Learn more about the industry. Read industry journals, attend conferences, and talk to people in the profession about what they do. Learn whether your targeted industry has the growth potential you once thought it did. Trade magazines, associations and organizations related to your industry have abundant resources and information related to your interest areas. 
8. Develop your network. Begin nurturing professional friendships early and tend them regularly. Professional organizations and job industry trade associations are a good place to start. Many of them hold networking events on a regular basis.  Many of these professionals can also become good references, a necessary support network when you begin to seriously consider a new position.
9. Update your job searching skills. It is especially important to polish up on communication skills before you get out there and start interviewing. Practice interviewing with some of your peers.  The feedback can be very helpful.
10. Pay your dues. Don’t expect to begin at the same level of seniority in your new career that you held in your old one. It will take time to move up the ranks, but if you find a new career that you absolutely love, it will be worth it.

How to Know When it is Time to Consider a Career Change

How to know when it is time to consider a career change.

For most people, it isn’t something sudden, such as a termination, or the company falling on hard times that causes us to consider a change in employment.  It is rather more of a constant evaluation of circumstances in most cases.  For those of you that have these questions, we can help you evaluate.

1.       You have accomplished everything possible in your current position and are now ready for a new challenge. You go to your current supervisor and have discussed promotions, but there are people ahead of you, and the opportunity to advance is realistically years away.

2.       Your values and the company values no longer are in sync.

3.       Unethical business dealings are taking place and are not being addressed by the company. You have brought this to your supervisor’s attention, yet nothing changes.

4.       You have a long history of success with your current company, but now you have a new boss. Your relationship is just not working, your personalities just don't mesh, and you have tried everything. The company will not transfer you to another division.

5.       Your company has been acquired by a larger firm. The culture of the new company is just not one you care to be a part of. You decide to give it some time and see if you can adapt, but your heart just isn’t in it. It’s time for a change.

6.       Your current employer has grown so much that the quality of products and services they provide are no longer the cutting edge industry leaders that you and your customers have come to expect. Though you have had meetings with your company about these shortcomings, they seem to turn a deaf ear and nothing seems to change. Your reputation is on the line.

7.       You moved away from home to accept a career position. Your company has moved you a couple times and now you have a family and desire to move closer to home to be near parents and siblings.

8.       You started your career and now have experience. You have developed a reputation for being a strong performer. After time you have determined your company just doesn’t pay the most competitively and your company just doesn’t value your contribution.

Have you or someone you know been faced with these kinds of situations?  At Ag 1 Source, our recruiters are known as Recruiting Consultants.  A consultant’s duty is to evaluate and recommend.  We are here to do just that.  It isn’t easy to decide when the right time is to make a change.  In most cases we will recommend that communication with your current company is the best course of action, but when those talks don’t go well, then we’re here to consult.  Your career is too important to take any of these situations lightly.  Our promise is that we’re here to listen confidentially when one of these situations appears.  After careful consideration, you’ll know when the time is right.

Phone Interview-How to avoid being screened out

Telephone interviews are becoming more and more common these days. Travel can be expensive and companies are practicing tighter expense management. The phone interview is now seen as a valuable tool to help in narrowing down the playing field. Job hunters should keep one key thing in mind as they prepare for a phone interview. This is your opportunity to advance to the next step, the face to face interview, so make every second count! This is also an opportunity for the interviewer to narrow the field, so their intent is to find the talent they want and screen out those that don’t make the cut.


The interviewer will likely ask questions specific to your work experience, life experiences, availability, and salary requirements. Your job as an interviewee is to provide facts that support your resume and career ambitions. Wherever possible you should use quantifiable accomplishments in support of your work performance. It is important that you sound professional and not desperate.

Preparation is the key to success!

Make sure you schedule the phone interview at a time that you can be free of distractions. It is best to do this away from work. Make sure that if you are on a cell phone that you can be in an area with good coverage, clear sound, and do not do a phone interview while driving. If called for a surprise phone interview, try to reschedule. Your simple answer can be to indicate to the interviewer that this is not a time that you can give them your undivided attention. Suggest a couple of alternative times when you can be distraction free. Make sure you approach the phone interview with the same level of energy and enthusiasm as you would the face to face interview. Research, prepare, research and prepare!

Things to have READY:

• Pen, paper, calendar

• Research you have done on the company, competitors, and position

• Your resume and the job description

• Short list of questions

Questions you MUST be prepared to answer:

• Tell me what you know about our company and our products?

• How would you add value to our business? (Help us grow or improve)

• What is motivating you to make a career change?

• If relocation is necessary, are you committed to relocate and how soon?

• Where do you see your career heading in 5 years?

Keys that will lead to SUCCESS:

• Relax and be yourself, speak directly into the phone

• Confirm the interviewer’s name and company, ask for their title if you don't already know

• Make sure that you answer questions with a high level of enthusiasm, and take time listen and think carefully for your answer, then speak clearly

• Avoid yes or no answers; elaborate and be prepared to sell yourself

• If you need more time to think, say so, and ask them to repeat a question if you are unsure. (Repeating a question and asking for confirmation is a good way of showing that you are listening and also gives you time to think about an answer.)

• Close! Re-affirm your qualifications; express your interest in the position and the company. State that you would appreciate the opportunity to meet in person to further discuss this great opportunity.

Things to AVOID:

• Smoking, chewing gum, drinking, and eating during the interview

• Poorly performing headsets and phones

• Unprofessional voice mail recordings or ring tones (your “hold music” while the caller is waiting for you to answer)

• Talking badly about past employers, competitors, or supervisors

• Rambling, stuttering, cursing (limit such phrases/words as “um”, “like” “you know” or “I think”)

• Asking any questions about compensation or benefits

(Compensation should only come up at the end of the interview process, never at the phone interview or 1st face to face interview stage.) If the question is posed, simply state that you would expect to be compensated fairly based on the position responsibilities and expectations.

Follow-up after the phone interview:

• Make sure you obtain the phone number, address, and email of the company and interviewer

• Follow-up with the company within a few days with a thank you

• Use this follow-up to clarify any answers you felt maybe you could have expanded on better during the phone interview. Also this is a great time to re-emphasize your qualifications, ask additional questions, or provide additional quantifiable accomplishments that are not on your resume. Use this as an opportunity to re-state your interest in the position!

This all sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it? Perhaps if you don’t really want to take time to prepare, then you may not be all that interested in the new job and in most cases, this will likely be evident to the interviewer during the phone interview. Remember – Preparation is the key to success!

Develop Your Personal Brand

Having a good professional reputation is an obvious key to success, but many people don't take the time to nurture it, or they don't know how. We find it helpful to think about a reputation as a personal brand. Developing your own unique brand is considered not a luxury but an essential for future employability and success.



We work with corporate clients in the area of brand development, and we've identified the DNA that makes up a good brand. This DNA, the basis which guides the development of a brand, also applies to individuals as well as to products and organizations.


DNA is, coincidentally, an acronym. To get you started on your journey of ongoing individual brand development, contemplate these three concepts, which form a similar acronym:


Dependability
A good brand is consistent. With a good brand, there are never any unpleasant surprises. You can count on a brand to help you quickly sort through an unlimited list of options to identify "a sure thing." In the old days, there was a sales adage that went something like this: "Nobody ever got in trouble for purchasing IBM." If you aren't old enough to recall exactly what that meant, it alluded to the fact that IBM was not always the "best" or "most innovative" or "most anything" for that matter, but it was certainly a dependable brand.


“Are you an IBM of today? Can your family, friends, customers, or your supervisors rely on you to not only do what is expected, but always impress them with a little more? Are you on time, or the person that is always late? Do you show up to a meeting or event prepared, or do you throw things together in the last minute? Are you organized enough to get things done before deadlines, or do people need to remind you about the deadline?


For whatever that you decide distinguishes you in the marketplace of talent, make sure consistency is the bedrock of your brand.


Novelty
OK, so what makes you different? It's not enough to be as dependable as everyone or anyone else. Brands always have substantive identifiable differences -- perceptually if not in fact -- in the mind of the marketplace. Being a generalist isn't a bad thing, but being a generalist without any discernible specialized skills, abilities, or talents isn't a great thing, either.


Fortunately, in today’s business world, it’s easy to be novel. Simple things can make you stand out. For example, personally hand written “Thank you” notes, whether personal or business, are almost a forgotten tool, but they can be incredibly effective.

Attitude
Attitude isn’t only about being upbeat or happy. Attitude is also about your desire to help others and perform your job at a higher level. Do you call on a client with something in hand that can improve their business, or just go to ask for more orders? When you talk to a neighbor, do you offer to help, or complain about your work day? A big step in attitude is to add value to the person you’re with. Again, it doesn’t matter if it’s business or personal. If you focus on making sure each conversation helps the other party in some way instead of being all about yourself, you will definitely be recognized!


DNA - Dependability. Novelty. Attitude.


As a first step toward marketing yourself better, take some time soon to write out the DNA of your brand.

Top 10 List-Candidate Dumb Answers/Mistakes During Interviews

Most of us take interviews quite seriously. Some don’t. Being that we talk to quite a few clients and we debrief quite a few candidates after their interviews, we have heard a lot of the “dumb” interview mistakes, but I’m sure we’ve not heard it all. I thought for this article we’d list a few of the “dumb” candidate answers or mistakes we’ve had the opportunity to witness, or hear about. We’ll list it like “Letterman’s top 10”. This is your opportunity. If you’ve heard something wild, let us know. If we get enough responses, we’ll print Volume 2 in the series. It could get quite humorous.


10. The candidate says he/she has great sales success and wonderful relationships, but lists only family members as references. This one probably didn’t make it to the interview. It only takes the question to the reference, “Well, how do you know the candidate?” It’s a tossup whether Uncle or Brother is the most common answer!

9. The candidate has been through 2 key face to face interviews and it’s down to 1 of 2 possibilities. There is a key person in the company that must conduct the final interview. Timing is critical. The candidate decides to schedule a vacation where he/she will be unavailable for a week. What’s your thought? Good idea or not?

8. The candidate shows up to the interview in a leisure suit…Didn’t those go out of style in the 70’s?

7. Here’s a story told to us by a client: He had the candidate on the phone for a first screening and all had gone well. Then at the end he said, “I don’t really want to relocate. I just thought it was a great opportunity to take my wife on a nice trip.”

6. The interview has been all set up. The recruiter gave instructions, directions, and the cell phone number of the interviewer for tomorrow’s interview. At 3 AM, the candidate calls the interviewer and indicates that he can’t make it to the interview tomorrow because he is drunk. This one rates a big, “Duh?”

5. Showing up late…This is a classic blunder, but it needs to be discussed again. If a candidate can’t show up on time for an interview, how in the world would a supervisor be able to believe that he/she could show up for work on time? Or, how about the candidate that doesn’t show up at all? Do you think there will be a second chance?

4. The position requires relocation to somewhere, let’s say Iowa. The candidate knows this but is asked in the face to face interview if he/she is okay with that? The answer…Well, I’ll have to convince my spouse, but I’m okay with it. Maybe it would be a good idea to discuss this with your spouse first?

3. During the interview, this question is asked, “What are the key responsibilities of the job?” That question sounds simple enough, however, if the candidate waits until the interview, then it’s obvious that no preparation has been done before coming to the interview.

2. Most of us are just vain enough about our appearance that we present well when meeting someone new, but how about this comment from a hiring manager, “I once had a candidate that had such bad breath, that I slid my chair all the way back to the wall and put my notepad on my lap to take notes.” Is that called a distraction?

1. This one is a classic, but many candidates never really understand the impact. The last question of the interview is asked, “Do you have any questions?” The interviewee asks, “Yes, what does this job pay?” Suddenly the interviewer becomes concerned that money may be the only reason for the candidate to consider this job. It’s best to leave this question for once the company decides they like the candidate and is ready to extend an offer.

While this “top ten” list is somewhat humorous, it is also serious. Believe us, the situations covered in this list is a serious, “do not let this happen to you” list. Do you have more to add to the list? We’d love to hear from you. You can disagree with any of these, however, we can also likely point you to examples of each one of these situations causing that candidate to not get that job offer. Want to know what you can say? Then let’s talk before you interview. We can help avoid the blunder.

What's Your Score?

It seems that everything is scored. For practically every sport we can think of, there is a score kept. Baseball, basketball, football, soccer, track and field, the Olympics, and more. The score is usually kept in the form of points, but it can also take the form of something else, such as the recent Kentucky Derby, win, place, or show, and how many lengths ahead.


Do you know what your score is at your job? Is there really a score at work, too? You bet there is. If you have a job, you may be receiving a score at every evaluation. If you are trying to get a job, you may have been scored by the hiring manager. Unfortunately, there usually are no points for second place. It’s either win the job or not.

Like it or not, we are all measured against some performance standard. It could be performance metrics. It could be a commission earned based on performance. Certainly, those that are in sales are measured all the time. Those in production are measured by how many produced, and possibly even the quality. Even those in academia are scored, which is often known as “publish or perish”.

So, do you know what your score is? If you don’t, shouldn’t you know it? If not, how else do you know how you are doing according to expectations? In some jobs, it’s rather easy to see. It may look something like a budget to achieve, or a sales goal that must be met. It could be a goal of cost containment, or it could be a number of machines or parts manufactured that meet specifications. Whatever your score should be, it likely revolves around your job performance expectations. Those expectations were probably given to you at the time you first started your job and likely have been regularly reviewed with you during periodic evaluations. Possibly you’ve been working long enough that you are long past those initial performance expectations and you don’t know what your new score is? Wouldn’t it be wise to find out what’s expected of you? That’s just part of good communication between you and your employer. You say you’re the boss? Then it’s likely your board of directors that expects performance.

Your score is how well you are doing compared to those expectations. Many times that score is tied to compensation in the form of commissions or bonuses, but it can also be tied to whether you keep your job or not. That may sound rough, but it’s also reality. For most companies, a score is important for many reasons:

1. It could be simply that a few notes were kept in your employee file during an annual evaluation

2. Scores may be kept for employees that could be ready for advancement

3. Scores are kept for how to split up a commission pool

4. Employees may be scored for consideration for transfer to other jobs

5. And employees are scored for those that need to be let go.

This could, for some employees sound quite tough to deal with and possibly unfair, but let’s look back at that sports team that always has to face the score. What happens to the teams that start with more 100 in training camp and must get their roster down to 60 by the season? More than forty have to be cut. Is that fair? Do you think they want their team to win? Then if they expect to be in the finals, whether that’s the Super Bowl, the World Series, or whatever the sport, they want the best, simply put.

It’s no different in our real life world of whatever employs us. Jim Collins puts it best in his book, “Good to Great”. We must get the right people in the bus and in the right seats. Most companies have to compete with other companies all the time. We have in this country what our forefathers considered fair when adopting the “free enterprise” system. That means that companies must compete to survive, grow, thrive, and “score”. Getting the right people in the right seats is a must for businesses. It’s even true in non-business settings.

So, your best bet is to continue to do the best job you can and strive for your best score. It may mean that you can keep your job for many years. It may lead to advancement and/or to a new position that is your goal to achieve. And, in some scenarios, it could be you that has the better score and gets to keep your job. If you are not on the right bus, then let us know, but in the mean time, keep striving for the best score. It is generally in your best interest.

Accepting a Counter Offer-Is that what you really want?

You’ve gotten all the way through the interviews and the new company likes you. You’ve got an offer pending. Then it strikes you – you’re in a great bargaining position. Right or Wrong?

In some cases this can be right. It’s often said that, “it’s easiest to get a job if you have a job.” But, how are you using that bargaining position and just what effects might using some leverage there cause?

Have you gone into the interviews for the new position with the thought that if only you can get an offer, then you could go back to your current employer and see if you can get them to ante up? If so, you could be playing with dynamite. Why is this dangerous? Let’s examine the point of view of your current employer.

We call this the Counter Offer. Counter Offers are usually accepted when compensation was the main reason the employee wanted to leave. The decision to accept the counter offer is usually an on the spot decision in front of the current employer. You interview for the new position, get an offer, tell your current employer, they hand over more money, you’re happy, end of story, right? Wrong.

Let’s look at the real outcome. Yes, your paycheck may have grown just a bit, but what else happened:

•  Loyalty is questioned. When it was announced that you had been given a big offer, your company and your supervisor now suddenly sees a total lack of loyalty in your company. You are no longer seen as stable. Once the announcement is made, the damage is done. The card has been played.
• Counter offers are seen as a threat. Most hiring managers and supervisors don’t like the feeling of being backed into a corner. Those survival reactions of “fight or flight” will come into play and they are likely to make some poor decisions.
• Counter offers buy time for the employer. The hiring manager may do whatever it takes to keep the employee, but may eventually begin the process of finding a replacement for the employee they may now view as disloyal.
• Open positions are troublesome. Hiring managers do not like to have an open position because it creates more responsibility for everyone else, and quite likely for themselves in particular. Offering a counter offer is a short-term solution. The most likely result – the hiring manager will begin looking for a replacement as a long term solution
• The promotion track. Have you been on a promotion track? If so, that may have been seriously derailed. Most companies have ideas for their top employees, a future promotion track if you will. A counter offer can wipe you off of that promotion track as fast as you can say – “Upset in March Madness”
• Counter offers do not provide TRUE change. If an employee wants to leave a company due to concerns over lack of leadership, challenges, or other difficulties, those problems will not get changed just because a counter offer is accepted.

 The End Result – 75% of employees that accept counter offers are not in that same position 1 year later.

 Thinking about a Counter Offer? Call us first.