Andrea King, MS, NCC, MCC
Careerful Counseling Services
www.careerful.com

aking@careerful.com
503-997-9506
Andrea specializes in helping clients achieve rewarding employment. She works with clients in all stages, from high school students through semi-retired. In addition to seeing local clients in her Beaverton office, she delivers services by phone and email globally.

What Resume Length Suits Your Situation? by Andrea King, MS, NCC, MCC

Having worked as a career counselor and resume writer for over a decade, it amazes me that the one page resume myth continues on. It is advantageous for most job seekers to have a two page resume. For executive level professionals and college professors, it is common to have a three page resume. I hope this post encourages readers to review their resume and figure out if it is too short, too long, or just right based on the information provided below.

In talking to hiring managers and human resource professionals over the years, I learned that the more information they have about a candidate’s transferable skills, job duties, and accomplishments, the better. The goal is for your resume to contain enough information for you to be invited in to interview, yet not too much information, whereas the employer feels there isn’t much left to discover. A resume is your document. You own it and it reflects what you wish to convey to persons in a position to potentially invite you for an interview.

Who would benefit from a one page resume? The answer is those who have little work experience. You may have spent most of your life in school, traveling, and/or raising a family, for instance. Or perhaps you only have held one or two jobs that didn’t last long. In this case, it is advantageous to spend quality time reflecting on what work and/or life experiences may be considered transferable. For a stay at home mother who is looking to enter the workforce, you know how hard it is raising your family. It mirrors a paid job quite well! For example, you could list volunteer experience, such as fundraising for your son’s school library or serving as the game scheduler for the baseball league he belongs to.

For a recent graduate, it would be wise to list school projects, research work, notable papers, and internships/co-op experience. Envision your school projects as work projects – indeed you weren’t getting paid, but the experience you gained is priceless!

In most instances, job seekers should list any computer skills and foreign language abilities. Don’t forget to include the highest level of education achieved. If you have taken some college classes but don’t yet have a degree, you can list the number of credits you earned and name any classes related to the type of work you are seeking.

For job applicants who have an average of five or more years of work experience, you likely would benefit from a two page resume. What I have found with my clients is that the main reason they present a one page vs. a two page resume draft is because they are unfamiliar about how to expand upon their job duties and accomplishments. Most applicants never had the opportunity to take a resume class. A large majority of clients find that writing their own resume is harder than the thought of writing one for someone they know. Part of this may be due to us being too humble. Another part is likely given how self-critical we are. We tend to give less credit to ourselves than we should.

The concept of using P.A.R. statements helps clients’ resumes expand in content. “P” stands for Problem, “A” stands for Action(s), and “R” is for Result(s). Think about what action you did that led to a positive result and solved an employer’s problem or issue. Start each bulleted phrase with an action verb.

Examples of P.A.R. Statements:
• Implemented electronic database and agency management system, resulting in greater efficiency and security.
• Produced and edited YouTube videos that gained 886 subscribers, over half a million views, and resulted in successful YouTube Partnership.
• Created and modified educational plans, enabling students to successfully complete their academic programs within an appropriate time based on their unique needs.

If you are finding it difficult to come up with P.A.R. statements, one technique to try involves asking yourself, “So what?” For example, you work in a hospital lab and use a microscope for the majority of your work. So what? There are bound to be reasons your duties result in positive actions and solve problems or issues within the department. Often we become so used to performing tasks on a regular basis that we lose sight of their importance to our employer and the people you may assist, whether directly or indirectly.

Feeling like your resume could still use improvements? Consider hiring a career counselor to assist you.

Bruce Hazen, MS
Three Questions Consulting
www.threequestionsconsulting.com
brucehazen@cs.com  |  503-280-0151

The Inside Job: CAREER DEVELOPMENT IN-PLACE by Bruce Hazen, MS

In a slow job market or when your organization is in the doldrums and not growing, it doesn’t mean that your professional development has to stop. You can probably develop where you are right now, at least for a while. It’s about progressing not just getting a promotion. The goal is to progress in your capability and competence. If that leads to a promotion, great. If it doesn’t lead to a promotion, you’re still progressing.

One of the biggest mistakes people make is to over-rely on training or education in their definition of “development activities”. The most lasting and dramatic development usually happens in action learning settings, with a mentor or coach, through the use of assessment tools, or through surviving failures.

If your organization has a progressive human resources function you may have just the internal coach you need to design and execute your development plan. If you’re not blessed with such a resource you can use the following tool to start your own, self-reliant development process in whatever job you have.

Personal SWOT Analysis

• Strengths that you can leverage. Be able to name them and describe them out loud to another person. Just thinking about what you’re good at is not adequate for selling those strengths to others who might have cool projects you can work on (I’m an accounting professional who is really good at facilitating meetings and reducing misunderstandings during discussions).
• Weaknesses that you either want to work on or minimize in  your action learning project. (I’ve never needed much skill or knowledge about IT, but there is an ERP platform [Enterprise Resource Planning] in our company’s future and it will include all of us being comfortable and ready to embrace it).
• Opportunities that are all around you for participation and collaboration on small or large pieces of work that you or others need to accomplish. (My boss is a brilliant numbers guy but hates to run cross-functional meetings. I’ll volunteer to lead the ERP coordinating committee within Accounting. I’ll have access to the IT team and will look for someone who is a good explainer to coach me in accelerated learning about the ERP).
• Threats to your development are out there, too. Resources such as time, training, coaches, access to key knowledge holders, the number of members needed for an interesting project are in limited supply. If you’ve scoped them out ahead of time and TAKEN ACTION, you’ll be able to secure some of these needed resources. Maybe you’ve got a boss who is not development-minded at all. You’re at a huge disadvantage if you’re waiting and hoping (s)he will notice you and help you develop. You’ll have to have some persuasive (not just logical or self-serving) justifications for your development plan that serve your boss and the organization’s real business objectives.

Here’s a crucial step people forget to do when they actually get a development in-place opportunity. They neglect to document the measurable benefits they created and the observable skills they developed. Let others know about your development actions. These actions showcase your professionalism and motivation, and are a great way to distinguish yourself from the herd of job competitors internally or externally.

  Gail Nicholson, MA, LPC

www.gailnicholson.com   503-227-4250

Gail is passionate about helping individuals find a deeper connection with their life and work life, and has over 20 years experience as a personal and career counselor, teacher of career and life planning, and facilitator of groups.

Dealing with Depression Part II by Gail Nicholson, MA, LPC

I have a special interest in helping people understand and respond to depression that often accompanies jobs search and career transition. My typical client is interested in finding direction and fulfillment in their life and work life, but has become overwhelmed or discouraged with the process. They may also be suffering from anxiety, depression, self-doubt, or experiencing high levels of stress at work.

As a result of this experience, spanning over twenty years, I am writing a series of three blog articles to help you deal with depression. The first five tips can be found here. I invite you to continue reflecting on the following ideas to help you through unwelcomed discouragement.

6.  Have you considered whether something about your depressing ole job search reminds you of a difficult time in your life?  And your job search feels heavier or more overwhelming because of it.  It’s helpful, for example, to realize looking for a new job reminds you of the challenges you faced as a teenager, moving to a new school every year or two.  The loss of work or sense of direction may bring back feelings of losing a parent, grandparent or spouse.  This unresolved grief triggered by a job loss could be overwhelming.

If you notice such a parallel in your own experience, try to spend time identifying what memories have been triggered by your job search and give them extra attention.  Name, sort, hold and work them through a little more.  Check out a local personal and career counselor.  You’ll feel clearer and less bogged down when it comes time to focus on identifying and exploring your ideas and find work that actually exists, is meaningful and pays the bills.

7. Let’s check your level of self-confidence.  If it’s not where you’d like it to be, there are many things you can do.  First examine limiting beliefs you have about your abilities or what others expect of you.  Appreciate the context of these experiences and try to let go of the hold they have on you now.  Remember, the future has not happened yet, and you are always capable of creating a new beginning at any moment.  Think of encouraging things to say to yourself that defy the past.  If you grew up thinking you were stupid, incompetent and lazy, tell yourself how smart, resourceful and competent you can be.  Give yourself time to turn things around.  Imagine the pace of a large ocean vessel turning out at sea.  Set goals, improve habits and acknowledge your positive results, starting with the small stuff.  Confidence comes from experiencing positive, meaningful accomplishments; get busy creating positive experiences for yourself, personal, social and professional.

8. Is there anything you can pinpoint from past experience that is a weak link in your skill set?  Research opportunities to strengthen or fill in your knowledge base and technical ability to increase your options and enhance self-confidence.  Accomplishing the smallest of tasks can help you change your experience into something you appreciate and boost confidence.

9. What can you do now to surround yourself with living proof of the above?  Start small.  It could be something like spending all afternoon at the library, signing up for that computer class or checking the bios of career counselors who write this blog to find that exceptional career counselor that is right for you.

 November is National Career Development Month, a great time to take one of these steps to overcome depression and discouragement. And, I’ll rejoin you next year as I add the final installment in this series.

Aly Anliker, Ed.M

alyanliker@hotmail.com

            503-891-1108

Aly is a creative organizational and career consultant with over fifteen years of experience in Training Management, Executive Coaching and Instructional Design.  She has a background in Human Resources and Marketing and has worked in a variety of industries including telecommunications, high technology, manufacturing and non-profit.

Your Personal Brand by Aly Anliker

Remember the days when all you had to do to find a job was update your one page resume, look for jobs in the newspaper and then mail in your resume?  I do, and sometimes I miss the simplicity of launching a job search.

But I do find looking for work using social media and personal branding exciting.  If you do too, read on.

What do you think of when you hear the words Personal Branding?  A tattoo?  A stamp with your name on it?  Your personal brand is your unique promise of value, what you are known for and how you clarify and communicate what makes you different, special, and valuable to employers.

These days, in everything you do, especially in a job search, you are communicating about yourself.

It all started with a 1997 article in Fast Company  written by Management Guru Tom Peters.

He suggested you uncover and market The Brand You.  As companies are known for their products, services and cultures, we also want to be known professionally by the people who might hire us.  Think about how you would answer the following questions:

•   What is your professional story?
•  What information do you want to communicate to employer’s and\or customers?
•  What do you want to be known for?
•  What is your vision and purpose?
• What do you value?
•  What are your goals?

The answers to these questions can help you begin to discover your personal brand.  Once you gain clarity on who you are professionally, what you want and what you have to offer, you may want to create and post well-crafted materials where others can quickly glean:

•  Your experience and expertise
•  Your career highlights
•   What defines and differentiates you

So in addition to your resume, what else might you create to communicate your personal brand?  Job seekers are getting creative these days.  Some options are:

• An online profile
• Samples of your work
• A personal marketing plan
• A business card
• A website or blog

These are just a few of the many ways you can communicate to employers and other professionals.

Find out what others in your field are doing to convey a distinct brand.  Get curious and creative about all the ways you can communicate who you are, in person, in writing and online.

In an upcoming blog I will share some thoughts on creating a Social Media Plan and Strategy.

Anne Bryant, MA, LPC
www.annebryantcounseling.com
abccounseling@pobox.com
Combining Mindfulness with Career Counseling

Recently maybe you or one someone you know has experienced a long spell of unemployment. Over the past three decades as I have helped individuals with career transitions and taught Life Work Planning courses using a holistic approach, I have sensed something missing in the process. I understood what it might be in 2010 when I took Mindful Experiential Therapy Approaches (M.E.T.A.) training from Jon Eisman. The training focused on the Re-Creation of the Self (R-CS). Before explaining the missing piece, I will share a little about career counseling.

When you consult with a career professional, you learn that a key to success is to be able to identify your skills, accomplishments, and end results, and then be able to communicate them concisely, verbally and in writing to prospective employers. You need to translate what you are capable of doing in to the language of the employer’s industry. It is important to make it very clear to employers how your experiences would be valuable in their organizations. In order to do this, you must also have learned as much as possible about their businesses.

Many career clients have a tough time identifying their strengths and accomplishments. They think I am asking them for a list of awards and achievements, or that they are expected to boast. No. We all have many more skills than we give ourselves credit for, and we take for granted what we do well. My clients often say to me, “I was just doing my job,”and “Any one could have done what I did.” When people are out of work, no matter how they lost the last job, over time they may also lose their sense of identity and self esteem. From the R-CS perspective, they have lost touch with their innate Organic Self. The missing piece in the career process is how to reconnect with it.

You may be operating from a fragmented state, for example from a Hurt Self that perceives that they have been wronged, wounded or somehow inadequate. According to Jon Eisman, other fragmented states might be the Strategic Self, one that protects you from further wounding; the Survivor State that pursues your original Organic essence and experiences; or from the Spirit in Exile that holds the longing to come home to your Organic Self. Many of my clients, often the most bright and accomplished, report feeling like a phony, a fake, and I suspect that in R-CS terms, they are operating from their “Assumed Adult”, chronologically an adult, but operating from a much younger self.

In order to help career clients re-experience the Organic Self, I offer them an exercise in authenticity. They begin by identifying three to five successfully completed events in the realms of school or work experiences, volunteer activities, other involvements (clubs, sports, political, religious, community, etc.), leisure time, creative expression, projects and life events. Then I ask them to pick two to elaborate in short paragraphs, one involving taking a risk, and one involving work. The key is to choose things that pleased and satisfied them, not whether it was a big deal to anyone else. With prompting from lists of skill words and phrases, including interpersonal and self-management skills and qualities, they are instructed to list which ones were used to make the event a success. Rather than reading what happened, I invite them to tell me their story. I ask what would someone need to do well to have pulled this off? As they talk, I take notes on the skills I heard utilized. As they listen to their own words and then to my list, it delights me to watch clients change from a visibly diminished state to an energized, more expansive one. Before we start incorporating this new information into their job search or career transition, we stop here for a mindfulness moment.

I ask clients to sit comfortably and invite them to close their eyes, notice their breathing, and bring their attention inside, and I do this as well. I ask what body sensations, thoughts, feelings or memories are coming up for them, and we stay with the quality of their experience. The question shifts from what they did to who was it who made all that happen? Whatever answers come, they are encouraged to notice what’s happening without judgement and just stay in the moment. We sit together as time slows, long enough so that clients can connect with a more true sense of themselves. At later sessions before they report on their week’s activities, I invite them to start with a few minutes to go inside and be in the moment, so that they can re-connect with that Organic Self who goes forth with real confidence based on real experiences.

Vicki Lind, MS
www.vlind.com
vlind@teleport.com
503-284-1115
Vicki helps clients develop vibrant careers in Portland’s creative, sustainable, non-profit, and health-care communities. As a career counselor, she assists with tailoring resumes, practicing interviewing, and honing job-search strategies. As a marketing coach, she facilitates identification of a marketing plan that matches the individual.

Gifts From Your Career Transition by Vicki Lind, MS 

Many experts will tell you, “Looking for a job is a full-time, 40-hour-a-week job.” Now that it is after Labor Day you are probably setting a very strict bar for yourself. That advice comes from the east coast or some other land where “success” and “career success” are synonymous. (My New York match-making aunt used to introduce me to young men, commenting, “You’ll like him. He is very successful.”)

In Oregon, we aspire to a successful life that is a balanced life:  time in nature, with family, with arts in balance with a robust career. I recommend for the job searcher, to spend about 30 hours on the search (including networking, strategic volunteering, tailoring resumes) and 10 guilt-free hours enjoying and exploring.

If your guilt-inducing “should” voice needs some evidence, I think about Parado Law, a well-documented economic theory that says that “80% of the results comes from 20% of the work.” After that, productivity keeps decreasing. By the end of a 40 hour week of job-seeking, most people have an irritable disposition, further reducing productivity. Armed with such statistics, it is time to explore and play.

When you establish your weekly goals and make out your calendar, I suggest that you schedule your most energized times of the day for the tasks that you find the most challenging, such as requesting informational interviews or tailoring a resume for a newly posted position. Then, go through notes where you have listed other “shoulds” for job search tactics. Pause to evaluate: which ones are likely to give you the greatest results.  Add one or two of these to your calendar. If you are not sure which actions are the most strategic, it will help to schedule an appointment with a career counselor to sharpen your strategies, both for online branding and personal networking.

Next comes the fun part. Go through this list and select one or two that will refresh and energize you. Enjoy knowing that you can schedule a few guilt-free hours into traditional work hours—a gift from your unemployment to you:

• Visit Portland’s Japanese Garden
• Search out a long-lost friend
• Take a child of any age to OMSI
• Have dinner at a great Portland happy hour, like Bamboo Sushi
• Use a new word, like penultimate or salacious
• Open up to the person nearest to you
• Find out why William Stafford is such a popular local poet
• Open your mind to vegan cheesecake
• Go to the downtown library and admire the steps, and then climb them
• Hang out at Powells
• Walk the loop between the Hawthorne and Steel Bridges
• People watch at Pioneer Square and make up stories about them
• Buy a card at the Audubon book store and send a thank-you to someone who gave you a career tip
• Snuggle in bed with a book of no value to your career
• Cross something really irksome off of your list – without doing it
• Buy produce on Sauvie Island
• Try one of the new food courts
• Take a new path in Forest Park
• Ask yourself a Question. Listen quietly
• Upgrade a technical skill. Try Lynda.com
• Do something that you have always wanted to do
• Get into the new Mindfulness craze, a good reasonably-priced fad
• Take a vacation from your job search without guilt
• Read about someone whose life had purpose

Nearly every client I see indicates that “balance” is one of their most critical career and life values. They do not see that they can start now, using well the gift of time. You have a unique opportunity to learn your personal best formula for balancing work (looking for a job), home, and personal time.

Aly Anliker, Ed.M
alyanliker@hotmail.com
503-891-1108
Aly is a creative organizational and career consultant with over fifteen years of experience in Training Management, Executive Coaching and Instructional Design. She has a background in Human Resources and Marketing and has worked in a variety of industries including telecommunications, high technology, manufacturing and non-profit.

First Things First:  Steps towards Finding a Job, Career or Calling, by Aly Anliker

Self Assessment is an important first step in launching a job search, determining your ideal career or shifting careers.

Typically when you assess yourself, you are seeking to uncover your strengths, accomplishments, interests, skills and values.  A good assessment process should assist you with answers to the following questions:

• What am I good at?
• What do I most enjoy doing?
• What are my greatest strengths?
• What are some words that describe me, how do others describe me?
• What is important to me at this time in my life?
• What have been my major accomplishments?

Equipped with this new information, and more sure of who you are and what you want, you may ask, what are employers going to be most interested in about me?  Where does what I have to offer meet with marketplace needs?  The answer to this question is the sweet spot for getting hired and developing within your career.

In an ever-changing market, individuals who are most successful in obtaining and keeping work are those that can identify their talents and align those talents with marketplace needs.

But where to begin?

First, gather up everything you already have that speaks to who you are and what you can do.  These items might include previous resumes, copies of your performance reviews, recommendations, and customer testimonials.

Draw your character traits or words that describe you from any of the above information or feedback from friends and colleagues.

As you review all of this information, do you notice any recurring comments, words or themes?

Next, assess your skills – your goal is to generate your top 10 to 15.   Onet Online at http://www.onetonline.org/ is a great resource that not only helps you assess your abilities, but research those you may need for a particular position that interests you.

Based on your top skills and abilities, you can begin to develop accomplishments for your resume that showcase what you offer.  The Riley Guide has a helpful resume section with information on accomplishments for the resume as well as other resume resources:  http://rileyguide.com/resprep.html#tips .

As you are making career decisions, you may also want to complete a values assessment to identify what is important to you at this juncture in your life.  Your goal is to identify your top five to ten values.  Based on these values, you can begin to uncover what types of jobs, companies and industries you want to target.  The Career Intelligence website offers a values assessment.  They do require that you register prior to completing this assessment:  http://www.career-intelligence.com/noaccess.asp .

You can probably think of a number of activities that interest you, but to remind yourself of the full range of your interests and which of those interests are important to you at work, you can complete the Campbell Interest and Skill Survey, https://www.profiler.com/cgi-bin/ciss/moreform.pl?client=ncs&page=intro.   There is a fee to complete this inventory.

The Self Assessment process can be fun as you are reminded of all that you have to offer.  Allow yourself time to invest in this process.  Ask others for feedback about you.  Sometimes your path to job and career success is as simple as knowing what you offer then finding a need and filling it.

Gail Nicholson, MA, LPC
www.gailnicholson.com
gailcareer@aol.com
503-227-4250
Gail is passionate about helping individuals find a deeper connection with their life and work life, and has over 20 years experience as a personal and career counselor, teacher of career and life planning, and facilitator of groups.

For Job Searchers Dealing with Depression by Gail Nicholson, MA, LPC

Is your job search getting you down? Are you wondering what’s wrong with you and your resume? Do you think you’re no longer marketable as you wait and wait between interviews?

Afraid to tune in the news, thinking more sad news about the national and global economy will depress you further? Feeling too old? Dealing with a prior injury or life challenge? Divorcing?

Confused about it, but still wondering what it would be like to go back to school? Worried about your lack of education or money? Swamped by family concerns and feeling overwhelmed, about how to improve your life at home and at work? Staying away from friends and family to avoid embarrassment about your situation?

Any one of these frustrations could technically be called “depressing for job seekers.” Barely fending off the negative, despairing dialogue going on inside your head is making it impossible to think your way through to answers for your “stupid, silly situation.”

Do your best to put those voices on hold. Develop calming, loving and rational responses instead. Talk with someone who knows how brilliant you really are and get some validation for your perspective. Would meeting new people change your outlook? Over the next few days, consider whom you would most like to see personally or professionally.

When you are personally overwhelmed and in crisis; remember to emphasize simple positive activities to help yourself find your path toward a working community, continuous, small steps taken after daily reflection. Think more about how you truly feel about things; what will nurture you most right now as you seek to be true to yourself and your family and find your place in the working world?

Don’t worry; think it through, establish priorities, make plans daily and start something that will make a small positive difference. Consider the next five steps.

1. Care for yourself: especially physical movement. You’ll do a better job search when you feel better. We think better, when we feel better. Get back to your best habits around rest, projects, pleasure, diet, exercise and socializing. Prayer or meditation? Try it. Develop new healthy daily and weekly routines to stoke your stamina. Acknowledge and praise your smallest of accomplishments, alone and with others. Indulge your persistence at the end of each day with a cheap thrill. Get the alone time you need and call your special friends. Take time for relaxing or invigorating hot baths and massage. Read favorite authors and check out their biographies.

2. Commune: get together with people in person. If you are unemployed, daily personal contact outside your partnership, family or living situation could be a good goal for you right now. Step up the pace gradually, starting with informational interviews. Cultivate contacts at employment agencies. Scope out a place to volunteer in your field if you haven’t already. Check out events in your chosen industry that are affordable and go to them. You never know whom you might run into. Check out free or low-cost counseling and support groups offered by local non-profits, universities, community colleges and the employment office. Exchange ideas and resources. Hike and camp out in nature. Where can you effectively wrestle with the biggest questions you have about your life? What’s important now?

3. Set small goals and take action, online and off. In this age of hyper cyber fascination, my career search clients are having most success relying on a combination of web exploration and existing personal connections.

4. Learn to explore. Embrace your questions and concerns. Listen. Who’s got the info or training you need? How are you going to find these people? Who could help you find the people you need to talk to? Small actions taken daily add up quickly as you get better at pinpointing priorities and responding. Even if you’re not sure just what to do next, find a way to follow-up with something that’s been on your mind recently.

5. Start a journal of your experiences. Write about your priorities and why these personal interests and values are so important to you. Make lists of things that occur to you about any aspect of your situation as you write. Learn to go from big picture thinking to identifying what should be done today or tomorrow. In business we call it “breaking a vision down into doable steps, with an emphasis on the follow-through.”

Vicki Lind, MS
www.vlind.com
vlind@teleport.com
503-284-1115
Vicki helps clients develop vibrant careers in Portland’s creative, sustainable, non-profit, and health-care communities. As a career counselor, she assists with tailoring resumes, practicing interviewing, and honing job-search strategies. As a marketing coach, she facilitates identification of a marketing plan that matches the individual.

Upgrading Your Technical Skills by Vicki Lind, MS
You probably have noticed that most position announcements today include a list of required or preferred technical skills, such as knowledge of Excel, MS Project, and InDesign. Some also specify a required level of competence—basic, intermediate or advanced.

These skill requirements lead many of my clients to ask questions such as:
· How do I know whether I am an intermediate Excel user?
· Should I just put down that I have Lotus 1-2-3 and they will know that I can quickly learn Excel?
· What is the fastest and least expensive way to brush up on an old skill?
· I have every requirement except MS Project. What should I do?

My answer to all of these questions is the same: check out the 63,000 video tutorials on Lynda.com. For the basic fee of $25 per month, you can learn at your own pace.

Staying up to date on technical skills presents something between a challenge and a nightmare to self-described “technophobes.” Since use of the web and other technology is now an important factor in the majority of professional jobs, employers are concerned about candidates without skills commensurate with the average current college graduate. Showing that you are out of date in your technical skills can be particularly harmful for the “older candidate” with the younger HR staff or manager subconsciously overgeneralizing that you will be “out of date” in other ways.

My clients have used a combination of strategies to tackle one technical skill at a time. First, try using the Lynda.com free trial to see if learning in your pajamas with a latte eases your anxiety. Another tactic is to invite a friend over and have “technophobe tea between ten minutes of practice.” If your friend can’t provide the hands-on solutions, take your teen daughter or nephew out for pizza in exchange for answering questions that arise when a tutorial or demonstration video doesn’t make sense to you.

You may be hesitant to add such skill building into your job-search calendar. You may have heard managers say that communication skills and critical thinking abilities play a larger role in their hiring decisions than specific skills which can be learned on the job. This concept sometimes misleads job applicants to hopefully apply to jobs for which they do not have the required technical skills or years of experience. The screeners (either the person in HR or the computer scanner) are more concrete and literal than the managers. Even small companies are using a computer scanning device which is designed to select for key words. HR is usually tasked with presenting the hiring manager with a small subset of the resumes—those with the best match on years of experience and technical skills- for the manager to make his or her more holistic assessment.

In this situation, driven by the over-abundance of applicants, the job seeker has two alternatives. You can acquire the technical skills to get past the screening process. Or, you can use networking strategies and find someone to put in a good word for you so that HR or the manager pulls your resume and cover letter into the shorter stack for the manager to fully consider.

Whatever you do, do not highlight older programs like Lotus 1-2-3 or Fortran programming unless you want your resume to go into the file labeled ‘Fossils.’

Anne Bryant, MA, LPC
www.annebryantcounseling.com
abccounseling@pobox.com
503-442-6392
Anne has thirty years of experience offering practical skills and support to people experiencing transitions in their careers and personal lives. Openings available for individual and group sessions.

Career Transition: Making Friends with the Telephone

If you are someone who has no difficulty either answering the phone or initiating calls, then read no further. However, many people can’t stand the telephone. Some may have a form of social anxiety, others may have an introverted personality or find phone calls draining or intrusive. They may feel reluctant to intrude on another person.

If you are looking for work or investigating a new career or educational opportunities, at some point you will have to call a stranger. Sometimes there is no other way to get or give important information or set up an appointment. It may not be possible to get someone’s email address. If you do have an email contact, it is appropriate to write to indicate the nature of your call and ask for a telephone or in-person appointment. But you will still need to follow up by phone. One day, you may be on the receiving end of a telephone interview, and if you have become used to talking with employers for information, it will go much more smoothly.

These prospects terrify many of my clients. According to a website devoted to phobia fear release (http://www.phobia-fear-release.com/fear-of-telephone.htm) symptoms of fear of the telephone include “breathlessness, excessive sweating, nausea, dry mouth, shaking, heart palpitations, inability to speak or think clearly, a sensation of detachment from reality or a full blown anxiety attack.” Avoiding unpleasant thoughts, feelings and experiences is understandable, as explained by Steven Hayes in his book, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: An Experiential Approach to Behavior Change.

When you avoid the discomfort of using the telephone, you may feel temporary short-term relief, but it reinforces the idea that discomfort or distress is dangerous. Avoiding anxiety at all cost may narrow down your life in general, and opportunities to learn of hidden job opportunities in particular. Addressing your anxiety about meeting or talking with strangers on the phone dramatically increases the chances that you will reach your goals and gain valuable work experiences. In addition to Commitment and Acceptance Therapy, other treatments for overcoming telephobia include Hypnotherapy, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), or Energy Psychology.

Maybe you don’t have a phobia about the phone, but you identify with being an introvert, and find that small talk, especially by telephone, is a huge energy drain. In a March 2011 blog posted on Psychology Today’s website called “The Introvert’s Corner: How to live a quiet life in a noisy world”, Sophia Dembling shares ideas about re-writing telephone rules.

She has told people she knows or works with about her preference for either using email or scheduling necessary, but brief phone calls. She writes, “Interestingly, I’ve found that taking control over my relationship with the telephone has made it less abhorrent to me. I answer it more often, and initiate calls more often. (Still rarely, but more often.)”

If you dread using the phone, practicing in low-risk situations will help you become more at ease. Ask a friend to pick a time when it would be OK to call her at work, in order to have the experience of going through a receptionist. Write out a script, practice with a tape recorder, or role-play with someone you trust.

I often ask, “Is this a good time to talk?” I would much rather hear “no” and set up a better time than to proceed when the other person is not receptive. IT IS NOT PERSONAL if you hear “no, it’s not a good time.” You have a right to seek information or assistance. A good decision cannot be made without all the information available and sometimes the telephone is the only way to get it. The person on the other end has a right to protect his or her time, route your call to someone else, or put you through to voice mail. If that happens, you have not failed. You have done your part by placing the call.

Although the best type of contact with potential employers is face to face, an initial phone conversation may be the only way to set this up. Conducting an entire informational interview by telephone or through email exchanges isn’t nearly as effective. If conducted in a targeted manner and in person, research shows that information interviews yield the highest success rate for finding employment, more than any other job search strategy. Arranging an in-person meeting will give you much more information by observation than you could ever gain otherwise. Also, a face to face meeting gives you a chance to make a positive impression on the other person, who will then be more likely to keep you in mind when future opportunities open up. This is especially true if you follow up.

Have you noticed that other people don’t return your calls? It’s all too common. Be persistent, be courteous, but call back. Becoming comfortable with using the telephone as a job search tool will greatly increase your odds of finding a job worth having.