Tony Lee Gives College Grads Some Advice On Job Hunting! | NBC Philadelphia

CareerCast.com’s Tony Lee on NBC!

CareerCast.com Publisher Tony Lee was on the 10! Show on Philadelphia’s NBC 10 recently, giving advice to new college grads from our reports on the Best Cities for Job Seekers and the Most Popular Countries for New Grads. Check it out!

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Remember: Job Hunting is an INDIVIDUAL Experience

When you’re trying to find a new job, especially in today’s tight employment market, it’s easy to feel lost and alone. With all the focus on layoffs and unemployment in the news,  changing careers can seem impossible to do, driving many job seekers to just give up.

But despite this focus on gloom and doom, the truth is that the process of finding a job simply can’t be summed up by generalizations. Each job seeker’s experience will be different — one may have a perfectly crafted resume and ace the interview yet still get passed over for a job. Another may ignore the accepted job search advice but get hired on their first try.

CareerCast.com columnist Douglas B. Richardson examines this situation in a new article, explaining that while following career advice and unemployment statistics can be helpful, ultimately you are in control of your job search, and just as you are unique, your experience will be different from everyone else.

Read “There is no They“ at CareerCast.com, or check out an excerpt here:

You’ve heard it all before:

• “They say your resume should never be longer than two pages.”

• “What will they think if I say I have to limit business travel because of family?”

• “Do they want you to put your email address on the ad response?”

• “They’ll never hire people from a different industry.”

• “If you’re unemployed, they treat you like you’re damaged goods.”

If you’ve uttered or even thought about one of these all-inclusive generalizations, you’re guilty of imprecise thinking, which may adversely affect your job search and career transition prospects. There is no “they,” no secret conspiracy of opinion leaders who define the rules of the game for all players in all situations. There’s no safe-harbor of conventional wisdom or quick guide to divining the needs, attitudes and hot buttons of interviewers and potential employers.

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With so much bad news about employment, it’s easy to get swept up in mass thinking and forget that every hiring decision ultimately comes down to two people — you and the hiring manager. And with a wide variety of job listings from over 500 top job boards throughout the U.S. and Canada, CareerCast.com can help you find the perfect new job where you want to live. Our career advice offers concrete tips on how to succeed in today’s job market, and with our email job alerts, resume builder, and cover letter tool you can complete the entire job application process directly on our site. All services are 100% free for job seekers.

What to do If Your New Boss is Younger Than You

Ambitious employees may shudder at the notion, but over the course of your career it’s likely that you’ll be working for someone who’s younger than you. Having some “kid” as a superior is one of the hardest situations an experienced employee can deal with, especially if they feel that they’re qualified to do that young boss’ job.

So if you’re a hard-working employee with ambitions to climb the corporate ladder who winds up working for someone fresh out of college with no work experience, what should you do? A CareerCast.com reader sent this question to “Career Guru” Don Asher, who offered some advice on how not to panic over your career.

Read “Help! Save My Career! My New Boss is Just a Kid” at CareerCast.com, or check out an excerpt here:

Dear Don:

I am about to pull my hair out! My company just hired a kid to supervise me, and it’s a disaster. I run a major warehouse system for a utility company. I’d been told for five years that I was next in line for promotion, and when it came up, wham, out of nowhere they hire this kid with a master’s degree in logistics. What she doesn’t know would fill a book. I had to train her, and I’m at least ten years her senior. She’s a whiz on computers, but so what? She doesn’t know a lift bucket from a stapler! I was told I’m indispensable, but then my boss didn’t back me for the promotion. Plus, she put contemporary soft rock on our building PA, all John Mayer-type stuff, and I’m all about classic rock and retro-punk. The crew was working harder to a faster beat, no question. Help! What do I do?

–Passed Over Pete

Dear POP:

Wow! You have a bundle of issues going on here, Mr. I’ve-been-waiting-my-turn. First of all, I’m guessing you’re a bit more than ten years her senior, but let’s say I take you at your word. So she’s somewhere around 30 and you’re at least a tad over 40, and in any case you’ve about had it.

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Of course while there are ways to cope with working for a younger boss, in some cases it may be best to find a new job. CareerCast.com can help you find new jobs in your area through our extensive job search features.  In addition tools like our resume builder, daily career news, columns and exclusive JobsRated rankings that compare jobs by stress level as well as overall desirability help you can stay on top of the employment market and gain valuable advice to help find a new, better career.

Scared About the Economy? Don’t Lose Your Head

Keep up with the news these days and it’s easy to freak out over the state of the economy. Job seekers think they’ll never find a new job, and employees go to work every morning worried that they’re going to be fired in a round of layoffs. But while people around you might be depressed or in panic mode, you can be a smart job hunter and use the bad economy to your advantage.

Fear affects most people adversely, but if you can learn to harness your emotions and focus on becoming a more valuable worker, the recession can strengthen your career. Employers can also reap the benefits of the job market, locking up higher quality candidates than they might ususally be able to attract.

Want to know how to find career success in the current economic crisis? Read Senior Columnist Taunee Besson’s new article “When Those Around You are Losing Their Heads: How to Thrive in a Down Economy” on CareerCast.com, or check out an excerpt here:

Having been a career planner for a number of years, my clients and I have gone through:

1. The oil, real estate and banking bust of the 80s (remember the RTC?)

2. The dot.com debacle of the late 90s when high tech industries were hit hard and-

3. The stock market crash and recession post 9/11

To employers and job seekers, these difficult times seemed like they would never end. And yet after each one there came a new period of prosperity, job growth and increased stock value.

Now we are in the midst of a financial services/real estate meltdown that is really frightening and unpredictable. Housing prices and the market have collapsed. Credit has dried up. People are worried about their jobs and their businesses. No one, not even the experts, knows what will happen.

The usual response is for individuals and companies to cut back on spending, lay off employees and hunker down in a state of paralyzed hibernation. This is exactly the wrong behavior, because it perpetuates fear and validates self-fulfilling prophecies.

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Once you’ve relaxed and determined to challenge the bad economy head-on, let CareerCast.com help you find job search success. Our diverse, local job listings across many different industries, unique daily employment news and job ratings are a vital resource for navigating today’s job market. And if you’re an employer looking to take advantage of the glut of job candidates, CareerCast.com offers access to more than 500 top job boards. And when you post a job to any job board you get an EXTRA, nationwide posting on CareerCast.com, doubling your job’s exposure for FREE!

Find Out Which Jobs are Right For You

When you’re looking for a new job, it’s easy to create a wish list of careers you might like to try. But while most people can get over their career indecision, how do you know that the job you pick is really right for you? You may love numbers, but does working with a team of accountants, for example, play to your strengths? It’s all too easy to misinterpret the type of work involved in a job and pick the wrong profession.

So how can you avoid this kind of job search mistake? Simply put, by examining your work habits and doing an objective analysis of your true strengths and weaknesses in the workplace. There are many long and complex (not to mention expensive) career assessment tests you can use to get a clearer picture of where you should work, but many of these offer too much information, making it hard to pull out the pertinent information. Instead, CareerCast.com columnist and noted career expert Douglas B. Richardson has developed a relatively simple, FREE career assessment test that gives you the most important facts to help you make the right career choices. Called the KIFF Test, CareerCast’s simple system can boil down you top strengths and weaknesses into a quick set of facts.

Read “Know Thyself: The Short Course” at CareerCast.com, or check out an excerpt here:

Let’s say you want to figure out what to do with your life. Or, perhaps you detest your current job or have been fired six times in five years, and you’ve decided that some serious self-assessment is in order. Well, you’re in luck.

If your navel-staring faculties are marginal, an incredible array of standardized tests, books, courses, counselors and other tools can help you undertake the task of figuring out the best type of job you’re suited to do, motivated to do and are capable of doing. You can just as easily uncover the sorts of people, work, settings or careers you should stay the hell away from. To do this, you can choose among scores of proven, comprehensive self-assessment instruments and templates — tools such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, DISC, Enneagrams, the Strong Interest Inventory, the Herrmann Brain Dominance Profile, the Campbell Leadership Index, the Personal Profile System and, my favorite, the awesome Birkman Advanced Report.

The best assessment instruments provide lengthy summaries of your interests, values, personal style, needs and even predictable reactions to stress. They also can link your interests and aptitudes to employment categories or even suggest your affinity for a particular kind of job.

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Once you’ve used the KIFF Test to determine the ideal job for you, go to CareerCast.com to find an extensive database of jobs in your area, job search features, a resume builder and top quality job posting resources for employers. CareerCast.com also offers job seekers resources in the form of daily career news, columns and exclusive JobsRated rankings that compare jobs by stress level as well as overall desirability.

Help! I Need More Than 2 Pages to Complete My Resume!

This is a common dilemma for many older job seekers — despite having a wealth of experience and extensive career pedigree, they’re expected to make their resume conform to the same 1 -2 page format used by first-time applicants right out of college. These savvy job hunters may be able to rely on their interview knowledge and networking skills to land a job, but they still need their resume to peak the interest of HR and help get them a foot in the door. So what can they do?

Convention may dictate that resumes stay within a 2 page limit, but there are ways to break the rules and create a longer resume that shows off all of your skills. CareerCast.com Columnist and noted career expert Douglas B. Richardson offers vital advice on how to make a long resume that gets interviews, complete with examples that will work for any industry. If you’re an older worker who’s suddenly back in the employment market, this advice can help you get a new job.

Read “The Long Resume: Pushing the Self Marketing Envelope” at CareerCast.com, or check out an excerpt here:

You all know the rules: your resume should not burden the reader. It should never exceed two pages, and must be easy to scan during that first 30-second once-over by an overburdened, uncharitable screener. It should hit the high points, set the hook and leave elaboration of the fine points to your face-to-face interviews.

Conventional wisdom becomes conventional because generally it’s correct. That is, most resume-writing guidelines reflect principles that work well for the majority of job seekers, and particularly for those whose resume reflects a progressively-responsible linear career path.

When to Break the Rules

Yet there are exceptional cases where these resume-writing ground rules do not apply, where the resume is called upon to do the heavy lifting of persuasion rather than the initial tap-dancing of simply piquing a potential employer’s interest. For example, job seekers who are well along in their careers or who have made many employment shifts may feel constrained by that two-page limit: there is just too much information to cram in there.

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Experienced workers who are looking for a new job need higher-quality job listings than most job seekers, and with our local focus and partnership with more than 500 top job boards, CareerCast.com offers more opportunities to find local jobs in your area.

Do You REALLY Know What Kind of Job You Want?

In today’s competitive job market, many job seekers are eager to take just about any job that’s offered to them. But despite all the gloom and doom out there, panicking and locking yourself into a job you don’t like just to get a steady paycheck is a bad idea. Eventually the economy will rebound, and if you haven’t asked yourself what kind of job you really want, you make look back on your job search choices with regret.

This is easier said than done, however, since when you’re looking for a new job most people expect you to know exactly what you want. “I don’t know” isn’t an answer that inspires confidence in people, whether you’re in a job interview or just chatting with friends.

But it doesn’t have to be so hard. If you’re still asking yourself “what kinds of job can I find?” there are things you can say to friends, colleagues and parents to keep them off your back. CareerCast.com Senior Columnist Taunee Besson explains what to say when you don’t know what job you want, so you’ll never be stumped by an intervew question again.

Read “What Do I Say When I Don’t Know What Career I Want to Pursue” on CareerCast.com, or check out an excerpt here:

Q: “For the past six years, I’ve been the senior staff person on a very busy help desk. In January, my company offered a sweetened severance package to reduce its headcount. I took it and said goodbye. Now my friends are asking me what I plan to do next. Right now I don’t want to think beyond taking a vacation and tackling some projects around the house. What should I tell them?”

–Katherine, Concord, New Hampshire

A: Consider using a short-term answer first, then following up with a long-term plan. For a couple of months you can say, “This is the first time I’ve had the opportunity to genuinely reflect on what I want in my career. I’ve decided to relax, regroup and think about where to go from here. I’m in the process of putting together my two-minute commercial. When it’s ready, I’d like your feedback on it.” With this response you can hold off the troops, reassure them you are concerned about your current and future well-being and offer the chance for input when you are ready for it.

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If you don’t know how to find a job, CareerCast.com offers extensive Career Advice, Job Listings, and even exclusive Job Ratings so you can compare the best jobs and worst jobs you can get today.

Fight Back Against HR Bias

Last week CareerCast.com examined the problem of misinterpreting your job interview performance, as candidates often fail to read the signs of what HR is really looking for. In these cases, frustrated job seekers tend to blame the prospective employer rather than examining their own job search mistakes, believing that HR just “doesn’t get it” or is biased toward someone else. This attitude can be dangerous — ignoring your flaws and blaming a lack of job offers on HR will undoubtedly prolong your job search. Fail to critically examine your job interview performance and you will pay the price.

But what if it turns out you’re right, and HR is biased against you?

There are circumstances where hiring managers already have a candidate in mind but have to interview others for “due diligence,” or reject qualified job seekers for reasons that have nothing to do with their qualifications or ability to do the job. What do you do in these situations?

The first step is to identify whether you’re falling victim to HR bias, which is best done during the interview. Is the hiring manager behaving strangely in any way? CareerCast.com Senior Columnist Taunee Besson tackles this issue in her latest article, providing job seekers with ways to spot recruiter partiality by identifying the type of bias they may have against you. Spotting these preconceptions is the first step toward proving them wrong and convincing a reluctant recruiter to offer you the job.

Check out Recruiter Biases You Can’t Control on CareerCast.com, or see an excerpt here:

Q: I read your recent column about the guy who had three job rejections in a row, even though he was confident he aced every interview. You seemed to blame him for his misfortune. I’ve heard similar stories from plenty of other job seekers. Why don’t you talk about some actual recruiter biases that can also lead to not getting hired?

–Stephen, New York, New York

A: I must admit I was a little tough on that job hunter, who didn’t need another negative response from someone he was hoping would be more sympathetic. Mea culpa!

It’s true that job seekers aren’t the only ones who create their own skewed realities. Recruiters may also have hidden or misconceived agendas, which spring from past experiences and attitudes that resist rational attempts to change them. Many of these biases are unconscious and have little to do with the candidate personally, even though they can definitely affect his or her chances of getting hired.

Here are a few of the most common interviewer biases that thwart job seeker success:

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One way to avoid running into HR bias is to seek out jobs with specific criteria that you meet — and though a partnership with over 500 local and niche job sites throughout the U.S. and Canada, CareerCast.com offers job seekers access to a wide selection of high-quality, targeted job openings. Employers can access better candidates by posting a job to one of our partner sites and getting an addition, nationwide CareerCast.com listing absolutely free!