MyRetailCareer

A little LinkedIn Controversy

I like spirited debates and I’ve seen one going around on how a person should indicate their employment status on LinkedIn (this pretty much applies to the resume as well).

One camp’s thought is don’t indicate you aren’t working.  Their reasons run from the fallacy that recruiters look harder and think better of the “passive” candidate (employed and not really actively looking) to the concept that if you are unemployed there’s a reason and it’s not good.

The other camp says to shout out that you are unemployed,eager to get back to work, willing to jump through hoops and can start yesterday, in fact, you’re at the door, blackberry in hand.

Let me say up front, my opinions are my own and I base them on having been an executive recruiter placing 100’s of people into great new jobs, but they are still opinions as are others thoughts as well.

As a recruiter, if you send me a resume that says you’re still working and you’re not, we start off badly.  When you try to trick me, I don’t trust you from the start.  That’s a pretty crappy way to begin a relationship that is all about trust.

If I just get your name somehow and I go to your profile on LinkedIn to “check you out” and it says you’re still employed and I find out you’re not employed when I call you at work, I’m not going to take it personal since now it appears you’re trying to deceive everyone.  I’ll be tempted to think maybe it’s because you’re sloppy or lazy and haven’t bothered to update your profile, incompetent because you don’t know how or ashamed because you’re unemployed (or just trying to trick everyone).  None of these traits endear you to me either.

People are going to find out you’re not working.  Do you honestly think that employers won’t like you to begin with because you’re unemployed but after they meet you and realize you’re either deceptive, inept, sloppy or lazy (or all the above), they’ll like you better?  Good luck in your search.

The other extreme, desperation, is just as bad.  You shouldn’t  shout, scream, buy a billboard, perform in the street mostly naked or anything else to draw attention to yourself.  That kind of attention, although great to blog about, isn’t the best possible personal branding image unless you want to work at a theme park or sue some candy maker.

So what do you do?  Change your mental perspective.  Most people today are out of a job through no fault of their own.  Good recruiters and good companies know that.  Be honest; your resume and LinkedIn profile should show correct dates of employment. 

Keep in mind that simple is better so if you send a resume and enclose a cover letter, just say, “ABC Company restructured, reducing it’s labor force 15%” or “ZED Company exited it’s Ukrainian expansion plans.”

Then there is that little area in LinkedIn under your name where you can update your status.  It always starts with your name so write your update accordingly.  Some people ignore that area, some scream “Susie needs a job yesterday.”  I just updated mine to say, “Brad is writing the last blog of the summer.”  If I was a job seeker, I’d be honest (gasp) and write, “Brad is presently seeking a [insert something here like] creative position with a Web 2.0 company focusing on personal branding.”  Sorry it’s Friday and I’m not very creative today.

Have a safe and wonderful Labor day and see you after summer.

The Creative Resume, Part 1 Let’s Wrap it Up

Message and Medium

This week we established 3 goals for the creative resume and we worked part way through goal 1.

1. Develop the appropriate message and medium to communicate skills and abilities.

We established that the resume, loathed as it may be, is still the most widely accepted tool (or arrow in our quiver) to present ourselves with to prospective employment opportunities.

We accepted that a creative resume allows us to push the envelope (yes the photo is an envelope) with content and design but not to the point of being weird (I love that word because it breaks the “I before E, except after C” rule which goes on to say, “unless sounded as A as in neighbor or weigh, except either, neither, seizure, leisure and weird”).

We touched on the the mediums we would use to convey our personal branding message from traditional (resume) to new (twitter).

We discovered that along the journey of putting together the resume, things change and evolve.  That by working on a visual branding tool, the website (an arrow in the quiver), we stumbled upon design elements and graphics for the resume and the creative summary (more on that next week).

The message and the medium became one and we created a powerful yet simple message of “Design, Develop and Deliver".”

Early next week, more arrows.  We’ll look at the creative summary, pick apart the website, discuss LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.  If we have time, we’ll look at Goal 2 which is;

1. Present this collateral in an effective and unique way to get the recipient to sit up and take notice.

This is where we’ll figure out how to get all this great stuff looked at by the right people. 

Happy Friday!

PS

I had to include this list.  I think the concept is great.  It’s only a shopping list but replace “buy” in the middle with “Get Job".”  When you look at this carefully, he has lentils in 2 places and salads separate from produce but the list makes sense because you can look at things from several perspectives at once. I always try to make linear lists and then get caught up on where to put things, Jonny has this solved plus he seems to eat pretty healthy.

Jonny Goldstein has a cool blog with 100 days of lists, charts and other stuff. 

Check out his blog here.  http://envizualize.com/blog/

The Creative Resume, Part 1

So you’re a creative person, aren’t we all?  What sets you apart though, is that your career and professional success rely much more heavily on your creativity.  This also often means you need a slightly different set of tools to communicate and demonstrate your skills than others.  While many resumes rely on quantifiable and tangible accomplishments, creative resumes sometimes lack or have difficulty articulating what the writer has done and has to offer.

While we’re going to focus on an apparel designer resume here, these ideas can easily include those of you involved in any type of design, product development and merchandising from pots & pans to designer couture.  It can also include the world of store design, visual merchandising, architecture, and some areas of marketing. 

There are 3 goals to accomplish as we work through this.

1. Develop the appropriate message and medium to communicate skills and abilities.
2. Present this collateral in an effective and unique way to get the recipient to sit up and take notice.
3. Effectively develop a brand in a way that makes it readily apparent who you are and what you offer.

I say over and over, “It’s not about the resume but it’s entirely about the resume.”  The steps you take on this journey of development are the learning points.  In the end, you’ll have a resume, albeit a pretty nice looking one that certainly is going to gain attention.  You also will have a brand, a marketing plan and the tools to implement it. 

Homework?  Yes, we need to put in a little work.  Pull up this resume, the starting point of this creative project.   There’s nothing really wrong with this resume other than it looks like the hundreds I get every week.  Keep a copy so we can compare the finished product with what we started with.

Now, stay tuned and watch the transformation.

Creativity Unleashed

Most well written resumes have meaningful and quantifiable accomplishments.  By that, I mean bullet points such as.

• Increased 2008 sales by 12% to 1.5 million
• Reduced staff turnover 50% in 6 months.
• Accomplished16 soft store openings in 4 months

Here’s the rub, what do you do if your job doesn’t have these types of accomplishments?  A good example of this are individuals that are in some type of creative field.  Now I know there are linkages, important ones, between a creative idea and a successful business.  But sometimes, it’s difficult to quantify these achievements.

For that, you need a creative approach.  Typically, the creative type out there have done one of two things.  They’ve either put together a traditional looking resume and accompanied it with some type of “portfolio”, printed or on a CD or DVD.  It gives you a better idea but isn’t perfect.  Kind of “half-creative” I guess.

The other alternative is the “way out there” approach.  It’s really creative but usually so unconventional that most people reading it run from it.  Also, an unintended side effect is that because the medium is so unfamiliar (strange) to the reader they easily miss important information.

Creative people shouldn't despair though.  Here at MyRetailCareer we’ve been working on some neat ideas that not only get the point across but strongly develop the individuals personal brand at the same time.  Many of these ideas can be adapted to even more conventional (less creative) careers as well.

Tomorrow, step 1 of Creativity Unleashed.

It's Friday, forget the Resume

Lazy time again, vacation starts tomorrow but I was in vacation mood by Tuesday.  Jason Alba over at JibberJobber has again blogged about one of my favorite subjects and I started to write a comment but it got so long I decided to write it here instead. 

Why Resumes are Relevant (and will be for a long time) from the JibberJobber blog.

Here are my thoughts about the resume….

No matter what, the resume still remains the single most significant and easy way to communicate your background, skills and accomplishments.  I equate the resume to the car.  It has 4 wheels and gets you from point A to point B, and it does it’s job well.  Has it evolved?  Certainly. 

I’m going to hit 50 next year yet I can remember reading Popular Science (nerd) at the age of 12 and there was an article about how flying cars were right around the corner.  Look up, see any?  Not yet, maybe someday, but even then, they’ll still have some type of ground mechanism (probably tires) and their main purpose will still be to get you from point A to point B.

Social Networking = Turn Signals (the model A didn’t come with them but you can buy them now here).

Video Resumes = Onboard GPS (nice feature but so is the skill of reading a map).  Don’t even get me started here because if you have a bad resume on paper what makes you think you’re going to have a great video resume?  All those mind altering drugs?  Better take them while you are recording.

When I work with my clients, I always tell them the following (just to confuse them).  “It’s not about the resume but it’s entirely about the resume”.  Huh?  If you want to know what I mean by that, take advantage of my FREE 10pt, no obligation, confidential resume review.

Being visible is critical to getting the position you deserve but just throwing yourself out there hoping to be discovered is fool’s play. Does anyone here think that an overworked HR person, screening hundreds and hundreds of resumes a week is going to take the time to look for you on the great World Wide Web?  I don’t care if you have a Social Footprint the size of Texas, if they are in Oklahoma looking North, they ain’t going to see you.  Not in a million years. But they just might Google you if a networking contact of yours shoves a well written, compelling resume under their nose. Now you have a chance providing you have something worth Googling.

Back to cars, why do you think car companies spend so much friggin money on advertising? Because, every car does the same thing, it gets you from point A to point B.  They have to differentiate themselves……Duh!  So do you.

How do they do that?  I’m not a marketing genius by any account but I watch commercials

• Features and Benefits (this car has heated leather seats to warm your rear).
• Accomplishments (this car goes from 0 to 60 in minus 2.45 seconds, you’re there before you start).
• Sexy (drive this and the opposite sex will throw themselves at you).
• Uniqueness (no other car gives you this level performance; all the rest don’t get to point B?).
• History (our cars are designed by pilots). Saab read the same Popular Mechanics I did.

How do car companies communicate this stuff?  They still run newspaper ads even though newspapers are allegedly dead.  They still print really glossy nice brochures even though nobody reads anymore.  They still use direct mail even though email killed it. 

Thy also use technology and social media.  Go the the website and virtually sit in the car and get a 360 degree view.  Facebook, twitter and everything else.  They didn’t abandon one thing for something else, they augmented and re-allocated. 

Same thing with your career and your search.  People talk about having multiple tools, I always say you have a lot of arrows in the quiver.  You’re first arrow is the resume.  It needs to hit its mark so the other arrows get a chance to make contact.  I don’t want to hear any comments on the “killer resume” because I don’t believe it exists anymore.  What you need is for the arrow to slow the person down.  A good leg shot will work, get ‘em limping.  A great resume makes the reader want to know more, to Google you, look at your LinkedIn profile , read your blog, visit your website. 

Sunny beaches, here I come.

How a Job Board Should Work

Microsoft just launched it’s new Corporate Global Career Site which now serves 97 countries.  It’s a pretty interesting place to play around and one thing stands out more than anything. 

How well Microsoft conveys it’s employment brand.  I think even the most fervent Microsoft basher would want to work for the company after looking at a few pages.  Take some time to look it over and see a well constructed Job Board.

For more information, also read this article on ERE. 

Regards,

Not all Recruiters are Created Equal

I recently joined a fashion networking group and jumped into one of the discussions.  The person who started the discussion was asking about moving from retail store line to wholesale and why didn’t companies look at transferable skills.

I said that in my 7 years of recruiting I had found it difficult to move individuals  from retail to wholesale.  I was addressing this person’s specific situation (store line to corporate AND retail to wholesale).  I’ve placed buyers into account executive roles, moved planners, design, product development, sourcing, visual and so on back and forth; but to help someone in a situation like this as a recruiter was beyond my scope. As a career strategist, I can be much more helpful.

Another recruiter jumped into the conversation stating that they move people from retail to wholesale all the time, in fact, their clients ask for retailers.

A couple of thoughts went through my head.  “Wow this recruiter is really good.” and “Boy, this recruiter must have really interesting clients.”  I went with thought one first and did some research on the recruiter and their company and found the website. 

Every go to a fancy website that gives you absolutely no information?  After a few minutes on the site, I knew almost nothing about the company.  I didn’t know who the owner/s were, if it was private or public, the size, who the staff is; let alone any background information, or how long have they been in business. This recruiting company could have started yesterday (by the way, they didn’t, but I had to do some work to find that out).  With today’s web technology, it’s really easy to be the Wizard of Oz and have one person behind the scenes pulling all the levers and making a grand impression.

If you are going to work with a recruiter, go to their website and look for those things.  Most companies usually aren’t afraid to tell you who they are and how to contact them and they have an ABOUT page that actually tells you “about” them. They post their bios so you can tell if they are qualified and they tell you how long they have been in business and so forth. 

Keep in mind the company website might not be the recruiters fault.  I happen to know that this recruiter has 9 years experience and was a retail merchant before that (nothing is hidden if you dig deep enough). I leaned more about the company from the recruiter’s LinkedIn profile in 30 seconds than 5 minutes on the company site.

Remember, you don’t work with companies, you work with people.  It could be management that feels secrecy is the best policy or they could just have gotten bad advice about their website.

What’s important is to know who you’re trusting to represent you!  Keep your eyes open.  Research and ask for references.  Pry.  Does what they are saying make sense?  It’s your career and your livelihood.

I realize I got away from ‘transferable skills” my original topic but that’s now for another day.

The Rejuvenation Lounge » Meaningful Ways To Slow Yourself Down When Feeling Rushed:

I’ve either spoken to or been emailed by a number of stressed people today.  I guess it’s mid-week, not much has happened for them with their job-search and they are all feeling down.

When I was recruiting, I’d make a lot of phone calls.  The worse thing is that busy days weren’t the days you made the most calls.  They were the days you actually got people on the phone.  The tough days were the ones where you left 150 messages and spoke to no one.  

You could really get down after a day like that.  Rookies would let that get to them all the time.  I knew it was like sowing seeds in a field.  That the backbreaking work would result in a call back sometime in the future and I would get my harvest.  I also always knew that the next phone call could literally change my life.  It could be a top candidate for that tough position I was working on or a new client or a referral.  That is what kept me making calls.

I figure that most job seekers are rookies in they aren’t seeing any results from their efforts.  When it gets tough, you need to forge ahead.  You also need to stop, relax and evaluate what you’re doing and the results you’re getting.  I thought this holistic article had some great ideas.

The Rejuvenation Lounge » Meaningful Ways To Slow Yourself Down When Feeling Rushed:

If you are sending out resume after resume and not getting any response, there is something wrong, either with the resume or your strategy of who you are sending it to.  You can control both of those. 

I’m reviewing resumes for free and for the unemployed, I’m offering a Resume Rework and Career Strategy Kick-Start for a ridiculously cheap price. You have nothing to lose so call or email me.  My cell is 908-319-8653. 

Job Search and Technology; can you help?

A couple of weeks ago I wrote “Should I Stay or Should I Go?”  It was in response to a job seeker who was living outside Podunk and was wondering if they should relocate to a different (better?) area.  One suggestion I had was to fly back and forth a couple of times and try to schedule extended layovers in other cities around interviews.

We’ll this person is about to go one further by packing up and driving across the USA.  The question to me was “what to do while driving across 6 states?”  So I got my thinking hat on and decided to play with Knoxville to LA.

Not too much along that route, Little Rock, home of Dillards (you can click on the map to look more closely).

Route #2 down through Dallas gives you JC Penny and later on, if one survives to Phoenix, PetSmart.   Yes, I know there are other retailers but I don’t know an easy way to find all of them along a chosen route. 

So I did what I always do, I Googled Corporate Retail Headquarters.  To be honest, not much came up.  My plan was to build a collaborative map on GoogleMaps, invite everyone I know to add to it and eventually have something that looks like this with a plethora of Corporate Retail locations.

I know that I can hunt and peck for them and add them one at a time but I’m looking for some help here to simplify the process. Meanwhile, if you would like to add your corporate headquarters location, the link is:

Brad's Corporate Google Map

I’ll keep everyone updated to the progress of this little project.

3 Resumes for Review

Yesterday, I received a newsletter from CDI (Career Directors International) announcing their 3 winning resumes for 2008.  These were voted on by both a group of resume experts and the general public.  While the order changed slightly between the experts and the public, the top 3 were in both groups.

I don’t normally look at resumes like this because I happen to feel they are written to win competitions, not necessarily to get jobs but since the resumes focus on a retail individual I thought I’d share them.

I’ve made the 3 resumes available in my SkyDrive Folder for you to look at.  I also wrote yesterday about a book, “197 Words that can Kill a Resume.”  While looking at these resumes, keep that book in mind.

Who’s right here?  I don’t have an answer to that question.  They are all nice looking and resume #1 is certainly unique for a 1 page document. I’m going to take the rest of the week to give you my thoughts on each, starting with #1.  I don’t know what information the resume writer was provided to work with so my comments are not aimed at the writer. I’m looking at this from a 3rd party prospective.

I like the top, right away it tells me about the candidate and what they are looking for.  I don’t like “Change Agent” for two reasons; it’s 2 words and Competitive and Analytical are each single words and it’s an over-used cliché.  I would have maybe used innovative instead (yes, just as overused but it’s one word).

I like this block, it’s at the “point of white heat” as I say, right where you eye goes first.  However, it talks specifically about “Weight Loss Centers” and as I read a little further down, I see “Transferable Skills.”  Now I have a question in my mind, does this candidate want to move out of managing Weight Loss Clinics or not?  I might get an answer in the cover letter or an interview but what if the cover letter gets separated from the resume or since I’m not recruiting for a Weight Loss Center, I pass on this candidate?

The first sentence is nice, right up to the “Weight Loss Centers” being mentioned again.  Does she want to transition?  How about “Specialty Retail” then?  Sentence two leaves me scratching my head, I have no idea what that sentence means. It’s fluff.

Since this is a 1-page resume, this section is where the rubber meets the road and I don’t think it is strong enough.  Also this is where I believe the attempt is being made to define the individuals skills as transferable (being the sharp-eyed person I am, the phrase “Proof of transferable skills…” gave it away to me).

Some of the wording is excessive and cliché like Mission-Critical, Human Capital, Broken Processes.  Some of the accomplishments are linked to specific positions/companies and some are not.  Let’s be consistent there.  Percentages are used throughout and that causes a problem.  You can’t quantify the level of difficulty of the position.  If they lost 10 members and regained 2 for the 20%, I’m underwhelmed, if they lost 100 and gained back 20, I’ll take notice. If the inventory shrinkage of over 10 % points saved $100 big deal, if it saved $10K, it’s respectable.

The other concern, which I have mentioned before, is the purpose of this resume.  It really overemphasizes an area that is specific to “Membership” type operations.  Weight Loss Centers, Fitness Centers, Video Stores (the few that remain), and so on.  If the goal is to indicate transferability of skills so that this person can be appealing to more traditional specialty retail operations, it falls short.  Then the graph, which I actually like, once more reinforces the “Membership Retention” message. 

Membership Retention is not the key driving point for most retail sales manager positions.  I’d talk about staff size and turnover, sales and margin improvement, training, promotion, etc.  I like the special events mention and would present that as community outreach to improve brand recognition.

I’d take the candidates accomplishments and ask “how do we make these appealing to a mainstream specialty retailer? What is going to make them sit up and notice you?”  I’d ensure that the candidate could address those questions in an interview with drop-dead answers

I like the layout, it’s interesting and made me take notice.  For a position with any company that has a similar business model, it certainly would be fine.  I would however, work on the wording to make it more straight-forward.

As a resume to demonstrate transferable skills, it falls short.  It’s possible that the resume writer and the individual don’t have enough industry knowledge of main-stream specialty retail, that I don’t know.

Tomorrow, resume #2