Pat O’Donnell’s Placement Genius

I see too many resumes that show the minimum skills required by a job ad but don’t show how well the job applicant performed the tasks or why this candidate is a better risk to interview and hire than other applicants with the same skills. If you are guilty of this, you have qualified your resume to be “in the pile” of qualified applicants but have done nothing to make your resume float to the “top of the pile.” You have less chance of winning an interview. (more…)

This is one if my favorite networking stories and it shows the power of enlisting family and friends to help.

A man I was counseling, we will call him Max, was on his way to a Hanukkah celebration where there would be 50 family members. He had been out of work for several months, working only part-time as a consultant, and his uncles were asking him whom they could call on his behalf. He was dreading the event because he was imagining aunts pinching him on the cheek and uncles having people call him with leads that would not be a close fit. (more…)

If you dread the thought of networking, you are not alone. Most of us can describe networking that is not effective:

Good networking is not a three martini lunch.

Good networking is not standing up in a crowd of strangers and announcing you are a sales manager looking for a contact at company X.

Networking should have two elements:

First, networking should be a long-term campaign to establish your value in the business community. It is about defining and establishing your brand - what makes you unique or different amongst people with somewhat similar backgrounds. It is about building awareness for your brand with an ever-larger audience. It is about keeping your value proposition top of mind over the long-term so that when someone in the community has need of your services, he/she remembers you are out there and reaches out to you. Your objective is to craft your message so that the right (more…)