Please note: On a somewhat infrequent basis, Quintessential Careers asks noted
career experts five questions related to their expertise and publishes the interview
in the current issue of QuintZine,
our biweekly newsletter. Here is one such interview.
Louise Giordano is a career counselor at Brown University.
Q:
We are hearing increasingly from job-seekers about frustrations
with Internet job-hunting. They complain that they never hear
anything from employers, and that employers increasingly put
up impenetrable barriers to keep job-seekers from following up
and being proactive. Are the old rules of job-seeking and
follow-up changing? How will job-seekers need to adapt to the
new rules of Internet job-hunting? Are there ways to follow up after
responding to an online ad, and if not, what can job-seekers
do in lieu of following up to increase their odds?
A:
I hear this lament increasingly, too. The technology that allows job-seekers
and employers to interact cannot be solely relied upon to produce the
desired results. It is just one of many tools for an effective job search.
A recent Providence Journal article (Jan. 20, 2002) reports that
the major job-posting Web sites are proving enormously frustrating
for job-seekers who post their resume and apply online for literally
hundreds of jobs that result in only a handful of interviews. Clients tell
me they are contacted by recruiters representing industries for which
they have no interest and/or skills, which is an infringement of one's
privacy. They report, too, that they don't know how to follow up
effectively. And they can't when there is no indication of the company
name or an email address or phone number. However, in many cases,
there are devious but ingenious ways to learn more about a company,
utilizing the very tools that often prove so frustrating.
This question prompted me to check out some online job postings on
monster.com and careerbuilder.com. In most cases, I was able to find
information about the company or organization -- from a link on the page
directly to the company, or by using the part of the email address after the
@ to search for the company itself or for information about the company.
(I use Google as my primary search engine; it almost never fails me!)
I use AnyWho.com and Reverse Look-up to find the name of the
company or person.
A company Web site can provide background information about the
company, location, top-level management, contact information, products
and services, other employment and career opportunities, among other
information of interest to the well-informed job-seeker. Keep in mind,
of course, that what a company produces in print and online is precisely
what it wants the public to know. Therefore, I suggest using financial
websites -- if the company is publicly traded -- to research current
and timely news about the company and its competitors.
What do you feel is the most disturbing trend in job-hunting today?
A:
The most disturbing trends in job-hunting today include relying too heavily
on the Internet, not effectively utilizing its full potential, and not being
resourceful in proactively using other resources. I always ask clients
what they have been doing toward their job-search; they frequently reply
that they have posted their resume on one or more of the job-posting
websites and/or applied online to numerous positions. And they wait! Most
disturbing to me is that they have not been proactive in developing
strategies for a successful search prior to contacting me. Many of today's
job-seekers have never before been in the frustrating position of
searching in a recessionary period. Consequently, they simply don't
know what works and what doesn't. They fail to realize that the skills
they need are close at hand. The trick is to maximize available tools
and resources and to subscribe to a process that keeps the
job-search moving in the right direction, with technical as well as
people resources to guide that process.
The first resource is oneself! The first step in job searching involves
self-knowledge. But what reluctance there is to completing a thorough
self-assessment -- of personality, skills, interests, and values! I ask
clients to imagine helping someone who cannot express what he or
she needs or wants. If a job-seeker cannot articulate to a prospective
employer or to a networking contact what s/he is seeking or can offer
to a company or organization, it is almost impossible to help him/her.
Most networking contacts are eager to help. The client's role then is
to help his or her contacts provide the needed help, which means
having gone through a thorough self-assessment. This critical piece
of the search process is too often overlooked. The tendency is to
jump right onto the Internet, post a resume, check the job sites,
and not move the process forward. Since 10 percent of jobs
are posted on the Internet, and 10% of jobs are advertised in print,
the remaining 80 percent are found via networking and informational
interviewing.
Q:
What do you feel is the most exciting or hopeful trend in job-hunting?
A:
Ironically, my answer to this question is exactly the same! The Internet
provides the most powerful tools available -- if you know how to use
them and then use them proactively.
The self-assessment process can be largely accomplished through
online resources. [Editor’s note: See our
Career
Assessments section.] A career coach, counselor, or advisor is
crucial to the interpretation of results, however. So while the Internet is
exciting as a job-search tool, it is easy to overlook the human interaction
that moves the process forward.
Q:
How are you preparing your students/clients for job-hunting in a
recession? Do you feel the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks brought
about a kind of paralysis in the job-hunting world? Have
most job-seekers gotten past the psychological barrier
brought on by 2001's recession and attacks?
A:
I do believe that Sept. 11 created a kind of paralysis in the world --
including the job-hunting world. It pushed a down-turning economy
down much faster, forced many new lay-offs, rescinded offers, and
far fewer opportunities for recent graduates, career-changers, and
anyone who had already been down-sized or unemployed. For most
college students, it created the numbing reality that the world had
changed, the effects of which would play out in ensuing months
and years -- and they had no idea how the change would impact
them. So, for many, trying to maintain their status quo and reconnecting
with family and close friends were more important than anything else.
Then they began to return to a new reality -- which meant catching up
with academics first, and placing job searching somewhere else in their
order of priorities. Parents no longer seemed to be pushing for that
high-powered job; rather they pushed for coming home and worrying
about the job search later. Some were panicked, but all seem to be
accepting impending graduation as a fact and that their job search
was about to take on new dimensions -- the results of which remain
largely unknown and probably with lower salaries and expectations.
We are preparing students/clients for job-hunting by providing the
usual tools, techniques, strategies, workshops, programs,
counseling appointments, resources, on-campus recruiting
that we have always provided. However, we are encouraging
focused job searches and the use of independent
resources more heavily. We emphasize networking and informational
interviewing through alumni networks as well as through every personal,
academic, and professional network they might have available to
them. We teach a process for cultivating those networks. We are
finding that students want us to do the work for them, but we feel
quite strongly that they must learn to apply the process we
teach. The key to job searching is conducting that “focused”
search, meaning that, especially now, students cannot indiscriminately
look for work without knowing what they really want in a job/career.
I emphasize the need to know what they want and go after it.
Knowing involves doing extensive research on self and occupations.
They must be willing to do the “work” necessary to make a job happen.
I believe most graduates are moving in the direction of
overcoming the psychological barriers exacerbated by Sept. 11.
They -- like the world -- are undergoing the stages of loss and
death. Some have been personally struck by loss and death;
most are dealing with the loss of expectations. And we, as
career counselors, are struggling as well with the changes
taking place, both personally and professionally.
Louise Giordano has been a career counselor at Brown
University since 1992 and solely staffs the Providence College
Alumni Career Advising Program. She served as director of
business placement at Johnson & Wales University from 1987 to
1989. Prior to and concurrent with these activities, she was a
secondary foreign-language teacher in public and private
schools in CT, MA, and RI.
