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Quintessential Answers:
Q&A's with Career & College Experts

 

Questions and Answers with Career Expert Susan Guarneri

 

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 career e-newsletter. Those interviews are archived here for your convenience.

 

Susan Guarneri is the Career Assessment Goddess.

 

Q:

What do you feel is the most exciting or hopeful trend in job-hunting?

A:

Three powerful trends intersect in today's job-hunting dynamics: The freedom to choose, manage, and re-invent your career and job over time. You will likely change careers/jobs several times in your working lifetime -- that is accepted knowledge in the workplace. Whether the change is voluntary or not, you can re-invent yourself and take advantage of the ever-evolving opportunities that the world of work presents.   The ready availability of technology for research and self-marketing. You can now create customized resumes and cover letters -- which you should be doing -- for every job opening. Beyond word processing, technology tools now allow you to be more productive, organized, connective, and professional in your job search. For example, you can easily research organizations and include salient information about the companies in your cover letters to show that your interest is genuine and based on a "real match" with company culture, mission, values, or customers served.   The impetus for connections and social networking. You can enlist the assistance of your friends, acquaintances, and others through social networking tools such as LinkedIn and Facebook to be your "job scouts" and "evangelists." Your job search does not have to be relegated to a lonely activity full of self-doubt. Parlaying support, information, advice, and employee referrals will allow you to fast-track your job search -- if you are open to sharing with your network. That means both giving assistance to others and asking for yourself.

 

Q:

How can job-seekers achieve success and stand out from the crowd in such a competitive market?

A:

There's no one magic formula. But there are some common-sense factors that add up to self-marketing success: FOCUS: Know your target market (industries of choice) and type of position (occupational field + level of position) you are seeking. Employers and recruiters think in terms of job titles and occupational roles -- so should you. Do not assume an employer will extrapolate from your skills what type of position you are suited for within the organization -- employers have neither the time nor the inclination to do that.   CREDIBILITY: Demonstrate through your self-marketing communications that you should be taken seriously as a candidate. Create credibility by showing how you meet all the requirements for a job opening -- that's the first hurdle -- and that you are committed to a career in the industry or profession.   COMPELLING VALUE: Go beyond the minimum qualifications for the job and show how you add value through your accomplishments. Just stating job duties and responsibilities is not sufficient; many applicants will possess the same job duties. Only you can claim your unique results that came about as a result of what you did in your past jobs.   PERSONAL BRANDING: Showcase your unique personal attributes and "reputation" so you are not perceived of as generic or a commodity. What are you known for that others have come to rely on? Your ingenuity, your dependability, your ability to bring divergent groups of people together? How did you do that? That's the core of your personal brand.   VISIBILITY: Gain in-the-headlights visibility by outshining your competition and stepping out where you can easily be seen by employers and recruiters. For example, becoming known in the industry as a resource or thought leader through blogs, social networking, or leadership activities in professional associations will help you to gain traction as a passive candidate. Work on being sought after and highly visible, rather than one of thousands who simply responds to job postings on the Internet and gets lost in the crowds.

 

Q:

What's the best way for job-seekers to figure out what career will give them the greatest happiness? What techniques beyond assessments do you advise for really getting at a client's career passion?

A:

Career happiness requires a good match with four essential areas: Motivated Skills -- skills you are reasonably good at and enjoy using.   Interests and Passions -- topics, beliefs, and causes that occupy your mind and time and perhaps even drive your passionate involvement.   Personality Type -- your personal style of behavior, communications, and decision-making.   Values and Goals -- WHAT you want out of life (mission, vision, needs, and priorities), as well as HOW you want to attain them.   These are the building blocks for solid career change. They can be determined through methods such as self-reflection, discussion with family and friends, information interviewing with people in various occupations, journaling, job shadowing, and "trying out" different kinds of jobs or volunteering.   These methods, combined with proven career assessments in all four of these areas and career counseling/coaching, can aid in self-exploration, career research and discovery, decision-making, accountability, and decisive action toward a "dream job" goal. But be aware that not all career assessments are equally valid; in fact, many online career assessments have nebulous validity and reliability, yet are promoted as providing career matches based on just one career test.   A professional career counselor or certified career coach should be able to determine which career assessments (in the four building-block areas above) are most suitable for you to take. Some may be objective, formal assessments such as the Myers-Briggs Temperament Indicator, while others may be more subjective assessments designed with open-ended questions and creative techniques.

 

Q:

There's a lot of talk among recruiters that the resume is dead. They talk of resumes being overtaken by standardized profile forms on job boards, company web sites, and even social networking sites. What's your take? Is the resume dead, on life support, or still vital? What are its best uses these days?

A:

Self-marketing success requires three essential elements: understanding who your target audience is and its needs, having a credible and compelling message that your target audience values, and capturing that target audience's attention.   Resumes have been the primary tool for self-marketing in the past. Whether they will continue to serve that function in the future depends largely on: how the selection and hiring industries (HR and recruiting) of various professions evolve to accommodate other types of self-marketing tools, such as the web portfolio, and how the available talent pool chooses to promote its candidacy.   Some professions welcome creative approaches, often involving new technology, while others seem to push toward standardization of online application forms. Similarly, many highly desirable candidates promote themselves to selective target audiences and use distinctive approaches, while other candidates default to generic resumes hoping to catch anyone's eye. Unfortunately, the path of least effort for many candidates is the generic resume, which is ironically the least effective in meeting the three self-marketing essentials.   Whatever the means of self-marketing (resume, bio, online profile, or web portfolio), best practices indicate that the type chosen needs to be appropriate to the target audience (profession and industry) and the candidate, and it needs to be effective in conveying a message of value and distinction.

 

Q:

Whatever the status of the resume, it seems that online profiles in various forms will grow in importance. What's the best way to leverage resumes and profiles within new strategies such as personal branding and social networking?

A:

Whether you choose to use a resume or online profile or both, remember the three essentials of self-marketing success (stated above). Distinguish yourself from the vast majority of resumes and online profiles that do not appeal to any target audience, contain insipid or non-existent messages of value, and rely on the "throw-it-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks" mentality.   Even a standardized online application can stand out from the crowd through the content you choose to input. For example, the content can: demonstrate an understanding of your target audience's needs and culture through online company research and inquiries with individuals in the profession and industry, showcase value-added results, links to a web portfolio and other online "proof" of success, and a unique personal brand that permeates your past track record, and gain positive traction with the employer through auxiliary means of connection (such as employee referrals and social networking).

 

Known as the Career Assessment Goddess, Susan Guarneri has years of experience in career-development consulting, management development, team building, training, and workforce development. She is the co-author of Job Search Bloopers: Every Mistake You Can Make on the Road to Career Suicide and How to Avoid Them (Career Press, 2008). Susan has attained 13 careers-industry certifications, including the prestigious Master Resume Writer Lifetime Achievement Award. She is the only National Certified Career Counselor worldwide who is also certified as a Personal Branding Strategist and Online Identity Management Strategist. Her articles and quotes have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Princeton Business Journal, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, New Jersey News, The Career Planning and Adult Development Journal, along with CareerBuilder.com, Monster.com, and CareerJournal.com.

 

 

Check out all our interview with career experts in Quintessential Answers: Q&A's with Career & College Experts.

 

 

Maximize your career and job-search knowledge and skills! Take advantage of The Quintessential Careers Content Index, which enables site visitors to locate articles, tutorials, quizzes, and worksheets in 35 career, college, job-search topic areas.

 

 

 

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