Preparing to Get Ahead: Practical Approaches to Advancing Your Career Alicia Miner VP Strategic Operations & Implementation 1 Objectives Career Exploration Career Readiness Career Launch 5. 5 Steps of Career Planning Job search & interview prep 4. Prepare your resume & cover letter 3. Build your personal brand & network 2. Develop skills & competencies 1. Explore interests 3 Career Exploration Career Exploration: Know Yourself and Your Career Values What are my long term career goals? Long term career goals What is the level of flexibility in hours, location, telecommuting, etc. Level of flexibility and/or location Leadership or individual contributor Do I want to lead other people or work as an individual contributor? What is the level of complexity and critical thinking required? Your individual strengths and opportunities Level of complexity Do my natural strengths align with the skills needed? Do I enjoy interacting with customers, subordinates, executive leaders? Levels of interaction: customers, subordinates, superiors Day to day responsibilities 5 Are the day to day responsibilities of this job something I find challenging and rewarding? Career Exploration: Know Your Interests Self-assessment: Career Interest Profiler Assessing your career interests is an important factor in determining your career path. Phoenix Career Services offers a tool to help identify careers based on your interests through the Career Interest Profiler. https://www.phoenix.edu/career-services/explorer.html#4 6 Career Exploration: Know the Market Job Market Research Tool Example www.phoenix.edu/career-services/explorer/explorenow.html Market data within 12 months priorcurrent • • • • • Salary range Education requirements Experience requirements Top employer Related degrees (general and UOPX) Example Job Market Research Tool www.phoenix.edu/career-services/explorer/explorenow.html Additional Job Details to Understand… • • • • The skills required What experience is desired Where people went before and after selected career Similar education/skill requirement jobs 8 Career Readiness: Sharpening Your Skills Career Planning: Developing Your Skills for Career of Choice Start with a goal; have a reason to develop Identify what you want to learn • Identify the three most important competencies (skills, knowledge, attributes) that you want to work on in order to achieve your goal. Identify “development actions” and dates to address the needs • Take on a challenging assignment within your current job • Learn from someone else (your manager, a coach, a subject matter expert, etc) • Get educated on the topic: take a course, read up on the topic Discuss your plan with your manager, teacher, or someone in your support network Implement the plan, follow-up often, and reflect on what you’ve learned Keep your plan in front of you at all times. Check off those items you complete, you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment! 10 Personal Brand and Networking Your Personal Brand in a Digital World You never get a second chance to make a first impression! Tips:    Google search your name to make sure you are aware of your perception on the Internet. Remove anything that may negatively effect your job search process. Update your voicemail greeting Clean up your social media profile o o Clean it up…or make it private Remove anything you wouldn’t want a current or potential employer to see! Social Media and Recruiting:  80% of US companies use social media for recruiting Jobvite Survey of Recruiters:  42 % of job recruiters said they have reconsidered a job applicant, in both positive and negative ways based on social media findings  94% of recruiters indicate the social media avenues have become an essential tool  47% reacted negatively when they found pictures of alcohol consumption  51% reacted negatively when they found references to guns  61% reacted poorly to spelling and grammatical errors  65% reacted poorly to profanity  71% reacted poorly to posts or tweets of sexual nature  83% reacted poorly to references to doing illegal drugs 12 Networking: The Professional Network 95% of companies that use social media use LinkedIn 248 million individual users • LinkedIn o Build a professional profile that shows your value, especially to the field you are pursuing o Join relevant groups to view and participate in discussions o Search for jobs on the ASIS International LinkedIn group o o See how you are connected to people at companies you’d like to work at, even if they don't have a job posted on LinkedIn. (Many companies are hiring but don't have jobs posted on the site.) Let the system work for you! •Consider joining professional associations and groups and local ASIS chapters •Academic organizations or clubs •Use informational interviews to learn about organizations and expand your contacts within an industry Career Preparation: Resume Writing Career Preparation: Resume Tips (DO) RESUME DOs • • • • • • • • • Keep to 1-2 pages Consistent font style, size, and spacing Keep the most important information in top half of 1st page List your education, awards and honors List military and professional experience Simplify industry jargon Cater verbiage and resume to specific targeted job and company Show your work history “story” in a coherent form Each achievement bullet should include what you achieved and the impact to the organization Duties and Responsibilities From Job Description Accomplishment Statements on Your Resume Responsible for a sales team in Northeast region. Managed a team of three account executives and two inside sales representatives. Produced $6M in new revenue in less than 12 months. 15 Career Preparation: Resume Tips (DON’T) Avoid… • • • • • • • Lack of focus/too generic Typos and misused words or grammar Unnecessary objective statement Unrelated information and details Industry or job specific acronyms and jargon Paragraph descriptions/ too lengthy Formatting issues in transfer of documents • Send your resume in a PDF format to ensure formatting doesn’t change on different computers. • Unprofessional Contact Information (email addresses, web URL’s, etc) • Lack of action verbs and actual accomplishments • Call out accomplishments not job duties 16 Interview Success Interview Success: Interview Tips Preparing for your interview • Research the company, their competitors, and the industry • Dress appropriately and professionally • Always arrive early • Anticipate common questions • Know your strengths and weaknesses During the Interview • Take your time • Ask intelligent questions • Smile and make eye contact • Speak to what YOU have done • Provide examples within your answers • Do a mock interview 18 Interview Success: Behavioral-Based Interviewing  The best indicator of future performance and behaviors is past performance and behaviors  Allows interviewer to focus on candidates that can DO the job; not GET the job.  Helps identify a candidate’s previous behaviors or actions taken in a situation and the outcome.  Focuses on the candidate’s past experiences as they relate to the competencies of the desired position Research-based behavioral interviews, achieve an accuracy of over 80%, a four-time improvement, over traditional Interviews.19 Interview Success: Behavioral-Based Interviewing As a candidate, it is important to understand the best way to answer BBI questions P-state the problem A-explain the action you took R-describe the result of your action Sample Question:  Tell me about a time you dealt with a difficult customer? • What was the situation or problem at hand? (Where did I work, what was my position, who was the customer?) • What behaviors or actions did I take? (What did I say to the customer, what did the customer say, was anyone else involved, did I do anything to take action)? • What was the outcome?(What happened with the customer, was it resolved, what did you do well, what could you have done differently?) 20 Interview Success: After the Interview  Make notes about the questions asked and answers you provided.  Evaluate the possible questions behind the questions asked and what they may mean about what’s important to the interviewer.  Follow through with any information or tasks you promised to provide during the interview.  Send a “Thank You” note to everyone in the interview individually within 24 hours.  Accept rejection gracefully 21 Final thoughts “The way to get ahead is to start now. If you start now, you will know a lot next year that you don’t know now and that you would not have known next year if you had waited.” ~ William Feather 22 Questions? Contact Me: [email protected] 23