Psychology of the recent college grad job search

I thought this blog and article by Dr. Cummins was really enlightening. She discuss research about why recent college grads are having a tough time finding jobs: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/good-thinking/201311/why-recent-college-graduates-can-t-find-jobs.

 You can read her blog for specifics but the two things highlighted are things that I've been saying for a long time:

"1. Almost half of the students surveyed believe a degree from a prestigious school is very or extremely important to employers. But only 28% of hiring managers indicated that this mattered in their hiring decisions."

I believe that the top echelon ivy league schools are in league of their own. Companies send campus recruiters to find the brightest. But just about everyone else falls into another bucket and what is really important is not the school, but what you did at the school to show mastery or cleverness. The kid who set up his own successful business plan and managed to pay most of their own college bill will get a bigger look at than the kid who did nothing but travel every summer on their parent's dime. Great internships mean a lot as well.  I think the eager grads that shows they have good communication skills (can write a coherent email), social skills (follow up appropriately), good solid references from internships--they are the ones who will get the job. Which leads us to the next part of the findings:


2. About three-quarters (77%) of surveyed college students believed professional or personal connections were important for securing a job. But only 52% of hiring managers thought so.

I don't think that personal or professional connections are important to securing a job, but I think they are important to help you break out of the crowd and be seen. If you're not good, you won't get hired. But you can't get hired unless you are interviewed. If you can use those personal and professional connections to get you in front of someone, and you're good, then you have a much better chance than the star in the pile who comes across as one of many. I think this is true to getting an internship. Those with the connections are the ones that will get the internship. And the connection could be a professor who is known in their field that recommends you or a family friends who things highly and sends your resume on to the HR group with a personal recommendation. I genuinely think most adults want to help young people start their career--but only if they are sure they are good. 

Is Discrimination of the 50(+) age group a benefit for the 30(-)

1/14: I am happy to add an update to this: a good business contact of mine, now in their upper 50's just secured a job as a senior account person at a NY agency. Talent and smarts won out over age!

What is it about the end of one's career and the beginning that makes it so difficult to find jobs? People in the work force for 30-40 years who can't find a job that matches their experience and the newbies with no experience who can't get anyone to give them a break.

Statistics for those over 50 are daunting--those over 60, horrendous. But the good new for the newest to our work force is this, older worker discrimination should be a benefit to the young. New to the workforce (NTTWF) are generally paid less and don't have expectations of full benefits. They are happy to have a job--any job.

Since this blog is about college grads finding jobs (and those not over 50) I'll focus on that. But before I do, I want to say that most of the over 50's I know who are doing okay are those who have lowered their expectations and those who have developed a consulting practice. They may not be making the same money or have deep benefits, but most are happy having the flexibility.

So you're thinking, if older workers misery is to my benefit, why don't I have a job? I suspect it is either this: 1. your expectations are too high 2. your looking for the wrong jobs.

Where you need to be flexible:
1. Money--one job leads to another but you need that first one. Choose one that will give you the best work experience possible. If the salary sucks, live at home.
2. Industry--don't focus on sexy industry for your first job. You might be able to get the best experience somewhere you might think is not exciting.
3. Location--if you able to move, you might be ahead of the pack.
4. Find an area of what you do that is in demand. You're a writer? Can you write blogs, community pages, website copy? You're a numbers person? Can you learn some hard to find web skills that are in high demand (think web and media analytics). You have great people skills? What about a sales and marketing trainee job?
5. Take an unpaid internship if you need to--see if you can agree upfront that you can put the job down on your resume as a job so you can get "credit" for it.

Remember that most companies want some work experience. Get that experience any way that you can.

Questions you can ask at a Job Interview

I think this post is really straightforward and good though I think I'd ask the questions a little less formally:

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130815094409-32175171-the-3-questions-people-always-forget-to-ask-in-an-interview?trk=mp-details-rc.

Products that can help you look for a job

Since I've recently started my own business, I've had the pleasure of deciding what kinds of products work for me. I've recommended a bunch of them in the amazon sidebar--I am currently using them all and think they are all good.

In addition, I decided to set up a skype phone number to use as my incoming call number. It allows me to receive calls while making another call on another number (mostly a landline). The call quality has been great and I have a USB headset attached to my computer for use with this. So far so good.

I also had some issues with my computer and needed them to be resolved quickly. I needed my own tech support. I did a bit of research (including Consumer Reports) who highly recommended the Geek Squad (Best Buy) who fixed my computer remotely in about 1 hour. Now I can have tech support one phone call away--and I can have two other computers repaired as well. I signed up for a two year contract--very reasonably priced.

Make a New College Grad Employable

Great article in the NYTimes on Saturday: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/29/your-money/a-quest-to-make-college-graduates-employable.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.

Colleges haven’t changed that much in the past 40 years: they never prepared students for the skills discussed in this article: collaboration, interpersonal relations, dealing with ambiguity, flexibility and professionalism. They were also never very good on the job hunt front: how to search for a job, how to present yourself in interviews or how to write a powerful resume that gets noticed (and very important now, how to navigate the world of internet and social media in the job search process).

Let’s assume the job of a college is to educate, not help with the “soft” skills mentioned. One would then ask where this development of really important social and personal skills should develop. (and I’m not saying that I believe colleges shouldn’t do a better job in this area….)

I’m a firm believer that people grow these skills over time—mostly starting in high school, after puberty when some rational thought about what the future holds can develop. Some kids know innately what to do; others not so much or not at all.  Parents can help by getting kids involved in long-term volunteer internships as soon as possible. Working on an election is a great idea. Colleges and universities also need to look again at work experience for credit, and how to get students involved in meaningful long term projects. 

There are many success stories of adaptation by colleges. For example: the Charlotte N.C. area is a hot bed of Insurance companies—many of whom recruit local students because of the wealth of young people going to college in the area. UNC Charlotte adapted by offering specific coursework in different types of insurance. What if Microsoft and IBM (who also maintain huge operations in that area) got together with the local Universities and said we need students who can graduate knowing drupal, unica, HTML or be able to navigate from a creative and strategic perspective the new landscape of social media? And then provide them with internships during the school year or summer doing that work? Or direct the University in types of in-depth skill building projects that can be developed.

The NY Times article is well written and thought out, a good job Alina Tugend who wrote it. I’d like to see more like this with information from colleges/universities and corporations in need of talent.

What skills do you need to get you your first job in digital marketing (or expand your opportuniites if you've been around for a while).

If you can get solid experience using any of these digital marketing or data tools, (even through paid or unpaid internships), you can find a job.
SEO
SEM
Webtrends and all other new web analytic tools
Teamsite
Google Analytics
Email tools to send out complicated blasts
Omniture
HTML
CMS
UX
JAVA
Website design tools
Data/statistical analytic tools: SAS, Unica, Eloqua, Salesforce.com.

Please feel free to email me with more and I'll add them to the list.

As a recent college grad, be careful about categorizing yourself in one of these areas. It's okay to start your career focusing on one of these things, but if you want to do more--you have to look at the career progression and opportunity after you master this.

Company Career Websites and responding to Linked In ads: Should you bother?

I just finished a contract position at a major insurance company. They, similar to most major companies these days, post every new job on their career website.  When someone applies for a position directly to the site, they end up in the applicant tracking system which is monitored by talent acquisition people assigned to that job.

In addition, many companies pay for Linked In ads to post jobs that are more difficult to fill. Linked In has an algorithm that matches your profile to a job and an ad pops up on the side of your page telling you that this is a match for you. If you respond to those ads, you will end up in an inbox of the talent acquisition person who is monitoring and evaluating what is coming in for that job.

So how can do you break through the clutter of masses of resumes and get seen? First, in my experience, there are not masses of resumes—mostly there are resumes of people who do not meet the qualifications of the position. The few “on target” resumes get reviewed carefully because they are an “easy” candidate. They came to you (you didn’t have to go find them and convince them of your opportunity), they are already motivated (they applied), and they’ll make time to interview. Passive candidates are more difficult to arrange interviews.

Here are some of the things I observed that may help you target how you position yourself when you are sending your resume in to a corporate ATS or answering a Linked in ad:

1.     If your background and resume looks like a close fit for the position, the likelihood of you getting contacted for a phone interview are very good—this goes for both the career website or Linked In.

2.     If the position is in a very difficult to fill category—you might get contacted if you are 60-70% match.

3.     What that means from a candidate perspective is this: if you target your resume appropriately so you match close enough, you will get an interview.

4.     Candidates really need to understand that talent acquisition people are looking for a skill set and cannot send to the hiring manager someone who doesn’t have the skill set required.  However, there are degrees of flexibility that you can learn to use to your advantage.

-        Write your resume with the appropriate key words in mind. Every one of the posted jobs has a job description. Write your resume to reflect the company’s terminology. For example, your company uses the term lead generation for finding interested people, but xyz calls it demand marketing—use what they use.

-        If you have a blended background and the position is for a specific job function which is one of the things that you’ve done, focus on that—do not keep your resume generalized.  For example, you are an experienced ux, website design, code in HTML and use Java. The position is to be a content manager that requires Java and other tools—focus the resume on that. Make it easy for the recruiter, not difficult.

-        If you have only a few years’ experience but know that you can do the job and have a basic skill set, position your resume in that way. Many hiring managers are open to training young people who exhibit intelligence and work ethic and are a bargain—saving them money on salaries (or allowing them to use the salary savings on another  position).

5.     Find someone who works at the company who can recommend you. You’ll get a closer look especially if your skill set is not close to a perfect match (also the talent acquisition person can use that recommendation to get your resume in front of the hiring manager: blah in accounting knows this guy and says he’s great—he doesn’t have an exact match skill set but you might want to take a look….)

6.     Only do this is you truly believe you are a good match for the position: find the internal talent acquisition person and send an email to them and let them know you’ve applied and why they should talk to you. You can also see if you can find the hiring manager and do the same—they will likely send it back to the talent acquisition person and ask them to speak to you. At that point, the Talent Acquisition person will talk to you because they’ll need to let the hiring manager know what happened. But again, don’t waste anyone’s time unless you have the skills.