I had a nice surprise a few days back, discovering a note in the “other” sub-folder to the Facebook “Messages” (yes, it had been sitting there unnoticed for a while) from Karleen Harp, principal of the the RésuméSmith “career branding” service, asking if I'd like to be a “featured job seeker” on her blog. Having spent most of my life in PR, I, of course, jumped at the chance for more visibility, and we were back-and-forth with various e-mails, following, friending, and all those Social Media niceties, eventually having me fill out an interview form.
The results of this are here. I'm glad she liked my “Swiss Army Knife” imagery, as this is something that I've been using to describe one of my main hurdles in the job search for nearly a decade. The essence of this is that I have numerous skill sets, and frequently only one or two are pertinent to a particular job for which I'm applying. I may have, for instance, a perfectly functional Phillips screwdriver, but if the hiring manager is looking for something with particular dimensions and envisioning a plastic handle, they won't see me as a solution. The next guy might need a bottle opener, and I'll have that tool at the ready, but if he's looking for a particular shape/style, he also will round-file my resume. Unfortunately, it's hard to make my background look like the specific cardboard cut-out that these HR people are looking for. However, I'd rather be a polymath than a drone … like Robert Heinlein famously said: “Specialization is for insects.”!
Obviously, this is why I've been focusing a lot of my search on non-profits and start-ups, where a guy like me who not only can “wear many hats”, but also prefers to work with a wide array of skill sets, can be such a value.
Anyway, sorry about missing getting the “link dump” post up last weekend … here's the current batch from my tireless Twitter reading, hope you find some of these useful:
• 22 Secrets to Discovering Your Dream and Living It
• Job Interview One-Sheeter - Your Personal Cliffs Notes
• Are you leveraging a recruiter in your job search?
• New Career Website Lets Job Seekers Upload Video Resumes
• Dude Where’s My Job? Episode 2 – Networking Revisited
• Why Companies Still Seek Passive Candidates
• How to Use Social Media to Find a Job
• 10 Ways to Get Your Résumé Noticed
• How to Handle “Curve Ball” Questions in a Job Interview
• 4 Things to Do If You’re Feeling Overwhelmed By Your Job Search
• Self Promotion Required For Job Search Success
And, you'll be shocked to hear (not) that these dozen links have been added to the big alphabetically-sorted list, now up to 51 pages (!), a handy .pdf copy of which can be downloaded here: TJS-LinkList-120217.pdf
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