Resume Help Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Job Search Tips’

Unique Talent = Natural Abilities + Your Unique Way Of Expressing Those Abilities

Your Natural Abilities

■ What’s *that thing you do* which you’re so naturally talented at?
■ What’s the work you’ve done effortlessly ever since you can remember?
■ Do you love to sing, dance, or entertain your friends?
■ What would you write about if I asked you to start sharing your expertise in a series of blog articles?
■ What topic are you so passionate about that you could confidently speak on for 15 minutes on if asked to.

Many people fit this pattern. Maybe you don’t think you have any talent but that isn’t true. You may not ever be an Elvis Presley or a Michael Jackson but you have talent! You could be entertaining people and making top dollar. I watched Dancing With The Stars last night and watched as Donny Osmond danced. He is 51 and said that he had been entertaining “all his life” and loving it. Entertaining is fun, people love to be entertained and entertainers love to entertain. Is this something you have a “natural ability” for but are shy and afraid to try?

It’s In Your DNA

We’ve all got a unique talent – a natural ability that only we can express in a totally unique way.  Just like your DNA, no one in history has ever had that combination.

Which is why:

- No one can write, sing and perform in the exact same way as Michael Jackson.

- No one is quite as unique as Oprah Winfrey but so what.

- No one can be a catalyst for compassion and change in the exact same way  as Mother Theresa.

And the reason why no one can do *that thing you do* in quite the same way you do it. Your own unique talent is built-in; — it’s part of your DNA. And being shy is no excuse not to use that God given talent!

Your Challenge

Your task then is to figure out what that unique talent is (I’ll bet you already have the answer)  and then sign up with Explore Talent and get going.

Once you do that with their guidance you will find your niche in things. You’ll be able to build a powerful personal brand, attract success, wealth, job satisfaction and create a sense of meaning from your professional life that most people spend years searching for.

Like everything, it starts with a first step. Go ahead! (you know you want to!) That first step is to start looking for clues about yourself and your unique talent by asking some tough questions of yourself.

I challenge you to take the first step…

I’ve written before that, if you want to find a job in today’s Great Recession, it makes sense to study what got people hired in the Great Depression, when times were even tougher.

So I dug out a job-search book published in 1938.

Titled, “We Are Forty And We Did Get Jobs,” it’s by C.B. Thompson and M.L. Wise, two forty-year-old women who spent 10 weeks perfecting a job-search system by looking for work — and getting hired — in cities across America.

If you’d like to know three actions you can take to get hired today, tested and proven in the worst job market of yesteryear, read on …

1) Root out the defeatist attitude.

Here’s how the authors describe their painful situation, prior to starting their job search:

“One of us had suffered a loss so devastating that the rest of life stretched out as something less than twilight. The other had had, in the midst of an illness almost unto death, the shock of such serious financial reverses that for a time both physical and monetary recovery seemed impossible.”

In other words, they were beaten down, broke, and worried. Sound familiar?

They go on to say “we knew this much: Jobs and a sense of despair do not go together. The defeatist attitude is death to opportunity, and had to be gotten rid of at all costs.”

They reasoned — correctly — that it’s impossible for an employer to believe in your abilities if you are so dispirited you don’t believe in them yourself.

So, how do you regain your self-confidence?

By facing your fears and doing something about them, according to the authors.

Example: Let’s say the worst that could happen if you don’t find a job is you lose your home and have no money for food.

But you can do something about that, because you’ll have to.

Maybe you’ll have to move in with family, pawn your jewelry, or apply for food stamps. Whatever your worst-case scenario may be, if you make a plan to deal with it, that will calm your mind and steady your confidence.

After that, you can …
2) Use all your thoughts to plan and execute your job search.

The authors offer three questions and answers to guide your planning and execution:

Q. Who wants you to work for them?

A. Nobody.

Q. Who wants more business or better service?

A. Everybody.

Q. If you could show that you can provide more business or better service, who will want you?

A. Almost everybody.

You’ll find no qualifying language here. It’s not almost every employer with advertised job openings or almost every employer looking for someone young. It’s almost every employer. Period.

Instead of waiting for your ideal job to appear online, think now about how you can show employers — in clear, convincing detail — that you can give them more business or better service. The job will follow.

To get at those details, ask yourself these Wh- questions about the top three achievements for every job you’ve had in the last 15 years:
·    Whom did you do it for?
·    When?
·    Why?
·    What happened?
·    How much time/money was saved or earned?

Here’s my favorite “before” and “after” example from an IT resume that worked like a charm.

BEFORE
Cleaned up Microsoft Access database.

AFTER
Helped retain $20-million contract with top client after working 16-hour days for four months to clean up Access database and repair reporting problem using Excel and Crystal Reports.
See the difference?
The world pays for value received. Show your value and you can start getting paid again.
3) Stay on track with two questions.
According to Thompson and Wise, they wrote letters and made phone calls to employers that produced job interviews consistently, once they kept the following two questions continually in mind:

1. What does he or she need?
This question forces you to always put an employer’s needs before your own. “This may sound like the golden rule, but it was certainly to prove the golden key that could open the door to employment,” write the authors.
2. How can I supply that need?
Once you know an employer’s needs, you can quickly examine every resume you send and every word you say, to ensure you communicate only what employers want to hear.

Example: If the employer needs a manager to negotiate contracts with suppliers, you will either revise or delete irrelevant information in your resume, like that bartending job you had last year.
The title, “We Are Forty And We Did Get Jobs,” reflects the fact that ageism was even more rampant in the 1930s than now. And I won’t even touch on the sexism the authors must have faced, apart from noting that attitudes have certainly improved.
So, these two women overcame economic, “ageist,” and sexist obstacles to get hired — repeatedly — for jobs in the Great Depression, and they did it without Google, Linkedin, email, cell phones, or FedEx (I omitted their advice on telegrams).
Why not adopt one of their tactics today, and see if you don’t get noticed by more employers tomorrow?

To be able to ace any job interview, there is a need to be compelling and competitive and go beyond what an interview is all about.

Who does not get nervous just thinking of the dreaded job interview? What is your chance of making it now after the three interviews that you failed, because you were too nervous to answer? When will you ever get your talking straight when you are in front of the board of directors?   Yes, the list goes on for the job interview problems that you need to get over to ace the position.

The chances to make it are odd and the odds are truly great, but still, you can get hired! All you need to do is to find the most credible job interview help and use it to your benefit. There is a need to experiment on every angle when it comes to a job interview preparation and it might take some time before you sound and look natural during the actual interview. You have to analyze your steps before execution and be able to think fast because nothing else beats smooth job interview skills.

All the written requirements, including the cover letter and the resume must be well thought of because they will give the impression of skill and professionalism that they need to consider you in the position. They must be well groomed as you are for the interview. However, take caution to include only what is best for the interview or the position that you wish to land on. An organized resume must not spill to the borders of the paper while the cover letter must be brief but firm and professional.

The power of impact is your key to ace any job. You have to be ready for anything when job interview questions are directed to you as an individual, an applicant, a future employee and a team leader. Be sure to save some job interview answers that produce outstanding impression that does not sound too highly of you but compelling and competitive. Some interviewers want brief but clear answers while some wish to know more about you. That is why you need to think of these things that are not included in your resume that will help them know that they need to hire someone like you.

To be compelling and competitive, you must sound and look professional in every way. Do not give them the idea of another useless employee with slow and senseless answers. You have to do everything the best that you can before the decision is taken, even up to the making of your job interview thank you letter. During the job interview follow up, for example, it must be rendered with a firm tone whether it may be on the phone or personal.

The interview will never be easy without job interview tips. There are ups and downs in life that back you down in getting employed. You have to choose to be better and seek all possible solutions to your job interview dilemmas. Break the barriers and go beyond and learn what job interview is all about.