Cover Letter Preparation
You need a practical cover letter that summarizes your accomplishments and highlights vital elements in your background, as well as convincing the reader to want to review your resume. A good cover letter should be customized for your job search and include an interchangeable template so you can cater each cover letter towards the exact position (even requisition ID number) for any specific employer, right down to how you can provide a solution to that particular company’s specific needs, thus making your knowledge appear superior to your competitor.
What are you seeking in this position? Tell them your objective. For example: "I am a 20-year banking expert seeking a financial advisory position with a progressive, leading company in Cleveland, OH". Even better, use the company’s name.
When preparing a cover letter, a good thing to remember is that it needs to be attention-worthy. Do not say “Dear Hiring Manager,” but rather find out the person who is making the hire and personalize it (target the letter) for them. Do not just state that you need a job in marketing, but rather why you want a job in marketing at this particular company.
A client of mine used LinkedIn to locate a specific hiring manager at a company that had posted a position she was highly interested in. She then utilized my Google search methodology (see “How I Contact Hiring Managers to Find a Job”) to find the hiring manager’s email and sent him a customized cover letter. The hiring manager told her that he immediately picked up the phone to contact her even before looking at her resume because of her cover letter.
Follow-up Letter Preparation
Post-interview can be the most crucial time for a job seeker. While you are still fresh in the hiring manager’s mind, you need to act…and quick! You need an effective follow-up letter that:
- Shows the employer your relevant interest in the job
- Shows your appreciation of the correspondence and interview they provided
- Reiterates your skills and any important information you might have not provided while interviewing
- Reminds them about some key highlights that occurred during the interview
- Updates them with important information they might have requested
- Tells why you can be the solution to their human capital needs
When I recruited for a hiring manager at an Aerospace company, he explained to me that if he does not receive a follow-up letter, he would not even consider a candidate. Now that is a bit extreme, but the point is that you never know the type of person that is hiring candidates, so you must accommodate everyone in every way that is in your control. So if a follow-up letter is something extra you can do to exceed expectations, why not do it?
In conclusion, I think a cover letter and follow-up letter are just as important as a resume. All of these documents belong in your job search “toolkit” and must be precise and just as good as your resume. I have had clients in the past that did not put the time and effort into their collateral and wondered why they would not garner an interview. It’s simple: provide the potential employers with everything possible that showcases your abilities and motivation to be better than the competition, because your competition is making sure they have all the right tools in their toolbox.
Showing posts with label HVAC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HVAC. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
Brand: You. Creating and Self-Marketing Yourself to Find a Job During Tough Times
A career brand is an image that portrays you as an expert in your field, attracts your ideal employer, and reveals how you can help their business. How can you promote your career brand effectively, to stand out among increasing competition in the workforce? Self-marketing!
Before you begin self-marketing, you need to understand:
1. What you are going to market about yourself
2. Who you are going to market yourself to
3. Why you are going to market yourself to them
This article offers some important tools to develop your career brand and understand your self-marketing plan.
Goals of Self-Marketing
1. Provide direction to help eliminate trial and error. As a result, save time and money.
2. Network with key industry players.
3. Identify your transferable skills. Marketing these skills, not just job history and accomplishments, puts you in higher demand (i.e., more interviews).
4. Determine what other industries your transferable skills fit into. The industry you are in affects the success of your career. Market yourself in growing industries (green-collar, biotechnology, nutrition, IT). Steer away from dying 5. industries (textile, printing, newspapers, steel manufacturing, etc.).
6. Resolve any setbacks that hurt your career and prevent you from getting interviews. Fix your resume so it does not portray you as "a job hopper", "lacking education", or "unable to advance at a company".
Create Your Own Mission Statement
Just as mission statements provide direction and purpose for companies, individuals can benefit from having their own personal mission statement too.
Your mission statement says what is important to you. Write yours before starting a career to get on the right path and connect with companies that have similar values and beliefs. You can revise it or write a new one at a career crossroads. Its sense of purpose is great motivation!
What to include:
1. Goals - Aspirations in life (short-term and long-term)
2. Core values - Who you are and what your priorities are
3. Successes - Professional, personal, etc.
4. Offerings - How you can make a difference for the world, your family, employer or future employers, friends and community
Integrate Assessments into Your Career Branding
Career and personality assessments reveal consistent patterns in your traits, characteristics, strengths, preferences, and skills. The assessment results may lead you in a new career direction. If you have an established career, they tell you how well your traits and branding messages align with your career path.
Present your distinctive and noteworthy traits to your targeted employers. Remember that not all recurring patterns contribute to good branding (e.g., introversion). Disregard any pattern you feel is not really you.
Incorporate the assessment results into your career branding materials: resume, cover letter, elevator speech, interview responses, portfolio, business card, etc. Convey a consistent branding message throughout all of these materials. But you can use different branding statements for different industries.
Tag! You Are "It"!
Self-marketing is not just about selling your specific skills. Everyone has skills. They get you in the door, but not necessarily get you the job. There can be 100 or more applicants per job posting, and they all have the same or better skills as you. How can you stand out as "the one"?
Develop a tag-line. A great tag-line tells people exactly what a product is and how they will benefit from using it. This is what employers want to know about you! Specifically, how you will help them make and save money. Tell them how much money you helped a previous or current employer make or save on a given project, sale, or time period.
Dear Career Journal...
Did you have a diary or journal when you were young? It helped you express feelings when no one else would listen, or when you did not want anyone else to listen! Similarly, a journal can help and guide us in our professional adult life too.
Writing in a career journal allows you to set aside time to think and learn more about yourself and your career. Just as when you were younger, using a journal allows you to express emotions (good and bad) about career progress. When you read past entries, see how far you have come!
Use your career journal to:
1. Write your personal mission statement
2. React to self-assessment tests
3. Do a SWOT (Strengths/Weaknesses/Opportunities/Threats) analysis
4. Evaluate your current situation
5. Reflect on your successes and failures
6. Devise career goal ideas (breaking into a new career, as a volunteer or consultant)
7. Think about career alternatives
8. Establish daily or weekly career-related objectives or tasks
9. Develop action plans to achieve your objectives and tasks
10. Make checklists
11. Record network contacts, job interview results, etc.
12. Develop job correspondence material (cover letters, resumes, thank you letters, etc.)
13. Practice job interview questions and answers
14. Gather salary information
15. Jot down ideas and information you like and want to use in the future
16. Record things you want or need to learn, skills to improve upon
17. Discover and explore your workplace values
18. Record your job-related likes and dislikes (and employers' likes and dislikes)
19. Note lessons learned
20. Develop ways to improve the workplace
21. Review job-search trends
22. Develop plans for achieving promotions
23. Document the career paths of your peers that you want to emulate
24. Prepare for job performance reviews
Do not keep your career journal at your workplace. Keep it at home on your computer or in a notebook. Try to set a regular time of day to work on your journal, maybe right after work. Maybe before work to get yourself motivated and focused on what you can achieve that day!
Your journal is always ready, and no matter where your career path leads you, you can continue to use it throughout your professional life.
Key Marketing Tools:
Strategic Marketing Plan - Your plan answers these questions:
1. What have I accomplished, where am I now, and where will my career be if I do not take action?
2. Where do I want to go with my career?
3. How do I get to where I want to go?
4. How do I put my plan into action?
5. What do I need to change if I am not getting success?
Market Research
Understand trends in your career field. Consult resources such as the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Outlook Handbook. Interview industry professionals. Study the companies you would like to work for. Use this information for your cover letter, resume and job interview.
Marketing Mix
You are probably already familiar with the 4 P's of marketing, or the "marketing mix". The 4 P's are product, promotion, place, and price. Translate these in terms of you and your career for job search success.
Product
You are the product with unique characteristics, features, and skills. Expose your "product features" in your tag-line and resume. Let employers know your work experience, leadership experience, professional memberships, technical skills, education and training.
Make sure that your on-line marketing tools (i.e., Facebook or Myspace) are cleaned up and employer ready. You do not want a potential employer to see something on your personal networking sites that will land you in trouble.
Do not forget "packaging", to properly present yourself and your credentials to potential employers.
Promotion
This is your cover letter, resume, phone calls, correspondence and interviewing. Promotion tools include anything that you can use to get a job interview and ultimately get a job offer.
Be memorable by utilizing multimedia marketing like email, follow-up phone calls, or try using regular priority mail envelopes to send resumes, cover letters and other "marketing materials". This increases your career brand and distinctiveness.
Place
This includes everywhere employers can access you. How are you reaching employers or people who can connect you with employers?
1. Internet job-searching and applying to job postings
2. Cold calling
3. Networking with current and former coworkers, colleagues and alumni
4. Speaking with recruiters at staffing and employment agencies and company HR departments
5. Visiting your university career centers and alumni offices
6. Attending professional association meetings and seminars
Price
Price includes all aspects of the compensation you can receive from potential employers, as well as your strategies to get the price you want, and that the employer feels you deserve. Your price not only includes salary, but also insurance, benefits, paid time off and perks.
Call in the SWOT Team!
Performing a SWOT Analysis, used in marketing planning, is helpful to use in your career planning. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It answers:
1. What are your Strengths and Weaknesses (in your internal environment)?
2. What are Opportunities and Threats in your career field (external environment)?
Strengths
Internal, positive aspects which you can capitalize upon, such as:
1. Work experience
2. Education
3. Technical skills and knowledge (e.g., computer skills)
4. Personal characteristics (e.g., superior work ethic)
5. Strong network of contacts
6. Involvement with professional associations and organizations
7. Enjoying what you do
Weaknesses
Internal, negative aspects that you plan on improving, such as:
1. Lack of work experience
2. Inconsistent major with the job you are looking for
3. Lack of specific job knowledge
4. Weak technical knowledge
5. Weak skills (leadership, interpersonal, communication, teamwork)
6. Weak job-hunting skills
7. Negative personal characteristics (e.g., no motivation, indecisiveness, shyness)
8. Weaknesses identified in past performance appraisals
Opportunities
External, positive conditions out of your control, but you plan to leverage or add value:
1. Field trends* that create more jobs (e.g., globalization, technology)
2. Field needs your set of skills
3. Opportunities for advancement in your field
4. Location
5. Strong network
Threats
External, negative conditions out of your control, but you may be able to overcome:
1. Field trends* that diminish jobs (e.g., downsizing, obsolescence)
2. Companies are not hiring people with your major/degree
3. Competition from college graduates with your same degree
4. Competitors with superior skills, experience or knowledge
5. Competitors who attended better schools
6. Limited advancement in your field (too competitive)
7. Limited professional development in your field
8. Find hiring/employment trends in your field. Go on-line to ABI/INFORM, Business News Bank, and Lexis/Nexis.
After completing your SWOT Analysis, add the results to your Strategic Marketing Plan. Also, use your SWOT results to develop the following in your Plan:
1. Career goals
2. Marketing strategies
3. Action plan with deadlines
The Elevator Speech
The Elevator Speech is a clear, concise introduction that can be delivered in the time it takes to ride an elevator from the top to the bottom of a building. It can be as short as 15 seconds or as long as three minutes. Write down your Elevator Speech, and practice it so it comes naturally. Be ready to deliver it!
Use it at:
1. Networking events (including "unconventional" ones, like shopping)
2. Career fairs
3. Cold calls to employers
4. Voice-mails
5. Your current workplace, when you encounter the higher-ups
6. Job interviews when asked, "Why should I hire you?" and "Tell me about yourself"
Your Elevator Speech includes:
1. A greeting
2. Your name
3. Your industry or field
4. Accomplishments, background, qualifications and skills
5. If you are graduating soon, what school and what degree
6. What you want to do and why
7. Why you enjoy what you do or want to do
8. What interests you about the listener's company/business
9. What sets you apart from others
10. Your tag-line that you developed!
11. Your mission statement that you developed!
Finally, capture their interest and request action.
1. At a career fair: "May I have your business card, and give you my card and resume? Can you add me to your company's interview schedule?"
2. Networking: "What advice do you have for me? What employers do you suggest I contact?"
3. On a cold call: "When can we meet to discuss how I can help your company? May I send you my resume?"
Before you begin self-marketing, you need to understand:
1. What you are going to market about yourself
2. Who you are going to market yourself to
3. Why you are going to market yourself to them
This article offers some important tools to develop your career brand and understand your self-marketing plan.
Goals of Self-Marketing
1. Provide direction to help eliminate trial and error. As a result, save time and money.
2. Network with key industry players.
3. Identify your transferable skills. Marketing these skills, not just job history and accomplishments, puts you in higher demand (i.e., more interviews).
4. Determine what other industries your transferable skills fit into. The industry you are in affects the success of your career. Market yourself in growing industries (green-collar, biotechnology, nutrition, IT). Steer away from dying 5. industries (textile, printing, newspapers, steel manufacturing, etc.).
6. Resolve any setbacks that hurt your career and prevent you from getting interviews. Fix your resume so it does not portray you as "a job hopper", "lacking education", or "unable to advance at a company".
Create Your Own Mission Statement
Just as mission statements provide direction and purpose for companies, individuals can benefit from having their own personal mission statement too.
Your mission statement says what is important to you. Write yours before starting a career to get on the right path and connect with companies that have similar values and beliefs. You can revise it or write a new one at a career crossroads. Its sense of purpose is great motivation!
What to include:
1. Goals - Aspirations in life (short-term and long-term)
2. Core values - Who you are and what your priorities are
3. Successes - Professional, personal, etc.
4. Offerings - How you can make a difference for the world, your family, employer or future employers, friends and community
Integrate Assessments into Your Career Branding
Career and personality assessments reveal consistent patterns in your traits, characteristics, strengths, preferences, and skills. The assessment results may lead you in a new career direction. If you have an established career, they tell you how well your traits and branding messages align with your career path.
Present your distinctive and noteworthy traits to your targeted employers. Remember that not all recurring patterns contribute to good branding (e.g., introversion). Disregard any pattern you feel is not really you.
Incorporate the assessment results into your career branding materials: resume, cover letter, elevator speech, interview responses, portfolio, business card, etc. Convey a consistent branding message throughout all of these materials. But you can use different branding statements for different industries.
Tag! You Are "It"!
Self-marketing is not just about selling your specific skills. Everyone has skills. They get you in the door, but not necessarily get you the job. There can be 100 or more applicants per job posting, and they all have the same or better skills as you. How can you stand out as "the one"?
Develop a tag-line. A great tag-line tells people exactly what a product is and how they will benefit from using it. This is what employers want to know about you! Specifically, how you will help them make and save money. Tell them how much money you helped a previous or current employer make or save on a given project, sale, or time period.
Dear Career Journal...
Did you have a diary or journal when you were young? It helped you express feelings when no one else would listen, or when you did not want anyone else to listen! Similarly, a journal can help and guide us in our professional adult life too.
Writing in a career journal allows you to set aside time to think and learn more about yourself and your career. Just as when you were younger, using a journal allows you to express emotions (good and bad) about career progress. When you read past entries, see how far you have come!
Use your career journal to:
1. Write your personal mission statement
2. React to self-assessment tests
3. Do a SWOT (Strengths/Weaknesses/Opportunities/Threats) analysis
4. Evaluate your current situation
5. Reflect on your successes and failures
6. Devise career goal ideas (breaking into a new career, as a volunteer or consultant)
7. Think about career alternatives
8. Establish daily or weekly career-related objectives or tasks
9. Develop action plans to achieve your objectives and tasks
10. Make checklists
11. Record network contacts, job interview results, etc.
12. Develop job correspondence material (cover letters, resumes, thank you letters, etc.)
13. Practice job interview questions and answers
14. Gather salary information
15. Jot down ideas and information you like and want to use in the future
16. Record things you want or need to learn, skills to improve upon
17. Discover and explore your workplace values
18. Record your job-related likes and dislikes (and employers' likes and dislikes)
19. Note lessons learned
20. Develop ways to improve the workplace
21. Review job-search trends
22. Develop plans for achieving promotions
23. Document the career paths of your peers that you want to emulate
24. Prepare for job performance reviews
Do not keep your career journal at your workplace. Keep it at home on your computer or in a notebook. Try to set a regular time of day to work on your journal, maybe right after work. Maybe before work to get yourself motivated and focused on what you can achieve that day!
Your journal is always ready, and no matter where your career path leads you, you can continue to use it throughout your professional life.
Key Marketing Tools:
Strategic Marketing Plan - Your plan answers these questions:
1. What have I accomplished, where am I now, and where will my career be if I do not take action?
2. Where do I want to go with my career?
3. How do I get to where I want to go?
4. How do I put my plan into action?
5. What do I need to change if I am not getting success?
Market Research
Understand trends in your career field. Consult resources such as the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Outlook Handbook. Interview industry professionals. Study the companies you would like to work for. Use this information for your cover letter, resume and job interview.
Marketing Mix
You are probably already familiar with the 4 P's of marketing, or the "marketing mix". The 4 P's are product, promotion, place, and price. Translate these in terms of you and your career for job search success.
Product
You are the product with unique characteristics, features, and skills. Expose your "product features" in your tag-line and resume. Let employers know your work experience, leadership experience, professional memberships, technical skills, education and training.
Make sure that your on-line marketing tools (i.e., Facebook or Myspace) are cleaned up and employer ready. You do not want a potential employer to see something on your personal networking sites that will land you in trouble.
Do not forget "packaging", to properly present yourself and your credentials to potential employers.
Promotion
This is your cover letter, resume, phone calls, correspondence and interviewing. Promotion tools include anything that you can use to get a job interview and ultimately get a job offer.
Be memorable by utilizing multimedia marketing like email, follow-up phone calls, or try using regular priority mail envelopes to send resumes, cover letters and other "marketing materials". This increases your career brand and distinctiveness.
Place
This includes everywhere employers can access you. How are you reaching employers or people who can connect you with employers?
1. Internet job-searching and applying to job postings
2. Cold calling
3. Networking with current and former coworkers, colleagues and alumni
4. Speaking with recruiters at staffing and employment agencies and company HR departments
5. Visiting your university career centers and alumni offices
6. Attending professional association meetings and seminars
Price
Price includes all aspects of the compensation you can receive from potential employers, as well as your strategies to get the price you want, and that the employer feels you deserve. Your price not only includes salary, but also insurance, benefits, paid time off and perks.
Call in the SWOT Team!
Performing a SWOT Analysis, used in marketing planning, is helpful to use in your career planning. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It answers:
1. What are your Strengths and Weaknesses (in your internal environment)?
2. What are Opportunities and Threats in your career field (external environment)?
Strengths
Internal, positive aspects which you can capitalize upon, such as:
1. Work experience
2. Education
3. Technical skills and knowledge (e.g., computer skills)
4. Personal characteristics (e.g., superior work ethic)
5. Strong network of contacts
6. Involvement with professional associations and organizations
7. Enjoying what you do
Weaknesses
Internal, negative aspects that you plan on improving, such as:
1. Lack of work experience
2. Inconsistent major with the job you are looking for
3. Lack of specific job knowledge
4. Weak technical knowledge
5. Weak skills (leadership, interpersonal, communication, teamwork)
6. Weak job-hunting skills
7. Negative personal characteristics (e.g., no motivation, indecisiveness, shyness)
8. Weaknesses identified in past performance appraisals
Opportunities
External, positive conditions out of your control, but you plan to leverage or add value:
1. Field trends* that create more jobs (e.g., globalization, technology)
2. Field needs your set of skills
3. Opportunities for advancement in your field
4. Location
5. Strong network
Threats
External, negative conditions out of your control, but you may be able to overcome:
1. Field trends* that diminish jobs (e.g., downsizing, obsolescence)
2. Companies are not hiring people with your major/degree
3. Competition from college graduates with your same degree
4. Competitors with superior skills, experience or knowledge
5. Competitors who attended better schools
6. Limited advancement in your field (too competitive)
7. Limited professional development in your field
8. Find hiring/employment trends in your field. Go on-line to ABI/INFORM, Business News Bank, and Lexis/Nexis.
After completing your SWOT Analysis, add the results to your Strategic Marketing Plan. Also, use your SWOT results to develop the following in your Plan:
1. Career goals
2. Marketing strategies
3. Action plan with deadlines
The Elevator Speech
The Elevator Speech is a clear, concise introduction that can be delivered in the time it takes to ride an elevator from the top to the bottom of a building. It can be as short as 15 seconds or as long as three minutes. Write down your Elevator Speech, and practice it so it comes naturally. Be ready to deliver it!
Use it at:
1. Networking events (including "unconventional" ones, like shopping)
2. Career fairs
3. Cold calls to employers
4. Voice-mails
5. Your current workplace, when you encounter the higher-ups
6. Job interviews when asked, "Why should I hire you?" and "Tell me about yourself"
Your Elevator Speech includes:
1. A greeting
2. Your name
3. Your industry or field
4. Accomplishments, background, qualifications and skills
5. If you are graduating soon, what school and what degree
6. What you want to do and why
7. Why you enjoy what you do or want to do
8. What interests you about the listener's company/business
9. What sets you apart from others
10. Your tag-line that you developed!
11. Your mission statement that you developed!
Finally, capture their interest and request action.
1. At a career fair: "May I have your business card, and give you my card and resume? Can you add me to your company's interview schedule?"
2. Networking: "What advice do you have for me? What employers do you suggest I contact?"
3. On a cold call: "When can we meet to discuss how I can help your company? May I send you my resume?"
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Who Do We Hire For the Future of HVAC?
The growing trend of Baby-Boomers retiring from the HVACR industry has forced many companies to scramble to find candidates to replace those seasoned service technicians and journeymen mechanics.
Without a doubt, the best way to find potential employees is through referral networks. Managers and HVACR contractors must always be on the lookout for new talent, even if they are not actively hiring. Companies that are not fishing for new talent as actively as they should will certainly feel the repercussions once their elder employees decide that golf is more enjoyable in retirement than soldering pipe is in the field.
Proactive recruiting should be at the forefront of any HVACR organization's professional agenda. Success will come to those who realize the importance of filling their employee pipeline with talent. Some candidates won't last, eaten up quickly by the competition; that makes it vital to have a stable of potentials in your pipeline at all times.
Today's job market belongs to candidates; journeymen know they can receive that bump up the union wage scale, and so are selective when looking for their employer of choice. Therefore, I always tell my hiring managers to look at the resume and move quickly when we decide to pursue an individual. Separate your company from competitors by showing candidates the advantages of working for your organization.
For example, Johnson Controls created the Service+Technical Excellence Program (S+TEP) to help groom its current mechanics and for use as a recruiting tool to entice potential employees. S+TEP is an educational training program that employees complete on their own time, with monetary incentives for each level accomplished. Candidates can also receive two certifications: United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices (UA) STAR and Master Technician level achievement. The key is finding the right person to get into these programs. But how do we find those candidates?
Without a formal recruiting strategy to approach these hard-to-find candidates, a company likely will constantly stumble into the same dead ends. You always have to incorporate "out of the box" thinking if you want to successfully fill such a demanding position. One concept I find effective is advanced Internet recruitment strategies (AIRS), a headhunting technique that uses the Internet to find successful, seasoned, tradesman-level candidates that are qualified to fill the employee pipeline (Editor's Note: For more information on AIRS, visit www.airsdirectory.com).
Another trend is the growing use of technology in virtual recruiting-the majority of recruiters are online and prefer to receive Internet-based resumes more so than paper. This is a trend that is not going away any time soon; if you aren't recruiting in the "virtual" world and your competitors are, where will that leave you?
We certainly need to recruit mechanical-equipment service tradesmen (MEST) and future apprentices as well. The Catch-22 is locating a candidate that can hit the ground running, without the benefit of our having the time, money or resources to train these people. So what should we do?
The answer is simple: We have to train them and take time to build future employees up to standards so that they become a valuable company asset.
For candidates, I cannot stress enough that their employment search be viewed as a full-time job; actively submitting resumes through all mainstream, niche, and industry-specific job boards as well as company portals.
Candidates who lack Internet access and/or the computer savvy to produce an online resume should take advantage of the Internet access at public libraries; utilize resume templates such as those found at http://www.microsoft.com. Utilize such tools to your advantage, because employers are out there on the hunt.
Without a doubt, the best way to find potential employees is through referral networks. Managers and HVACR contractors must always be on the lookout for new talent, even if they are not actively hiring. Companies that are not fishing for new talent as actively as they should will certainly feel the repercussions once their elder employees decide that golf is more enjoyable in retirement than soldering pipe is in the field.
Proactive recruiting should be at the forefront of any HVACR organization's professional agenda. Success will come to those who realize the importance of filling their employee pipeline with talent. Some candidates won't last, eaten up quickly by the competition; that makes it vital to have a stable of potentials in your pipeline at all times.
Today's job market belongs to candidates; journeymen know they can receive that bump up the union wage scale, and so are selective when looking for their employer of choice. Therefore, I always tell my hiring managers to look at the resume and move quickly when we decide to pursue an individual. Separate your company from competitors by showing candidates the advantages of working for your organization.
For example, Johnson Controls created the Service+Technical Excellence Program (S+TEP) to help groom its current mechanics and for use as a recruiting tool to entice potential employees. S+TEP is an educational training program that employees complete on their own time, with monetary incentives for each level accomplished. Candidates can also receive two certifications: United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices (UA) STAR and Master Technician level achievement. The key is finding the right person to get into these programs. But how do we find those candidates?
Without a formal recruiting strategy to approach these hard-to-find candidates, a company likely will constantly stumble into the same dead ends. You always have to incorporate "out of the box" thinking if you want to successfully fill such a demanding position. One concept I find effective is advanced Internet recruitment strategies (AIRS), a headhunting technique that uses the Internet to find successful, seasoned, tradesman-level candidates that are qualified to fill the employee pipeline (Editor's Note: For more information on AIRS, visit www.airsdirectory.com).
Another trend is the growing use of technology in virtual recruiting-the majority of recruiters are online and prefer to receive Internet-based resumes more so than paper. This is a trend that is not going away any time soon; if you aren't recruiting in the "virtual" world and your competitors are, where will that leave you?
We certainly need to recruit mechanical-equipment service tradesmen (MEST) and future apprentices as well. The Catch-22 is locating a candidate that can hit the ground running, without the benefit of our having the time, money or resources to train these people. So what should we do?
The answer is simple: We have to train them and take time to build future employees up to standards so that they become a valuable company asset.
For candidates, I cannot stress enough that their employment search be viewed as a full-time job; actively submitting resumes through all mainstream, niche, and industry-specific job boards as well as company portals.
Candidates who lack Internet access and/or the computer savvy to produce an online resume should take advantage of the Internet access at public libraries; utilize resume templates such as those found at http://www.microsoft.com. Utilize such tools to your advantage, because employers are out there on the hunt.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
