The Right People Can Help You Find Your Calling

Finding the job you want isn’t easy. Add on top of that the fact that you don’t know what kind of job you want, and your job search can be down right impossible. So what do you do? You can spend countless hours researching mixed in with a lot of serious soul searching, but you still might come up drawing a blank.

However, HotJobs has a great article on how to find people who can help you with your dilemma, both professionals and people you already know.

Here are a few people they suggest speaking with:

• Career Counselors
• Personal Coaches
• Mentors
• Friends and Family

Don’t Want to Get Hired? Try doing these...

Career Builder has listed ten “red flags” that scream don’t hire me to potential employers. In today’s uncertain economy, you probably don’t need any extra help when it comes to struggling to find a job. So as an FYI, here they are:

• Red flag No. 1: You don't have any contact information on your résumé
• Red flag No. 2: You have long gaps between jobs on your résumé
• Red flag No. 3: You aren't prepared for the interview
• Red flag No. 4: You didn't provide any references
• Red flag No. 5: You only have negative things to say about previous employment
• Red flag No. 6: You've held seven different jobs -- in the past six months
• Red flag No. 7: You give inconsistent answers in your interview
• Red flag No. 8: You lack flexibility
• Red flag No. 9: Your application was, in a word -- lazy
• Red flag No. 10: You lack objective or ambition

How to Find a Good Boss

Having done my rounds in many different industries – from washing dishes to working in an office environment – I know that finding the ideal boss can be as difficult as an Antarctic expedition. However, HotJobs has compiled a handy little list to see if your boss is actually on your side.

1. Does your boss showcase your work?
2. Does your boss solve problems?
3. Does your boss let you complete your work?
4. Does your boss listen to your suggestions?
5. Does your boss treat you and your co-workers equally?

Evaluating Your Company's Health Insurance

Benefits are usually a big deciding factor when considering a job. However, unless you went through four years of medical school, it can be difficult to navigate the sea of forms, promotional materials, and charts. Never fear though, Monster has come up with a handy checklist to help evaluate your company’s health insurance options.

1. Put Quality First
2. Avoid Plans that Spurn Wellness and Prevention
3. Then, Tackle the Cost Beast

Should You Use a Resume Writing Service?

By now everybody knows that it is crucial to have a great resume to land a great job. For instance, according to a survey conducted by a major human resources association, a majority of recruiters spend less than three minutes reviewing a resume. That’s not a lot of time to convince someone that you’re worthy of being hired.

So does it make sense to bring in a professional to help button up your resume? HotJobs has a good article on the topic that presents both the pros and cons that is worth checking out.

Small Things That Can Break an Interview

Interviews can be stressful enough with all the researching, practicing, and preparing that happens beforehand. So the last thing you need is to fall victim to a minor mistake that can ruin your chances of being hired.

Yahoo! has highlighted a few pitfalls that you might overlook:

• Make sure you have your “interview gear” ready the night before. You don’t want to look like you got dressed in the dark because you were rushing around the morning of the interview.
• Make sure you eat before hand, so that you have the mental energy to answer the tough questions. However, don’t forget mouthwash and a piece of gum.
• Know where you’re going. You don’t want to be late to the interview because you forgot to mapquest directions the night before.
• Be paranoid. When waiting for your interview, be aware that anyone in the room might be your interviewer. Watch what you do and what you say.

Finding a Job in Troubling Times

If you watch the talking heads on the television, you would think that the apocalypse is on the horizon. If you’re looking for a job, current events might persuade you to give up before you start.

Well, nobody likes a Negative Nancy. Monster has a few tips that will help you land that job even in these uncertain times. They suggest the following:

• Expand your search
• Be a Problem Solver
• Keep Up with Business Trends
• Volunteer and Expand Your Network

Here at MetaTech, we are here to help. Give us a call today and let us assist you in finding your dream job.

Can Your Favorite Color Determine Your Ideal Job?

After reading this article, I debated whether to tag this post as a legitimate jobseeking tip or as just for fun. Not being one to make hasty decisions, I diplomatically decided on both.

While I wouldn’t put full stock in this test, it does at least offer some explanations. The test is based on the “Dewey Color System” which shows how your favorite color corresponds to how you attack job tasks.

Here are the results:

If you prefer: yellow, purple and white: You're the communicator.
You create profitable perspectives -- how to break into new accounts or be heard by other employees. By simply identifying a client's point of view, you develop strategies that open doors, even if they had already been shut. Your excellent communication skills can create problem-solving forums. Careers in corporate communications, marketing or religious occupations work best.

If you prefer: red, green and black: You're the investor.
You know the value of money and resources, as well as the intrinsic worth of each co-worker's contributions. Your supportive, yet analytical personality works best in finance, accounting, banking, manufacturing, property management, production analysis, investment, money management, consulting, product sales or teaching.

If you prefer: blue, orange and brown: You're the activist.
Your strong community beliefs and no-nonsense approach improves services for those around you. Occupations where you can improve existing specifications or impact social values work best for you. Consider careers in engineering, building, or developing new programs, companies or products. Also consider law enforcement, firefighting, social or government work.

Converting Your Resume to Plain-Text

Have you ever found yourself applying to a job online, only to find that they ask for your resume to be included in the body of the e-mail? This can be not only become a total time drainer, but if done improperly, your resume could end up looking like gobbledygook.

Have no fear, here is an article to the rescue! It lays out the process step-by-step for a variety of formats.

Now that you have the formatting covered, would you like some help on actually getting that resume polished to get you the job?

Five Things to Consider When Looking for a New Job

In my never-ending quest to bring the best IT job advice to the MetaTech blog, I sometimes stumble across a great gem like this article. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the allure of landing a new job (especially if you dislike your current one), which may lead you overlook some aspects that seem like common sense.

I’ve reprinted the majority of the article here, some of the advice might be old news but some might just help you out when considering a new job.

Relationships

* With Manager: How employees and their managers get along is one of the strongest employee retention drivers. Ask your prospective manager during the interview process how she makes decisions and how she evaluates talent or superior performance. Can you work with the answers she gives?

* With Peers: Ask who you will be working with and how the people within the department interact. How have the relationships been in the past? Is there much interdependence? What will your colleagues expect of someone in your position?

* With Subordinates: Ask about the strengths and weaknesses of employees who might be working for you. Then decide if you have the skills to effectively manage them or if they have the skills to help the team achieve success.

Work/Life Balance

* Location/Commute: Be honest with yourself in deciding how far and how much time you are willing to devote to your daily commute. Will it impede your ability to do things that are important to you, your significant other or children? Consider people important to you in making your decision, because home stress can make you less effective at work.

* Travel: Will having a job that requires frequent overnight travel be an issue? Where will you draw the line? Are you willing to travel 20, 30 or 50 percent of the time? Ask how much travel is required and if it?s spread out evenly or concentrated during certain seasons or business cycles.

* Amount of Work: Try to determine if the culture is one where there is frequent overtime. It?s reasonable to assume that many professional jobs will require you to do the work necessary to complete the job, but excessive overtime could mean insufficient resources or poor planning.

The Kind of Work

* Autonomy: Do you like to work with little supervision or do you prefer detailed assignments? How might you handle being micromanaged?

* Type of Work: Ask questions that will help you gauge what portion of your new job involves project work, building client relationships, developing strategy, implementing tactics or doing creative work? Decide before taking on a new job what you like to actually do.

* Contribution: Will the work you do make a notable difference in your department? The company? Society? Does it matter to you?

* Growth Opportunities: What is the internal environment like relative to promotional opportunities? Ask if internal candidates have been considered for this job. If not, ask why and what that will mean to you in the future.

The Company

* Values: People who feel disconnected with the values of the company often want to leave. Ask what the values are and how they are manifested in the day-to-day environment. Do employees just recite the company mantra or are they able to describe how these are applied in the workplace.

* Leadership: Are the leaders of the company people who you and others respect, admire and want to work for? Find out how long top management has been in place, what their backgrounds are and where they came from.

* Industry: Does the company/industry provide products or services with which you would want to be associated? Research news articles to determine if the industry is healthy and growing or if it companies within the industry are going through mergers, acquisitions or frequent restructurings.

Financial Considerations

* Base Pay: Are you being offered a salary commensurate with your worth in the marketplace? Make sure it is enough to warrant leaving your current job/company.

* Incentive Pay: If you perform at a superior level, is there an upside opportunity or incentive pay? Consider how the total compensation compares to your past earnings and current expectations.

Seven Tips for Job Hunting in an Unsteady Economy

Whether we’ve hit a recession or not, the fact remains that it’s getting harder to land a job. While we here at MetaTech are here to help you, there are seven tips to consider when looking for a job in today’s shaky economy.

1. Tailor your presentations; don't be generic.

2. Create a target list of companies. Send the list to 25 people, asking them if they can put you in touch with an employee at one of the listed companies.

3. Make yourself and your skills more visible. Post and refresh your resume in more places, such as online job boards, and going to job fairs.

4. Create an advisory board of smart and empathetic people and confer with them regularly about your job search.

5. Hone and utilize your 'elevator pitch' – a 30-second summary of your professional assets.

6. Keep your spirits high. Don't let the process overwhelm you or weigh you down.

How to Follow-Up on a Resume

After you’ve spotted your dream job, crafted your resume, and submitted it to a recruiter, what do you do now? Do you sit around and wait to be contacted?

According to a HotJobs survey, a majority of recruiters suggest that you take a proactive approach. 53% said that you should wait a week before making contact, while 21% suggested that a week may be too long.

But how do you make contact? A short e-mail is the preferred method, but a succinct phone call is equally acceptable. However, one no-no, is just blindly resending your resume. The recruiter’s job is already tough enough without having to sift through duplicates.

Common Cover Letter Mistakes

By now you hopefully know that a cover letter is just as vital in your job search as your resume. A well-written cover letter helps to separate yourself from the rest of the pack, and gives you one-page to explain the bullet points of your resume and give your future employer a little more personal information.

With that said, the cover letter can also be your worst enemy. Writer Tom Arten gives a brief list of some of the pitfalls to avoid when penning your cover letter. Some of these include repeating yourself, using form cover letters, and forgetting to state which job you are applying for.

Just remember to take some time to craft an individualized, personal letter for each place your applying to and you’ll be filling up your new desk before you know it.

The Pitfalls of Social Networking

It’s hard to avoid the constant buzz surrounding social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook – some good and some very, very bad. Social networking can help you plan an event with your friends, get in contact with a long lost acquaintance, share pictures, videos, and more, but there is one crucial thing, according to Peter D. Weddle, that social networking can’t get you – a job.

It’s the word “networking” that makes this fact a little confusing. When we think of networking, it’s difficult not to conjure up images of sharply-dressed people hobnobbing over cocktails and slipping business cards into a new acquaintance’s blazer pocket. However, the danger lies in the word “social.” Prospective employers are not interested in what your sign is, which Friends character your personality most reflects, or want to see pictures of how much you drank at your college roommate’s bachelor party – no matter how prodigious said amount was.

In his article, Weddle does a good job scaring off people from using social networking sites to try to woo prospective employers and offering a nice selection of web-based “business” networking sites – but I believe that there are a few exceptions that you can consider to make your social networking page a little more employer friendly.

1. If you plan to use your social networking site as an online business card, for the love of Pete, take down any incriminating photos, videos, and or text. Imagine that your dear old grandmother is going to be looking over your page. How would you feel if she got an eyeful of your Spring Break in Puerta Vallarta last year? This also applies to your comments section. You have to be very vigilant about monitoring what your so-called friends write.
2. If you are interested in a career that requires a portfolio, use your page to show your abilities. Want to design video games? Showcase some of your artwork. Are you looking for a more technical-based career? How about creating a widget for your page that no one has ever seen?
3. Keep the layout modest. We’ve all seen the stereotypical MySpace page that looks as colorful and fragmented as the bedroom walls of a teenage girl. It doesn’t matter how much you love Miley Cyrus, if you plan to use your page to get a job, you don’t need a Hannah Montana icon shimmering in the center.

I’m curious… does anyone have any good/bad stories about using social networking to find a job? Any suggestions or tips?

Transitioning from Military Life to Professional Life

With the fourth of July only a few days away, I was beginning to reflect on the meaning behind the fireworks and the barbecues, and I thought that this posting was more than appropriate.

If you are finding yourself transitioning from military life to work life, you might find it difficult honing all of your skills and experiences down into a focused resume or a targeted job search.

At MetaTech, we know that you are more than ink on a resume, and we’d love to work with you to help you land the civilian technical job that you're looking for.

However, if you are still unsure about how to transition, I found a very good site specifically tailored toward veterans. Not only will you find resume writing and interview tips, you’ll also be able to read profiles of veterans who have recently successfully made the move from military life to professional life.

The Most Dreaded Interview Question

If job interviews themselves aren’t nerve-wracking enough, you are forced to wait on pins and needles for the most ambiguous (and possibly most important) stock question of the interview – “Why should I hire you?”

Though there are many ways to approach this vague question, Yahoo! HotJobs has been kind enough to walk all of you potential job hunters out there through the gambit.

They suggest instead of thinking up a clever retort or a comedic one-liner, tell a brief, situational “story” that will separate you from the pack. This story should cover the 5 main things that the employer is interested in:

• Your skills
• Your knowledge about the company
• Your manageability
• Your affordability
• Whether you can go above and beyond your job description

Want more job advice, or even help landing your new career? Contact MetaTech today.

Know Thyself

“Know Thyself” is a saying that has been around since the Greeks wore tunics, but a saying that still resonates true today, and maybe could even be your best weapon in nabbing your dream job.

According to writer David DeJean, knowing your own work style and having a vocabulary for thinking and talking it is important. One way of getting a feel for your personality, DeJean suggests, is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The MBTI isn’t a test as much as it’s an indicator of how your personality affects the things that you do.

While I would personally not suggest becoming a gentleman farmer just because the MBTI indicates that this career would suit you, the MBTI would help you narrow your choices to find something that you would mesh well with. Bob McAlpine, president of Type Resources says, “any person can be successful at any job, yet some people are more comfortable – have a more positive experience – at one job than another. If we look at the mental processes used in the job and the processes preferred by the person, there's a high correlation. We're not talking skill, but if interests match requirements, people are more successful.”

The Ultra Honest Resume

As MetaTech’s Tom Parrish wrote last Friday, a successful resume creates the “illusion of reality” – where the applicant can list their qualifications in a real, living and breathing, story-like manner.

Along that same line, there is another kind of honesty that is just important. While it is common knowledge (or at least it should be) that you should never lie on your resume, some companies fact checking on your resume can trip up even the most upstanding applicants.

Many companies hire outside background checkers to verify resumes and job applications. These companies note every inconsistency and piece of information they can't confirm -- even the difference between starting a job on April 1 and April 5 -- although some problems are treated more seriously than others by employers.

So, in short, even a harmless mistake could cost you. Here are a few suggestions that can help you “work on your honesty”:

1. If you're not sure, don't guess.
2. Provide extra information if the company's situation has changed.
3. Be careful with titles and temp work.
4. Don't obsess over it.

What We're Reading

Written By
Tom Parrish
MetaTech Sales Guy

Resumes. Thousands of resumes. We love reading people’s resumes. When my wife asks me what I’m reading this weekend, I say, well…I’m reading this really great resume. It’s based out of Boston, and it’s this incredible story about this guy who works as a software engineer for a capital management firm. But what’s really interesting about him is that he’s written this thing in a way that he’s actually accessible to me as a person rather than as a two-dimensional abstraction of him.

And of course, this is the trick in resume writing – creating the “illusion of reality”, so to speak, not unlike a great short story, wherein the reader has access to the thing-in-itself, the real, living person, under the covers of symbolic abstraction.

I used to work for a staffing company where the recruiters would come up to me and say…”Look at this guy! Doesn’t he look great for the blah, blah, blah job?!” And I’d think, well, first off, this isn’t a “guy”, it’s just a two-dimensional symbolic abstraction of a guy. Now, as we all know from our History of Western Philosophy class, getting at the thing-in-itself is notoriously difficult if not impossible, due to the problem that human beings really only know the world through symbols, (i.e. - language, mathematics, art) and don’t have immediate access to being like, say my cat Angel, who’s blessedly not burdened with the fact that thought and language are inextricably bound.

So if you’re sending us a resume, it would be helpful for us if you wrote this thing in a way that we can somehow see you, the real person, so we can move on quickly to what we’re all here for, having a meaningful conversation with you about how we can help you advance your career.

Understanding

Written By
Tom Parrish
MetaTech Sales Guy

“Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood.”
- Eric Burdon and the Animals

Driving back home to Seattle at 3:00am in the morning after taking my 13 year old daughter and her friends to see The Cure at the Gorge, it occurred to me that Eric’s plaintive wail in this classic Animals song could be the wail of the modern day software job applicant or technical hiring manager in their desperate attempt to be understood by the legions of recruiters that seem to grow exponentially in number day-by-day.

Part of the problem here of course is that software engineering, a jargon-laden and difficult to understand affair even by its most ardent practitioners, is a domain of experts, whereas 99.9% of the recruiters who traffic in this world are laymen, having never studied, practiced or held the positions for which they recruit.

The upshot is placement by accident rather than design, and this is the reason that the vast majority of technical staffing firms consistently fail to meet their constituencies’ minimal expectations and why the staffing business’ reputation is just one notch above that of the legal profession.

At MetaTech, the people that talk to people looking for jobs and the customers looking for the technical people to fill them, are people that have written extensive amounts code, designed complex databases and applications, and managed a bunch of technical people. We deeply understand the work and the kinds of know-how it takes to get the work done.

If you’re a committed software professional or technical hiring manager just wanting to be understood, talk with a MetaTech recruiter and experience what it’s like to be heard, perhaps for the first time.