Ask-A-Career-Coach: How Long Do You Wait To Follow-up?

jobsearchContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart

I had an interview with a small financial services firm this week. I thought it went well and the interviewer (in this case, the owner) muttered that he would decide to hire me by the end of the day. 3 days have passed and I have not heard anything. He seemed like he would tell me either way. I really want the position and it seemed like we connected. How long do I wait before contacting him? What do you suggest I do or say?

While I normally advise waiting a business week before following up, if you know a decision is forthcoming much earlier or much later, then you follow up according to the timetable you know. In this case, since the owner (and clearly a key decision maker) said he was going to know by end of day, I would certainly call him after 3 days. I would have called him earlier in fact because he suggested he would have known earlier. Had he said that they were just starting the process and he was going to be on vacation next week, then you would need to wait till well after the vacation.

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Ask-A-Career-Coach: How Do You Explain A Gap In Your Résumé?

jobsearchContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart

What do prospective employers really think when they see a gap in your résumé?

It depends on the length of the gap, the industry and function you are targeting, and how the gap compares to everything else in your marketing campaign.

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Ask-A-Career-Coach: How Do You Track Down Lost References?

Contributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart

jobsearchI recently reached out to a former superior and found that she had been let go. In this day and age where people up and down the corporate ladder are being laid off, what do I do when the people I worked with are no longer there to act as professional references?

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Ask-A-Career-Coach: How Do You Maintain Career Momentum?

jobsearchContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart

A lot of jobseekers get caught up following one lead at a time.  Then, if that lead doesn’t work out, their job search starts from the very beginning all over again.  For employed jobseekers, this same phenomenon is present with people who focus solely on their current role without maintaining ties to other departments, to colleagues outside the company or to colleagues in different industries.  Then, if something happens to that current job, the once gainfully employed person is caught unawares.  In both cases, there is a loss of momentum that negatively impacts the job search and career.  Here’s how to maintain career momentum:

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Ask-a-Career-Coach: What Do You Do While You’re Waiting?

jobsearchContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart

A lot of the job search is waiting:  drop your résumé and wait for the interview; attend the interview and wait for the decision; attend the second interview and wait for more interviews or the offer.  Many jobseekers ask how long to wait before checking in and how otherwise to maximize the waiting time.

In short, you maximize the waiting time by moving on.  You work on several job search leads concurrently so that, while you are waiting for one, another is invariably moving.  Stopping and starting takes a lot more energy and is far less efficient than moving along systematically.  You can only move systematically when you have multiple leads in play.

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Ask-A-Recruiter: Where Do You Meet Corporate Decision-makers?

Contributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart

 

jobsearchAt a recent virtual coaching workshop, an attendee asked about meeting executives.  I answered with advice on how to research decision-makers within a company and how to approach them, using online networking as the example.  But then the follow-up question indicated that she meant something very different:  where do the corporate decision-makers hang out?

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Ask-A-Recruiter: How Do You Address Possible Red Flags On The Resume?

Contributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart

jobsearchAt a recent workshop, an attendee asked about what to do about her low GPA and her resume.  For recent graduates and current students, the GPA is standard on a typical resume so it’s a question worth answering.  But even for more experienced hires, where GPA matters less if at all, this question is still relevant because it speaks to what to do if you have any potential red flag on your resume that you feel obligated to disclosed (e.g., a gap in employment).  How do you address possible red flags on the resume?

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Ask-A-Recruiter: Should You Ever Work For Free?

jobsearchContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart

If I am really interested in working for a company, is it a good tactic to offer to do a project or a trial basis for free?

I have been seeing more press coverage about “adult internships” lately. These refer to experienced professionals who take on a short-term project for little or no pay. Sometimes, these adult internships are for career changers to break into a new target sector, but sometimes experienced, unemployed professionals use internships to get a foot in the door at a new company in their same sector.

I’ve read about adult internships but I haven’t seen widespread practice of them, so I suspect (but don’t have data to prove) that they are not as prevalent as the press coverage warrants. So I don’t recommend targeting these adult internships or offering free work to employers, whether projects or days on the job. However, savvy, proactive jobseekers absolutely work for free, just not for specific employers.

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Ask-A-Recruiter: How To Research A Career Change

istock_000005168521xsmall1.jpgContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart

Can you recommend resources for exploring careers and learning about the skills/education needed to be successful in that career?

A lot of the advice I’ve seen about researching a career change focuses on talking to people in the target career. There is definitely merit to this: these people know firsthand what the career is like; they can give you ideas on how to get started; they may know the important players and trends in that sector. In other words, talking to people could shortcut a lot of the heavy lifting you might have to do had you researched this on your own.

But therein lies the reason that I strongly counsel my career changing candidates to start by talking to people. It’s a shortcut, and cutting corners invariably means you may miss something. First of all, people who are doing a job day-to-day may not have a broad perspective on the industry as a whole. Their recommendations of key players and trends reflect their opinion, not necessarily a wide swath of research. Secondly, their ideas for how to get started will likely be influenced by how they or people they know got started. You may have a very different background, and their advice may actually prove counterproductive. Finally, their knowledge of the career path, growth prospects, and day-to-day again reflects their opinion, not necessarily the typical experience. Therefore, by relying on what people say, you are ceding control of your information-gathering to the information that they happened to have gathered along the way. Read more

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