In Pictures: Top 10 Tips To Land That Job
In Pictures: Billionaire Women We Admire
In Pictures: The Most Influential Women In Media
In Pictures: World's Richest Women
In Pictures: Women Chefs At The Top Of Their Game
Just ask Kendra Trahan of Winter Garden, Fla. A regional sales director for four years at Bausch & Lomb until the lens company's recent reorganization (it has been shedding jobs globally after moving out of the public sector in 2007), Trahan says she saw the writing on the wall long before she was officially laid off in June. She had already been reading up on 2.0 resume-building and job-hunting tactics.
Trahan also hired a personal marketing service ITS of Denver, Colo., to develop a job-search business plan and refresh her resume. Instead of a chronological listing of her previous positions and responsibilities, agent Larry Michele advised her to create a new CV that focused on her skills and accomplishments. He also suggested she use specific keywords in her resume to optimize search software on employment Web sites. Trahan uploaded her revised resume to about a dozen sites and sent it out in targeted mailings to companies with open sales or training manager slots.
One hit. An HR manager of Salix Pharmaceuticals in Orlando, Fla., scheduled her for an interview for a sales manager position on July 10. Trahan was one of seven top candidates, and impressed by her confidence and background, the manager asked her to attend a series of interviews at the North Carolina headquarters a few days later. Trahan got the names of the six people she'd be meeting with and got busy. She researched the company, its products and the interviewers, wrote up questions for each person and outlined a business plan for the position.
Trahan performed brilliantly in the interviews. She got an offer that week to start the following Monday, leaving her out of a job for less than a month.
"It is a different playing field now," says Eric Winegardner, a vice president of Monster, a top job search and recruiting Web site. "It was a candidate marketplace, and now it's an employer marketplace."
However, Winegardner also believes that there are still "hundreds of thousands of jobs in every sector," allowing plenty of chances to find one that works for you. He suggests approaching the job hunt as a competitive challenge rather than a losing proposition.
Winegardner says the days of sending out hundreds of the same resume with cover letters addressed "To Whom This May Concern" are past. Networking will help you discover job openings--and get your application on the right desk--but it only goes so far.
To catch a recruiter's eye, a winning resume will highlight your greatest accomplishments at previous jobs rather than your routine workweek responsibilities. And a concise cover letter should read like a carefully crafted marketing pitch, reflecting your knowledge of the company.
The same research and precision should be exercised in the interview process. "Don't go on blind dates," says Nancy Keene, a director of Stanton Chase International, an executive search firm. She believes that preparation is the best and easiest way to nail an interview.
That means learning about the company and the interviewers so that you can tailor your message to their needs. It also means knowing yourself. "Command the statistics of your life," Keene says, including all of the key facts and numbers about your previous work experience.
Text and images: Copyright Forbes.com Any unauthorised reproducton is prohibited.
Image: Show, Don't Tell
