How to Get Hired: Are You Targeting a Specialist Position or Generalist?

There are different kinds of positions to apply for. One thing to consider when you're looking for a job is to target the company you'd like to join and make sure you fit the position they are looking for. Monster outlines 2 kinds of resume formats - the generalist and the specialist with recommendations on the best approach for you. Read on and discover which one is right for you

The Generalist's Advantages

Positioning yourself as a generalist could be effective if you:

    Target Small Companies: "A company with fewer than 500 employees may see a job seeker with a broad base of skills as giving them more for their money," says Dave Upton, founder and CEO of ExecuNet. At tiny companies or startups, a broad array of skills is often essential due to the need to wear different hats, Upton added.
    
    Target Downsizing Companies: Organizations that consolidate functions will often want someone who can do many things, such as a single HR generalist who can handle compensation and benefits as well as recruiting functions, says Stefanie Cross-Wilson, co-president of recruitment and talent management at Hudson.
    
    Will Take Any Job: Recruiters agree that the scattershot approach yields scattershot results even in the best of times. But if you simply want a foot in the door of a company -- any company, doing anything, anywhere -- selling yourself as a jack-of-all trades could pay off.

The Specialist Positioning

Selling yourself as a specialist is preferable if you:

    Know Exactly What You're Looking For: If you're sure about what you want and know how your skills match up to the requirements, make the case that you're the one they need and don't muddy your resume with a variety of unrelated skills.
    
    Work in a Competitive Industry: These days, employers who used to receive dozens of resumes for a position may see hundreds or thousands. The person who fits the job best, particularly in a competitive field, is more likely to get the job than someone who can do a bit of everything, recruiters say.
    
    Seek a Job Requiring Specialized Skill:  An employer filling a job that requires deep knowledge of industrial automation, forensic accounting or video game design, to name a few, can usually find a candidate with the exact skills to match the job. If you don't have the specific skills, your knowledge of gardening, accounting or music theory, while nice to have, won't make up that deficit.

The Best Approach

Still not sure which approach is best? Recruiters recommend playing it safe by positioning yourself as a "specialist, with breadth." To do this:

1.     Research a job opening and the company to find out exactly what skills are needed and what other skills might be useful.
2.     Emphasize the depth of your expertise in the most necessary job skills -- the ones that actually match the job description -- and add your compatible skills at the bottom of the resume
3.     Don't send out a hodgepodge resume. You're more likely to confuse the recruiter or the hiring manager, who may think of you as a dabbler without depth.

This tactic, recruiters say, will cover your bases by showing the breadth and depth of your skills, and that could be a winning combination in a tight job market.

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How To Deal With The Top 10 Job Interview Myths

Great article from CNNMoney no less on the top 10 myths of Job interviews. In the article, veteran career coach David Couper is quoted multiple times and they're quite accurate I think.


Myth #10: The interviewer is prepared.

"The person you're meeting with is probably overworked and stressed about having to hire someone," Couper says. "So make it easy for him or her. Answer that catchall request, 'Tell me about yourself", by talking about why you're a great fit for this job. If it's obvious they haven't read your resume, recap it briefly, and then tie it to the job you want." Tell them what they really need to know, so they don't have to come up with more questions.

Myth #9: Most interviewers have been trained to conduct thorough job interviews.

While human resources professionals do get extensive training in job interviewing techniques, the average line manager is winging it. "To make up for vague questions, be specific even if they don't ask," Couper suggests. "Be ready with two or three examples of particular skills and experiences that highlight why they should hire you."

Myth #8: It's only polite to accept an interviewer's offer of refreshment.

"They usually try to be courteous and offer you a drink, but they don't really want to bother with it," says Couper. "Unless the beverage in question is right there and won't take more than a second to get, just say, no, thank you."

Couper once interviewed a job candidate who said she would love a cup of tea, which, he recalls, "meant I spent half the allotted interview time looking for a tea bag, heating water, and so on. It was irritating."

Another good reason, Couper says, to decline caffeine is that "if the interview is a lengthy one, you don't want to need a restroom halfway through the conversation."

Myth #7: Interviewers expect you to hand over references' contact information right away.

Hold off until you're specifically asked, Couper advises, and even then, you can delay a bit by offering to send the information in an email in a day or two. There are at least two good reasons for not rushing it, Couper says. First, "you sometimes don't know until the end of the interview who would be the best references for this particular job," he notes. "If you get a sense that the interviewer cares most about, for instance, teamwork, you want to choose someone who can attest to your skills in that area. A reference who can only talk about some other aspect of your work is not going to help."

Second, and no less important, "you want a little time to prep your references, by gently coaching them on what you'd like them to say, before the employer calls them."


Myth #6: There's a right answer to every question an interviewer asks.
"Sometimes how you approach your answer is far more important than the answer itself," Couper says. If you're presented with a hypothetical problem and asked how you would resolve it, try to think of a comparable situation from the past and tell what you did about it.

Talkback: Has anything surprised you during a job interview? Leave a comment at the bottom of this story.

Myth #5: You should always keep your answers short.

Here's where doing lots of research before an interview really pays off. "The more you've learned about the company and the job beforehand, the better able you are to tell why you are the right hire," Couper says.

Don't be afraid to talk at length about it, partly because it will spare the interviewer having to come up with another question for you (see Myth #1 above) and partly because "in a good interview, you should be talking about two-thirds of the time."

Myth #4: If you've got great qualifications, your appearance doesn't matter.

Reams of research on this topic have proven that physical attractiveness plays a big part in hiring decisions. "Anyone who says otherwise is lying," Couper says. "People care about your looks, so make the absolute most of what you've got." Even if you're not drop-dead gorgeous, it's impossible to overestimate the importance of looking "healthy, energetic, and confident."

Myth #3: When asked where you see yourself in five years, you should show tremendous ambition.

The five-year question is a common one, and it's uncommonly tricky. "Interviewers want you to be a go-getter, but they also worry that you'll get restless if you don't move up fast enough. So you want to say something that covers all bases, like, 'I'd be happy to stay in this job as long as I'm still learning things and making a valuable contribution,'" says Couper.

You might also consider turning the question around and asking, "Where do you see me in five years?" Says Couper, "Sometimes the answer to that -- like, 'Well, we'd expect you to keep doing the same thing we hired you to do' -- is a good way to spot a dead-end job."

Myth #2: If the company invites you to an interview, that means the job is still open.

Alas, no. In fact, the job may never have existed in the first place: "Some companies use 'interviews' to do market research on the cheap. They ask you about your current or recent duties, your pay scale, and so on, to get information for comparison purposes." Another possibility, Couper says, is that "they may already have a strong internal candidate in mind for the job but just want to see if they come across someone better."

If you get an interview through a networking contact, he adds, "an employer may interview you simply as a courtesy to the person who referred you, if that is someone they don't want to disappoint."

Even if the job opening is phony, it's still worth going, he says: "Sometimes they discover you're a good fit for a different opening that really does exist. You never know where an interview might lead."

And the #1 myth about job interviewing: The most qualified person gets the job.

In at least one crucial respect, a job interview is like a date: Chemistry counts.

"A candidate who is less qualified, but has the right personality for the organization and hits it off with the interviewer, will almost always get hired over a candidate who merely looks good on paper," Couper says.

You Can Hunt For Jobs Using Facebook?

Found an article on Silicon Republic that's entitled "Job Hunting Goes Social." Here are some of the highlights from that article where multiple netizens have agreed that online channels have become a valid alternative medium for talent search and job searching. Traditional networking tools are no longer enough. LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are now extended personal message boards that express social and professional persona.


Meeting in person still counts

And while social media will never replace your face-to-face meeting, she says it has enhanced that.

Declan Fitzgerald, international recruitment manager, LinkedIn, which itself is now recruiting heavily in Ireland, also argues that social media is swiftly changing the way people are looking for and applying for jobs.

“A lot of people have very quickly realised they can create their own online brand for themselves by creating a LinkedIn profile, having a Twitter feed, or a blog. Then there are those who are more traditionally orientated towards the paper CV. In many ways, the recruitment industry is rebooting and we are beginning to see a whole new variety of innovative recruitment channels.”

LinkedIn now counts more than 400,000 users in Ireland. “It’s growing incredibly quickly in Ireland,” says Fitzgerald. “It’s predominantly IT, sales and marketing-based professionals, which are the quicker adopters, but we’re beginning to see all types of professionals put their profile up there now.”

He says people are actually beginning to apply for jobs now using their LinkedIn profile.

“People are starting to spend time building their network on LinkedIn. From an employer point of view, it’s becoming increasingly important to see who are these people connected to, whether they are truly passionate about this area to the extent they are tweeting about it or if they have a blog.

“If you have a situation where two candidates are very similar, the one with the deeper social footprint is the one employers will go for, because they can see their connections.”

Campbell also agrees that LinkedIn is top dog for job seekers and recruiters. “As a platform, it is built around recruiters finding people. It is a massive CV database.”
Irish social media recruitment

The statistics speak for themselves. Irish Recruiters, a LinkedIn group formed in 2007 by Fitzgerald, carried out a survey last year on social media recruitment in Ireland, and 91pc of recruiters said they use social media to recruit, with 89pc indicating they have hired from LinkedIn.

So how can people who are looking for a job best use sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to their advantage?

Campbell says graduates, for the most part, don’t know if they could find a job through LinkedIn or Facebook.

“For people, Facebook is not about finding a job. It’s about switching off, but it can be used by recruiters and it can be used by jobseekers.”

For jobseekers, Campbell has launched a series of webinars, showcasing what people should be doing on social media.

Jobseekers should start by filling in data – specifically in the employer and education sections – as well as changing privacy settings to allow others to see your Facebook profile so you can be found, he says.

And, of course, as with all social media, you should be careful about what you post and the type of language you use on Facebook when looking for a job, Campbell points out.

“I’ve always followed a policy of whatever I put up on Facebook, or write on a blog, I am always thinking, ‘Am I comfortable that any of my relatives can see this and that any employer or any prospective client can see this data’.”



How to job search using social media

With Facebook, you can also create your own webpage, he says, as is the case with LinkedIn and Twitter.

With LinkedIn, Fitzgerald says jobseekers should create their CV in a paper format and then map that data out onto their LinkedIn profile.

“Put up a photograph and list out, in detail, the bullet points of your responsibilities. Go so far as creating a PowerPoint presentation, giving a portfolio around some aspect of your work. Start quickly connecting. I strongly suggest joining groups within your profession and to start debating in some of the discussions.”

Kennedy, whose recruitment remit is IT professionals for the mid-west, advises people to look at the LinkedIn profile of a company if they are going for an interview with them.

“I believe any IT professional looking for work should have a LinkedIn account, as more and more employers are using it to source top talent. Facebook and Twitter are used by employers as a form of reference, but also they are advertising their jobs on Twitter."

She also anticipates things changing down the line in terms of Skype and webinars. “We're finding that there's a lot more interviews being set up via Skype. It's making the process move quite quickly.”

Getting involved online

And Twitter can also be used to jobseekers’ advantage, says Campbell.

“If you are graduate wishing to get into a particular sector, follow that sector on Twitter and Facebook. On LinkedIn, start engaging with executives in key areas you want to work in, asking incisive questions.

“There’s an onus on people to respond on social media and help people. That’s the part of social media people forget. You have to interact on pages, ask questions and be seen.”

The key, explains Campbell, is to use social media to then take your job search offline.

“It’s when you use social media with a combination of more traditional activities that it really becomes powerful. You can find out that a conference is happening and meet people in your industry and make connections. For employers, it’s really difficult to differentiate graduates, so network. People hire people, not CVs.”

Kennedy’s advice to jobseekers is to continuously look on job boards, check out recruitment websites and make sure they are on LinkedIn. “Call the companies that are hiring and get your details through.”

LinkedIn’s Fitzgerald adds: “We’re in a transition phase where we are moving away from CVs for the first port of call. Savvy technologically-centred professionals are shifting to this new way of building an online profile.”

Job Fairs in SM City Cebu Every Friday Until May 25, 2011

Got this from http://globalnation.inquirer.net/cebudailynews/enterprise/view/20110225-322136/547-firms-in-C-Visayas-to-hire-1200-workers

Will be very helpful for new graduates this year to take part. About 547 companies in the Central Visayas will be hiring more than a thousand applicants.

Thanks to the increasing number of investors coming to Cebu and there is a noted increase in available jobs in the province, Jobstreet.com will be continuing to host a job fair at SM City Cebu which started last Feb. 25, 2011 to fill in around 1,200 available jobs in 547 companies in Central Visayas.

Every Friday they will have instant job processing and hiring while every Saturday there will be seminars on how to get hired

Jobstreet marketing director Yoda Buyco said they are holding Cebu Career Hub in partnership with SM City Cebu until May 25.

Buyco said the Cebu Career Hub was held first in Cebu where they see a lot of job requirements from different industries and fields including the business process outsourcing, information technology, finance, manufacturing and engineering.

“This serves as an answer to DOLE (Department of Labor and Employment) Secretary Rosalinda Dimapiliz-Baldoz when she said that we have to invest in our country's resource, our human resource to make us more competitive and employable. Cebu Career Hub is a way to help further empower our Cebuano job seekers,” Buyco said.

According to Buyco, there are 1,200 jobs from 547 employers in Central Visayas, mostly in Cebu, that job seekers can apply instantly every Friday or through their Job Board which they will also show at the booth located at the 2nd floor of SM City Cebu.

“In the whole of Vismin area, we have a total of 300,000 job seekers who can have access to the eight million jobs posted in our website which are located in all our areas including Malaysia, Singapore, India, Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines,” she said.

Out of the eight million jobs, three million are located in the Philippines from 15,000 employers.

Buyco added that 40 percent of the total number of job postings in the country are from BPO companies which need a lot of agents to handle voice calls and some managerial and supervisory positions.

“In Cebu I could say that 40 percent of job postings are also from BPO companies,” she said.

Buyco said that Stream Global alone which is joining the event needs to hire 60 to 70 people every week for their contact center operations at their office in Asiatown IT Park in Lahug, Cebu City.

Buyco added they are targeting fresh graduates and those who seek another career.

“All they need to do is drop by our booth from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and bring their updated resume. They can come on a Friday to get instant processing as we will be featuring four companies every Friday which will then accept applications and hire on the spot. Every Saturday we will provide free career services to enhance overall appeal of Cebuano applicants. We will do mock interviews and give tips on how to make winning resumes,” Buyco said.