Introducing...The Mobile Job Seeker!

It’s been a long time since I’ve written a blog entry about career management. I’m currently on sabbatical and replenishing my energies through the pursuit of my personal hobbies and passions. I will continue to update this blog but I also invite you to follow me on twitter and read my new comic strip, “The Mobile Job Seeker”. In this strip, I give a humorous take on the challenges faced by job seekers, recruiters, and employees. I tweet new episodes 2-3 times a month so stay tuned and “retweet” the stories you like!

Twitter account: www.twitter.com/lewisrod

This Week’s episode of The Mobile Job Seeker: http://Pixton.com/ic:1mcb1zql

Below you will find an excerpt from the book I am currently writing on the corporate recruitment process. This book represents my 1­5+ years experience as a job seeker, employee, career consultant, and recruiter. It will be a few months before it is completed but I promise it will be worth the wait!

Only Dummies Apply Online: The Rants, Raves, and Ramblings of Job Searching (book excerpt)

"I think it’s safe to say that blindly sending résumés to online job postings is an exercise in futility – or foolishness. And though you see all the advertisements from online job sites like Career Builder and Monster begging  you to find your “dream job” on their sites, the actual number of people who get jobs using those sites is quite small in comparison to the number of people who apply. If you’re one of the lucky few to actually make it past the Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) that companies have ubiquitously deployed for the express purpose of “bagging and tagging” your résumé, then it probably means any one of the following:

1. The Job Seeker applied to a high turnover position.
2. The Job Seeker submitted the perfect résumé and application.
3. The Job Seeker applied to a job for which there were few applicants.

If you don’t want to play the "shell game" of job searching then I suggest you stop the mindless customization of your résumé and cover letter (assuming you were even doing that!) and the filling out of “standard template” application fields. Free your mind from the ATS-induced stupor it is under and use the internet for “people searches” instead of “job searches”. Remember, people hire people – software does not. Let's be clear on one thing – you should NEVER blindly apply to jobs online! If the intent of a job application is to secure an interview, then why would you let a software program affect your chances? You don’t see army-trained snipers using machine guns, do you? They are trained to research, analyze, and study specific targets before they take the kill shot with a high-powered rifle. Be a Sniper! Aim your résumé at the head of the department in which you want to work! Anything less is uncivilized."

The "Career Management" Lifestyle - Introduction

I've been thinking alot over the past several days about what it is that prevents most job-seekers from being successful. And not only job-seekers, but employed people as well who seem to be stagnant in their jobs but resigned to accept their fate. So as I was working out at the gym I realized that career management is a lifestyle. It's a choice. A choice of empowerment over your own career. A set of behaviors that will dictate the quality of your work success and satisfaction. A way of thinking that will always keep your mind focused on creating value not only for yourself, but for those who you interact with.

We know the benefits of eating the right foods, routine physical fitness, daily meditation, practicing our faith, and many other healthy practices. These become part of our lifestlye and affect the way we live each day. You shouldn't wait to have a health problem, before you go to see a doctor. If at all possible, you shouldn't wait until you have a problem before you take action to seek a solution. Just as successful businesses practice preventative maintenance, balanced scorecard, and research & development in order to stay in business - so should you! Imagine if Microsoft Corporation in the 1980's had just stopped with the creation of the Windows operating system for personal computers. Then they never would have developed all of the other services, products, and applications needed to take advantage of the internet boom in the 1990's!


Since we know the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle and practicing the routine behaviors required to support and improve that lifestyle, then why don't we apply that to our careers? When it comes to career management, there is a tendency for many people to not take an active role in defining and shaping their professions to add maximum value to themselves and to those around them. Don't be the person who languishes in a dead-end job for fear of change. Or the person that goes to work each day to a job that utilizes 10% of his talents. Or the person that continues to counduct an ill-fated job search campaign. That's poor career management and a poor lifestyle. And poor career management is the equivalent of smoking a pack of cigarettes each day - eventually you clog your roads to success.


So what is living the "Career Management" Lifestyle? It's a lifestyle that involves you doing the daily, weekly, and yearly activities required to maintain your professional health. It's a set of repetitive actions that will always allow you to expand your mind, integrate new information, and add value to yourself and those around you. In the following blogs, I will write more about the Career Management lifestyle and how you can implement it into your daily routine. You won't see the results after two weeks any more than you'd expect to lose 50 pounds after two weeks at the gym. But if you make the set of practices that I will share with you a part of your daily routine, then you will have healthy career choices for the rest of your professional life.

Stay tuned for the rest of this series!