The Voice of Job Seekers

My first guest is Austin Belcak, whose daily tips on Linkedin helps many job seekers to find and network with hiring managers to get the right position. He shares with us a 90-second networking tip. Kevin Davenport, the author of “The Ideal Candidate,” is my second guest on this week’s episode. I got a chance to meet him on a radio show here in Chicago and kept in touch. Through his business and book, he has helped many young people between 16-24 learn job skills to help them prepare for interviews and get jobs. Got comments about the show? Here’s how: – Call and leave a voicemail at 708-365-9822, or text your comments to the same number – Go to TheVoiceofJobSeekers.com, press the “Send Voicemail” button on the right side of your screen and leave a message – Send email feedback to [email protected] More about Austin: Austin is the creator of Cultivated Culture, a blog helping job seekers succeed with several strategies including:

• Get a referral to companies where they previously knew no one
• Network and get to know hiring managers resulting in receiving job offers
• Ultimately land jobs without an online application

More about Kevin: By day, Kevin is the Program Manager for the Center of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Chicago Urban League. I went in to visit Kevin at the Urban League, who also has a Workforce Development program to help young people with job skills and interview preparation. He kindly gave me a tour of the Urban League building. Many young people not only come to learn, but they also found opportunities through Urban League programs for many years. I’ll leave the details for the show as you’ll hear about some of his strategy helping future professionals as “secret sauce.” Next show: January 14, 2020 The first show of the year I will present three guests in a panel to talk about the job search trends for 2020. Sign up for my weekly newsletter at the top right of my page to receive free e-Guide, “320 Modern Job Search Tips for 2020!” This year, it will be free for a limited time.

Kenneth Lang, an avid LinkedIn user, and job search expert, invited me to discuss job search on his LinkedIn Live show. I brought our discussion to be replayed on the podcast this week.

Kenneth is the founder of KML Consultants, a job search strategist, and a fellow introvert.

Highlights:

Importance of a clear LinkedIn profile (get out of the rut).

Why would someone need two profiles?

Continuity between online and offline for visibility and connections.

Your network is your spouse’s network.

The importance of presentation (esp. interviews).

The value of small talk.

You are more than welcome to join the discussion. Here are three ways you can:

– Call and leave a voicemail at 708-365-9822, or text your comments to the same number

– Go to TheVoiceofJobSeekers.com, press the “Send Voicemail” button on the right side of your screen and leave a message

– Send email feedback to [email protected]

Job boards are not evil. They are not the only way to find jobs. In fact, if you use the strategies mentioned in this show, you’ll experience its effectiveness without waiting for job boards and applications result. Austin Belcak, founder of CultivatedCulture.com gave me the rundown of how he applied, tweaked, and perfected strategies that landed him around 50 interviews.

More about Austin:
Austin is the creator of Cultivated Culture, a blog helping job seekers succeed with several strategies including:
– Get a referral to companies where they previously knew no one
– Network and get to know hiring managers resulting in receiving job offers
– Ultimately land jobs without relying on a job board

Got something to say? Got a topic for the show? Disagree?
– Call and leave a voicemail at 708-365-9822, or text your comments to the same number
– Go to TheVoiceofJobSeekers.com, press the “Send Voicemail” button on the right side of your screen and leave a message
– Send email feedback to [email protected]

Listen to: The State of Job Search

Show highlights:

– Austin shares about his frustration as job seekers applying to hundreds of job board postings without results
– It didn’t make sense to him to do so much work without any resemblance of results
– He asked immediately family, friends, school career professionals who gave the same answer
– Finally, a career coach got him started networking to find people in the company to reach out and make connections
– He learned through networking with the right people in a company gave him tangible results
– He used LinkedIn and cold emailing to reach people in companies where he wanted to work
– It was a lot of work in talking with 10-15 in each company to find out what they did and how they were hired
– Most people either got in the company’s door through a referral
– They also found ways to illustrate to employers their value

The show epilogue
The next show will be on April 14. There will be FOUR SHOWS left for the year. Two in April and two in May. Then my summer hiatus will last until Sept. 15.

It’s time for a discuss the state of job search so far in 2020. Things are changing fast if you haven’t started. This week’s episode is a takeover. Hannah Morgan is the guest host, and I’m the guest. Confused? Don’t be – she’s interviewing me on my show. Got comments about the show? Here’s how: – Call and leave a voicemail at 708-365-9822, or text your comments to the same number – Go to TheVoiceofJobSeekers.com, press the “Send Voicemail” button on the right side of your screen and leave a message – Send email feedback to [email protected] Hannah Morgan is a first-time host for my show and was entirely enthusiastic about doing (listen to her intro of the show). She is the founder of CareerSherpa.net and loves helping people understand what actions they need to take to find a job faster. Her popular site and her US News and World Report column is a large part of her being a nationally recognized expert. Here are highlights from our conversation:

• Shout out Prezi and creating content on their platform
• Hannah asks about – What’s hot: Remote work. I mention articles I’m writing for Job-Hunt.org
• Remote work requires the mindset of a consultant
• Hannah says about the “intra-prenuer mindset
• Professionals are shortchanging their possibilities and abilities on social media
• 2009 employers background checked your social media accounts on the back end
• Your social media compel 2020 employers
• Social proof is key to catch the attention
• Your brand is effective when it’s your referral engine
• Give shout outs to career professionals and blogs I read and keep up
• Discuss my articles on Payscale, Glassdoor, and RippleMatch
• Hannah: The importance of the three pillars: Know, Like, and Trust
• We discuss why people aren’t finding opportunities in this job market

Sign up for my weekly newsletter at the top right of my page to receive free e-Guide, “320 Modern Job Search Tips for 2020!” This year, it will be free for a limited time. This is a reminder there are three shows left for the season. I will be on podcast hiatus (writing and creating videos) from June to Sept. 15. The newsletter will be once-a-month during the summer. To hear more, you must SUBSCRIBE to the newsletter.

Welcome to part 2 of “Modern Job Search Trends of 2020.” If you missed part 1, I encourage you to listen to the first show in this series.

Let me reintroduce my guests on this panel: Sarah Johnston, founder of the Briefcase Coach, a company is helping many job seekers with their resume writing, LinkedIn strategy, job search strategy, and interview preparation. She recently was elected by LinkedIn editors as “LinkedIn Top Voice” for careers and job search. Nii Ato Bentsi-Enchill is the founder of AvenirCareers.com. Before going full-time as a business owner, he was Ivy Exec’s Senior Content Manager & Career Adviser. In addition to networking/job search strategy, LinkedIn and resume writing, he uses his Psychology and Mental Health education as part of a holistic approach to career coaching. Hannah Morgan is a return guest (this is number five, I think). She is the founder of CareerSherpa.net and loves helping people understand what actions they need to take to find a job faster. Her popular site and her US News and World Report column is a large part of being a nationally recognized expert. Got comments about the show? Here’s how: – Call and leave a voicemail at 708-365-9822, or text your comments to the same number – Go to TheVoiceofJobSeekers.com, press the “Send Voicemail” button on the right side of your screen and leave a message – Send email feedback to [email protected] Here are highlights from our conversation:

• Networking gives you advantages few get.
• When you (the job seeker) are empower your job search, you avoid bad jobs, and your mentality gives you the competitive edge.
• Nii Ato says job seekers are overwhelmed and not empowered.
• Empowered job seekers choose companies rather than waiting to be selected.
• Sarah mentions the email tool hunter.io to find hiring people’s business email addresses and verify it. Also, she mentions Mailscoop.io.
• We discussed the benefits of personal branding: how do you deliver, how you help others, and the help you offer.
• We talked about the importance of brevity and how it produces effective communication.
• Customize your message to different types of audiences.
• Sarah discussed how MBA website programs are offering terrible resume samples. They are not achievement-based.

Sign up for my weekly newsletter at the top right of my page to receive free e-Guide, “320 Modern Job Search Tips for 2020!” This year, it will be free for a limited time.