People are often stuck in jobs that are not their dream job.  I get my fair share of calls from people I know wanting to make a change. I do what I can to offer some tips and in some cases, have been able to connect them with people in my network who end up hiring them.  Some of the tips come from my coaching program for outplacement and in transition clients.

Getting Your Job Search Started

Look at your LinkedIn (LI) profile. Is it complete? Does it give a clear picture of your work history, education, professional development and volunteer activities?  Do you need to expand it and add to it? Have you described your awesome experience and your accomplishments from past positions? 

Post a professional looking photo. Look at your picture with a critical eye.  What’s in the background? Does it give the right impression? Ask a senior colleague for their opinion.

Ask people who worked with you and know you well, to provide comments or testimonials of your work. Ask for your direct supervisors, colleagues, and co-workers to add testimonials. Don’t ask people who don’t know you well or weren’t directly involved with your work. It will put them in an awkward position of having to say “No,” or worse, ignoring your request. If they haven’t worked directly with you it would be difficult providing the testimonial you require.

Do some research.  Search and look at other LI profiles of people in roles you would like. Sign up for some of the groups that people in the career you aspire to secure, have joined. Search on LI for all those people you know and have worked with and send them an invite to connect.

Look at the job postings and see who you know in the industry and start connecting that way.  If a job is posted at XYZ company, you can do a quick search to see if any of your connections have contact with someone in that company.

If you see someone who might be able to help you and they you aren’t connected with them, look them up and call them. If you send them a LinkedIn request, tell them why you are asking to connect. Do not send them a invitation asking to connect because you are in the same “group” when, in fact, you are looking for help finding a job. People appreciate honesty and they will help you if they can. If they don’t accept your invitation they wouldn’t be much help anyway.  Do not send them an invite that states you are a friend when you haven’t even met. That is just plain irritating.

Many people advocate that you put a catchy statement that you are looking for a position in your “headline.”  Take a look at what others are doing on LI and let people know how they can reach you. 

Make sure that people in your network know that you are looking for work. All your past colleagues, supervisors, favourite customers, suppliers, friends, and relatives will want to help you find a job. I received a lovely message from a former colleague who was looking for a job.  He sent a very well written email to everyone telling us what he’s been up to, the credentials he had added to his professional development, and what type of job he was looking for.  And he ended by asking us to be on the lookout for him. That was very helpful. People can and will assist you with your job search if they know you are looking AND what you are looking for.

Then there is Twitter - but that’s another blog.

I hope these few tips will help you get started. Good luck. 

Best regards, Joanne Royce

P.S. If you are a company and need outplacement services, contact us. We can help your departing employees with our coaching program – Getting your Job Search Started. Here’s what one former outplacement client had to say after completing the program (part of a 2-page thank you letter) . 

“Thank you so very, very much, Joanne. Your course, your genuine friendly helpfulness, and your ability to improve my resume, LinkedIn profile, and interview performance, without a doubt gave me the confidence and self assurance I needed for a successful career search.”

Photo Source:  SXC -  Szorstki

Why are some people so effective in communicating with others?
How can improving communication skills build long term relationship?
Why doesn’t my team talk to me?

I facilitated A Royce & Associates Workshop on Effective Interpersonal Communication with a group of managers who wanted answers to these questions.  The two day program was held over a Friday and Saturday. I was a bit concerned that the participants might want to be somewhere else, especially on the weekend. There was no need to worry as this great group of managers jumped right into the workshop including participating in all the activities I had planned to reinforce learning. 

One of the most popular activities was The Experiential Listening Game.  The key learning from this activity was that through active listening the listener is helping the talker feel valued. When the talker feels valued communication opens up and flows freely, which is vital to solving issues and building relationships.  No one wants to make another person feel undervalued and not important, but that is what we do everytime we check our Smart Phone, PDA, change the subject, appear distracted, or interrupt.  When we don’t use active listening skills,we are sending the message to the other person – YOU ARE NOT IMPORTANT.  I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU. Not a great way to build a relationship or to work collaboratively with another person.

If you and your team want to learn how to improve your communications skills to reduce conflict, and increase collaboraton and customer service, contact us now  to book our Effective Communications Workshop. Our workshop can be customized to your workplace, your time frame, and your budget!

Here is what participants had to say:

• On a sunny Saturday, I can’t think of a better trainer to be stuck inside with for the day.
• I enjoyed the adjective game and acting out the phrases.
• The listening game made me realize how important it is to really listen.
• The variety of activities and switching it up, kept us thinking outside the box.
• I was  able to relate the activities and learning to my work and life.

Best regards, Joanne Royce

Founder of Royce & Associates
a Human Resources and Training Solutions company
Creating Happy, Healthy and Productive Workplaces

Related Blog Posts:

Meeting Personal Needs for Effective Communications

Meeting Practical Needs for Effective Communications

Are you a good listener?  A Five Part Series

Generational Communication Preferences – Gen Y and Boomers

Bill 168 – Workplace Violence & Harassment Ontario

CONTACT US NOW 
coaching, policy, tools, templates, training

Are you one of the 80% of small businesses or one of the 20% of large organizations that aren’t compliant with Bill 168?

Bill 168 became law on June 15, 2010 yet some employees and managers haven’t heard about Bill 168. It’s never too late to become compliant with Bill 168 -Workplace Violence and Harassment legislation in Ontario.

Bill 168 was prompted after an inquest investigating the murder of nurse Lori Dupont by her ex-boyfriend and co-worker, Dr. Marc Daniel, at Hôtel-Dieu Grace Hospital in Windsor, Ontario on November 12, 2005. Bill 168 legislation is intended to protect workers from violence and harassment on the job. Bill 168 amends the Occupational Health and Safety Act. Employers must develop broader but specific policies and programs to help prevent violence and harassment at work including procedures on preventing domestic violence in the workplace. Is your organization compliant?

Last week I summarized key learning from a panel discussion that I moderated for the HRPA – Halton Chapter on Bill 168.  If you need to learn more about Bill 168 or need help implementing in your workplace,  contact us for a consultation.

Our Bill 168 Workshop is very practical and hands-on to help participants implement workplace violence and harassment policies, procedures and practices, including training in a cost effective and timely manner. You’ll take away knowledge, and the templates, checklists, and tools to get you compliant quickly and cost effectively.

Best regards,

Best regards, Joanne Royce

Founder, Royce & Associates
a Human Resources & Training Solutions company
Creating happy, healthy, and productive workplaces

Are you ready for
the Accessiblity for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA)?

Would you like to save time and money?

Don’t know where to start?

Contact us NOW!

We’ve developed an interactive, content rich, and engaging workshop divided into an educational session and a working session similar to our popular Bill 168 workshops. We’ll quickly and efficiently help get your organization compliant with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) – Customer Service Standard. You’ll have the knowledge, skills, and tools to successfully roll out the AODA initiative in your organization.

We’ve set up a one day workshop consisting of an educational session in the morning and a working session in the afternoon. Our training can be customized to be delivered in a number of different formats best suited to your organization and your budget! 

What you will learn and take away:

You leave with everything you need to help you successfully implement the AODA in your organization.

• knowledge and skills to help you implement and train your people confidently and successfully
• policy templates, checklists, forms, and tools to save you hours of time
• additional resources including FREE ELearning to save you money
• one month telephone and email access to support you while you implement! 

Who should attend:

Customer Service Managers, Office Managers, Human Resources professionals, Business Owners, or individuals who want to save time and money and are responsible for implementing the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disability Act within their companies.  

Why Royce & Associates:
(Kind Words from participants)

• Joanne has strong subject matter knowledge, which got us up to speed on the changes quickly!
• With Joanne everything was created to be user friendly.
• We left the session ready to train staff and feeling confident we are ready and compliant.
• You saved us valuable time and money.
• Months of hard work was already done for me!

Let Royce & Associates get you up to speed quickly so you can focus on the road ahead and your business. We know dealing with policies, procedures, and legislation isn’t the most exciting part of running a business, but it is necessary. We will save you hours of time, research and headaches.  You will want to contact us now to make your workload lighter!

Best regards, Joanne Royce 

Related Blog Posts:

Are you AODA compliant? Don’t know what the AODA is or when you need to comply?

AODA Workshop – Implementing the Customer Service Standard in your organization

Bill 168 Workshops Ontario Ministry of Labour inspections show that 80% of large companies are compliant, but only 20% of smaller organizations are compliant. If you haven’t yet implemented Bill 168 – Workplace Violence and Harassment it’s never too late to comply.

Are you noticing differences between the generations in your workplace?
Do you want to work in harmony but conflicts are on the rise?
Have you heard comments like these before?

That old dinosaur has been working here ever since the cave man!
The kid wants a promotion after six months on the job!
What’s the big deal about coming in a few minutes late?
I’m the boss … just do your job.

This is the first time in history with four generations
working together in the workplace.

We so often bring our own preconceived assumptions – the taken-for-granted notions of how something or someone should be – when viewing generational groups. When we approach others with our own filters and perspectives with a “my way or the highway” attitude we are missing an opportunity to really connect and learn from each other. Often we assume that others should know what we expect them to do, how we expect them to behave, and so forth, without any dialogue about it.

While identifying what’s important to each generational group, we must be careful not to put limiting labels on them. It is not so black and white. It is dangerous to over generalize and make assumptions such as ALL:

• Traditionalists play by the rules,
• Boomers are workaholics,
• Gen X are concerned work/life balance, and
• Gen Y are collaborative and curious.

However, it does help to appreciate the values and history of each group to understand how they might approach a situation or problem in the workplace and, indeed, what human resources practices will help motivate and engage each group.

You can enhance productivity and innovation in a generationally diverse workplace without banning social networking sites! We can start to build relationships, decrease conflict, increase creativity, and enhance productivity, when we throw away our own preconceived assumptions about a group and start to listen with an open mind. If you want to learn more, please to email or call for more information on our awesome workshop - Generations At Work – Valuing Our Differences.

Here’s what participants have to say!

• Your activities got us thinking!
• There was so much discussion and laughter in the room, it was hard to go home at the end of the day!
• The activities really got the discussion going and drove home the point.
• Knowledgeable instruction and the most participative workshop I’ve been to in a long time.

Best regards, Joanne Royce

Founder of Royce & Associates
a Human Resources and Training Solutions company
Creating Happy, Healthy and Productive Workplaces

Related Blog Posts

Social Notworking versus Social Networking

Generational Communication Preferences – Boomers and Gen Y

Generational Networking Preferences

A Royce & Associates Workshop -  Generations At Work – Valuing Our Differences