The Secret to Getting Help

"Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable." Francis Bacon

If you want help in getting your next job, finding your next career, you need to be useful.

What does it mean to be useful?

Being useful means being of value to others. Regarding a job, it means being of use to your employer. Have you identified how, as specifically as possible, you are going to help your next employer? When you apply for a job, does your application and/or your resume clearly indicate, in as many of their words as possible, that you CAN do the job? Does your experience and education support your claim that you can do the job by showing you have done the job and know how to do the job?

Even if you are useful, if you do not handle problems or become a problem yourself, then your value is diminished. Being useful has a definite cost/benefit ratio. Your benefit to your co-workers, your boss, your company has to outweigh your cost. When you apply for a job, do you take the initiative to make it easier for the people reviewing your resume to see how you can be of help in that position? Do you behave in a useful, helpful manner when you make your follow up contacts? Are you involving other people in your network in the process and showing the potential employer how you work with others?

As you apply for jobs and follow up on your applications, you create opportunities to demonstrate how useful you can be in how you behave, how you handle situations, how you deal with others. If you are helpful to others, if you act in a helpful way by at least expressing your willingness to help them, you create a more positive, more appealing, impression.

Expressing in your cover letter, email, initial phone call and follow up contacts a desire to be helpful throughout the hiring process grows a more agreeable relationship. Also, respecting their time and effort by staying in touch without demanding they do the same is both agreeable and helpful.

There is a reason why every customer service contact begins "How may I help you?"

Are you helpful or are you demanding?

Who would you rather hire?

Let us at JVS help you be helpful to your next employer.

Visit us at www.jvsdet.org


And you can always reach me at wtarrow@jvsdet.org and meet me on LinkedIn.

Walt

The Lucky 13 -- Websites for Job Finders

Here is a quick list of helpful websites for job search and job acquisition. Actually, you really do not need to do much more on the Internet outside of these Lucky 13.

1. www.google.com – Search the Internet and much more

2. www.YouTube.com - the most widely used search engine where one video is worth a billion words

3. www.jvsdet.org – main website for JVS where you click on Find a Job to see what jobs we know about personally. Also, click on Seminars & Events to find and register for upcoming job seeker activities.

4. www.mitalent.org – Pure Michigan Talent Connect; the State of Michigan online job and resume banks; also explore the site to access much more career and job resources

5. www.careerinfonet.org – the CareerOneStop for the US; anything and everything related to jobs, careers, employment

6. www.indeed.com – a gatherer of job leads from other job boards and company websites. Gathers job leads and ideas for other companies to contact from just about everywhere on the Internet which frees you up from wasting countless hours online applying over and over and over again when you should be making those leads into personal contacts using resources like

7. www.linkedin.com – social media for business and jobs; create your online profile and more, connect with others in your target areas and with companies of interest, find the right people and, in turn, be found by them

8. www.facebook.com – the world’s largest online social community

9. www.twitter.com – texting the world, listening in on what other people and companies of interest to you are saying including available jobs

10. www.socialnomics.net – the wellspring of all things social media

11. www.wikipedia.org – encyclopedia of the Internet

12. www.jobhuntersbible.com – a relaxing place to learn about job search, resources, etc.; the website of Richard Bolles, author of What Color Is Your Parachute?

Lucky 13. Use your local library website to access ReferenceUSA to learn more about companies and find key people within. One way to find the website of your local library in Southeast Michigan is through The Library Network at www.tln.lib.mi.us.

Consider limiting your online hours to less than four per day.

Every online contact represents the potential for real life connections that need to be forged.

Get out there! Jobs have never gone door to door. You have to do that.

And we at JVS can help you get it done. Visit our websites listed above for more information and to connect.

And you can always contact me at wtarrow@jvsdet.org.

Let's get started!

Walt