One way of making sure that your key points were not missed and that you have demonstrated your value in the interview, is to be ready for this inevitable question – “Do you have any questions?” Here are some questions to ask:

What do you see as the priorities for this job in the first three months?

Their answer will give you more clarity and allow you to zero in on how your background closely matches those priorities.

Is there anything you’d like me to explain in more detail?

This question gives you a chance to delve deeper into your successes and illustrate your ability to exceed their expectations.

Do you have any doubts about my ability to do this job?

You may or may not get an answer to this question but if you do, it will help you to address any weaknesses or shortcomings they may have picked up during the interview.

Why did this vacancy occur?

You will want to know if it’s a newly-created position; if the person was let go, or if it’s a hot seat where no one stays for too long.

If I am the successful candidate, which duties would you like me to accomplish first?

This will go to the heart of where they are hurting, and you will have to be prepared to focus your energies in those areas first.

Since you are also interviewing the company, the responses to these questions will also help you determine if the company will be a good fit for you. Go ahead and boldly ask those questions. It’s another opportunity to tell your stories and get hired!

Image: Courtesy of Lifehack.org

1. A Coach-on-Call to assist you with your resume, interview, and other job search questions.
2. Step-by-step instructions on how to how to create your own story-telling resume.
3. Opportunities to learn how to leverage social media (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+) to build your professional network.
4. Tactics on researching companies, bypassing the gatekeepers and getting to the decision-maker
5. Strategies to increase your confidence and boost your self-esteem.
6. Access to up-to-date interview trends and case studies.
7. Coaching on how to articulate your accomplishments, strengths and potential to your next employer.
8. Up-to-date career resources and techniques at your fingertips.
9. On-demand coaching customized for you.
10. An objective voice to tell you like it is even though it might hurt.

Drop by and see what we have on the menu, and give us some feedback while you are there!

These days whether you are a job seeker or an entrepreneur, one of the first steps to building your personal brand is to claim your name – register your name as a website. I learned this early. You see, actor Jude Law’s former nanny has my name, and I wasn’t aware of it until I heard of the scandal surrounding their alleged affair. Soon after that, I claimed and registered www.daisywright.com and www.daisywright.ca, as domain names through Hostmonster (Affiliate Link). I have since given up the .CA domain.

Why is it important to own your name? The hiring process has changed for job seekers, and personal branding has become very important.  Recruiters and employers don’t rely solely on traditional methods to learn about or evaluate potential employees. They are swamped with résumés, phone calls and emails. It is, therefore, your responsibility to change the way you market your stories and your skills to employers, and raise your visibility because your résumé and cover letter are no longer enough. The same is true for entrepreneurs.

To begin your brand-building process, your first step is to register your name as a domain, if it’s still available.  Use it as a one-stop haven for your social media tools like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and YouTube (if you’re venturing into videos). When employers and recruiters begin searching for you, or when you need to connect with someone of influence, it’s easy to send them a link to your own website which houses your other profiles.

In a recent Fast Company article, the writer tells a story of how a 16-year old high school student emailed her out of the blue, and asked to join her as a guest on her TV show. He did not send a résumé, but instead included links to his website, Twitter account, Facebook page, and three relevant YouTube clips. This is a 16-year old! He has already learned how to use the web to his advantage–building a strong and positive personal brand before he even reaches his adult years. Twelve months into his brand-building exercise, he is already a well-known regular tech TV expert and blogger–and he’s not even out of high school yet.

What about you? Are you ready to step forward and do something as daring as ‘Mr. 16-year old’? Do you own your name on the web? Are your profiles up-to-date and housed in one place? Have you scoured your Facebook profile to make sure that everything is professional? Do you have blog? If not, are you contributing your expertise to industry blogs? If a recruiter or employer begins searching for someone with your stories and skills, will you stand out from the herd, or will you stay hidden in the crowd?

CEOs, HR Executives and recruiters encourage job seekers to use social media outlets like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and blogs to improve their chances of getting a job. One CEO stated in a Boston Globe article that, “We often find hires because of their activity in social media and, especially, the blogosphere.”

A recruiter said, “We like to see candidates who have filled in their LinkedIn profile completely. Upload your resume, and if you are a blogger (and it is relevant to your career), post the link to your blog. With respect toTwitter, she said,”We use Twitter directory tools to find candidates whose bios match our hiring needs.”

The field is too competitive these days for you to continue doing what you have always done and expecting different results. You’ve got to be willing to go the extra mile in bringing visibility to your story. It’s time to up your game, begin building your personal brand and let the job vacancies find you.

Sources:

Five Steps to a Better Brand

Social Media Advice for Job Seekers

Did I catch you off guard with this cartoon? Well, it’s adding some humor to the first day of a brand new year!

Anyway, I want you to make the most of the remaining 364 days, so I have gathered some links, quotes and some of my own musings that I hope you will find helpful.

• For this year, ditch resolutions and set SMART goals.

• After setting your goals, plan to evaluate your progress each day. “If you believe that you need to improve your self-discipline – hire a coach”, says Glenn Llopis of Forbes Blog. Related article here: Top 5 Career Investments for 2012.

• Start the New Year on the “Wright” foot. Reserve your spot today to join me on a FREE teleconference on January 3, @ 8 pm Eastern.  Register here.

• Networking is still one of the most successful job search techniques, so nurture your network. Don’t wait until you are in a rut to connect with them.

• Step up and stand out at work.

• Understand how to use the ‘Vacuum Theory’  to advance your career: do the jobs others won’t do, make a visible difference with your presence, and become known as the ‘go to’ expert.

• Get Ready for your Next In-house Assignment (as in a Promotion).

• Self-Educate Yourself for FREE from 12 dozen places. You will find lots of choices.

• Reinvent Your Personal Brand so you can really distinguish yourself.

• Find a job you like and you add five days to every week. ~H. Jackson Brown

• Don’t allow anyone to discourage you from dreaming lofty dreams. “People too weak to follow their own dreams will always find a way to discourage yours.” @WomenofHistory.

Hope you find them helpful. Happy New Year to you and much success in 2012.

January is just around the corner and it’s time to start thinking about New Year resolutions, or is it? How many of your 2011 resolutions did you keep?

For several years now I have been advocating that people set goals instead of make resolutions. Goal setting helps you to decide what you want to achieve and create a step-by-step plan to do it. Resolutions, in my humble opinion, are ideals that are short-lived. Most people give up on them within a few short months. Goals, again in my opinion, are more realistic. You lay them out, break them down into small manageable steps, and they suddenly appear achievable.

The SMART acronym – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely – is usually the centre of any discussion on goal setting, but for this article, I have put a new spin on it:

Set Goals and ditch resolutions. As stated above, resolutions are transitory, so set realistic goals and then commit to them. Goal setting is such a critical element of one’s career, or life that it requires discipline, commitment and desire. Don’t just say “I need to get a new job, or I need to change my career”, then sit around and wait for it to happen, because it won’t. Create a plan.

Make it happen. Keeping your goals in your head won’t make them happen, but if you write them down and surround yourself with a circle of people who will hold you accountable, a major shift will take place.

Abandon negative self-talk and fear. These attributes – negative self-talk, being around negative people, and a fear of failure – coalesce to hold us back from achieving our goals.

Record and Review your activities. Identify and record the steps you needed to achieve your goal. This act of recording is essential to making your goal come alive. In writing them down, they become clearer to you. After that, spend as little as 1o minutes each day to review your progress.

Think Big and Bold! It is said that one of the mistakes we make in setting goals is not thinking big enough, but big goals generate excitement and passion. If you stretch yourself to set a few big and bold goals, it should be enough to capture and hold your attention.

2012 will be your banner year, if you focus, invest in yourself, and stick to your plan. Set your SMART goals and see what’s possible for your life. Surround yourself with positive people who will encourage and inspire you and share in your successes. Take time to reward yourself for each accomplishment, however small because these tiny rewards will serve as motivators for you to keep on going.

Become your own success story in 2012! Remember, “Successful people always do what unsuccessful people do not”. Be the change you want to see!

A Happy and Prosperous New Year from The Wright Career Solution, the company that moves your career forward…one step at a time!

Well, this article is not my usual career or job search post. Far from it! It’s about spending a little and giving a lot!

The Giving Season is here! I don’t know about you, but since September I have been asked to support a number of causes – marathons, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Cancer Society, Sickle Cell, Child Find, and others. While I could not afford to contribute to all, I made a donation to most.

My daughter, having taken part in the fundraising event for the Juvenile Diabetes through her work, decided that this Christmas she is taking up a cause and chose Canadian Feed the Children.

This brings me to other ways that one can make a contribution that does not take a lot of time or money. Since 2010, I have been a part of Kiva. I started with a $25 donation to a woman business owner in Rwanda. As soon as she repaid the ‘loan’, I loaned the same $25 to a group in the Dominican Republic. Kiva sent me an email this week to say the group has repaid that loan. Now, that $25 is available to be lent to someone else. That one $25 is being recycled!

This week I received an update from Kiva about the first loan I had made:

“Thank you for supporting Providence with your loan. With the loan, she bought general store. Providence says that the loan helped the business because she was increasing her business by buying more quantity of milk, juice, water and so on. With the profits, Providence was able to pay children’s school fees and medical insurance…”

This is one way of spending a little and giving a lot. Join Kiva and help someone realize their entrepreneurial dream. Kiva

For several years I have sponsored a little boy in Haiti through the International Child Care Ministry of the Free Methodist Church. A year or so before my Mom passed away she also chose to sponsor a little girl in Haiti through the church. Since she has passed, I have been soldering on with both of these children, but feel I might have to give up sponsorship of the little girl. Of course, each time I think of it, I get a lump in my throat, but I will see how it goes.

A few weeks ago, a client of mine sent an email telling me (and others) about her son who fell down the stairs, and in one minute, became a paraplegic. She, too, is seeking donations for his care. She gave me permission to mention her story. Although the fundraiser has passed she is still accepting donations online at Gabe’s Back on Track. Here’s their YouTube video: Gabe.

Finally, I was watching MSNBC recently and discovered K.I.N.D. – Kids In Need of Desks – a UNICEF charity supported by Lawrence O’Donnell. It’s amazing what we take for granted when there are kids attending schools without desks. You can help here too. Visit KIND.

My point in mentioning these stories is to say that as you make plans for the holidays, consider how you could spend a little and give a lot. Small donations do matter, and it doesn’t matter which charity you choose. It could be one in your backyard!

All the best,

Who says a blog post has to be an article?

While reviewing my Google+ status yesterday I saw where several people had added me to their circles. Among them was +Prabh Singh from Vancouver, Canada. As I read his posts, I came upon a link he used to create a Word Cloud, and since I tend to be an early adapter, I jumped on the bandwagon, experimented with it, and created a cloud from my blog. The above image is the result of this experiment.

Is this a tool that a job seeker would find useful? Why or why not?

Here’s the link courtesy of the developer @Timdream:  HTML5 Word Cloud

1.      Creative

2.      Organizational

3.      Effective

4.      Extensive experience

5.      Track record

6.      Motivated

7.      Innovative

8.      Problem solving

9.      Communication skills

10.    Dynamic

As much as we might want to eliminate or reduce the use of these words and phrases, employers tend to lag behind with the use of clichés. Their job postings still include many of these words. Their applicant tracking system still contains these words and phrases, yet if the words are not incorporated in a candidate’s résumé, the résumé does not stand much of a chance of being seen by the human eye.

One way to overcome or minimize the use of these words is to give examples or tell stories of:

• how you were creative
• what problems you solved
• what really got you motivated, and
• how many years of experience you have.

By using this method, the hiring manager or decision-maker can easily see your potential value.

As with everything else, your decision to include or exclude these words requires a delicate balance. The fact is, there are going to be times when using the ‘word or phrase’ is your only option!

Source: LinkedIn’s Most Overused Buzzwords for 2011

• “Generic  Objectives” that scream ‘me-me-me’. “It rarely helps, often hurts, and always takes up valuable real estate that could be better used to showcase your accomplishments”, said one respondent.

• Massive email blasts where the resume is not tailored to the position for which they are applying.

• Beginning each point, regardless of experience, with the standard “responsible for” with few, if any, real accomplishments.

• A resume that contains “references available upon request”.

• Lack of professionalism in the layout and composition.

• Lack of detail on duties and accomplishments.

• Dull job descriptive statements.

• Content that is unrelated to the role.

• Chronological history of events dating back to high school (especially when the applicant has been out of high school for 3 or more years).

• Resumes with more than three pages, poor formatting, and spelling and grammar errors.

Some recruiters indicated that they prefer a longer resume as it enables them to see the breadth of the person’s experience and are better able to identify the skills relevant to the position they are trying to fill. However, these same recruiters say that clients/employers prefer a 2- or 3-page resume, and they would modify them to suit the client’s needs.

“As we are placing the candidates to our clients we prefer the longer version for details but we don’t like to send that to the client, unless specifically requested.”

While you might not agree with all of the above, some are glaringly obvious and should be avoided. Have your say.

Daisy Wright (third from right), a Brampton businesswoman, was recognized with the 2011 Alumni of Distinction award from Conestoga College.

Wright, the founder and chief career strategist at The Wright Career Solution, a career transition firm that helps individuals find jobs and an author, was among eight Conestoga College alumni honoured.

The award is the college’s highest recognition of outstanding graduates who have achieved great success in their careers and made significant contribution to society.

Read full Press Release here:  Brampton Woman Honoured