You may be thinking of making your next career move. If you want to make that move successfully, it's important to know which of your strengths to play to. So, how exactly do you find that out?
"You are a business-of-one. If you think of yourself as a business-of-one, any good business has a clear sense of what their strengths are and what they should be marketing about themselves. By knowing that, it makes it easier for them to dial in and target the market they want to go after."
In this episode, I talk about two simple (and free) tests you can take that will help you determine your next career move.
Are you terrified of screwing up a job interview? Does the thought of writing a cover letter horrify you? Are you scared to network with others? What do you even say, anyway? If you're struggling to overcome your job search fears, this live event is for you.
We get it. Looking for work can be scary, especially if you’ve been at it for a long time and haven’t gotten any results.
Understanding which fears are getting in the way and how to overcome them will make all the difference. Sometimes you might not be aware of which obstacle is getting in the way of your goals. If you want to overcome these fears once and for all, we invite you to join us!
In this training, you’ll learn how to:
Utilize strategies for coping with your job search fears
Be confident in your job search—from writing your resume to networking
Face your fears and move forward
Join our CEO, J.T. O'Donnell, and Director of Training Development & Coaching, Christina Burgio, for this live event on Wednesday, October 5th at 12 pm ET.
CAN'T ATTEND LIVE? That's okay. You'll have access to the recording and the workbook after the session!
We all have times on the job when the work piles up. However, we don't all react in the same way. Some of us handle that stress better than others. A potential employer naturally wants to know how you will react when that situation happens in this new job. So, they say something like, "Describe a time when your workload was particularly heavy and what steps you took to handle it."
How would you describe a heavy workload?
A heavy workload is a workload that requires you to use your time management skills to juggle multiple tasks, responsibilities, and projects in order to successfully complete them on time—without sacrificing the quality of your work.
How should you answer interview questions about how you handle a heavy workload?
In order to effectively answer interview questions about how you handle a heavy workload, you need to know how to answer behavioral interview questions using the "Experience + Learn = Grow" format or STAR technique. You also should understand what employers want to know (what are they REALLY asking?).
Behavioral Interview Questions
This is a type of behavioral interview question. These types of questions ask you to describe your past actions or predict how you'll react in future situations. These can be great ways to get insight into your personality and how you approach difficult situations.
Answers to behavioral interview questions are best structured using the STAR format (situation or task, action you took, and results you achieved). Using this technique ensures you say what you need to say to give a complete answer to the question. (Some people forget to talk about the results they got from the actions they took, but this is the most important part.)
What Do Employers Want To Know?
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Basically, employers want to know how you approach problems and stress. Can you adapt? Can you prioritize? Can you stay calm? A lot of people will just say, "I stay until the work is done." Persistence is good, but letting them know that you approach problems analytically and strategically is better. Show them that you can think critically and make good decisions. Walk them through how you have dealt with this issue before or how you would deal with it.
Good Sample Answers
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Here are a couple of examples of good answers to this question:
1. "We all have times when the workload gets a little heavier than normal. I've found that the best way to handle it is to step back, take a look at everything on my task list, and prioritize. Most of the time, not everything needs to get done immediately. Some things are more critical to team goals than others, so sometimes it's necessary to prioritize."
Then, tell a short story about a time when you did that, and tell what the results of it were: you got X task done, which was beneficial because of Y.
2. "In that kind of situation, prioritizing and teamwork both become critical. I speak to my supervisor to see if I can help him or her and get some input on which tasks to tackle first."
Then, talk about the time you provided assistance to your boss on a mission-critical task and what happened as a result of that teamwork.
As a professional, your LinkedIn profile is an essential career tool. No matter if you're looking for a job or just trying to build your personal brand, it's important to completely fill out your LinkedIn profile so you can get the most out of the professional networking platform.
In 2023, there are a few things you should pay extra attention to on your LinkedIn profile. If you're looking for a job this year, make sure your LinkedIn profile includes the following three things:
1. An Optimized Headline
Don't let your LinkedIn headline default to your job title and your job title only. Optimize it by packing your LinkedIn headline with intentional keywords. Incorporate your top four to five hard skill sets that directly support the service you provide, and then separate each skill with a vertical line. This will make it very easy for recruiters and your connections to see where you add value.
Why does this strategy optimize your LinkedIn profile? Well, keywords increase your chances of showing up in search results. Because recruiters search for skill sets, those are technically your keywords. The more skill sets you have (and the better your LinkedIn profile is optimized), the higher you'll rank in relevant search results. If you're not incorporating the right keywords, you'll have a hard time standing out against the competition. You might not even show up in a search result at all.
It's also never a good idea to put "looking for new opportunities" or "currently unemployed" in your LinkedIn headline. Your headline is prime real estate. It's a valuable piece of your profile. Don't waste space including these phrases. It won't help your job search, and it'll only make you look desperate.
So, to optimize your LinkedIn profile, you can keep your job title in your LinkedIn headline, but make sure to include some of your top skill sets that support your job title too.
2. A Brief (But Compelling) "About" Section
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Your "About" section, formerly known as the summary section, is not where you write an epic novel about your career story or where you talk about yourself in the third person. It's where you write a brief, yet compelling story about yourself in the first person. You also want to include your personal branding statement here.
After your personal branding statement, make a keyword-filled list of your top 10 skills and a list of any technologies/software you're proficient in at the bottom of your "About" section. These should be vertical lists because that will allow recruiters to use them as checklists. They'll clearly see what your skills are and have a good idea of whether you're qualified for a certain position or not.
Like in your resume, it's important to leverage white space in your "About" section. Paragraphs don't get read. Recruiters skim LinkedIn profiles, and if they see something they like, then they'll go back and read a little bit more. White space makes it easier to read your "About" section, so avoid big blocks of text at all costs.
To catch an employer's eye, follow this format in your "About" section. It should prompt them to review the rest of your LinkedIn profile, which brings us to your recommendations...
3. Recommendations
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When you're looking for a job, what you're really doing is marketing yourself to an employer, and LinkedIn recommendations are a great way to sell yourself.
LinkedIn recommendations are essentially testimonials of your character and ability. They're a testament from a credible source saying that you're able to do what you claim you can. This is why they're essential to your LinkedIn profile.
If you don't have any recommendations on LinkedIn yet, don't worry. You can get recommendations using two different strategies: proactive recommendation seeking and passive recommendation seeking. The proactive strategy involves reaching out and asking someone to recommend you. The passive strategy involves recommending someone, at which point LinkedIn asks them to recommend you back (this way is actually a bit more effective).
Having recommendations on your LinkedIn profile makes you so much more attractive to recruiters and hiring managers. If other people are recommending you for the service you provide as a business-of-one, you must be an incredibly valuable employee, someone who could help a company reach its goals. Make that impression with lots of recommendations on your LinkedIn profile.
If you're looking for a job in 2023, you can't afford to have an incomplete LinkedIn profile. So, don't forget to add these three things to yours!
Need more help with your LinkedIn profile?
Sign up for our FREE Resume & LinkedIn Bootcamp today to learn how to update your resume and LinkedIn profile the way recruiters want!
