Free Job Search Makeover Ideas

Here is an interesting article. Follow the link for the original article that suggests the following three makeovers.

Attitude

No surprise, attitude is everything. Are you depressed, burnt out, angry? Any negative attitude will sink your efforts.

Resume

Your resume is your key to getting the interview. Any flaws will slam the door shut and stop you before you can get started.

Networking

Networking is key, but it has to be effective, it has to develop leads and contacts with hiring managers.

So make your jobsearch over for the new year. Read the whole article here.

Winter 2009 Schedule Available

The new Employment Connections Workshop schedule is available.




Click on the hyperlink "Employment Connection Quarterly Calendar"

For Winter 2009 click here.






For the full information on navigating Employment Connections Online click here.

Resumes

Everybody needs a resume. This is a very important document in your jobsearch.

"The purpose of the resume is to get an interview."

Sounds simple, but remember this. These days resumes are expected to look professional and should be tailored to the job opportunity. Your resume will be your first impression, and that means it is very important. When the hiring manager reads it what will it say to him? I need a job, any job or you need me because I meet all your needs? Big difference between generic and tailored resume results.

There are two main ways you can do your resume, in resume specific software or in a word processor. The downtown office has Winway software installed in the Resource Center for your use once you've registered at any county Employment Connections office. I'm not sure if any other offices have it installed, let me know. The downtown office also offers a hands on course to help you use this software.

The advantage of Resume Software is that it is focused on this task, it gives you hints and it allows you to make major theme changes easily. This software's strength is in its resume features, it is not a very good word processor. Keep that in mind, if you use it, take advantage of the resume hints and samples. When you are done, you will likely want to export it. Export it to Rich Text (.rtf), open it in word and then save as to .doc (Word 97-2003) format.

When you edit in MS Word, be sure to use the appropriate features. There are long term benefits to having an intermediate level of word. I have heard that the intermediate course expects a minimum wpm typing. This is making the assumption that you are using it as an office assistant, these skills have wide spread applicability, push to take the course even if you don't intend to be a typist because it will help you build more efficient documents.

Specifically, don't use spaces and tabs to position things, use paragraph and font styles. You can control the indent, hanging indent, space before and after the paragraph. Use enter to make a new paragraph and shift enter to make a new line in the same paragraph. Click the P to show the hidden tab, space, new line, and paragraph marks so that your content is formatted consistently. Use widow control (keep lines together, keep with next) rather than arbitrary enter keys.

Why go through this much trouble? Because your best bet is to tailor your resume to each opportunity by taking a superset resume, deleting extraneous info and arranging the skills to meet the opportunity. And that means lots of updating. The more effecient the document structure, the less time it will take to tailor it.

There's another reason, you might be sending this word file to the employer. They won't need to ask you about your computer skills, by displaying the hidden formatting and looking at style use you will have told them plenty about your computer skills. This is another reason to send a PDF version, see more here.

The moral of the story:

"Use the features of the best tool to accomplish your goals."

Status: First Draft

Ohio Means Jobs

OMJ Under the Covers

Our local unemployment office (Employment Connections) uses a site called Ohio Means Jobs (OMJ). This post will dig into it a little. This site uses two main partners - Monster and Indeed. See the previous post about how these two partners in OMJ fit into your overall jobsearch.

OMJ Monster

When you register with OMJ, you will be registered to Monster.com. You can enter up to 5 resumes and select which one you want to have visible to prospective employers.

OMJ Indeed

The OMJ advanced search uses the public Indeed service. If you have a fairly simple search, this may suffice, but with a little extra work you can get better results. Rather than use OMJs advanced search, you should register for your own Indeed account so that your searches and found jobs can be remembered.

The bottom menu lists two more Indeed features - Job Trends and Salaries. A third feature Forums is not listed. This allows a wide range of JobSeeker info to be exchanged. The forum is organized in the following major categories - Company, Job, City, General.

OMJ Menu

The menu is a little cluttered. There is a top menu (Employer, Job Seeker, Events, Featured Links, The State of Perfect Balance), described in the following paragraphs and a bottom menu that duplicates the top menu with a few additions. The page is split into two halves - Employers and Job Seekers, then there are the four choices under Job Seekers (right half) - Post a Resume, Maintain Resume, Advanced Job Search, Register.

The first time you should select Register and so you can register to Monster. Post a Resume describes Monster, then goes to the Login Page, you might as well goto Maintain which takes you right to the Monster login page. The Advanced Job Search menu option takes you to the public Indeed Search.

So of all these Jobseeker (right half) menu options, use Maintain Resume to update your resume with Monster and just goto Indeed and login to get the most from it.

OMJ Job Seeker

This top menu item takes you to a page describing the two partners (Indeed and Monster) and showing just the Jobseeker links found on the Featured Links page. On the left side (top) you will find employer (front page left side) links and on the bottom you will find the jobseeker (front page right side) links of which Maintain Resume
is the most useful.

OMJ Events

This top menu item lists events throughout the state, so many may not be applicable. I've noticed that many events aren't listed here either, so you will still find important events listed at the Employment Connection Office or the Maple Hts (Career Center Section upstairs) library branch.

OMJ Featured Links

This top menu item takes you to a page that has three groups of links for Employers, Job Seekers, and Workforce Professionals (people who help others find jobs).

Find the nearest "one stop" directs you to the Employment Connections page. "One stop" is what the Unemployment Office used to be called, but you will still find this old term in use on some web pages. Several links take you to Labor Market Information (LMI) pages. Resumes and Cover Letters takes you to the Riley Guide web site, there are other job advice pages you may want to look at too.

Two other major organizations - Job and Family Services (JFS) and Workforce Development contain info for jobseekers. The Ohio Workforce Info page takes you to another group of links maintained by JFS.

OMJ State of Perfect Balance

This top menu item takes you to a page aimed at attracting employers to the state of Ohio.

OMJ Bottom Menu

As I mentioned above, there is a bottom menu that mostly repeats the top menu. There are two notable additions pointing to Indeed.

One item is Job Trends pointing to an Indeed page that features a particular job trend with a menu of past job trends listed in a right sidebar.

Another item is Salaries that takes you to an Indeed page with a Salary Search box asking for the job and location. There is also a right sidebar menu of sample salaries.

In summary

The first and last top menu links are directed at employers, the middle three top menu items (jobseeker, events, and featured links) are of interest to jobseekers.

Of all the right half jobseeker choices, only Maintain Resume is useful.

Oh what a tangled web they have woven... See the Companion Jobseeker Group Pages section and posts that are tagged with EmpConn for advice on how to navigate jobseeker web pages.

Status: Second Draft - Last updated 01/01/08 11 PM

Online Job Search

There are several major categories of job search resources on the web. By understanding these categories you can fully explore the resources that are available. Sometimes a web site may fit into more than one category.

Targeted Company Search

The best opportunity for the earliest lead is going directly to a target company. This is more work, but it yields the best leads. You can find the best target companies by noticing hiring trends in a local search engine.

Local Search

These sites focus on the local market, they are likely to have a higher "real" job content rather than recruiters trolling for resumes with bait and switch job lures.

In our area these two are the best:
CareerBoard - http://cleveland.careerboard.com/
Newspaper - http://www.cleveland.com/jobs/

Resume Posting

These sites allow you to post your resume where it can be seen by a large audience. Monster and CareerBuilder are two of the best known resume posting services. The advantage is an employer may find you for an opportunity you may never have known about. The disadvantage is control of your job search shifts away from you. You also loose the option of customizing your resume for a specific opportunity. Your generic resume may be reviewed and rejected by a perspective employer where a targeted resume may have survived the cut. Some of the local search engines may offer resume posting.

These resume posting services also contain a job searching advice section.

Integrated Search

There are super search engines that search many other job databases and return the combined results. Some Resume software (Winway and ResumeMaker) offer this kind of search. One of the best available on the Web is INDEED - http://indeed.com/ .

Advice

Some web sites offer very useful career advice. Some of these are:

About - http://jobsearch.about.com/
Career Voyage - http://careervoyages.gov/
Employment Spot - http://www.employmentspot.com/
Riley Guide - http://www.rileyguide.com/
Wetfeet - http://www.wetfeet.com/
What Color is your Parachute - http://www.jobhuntersbible.com/

Check out the Companion JebSeek Group Files section for over 100 pages of job search advice from one of the sites above.

So in summary, understand these various categories and seek out resources that are the best in each category to offer you the most in your search.

Status: Second Draft - Last updated 12/31/08 2:45 am

File Viewers

Many people know you should have the Adobe Reader to read PDF files. Maybe it was pre-installed on your PC. If it is old you can visit that web site to get a new version.

One of the difficult transitional issues is MS Office 2003 vs 2007. If you have an older version of MS Office you may not be able to read files created in the newer version. This is why I recommend that you save files in the previous MS Office 97-2003 format. But you don't necessarily have control of what file format you receive. And if you receive a 2007 file from a perspective employer it may be embarrassing to tell them you can't read it (not even at the resource centers).

If you have MS Office XP or 2003 you can update your product to be able to understand the 2007 formats by following the directions here. A less intrusive solution is to install the MS Office viewers - Word, Excel, Powerpoint.

These viewers are very large and can not be efficiently downloaded over dialup. If you don't have a high speed link then goto a resource center or library, download these to a flash drive and then install them on your home PC.

Another thing you may want to do is a search on each viewer to see if their are functional or security updates for any of them. You can do this search from the top of the pages I have linked above. The very top search box is for the web, use the second search box under the heading "Download Center" after the "Search All Downloads" box. Click on release date to sort, new security fixes won't be high on the default popularity post.

Side note: I got this post idea from a page at the Ohio LMI site, but before I posted it, I saw that two of the links were backlevel to 2003, so I looked up the newer file viewers.

PDFs

The Adobe Portable Document is a widespread standard that ensures the recipient will see the file the same way you did. PDF is standard format that is device independent. It allows you to send files that everyone can read and that can’t be edited. The full Adobe product is comprehensive and expensive. An alternative is to use a PDF Print Driver to produce PDF documents.

One such product can be obtained at no charge from http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp

Download CUTEPDF Writer and Converter. Install the Converter first then CUTEPDF. You will now have a new driver and may choose it to create a PDF file. You will see a Save As dialog box to specify the name of the PDF file.

If you have the newest MS Office 2007 you can click Save as, then "Find Add-Ins for other File Formats" from any MS Office program. An Office Help menu will open and it will contain a link to the download page. The Microsoft Genuine Office validation will be invoked to ensure you have a properly licensed product on the PC you are downloading too. This requires that you use Internet Explorer and Allow an ActiveX to be installed. After your license is validated you will be returned to the download page and can download and install. Installing this update once applies to all Office products. You can then Save As in PDF or Microsoft's XPS format (competition to PDF). PDF is much more widely available than XPS.

The advantage of the PDF Print Driver is that it works with any product.

Computer Skills

Today, computer skills are needed for nearly every job. Not having basic computer skills is like not having a high school diploma. Luckily, there are many ways to obtain these skills at little or no cost. The trouble is many people who use a computer may have poor habits that are not up to workplace expectations.

There are so many stereotypes, don't be one of them. If you are a young video gamer, that doesn't make you computer competent. You may be an expert in your field or have many pre-PC methods for dealing with things, that doesn't mean you can avoid using PCs properly. Certain segments of Lawyers seem particularly prone to this, but when it takes 5 times longer to produce an unmaintainable document or when spreadsheets contain errors, an outside observer can see this is a serious business problem. Just because someone is an older worker doesn't mean they can't learn PC skills, nor should they think they can slide to retirement without needing them.

Basics

Everyone should be comfortable with the basics, USB connection, small flash (thumb) drives, mouse use, windows menus and shortcuts, cut and paste, task switching, etc. Take the time to actually learn these skills.

Internet

The Internet is a critical and very helpful skill. The Internet isn't just for surfing, its a powerful research and communication tool. Understanding how to do advanced searches, understanding major resources to go to first rather than a general search, and knowing about online networking (LinkedIn), publishing (Blogs), and forums (Groups) at a minimum will help you get the most from this tool.

The Internet is a very dynamic structure and new functions and techniques are introduced at an astounding pace. That means you have to keep learning and exploring it so you aren't using yesterday's methods.

If you are a long time Internet Explorer user, tabbed browsing may be unfamiliar. Get used to this feature.

Use the right tool

Do you swat flies with a baseball bat, drive screws with a hammer? No? Stupid? Then why do people use Excel for to produce tables of text? Or try to use Excel as a relational database (RDB)? Sometimes you have to bend the tool a bit, but knowing several tools and fully how to use them, helps you pick the best one and achieve the best results.

Word

Mastery of word processing is helpful as you create customized correspondence for your job search. But don't confuse word processing with a typewriter, it is much more.

Take the time to learn to use Word effectively. The outline feature (remember writing papers for high school) helps you organize thoughts, work on segments of the document, and restructure the document as needed. In order to use this feature, simply use the HEADING n styles and then you can view your document in Outline format. You can select how deep the levels are displayed.

Know how to find, use, and make your own templates and styles. Think about your document in advance, a little pre-planning can produce a much better document in less time. The big payoff is a more maintainable document.

When you format a paragraph, you can define a style based on it. Why is this better than the format painter? Well if you change your mind or need to adjust something, you just redefine the style and all the paragraphs of that style adopt the new format.

When positioning text, don't use the tab, space, and enter keys endlessly, use the options on the format paragraph to indent, hanging indent (for the lines other than the first), and the skip before and after. Use the P icon to show the control characters so you can see behind the scenes.

Excel

As you want to consider job offers, bills, budgeting, a spreadsheet is well suited for this task. Excel can also be used as a simple flat database for tracking issues related to your job search.

Just because you are using a spreadsheet doesn't ensure correct answers. If you tell Excel to do something wrong, it will !

Use formulas, don't calculate things outside of the spreadsheet. Hidden columns and calculations are OK, they can help ensure that the data and calculations are correct. Important variables should be in named cells, sheets should have meaningful names.

Learn and use auditing techniques. Data validation, cell protection, tracing precedents, =IF checking, cross totals, conditional formating and charts. There are many functions that are useful. You should become familiar with what's available.

Do you have several possibilities? Then setup control variables and use the Scenario Manager Add-In Tool to name, define, and select various scenarios rather than duplicating sheets and introducing errors and inconsistency.

Advanced Excel

Depending on your job field, advanced excel features may be useful. One of the advanced features are the flat database features (V & H Lookup, D Functions). If you are using these functions you should learn relational database functionality so that you can understand Excel's limitations and when another tool should be used. See Database paragraph below.

Another powerful and complex feature is the pivot table for summarizing and drilling down to detail of large data tables.

Become familiar with latest usage techniques such as management dashboard reporting.

Database

People often use Excel as a simple flat, tabular database. But real database technology is much more powerful. Sometimes this is called relational database (RDB) technology. The idea is that rather than a single row as a record, a database is made up of record segments that are connected by a key or ID. Why does that matter? In a "flat" database of rows the record segments can only have a 1 to 1 relation and all the info has to be in a row. In a RDB, the record segments are not confined to a 1 to 1 relationship, they can have a 1 to many, and the info does not have to be repeated for every row.

An Example -- Consider keeping track of orders. You have customers, who place orders, which consist of individual products or services. What would you put in the record or row, the entire order? If you did you'd repeat company info for each order and you'd have an unknown number of columns for multiple items on the order.

In a RDB, there would be four separate records linked together. Each customer would have a customer number (key, index, ID) that would contain info about the customer (name, address, contact...). Each order would have an Order Number, a customer number, and info about the entire order (shipping address, order date, fulfillment status). Each product ordered would link to the order number, shipping status (date, shipped/back ordered). The last record type would contain a product number and the product details like a description, price, quantity on hand.

Some of the major power of RDBs is the ability to write complex queries that feed report templates that produce just the info you want in the format you want it in. So what do you want to know? How many customers ordered a certain product? Which customers haven't ordered anything in a while? How often do customers order and which customers are over due to order? What products are most/least popular? Trying to do this in Excel would be impossible.

Microsoft's personal product is called Access and it is rather expensive. An alternative is to use OpenOffice's BASE component at no cost. Microsoft's business product is called SQL Server (Structured Query Language). A free business product alternative would be MySQL.

Status: Second Draft - Last Updated 12/07/08 2:40 AM

Alternatives to Microsoft

I personally don’t like Microsoft software and often look to Open Source or other authors for lower priced, better quality solutions.

Office

Microsoft has finally made Office more affordable so that Word, Excel, and PowerPoint can be obtained for less than $150 (for personal use). These are the industry standards and are recommended if affordable.

If you are using the latest Office 2007, be aware that many companies have not converted to it, so you may want to save files in the previous Office 97-2003 format. If you are using the more popular Office XP or 2003, you can look at Microsoft's web site to find viewers to allow you to read the latest 2007 files.

However OpenOffice is a free alternative that not only proves to be fairly compatible, it also includes an Access like database (which would be very expensive on its own). OpenOffice V2 is compatible with Office for XP while the newly available V3 is compatible to the latest Office 2007.

Install OpenOffice in Microsoft compatibility mode so files can be exchanged with Microsoft users. One notable option missing in the OpenOffice V2 word processor is the Outline feature which is very useful for building larger documents and reports. There are also minor differences in functions available in the spreadsheet.

Email

Microsoft Outlook Express is the most frequently used email but has its short comings and security flaws. Eudora is the major competitor to MS Outlook and is a great alternative. To get the best spam reduction with Baysian Filters you will need the paid version of Eudora. The next best alternative is Mozilla Thunderbird at no cost.

Browser

Until recently MS Internet Explorer was very behind its competitors. Mozilla Firefox has strong security and a wide variety of enhancements. Opera is another very worthy IE alternative and has a unique email client built in.

NotePad ++

Microsoft’s NotePad application is primitive, this simple free notepad replacement has improved features, including tabbed files, remembering open tabs on next invocation, code highlighting, enhanced Search, and advanced TextFX.

Goto http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm

Introduction to LinkedIn

LinkedIn is an online service to assist in networking. I would very much appreciate any and all feedback, suggestions, corrections or questions you may have.

Purpose

The following introduction was taken from here:
http://www.linkedin.com/static?key=company_info

Relationships Matter - Your professional relationships are key to your professional success. Our mission is to help you be more effective in your daily work and open doors to opportunities using the professional relationships you already have. This isn’t networking—it’s what networking should be.

Forget exchanging business cards with acquaintances that don’t know your work, or trying to renew professional ties when you need a favor.

What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is an online network of more than 25 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries.

When you join, you create a profile that summarizes your professional accomplishments. Your profile helps you find and be found by former colleagues, clients, and partners. You can add more connections by inviting trusted contacts to join LinkedIn and connect to you. Your network consists of your connections, your connections’ connections, and the people they know, linking you to thousands of qualified professionals.

Through your network you can:

• Find potential clients, service providers, subject experts, and partners who come recommended
• Be found for business opportunities
• Search for great jobs
• Discover inside connections that can help you land jobs and close deals
• Post and distribute job listings
• Find high-quality passive candidates
• Get introduced to other professionals through the people you know

LinkedIn is free to join. We also offer paid accounts that give you more tools for finding and reaching the right people, whether or not they are in your network.

Description

You provide information to LinkedIn and you get a URL that you can provide to others that is a like an electronic business card. You can print this URL on your business card, put it in your email signature and others can find you on LinkedIn in a variety of ways.

There are two major views of your information, the public view, seen by everyone, and the full view seen by people you consider your connections. Information includes your name, title, location (metropolitan area), your job experience, education, skills, and interests and email. How much detail is provided and which of these items is on your public profile is controlled by you.

LinkedIn users can invite each other to be a connection and the invited person is sent an email and needs to approve the connection.

Learn more about LinkedIn here:

• http://learn.linkedin.com/what-is-linkedin/
• http://learn.linkedin.com/
• http://learn.linkedin.com/new-users/
• http://learn.linkedin.com/job-seekers/

Setup Tips

Personal Info – provide your name, title, zip code, and primary email.

Public Display – while filling out your profile you can go to another page and specify how much into will be on your public profile.

Custom URL – By default your profile is a numeric ID, you can select something more memorable like your name so it makes more sense. Click here to learn more.

Email Addresses – you can provide a primary email that LinkedIn uses, but you are also asked for alternate emails. The purpose of alternate emails is that if people include their email address books in LinkedIn, then you will be found by them and they can invite you as a connection.

Work History – Work history is similar to your resume. There is also a summary view of this that doesn’t include dates.

Education – Education history is similar to your resume. There is also a summary view of this that doesn’t include dates.

Status – You can provide a status that your connections will see, such as “looking for work”. This status only stays for 5 days, so you need to update it again if you want it to continue.

Skills – You can specify a work summary and keyword skills.

Web Sites – you can specify several web sites that may be of interest to viewers of your (public or full) profile. You will need to exercise caution in selecting a web sites to list as potential employers may see them.

A LinkedIn Button can be added to your websites to allow your readers to quickly access your profile.

Usage Tips

Start with connecting to your closest work acquaintances’ and as you explore it further you can increase your connections and find new connections.

Find Colleagues & Classmates by using their search tools. As new people register with LinkedIn you will be notified that there are more possible connections. You review their search results and select which people you want to invite as a connection.

Search for People – You can search for people specifically that may not be part of your work or education history.

Join Groups – look for professional groups that are within LinkedIn to find new connections and discussions.

Search Jobs by function (IT) or industry segment (government) and you can limit them geographically.

Search Companies and find interesting things, people in a company that are part of your extended connections, new hires to that company, demographic breakdown, even where people in that company came from or went to, so you can find another important company you were not aware of.

Introduce yourself to a new person through a mutual connection.

INMAIL – is a paid service that allows you to send email to someone who is not part of your connections.

Summary

This is an useful way to extend your networking beyond simply collecting business cards. The power of this tool allows you to extend your network in ways that are not possible any other way.

New Feature

I have added a Google Group in order to provide file storage, web pages and general discussion.

The group is located at: http://groups.google.com/group/j4j-jobseek

The files section is here: http://groups.google.com/group/j4j-jobseek/files
I have uploaded a JobTip1.doc file which is over 100 pages of well written articles I obtained from the Web, categorized, and built into an outlined word document. For easiest use, download and view in MS Word in outline mode where you can navigate the various categories and read the articles of most interest.

As I have time, I will upload other files of interest. I plan to build a few web pages under the Google Group to more easily navigate local (NE Ohio) and general (any location) information.

NOTE:  Was tagged BlogAnn, Links, Tips

Making business cards

Earlier I mentioned carrying several business cards for various purposes. Now here is how to make then.

Office 2003

• Click Tools on top menu then Letters and Mailings then Envelopes & Labels
  
• Click on the Labels top tab then click on the label in the lower right corner to select a 2.5 x 3.5 business card (8377), then click OK.
  
• Type the content of your business card into the Address box
• Click the New Document button on the right side
  

Office 2007

• Click Mailings on the top menu to activate that ribbon
• Click Labels on the far left of the Ribbon
  
• Click on the label in the lower right to select a 2.5 x 3.5 business card (8377), click OK.
  
• Type the content of your business card into the Address box
• Click the New Document button on the bottom
  

Final Touches

• Always print on plain paper and look through it with label stock behind it to verify that labels line up and don't overflow
  
• Match the label paper stock to the printer (inkjet or laser)
  
• Load the label paper stock into printer
• Card stock could be used as an alternative but then you'd need to cut the cards evenly
  

Status: First Draft - last updated 01/08/09

Guide to Employment and Power Packet

After you have completed the Orientation and the Career Workshop, the next thing is to complete some info for your job search. Depending on which office you go to they call it by a different name. They are similar and are required for certain workshops and to make an appointment with a career coach. I've seen these two different references their may be other names or forms at other offices, I don't know. If you recognize the process and heard it referred to by another name, please let us know by commenting here.

Common Items

Documentation

There are a number of documents needed and reviewed, photo ID, SSN card, proof of citizenship, proof of residency, proof of income, etc. You may be asked for this information multiple times. Get a folder that straps shut so as you carry these important documents back and forth without loosing them.

Email

You need an email account. If you have one, you will need to logon to it and get a printout showing you have it. This will be attached to your packet.

If you don't have one, they will help you create a free one.

SCOTI

You need to register on the ohiomeansjobs system which uses monster as the search engine. You will select a userid with a very strong password (mixed case, numeric, and special characters). You may sign in with a userid or the associated email address. You will need to print the page after you have logged in and attach it to your packet. See related post.

Labor Market Info

They mention the LMI site, but the ONET site is very much related and useful. See related post.

Employer Contacts

They are interested in details of your last 3 or 4 attempts at employment.

Resume and Cover Letters

You will be asked for sample resume and cover letters, depending on how good they are you may be referred to workshops to help you write or improve them.

Guide to Employment

There are several more checklists in this packet.

Getting Started is a checklist of various workshops where you can express your interest and a career coach can make recommendations (or requirements).

Know Yourself is a checklist of transferable skills where you can check off skills you enjoy and those that you do well.

Preparation for Employment Assistance discusses employment preferences and barriers.

Power Packet

There is a hands on lab where you logon and are helped to navigate the various web sites to complete the Power Packet.

Status: First Draft

What is ecamspace.net?

Seriously help me out, I need to know. It seems redundant with the Employment Connection Online Enrollment (Second Square).

When I try to enroll I get a general error message. Working in the computer industry for 30 years, I'm usually not stumped by computer issues, frustrated sure, but not stumped.

It asks for your SSN, I put in just the nine digits, that didn't work, so I tried to add dashes, their wasn't enough room for the digits. I even tried just the last four digits, as they use in their other systems. The first password wasn't "hard", but it was 6-8 digits. I asked if there were any other requirements and got the now frequent response "I dunno". So I provided a "hard" password, typically that is at least 6 characters, capital and lower case and also numeric.

Still the same lame error message "-->We could not register you based on the information provided. Please review it."

I tried to get help at the resource center on a Friday afternoon one hour before closing and everyone was bailing out like rats leaving a drowning ship.

Seriously, give me a hint... Thanks... You can comment here (even anonymously without a blogger ID if you must).

Status: Rough Draft

State Job Matching

Ohio has just transitioned from its older SCOTI system (Sharing Career Opportunities ---) to the new Ohio Means Jobs system.

SCOTI is no longer available. It used to be at this site https://scoti.ohio.gov/scoti_lexs/. If you go there you will receive this message and be redirected to the new site.

Ohio's statewide job matching system has been developed into a more comprehensive tool found at OhioMeansJobs.com. If you are not automatically forwarded to the new site in the next few moments, click on the following link https://ohiomeansjobs.com, or copy and paste it in the address box of your web browser.

I mention SCOTI because you may hear it referred to and I want to let you know what its about.

The SCOTI replacement is https://ohiomeansjobs.com/omj/. Some Career Counselors will tell you to ignore SCOTI, this isn't good advice, if you hear a reference to SCOTI, just know that it has been replaced by OMJ and go there.

I have a newer post that delves into OMJ in detail.

Labor Info

There are two web sites used by Employment Connection in their career planning.

http://www.lmi.state.oh.us/
http://online.onetcenter.org/

Information on this is used by your Career Coach. I have incomplete info on this and I'll update this post as I figure it out.

Status: Rough Draft

Help

Here are some important links for the newly unemployed...

First Call for help here.  Need new Link

The Career Center Survival Guide here.

A west side web page has a handy list here.

The first day of the Career Workshop contains very good info. This may be available online under the Employment Connection Tools (first square, see previous post).

Do you know of others? Please comment here and share them.

Employment Connection Online

The main Employment Connection Web site is: http://www.employmentconnection.us/
On this page Click Jobs (upper left).

On the job seeker page you will find two squares.

First square - Employment Connection online

When you click on this square you will go to http://empyraoneflow.com/cuyahoga/
From this page you will be asked to Login or Register Now
When you register it will ask for your name, address, phone, and to select a userid & password
Be sure to click "Print/Email Login Info" as proof that you are registered.
This does not appear to work in the Firefox browser, if you use Firefox, you can login in on Internet Explorer, update preferences and then Print Email Login Info.
You will then go through a "Pre Orientation Screen" that will end up at a Main Menu that has:

• Interactive workshops/Sessions for you to complete
• Completed documents you may want to view/print
• My Recommendations
• My Documents
• My Preferences

Even though you justed Registered (not to be confused with Enrolled to be covered next), you should go to the bottom and Update your preferences to add a few more details on your phone numbers and where to leave messages and your email which was not requested when you first registered but is important. You will be required to answer "How did you hear about us?" again, leaving it blank will give you an error.

My Documents allows you to upload files to Employment Connection, presumably for them to view. This does not seem to be working well under Firefox. My intent is to upload background info on myself (how I became unemployed and the barriers to employment I have run into), my current resume, and a general cover letter.

This facility has a timeout, so be sure to login from a high speed link and stay focused on the updates you are doing.

Second square - Enroll

When you click on this square you will go to http://www.ccrsc.net/enroll.asp

This site asks your name and phone number, it does not have a userid or password.

Click Next and it shows a list of classes and allows you to enroll. Under Firefox it seemed to only display the first page of workshops and giving no way to navigate to the later pages.

Be aware that there are many complaints on people enrolling then the info disappears and the client can't see what they just enrolled in, and if they print it first, then even if they do print it, then when you show up for the enrolled class, they have no record of it. This may be partly do to paper sign up sheets that are maintained.

Click on jobseeker in the upper banner strip to go here
http://employmentconnection.us/en-US/jobseeker.aspx
for an overview of Employment Connection Services

Employment Connection Services include:

• Self-Directed Services
• Orientation
• Job Search and Placement Assistance
• Workshops
• Training

Go here to get the Workshop schedule...

Click on the hyperlink "Employment Connection Quarterly Calendar"

for Fall 2008 click here.
for Winter 2009 click here.





Click Employment Events to see important hiring opportunities here
http://www.employmentconnection.us/en-US/Employment-Events.aspx

Don't rely on the events list being complete, the very significant and well run jobfair at Cleveland State University was not listed, while the jobfair at Lakeland, a smaller college, fewer employers, in a neighboring county is listed.

Career Center

I'd supplement this list with the Career Center at the Maple Hts library branch. The Career Center has a large collection of books and has a large set of handouts and announcements. I haven't found these online yet, but their site http://www.cuyahogalibrary.org/careerexpert.aspx includes other very useful information and workshops that are an alternative or supplement to those offered by Employment Connection.

Retro Web site

Wow, I had to do a double take. I was going through the large variety of web sites surrounding our local unemployment office. The United Labor Agency (ULA) runs the Employment Connection program.

When I first visited the ULA web site http://www.ula-ohio.org/ and navigated through its upper menu bar, I noticed that more than half was a placeholder and referred back to the home page. I looked at the source HTML code and noticed a bunch of updates in 2007.

I commented to a few ULA employees, partly in jest, but also somewhat serious, "Hey ya need some help on that web site, I'm unemployed, I could use the work".

So when I just looked at the site again tonight as I was trying to navigate their web site maze, I thought, "Oh, they heard me the site looks completely different". Then I noticed the Labor Day announcement. Hmm, in Oct 2008 the site was 2007, if they updated it in Nov 2008, why would they announce a labor day event. Well just a little more looking and I notice a © 2004.

What!!! They rolled out the 2007 web site in favor for the 2004 site. At least the header banner goes to real pages instead of all pointing to the home page like the 2007 site, but wouldn't it be nice to remove 4 year old announcements?

ULA, contact me, please. I need the work, and you sure need the help! Are you paying for your web maintenance? I'll beat their price and their service.

2012 Update:  Well it looks like this obsolete website is now offline, the domain is still used to email employees at the Employment Connection, but won't load as a website.  One would think that an organization this big that has a contract with the state of Ohio would have a functioning web site.

Yikes, LinkedIn Security Hole

I was at the library and logged into my LinkedIn Profile. Someone closed by browser and I went back to my public profile and clicked sign in. I was surprised it went straight to my edit profile without asking me to sign in!

Hmmm, not nice. I will check with the LinkedIn people and try to post some kind of solution here.

In the mean time I did this. I clicked Tools, delete browser history, and then deleted cookies and passwords. I closed the browser, went back in, and it "forgot" my password and asked it form me again.

Jeez, be vigilant at public terminals.

Employment Connection

Our Unemployment Office in Cleveland, Ohio is called Employment Connection.

These specifics only directly bear on people in the Northeast Ohio area . For other's who came here from the net, this post will be a basis for you to ask questions of your own Unemployment Office.

Resource Center

This gives you access to computers, printer, fax, and phone. At my center there isn't a copier which is inconvenient, nor do they have wireless or Internet jacks for laptops. The job postings are what the local person thinks will be of interest, it in no way is comprehensive. More can be done with your own job search profiles.

To get access to the resources of the center you will need to register, attend a two day orientation and a four day workshop. Then you will be allowed to schedule a meeting with a career coach (on their business card, called a "case manager" by some of the staff).

Orientation

The first day they breeze very quickly through the programs. You will be lucky to keep up. The second day is TABE testing which will determine what workshops may be required of you before you can access some of the services. See my other post on this test.

Career Workshop

The four day workshop covers the following topics

1. Stress and Preparing for the Job Search
2. Skills/Accomplishments
   Skills Review, 30 sec commercial, Skills Talk, Star Stories
   
3. Job Market Skills
   LMI/Onet, Resumes, Cover Letter, Interview
4. Self Marketing/Networking
   Professional Dress, Building Skills
   

xx

Initial Career Coach Meeting

After completing the workshop, you should gather the following things to bring with you for the initial meeting.

• Completed "Guide to Employment" or "Power Packet" from the Career Workshop
  
• Idea of any job retraining you may need
• Resume
• Cover Letter

If you can't show that you have a decent resume and cover letter than you may be required to attend these two workshops too. There are a variety of related workshops in this area. You should review them and your current resume and cover letter so you can discuss the relative advantages of which workshops would be most beneficial.

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Status: Rough Draft - Last Updated 12/07/08 9 PM
Will be actively updating as I go through this program

Business Cards

You never know when you will have a networking opportunity and you want to be ready. The business card is the easiest way to deal with that. I print up business cards with the "Label" function of Microsoft Word to address several audiences.

Having a long career should be a benefit, but in reality it scares people away. "Oh gosh you are so experienced we don't have a job like that, you wouldn't be happy." Somehow the idea of going broke waiting for the perfect job turns 0ut to be a pretty unhappy experience too, but they don't always understand that. So I have become adept at the "dumbing down" process, something that is in stark contrast to someone who is fresh out of school and needs to "dream up" experience.

I carry four Business Cards...

Full Credentials

If I am meeting with someone and can risk putting forth my full credentials, then I have a business card with all of them. Name, contact, LinkedIn URL, and "Actively seeking..." on the front, major skills on the back.

Professional Job

Like the previous card but no LinkedIn URL (because it has most of my resume) and none of my niche major skills on the back. This way I don't get a rejection because they don't have a need for those niche skills.

Need a Job

Very basic, Name, Contact.

Blank

Sometimes you need to give someone info that's not on your card, or maybe you want some info from them and would rather not have it scribbled on a napkin that could get tossed by mistake. This is when you just take a page of business card stock, separate it into 10 blank cards and keep a few in your wallet.

What works best for you, well you decide. But one size doesn't fit all and targeting is the name of the game. So you decide.

Status: First Draft

Employment Testing

Our version of the Unemployment Office has several other programs that provide a job coach, a worker retraining program, etc. One of the early things they do is Employment Testing aimed at determining whether you can function at least at an eighth grade level. The idea is, you may have a diploma, and you either got pushed out of school or you forgot it all. The test isn't hard, but if you've been out of school for a few decades it may test you on some things you used to know very well, but haven't needed to use regularly and forgot. The following info is what our Unemployment Office uses, other employers or programs probably do something similar.


The following excerpt is from this site: http://www.studyguidezone.com/tabetest.htm

TABE Test

The Test for Adult Basic Education (TABE) is a diagnostic test used to determine a person's skill levels and aptitudes. Many companies use in hiring, promotions, or for selecting employees for training programs for skilled positions. The TABE test is also used by public service agencies who are guiding people into adult education programs, such as getting a GED, or going to trade school, etc.

It tests skills and aptitudes in reading, math, and English, as you'll apply them in the workforce or classroom. Although there's really no such thing as passing or failing the TABE test, your score can determine your eligibility for many programs that can have a positive effect on your life situation, and a huge impact on your future income. It's important to be prepared for the test. You'll make arrangements to take the test through the school or agency that's requiring it. It takes about an hour and a half to complete. In the reading portion, you'll be tested on your vocabulary and reading comprehension. The English portion will test for spelling, punctuation, grammar, sentence and paragraph structure, etc. The math section doesn't involve much complex math-there are some question on pre-algebra, but mostly it's about basic math, and understanding fractions, percentages, and the decimal system. If you're being required to take the TABE, it's probably because you're trying to improve your life in some manner. Doing well on the test can mean the difference between where you are now and a much brighter future.

Our Unemployment Office skips the English Language section on spelling, punctuation, grammar, sentence and paragraph structure, etc Although its not a bad thing to look at for general self improvement reasons or in case someone else decides to test you on this.

This site had the link to the best TABE study guide I found here: http://www.studyguidezone.com/pdfs/tabeteststudyguide.pdf

It also has sample questions here: http://www.testprepreview.com/tabe_practice.htm
And if you need to refresh your memory, here are links to help here: http://www.testprepreview.com/tabelinks.htm

A little preparation can go a long way...

LinkedIn Tip

There is an easy way to make your LinkedIn profile more memorable to the people you give it too. You can use a name rather than the set of numbers linked in provides by default.

When you define your LinkedIn profile it can be one of two formats. By default it is in the first format containing numbers. But you can edit your profile and select a public profile name that is more meaningful and memorable like the second name that is listed.

www.linkedin.com/pub/nn/nnn
www.linkedin.com/in/name

What do you want to see

Please comment on this post or email me here and tell me what you'd like to see.

As a 30 year career professional I have an ability to analyize computer services, find subtle features and describe how these features may be of benefit to the consumer. I hope to take a close look at some computer related issues to the job search and write articles here.

Blog vs Discussion

I will discuss the capabilities between Blogs and Discussions. As with anything, each has its pros and cons.

Group Features

Many people in the CCPL have LinkedIn and are interesting in extending their capabilities further by using a Group Function.

As it stands now LinkedIn only provides a discussion forum. Other group facilities offer more, like file hosting calendar, etc. Jim is concerned about maintenance activities. Because of spamming abuse all Group features strongly suggest or even require an administrator to approve each member. This isn't difficult but it does require some time sensitive response. LinkedIn, being a professional forum is less likely to be abused by spammers so the maintenance needed should be minimized by not dealing with spammers that would be found on other more general and popular services.

Ken has defined a CCPL Job Club group and I have asked to join and am awaiting his approval. In the mean time I have defined a CCPL Test group so I can test the group functions of LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Group Capabilities

LinkedIn is not attempting to be a major force in Group Services, it offers only a basic discussion forum. LinkedIn does not show email addresses unless you are connected to the other member. By joining a group, you can send a broadcast email to all other group members even if they are not connected to you. Each group member has the choice of how often they receive notification of new discussions.

To join a group, select Groups from your LinkedIn sidebar menu, click Find Group and type in the name (CCPL) and click Search. Click Join Group. The Group administrator must logon to the group on a regular basis and approve member requests. Once approved, the members can post discussions at anytime with no further action be the administrator.

It appears that the owner of the group can be changed and that the members can be promoted to administrators. Using the last feature, Jim could name an active regular member as administrator and that person could offload the approval process from Jim.

Other Group Services

Major Web Service providers (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft) have a Group capability that is more full functioned then LinkedIn's basic features. How much use the features would be is uncertain. I will review these extra features here in the coming days and would like your feedback.

Yahoo

Yahoo remains one of the most feature rich Group services. If you are a member of CVJS you have seen an example of their features. Yahoo offers the discussion service that LinkedIn does and so much more...

Files - allows files to be stored for the members to access. CVJS has many helpful files.

Photos - allows photo albums

Database - allows simple database tables to be defined. Another way to accomplish this would be to build a Word table or Excel data table and store it in the files section. But the user would have to have Office to update it or Office Viewers to view it. This feature is a simpler way to view and update simple database tables.

Polls - Allows a convenient way to solicit opinions from the group members.

Calendar - Allows a way to post events on a calendar for the group.

Google

I have used a google group to supplement this blog. I chose google because with one sign on I could update both web sites. Google isn't as functional as Yahoo, but it does offer some improvements over LinkedIn Discussions. Google offers the standard Discussion feature and...

Pages - This allows you to actually host web site pages in the group. It doesn't offer much in the way of helping build the pages, so to take advantage of rich content you will need to build the content in HTML and paste it into the Edit HTML editor. You could use a full featured editor like KompoZer (NVU follow-on) or a simpler editor like PSPad to help build the HTML.

Files - This is a very useful group feature that allows files to be stored for group members.

Microsoft

Microsoft is in a transition as it relates to its group offering. The long standing, MSN Groups will be shutdown in Feb 2009. They are offering a smooth transition to Multiply.com which does not offer file storage. They are also enhancing their Windows LIVE spaces and groups offering. As of Jan 2009 major layoffs were announced at Microsoft so its unclear how these areas will develop.

Status: Second Draft - Major Revision 01/06/09

Label Explanations

I will define the label use here in the future....

Admin

• BlogAnn - Announcements about Blog content or structure
• Dated - Older material that may be obsolete
• Legal - Legal / copyright info related to Blog
• ToBeUpdated - Blog posts that will be updated
• UnCat - uncategorized content
• Updating - content is being updated
• Upyymm - Content updated in the month yymm

Content

• EmpConn - Employment Connection, the local Unemployment Agency in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland Metro) in Ohio.
• Interview - Related to interviewing
• JobSearch - Related to looking for a job
• Links - Useful Web Links
• Local - Issues local to Cuyahoga County (Cleveland Metro) in Ohio.
• Networking - People/Job search networking
• Resume - Related to resumes
• Technology - Any technology issues
• Tips - Job Search Tips
• Web - Related to online issues

Welcome

This blog was setup to assist a local Job Seeker group, but membership is not limited and others are free to join discussions if they find the info valuable.

If others in the local area are interested in contributing posts to this blog, please contact me to discuss being added as a contributor team member. Everyone is free to comment. For followup discussion, please comment with a name rather than anonymous.

Status: First Draft