This week I want to talk about you realizing your career goals – and also in the bigger context of you achieving your “goals behind the goals.” Those goals for happiness, love, and contentment that we know we all want. 

In this post, I want to look at what the path of someone who's successful looks like, and the path of someone who's not successful, looks like.

And I want to compare those two – with reference to the job hunt – and show you how no matter where you are on that path, you can put your finger on where you are and then make a shift if you need to or move straight ahead. 

So I want to actually jump into one of my LinkedIn messages and share the story of one job hunt with you because what this individual is writing about is universal, and we all experience it, and you can learn immediately from it. 

And if you're not interacting with me, one-on-one through chat, I recommend you do, because you can get some really helpful advice...

Let’s talk about creating a crazy effective professional summary for your resume! 

The first thing I want to do is to start off by saying that you do need to have a professional summary for your resume. You need to have it there - it needs to be prominent and on the top.

If you don't have a professional summary, you are basically not going to succeed in your job. Sounds controversial, but essentially this is the truth because we want to talk about what a professional summary means and what it implies by having one.

Essentially, by having a professional summary, you are making a statement about how you help solve a particular kind of problem. A crazy effective professional summary will do that, whereas ones that are less effective are saying something very general or what you're looking to have and what kind of a job you want, those are less successful as professional summaries.

To start things off, we want to talk about the essential aspect of having a professional...

Salary negotiation is scary.

But there’s a major reason why you need to push past the fear.

It’s called the law of compound interest. This refers to the ability of an asset to generate earnings that are then reinvested or remain invested with the goal of generating their own earnings. In other words, compounding refers to generating earnings from previous earnings.

Einstein called this the “8th wonder of the world”.

Now, let’s look at an example of why this is important:

Pam and Sam are starting at a new investment banking company in the same job position.

Pam negotiates her salary and ends up making $ 65,000 / year.

Sam doesn’t negotiate his salary and ends up making $ 59,000 / year.

After 5 years, Pam has made $ 325,000 and Sam $ 295,000.

That’s a $ 30,000 difference in 5 years and a $ 6,000 difference — per YEAR!

And that’s just the simple subtraction.

If we take the total sum of earnings over that 20 year period, by playing...

Can you turn a rejection into a job offer? 

Yes! 

How? By staying in touch. 

How do you stay in touch? It can be as simple as an update on your job hunt progress to the hiring manager who rejected you. 

The main place to begin this work is not in how to craft an update note, however. 

The main place to start is not taking any rejection as a rejection of YOU. 

People often view rejections as the end of a transaction with a company. A rejection of the whole person. This is the same thing as saying “your ego got in the way and screwed things up.”

An interview gives you the chance to get in front of someone and create a connection.

If you completely cut ties with those people, you lose all of the progress you made!

Instead, add those people to your network. Send them regular updates. 

Working to stay in touch, keeping them in your network: these actions lead to future opportunities.

Have questions about networking techniques?

Message me :)...

Networking is awful and doesn’t work!

This is how it feels, and that is the conclusion - for most people.

Online applications don’t seem to work either, so the only option is to go to grad school.

Is that how you’re feeling?

When done well, networking is no different than generating interviews on demand. That’s how we treat it among members of my Career Accelerator program. The result is that we are generating interviews on-demand.

Have questions about networking?

Shoot me a message and let’s chat!

Persistence is a force you can cultivate and use to win offers. It’s a stand-alone asset that exists apart from your GPA, qualifications, school rank, or past experience. You can add this to your job hunt toolkit at any time.

I can’t stress enough the importance of following up after interviews.

There are many ways for you to stand out from the pool of job seekers out there - and following up is one of them.

Your ability to follow up shows organizational skills, integrity, and interest.

“Have a plan or become part of someone else’s plan”. Heard this one before?

Here’s an example DIY job hunting plan you can consult:

1. Focus on firms you love—Not just job postings. Build this list and track your outreach from this list.

2. Consult 20-30 junior hires doing the exact function you wish to have. Reach out over LinkedIn and set up calls to do this. Ask them all of your “dumb questions”.  -- (Assuming your data is “normal”, it does take 30 data points to reach statistical significance ^^)

Become more than a resume to company leaders. People hire people, not your resume. Network!

Don’t judge yourself. Focus on process. Continue to refine your process so that you’re doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t.

Want to ace interviews? Do this much:

Dial-in your mindset:

1. Interviews are a form of stage performance. It’s not about you, but how you play the role.
2. There are no perfect candidates. The firm feels you have what it takes to do the job. Let go of stress.

Learn your part:

1. Get into character: Absorb youtube videos, podcasts about this role and the industry.
2.Type out, then speak out responses to behavioral and technical questions. Be natural, not memorized.
3.Brand yourself as a problem-solver, not a job-wanter.

Know your audience:

1. Emphasize what they care about, not what you can get out of this role. Share examples of you getting results of any kind, ideally, the kind sought after in this role.
2. Your questions may make all the difference. Ask questions that reflect research.

Mock interview with an expert

1. Get feedback on the standard interview questions.
2. Tighten up your responses so they reflect short answers, incorporate results with numbers, and flush out...

Would you hire you? No one wants to hire a worker that doesn’t believe in themselves!

Yet, you can’t control feelings. And if you’re like me and most people, there’s a non-stop flow of thoughts and feelings that come in uninvited and attack.

It’s feelings first - they come and go, and, if left unattended, or indulged, lead to thinking. And then there’s the thinking that leads to more thinking until you’ve spun the entire story of how you’ll never get a job.

This is why it’s important to nurture mindfulness in the job hunt: there are thoughts and there are feelings. And while we can’t control the feelings from visiting or the content of thought, we can learn to observe both.

Once observed, we can selectively choose which to let go (the unwholesome “I can’t”s) and which to cultivate (the uplifting “I can”s).

You could say, “I’m terrible at networking,” or you could say,...

Here are seven mistakes international students do when they try to secure a job in the US:

1. Planning to graduate, but not beyond that

2. Getting caught in the label, “international student”

3. Confusing certifications and more tests with job hunting

4. Expecting campus competitions to open doors

5. Not choosing a focus (decide who you want to serve and how!)

6. Not following up on job applications (persistence is a positive)

7. Obsessing over resumes (no one hires a resume).

The good news is that you can do something about it!

I was a student in exactly the same situation.

Some parts I loved - Some parts such as my terrible first attempt at the job hunt I'd prefer not to repeat!

What insights about jobs, career, or the market would be the most helpful to you?