Twentysomething: Video resumes are a short-term fad

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By Ryan Healy – Video resumes are the hot new topic in recruiting these days. It seems that everyone has an opinion. And job listing sites like CareerBuilder have even launched video resume services.

At first glance a video resume seems like a natural step in the recruiting process. But here are five reasons why video resumes will be a short-term fad:

1. Looking good on camera is a learned skill
Professional newscasters, anchors, and reporters, go to school for years to learn how best to present themselves on camera. Others of us have never practiced. We don’t know how to sit, we don’t know what to wear, we don’t know where to look, and nobody has taught us how to appear relaxed.

As I recently found out in a brief media training session, there are actually people who teach you all of these things before an on air interview. And, I can promise, they are not cheap! If video resumes become the norm, colleges will be forced to create semester long classes on how to present yourself on camera, and those of us out of school will need to hire personal media trainers just to get a job. For most people these are totally unnecessary expenses.

2. Written communication is more important
The majority of my co-worker interaction takes place via email or instant messenger. This is true for most large technologically advanced companies, and the trend is only going to continue. Phone calls are a rarity and face to face meetings are even rarer. Having face-to-face people skills is important when selling or giving live presentations, but in general, written communication is much more critical.

More and more companies are finding a wide range of benefits to promoting remote work arrangements. These new ways of working lead to decreased one-on-one communication and increased written communication. Occasionally I will receive an email with misspellings or terrible punctuation, and this typically makes me think the person is not up for the job or just plain lazy. So ditch the camera and create a blog to show recruiters what you’re all about.

3. Most jobs never require you to be on camera
How many jobs actually require you to be on camera? I can’t think of more than a handful. Unless you are a media professional, public relations expert or high-level figure in a large organization you will not be on camera. Even if you are in one of these positions, you better believe you will be professionally trained for hours before going on camera.

Further, lets face it, we are all different. Some of us are a little shy, some might panic alone in front of a camera, and some are energetic, charming and charismatic. These traits don’t necessarily have any bearing on how well we will perform our jobs as a desk jockey. If the average person will never be on camera during their career, why does it matter how they appear in a video?

4. Video resumes will lead to discrimination lawsuits
Most recruiters spend less than a minute looking at a resume. When receiving a typical paper resume, that one minute will be spent actually reading the words on the page and judging an applicant based on skills, prior experiences and education. If a recruiter spends less than a minute watching a video of a potential candidate, it will be impossible not to notice if the person is white, black, Hispanic, Indian or anything in between.

Whether they want to or not, this brief first impression will play a role in deciding whether or not to pursue a candidate. “Just don’t even deal with them,” says Dennis Brown, an attorney from San Jose, Calif. “This is one of those instances where a little bit of unnecessary knowledge is dangerous,” Rightfully so or not, somewhere along the way, video resumes will turn into a discrimination suit that recruiters and companies want nothing to do with.

5. You can see all my pictures on Facebook
If the real issue is that recruiters want to see pictures of their candidates, all they need to do is jump on Facebook or Myspace. Type in the candidate’s name and check out all the pictures you would like. I highly doubt that recruiters have the time or desire to stalk recruits on Facebook, but if it’s really important, you don’t need a video resume to get a sneak peak.

It’s the 21st century; the fact that we even consider a video resume to be the future of recruiting is almost laughable. It didn’t work in the ’90s, and now the success of YouTube has brought it into the public eye, but I’m sure we can get more creative if we try!

Ryan Healy’s blog is Employee Evolution.

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To find your best next job, focus on the company not the job

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When you are trying to figure out your next career move, the company match is more important than job match. This is because the people who are happiest at work are doing what they do best, every day.

You can be a janitor and use your strengths, and you can be an associate at one of the very best law firms and not use your strengths. This is not about your IQ, it’s about your core personality, and matching the needs of your core personality to a company’s needs. “Don’t use past skills to get a future job” says, positive psychologist Senia Maymin. “Use your strengths. A job should be more about what excites you and less about what you’ve done”

This is good advice, but it requires having a solid understanding of yourself and of what companies have to offer.

A book I’ve been waiting all year for is Recruit or Die by Chris Resto, Ian Ybarra and Ramit Sethi. This book tells companies how to recruit young talent. (The first thing I like about this book is that now we can stop arguing about if employees hold the stronger hand in the recruiting process. They do. And every time people tell me that I’m nuts for saying that employees are forcing corporate America to change, I can just point to this book.)

Recruit or Die explains that the companies who get the best employees year after year do so by selling themselves more than selling the job, and the recruiting process is a time to show the candidate who the company is. When there are tons of candidates for every job, only top-tier firms do this. In a market like today, where workers are in high demand, any company that will survive has to do it.

As a candidate, this book is a peek into the secret world of your suitors. You should understand the range of ways that forward-thinking companies recruit so you know how to judge the company you’re talking to. This will help you to match your strengths properly with a company’s.

One of the most important things to notice in the recruiting process is that the best companies don’t use money as a recruiting tool. It’s not that they think you don’t care about money. But they know they cannot differentiate themselves with money. Because you probably have a lot of friends who make the same amount of money you do; your pay range is not going to make you feel significantly different about your life because the happiness that money brings you is always relative to the people around you.

Recruit or Die is also gives us a good way to understand career possibilities. For example, the book recommends that companies do things like send you a congratulatory card or gift basket when you finally take the job. This is small, yes, but it sets the tone for gratitude going forward – and a culture of gratitude can almost single-handedly make a great work experience.

So how do you get to know your strengths? Here are two tests to take – either one will tell you your strengths and each takes about 30 minutes: Signature Strengths Questionnaire and Gallup StrengthsFinder .

And how do you figure out what company is a good match for you? You know how you go on dating sites and before you answer any ads, you read a bunch to see what the possibilities are? Use Recruit or Die like Match.com and get educated on what the market has to offer before you offer yourself.

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In today’s workplace, young job seekers hold the advantage

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Companies are having a hard time recruiting and retaining young talent, and as a result are accommodating what would have once been considered extreme demands. “The scales have tipped in favor of knowledge workers, creating a seller’s market for the next 5 to 10 years,” writes to Stan Smith, National Director of Next Generation Initiatives at Deloitte.

Here are some reasons why so many younger workers have gained the advantage when it comes to negotiating the terms of a new job.

The workforce is shrinking.
The Department of Labor reports that from 2000 to 2010 there will be a 30 percent decrease of workers in their 30s and 40s. In addition, many Generation X parents are choosing to leave the workforce or cut back on hours in order to be home with their children. This trend is so pronounced that it’s creating a shortage of managers already.

Many young people want their own businesses.
The barriers to starting an Internet business are low. Viral marketing via a personal e-mail list and a few key mentions on prominent blogs can potentially catapult a good idea into a successful business. Since young people can effectively fund their own companies this way, many do not want to pay their dues by working for someone else and learning the ropes. The flexibility of owning a company is not only appealing, but also a way to avoid menial labor at the bottom of the corporate ladder. In fact, many young people are choosing the excitement of entrepreneurship over the stability of a good salary.

If entrepreneurship is the first choice, a corporate job is a backup plan. Matt Humphrey, 20, and three friends just founded SlapVid, a company that cuts the cost of providing video content online. Humphrey thinks of the MBA program he is now in as sort of a backup plan in case SlapVid does not take off at the end of the summer. And in the event that he does not have another idea for a company before he graduates, getting a job at someone else’s company is a second-level backup plan.

Parents are a safety net.
More than 50 percent of college graduates will move back home with their parents this summer. And most parents will like it. It used to be that returning home after college was seen as a sign of failure. Today, however, economists and sociologists see such homecomings as a smart response to exorbitant housing prices in big cities, and entry-level wages that do not cover living expenses.

Three out of four of the founders of SlapVid are getting financial help from their parents. And Humphrey’s parents are typical in their enthusiasm for their child’s adventure, and the tight relationship they share. “They know they might have to support me for longer than they planned for,” Humphrey said. “They’re definitely up for that. If I want to do something really, really cool, they’ll support me all the way. They call me every day to see how I’m doing.”

With such parental support, there is no need for a company to play the parenting role, which is what happened when baby boomers entered the workforce. And if there is no paternalism in corporate life, it becomes a scramble to figure out what businesses can leverage to scoop up young employees.

The intimidation factor is diminished.
“People going to college today are working harder than I ever did in school,” says Bill MacGowan, chief human resources officer of Sun Microsystems. “These kids will find work easier than I did.” In return for their effort, they expect to be well compensated by employers. As consummate consumers, they use technology to customize the way they view information, and they expect the same kind of customization when it comes to selecting jobs. They negotiate for vacation time, mentoring and training, flexible schedules, and even tricked-out laptops.

And when it comes to negotiating, young people assume the adults at the office are on their side. Generation Y has been raised by parents who often acted more like friends and mentors. In fact, often a wide community was involved in helping a Generation Y child succeed — including teachers, coaches, and private tutors. As a result, young people bring unprecedented confidence to the negotiating table. Some even have their parents in the room for added help, and many respected companies are willing to engage parents in the hiring process if that’s what the candidate wants.

Indeed, the scales have tipped and young people are in charge. For people who have been in the workforce for a long time and expected to be in charge, the new reality is difficult to accept. But it’s possible all employees will benefit from some of the changes. After all, demands such as more flexible schedules, are appealing to all employees, regardless of age.

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Three job hunt questions I get asked a lot

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Is it okay to look for a new job while I’m at my current job?

Yes. You have to be able to look for a job while you have a job or it’s indentured servitude. Most people in their twenties change jobs every two years. At any given moment 70% of the workforce is job hunting, which surely means that 99% of the workforce under 30 is job hunting. So looking for a job at your current job is totally normal.

You do not need to tell the company you’re interviewing at to not say anything. It is common courtesy to not say anything to a candidate’s current employer. If it’s a small town and there’s nothing you can do, well, then, there’s nothing you can do. If someone asks you at your work if you’re looking you can say, “I’m always looking. Isn’t everyone?”

You should not make yourself look sneaky or paranoid. It’s not good for you.

What should I do if no one responds to my followup calls and emails after an interview?

If you are writing to the person who is in charge of moving you to the next step, and he doesn’t respond, there’s not a lot you can do. If there is another person who might be able to move you to the next step, try following up with that person. Or, if there’s someone there you interviewed with who really liked you, you could try that route. But only one more email – you don’t want to be a stalker. Also, did you get the interview with a connection? Ask that person who helped you get the interview to inquire how things went, in a way that might keep you in the running.

Things to consider:

1. They might just be slow and you are still in the running and you don’t want to be annoying and take yourself out of the running.

2. If they are not talking to you they might not want to hire you and that’s okay. If you are right for this kind of job, with persistence you will get one, somewhere. If you’re not right for this kind of job, the world has a way of telling you in a nice way that prevents you from going down a bad career path: not hiring you.

2. There are other jobs for you. This is not the only job in the world for you. If you find other jobs to apply to you will be less invested in this one. Not helpful advice for getting this job, I know, but helpful advice for maintaining your sanity. You will have many many job hunts in your life. It’s important to develop the mental skills to do interviews for job you want without losing sleep over did you get it.

What do I need to disclose in an interview if I’m pregnant?

Women should disclose a lot less than they do.

1. Try to interview before the second trimester. It’s a lot easier to interview if you’re not showing. And if you’re not showing, don’t tell. Think of it this way. A man interviewing for a job does not tell the interviewer that his wife just threw him out of the house and he’s probably going to have to take time off of work to move and deal with the divorce. He gets the job and then deals with his personal life however he wants.

2. You do not need to say that you are considering maternity leave. When you have the baby you can say you changed your mind. There is no law that says you have to be certain how you feel about having a baby. There is no law that says you have to reveal everything you are thinking about this very personal topic. Also, even if you think you want to take maternity leave, you never know how you’ll feel when you actually have the baby. Some women want to go back to work. So in the interview, saying you have no firm plans for maternity leave would be a truthful answer if you are leaving doors open for yourself.

3. Interview to get the best possible work you can. Don’t worry about your upcoming departure. You are not under moral obligation to accept only projects that will end before the baby comes. CEOs leave jobs all the time, right in the middle of projects. The world goes on, and people do not bring up morality tales. Your company will be fine if you leave in the middle of a big project. It’s good to get that project on your resume.

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Twentysomething: Raunchy old photos will be part of the revolution

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By Ryan Healy – During my senior year at Penn State, the Nittany Lions knocked off the highly (over) rated Ohio State Buckeyes. It was one of the best football games of my college years. A mob of students rushed down the bleachers, the field became a flood of blue and white.

But unfortunately, rushing the field is not a Big Ten-acceptable activity. So the other guys in blue, the police, started an investigation using Facebook to identify suspects.

I guess if you’re going to perform illegal acts, Facebook, MySpace and other online networks that incorporate photographs are probably not for you. But as we leave our crazy college years behind and enter the workforce, should we really have to worry what recruiters think of our social lives?

I have a MySpace page and a Facebook profile. I have hundreds of pictures on each site that show me in both professional and not-so-professional settings. I could remove their embarrassing or “incriminating” pictures to save some face in the real world. Or I could replace them with photos from an old photo restoration service. I have never considered either option.

Social networking sites are blurring the lines between personal and professional life. There is no reason these lines should not be blurred. Most young people lead very healthy social lives, and because of these websites much of our social lives are online. When you live your personal/social life online there is no escaping who you are and what you do. It may be scary to people not accustomed to the openness of the Internet, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s a refreshing. Why should I pretend to be one person for eight hours a day and someone else entirely for the rest?

It’s absurd to pretend that everyone at work is a saint. It’s just not true. What’s the big deal if our bosses know what we did on Saturday night or what we did in college for that matter?

The whole idea of our lives being available for public display is actually pretty cool. Think about it. If the world already knows what we do in our spare time and we are all able to be completely open about our interests, thoughts and ideas without fear of retribution or not being hired then we can bring our whole being to work everyday.

Of course, if you’re idea of a good time is extremely sick and twisted then you may want to consider keeping things a secret. Better yet, you may want to figure out some better things to do in your spare time to avoid a prison sentence. But for most of us who like to have a little innocent fun, there is no reason to play the Jekyll-and-Hyde role.

Jason Warner, head of staffing at Google writes, “Today there is a fuzzy, but growing distinction that companies will continue to draw between candidate professional experiences, competencies, and capabilities and their private lives and outside behaviors. It’s a line we don’t likely want to cross, because if we cross it for candidates, we may cross it for employees, and that compounds the problem.”

The more young people enter the workforce the less risk there is that someone will Google them to look for bad behavior. Human resources leaders don’t have the time to sleuth. But also, there just aren’t enough perfect little angels in the world to go around.

I urge everyone: Let’s leave all of our pictures up on whatever social networking sites we use. What we do on the weekends is just as much apart of our lives as our day jobs. Don’t be afraid of your boss seeing a risque photo of you and don’t be afraid to talk a little business at the bar. The sooner we get past this personal and professional juggling act, the sooner we can see real change in the workplace.

Ryan Healy’s blog is Employee Evolution.

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Helicopter parents challenge our assumptions about rank and class

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I loved Ryan’s post about helicopter parents because, like many changes generation Y brings to the workplace, helicopter parents force me to see how much the dynamics of the workplace have changed and how what’s appropriate at work today is different than what was appropriate only two or three years ago.

The hardest parts about writing about generation Y is seeing all the benefits they have that I didn’t have. As a member of generation X, I graduated from college into such a bad market that we invented the word McJob. Now we never use that word because there is no reason for a young person to take a bad job –the job market for young people is better than it has ever been, maybe in the history of jobs.

This means that young people are in a position to negotiate for non-salaried benefits that would have been unthinkable to young people in other generations — extra vacation, tuition reimbursements, telecommuting. In earlier generations, if young people negotiated hard in entry level jobs, they would have been shown the door. Today, companies are so desperate to keep top young talent that almost anything is open for negotiation.

I know from my own experience that senior executives regularly use lawyers to negotiate their pay packages because non-salary perks are so difficult to negotiate. On top of that, if you use a lawyer to negotiate then you avoid starting out your job in a contentious way with your future co-workers. Today young people need this same benefit because they also are negotiating for a wide range of non-salary perks.

Young people can’t afford lawyers, and would, under other circumstances have to have a contentious negotiation over non-salary perks before starting work. But with parents providing a negotiating agent for the lower ranks, the workplace is more fair, less rankist, and that should make everyone happy.

Additionally, the fact that parents are meddling in interviews also strikes me as not so bad. (And, by the way, I am not alone — many companies, and colleges, allow this to go on without holding it against the candidate.)

The very rich, very well connected people have been shepherding their kids through their first jobs forever. The dad calls his friend and his friend calls a friend and one friend does the coaching and the other friend does the hiring and then it starts all over again. With a golf game or two thrown in.

The not-as-very-rich (but still rich) hire branding consultants who specialize in recent grads, and the consultants do practice interviews for five or ten hours at $200 an hour.

Helicopter parents simply bring these rich-kid practices out into the open and into the ranks of the middle class. Seems like a great turn of events to me.

When rich kids get benefits from their parents stepping in and getting things for them in adult life, we never complain about independence. We complain about other things, like unfair benefits of being rich. But, for example, when Donald Trump hired his daughter Ivanka Trump (without even making her attempt an interview!) I don’t remember uproar over independence.

So maybe a closer look at the hoop-la over helicopter parents reveals simmering rankism and classism issues underneath.

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Twentysomething: In praise of the helicopter parent

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By Ryan Healy — Recently, I have seen a slew of articles about helicopter parents. Parents of millennials are becoming very involved in the job search process. These parents feel they have the right to call their child’s company to discuss benefits and relocation packages and even negotiate salary. I think this is great.When Brady Quinn, the star quarterback from Notre Dame, was finally drafted by the Browns in last weeks NFL draft, I can guarantee his agent was on the phone with the team negotiating Brady’s salary, benefits and any other perks an NFL quarterback might receive.

An NFL quarterback, or any athlete for that matter, would never dream of negotiating for themselves. Agents have the experience and maturity to know what their client deserves and they have the practiced skills to negotiate the best deal. Why are newly minted college grads expected to do the wheeling and dealing involved in a job search, with little to no guidance?

Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t possibly find an agent to represent me in my job search. The 5% cut of Brady Quinn’s salary that an agent receives is probably more than my salary for the next three years.

But what could be better than having my parents represent me? Not only do they have my best interests in mind and want to see me succeed, but they have the experience. Most parents of millenniels have been in the corporate world for years. They have seen first hand; downsizings, layoffs, and corporate restructurings. They have probably held multiple jobs, and negotiated their own salary and benefit packages.

Parents are skeptical of corporate America for good reason. They don’t exactly trust companies to provide their children with well paid, safe and secure jobs. Many of these parents are probably baby boomers who would love to retire soon. They spent hundreds of thousands of hard earned dollars on an education for their children to land a great job. And they expect their children to at least have the resources to return the favor and help support them in retirement and old age.

I have every intention of returning this favor and helping my parents out. But as a new college graduate, it is just not possible to know very much about salaries, stock options, Pension Plans, 401K’s, Health Insurance or anything else you quickly learn when you leave the college fantasy world behind.

Obviously, at some point we millennials need to grow up and become adults, but a little guidance and occasional intervening in the first post-college job search will teach a twentysomething how to properly handle the next search, on his or her own.

Thanks to his years of extensive networking and corporate climbing at a well respected non-profit, my father helped me get an internship at Merrill Lynch one summer and a local accounting firm the next. Of course, I had to create a resume (with a lot of help from my parents), set up an interview, and go through the entire process like everyone else. But I never would have had the chance if my parents hadn’t intervened.

I think the bigger issue here is companies are worried that all of this parental hovering may cost them money. The majority of entry-level workers are probably underpaid. It’s easy to make a 22-year-old an offer and say, “Take it or leave it.” Most young workers will end up accepting because they don’t know what they are really worth. If an experienced parent acts as an agent and coaches their kid through the process or even involves themselves in the process, that entry-level worker just may get the offer they deserve.

Of course, there should be limits to just how involved a parent should be. The last thing you want to do is cost your kid a job. And once the job search is over, please don’t call human resources to check up on me. But if you know what you are doing, then go ahead and help your kid land that first dream job. The corporations might not be too happy about it, but if the trend keeps up, all they can do is learn to deal with it.

Ryan Healy’s blogs is Employee Evolution.

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Five ways to make career change easier

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Most of us will change careers at least three times in our lives. And most of us will be nervous at one point or another in the process.

Invariably, you’re giving up the known to pursue the unknown. So, even if you hate your current career, it’s still scary to give it up.

Five Steps to a New Life

I have a lot of experience in this arena. I’ve changed careers a lot, going from professional beach volleyball player to software marketer to entrepreneur to freelance writer. While I was doing that, my husband changed careers three times in five years.

Each change was different and difficult in its own way for both of us. But I’ve learned some tricks along the way to make career changes easier.

Here are five ideas to consider in your own career change:

1. Test things out before you make the leap.

You don’t need to quit your current job to get started in a new career. Give yourself a chance to test things out. Try it on vacation or on the weekend. Try an internship — there’s no rule that says an intern has to be 19 years old.

It’s very hard to predict what you’ll like. Once you admit this and really try things out, you’re much more likely to be accurate about what you’re well-suited to do next.

The most effective way to make the very serious move of changing careers is to try out that career in a not-so-serious way. I’ve done this in the past, and I once discovered that I didn’t end up liking the new career. This tactic can save you a lot of large missteps.

2. Talk about your change in a way that will make it happen.

When people ask you what you do — or, even better, what you want to do — you need an effective answer. Tell people what you’re aiming to do and why it makes sense. This little speech is what will allow people to help you make that career change.

Laura Allen, co-founder of 15 Second Pitch, helps people figure out what to say when they want to make a career change. The key to answering the question “what do you do” is knowing yourself and knowing why you want to change. Once you know that, the pitch will come more easily.

3. Keep your significant other in the loop.

A career change is so emotionally and financially profound that it’s practically a joint decision if you’re living with a significant other. I learned this the hard way, when my husband changed careers.

As a career advisor, I had a lot of opinions about what he should be doing, but I didn’t want to step on his toes so I tried to leave him alone to make the decisions himself. But I started getting nervous about the instability his choices might create.

There’s a definite balance you need to strike between wanting to support your partner in chasing his or her career dreams, and wanting to maintain sanity in the relationship while the chase is on. Keeping your partner in the loop, not just about what you’re doing but also what you’re thinking, can go a long way toward creating a team feeling.

4. Make the change before you go nuts.

Most people hold out in a career until it’s clear that it’s not for them. All change is hard. We like to be stimulated and interested, but most of us don’t like constant change. It’s too stressful, so we find ways to avoid it.

The problem is that if you put off change for too long you compromise your ability to orchestrate it. I spent a lot of my career with the bad habit of letting myself bottom out before I made a big change, so take it from me — the change is much harder to manage when you’re operating from a place of desperation and exhaustion.

5. Downplay financial issues.

I write a lot about how you don’t need a lot of money to be happy. In fact, research shows that you only need $40,000 to be happy, and that the rest of the money you earn has little impact on your happiness.

But Tim Ferriss takes this one step further. In his book, “The 4-Hour Workweek,” he starts with the idea that time and flexibility are worth more in life than money. So when you think about if you can afford to make the change, think in terms of your net gain in time and flexibility rather than in money.

Anticipating the Risk

Career change is always risky. But if you have a good understanding of why you’re leaving your current career and choosing the new one, the clarity can give you the strength to endure instability and uncertainty.

At some point, your self-awareness will make the career change your only viable alternative. Then it’ll seem like a relatively low-risk move.

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Job hunt tips I’ve collected

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I am always coming across new ideas for being more effective when you look for a job. Here are some I’ve collected:

1. Don’t answer the phone when it wakes you up.
I know people get giddy for interview call backs like they get giddy for good-date callbacks. But the combination of giddy for phone calls, and sleeping late because you’re unemployed could be lethal.

Time magazine reports that “the morning haze you experience when the alarm clock goes off is known as sleep inertia, and it clouds your brain more than sleep deprivation. The impairment is most severe in the first ten minutes but can linger for up to two hours.” Bottom line: Let the call go to voicemail and go get some coffee.

2. Edit a wikipedia entry to show you’re an expert.
Writing a blog on a given topic is great for your career. It shows that you specialize and you know you’re stuff. But a blog is a big time investment. I got the idea of taking charge of a wikipedia entry from reading this blog post. It seemed totally natural to this woman to contribute to wikipedia in an area she was becoming knowledgeable in.

We should all think this way. In general, editing wikipedia is not rocket science. It shows that we are good at working in a team (which is what a wikipedia entry is), and that we have expertise.

3. Handle hard interview questions with a positive bent.
“Most times people ask trick questions, the person is looking for you to go negative,” says Cynthia Shapiro, former human resource executive and author of Corporate Confidential. An example of one of these questions is, Tell me about a difficult boss and how you got around it.

The impact of being positive in an interview, and in life, cannot be overestimated. Optimistic people are happier and more fulfilled than the not-so-optimistic.

4. Don’t provide two email addresses.
Why do I see so many resumes with multiple email addresses? If you can’t make up your mind which email address is best, then how will you make decisions for anything once you’re hired? Providing two email addresses is not being thorough. It’s being annoying. Know the difference.

5. Make your resume a tease.
I write all the time about how a resume is a marketing document and not a list of your achievements or (worse yet) your job duties.

But David Perry, author of the Guerilla Marketing for Job Hunters, takes that one step further and says a resume should be a tease. You don’t want to tell absolutely everything. You want to tell someone enough to get them to call you to ask for more.

6. Pitch your cover letter from the right angle.
A reader, Harry Hollenberg, wrote in with this tip: “Don’t spend your cover letter telling me why my firm is perfect for you. Tell me why you’re perfect for our firm.”

7. Turn your job hunt into a publicity campaign.
This is actually something to do before you need the job. Debra Feldman, Job Whiz (and Coachology veteran) writes:

“Try Googling yourself. If you can’t find anything that promotes you as an expert in your field, take steps to establish a web presence so recruiters and colleagues can find you and learn about your strengths. You can do this and control the content by establishing your own professional website (not family trips) and including information detailing your achievements, links to other references, white papers, articles, presentations at industry conferences and keynote speeches, internal training you’ve developed or delivered, PowerPoint presentations of general interest.”

“The idea,” writes Feldman, “is to let yourself be found by recruiters and others who are looking for certain skills or qualifications. This tends to make you a more interesting and attractive potential candidate than if you submit a resume or write to introduce yourself. Think how you feel when you unearth a gem.”

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How to get a recruiter’s attention

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A lot of readers ask me how to find a recruiter to help them find a job. In general, my answer is: Forget it. Headhunters don’t work for people who need jobs. Headhunters work for people who have jobs to fill.

The way this works is the hiring manager has a specific type of person he needs to hire, and that person is hard to find. The hiring manager cannot spend all the time it will take to locate this person, so the hiring manager pays a recruiter to find this special person.

“Few headhunters are in the talent management business,” says Terry Gallagher, of the search firm Battalia Winston International. “Most executive search firms only represent their client’s interests and executive staffing needs.” This means, recruiters start with a specific position to fill, not a specific candidate to employ.

Recruiters are expensive. Often 20% of someone’s starting salary. This is not peanuts. So you can be sure that companies do not hire recruiters to find people with general qualifications. General qualifications are easy to fill. If you are a generalist, there are lots of people like you.

So look, if you are entry level or you are changing careers, you are not going to be attractive to a recruiter. Entry level people do not have any special skill that would make them fit a job that retained recruiters get hired to fill. And people changing careers do not have specific skills in their new career, they have specific skills (at best) in their old career.

Headhunters don’t work with career changers. Headhunters work with superstars. And maybe not always superstars, but the less star power you have, the more of a specialty you have to have. Are you the only person in the world who knows how to build an inventory system like Wal-Mart has? Call a recruiter. Are you the number-one salesperson in all of Yahoo? Call a recruiter.

But the thing is that those people don’t need to call recruiters. Recruiters call them all the time. Recruiters know who the amazingly talented are. It is no mystery. So if you want to get on recruiter radar, you need to focus on making yourself look amazingly talented — in a proven-track-record way, not in a my-mom-says-so way.

If you think you are at place in your career where a recruiter would be interested, Michael Keleman at Recruiting Animal says, “Do a search of recruiters on LinkedIn. There are zillions of them there and some might indicate that they are in your area. Contact them and ask if they work with candidates like you. You don’t have to contact them through LinkedIn, just call.”

If you’ve got great experience, you might get special treatment from the recruiter. Recruiter David Perry, for example, has been known to represent candidates like they are movie stars. But most of the time, Keleman says, “You resume will go into a database until a company hires the recruiter for a seach you’re suited for.”

So go ahead and try getting a recruiter’s attention. But focus more on networking on your own, and doing great work, because those are the keys to getting good job opportunities.

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