7 reasons why you need personal business cards, and 7 facts to include on them

By Bob McIntosh, CPRW, MBTI

This post garners the most views of any of my others. I’ve included a link to Jeff Altman’s video on personal business cards. Watch it.

A funny story I tell my workshop attendees is about how I ordered 250 personal business cards on www.vistaprint.com, only to find when I opened them that I’d spelled my occupation wrong: “worksop facilitator.”

There went 250 personal business cards into the trash.

I’m ashamed to put this in print, but I’m making a point; make sure you spell-check your order before submitting it. This is hardly the point of this blog post, though.

The overlying message is that, as a job seeker, there are seven reasons why you need  personal business cards and seven facts you must include on them.

 

 

Continued

 

How Do You Reduce Your Recruiting Spend? (VIDEO)

The answer is not quite as simple as the question.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

Follow him at The Big Game Hunter, Inc. on LinkedIn for more articles, videos and podcasts than what are offered here and jobs he is recruiting for.

Visit www.TheBigGameHunter.us. There’s a lot more advice there.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Pay what you want for my books about job search

Subscribe to TheBigGameHunterTV on YouTube  for advice about job hunting and hiring. Like videos, share and comment.

Trying to hire someone? Email me at JeffAltman@TheBigGameHunter.us

What’s the Best Way to Find a Job Out of State Without Spending a Lot of Money? (VIDEO)

 

I don’t have a lot of contacts or connections.

Do you think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is there to change that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.

Connect with me on LinkedIn http://bit.ly/thebiggamehunter

Have a question you want me to answer? Contact me through PrestoExperts

Why Are You Putting Up With It?

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter draws from his own experience to talk about the decision to change jobs. 

Do you think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is there to change that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.

Connect with me on LinkedInhttp://bit.ly/thebiggamehunter

Have a question you want me to answer? Contact me through PrestoExperts

Job Search Radio – School’s Out for The Summer

I am going to take the summer off. The plan is to return on the Monday after Labor Day.
Before doing so, I thought I would provide you with an outline of some of the shows I have done this year and how they can help you with your job search.
Six months of shows and what you can find in them. Listen to them while I relax . . . well, not exactly relax . . . Listen to them while I help the members in JobSearchCoachingHQ.com and help them find work faster.

 

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

You may think you’re good at job hunting but, the fact is, you are not as good as you think you are.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com has advice for job hunters that will streamline your search, help you avoid making costly mistakes and land your next job faster.

In addition, you can ask me questions about your search and get answers to your questions from someone who has more than 10,000 hours of experience helping people find work . . . times 9!

More than 90,000 hours of experience helping job hunters find work.

The site costs less than a hard cover book per month  (even less if you sign up for multiple months).

Join JobSearchCoachingHQ.com!

Executives–Be Careful With Those Metrics!

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter points out how executives need to be careful when discussing metrics on the resume and in an interview. 

Do you think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is there to change that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.

Connect with me on LinkedInhttp://bit.ly/thebiggamehunter

Have a question you want me to answer? Contact me through PrestoExperts

Three Job Search Tools

 

Here are three helpful tools to help you with your search.

Do you think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is there to change that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.

Connect with me on LinkedIn http://bit.ly/thebiggamehunter

Have a question you want me to answer? Contact me through PrestoExperts

Heads Up!

Heads UpIn baseball, heads up means paying alert and paying attention to what is going on. There is a sort of vigilance to the situation you are in and making the right play when the ball is hit to you. After all, if you aren’t paying attention, bad things can happen including getting hurt.

If you’ve never seen the video of 50 Cent throwing out the first pitch at a Mets game, well, you understand why camera men on the field need to be heads up, particularly when a celebrity is throwing out the first pitch. YIKES!

I was reminded of the importance of keeping my head up with a recent service launch where I spent so much effort focused on creating a great product, keeping my head down for months, working on the product, I did almost no marketing ahead of the launch day. Announcing the service was greeted by a big yawn.

For you, remember, the person who gets ahead isn’t always the smartest, or work the hardest. Those are great qualities to have but don’t guaranty advancement.

In fact, the person who gets ahead is the person who remains alert to possibilities. Sometimes, those possibilities are within your current organization; more often, they are external to it.

Thus, in order to be ready for the inevitable knocks on your door with opportunities or you to consider, here are a few things you can do to foster opportunities to land in your lap . . . and be ready for them.

  1. Don’t make the mistake I did by not proactively marketing yourself. You have to think of yourself as the Chairman of the Board of your own business looking out for your own interests, rather than abdicating them to your employer. If you do that, they will look out for their interests and not yours. Decide where you want to get to and how others like you have gotten there by taking informational interviews NOW. It is not enough to connect with one person. Talk to 10 and start noticing patterns to the answers you get.

 

  1. Develop an idea of what would cause you to change jobs . . . but not stupid ones. No one is going to offer a two year developer the opportunity to be CIO of a major firm or even a Director for one. No one will hire a low level accountant for a CFO job . . . unless it is for an organization that should give you reason to reject them. If these are your criteria, you are going to burn a lot of bridges by showing professional immaturity.

         On the other hand, if you are happy where you are and would change jobs for a more challenging opportunity, with higher pay closer to home (or work from                   home), then these are things that are reasonable to be on the look out for.

 

  1. Think of LinkedIn as the place where you are being hunted for opportunities. Update your LinkedIn profile with accurate keywords to describe your work and to include your email address in the summary area (if you are actively looking for a job, include your phone number). Make it easy for people to reach you.
  1. As easy as Linkedin is making for you to connect from your mobile devices (you do have the LinkedIn app on your phone, right), since you probably don’t log in regularly (even though you should), make it easy for people to contact you by providing your email address, instead of messaging you through LinkedIn.

 

  1. The average time to fill a position is less than a month. If you are responding to an inMail a month or more after receiving it because you just don’t log in, the job is likely filled or close to being so. Put a reminder in your phone to log in daily for 5 minutes on your commute, while at lunch or standing on line for coffee and start reading and responding to inMails. Get in the game quickly and don’t over think an opportunity.

 

  1. Update your resume. Eventually the conversation will turn to seeing a copy of your resume. Tell them you have to update it and will send it the next day . . . but actually have one ready. This helps to create the illusion you are not looking for a new position but are open to other opportunities.

Jeff Altman7.  Hire an impartial coach to help you. Your husband, wife or partner, friend or colleague, former boss or clergy may know you but not know the job hunting process well enough to guide you. A third party recruiter . . . well, they are paid by companies to fill jobs and not look out for you. Hiring a coach to help guide you can be inexpensive long term and help you get to your destination faster.  At www.JobSearchCoachingHQ.com, we offer a ton of great information about how to be more successful with a job search, whether aggressive or passive plus you can schedule time with me to have situational questions answered.

 

Your career is in your hands. Abdicating that responsibility to others is usually very expensive no matter what field you are in.

Keeping your head down and doing a good job won’t help you if you lose your job.

Lift your head up and start looking around you. You will notice a whole new world around you.

 

 

© The Big Game Hunter, Inc. Asheville, NC  2016

 

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is the head coach of JobSearchCoachingHQ.com and a professional recruiter with more than 40 years of experience.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Follow me at The Big Game Hunter, Inc. on LinkedIn

The Key to Networking

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter points out with most people do when they network and what you should be doing instead. 

Do you really think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is there to change that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.

Connect with me on LinkedInhttp://bit.ly/thebiggamehunter

Do you have a question you want me to answer? Contact me through PrestoExperts