BY JOHN HENRY WEISS
The purpose of this book is twofold—to help laid-off workers deal with the trauma of having their paychecks and benefits suddenly disappear, and to guide them through the job-hunting process. The tips in this book provide job seekers with practical advice for finding a new job no matter the state of the economy.
The Big Book of Job-Hunting Hacks is a compilation of three books written by authors with expertise in the job-hunting process. Their philosophy is that proven methods for job hunting transcend good times and bad, which includes challenges caused by the worldwide coronavirus pandemic that began in December 2019.
The first two books in this compilation deal with job hunting as a comprehensive multi-step process. The third book focuses on a critical step in the process—writing a dynamite résumé that will move the candidate forward to an online or in-person interview with a hiring authority or human resources director. The books in this compilation are:
1. How to Get a Great Job: A Library How-to Handbook, edited by the American Library Association
2. Moving Forward in Mid-Career: A Guide to Rebuilding Your Career after Being Fired or Laid Off, by John Henry Weiss
3. How to Write a Stellar Executive Resume: 50 Tips to Reaching Your Job Target, by Brenda Bernstein, JD, CMRW, CERM
The reader can study these books in sequence, or focus on topics of immediate interest. Following is a review of each book in this compilation.
1. HOW TO GET A GREAT JOB: A LIBRARY HOW-TO HANDBOOK
The first title reflects the accumulated wisdom of librarians and their associates who serve the job-hunting needs of workers throughout America. It emphasizes that job hunting is a process with a number of steps that need to be implemented in order to accomplish the mission—hearing the hiring authority say, “You’re hired!”
Do not mistake this book as something written for librarians seeking employment. It was written for all workers in job-hunting mode at any time in the economic cycle and offers helpful tips for workers seeking employment during a pandemic. There are more than 100 tips in this book, five of which all job hunters should consider indispensable.
Tip #1. Begin by making sure that your online profile and résumé profile are the same. The reason? The first thing a hiring authority reviewing your candidacy will do is go to LinkedIn to examine your profile. If your résumé and LinkedIn profiles are in conflict, you are history. Read more in the first chapter of this book.
Tip #2. A successful job search begins with crafting a plan to implement the process. This tip is particularly important for workers who were laid off because of an unforeseen event, like the COVID-19 pandemic. Such a jarring event often leaves the laid-off worker in a state of panic because of its many negative ramifications, like loss of income and insurance benefits. While in panic mode, the worker begins job hunting by hastily crafting a résumé and sending it to multiple job boards and company career pages with meager results. This tip recommends making a rational plan that begins with determining skills and career interests and concluding with how to negotiate a job offer.
Tip #3. A job search is a job in itself. Reserve a space in your home to conduct “business.” You will need a quiet space equipped with a desk or work table, technology tools, and storage space. Trying to wing it from the kitchen table after your third cup of coffee at 10:30 a.m. will impede your success.
Tip #4. The rubrics for conducting a job search are the same no matter what the reason was for your being let go. Going forward, you will need to research the job market for industries and companies within that are hiring. Even when the economy was in lockdown mode, there were companies still hiring. For example, at the height of the COVID-19 crises, companies like Albertsons, Amazon, Costco, CVS, Dollar General, Domino’s, Johnson & Johnson, PepsiCo, Walmart, and Zoom were aggressively hiring.
Tip #5. Access the many online, print, and media resources to keep updated on the state of the economy. Two helpful TV sources are the many CNBC financial programs, which begin at 6 a.m. Eastern, and Mad Money with Jim Cramer at 6 p.m. Eastern. Among the print and media resources recommended in this book are Forbes magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and the Occupational Outlook Handbook published by the U.S. Department of Labor. All are available in print and eBook formats.
Libraries often go unnoticed and unused by job hunters. Be sure to visit their brick-and-mortar locations or visit them online for current information to facilitate your job search.
2. MOVING FORWARD IN MID-CAREER: A GUIDE TO REBUILDING YOUR CAREER AFTER BEING FIRED OR LAID OFF
The second book in this compilation is the go-to resource for job hunters looking for a paycheck in order to survive. Author John Henry Weiss, an executive recruiter and former corporate executive, wrote this book because so many workers are let go every day of every year. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov), 52,500 workers are let go every day during a normal economy and many more during a recession caused by something unexpected like COVID-19. Workers are laid off in good times because employers are always in a state of reorganizing, downsizing, rightsizing, expanding, or entering bankruptcy.
This book emphasizes job hunting as a process, not as a one-step deal like how to make it through an interview. It contains 250 practical tips for job hunters focusing on managing finances, working from a home office, writing résumés and cover letters, managing interviews, negotiating employment offers, networking, where and how to find employers, consulting career coaches and counselors, and seeking support from spiritual sources.
Moving Forward points out that being let go is something that most workers will experience during their time in the workplace, even when the economy is robust and the unemployment rate is below 6 percent, a number that most economists consider full employment. This book has four major parts to help laid-off workers through the job-hunting and rebuilding processes.
Part 1, Coping with the Ramifications of Job Loss. Weiss tells us that laid-off workers encounter many family challenges when job hunting from home. Some of them relate to childcare, aging parents, trauma, divorce, and separation. He provides solutions that will result from using your intelligence, psychic and physical energy, and passion. Also covered in Part 1 are solutions for handling financial matters relating to savings, investments, and insurance.
Part 2, The Process of Moving Forward in Your Career. Here workers will learn how to define or redefine career objectives, how to craft a résumé and corresponding online profile, how and where to find employers and decision makers, how to prepare and carry out personal and online interviews, how to handle objections to your candidacy, and how to negotiate a job offer.
Most job seekers submit their résumés and cover letters online, along with millions of other candidates. For example, Southwest Airlines receives over 100,000 résumés each year. Google and Microsoft receive over one million each year, most of which end up in the trash because the hiring authority and human resources director never see it. How do you distinguish yourself from the rest of the pack? Consider implementing a tip in this book. Send your résumé and formal cover letter by FedEx overnight shipping with next-day delivery. This method guarantees that the FedEx envelope will be placed on the recipient’s desk. Nobody disregards a personally addressed FedEx envelope!
Part 3, Finding Your Spot in the Workplace. Workers laid off with little warning, as many were in the COVID-19 crisis, frequently ask, Am I in the right job? Am I in the right industry? Should I start my own business? Should I pursue a government job? All are valid questions, and Moving Forward has the answers. Thought-provoking items in this part include a listing of profitable major US industries and the names of top-ranked large companies in industries such as food, clothing, insurance, retailing, finance, and technology.
Part 4, Reaching Out to Career Care Providers. Here, job hunters will learn that emotional support is available to laid-off workers from online and personal sources such as secular career coaches and counselors, and from faith-based organizations found at churches, colleges, and universities. Job hunters can find spiritual guidance as well in the book’s final chapter, Moving Beyond the Temporal.
At the end of each chapter in Moving Forward, you will find a series of important takeaways and a listing of print and digital resources to extend the chapter content.
3. HOW TO WRITE A STELLAR EXECUTIVE RESUME: 50 TIPS TO REACHING YOUR JOB TARGET
The third book in this compilation was written by award-winning author Brenda Bernstein. She is a certified executive résumé master (CERM), a certified master résumé writer (CMRW), an editor, and a LinkedIn trainer. She holds a law degree (JD) from NYU School of Law. Brenda has coached a multitude of workers in the résumé-writing process along with establishing their profiles for LinkedIn. Her book provides fifty numbered tips for getting the job done in a complete and professional manner. Here are five of her most important tips for crafting a professional résumé:
Tip #1. Write for the Future. When hiring authorities or human resources directors read your résumé, they are concerned not only about what you have done in the past, but also about what you can do for the company going forward.
Tip #2. How Long Should My Résumé Be? This is a nagging problem for most candidates. Some sources advise limiting your résumé to two or three pages, but is this correct? Read this important tip to learn more before you make a serious mistake.
Tip #3. Focus on Accomplishments. One of the most serious mistakes one can make on a résumé is listing only job functions and responsibilities, which the reader can find online. The prospective employer wants to know what you accomplished in your previous jobs.
Tip #4. Yes, You Need a Cover Letter. Submitting a résumé without a cover letter will have a definite result: rejection. A cover letter must accompany a résumé, and it must be addressed to a named person with a job title and company name. For example: Ms. Mary Jones, Vice President, Marketing, ABC Technology Inc. This is such an important item that Bernstein offers six separate cover letter tips.
Tip #5. Proofread, and Proofread Again! One of the most common errors in the résumé-writing process is to assume that your grammar and spell checker will correct all mistakes. Think again. Proofread your completed résumé at least three times, twice aloud. Executive recruiters can tell you many stories about candidates who were rejected because of one spelling error. In the world of job hunting, you get only one chance. Don’t blow it with a spelling or grammar mistake.
MOVING FORWARD IN THE JOB-HUNTING PROCESS
There are times when the unexpected happens in the workplace, something like an economic recession caused by our recent health pandemic, which saw the unemployment rate zoom upward from 3.5 percent to 15 percent in less than three months. This unprecedented economic disaster resulted in the termination of more than 40 million jobs in less than four months. Powerhouse companies like Disney found it necessary to lay off 100,000 workers in just two weeks in order to remain solvent. American icons like J.C. Penny, J. Crew, Nordstrom, and Nieman Marcus filed for bankruptcy in an effort to restructure their finances. The result of this economic chaos? Millions of workers laid off permanently or furloughed indefinitely.
It’s important to remember that rules for job hunting do not change during a recession or during a full-employment economy. All three books in this compilation emphasize that point. However, there are trade-offs that workers might need to make to remain solvent during a recession. For example, a vice president of sales who loses her job might need to take a job as a territory sales representative until the economy improves.
The Big Book of Job-Hunting Hacks will provide you with a framework for finding new employment, but the next step is up to the job seeker. Translate what you have read in this book into actionable items while remembering that the American economy is the most robust in the world and that it will recover to pre-COVID-19 status. Companies in most industries are hiring. They are looking for job candidates with intelligence, energy, and passion to accomplish the mission.