Interesting article in today’s Boston Globe about gaining relevant experience through volunteer work.

Key points:

• Don’t volunteer just anywhere doing anything; look for an opportunity to use existing skills or build new expertise.
• Invest time volunteering to determine if a new career path is right for you - you get to literally “try before you buy.”
• Take your commitment seriously - fulfill your obligation.

Good examples in the article included a woman doing volunteer records research for a nonprofit social agency and a former financial analyst who’s now assisting in a middle school math classroom. Both are seriously considering a permanent career switch that requires additional education - they’re very smart to get their feet wet and see if they really like the new field!

Yes, you can certainly put this experience on your resume. No, you don’t have to volunteer that you’re not getting paid for it. It might make up the very first “experience” segment on your resume or might appear towards the end, under “extras” such as professional affiliations. It depends how central it is to your current goals, perhaps how long you’ve been doing it, what your current employment status is, and other factors. Still, it can be relevant, solid, and meaningful experience that you can showcase as a prime qualification for your new career.

Verizon (telephone company) should answer their phones when you call them. Whole Foods should use good environmental practices. Hairdressers should have great hair. If these things DON’T happen, you lose faith in that individual or company!

The same is true for executives in a job search. Your resume content must match your elevator speech, your online profile, your networking chit-chat, your interview stories, and every other aspect of your career marketing messages to create a congruent, believable, provable image. All of the above should position you as “you” - just the best, brightest, most relevant “you” with regard to your current goals!

Love what Louise Fletcher has to say over at the Blue Sky blog: Calling Seth Godin on the carpet when he opines about job searching!

I agree 100% - both with Louise’s admiration of Seth’s marketing expertise and her disagreement with his career advice. To sum it up:

• Looking for a job does not mean sublimating your personality or corrupting yourself… not if you do it correctly.
• Self-employment is not for everyone!
• In every market there are opportunities. Good companies are still hiring, and smart, focused, value-oriented candidates will be found and hired.

Excellent piece in Fortune this month about “what’s working” for people in a job hunt.

What’s interesting is that what’s working now are the same things that have always worked. These job seekers haven’t re-invented the job hunt wheel or found anything new under the sun. It still - and always - comes down to clear messages, outreach, relationships, and persistence.

The only new twists are that some of these efforts involve technologies and services (LinkedIn, Twitter, blogging, email) that didn’t exist in other tough job markets. Still, these are tools, not panaceas.

I was most impressed by the story of Rob Sparno. And - hey! - he’s 55! He set a tight target and methodically pursued people at his ideal companies. He created a positive support group. He used sales and marketing techniques to get to the right people. And he did his homework, so when his efforts produced a meeting, he was prepared with some carefully researched ideas about the company’s probable problems, and some carefully prepared ideas about how he could solve them. A home run!

And - as we enter baseball season! - it seems apt to mention that the greatest hitters are successful only about 1/3 of the time they step up to the plate. Every effort won’t lead to a job, but keep putting in the time and (smart) efforts, and you’ll reach “home” before long.

Had a great interview a few weeks ago with producer Elsie Nolan of WBZ-TV, the Boston area’s CBS affiliate, all about how to recognize an impending downsizing and what to do about it.

Article and video clip here.

The bottom line, from my perspective, is that you always need to be alert to what’s happening in your department, at your company, in your industry, and in the economy in general. A downsizing or layoff shouldn’t come as a surprise. But regardless, if you lay the groundwork for long-term success throughout your career, you’ll find the landing much softer and the bounceback much quicker.

Things you should always be doing:

• Stay active in professional associations to build a network of contacts in your profession and/or industry.
• Create visibility for yourself by taking on leadership roles in those organizations and/or reaching out to leaders with feedback, ideas, comments, and compliments.
• Create visibility for yourself at work by volunteering for the tough assignments (and, of course, succeeding at them).
• Share your expertise - whatever it is - with others in your company, your industry, and the whole wide world through articles, comments, blogs, etc.
• Do your job really well! Track and measure your performance so when you say, “I’ve done a great job,” you can support that statement with facts and figures.
• Update your resume every 6 months or so. Be ready for opportunities that will come your way.

It’s not much fun reading the business pages of the newspaper today, or watching the nightly news or finance/business news shows. Page after page, story after story, it’s about layoffs, business closings, lack of capital, shrinkage of VC funding, and so forth. If you’re looking for a job, the future can seem bleak indeed!

I admit I am a bit of a Pollyanna, but I refuse to buy into the general gloom and doom. I know from my clients that companies ARE hiring, businesses ARE growing, and those that will succeed are not throwing in the towel - they are looking for leaders who will help them recognize and seize opportunities.

Make sure your message is all about opportunities spotted, costs controlled, smart expansion, vision and execution, and outperforming the competition. Be the astute leader who can steer a company through the rough waters and prepare for the economic upturn that will - undoubtedly - come.

If you’re unemployed, or even employed and actively looking for a new job, are you REALLY putting in the effort it takes to succeed?

If you’re like most Americans and Europeans, the answer is “no.”

Reported in Weddle’s excellent newsletter are the following statistics from a 2008 survey reported recently in  The Economist:

---

 Length of time Unemployed Workers Spend Looking for a Job (per day)

• U.K.: 10 minutes
• Sweden: 10 minutes
• Germany: 10 minutes
• Spain: 20-30 minutes
• France: 20-30 minutes
• U.S.: 40 minutes

---

In 10-40 minutes per day, what can you accomplish? Surf the web for the latest postings… dash off a couple of resumes… call one contact and give up when he or she has no leads for you.But just think what you could do if you devoted 2, 4, 6, or even 8 hours of your day to your job search - strategies and activities that will expand your horizons, your opportunities, and your results.

• Prepare and practice your “elevator pitch” so you can smoothly and confidently deliver it during an interview, at a formal networking event, or to a casually met acquaintance.
• Write out your greatest career “success stories” and practice relating them in a clear, compelling manner.
• Create a list of 50 people you can contact and make 10 phone calls per day to complete the list in a week. (Use your new elevator pitch for best results.) Make a new list next week.
• Review your resume and cover letters and edit/polish to perfection.
• Identify and research 10 companies that might be a good fit for you. Use LinkedIn and/or your personal network to connect to decision makers (or anyone) at those companies.
• Pick up the phone and call them! Use your referral as an introduction, then deliver a brief message about your potential value to the company. Ask for a meeting.
• Start a new list of companies next week.
• Read a book or online articles about trends in interviewing. Think about how you’ll respond, and practice your answers to tough questions.
• Review your interview wardrobe and replace, repair, polish, mend, or iron anything that looks less than perfect.
• Identify your top value points that you’ll want to communicate in your next interview. Focus on value to the company, not interest to you.
• Make an interview “cheat cheat” of your top value points and keywords for your success stories. Practice your interview responses using just the crib sheet.
• Call someone you know who’s unemployed and ask if you can be of help.

I could go on, but you get the point. Work the process and you’ll reap the rewards.

In a recent conversation with a client I advised him to create a profile on LinkedIn - not only to reap the networking opportunities there, but to build his online presence as an essential tool in today’s world of executive search. He was openly skeptical - “I don’t think many people at my level are doing that.” (He’s a CEO.) OK, I said, but check it out anyway.

A few weeks later, he told me, “I’m a convert.” Not only was “everyone” he knew on LinkedIn (including the most tech-savvy and best-connected senior people), but he had learned first-hand that the tool was actively used by recruiters to “check him out” prior to a meeting - even when there was a personal referral or prior relationship. He definitely wanted them to find him - and to find information that is congruent, on-brand, and consistent with the value messages he’s delivering in his resume and interviews.

So … don’t get caught with the equivalent of your pants down! Build your LinkedIn profile NOW, update and improve it over time, and “be there” when recruiters are looking for someone like you.

Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter over at the Career Management Alliance blog provides some EXCELLENT resources on blogging, twittering, and other online tools - all as related to job seeking.

It’s easy to feel like you’re behind the curve on all of this stuff. (I freely admit, I have never “tweeted” and don’t follow anyone on Twitter.) But at the very least, learn about it so you can appear to be up to date with technology. And who knows, you might find a whole new pastime, news source, circle of friends, or even a job!

At the Kennedy Recruiting Conference I attended some interesting presentations and - of even more value - had the chance to speak with a number of recruiters, both internal and external. One theme that cropped up over and over is - despite the economic downturn and relatively high unemployment -  the challenge of finding good candidates.

Despite sophisticated applicant tracking systems, countless job posting opportunities, recruiter sourcing through social networks, and enormous data-finding capabilities, recruiters still have a hard time finding enough candidates and the right candidates for specific jobs. What this means for you, the job seeker:

• Be specific about your expertise. Vague, general overviews don’t tell recruiters enough about you to conclude that you have what they need.
• Be visible in your areas of expertise. Attend and speak at professional association meetings. Write articles and blog postings. Comment on others’ blogs. Share your expertise and your opinions… and let the recruiters find you.
• Research where your expertise and interests might lead you. For example, if you are a clinical practitioner (maybe a nurse), have some knowledge of hospital technology systems, love to travel, and are eager to move away from direct patient care, you could have a satisfying and lucrative new career as a technology implementation consultant to healthcare systems. Bottom line: look for needs that intersect with your knowledge, experience, and personal interests, then find companies that respond to those needs.

One disturbing trend I noticed is the continued preference for passive job seekers. There is still tremendous bias towards those who are employed and lingering beliefs that “the best people don’t get laid off.” Having worked with extremely talented professionals who were, in fact, affected by corporate downsizing, I know this is nonsense. Plus, there are so many reasons that an individual might be unemployed that using this as a recruiting criterion seems extremely silly.

My final thought about recruiting: It needs a shot in the arm from the marketing department. In fact, successful companies need to market themselves to future employees just as seriously as they market their products or services to consumers. Yet most HR people are not marketing oriented, and despite the ubiquitous trend toward employment branding, most companies don’t invest the resources and talent necessary to make their recruiting function as vibrant as their marketing area. Those that do make the investment will reap the rewards - a more talented, more engaged workforce that creates and supports a winning culture.