Economically speaking, 2009 was a disaster. Although there is already promising news this year that the economy is recovering in some sectors, there is also bad news that the high employment rate will continue to be with us for quite some time. There will be fewer jobs available but that doesn’t mean there won’t be any opportunities. Companies are still doing business and they still require talented employees. Can you add something for an organization? Remember this: in an evolving economy like that of the United States, there is always a place for you, but only if you can think smarter and act differently than in the past. To maximize your chances of scoring a job in 2010, here are 4 resolutions each jobseeker should take.

Resolution #1: Get back in the job market game
Forget passivity and be positive. Just stretch yourself, come out of your comfort zone and insistently search beyond the listed jobs you find on the internet. This only requires a game plan and a belief that you are going to win this game. This is not the right time to get seated with those who want to regret that how bad it is out there. Decide instead to excel and take your job search to the next level.

Make your search better every day. If you are positive about your job searches it will diminish your anxiety and other negative feelings. This goes beyond survival of the fittest. Those who want to succeed in their lives need an iron will and strong determination to not be defeated by the job search process.

Resolution #2: It’s all about Return on Investment
Traditional ways of interviewing and selling yourself don’t work nowadays. You definitely need to hone your skills to act like a problem solver for your future employer. Employers don’t hire people who are liabilities on their balance sheet. They hire people who are smart and know how they can prove to be a return on investment for the company. For this, show them your clear benefits that you can offer to them.

It is good to look at your skills, experience, abilities and talents that you posses. Just show them what you can do- whether it be to make money or save money. You should know accordingly how you can convert your skills and talent into benefits that an employer understands and appreciates. Include examples from your past experiences and ask yourself, “How did my work save time or money, make money, or otherwise improve the overall situation for my employer?” Education and skills, while valuable, do not translate into benefits. Just think what you can do for this employer that others can’t.

Resolution #3: Widen Your Network
In the previous boom, it was very easy to find work by responding to internet job boards or corporate websites. But now it’s very difficult to limit your search only to internet ads and expect success. It’s good if you start widening your network both in person and online by making some new contacts each week through local events or related professional meetings. Adding your bio and profile on social networking sites is also a great idea. LinkedIn and Facebook have a “groups” feature that allows you to seek out and join other groups, not only in the job search, but also industry and professional groups that you can introduce yourself to. If you want to establish your expertise the “Ask/Answer a Question” feature is a good option. Twitter has also become an excellent way to follow movers and shakers plus make yourself known to a wider playing field. JobConcierge also offers a free executive recruiter database.

Resolution #4: Inoculate yourself against negative messages
Achieving success in in the job search requires one to be prepared and ready to deliver at any moment’s notice. You know during this process if you allow any negative thoughts to enter your mind, they may drag your legs behind by causing fear, disheartenment and anxiety. You need to shut that door which lets negative thoughts to enter from the outside environment, at least for a set period of time each and every day, so that you can focus on your target – the job search. All negative media and news are included. Get in touch with the kind of people who have positive energy and who help you contain negative emotions.   Be sure to check out the best jobs for 2010.

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We’ve dug deep into our contact list and added recruiters on LinkedIn to create the JobConcierge Top Executive Recruiters and Headhunters list. All the information is absolutely free and pre-screened, and you can sort the recruiters by industry or via state. We currently have over 1,500 contacts published – making the list one of the most extensive sources of recruiter information on the internet.

Many jobs these days (especially those 75K+) are given solely to recruiters who usually pre-screen candidates before handing them over to the companies to interview. Usually different companies work with different recruiters, so it’s good to touch base with as many of them as you can and have them keep a copy of your resume on file.

A few select industries are posted here including:
Advertising Executive Recruiters
Banking and Finance Executive Recruiters
Consulting Executive Recruiters
Engineering Executive Recruiters
Real Estate Executive Recruiters
Aerospace Executive Recruiters
E-commerce Executive Recruiters
Financial Services Executive Recruiters
Trading Executive Recruiters

Hope some of you find the information helpful. Be sure to check out our human powered executive job search and get your first set of job matches free on us.

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With the jobless recovery underway and unemployment continuing to rise, we can’t turn on the news today without hearing more doom and gloom.  As a result, jobseekers today are completely missing the good news, and many have given up on their search.  But how many of you have heard that in a recent industry survey, half of the workers that were laid off in the last three months found new jobs?  Or that the government stimulus plan has saved/created 650,000 jobs and that Uncle Sam is planning to hire 300,000 more for newly created positions?  Hey – even GM realized they over-fired, and they’re restoring another 3,000 jobs.  There are jobs out there, and companies are indeed hiring.

My top advice for everyone – from recent college graduates to executives earning over $100K – is to embrace social media and start a proactive job search.  The recruiting industry has changed dynamically over the past year alone; rather than posting ads on the traditional job boards or hiring headhunters, many companies are searching through candidates’ profiles on LinkedIn and doing their own due diligence online.  If you haven’t already done so, take some time out of the day to create LinkedIn, FaceBook and Twitter accounts.  In today’s competitive environment, you have to keep up or else you’ll be left behind. With limited space, I’ll skip the basics and concentrate on personal branding and differentiating your job applications with LinkedIn.

One of the easiest ways to start extending your personal brand online is to join and participate in discussions on FaceBook and LinkedIn.  Both sites have specialized groups, and LinkedIn also has a Q&A section.  Promote your expertise by answering questions and participating in discussions.  Be sure to leave a signature at the bottom of your messages with your email address and other social media information so people that enjoyed reading your posts, as well as headhunters scouring the web, can add and connect with you.  The key is to be sincere and consistent.  If you haven’t started, the JobConcierge Facebook Group is a great place to start.  Many people quit in frustration, but the ones who succeed are the ones who are dedicating small chunks of time on a daily and weekly basis.

The second phase of differentiating your job applications is integrating social networking with job applications.  Combing through the various job boards is extremely tiring, time consuming and a job by itself.  A great place to start is the Best Niche Job Boards.  But if you want to be thorough and maximize your chances of finding your next job, it’s a must-do.  When you’re looking at jobs online and find jobs relevant to you, you should mentally be classifying the jobs in one of the following categories: (1) ideal job or (2) willing to work there.  Applying for jobs is purely a numbers game – the more jobs you apply, the higher the chances you’ll earn interviews. Some people may say it’s about quality, but everyone I know who literally applies to hundreds of jobs a week has been getting interviews on a consistent basis.  This is where the JobConcierge service helps - you get assigned an HR recruiter who manually sorts through over 300 job boards to find you the right jobs and applies to them.  It’s an executive search service that works.

Within LinkedIn, there’s a search box on the upper right hand side where you can refine the search by Company.  If any of the jobs you see online apply to the first (ideal job) category, I recommend that clients contact LinkedIn members working there that are within 1^st or 2^nd degree connections.  If you don’t have any relationships and there’s someone you want to contact, you can find common grounds by joining interest groups that the person is in.  We recommend messaging people and asking them to speak on the phone to learn more about the company.  You might be surprised at how many people are willing to help others. Depending on how the conversation is going, you’ll see whether they have any information on the posting, know anyone in the particular division, can provide HR contacts or, better yet, submit your resume directly to HR with a recommendation.  You’ll be surprised at how successful this strategy is at getting your name out there and increasing your chances of getting the interview and ultimately the job.

Now, think strategically and take things one step further. I’ve had two JobConcierge members in the past seven days thank me and tell me they’ve each received job offers. How did they do it?  It’s not magic.  Their Job Concierge took care of the online job search and found relevant jobs each week for them.  For ideal-level jobs, they reached out and networked with people on LinkedIn.  For all the other jobs, their JobConcierge filled out and submitted their applications.  Searching for a job really is a full-time job in itself. It’s all about using your time in the most efficient way and maximizing your results.  The average jobseeker is spending 50 hours a month searching for jobs online and is getting no where. Start taking things one step further by classifying jobs you find online, starting a proactive job search and reaching out to various connections on LinkedIn. You might be surprised how far you get.

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As many of you know, for the past year, we’ve been updating our Twitter account on a daily basis with advice on searching for jobs.  What we’ve found is that probably 90% of the job advice out there is either common sense or junk – most of us are beyond the “dress-nice-for-interviews” or “avoid-typos-on-the-resume” stage.

We put together about 100 of our favorite articles from all different categories – from career change advice, cover letter tips all the way to guerrilla job tactics and link directly to the original content.  Hope you enjoy the new Best Job Search Advice page and find the articles helpful.  If you have any you’d like to share, please send the links our way so we can post them up.

http://www.jobconcierge.com/best-job-search-advice

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Our Best Industry Job Boards list was officially released yesterday.

We would like to thank our friends on LinkedIn for contributing to the survey as well as our followers on Twitter and Facebook for their feedback on the individual industry job sites.  This really has been a community effort and couldn’t have been done without the help of everyone.

Hope everyone finds it useful.

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We officially released our free job fairs and networking event list today to the general public.

We’re proud to say that it’s one of the most comprehensive online, with over 300 local and national career fairs throughout the United States.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this a success.  Feel free to share the information with anyone’s looking for a job or would like to contribute to the list.

PS – Be sure to sign up for our free JobConcierge newsletter (to the right).  Members receive exclusive offers as well as new updates prior to the general public.

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With the huge amount of people on twitter, there are a lot of job search experts offering great advice on finding your next job.  However, with so many tweets and your own limited free time, the key is really following the right Twitter users.  We don’t recommend following users (or bots) who tweet jobs 24/7, as you’ll end up getting a bunch of jobs alerts flooding your homepage that aren’t relevant.   We screened the following users based on a) minimum 3,000 following; b) frequent tweets; and c) valuable job advice.  We made one or two exceptions if a user missed a requirement, but excelled in the others.

Please note, this list is focused for people who already have experience (as opposed to recent graduates or entry-level jobs).

1. @alisondoyle – Alison Doyle sets the standard for offering helpful career advice.  She’s a job search expert, author
2. @jobhuntorg – One of the most helpful job portals – hands down
3. @jasonalba – Founder of JibberJobber and considered an Internet job search expert
4. @DebraWheatman – Well respected career columnist, featured blogger on Vault.com
5. @alevit – Bestselling author, speaker and career advice columnist for the WSJ
6. @andyinnaples – Career Success Coach.  Daily quotes are always an inspiration in tough times
7. @WSJcareers – Career News and Information direct from WSJ.
8. @DailyCareerTips – Self explanatory twitter name and great blog to follow as well
9. @Susanheathfield – HR expert on About.com
10. @Roxanneravenel – Job search coach and advice for women
11. @CareerEngineer – Active Twitterer.  Nice talk radio feature.  (Update 10-15)
12. @ChrisRussell- aka the Mad Scientist of Online Recruiting  (Update 10-16)

PS -  Be sure to follow us on Twitter!   @JobConcierge

PPS – If there’s anyone else you recommend, let us know.

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Thank you for stopping by.  As we are all aware, the American jobseeker is facing one of the most difficult times in economic history; what was a job hunter’s market a few years ago has now reversed into employers inundated with literally millions of resumes from people desperate for work.

Through this career-focused blog, our goal is to provide straight forward, practical advice and knowledge from experts in the industry.  We can’t predict the economy (economists can’t even get it right!) but what we can do is work together in looking out for new opportunities and helping you strategically – in repositioning and adding new skill sets to your arsenal.   As some of you have noticed, we give special perks and release information first to people connected on our social networks – so be sure to sign up for our email list serve.  If you have anything you’d like to share with others, please send us an email.

To better times ahead,

Jason

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