No offense but I’ve been browsing around Linkedin looking at profiles and have come to the conclusion that most folks haven’t put much effort into this. From a career counseling perspective, I think it is important because this is just one more way of making a good impression. Even more important, it can also serve as a way to be discovered by a recruiter, so you’ll certainly want to come across in as effective a way as possible. Here are some tips: Continue reading →

For those of you who are looking for a job in the Richmond area, www.Richmondjobnet.com may be a very useful resource for you. Published by the Greater Richmond Partnership, this site is designed to provide resources for local job seekers.

I subscribe to their newsletter (and you can too—it is just a click away on their home page) and their January, 2012 newsletter listed 24 companies who have either announced new locations or expansions in the Richmond region over the past year. By their calculations, these announcements have totaled nearly 5,000 local jobs! As the newsletter says “some are hiring now, and some will be hiring in the future, but all are growing and should be on your radar.” Here are the companies they listed: Continue reading →

A client called me a few weeks ago to give me an update on her job search. I was sorry to hear things had not been going well for her—she had been looking unsuccessfully for several months and was beginning to feel quite discouraged. Continue reading →

I find myself trying to avoid using the word “networking” with my clients. I know, I know. I would be a pretty lousy career coach if I didn’t encourage my clients to get the word out to people about what they are targeting. But there’s this look that passes over most every client’s face when I start to talk about being in touch with people as a part of the search. It is a mixture of embarrassment and fear—for some of my clients it verges on downright anguish. Some of them tell me they know it is bitter medicine and they will make themselves take it. But others tell me that networking is something that is going to be very difficult for them because truth be told, they really don’t know many people and certainly, they are sure, they don’t know the kind of people that will be helpful to them in a job search.

If this is how you feel, I am going to do for you what I do for my clients: Continue reading →