Counting Down 10 to 1:

10. Over-Explaining Why You Lost Your Last Job It’s okay to mention that your last position was eliminated, but then move on to what you can do for this employer.

9. Conveying That You’re Not Over It “During interviews, some people are acting wounded, angry or sad,” Schoonover says. These are normal emotions after a layoff but they don’t belong in a job interview—or you may “seem unstable and communicate that you don’t grasp the business reasons for layoffs,” he adds.

8. Lacking Humor, Warmth, or Personality Many anxious job candidates are “one-dimensional during interviews, and are too focused on getting their talking points across,” notes Schoonover. “Don’t forget to show qualities that can be a real plus in the decision-making process, including humor in good taste, warmth, and understanding.” One thing interviewers want to know, of course, is how pleasant you would be to have around the place every day.

7. Not Showing Enough Interest or Enthusiasm After all, “companies are looking for people who are excited about working with them,” Schoonover says.

6. Inadequate Research About a Potential Employer It’s essential to be up on the latest news, so be sure to Google the company before the interview. Be prepared with well-informed, thoughtful questions about its products or services and its future plans. Many applicants aren’t bothering, Schoonover says, and it shows.

5. Concentrating Too Much on What You Want Focus more on what the interviewer is saying. Listening carefully is crucial in steering the conversation toward how you would fit in and what you have to offer.

4. Trying to Be All Things to All People “Devote most of your effort to talking about what you know you do well, and don’t try to stretch your actual qualifications too far,” Schoonover advises. A good rule of thumb: Don’t apply for any job unless you have at least 75% of the stated qualifications.

3. “Winging” the Interview Schoonover hears from many hiring managers that candidates often aren’t ready to answer difficult questions. So rehearse. “Prepare and practice a 90-second verbal resume, and some answers to possible questions, so that you come across as succinct,” he suggests.

2. Failing to Set Yourself Apart From Other Candidates “You have to make the strongest possible case for why you are the best person for the job,” Schoonover says. “Specifically address what impact you can have on sales, profits, costs, or productivity within the next three to six months. Use quantifiable achievements from past positions to back up your performance promise.”

And the No. 1 mistake OI Partners’ coaches see job hunters make:

1. Failing to Ask For the Job “You have a much better chance of getting the job if you ask for it,” says Schoonover. “Close the interview by summing up what you can bring to the job, and ask for the opportunity to deliver those results.”

From Yahoo Business.com

SavananhJobs.com was featured in an article that appeared over the weekend.

http://savannahnow.com/intown/2009-09-05/try-temp- job-go-full-time

Yes, you have to submit your résumé electronically. But there’s still plenty you can do to get your résumé seen by the real decision-maker

Dear Liz, I spotted what looks like the perfect job for me and I sent a résumé in to the company’s online application system, as was required. But it has been a week and I haven’t heard anything. Now I’m wondering whether I should have done more research to find an alternate conduit to the hiring manager, and wondering whether there are additional steps I can take to boost my chances of getting an interview. Any suggestions?

Don’t worry—sending a résumé into the Black Hole (AKA lobbing a résumé into the HR pipeline) is almost always a requirement these days, even if you have a more promising entrée to the organization. You’d need to have that résumé on file in order to get an interview, so you haven’t wasted any effort. Still, there are lots of steps you can still take to increase the probability of getting an interview for the job. Here are six of my favorites:

Visit the Career Center • Start with LinkedIn to see whether one of your first-degree connections is connected to a relevant person (someone who works in the department where there’s an opening, a peer in another department, or best of all, the hiring manager) in the hiring department. If you do have a two- or three-step relationship to that inside person, ask your first-degree connection to make an introduction for you. (You can do this by clicking on the “Get Introduced Through a Connection” link on your “target” person’s profile page.)

• Next, I’d e-mail a group of your friends and colleagues (using bcc: all) to ask whether anyone has a lead on a person inside the employer (and your target department, if possible) and might be able to make an introduction for you. Not everyone checks his or her LinkedIn in-box (and not everyone belongs to LinkedIn) so sending an e-mail blast is a great backup step.

• If you can make contact with a person inside the company, your aim is a five-minute phone call to learn more about the organization and the open position. You won’t ask your brand-new acquaintance to pass along your résumé (that’s forward and presumptuous, since the person doesn’t even know you) but you’ll ask smart questions about the role. With luck, your new contact will offer to help or, at least, to keep you posted as résumés are reviewed and interviews are scheduled.

• Check the employer’s Web site and use the research site ZoomInfo to see if you can locate the hiring manager’s name. And, of course, you should Google the hiring manager, but in a really smart way: Search the company name plus the hiring manager’s most likely title, like this: Director Marketing ABC Products.

If the hiring manager in your sights has made any speeches, published any articles, given any interviews or been in the news for any reason lately, you may pull up his or her name this way as well as find out something a little more about him or her. Be sure to search using Google News, not just Google.

• If you find the hiring manager’s name, send a hard copy of your résumé and a customized cover letter to him or her directly. I suggest old-fashioned U.S. mail, as an uninvited e-mail message in someone’s in-box isn’t typically viewed as welcome and is also easily overlooked.

It’s easy to get the organization’s snail-mail address from its Web site; all you need is the hiring manager’s name, title, and that street address to send off a résumé/cover letter packet directly to the decision-maker.

• As you write your customized cover letter for the presumed hiring manager, be sure to focus more on the organization and its needs than on your own background and skills. (Of course, you should do this any time you are corresponding or speaking with someone about a job.) Superior to the standard “I saw your opening for a Marketing Research Manager” is “Congratulations on the launch of your Tastylocks edible hair gel line. That should be a sensation at HairExpo this fall!”

There is an element of luck in getting an interview, but you can do more than toss a résumé into the hopper and wait for a phone call. You can work assiduously to find contacts who can put in a good word for you, make introductions for you, and fill you in on the issues that are top-of-mind for the employer you’re targeting. When you spot a job you know you’d love and would thrive at, don’t hesitate to call on your network to help make it happen. That’s what your network is there for!

Liz Ryan is an expert on the new-millennium workplace and a former Fortune 500 HR executive.

Savannahjobs.com hits over 25,000 visitors’ milestone

The Sullivan Group’s local online job-posting site, SavannahJobs.com, has reached a new milestone with over 25,000 visitors a month.

Rob Jones, President of SavannahJobs.com, credits the company’s SEO, marketing, and community involvement.

Jones states, “The cost of posting on SavannahJobs.com is less than the cost of an ad in the local paper. Employers receive tremendous exposure with the addition of a family of sites including BlufftonJobs.com, HiltonHeadIslandJobs.com, GoldenIslesJobs.com, StatesboroJobs.com, JobsInKennesaw.com, and Charlestonjobs.com. Employers also benefit from SavannahJobs.com’s partnership with companies such as TheCoastalSource.com, Savannah Tourism Leadership Council and The Creative Coast Alliance.” Jones also explains, “Thanks to a new feature on our site called “Job Alerts,” many job seekers now receive immediate updates when a job fitting their preferences is posted on the site. This also helps employers to start receiving resumes just minutes after their ad is placed. Put all these pieces together and you have faster fill times for employers saving them time and money.”

Savannahjobs.com is ranked number one on Google, Yahoo, and MSN in the Savannah area when using the keywords “jobs” and “employment,” making it the most active local resource for job searches.

Jenni Pirtle of Grey Line Savannah, a client of Savannahjobs.com, writes, “Just wanted to let you know how impressed I was with the number of responses for the ad we placed this month. We had so many quality candidates apply. We’ll never use the newspaper again! Thanks, Jenni” SAVANNAH, GA – (July 14, 2009).

Companies that are still posting job ads in a newspaper are wasting their money. Posting ads online is the smartest choice for their recruiting dollars. SavannahJobs.com has over 26,000 visitors a month.

100+ newspapers have closed in the past 12 months and the remaining ones have seen Sunday’s circulation decline 5%. Data from mywebgrocer.com

No matter what your business is—retail, wholesale, service or Web-based—it pays to develop a networking plan to increase your contacts and, ultimately, your business.

Simply defined, networking is making connections. For your small business, this may involve making connections with family members, friends, friends of friends, colleagues, the pet groomer and even your doctor, accountant or lawyer, each of whom is familiar with your business. These people can help you solve problems, provide suggestions for decisions, assess transferable skills, track down job leads, sharpen your resume and even act out interviews. Many of them can even provide emotional support. Perhaps you’re looking for a graphic designer for a new brochure. If there’s not a designer in your current networking circle, perhaps one of the folks you know has a great designer in their circle.

Remember the shampoo commercial in the 1980s where the blonde who loved the new shampoo told two friends, and they told two friends, and their friends told two friends? That was networking at its best.

If you’d like to cast your net of contacts a little wider, here are some of the basic steps to consider in your networking plan.

Make a list *Sit down at your computer or grab a pencil and paper to create a networking list of at least 50 people you believe are important for networking purposes: past employers or managers, former and current co-workers, former college and high-school teachers (depending upon your age), people at your church or temple, including the clergy, past and current neighbors, friends and relatives. In addition, don’t forget to consider your career college center, former classmates from high school and college, trade unions, if applicable, professional organizations and current business networking group members.

Prioritize this list Now that you have the names of 50 people or more, prioritize them after you establish your criteria. Criteria could include the following: seems to know everyone, aware of the current job market, likes helping people, has been my mentor for years, owns a small business, knows my skills and strengths extremely well, will be proactive for me, etc.

Establish a goal *So, what are you hoping to accomplish? It’s important to create a plan with a timetable. Perhaps you need to establish a relationship with an accountant by the year’s end. Sure, you could search on the Internet or dust off your Yellow Pages book. But you might consider getting the search for an account started by contacting your networking list. Ask those folks who they know or recommend. The people on your networking contact list can also probably offer advice on what to look for in an accountant, what to avoid and a range of service prices to expect.

As you begin thinking of networking, you may feel like you don’t know enough people or aren’t connected enough to your community to have a robust networking list. But when you think of two friends and add them to your networking list—and each of them can suggest two friends and their friends can suggest two friends—your contact list will soon be dynamic and full of folks who can offer help and advice of all kinds.

Article from the WSJ

Job seekers, beware the telephone.

For years, the phone interview was a preliminary step that allowed an employer to give a candidate the once-over and schedule an in-person interview. But these days, many recruiters are using the phone interview to pose the kinds of in-depth questions previously reserved for finalists. What’s more, job hunters say the bar for getting to the next level has been raised much higher, catching many of them off-guard.

In a recent first interview for a senior marketing job, Robyn Cobb was grilled by a hiring manager for an hour and a half on topics ranging from her work history and marketing philosophy to her knowledge of the company and its industry.

“I thought it was never going to end,” says the 45-year-old Ms. Cobb, who lives in Alpharetta, Ga., and was laid off in December from a midsize communications firm.

Until recently, candidates could often breeze through most phone interviews in 10 minutes or less by answering a few softball questions. Little preparation was necessary, and most people could expect to be invited for a “real” interview before hanging up.

These days, job hunters are finding that they need to reserve an hour or more for a phone interview. They may be asked to discuss their full work history, including the exact dates of their experience in various business areas. They may also be expected to cite examples and exact stats that illustrate their strengths and offer details on how they would handle the position.

During a call earlier this year about a director-of-Internet-marketing job, Jaclyn Agy of Wheat Ridge, Colo., says she was asked to describe about 10 different marketing initiatives she’s worked on, plus provide metrics resulting from each. “I didn’t have those stats off the top of my head,” she recalls of the hour-long conversation. “I expected to be asked that in a face-to-face.”

Ms. Agy, 30, says she assumed she’d need only to describe two or three past accomplishments in general terms. “I was taken back by how specific [the interviewer] was getting,” she says. Ms. Agy was better prepared for a follow-up phone interview. She was later invited to meet with eight members of the hiring company in its Denver office, though she didn’t land the position.

Employers say they’ve raised the phone-interview stakes in part because they’re attracting more candidates who meet their basic qualifications. They’re digging deep to identify the best ones, and in some cases adding second-round rigor to phone screens as one way to accomplish that.

“You can be pickier,” says Joyce A. Foster, vice president of human resources at Hilex Poly Co. LLC in Hartsville, S.C. Salaried job openings at the company’s 10 U.S. locations have been attracting up to three times as many qualified applicants - including more candidates with experience in Hilex’s niche, plastic film and bag manufacturing and recycling - than during more robust economic times, she says.

“Before, if a person had only recycling experience in paper, we might have said OK,” Ms. Foster says. “Today we can be more specific. I’m going to find someone who’s an even better fit.”

Recruiters are also seeking to weed out those who seem likely to change jobs as soon as the economy turns around. “We’re trying to determine whether what we’re offering truly meets their long-term objectives,” says Paul Newman, assistant vice president of human resources at OppenheimerFunds. And when it comes to candidates who were laid off, recruiters for the New York-based asset-management firm want to know the circumstances behind what happened. “Was this person a high-performance, talented individual who was let go because of the economics of the business,” he says, “or an average employee let go in the first round” of layoffs?

For many firms, evaluating candidates over the phone also serves as a way to save on recruiting costs. “In this economy, you can’t afford to fly every person out for an interview,” says Jeff Cousens, vice president of organizational development at Patrick Energy Services Inc. in Lisle, Ill. After joining the energy concern in January, he instructed recruiters to complete up to four comprehensive phone interviews with candidates before inviting finalists in. Previously, they made just one brief call, mainly to schedule in-person interviews. “When a candidate comes in to meet the hiring manager, recruiters have already gone through every detail to make sure they’re a fit,” says Mr. Cousens.

Job seekers should prepare for a phone interview as seriously as they do for an in-person one. When asked about your qualifications, for example, you can craft a better answer by asking what the company wants and why, says J.T. O’Donnell, a career strategist in North Hampton, N.H.

If you’re asked how many years of experience you have with a program you have used extensively, but not for years, you could reply by asking how much is required and at what level, says Ms. O’Donnell. Maybe the company chose a number based on how much experience the last person in the position had, and you might have just as much, but in a condensed time frame. You can then provide a convincing reason as to why you should be considered for the job even if your answer doesn’t match exactly what the recruiter is looking for.

You should also prepare to answer more complex and detailed questions in phone interviews by creating a list of key statistics and abbreviated answers to commonly asked questions, says Bill McGowan, founder of communications-coaching firm Clarity Media Group Inc. Some examples: What do you know about the company? Why do you want the job? What are your greatest strengths? What are your career goals? How do you see yourself fitting in?

“What traps a lot of people is they think and talk at the same time. They make up answers on the fly,” says Mr. McGowan. “It’s better if you know your conversational path.”

Don’t expect to defer answering questions to your first meeting with a hiring manager, says Maureen Crawford Hentz, a talent-acquisition manager at Danvers, Mass.-based lighting manufacturer Osram Sylvania Inc. That may have been the case in the past, but not now. “People think if you’re talking to someone in HR, this isn’t a real interview,” she says. But these days, it might be your only shot.

Be sure to brush up on your phone etiquette, too. Ms. Crawford Hentz says candidates have put her on hold while they answered another call or tended to their children. Once she could tell a candidate was visiting a drive-through restaurant during a call because she heard a loudspeaker requesting the person’s lunch order.

Finally, be mindful of common faux pas, such as giving long-winded answers that go off topic. “Sometimes the longer you talk, the more it sounds like you’re trying to explain your way through something,” says Mr. McGowan. “The most confident people don’t need to drone on.” Another common flub: answering recruiters’ questions before they’ve finished speaking. Not only does that show disrespect, but it “makes it seem like you have stocked, canned answers,” he says.

Write to Sarah E. Needleman

Interesting article appeared on Yahoo Finance. The New Resume: Dumb and Dumber

Kristin Konopka sent out nearly 100 copies of her résumé in January in search of receptionist work, but got only one callback. That’s when Ms. Konopka, a 29-year-old New York actress and yoga teacher, took her master’s degree and academic teaching experience off her résumé.

The calls started coming in. The slimmer version of her résumé landed in 30 in-boxes and earned her three callbacks and two interviews. “It definitely picked up the interest,” says Ms. Konopka, who realized quickly that people don’t “want to hire anyone who is overqualified.”

Securing work in a tight economy means more job seekers might find themselves applying for positions below their qualifications. Many unemployed professionals are willing to take paycuts for the promise of a paycheck. But to get a foot in the door, candidates are gearing down their résumés by hiding advanced degrees, changing too-lofty titles, shortening work experience descriptions, and removing awards and accolades.

In the past eight months, Jamaica Eilbes, an information-technology recruiter for Milwaukee employment agency Manpower, has had to weed out more overqualified résumés than usual from the stacks that cross her desk each day. “I’d never feel comfortable putting a really high-level candidate into a lower level position,” says Ms. Eilbes, who recruits for Manpower and other clients. “We don’t want to take you on if we think you are going to jump ship.”

But in recent months, Ms. Eilbes has seen more master’s and doctoral degrees at the bottom of résumés instead of at the top. She’s also seen candidates omitting or trimming job descriptions that showed they had substantial years of work experience. Résumés on which job descriptions taper off as they progress down the page raise Ms. Eilbes’s suspicions. “How do I know I can trust them later down the road if there’s something on their résumé they decided to take off so they could have a better chance at getting that job?” she says.

Still, for some professionals who find themselves constantly rejected despite decades of experience, scaling back the truth or at the least, some of their experiences can feel like the only chance at an interview.

Lenora Kaplan, 49, has 26 years of marketing experience but doesn’t want her résumé to show it. When she lost her job as vice president of public relations at a small Las Vegas marketing firm in January, Ms. Kaplan searched for work with little success. At an interview for a shopping-mall marketing-director position in February, she was told that the hiring budget had only enough for a junior-level employee and that her résumé showed she was overqualified.

Many of the jobs she comes across ask for far fewer years of experience than she has. “There is nothing to apply for” at my level, Ms. Kaplan says. She quickly realized her job experience was pricing her out of too many positions. Her solution: To try not to look as senior level as she really was. So she eliminated certain jobs and removed details about speaking engagements and board positions.

In some cases, job seekers are being told by hiring agencies to tone down their résumés if they want to get hired. When Bridget Lee, 29, moved to New York from Shanghai eight months ago and put her application in at three temporary agencies, she was told to play down her work experience before they would send her résumé to potential clients. The temp-agency version of her résumé changed titles like “manager” and “freelance trend researcher” to “staff” and “office support” and omitted entirely her title as partner of a small marketing agency. “It’s been a lesson for how I present myself,” Ms. Lee says.

Career counselors advise against making too many drastic changes. But they also say the demand for this kind of restructuring is on the rise. In the past three months, Tammy Kabell, a Kansas City, Mo., job-search coach, says more clients are requesting her help to “dumb down” their résumés, whether by changing job titles, playing down experience, or altogether omitting some impressive achievements. One recent client, a 61-year-old former chief learning officer at a tech company, insisted on omitting her C-level job title from her résumé. She was fearful her application would be weeded out by the Web search-optimization tools companies use to manage résumés.

Some résumé writers advise reworking a résumé into a functional one stressing transferable skills instead of past job titles and accomplishments. “Instead of focusing on the big achievements that might scare an employer away, you can spell out what you can bring to an employer in the next position,” Ms. Kabell says.

Of course, reducing your résumé to a skeleton of what it truly should be isn’t likely to land you the job you really want. While it took Ms. Lee eight months to get a call back for a job that matched her real experience, this month she landed a position as a temporary account manager with potential for permanent work at a New York design firm. The interview and job offer weren’t earned using her dumbed-down résumé, but rather with the original.

“You have to make those creative edits when it comes to short-term work, but in terms of long-term work, you have to stay true to your experience,” says Ms. Lee.

Write to Jane Porter at jane.porter@wsj.com

140 million google searches containing the keyword job are conducted each month. That means means google ranking is very important for any job marketer, high rankings are clearly a market advantage. SavannahJobs.com has had the number one ranking in Google, Yahoo and MSN for savannah and jobs keywords for years. We have over 23,000 visitors a month. Contact us today for posting information.

Very interesting Wall Street Journal Article.

Michele Wallace had worked for Medialink Worldwide Inc. for 18 years when the New York video-distribution company laid her off last May. When the company’s information-technology staff quickly shut down her computer and her BlackBerry, the senior vice president of client services lost family photos and every personal and business contact on her cellphone and computer.

“I couldn’t even call my sister because I don’t know her number off the top of my head,” says Ms. Wallace, now a 47-year-old managing director at Mega Media Worldwide and living in Asbury Park, N.J. “I know you shouldn’t even have that stuff on the computer,” she says. But in the course of working 10- to 12-hour days for several years, “you don’t pay as much attention as to how much is personal on your computer.”

She’s still piecing together her contacts on Facebook and LinkedIn. (Medialink did not return calls for comment.)

As layoffs sweep across industries, employees’ personal information is winding up in the dustbin, as well. Most workers know better than to store personal files on their office computer. But employees who spend the majority of their time at the office often treat the company PC as their personal gadget, filling it with music, photos, personal contacts—even using the computer’s calendar to track a child’s soccer schedule. That makes it all the more distressing when a newly laid-off worker learns that his digital belongings are company property.

Most companies today have new hires sign electronic communications policies that generally state they have no rights to privacy or rights of ownership over the content on company computers. It doesn’t matter if those files are wedding photos or family phone numbers. “It still belongs to the company if it’s stored on a company-issued computer,” says Allison Brecher, director of information management and strategy and senior litigation counsel at consultants Marsh & McLennan Cos.

After someone quits or is laid off, a company will typically just delete those files, wiping a computer clean. In professions where communication between clients is important, like in sales or finance, companies might keep email correspondence for their records, says Jonathan Hyman, a partner at law firm Kohrman Jackson & Krantz PLL in Cleveland.

Earlier this year, Katie Morse was caught off-guard when she was laid off from a telecommunications company in Charlotte, N.C., where she worked in the marketing and communication department. After filling out paperwork and being briefed by her supervisors, she was escorted to her desk to collect her things. “Anything that was on my computer I didn’t have access to,” Ms. Morse, now living in Brooklyn, N.Y., says. “I honestly wish I was able to take my contacts with me.”

Companies often lock down computers and restrict access to email as soon as an employee is let go. “That could vary, but I think it’s safer to expect a harsh response,” says Janine Yancey, chief executive for emTRAiN, a human-resource training company.

Whether laid-off workers are allowed to retrieve personal files depends on the industry and the size of the business. “If you go into a bigger organization, they are going to implement a standard across the board,” which tends to be more restrictive, Ms. Yancey says. Smaller organizations may be more lenient. Some professions - brokers or financial advisers, for example - may be constrained by regulatory requirements with regards to the access they can give laid-off workers, Ms. Brecher says.

Companies often go to extreme lengths to protect themselves during layoffs. Some pore over their former employees’ emails, says Mr. Hyman. “If they think an employee has stolen anything, they will look for that,” he says. Companies fearing lawsuits from disgruntled former employees may have their IT department or an outside firm search through the emails, too, Mr. Hyman says.

From a business standpoint, companies that give laid-off workers access to work computers and email risk exposure to data theft, computer viruses and lost contact lists. “You don’t want somebody going in and downloading their whole contact base,” Ms. Yancey says. “That contact base belongs to the employer.”

A recent survey by the Ponemon Institute, a privacy research group in Traverse City, Mich., found that nearly 60% of employees who lost or left jobs in 2008 stole company data. The survey polled 945 adults from several industries who were laid off, fired or changed jobs in 2008. Data that was taken included non-financial business information, customer contact lists and financial information.

While human resource consultants advise businesses to use caution when dealing with laid-off employees, some are more lenient. Michelle Liro had five weeks’ notice that she was being let go as director of marketing at a telecommunications company. This gave her time to hunt for a new job and move email contacts of friends and colleagues to Facebook and LinkedIn. She was also able to take digital copies of banner ad campaigns and Web site graphics she designed.

The company even let Ms. Liro keep her work laptop after they wiped clean all of the files and software. “It only makes sense for companies to work with their employees,” says Ms. Liro, of Holliston, Mass. “You really do want to leave on a positive note.”

At Laughlin Constable, a marketing company in Chicago, laid-off or fired employees have their computer access limited and email restricted as soon as they are notified that they will be let go, says Joyce O’Brien, executive vice president of human resources.

“About 70 percent of our employees ask to have something off of their computer” when they are laid off, Ms. O’Brien says. Requests for personal files are reviewed by the IT department, human resources and the chief financial officer, she says. The company tries to give back personal information to laid-off workers as long as it isn’t a sensitive termination, Ms. O’Brien says. The personal files are retrieved by the company.

Employees are better off assuming that their company will take a conservative approach, says James Bucking, an employment lawyer for Foley Hoag LLP in Boston.

Employees worried about their job security should review the forms they signed when they were hired. They should look at the company’s electronic communications policy, employee guidelines and non-compete agreements to make sure they understand everything properly. When employees sign these agreements, they should also make copies to save at home, too, Ms. Yancey says. Those that break these agreements risk being fired or sued by their employer, she adds.

You should also be aware that the contact information for business associates made during employment and stored on an office computer - or even a Rolodex - usually belongs to the company, Mr. Bucking says.

When Tony Scida was laid off recently from his proofreader position at a small advertising agency in Richmond, Va., he didn’t take any email contacts from his computer because he signed a non-compete agreement. That didn’t much matter. He found most of them on Facebook and LinkedIn, and can contact them there.

In recent weeks, recruiters for Consolidated Container Co. have seen job candidates arrive up to an hour early for interviews. Other candidates have alluded to financial hardships while in the hot seat, and one person even distributed bound copies of documents describing projects he completed for past employers.

These sorts of tactics aren’t exactly winners.

Read the full article

Provided by WSJ.com

Rob Jones, CEO of Savannahjobs.com ,talks about how with new technology Savannahjobs.com can create a wider net for their clients. By using Savannahjobs.com, job providers are able to find qualified candidates for any position they need filled.

Listen to the interview

Great article all job seekers should read. On our family of job sites we work to show only real jobs, our competition is not so careful.

Provided by Wall Street Journal

Employment Ads on the Web Can Lead You to Marketing Pitches, or Worse; Ways to See Which Ones Are Sincere

In October, Tom Greene was invited by email to interview for a vice president position he had applied for through CareerBuilder.com. Before accepting, the sales and marketing executive called the search firm that posted the ad to ensure it was indeed a job opportunity.

Mr. Greene didn’t want a repeat of two years ago, when he agreed to an interview in the same circumstances only to find there was no position available. Instead, he had received a pitch from a career-marketing service costing up to $10,000, starting with a $6,000 upfront fee.

This time, the 53-year-old was assured by phone that the job was real and he wouldn’t be asked to dig into his wallet. But after driving a half-hour from his home in Colonia, N.J., to meet the firm’s recruiters, he says he found himself once again listening to a pitch for a career service, without any prospect of a job.

“It’s extremely frustrating,” says Mr. Greene, who weeks later was laid off from the financial-services company where he worked. “You get very skeptical about the job market.”

If you’re launching an online job hunt for the first time in a while; take caution. What may look like an ad for employment may lead to something entirely different, like a hard sell for career services or job-training manuals. Or worse, it might be a plan by identity thieves to get you to share sensitive personal information via “phishing” expeditions. Some of the job postings - sometimes for positions long filled - also could be from recruiting agencies looking to collect résumés.

The problem of job postings that aren’t what they seem is adding to the frustrations of the more than two million recently laid-off workers who are competing for an increasingly limited number of jobs. The good news is that there are several tip-offs that indicate an ad is likely to lead you down the wrong path. And as long as you don’t give out any private data, getting duped into responding to a fruitless job ad will likely only cost you time and energy.

Last fall, for instance, Mary LaFleur Langdon searched for children’s photography and teaching-assistant jobs near her home in Milford, N.H., at craigslist.com. She answered several ads that didn’t name the hiring companies and received email responses all asking her to complete the same application at Career-Hub.com, which no longer exists.

After filling it out, Ms. LaFleur Langdon says she received an email instructing her to return to Career-Hub.com and provide additional information. Once she did that, she says, she was directed to a Web page advertising various jobs and no explanation as to the fate of her application. She completed the form again, and this time she answered “yes” to a question asking if she was interested in furthering her education. The result was an ad for an online university. “I was pretty angry,” says Ms. LaFleur Langdon, 46 years old.

Some recruiting agencies post ads for eye-catching positions to attract applicants for the less-desirable jobs in their portfolios, says Steven Greenberg, publisher of jobs4point0.com, a job site for experienced professionals. Often the jobs were already filled, or they’re a composite of several ads. Recruiting firms do this because “they’re looking to gather as many résumés as they can for posting the fewest ads,” says Mr. Greenberg. Later, they’ll pitch these low-interest jobs to people whose résumés they’ve collected in hopes they are desperate enough to take a less-attractive position.

Meanwhile, independent recruiters often dilute the marketplace by posting their own ads for the same position, says Elaine Rigoli, editor of the Fordyce Letter, a trade publication for recruiting professionals. They’re competing against one another for a fee that comes with placing the winning candidate, she explains. The ads contain different language and contact information, giving job hunters the false impression that there are several openings on the market, she says. Still, it can be beneficial for job hunters to apply to them all since recruiters don’t always agree on who makes an ideal fit for a position, says Ms. Rigoli.

The ads to most watch out for are those pretending to offer a job but are really trying to get you to give up personal information, such as a bank-account or Social Security number. They often mimic real postings, with some featuring company names and logos nearly identical to those of actual employers. The individuals behind these postings may even exchange multiple emails with job hunters to build up trust.

To be sure, many job Web sites review submissions to try and prevent inappropriate ads from getting published. A spokeswoman for CareerBuilder says the site employs a team to screen job postings and verify their information. But job boards can’t spot everything ahead of time, site publishers say. “Fraudulent activity across the Internet continues to evolve and mutate,” writes CareerBuilder spokeswoman Jennifer Sullivan Grasz in an email.

Of 132 job-site publishers polled in October, 39% said they frequently find ads that peddle sham investment opportunities or request personal information under false pretenses. More than half said the review process regularly turns up ads to get job hunters to buy services or products, according to the survey by the International Association of Employment Web Sites, whose members power more than 60,000 job boards.

Some deceptive ads end up on job boards anyway because “scammers learn each time how to break through whatever the filter is that’s knocking them out,” says Gerry Crispin, co-founder of CareerXroads, a Kendall Park, N.J., consulting firm that specializes in recruiting technology. “They come back over and over again trying new techniques.” Big job boards are particularly vulnerable, he adds.

So how can you tell if a job posting is insincere? One sign is that it lacks details about the hiring company and position, says Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, a nonprofit group in Cardiff by the Sea, Calif., that specializes in privacy matters. Such an ad might describe an employer as a “major technology firm” rather than cite annual sales or say what kind of technology it produces. It also might offer a vague job description or list a salary range spanning more than $50,000. Genuine ads typically target applicants who have a specific amount of experience and pay salaries commensurate with their backgrounds, says Ms. Rigoli of the Fordyce Letter.

If you’re unsure whether an ad is sincere, you can protect your identity when responding by providing a resume with a post-office box address instead of your home address, says Ms. Dixon. You might also list just your initials in the document and not your full name. Further, consider using a disposable email address to prevent spam from clogging up the one you normally use. If a business address or company name is provided, and it’s a name you don’t recognize, search for the employer’s Web site to learn more about it. You also can check for any complaints filed against it with the Better Business Bureau at bbb.org and consult with people in your network.

Simple tips & resources to jump start your job search Abridged: Star Reviews

DELRAY BEACH, FL—The web can be a great resource to help anyone find the ideal job. The key is leveraging the Internet to be more efficient in conducting a job search. Even in tough times, companies still need employees. Here are some tips and resource suggestions to getting that sought after job.

Use niche job search websites, not just the major ones. Niche websites contain more focused and specialized job opportunities. Take advantage of social networking websites to try and identify employers and people within those organizations that may help you. Use a professional resume writing service to revise and update your resume and cover letter. Your resume is your gateway into the company you wish to work for.

Clean up your credit report. With the competition for jobs, employers are screening potential employees more carefully than ever before. Clean up your online profile. While you can research a company online, the company can research you too. Clean up email addresses, online profiles and any online postings or photos of you.

2 Minutes – That’s about how long you should spend describing who you are and what you do in response to a question such as “tell me about yourself.” 7% words, 38% tone and 55% body language – That’s the formula for success in communicating during job interviews and networking meetings. 75% – Make eye contact with the interviewer around 75% of the time. Be sure you have at least 70% of the qualifications when answering a job ad.

Thank you for visiting the Savannah Jobs Blog. We had a great year in 2008 and are looking for new and better things in 2009. We purchased CharlestonJobs.com and added lots of new functionality to SavannahJobs.com Thank you for support.

Rob Jones SavannahJobs.com

Press Release on our rankings, that drive job seekers to our site.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. —Columnist Anita Bruzzese solicits advice on managing your online reputation. This one was, especially insightful, and useful not only for job hunters but also for the happily employed!

“I had a client who had a reputation as a hard-nosed manager. After losing his position after an acquisition, he found himself in a job search for the first time in a number of years. Because he was highly respected, he thought the search would go quickly. On several occasions, he would get to the final stages prior to hiring with a company showing great enthusiasm, only to suddenly be dropped from consideration. At this point he came to see me. We did a Google search and found that when we searched his name, No. 5 in the Google search results was a link to an industry forum page where he was being trashed anonymously by some people that had worked for him, calling him an unfit manager.

Here’s what we did. We changed everything (resume, cover letters, online profiles, etc.) to his full name. People will typically Google what is on the resume. When his full name was Googled, nothing negative showed up. We took advantage of a few key online profiles like LinkedIn. Google loves it and for most people, if they have a LinkedIn profile, it will show up first if you Google them. I also had my client write a book review on his favorite management book and post it on Amazon. This gave the opportunity to show a little thought leadership and demonstrate his management knowledge. This helped counter the negatives. The result was that within weeks Joshua was hired.”

Abridged: USNews.com