Career Goddess

Green Jobs: Your Future Career Path?

Green jobs are predicted by many to be one of the fastest-growing segments in the US economy for the future decades (Global Insight, 2008, report to The United States Conference of Mayors and the Mayors Climate Protection Center).  In fact, the O*NET Center (US Department of Labor) has identified 215 “green” occupations in 12 major industrial sectors, with more to be added.

These facts came to my attention as the result of reading “Building Windmills in the Green Economy” by Dr. Janet E. Wall in the most recent NCDA Career Developments publication (Winter 2009). Her article is available to NCDA members exclusively. 

Dr. Wall’s background as a career development expert, O*NET consultant, and one of the founders of the first Earth Day in Texas, demonstrates her experience and passion about career development and green careers. Her comprehensive article is a goldmine of green jobs information.

For example, she reports that the greening economy will directly impact the further development of existing occupations, as well as the emergence of new occupations, most consistently in 12 industrial sectors, such as Renewable Energy Generation, Transportation, Green Construction, Agriculture and Forestry, Environmental Protection, and Government and Regulatory Administration. Resources she cites include the Green Jobs Guidebook by the Environmental Defense Fund,  The Occupational Outlook Quarterly (Summer 2009 issue), and the US Department of Labor’s Career Voyages green jobs portal.

Reporting about green jobs and useful resources is also close to my heart, especially since I grew up on a farm where recycling and “green” job tasks were abundant. In addition, as a professional career counselor,  I have encouraged career development and career management based on being knowledgeable about yourself and future careers. With the fast pace of change, those future careers could be right around the corner for many of you!

Read my “Follow the Green Jobs Road” post (April, 2009), as well as The Reach Personal Branding Career Advice Guide on Green Careers, to get up to speed quickly on the essentials. Do not let the greening of the economy leave you and your career in the dust!

Park Ranger, Perfumer and Potter ...Oh My!

Dream jobs are still out there, and you can try them out before you make the leap to a new career. So says Brian Kurth of VocationVacations and author of Test-Drive Your Dream Job: A Step-By-Step Guide to Finding and Creating the Work You Love (HachetteGroupUSA, 2008).

Check out Brian’s interview on NBC’s TODAY Show on December 3, which features a dream vacation on an Alpaca Ranch for the TODAY host! Whether your heart’s desire is to be a brew master, archeologist, choreographer, or spa owner, VocationVocations offers mentorships and on-site “working” vacations so you can test-drive that job you always yearned for.

Then read Brian’s book – it’s a goldmine! Of course it talks about the concept of vocationing and finding a mentor. But the chapters that really hit home with me were Fear (as in immobilizing you), Research (both “inside” you and “outside” in the world of work), and Action Plan (with a nifty chart encompassing issues such as Money, Logistics, and Relationships). These chapters would benefit any job-seeker and are a must-read.

Gaining clarity about the kind of job you really want, overcoming fears and obstacles, and devising a practical action plan are all important steps in the career transition process. Brian’s entertaining examples and stories, including his own admission that he had once been immobilized by fear himself, are encouraging and enlightening.

Give yourself permission to dream a bit this holiday season! You never know where it might lead…

How to Cut Your Job Search Time in Half

The December 2009 Reach Personal Branding Interview on Thursday, Dec. 10 at noon EST features tips and techniques from David Perry and Kevin Donlin, co-authors of Guerilla Marketing for Job Hunters 2.0. In this guest expert interview with William Arruda, founder of Reach Personal Branding, David and Kevin will discuss job search secrets that have enabled their clients to land good jobs in less than half the time of the national average. This is a complimentary, live call and will also be recorded.

David Perry is a headhunter (managing partner of Perry-Martel International), in-demand public speaker, and co-author of the highly successful Guerilla Marketing series and the Guerilla Job Hunting blog. Contributing co-author Kevin Donlin’s company, Guaranteed Resumes, provides resumes, cover letters, and online job search assistance to client worldwide.

UPDATE: Audio recording of interview with David Perry and Kevin Donlin

7 Self-Marketing Tips for Resumes

Crafting the modern-day resume can be daunting. In fact, you may not be aware of how your resume is missing the mark and consequently you suffer from job search “black-hole-itis”. You know the definition: responding to job postings with your resume and NEVER hearing back, as though your resume got sucked up into the black hole of cyberspace.

With the following tips, you can improve your resume dramatically. Remember, your resume is a self-marketing document. It must meet the needs of the reader, who is your target audience. Whether that target audience is a recruiter or a company’s HR person or department manager or someone with whom you are networking, these do’s and don’ts will apply. So, when writing your resume, be sure to be:

1. Focused – Don’t be open to all possibilities. This screams that you have not got a clue about the kind of job you want. You are on a “fishing expedition” and employers will recognize it in a heartbeat. Identify and communicate your target job function (job titles) and industries of choice. Include a job posting’s actual job title as the Career Target headline in your resume.

2. Relevant – Don’t hide the important stuff. After you have determined your focus, evaluate all of your experiences, education, training, and skills for the most relevant material regarding that job target. Highlight that critical information on the first page, and preferably on the top half of the first page. With 10-20 seconds to scan your resume, make it easy for the reader to find your “best” stuff.

3. Accomplished – Don’t be a “seat warmer”. Only listing job duties and responsibilities on your resume may lead the reader to believe that you actually never accomplished anything and simply went through the motions at work. A job duty is something you were supposed to do as part of your job description. How well you performed that job duty is anybody’s guess UNLESS you quantify the results of those job duties to showcase your successes.

4. Clear – Don’t confuse or overwhelm with wordiness. Get to the point. When you throw a bunch of ambiguous words and phrases on your resume, with lots of industry acronyms and jargon and convoluted sentences that seem to be connected to the thread of thought in your bullet point or paragraph, but end up losing the reader because you have committed “extreme wordiness” with a bullet point or paragraph that goes on for 6 or more lines, you have not really impressed anyone and have succeeded in confusing them and overwhelming them with excessive and unnecessary verbiage (just like this sentence!)

5. Compelling – Don’t be wishy-washy. Who wants to hire a plain-vanilla employee who may show up for work, with luck every workday, but is essentially invisible and non-contributing? This will be the conclusion if you write a lackluster, insipid resume. Communicate excitement and interest with your choice of resume format and content. Even within conservative industries, your resume does not have to look exactly like every other candidate’s resume!

6. Unique – Don’t be a generic commodity. Uncover your personal brand, memorable strengths and leadership style, and your unique value to differentiate yourself from other similar candidates. Show how you can bring added-value to the job. What skills or qualities would be the icing on the cake for the employer? If you don’t know, ask the opinion of others in the industry.

7. Socially connected – Don’t be a dinosaur. Demonstrate that you are keeping up with current trends in social media by including not only your email address, but also URL links to your LinkedIn Profile or videoResume or blog or YouTube videos or VisualCV or web portfolio, and/or your Twitter name or Skype handle, for example. Be sure that whatever you link to is absolutely professional and makes you stand out in a positive light that employers would appreciate. These indicators of social media awareness will tag you as someone who is interested in learning new skills and knowledge, and applying them in the real-world.

Evaluate your resume today against these 7 Do’s and Don’ts. How does your resume fare? Use these tips to morph your resume, perhaps via an “extreme makeover”, from bland to unbeatable!