1. 7 Keys to Finding Jobs in a Recession! By Chas Bollow www.realcojobs.com [email_address]

2. Quotes from WJS Article by Joe Light March 7th 2011

• Quote 1: Eight months ago, Catholic Health Initiatives, a Denver-based nonprofit that runs hospitals and other health-care facilities, began looking for 50 highly skilled project and program managers. Eighteen of those positions still aren't filled, says Director of Recruitment Tracie Grant. Before the recession, it typically took the company 60 days to fill positions.

• Observation: Hired 32 people in 8 months. It will take them another 4 to 5 months, for a total of 12 to 13 months, to fill the remaining positions. However they may have already exhausted the pool of candidates.

3.

• Quite 2: Recruiters say they are having trouble finding candidates for many skilled positions, and once candidates are found, hiring managers are taking longer to pull the trigger .

• Observation: Hiring managers and companies are not willing to spend the time, money or effort on training. Plus what skills are they talking about? PHP, VB 6?

4.

• Quote 3: Positions that typically took two months to fill before the recession are sometimes taking four times longer , recruiters say, as hiring managers are holding out for better candidates.

• Observation: 8 months to fill 1 position. For every point in unemployment it will take that long to find a job! So if we are at 9 percent unemployment expect your job search to take 9 months!

• So what do we do with this information?

• Competition is high so the basics are important!!!!

5. What are the basics?

• Current Skills

• Resume

• Interview Skills

• References

• Flexibility

• Networking who you know!

• Salary

6.

• Current Skills: Are you relevant in 2011 and beyond? Are you a COBOL programmer in a Java J2EE .Net world? If so get training and then do everything you can to get experience at any cost. Volunteer at your local SPCA or church if you must!

• Interview Skills: Tons of free and inexpensive information out there. You can Google interviewing, check out eHow.com or Alison Doyle at About.com.

• References: Make sure you have 4 to 6 references that will say good things about you and want you to succeed! Make sure you have all their current contact information. Work phone, cell phone, work email and personal email.

7.

• Be flexible: Hiring managers want to hire twice as many people but their budgets have been cut. So expect to be able to do multiple jobs, work extra hours and do tasks outside your typical job description. You will need to juggle multiple jobs, wear many hats.

• Salary:

• I was making $100,000 a year and I wont work for less than that now.

• I cant work for $85,000 a year. How do they expect me to pay my bills?

• Guess what? Hiring Managers dont care. They only care about what their bosses and HR have budgeted for the position.

• Dont be crazy, silly or greedy! Decide what you need to pay your bills.

• Good answer: My target is $90,000 but Id like to make $120,000 and I know I can pay my bills and live comfortably on $78,000.

8. Rsums

• First review No Pile and Maybe Pile

• 8 to tens seconds to review. They want to see relevant exp and skills immediately. If they do not see this they will not know if you are qualified and will put you in the No Pile.

• Name at top in header with phone and email.

• Address and other info in footer.

• Page 1 is extremely important.

• Page 2 is important and page 3 is relevant.

• Pages 4, 5 and 18 are not going to get reviewed.

• Last page is important. (Education and like reading the end of the book.)

• Dont have long paragraphs

• Use bullets

• Use Increased, Decreased, Improved, Reduced,

• Use percents, numbers and dollars.

9.

• Examples:

• Reduced overtime by 25% for off hours customer support.

• Increased profitability by $12,000 a month.

• Improved quality by 55%

• Managers want to hire people that have done these things in the past and can do them again for their company!

• Does your resume pass the page test?

• Have multiple rsums! Develop additional costumed versions per job you apply.

10. Networking & Social Networking:

• Get out there, go to free events.

• Spend time in LinkedIn each day. Reach out to new contacts everyday. Not random, but strategic.

• Get a twitter account and follow target companies. These companies post jobs and post new products and marketing fairs, and job fairs. Follow chas_bollow, I post jobs!

• Join user groups in yahoo and LinkedIn and attend meetings. Make it a goal to meet two to three new people in each meeting. Did you do this today?

• Reach out to your network and let them know you are looking for a job! They cant help if they dont know.

11. eBook

• http://blackholesresumesjobs.com/