Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!
I had the good fortune to be invited to participate in the 2014 After JET Conference's Career Panel which was held at the Pacifico Yokohama (Yokohama, Japan) on February 21st.
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By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive! I had the good fortune to be invited to participate in the 2014 After JET Conference's Career Panel which was held at the Pacifico Yokohama (Yokohama, Japan) on February 21st.
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By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive! There's been a lot of talk and debate over the last few years as to the value of the "'lowly" Liberal Arts degree. A variety of pundits and talking heads have even gone so far as to argue that there's no value to be had in such a degree, especially when one factors in the direct costs incurred during the course of earning the degree as well as the opportunity costs associated with the four years unemployment typically experienced while the student studies for the degree. To all of these pundits and all of this punditry I have but one word: Hogwash! I'm here to tell you that Liberal Arts degree, in and of itself, is most likely fine. Just fine. "What? James, are you serious or just totally delusional?! " Yes, I'm serious and no, I'm not delusional. There are many reasons why I am certain that the Liberal Arts degree is not a "Death Wish For Careers" which I won't go into at this time, however, it is readily apparent ot me that plenty of value can be extracted from both the pursuit and earning of a Liberal Arts degree. In turn, this acquired and derive value can be used to great positive effect during a Liberal Arts degree-holder's pursuit of professional employment. And as an aside, plenty of value can also be extracted and shown to a prospective employer by even non-degree holding job seekers/job applicants as well. Here's The Real Deal In A Nutshell: The Liberal Arts degree itself is fine, provided that you have studied and learned your subject matter to some basic level of competency but more importantly learned HOW to study when acquiring new information in the future and without direction or prodding from your professor or other authority figure. Now, reports have come back from many if not most Liberal Arts grads saying how tough a time they face looking for meaningful (versus underemployment or unemployment) employment after having graduated. There is no doubt that with few exceptions Liberal Arts grads have it harder, but what they face is by no means insurmountable, it's more about filling in a few gaps, buffing out a few dings and learning how to use the value they already have created and possess to their advantage. For instance, most Liberal Arts majors or grads could greatly enhance their job market value and the buying temperature of prospective employers by simply and quickly adding a few skills which may range from basic tech or analytical skills to work facilitation and work environment skills as well as the job search strategies, tactics and techniques that are needed to wrap around these core or foundational skill sets to land that coveted or desired job. We've discussed this before but we can never do it enough: 1. Being good at doing the job is not the same as being good at getting a job. 2. It's not the degree you earned that's killing your job search. What this means is that not all degrees are created equal in terms of the way they are perceived by prospective employers in particular and the job market in general. This is not good or bad, it is just the way it is. And that's okay. Once we have tuned into reality, we can own it. Specifically, the less value your degree is perceived to have in the job market or the lower the value that your degree signals or imputes to the job market (and/or the greater the supply of similar candidates in the job market holding the same credential) the greater your skill in understanding and applying the Job Search 4P's* must be. Specifically, the Job Search 4P's are positioning, packaging, presenting and promoting skills as well as a candidate's ability to communicate and convey value (C&C) to a prospective employer. Conversely, if you have a "stronger" degree (that is the perceived value of said degree is that stronger or more greatly valued in the job market) or employers clearly understand how to monetize (or have monetized) or they feel they can more readily monetize a particular degree (such as a computer science or business degrees), all things being equal, you'll need far less proficiency in the application of the Job Search 4P's during your job search. Once you know what you're doing it becomes like shooting fish in a barrel. If you have one of these higher in-demand, easier to map or more readily communicable degrees and you know how to use the Job Search 4P's like a boss, well, in such a case, you'll quickly find yourself in such high demand that you'll basically lord over and rule the job market. And that's a very enviable position to be in! *Just to note, in this case, I use the term Job Search 4P's to describe a set of specialized job search skills as well as one overall job search process. If you are familiar with classical marketing literature there is also the Marketing 4P's which are Product, Place (distribution), Promotion and Price. By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive! One of the major challenges that new or recent graduates face in landing their first professional job is not necessarily determined by what they've studied but rather by what value they can offer to a prospective employer as well as their ability to clearly communicate and convey that to the prospective employer. It's not just that some degrees are "better" than others, it's that some degrees are either far more in demand (due to a constrained supply) OR certain degrees are more monetizable by the firm in question. Holding an easily or readily monetizable degree means that prospective employers don't have to spend time figuring out how to use the degree nor does the student even need to be "good" at conveying their value (of course, this is still very important and I'm speaking on a "relative" basis here). Conversely, if a degree is not easily or readily monetizable (or it's perceived that way) and/or there is a huge supply of those particular degrees in the marketplace, then the graduate (aka job applicant) needs to turn on or develop some strong "marketing and sales" chops to ensure that they have the proper messaging and are properly packaged and presented to the employer, while clearly communicating and conveying their value. There's more to it than that on the marketing and sales front, but these are the broad strokes that you should be thinking about and internalizing. By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive! On an almost daily basis I'm contacted by or, during the course of the day, I come across individuals who express frustration that they either (a) have the proper credentials to do a particular job or (b) have proven experience at doing a particular job, yet they somehow have great difficulty in finding or landing not just that particular job but often any job. There are a number of very granular reasons as to why this is, but for now, takes take a 20,000 foot view of what's going on here:
Below are the 5 broad areas in which some level or core competency is necessary for an individual to establish, nurture and enjoy a long vibrant and fruitful career. It should also be noted that each of these 5 areas can also be analyzed on a much more granular basis. For instance, finding a job and landing a job would together include activities such as job discovery or job creation, resume design and development, locking down interview opportunities, closing down the interview, receiving a written job offer, negotiating a "proper" starting salary and package, onboarding and so on. Five Broad Areas Of Career Competency: 1. Do a job 2. Find a job 3. Land a job 4. Keep a job 5. Plan and manage a career Do you agree or disagree with this view? Which areas do you find yourself strongest in? Which areas do you find your skills to be uneven or perhaps in need of a boost if not a tear down and rebuild? By James Santagata Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive! Dear James, How can I gain employment in Japan, specifically in Tokyo? I have a Bachelor's degree, 30 grad hours earned and a TESOL certificate (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages). I am not a native English speaker and I am over the age of 35. I tried in 2012 to find a job while I was in Tokyo for 9 months and lost a lot of money that way. What are the chances of teaching German there? Kind Regards, - TN TN's Skills Inventory: 1. Bachelor's Degree 2. Graduate School: 30 hours earned 3. TESOL Certification 4. Languages: (a) German: Native speaker (b) English: Native Level Fluency (c) Japanese: Advanced Beginner Dear TN,
Thank you for your question. First please allow me to explain a few things about the Japan employment market for foreigners (gaijin / 外人). 1. Unlike the US, if you are coming from a Western country of origin and you hold a 4-year bachelor's degree, it is fairly easy, fast and straight forward to receive a working visa. The working visa, though, will require the sponsorship of a company along with a minimum monthly income. This can vary based on various factors, but simply Y250,000 is enough, which is what you can get at most full time teaching gigs as just a point of reference. 2. The trick then is finding employment. In general, unless you have specialized skills that are in demand and/or business level Japanese, your employment options in Japan are extremely limited. These often fall into the categories of English teacher, recruiter/executive search consultant, restaurant / hospitality and so on. There are obviously many exceptions, which can be leveraged based on both your skill at packaging and presenting yourself, your ability to locate, surface or create a job and timing and luck. 3. In general, for the English teaching jobs (or foreign language teaching jobs - French, Chinese, Italian, German, Spanish, etc.), the schools prefer someone who is young -- under 35 years old and often the younger the better. They also prefer or require a native language speaker. Again, there are always exceptions if you know how to play the game. 4. Because these schools get some many inquiries they want to reduce their time in shuffling through resumes. In addition, over the years, countless people have talked about coming to Japan and then when the time comes when they get the offer they bail as they say it's too low a salary or too much of a hassle to move, etc. 5. The people that do join the school or company, many times will leave quickly or find that they aren't happy, as their expectations are misaligned with market realities and the companies needs. Okay, now back to your point. From everything you have told me, getting a job should be easy for you if you focus on your strengths, overcome any objections they have and you package and present yourself well. You didn't mention the details of how your job search went when you were in Tokyo nor what companies or industries you focused on and applied to? So it's hard to answer details, as I would have to know that + did you land interviews? Did you take interviews? How did they go? Did you get second interviews (invited back)? Any offers? If you were rejected, why? What was their feedback? What was your opinion on why and so on? In any event, let's go over a few quick strategies. 1. To hire a foreigner outside of Japan is a major hassle for Japanese companies because of all of added logistics and so on and the risk that you won't take the offer after all of that hassle, and if you do take it you still may not show up, and if you do show up maybe you won't stay long -- so over come that. 2. To hire a foreigner even in Japan is a hassle for all the issues as number one, as they still need to go through the paperwork and responsibility of sponsoring your visa, getting you acclimated to Japan, and often serving as your housing guarantor -- but by being here you show passion, commitment and skin in the game. 3. If you have additional skills as you do, you can also leverage your native language skills by working for a company that does trading or business with a country that uses your skills. So you could join a Japanese trading or industrial company that needs to work with Germany or German-speaking countries. You would be the bridge or interface. 4. You could also teach German, but the opportunities will be far, far more limited than English teaching -- it's a niche, but it could be lucrative. 5. You age can be a pro or con depending on how you spin it. Okay, here is the strategy I would pursue. The quickest, easiest way to get a job and your work visa and to get setup in Japan is to teach English -- so go that route. Once you are here, on the ground, get setup, settle in, save money and build up your skills, you can move out of teaching if you like or stay in it. Specifically I would do this: 1. Plan to physically be in Japan to meet these companies face to face -- the English schools. But don't come. First, identify the schools, both big and small, and send a short email explaining your desire to teach at their school. 2. Open a dialogue, then get then on skype for your interview. 3. Once you've done that, repeat with up to 10 to 15 schools. 4. Then once you've figured out who seems serious, etc. let them all know you'll be in Japan on your own dime and want to meet them face to face -- if you are cash-strapped and can't do that, then get them to commit over the phone and close them that way. You could then wait until all of sponsoring paperwork is done and only come to Japan once your visa is granted. 5. Prior to this, you need to set up your resume and interview framework. Don't focus on your not native speaker, you're older and so o. Rather reframe like: a. I'm mature, experienced, I know exactly what I want and I'm professional. translation: I'm a problem free employee. b. I have US degree and a TESOL certificate. I'm highly qualified to teach this, more than most people. If they bring up you are German / have German as your first language say, "That's why I'm qualified to teach -- I taught myself English at a native level and have a TESOL certificate, I can do the same for my students.... and so on..." c. And then focus on your interesting in Japan,you'll be hear a long time and that it's nice to work with a school that values mature teachers.... There are many other ways to do it, but that's a way to reframe any perceived negatives as positives and also put to bed their worries. You can also do the same thing by contacting non-schools that may need a German speaker -- they won't list so those jobs, so just cold-call the company directly. These resources may be helpful as well: 1) Can't Get A Job (or The Job You Want)? Master The Job Search Lifecycle 2) The "Young, Educated & Unemployed" - A Major Misunderstanding 3) Career OverDrive! Solutions Over the years I've seen a few patterns emerge from otherwise talented people: 1. They give up too soon. As soon as the going gets tough, they fold. Often this is due to the obedience / approval seeking behavior taught within the school system. That may be fine for a student who just needs to graduate, but in the "real world", that is, post-school life, well it will harm you and your career often greatly. 2. Many folks label and then internalize valuable market feedback as "failure". Let me be clear here: It's only failure if you: (a) label it as failure (b) don't learn from it (c) refuse to get back up Stop labeling your experiences as a "failure" and start extracting value from these experiences by conducting post-mortem review. These reviews can be as simple as spending 10 minutes thinking what you learned, good and bad, from this experience, making some notes and seeing what could be tweaked or improved next time. Beyond that, see your "failure" for what it is -- a learning experience. And when we are learning, we make "mistakes" - they different between failure and mistakes couldn't be clearer. (a) a failure is an outcome, not one event. It means you most likely haven't learned and the process is over because you didn't get back up. (b) mistakes happen when we learn. It is an ongoing process and the most valuable part of the mistake is the lesson or lessons that we learn. Start to reframe your view of the world that way and see how fast you will improve. So many of us, myself included, have been in situations where we either don't attempt something or spend too much time worrying about some future event that may very well never come to pass. If you've seen the heart-wrenching clip Christopher Maloney prior to his taking the stage to sing and then singing you know what I mean (give it a look below). Two lessons (and a bonus) From Christopher Maloney's Experience: 1. Put yourself out there. Until you put yourself out there, you can't benchmark yourself or find out if you're good at something, need improvement, love it or hate it. This takes some risk, but it's mostly psychological risk. This is often compounded as people tend to label learning experiences as "failure" and then give up or avoid future opportunities to improve themselves. Don't be like that. 2. The difference of worrying about the future and being "in the moment". When Christopher stepped onto the stage he was overtaken with stage fright, shaking and becoming teary-eyed -- and who can blame him? But once his song came on and he opened up his pipes, he immediately went into a trance as he was overtaken by the music and his passion as he was transformed into another person -- with an amazing voice! 3. Bonus Lesson: When Christopher was asked by the judges why he had kept his beautiful, rocking voice hidden for all these years he said that people told him he wasn't good enough and that he would embarrass himself or fail. They said, "Don't come on here, you're gonna embarrass yourself, make a show of yourself." Fortunately for him and for us, he finally went ahead and put himself out there. It was also beautiful to see the love and support he had given to his grandma and that she returned in supporting him. The bonus lesson: dump or disassociate with those who bring you down, and double-down on those who support and love you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1T9-I3wx8I#t=23 By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive! Over the years, first as a college student looking for my first "real world" professional job and then later as a hiring manager, a business owner, a recruiter and a career coach, I've noticed the same Myths & Memes and misconceptions popping up time and again. Often it is so-called "Career Experts" who give life to these Myths & Memes that you the reason you can't find a "good job" or a "suitable job" or "establish a career" is because you are somehow lacking "skills" or the appropriate "education". If and when you finally do land a job, if you don't get promoted or worse get forced out or blocked and decide to leave, these "experts" will chalk this up to it being, you being, a "bad fit" or "poor fit" for the company. This is wrong, wrong, wrong for many reasons (e.g., we've previously talk about the SWAN Principle and the cost of acquiring new skills or going back to school). Alright so let's get to this . First, need to understand that skills by themselves have no value. Period. It doesn't matter how good you are or how much demand there is for those skills, you must have the ability to monetize your skills either by monetizing them on your own or most commonly by plugging into someone else's platform or system. Now let's talk about the actual patterns you'll see over the life of your career and, in particular, let's discuss what I call the Job Search Lifecycle. A) In the simplest terms, this view explores the skills that we need: 1. You need the skills to do the job. 2. You need the skills to find the job. 3. You need the skills to land and close the job. 4. You need the skills to maintain and keep the job. 5. You need the skills to plan and manage your career. B) Now, let's look at a more granular view of the lifecycle and skills needed: 1. Skills acquisition: As a starting point, you'll acquire some amount of skills. They may be hard skills, soft skills, some combination thereof or even simply potential. But in the end, you'll have (and need) something of value to bring to the table of the prospective employer or customer. 2. Packaging: Once you have acquired your skills you need to package them. What are you offering? Is it easy to understand what you do? What is your value proposition? Do you make me money? Save me money? Reduce stress? Enhance productivity? 3a. Job Identification: Now you need to find a position to apply to monetize your skills. You need to identify the job so you have a target to apply to. In some cases, these are easy to find or locate while in other cases you will need to surface them. Much of this depends on timing and luck, so if your dream employer just filled the position you want or you've come into the process very late, there's often not much you can do. That said, just like a lottery, you need to be in it to win. You don't have a chance to win if you aren't in the game, so you'll need to put the time and effort into this (which is your "lottery ticket" or the price of entry). 3b. Job Creation: Many times, however, the ideal job you want doesn't exist now or just isn't "open". The prospective employer you'd like to work for may not even think such a job is important. So what to do? Well, in this case, you create this job at the prospective employer. 4. Presenting: Once you have packaged your skills, found some targets and approached the prospective employer for a meeting (the interview) you'll need to present yourself to answer their main questions and concerns, to see the fit you have with their culture and team and to demonstrate the value you will bring as well as to assess your interest in working with them. 5. Negotiations: These include title, salary and total package, start date and perhaps the proposed career path that may be your future while you are with the company. 6. Closing: Closing the offer and starting your job. 7. Onboarding: The first 90-days at your new job are critical to set expectations and impute your value, understand the written and unwritten rules of the road and the personalities and politics involved. 8. Job Maintenance: This includes keeping and maintaining your job, your skill sets, working to position yourself for a promotion, building new skill sets and connections and making sure you have concrete deliverables and takeaways from your current job to prove to your next prospective employer what value you can add to them, based on what you added at your now current job (soon to be previous company). 9. Repeat Process: At some point you'll most likely begin looking again for a new job/position, either in the same company you are now working or externally. By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Silicon Edge Recently Andy Serwer, managing editor of Fortune, sat down with Marc Andreesen to discuss The Future of Work, Cars and the Wisdom in Saying 'No' (full, unabridged version on Forbes Magazine here: Inside the mind of Marc Andreessen). In this interview, I was particularly struck with Marc's views on the impact of the ever-accelerating and widening technological adoption on the job market, and the elimination of entire categories of jobs as well as his comments on education and the need for re-training. Andy Serwer: We all understand that the Internet revolution is inevitable at this point, but it’s also kind of controversial. There are scads of new jobs at Facebook and Twitter and other places, but what about the ones that are destroyed by the inroads of technology into every industry? Are you actually creating more than you’re destroying? Marc Andreessen: Jobs are critically important, but looking at economic change through the impact on jobs has always been a difficult way to think about economic progress. Let’s take a historical example. Once upon a time, 100 percent of the United States effectively was in agriculture, right? Now it’s down to 3 percent. Productivity in agriculture has exploded. Output has never been higher. The same thing happened in manufacturing 150 years ago or so. It would have been very easy to say, “Stop economic progress because what are all the farmers going to do if they can’t farm?” And of course, we didn’t stop the progress of mechanization and manufacturing, and our answer instead was the creation of new industries. From my vantage point, this is completely off track for one main reason -- in the earlier stages of mechanization and automation we had far, far, far fewer people on this planet so that these productivity increases could support and sustain larger and larger populations. In addition, the rate of change was far lower and more localized. It was the difference of seeing single family home burn, to the firebombing off an entire city with no where to run to the simultaneous firebombing of an entire country if not world. By James Santagata Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive! Greg Baldwin, President of VolunteerMatch, recently wrote an article where it was claimed that active volunteers were 27% more likely to get a job than non-volunteers (see the article and links below). This raises a few pertinent questions for job seekers and those with jobs who may want to augment their resumes to enhance their future employability. 1. Is it true and if so WHY? 2. If it is true, how to handle this on one's resume? I would submit to you that it is true that those that volunteer do have a much higher likelihood of getting a job versus non-volunteers but not for the reason you may infer. In general, the prospective employer doesn't care about your generosity or ability to be magnanimous. The prospective employer only care about the skill sets and more importantly the value you can bring to their organization (we'll delve in the negative connotations of volunteering and being seen as a volunteer below). The reason volunteers have a better chance of landing a job is two-fold: 1. The volunteer work, especially among lower skilled workers, provides the individual the chance to learn new skills or hone and temper existing skills. This could be phone work, interpersonal communication skills, sales and organizational skills and so on. For instance, this would be especially a key differentiator for new college graduates where the person managed the finances of a school organization or managed the group or club and so on. Basically, volunteering and learning these skills will pay off for your career more so than watching tv or playing Call of Duty or some other video game. 2. When you volunteer you have chosen to help others and participate in an activity with others rather than sitting at home watching tv or drinking at a bar. This means you will meet other energetic and take-action type of people, some of which will be in other industries, other functional areas or more senior or successful in their career -- in other words you will be a network on which to leverage. To identify job openings, to identify the hiring manager or an insider to submit you to the hiring manager and so on. By understanding why the volunteer activities helps you get the job over others that don't have it, we have the necessary ingredients and recipe to answer this dilemma: How to handle volunteer activities on your resume?
Each of these criteria of when to list it, again misses the mark since the value of the volunteer activities is NOT the listing (some listing exceptions discussed below) of it on the resume but the skills, confidence and network you build by networking. In fact, by listing it, you may not be signaling you are smarter or better than other candidates but rather you may be worrying the prospective employer that you are "distracted" or will be missing days of important work or personal crusades or hitting up the company and fellow employees with guilt trips for donations. Again, the value in volunteering and the increase in the likelihood of a volunteer to land a particular job over a non-volunteer is NOT due to listing it on the resume but rather due to the skills that are acquired and network that is built through the volunteering activities and process. And as was noted, listing the volunteer activities may harm you if it mismatches with the hiring authorities views, religions, beliefs and so on OR if it makes you seem distracted by your volunteer work. With that said, only you know what is important to you and for those that want to improve themselves, build a network or get crucial skills while an undergraduate, volunteering is a fantastic and proven way to do so. Now onto the listing exceptions (that is, when you should definitely be listing your volunteer activities). If you are going to point to a specific skills that you acquired or proved your proficient use of at a particular charity or volunteer activity, then you should be listing it so that you can (a) have it written for all to see and (b) frame the discussion and reference that during the interview as well as to show enough value in your resume to initially get invited for an interview. This often happens for new grads as well as well as those with limited working world experience, such a homemaker who is entering for the first time or re-entering the workforce. For such persons, the value of such activities and more importantly the skills, lessons and experiences developed, gained and learned can be a major point of differentiation. Original Article: The One Thing That Makes You 27% More Likely to Get a Job
by Greg BaldwinPresident, VolunteerMatch November 06, 2013 If you are job hunting, or just looking around for new opportunities, you have probably spent a lot of time recently tending to your LinkedIn profile. Updating your experience. Joining new groups. Building your network. Following your favorite new Influencers (hint, hint). But what if I told you there is something else that you probably aren't doing which could dramatically increase your odds of getting a job? It's not about getting a graduate degree, and it's not even about learning a new skill. And as for changing your perspective, you can also put those Tony Robbins CDs back in the closet. According to the research, the smartest and most often overlooked thing you can do to get ahead in the competitive job market is to start giving back. That's right. If you want to improve your odds of getting your dream job, it is time to start volunteering. Here are the facts. This summer, researchers at the Corporation for National and Community Service, released new findings that tracked the relationship between volunteering and employment for a group of 70,535 respondents over a ten year period. According to Dr. Chris Spera, CNCS's Director of Research & Evaluation and one of the authors of the report "Volunteering as a Pathway to Employment," active volunteers were 27% more likely to get a job than non-volunteers. And the relationship held stable across gender, race, ethnicity, age, location, and unemployment rate. That's a big difference. Underlying the findings, Spera and his team believe there is a strong relationship between volunteering and the development of social and human capital -- key attributes in today's most desirable candidates. The findings echo a recent LinkedIn survey of 2,000 professionals which found that 41% of respondents consider volunteer experience to be as important as work experience for job candidates. The survey also found that 20% of hiring managers have offered jobs based on a candidate's volunteer experience. So what are you waiting for? Last year 64.5 million Americans volunteered. Which might sound like a lot. But it's really only a bit more than one in four of us. So until everybody else reads this and starts volunteering you'll have a leg up on 180 million people. If you need some help getting started come visit us at volunteermatch.org. And once you've found a great place to volunteer add it to your LinkedIn profile and let the job hunting begin. Greg Baldwin is President of VolunteerMatch the web's largest volunteer engagement network. Additional Research Report: Volunteering As A Pathway To Employment |
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