Why You Don’t Need a Degree to Get a Job

Have you ever felt that the only thing standing between you and a great job is your lack of a university degree? A lot of my friends have. Some even go so far as to sign up for expensive university courses or even start pursuing a four-year degree smack in the middle of the recession. Overwhelmingly, they treat degrees as the golden ticket to better career opportunities, regardless of the economic climate.

Now, don’t get me wrong here - I’m not suggesting that degrees aren’t useful. They are - and they really do unlock quite a lot of doors for you, especially when career progression and promotions are concerned.

But let’s be realistic - if you are reading this, it’s usually because you’re unemployed right now and you don’t the time or financial security to spend the next four years studying towards a Bachelor’s degree. After all, what’s the point of getting a BA in Management if you find yourself living on the street and off food stamps in the meantime?

At this point, you might be wondering - “But George, isn’t this a Catch-22 of sorts? You say I need a job to afford a degree, but I can’t get a degree without a job!”

It’s not - there are plenty of paying jobs out there that don’t require you to have a degree - and here’s a list of just of them:

1. Private Security - if you’ve got the physique for it, security is a great sector to be in right now. In fact, it’s one of the few sectors that’s doing well in the recession. Poor economy creates crime, and crime creates demand for security services. You don’t need a degree to work in this sector - and you can rise very high indeed without any education. It’s one of the few jobs out there that are all about how good you are, and not where you got your degree from.
2. Housekeeping - yes, I know it’s not a terribly glamorous job - but can you afford to be picky when you don’t know where your next paycheck is coming from? Housekeeping is a great way to earn some extra income and isn’t terribly challenging or stressful. If you decide to look for this kind of job, the single most important thing to look at is the character of your prospective “boss”. One of my ex-girlfriends was a detailed-obsessed clean freak who would throw a temper tantrum over a single speck of dust - in short, not the kind of person you want to be working for. However, she was an (unfortunate) exception - and most people will happily keep you busy so long as the house looks reasonably clean when you’re done.
3. Au pair - I’m keeping this separate from housekeeping jobs for one important reason: this is one of the jobs that you can do internationally. That’s right - even the most visa-restrictive countries (such as Switzerland) usually have provisions for temporary au pair workers. If you’re good with children and don’t mind getting paid for making sure that the toddler isn’t gnawing on an electric chord or flushing himself down the toilet, this can be a great opportunity to make some cash and see the world in the process!
4. Taxi and Chauffeur Services - once again, this is not glamorous by any stretch of imagination, but if you enjoy driving and have a license, this could be fantastic job for you. The only downside is that periodically you have to deal with fairly obnoxious clients (think drunk teens getting home at 5AM from a local nightclub), but the pay isn’t bad - and you can often get tips, which are just icing on the cake.

Now, don’t misunderstand me - I never said that these jobs are exciting, fancy, glamorous or otherwise something to write home about. But having been in a situation where I had exactly $61.48 left on my bank account, I can tell you that, very often, any kind of job is better than none.

Would a university degree help you avoid these kind of jobs and look for better-paid and more prestigious opportunities elsewhere? Possibly (remember, a lot of the unemployed these days are Harvard MBAs who lose their jobs during the financial crisis). But can you afford to wait four years for your degree? That’s a question only you can answer.

How to Network When You Don’t Have Friends

One of my greatest problems in life has always been my asocial behavior.

No, I don’t mean that I’m the kind of guy who paints graffiti at midnight with his crew watching or engages in random vandalism and wanton destruction of public property in search of cheap thrills. However, I’m the kind of fellow that’s generally shy about coming up to strangers and meeting new people, and years have done little to change that.

So as you can expect, I’ve always found networking to be a somewhat painful exercise. While others - including my lovely girlfriend - would just breeze through the crowd, meet new people, make contact with everyone and leave with a dozen new contacts, I’d still be sitting in my quiet little corner and nursing a bad case of foot-in-mouth disease.

If you’re anything like me, then you will probably appreciate the opportunity to meet new people - even if you don’t have any friends who can introduce you to them.

The service I’m writing (and it’s free, so don’t worry, this is not some kind of a commercial plug) is called MeetUp.com. Its purpose is very simple - as the name implies, it shows you a list of meetings that are taking place in a variety of categories, from dancing and singing to politics and economics. More often than not, these groups are usually just a bunch of people meeting up at a specific place to discuss relevant topics. They’re usually not terribly formal, and there’s normally no fee to join. And with so many people finding the group online, you can rest assured that you won’t be the only first-timer there.

You can probably see by now how this service could be a powerful networking tool. Simply find a meeting on a topic that interests you (let’s take knitting for the sake of the argument) and sign-up to attend. When the time comes, make your way there and meet some new people. You will not only get a chance to discuss something that you’re genuinely interested in and passionate about (hopefully overcoming some of the social awkwardness), but you’ll also establish the foundations of a valuable network. You never know when one of the knitting-obsessed ladies you meet there turns out to be the stay-at-home wife of the CEO of a growing local business desperately looking for someone with your qualifications!

Remember one thing, however - meeting like-minded people shouldn’t come across as a blatant attempt to find a job. Even though your main purpose there is to network, you don’t want everyone else to think that you’re only there to find new career opportunities. So when you decide to participate, come with the intention of providing genuine value to the group through your participation. This will make networking easier - and hopefully let you have some fun in the process.

Network early. Network often. And if you don’t have any friends, network through MeetUp.com!

How to Find International Jobs

A few days ago, I read an article on CNN about the Chinese economy still firing on all cylinders in spite of the global recession. According to The Economist, US GDP will shrink by 3.2% in 2009. That means that the economy will get smaller, leaving less job opportunities for everyone. At the same time, Chinese GDP is expected to grow by a whooping 6.5%, placing it well above the so-called First World in terms of development pace (which, of course, is not an uncommon phenomenon - just pointing that out before economists here rip me to shreds).

And this, in turn, got me thinking - if some countries are doing better than others in this recession, can you beat the impact of the economic meltdown by relocating to countries where jobs are plentiful and easily available?

The good thing is, as a First World national, you have one enormous advantage - you have relatively easy access to foreign labour markets. Second World nations - such as myself - have to struggle with travel visas, work permits and residence paperwork - all of which are extremely cumbersome and generally very difficult to obtain (for example, getting a work permit as a non-EU national is a nightmare - because the company has to prove that no Swiss or European national can do the same job).

The world is, quite literally, your oyster.

So how do you go about finding those elusive international jobs? Here are some ideas:

• Job Search Sites - as a First World national, very often all you have to do is simply look for overseas sites using your favorite job search engine. Since work permit requirements often aren’t an issue, hiring you isn’t as big a deal for the company as you might think.
• Volunteer Jobs with local non-government organizations and the United Nations are a fantastic opportunity for a genuinely unique experience. The only downside is that you will often find yourself working in the field, sometimes in atrocious living and working conditions. Forget about cozy air-conditioned offices - expect to be helping refugees in the middle of a civil war somewhere in Africa. It’s an extreme experience, and not for the faint of heart - but if you crave excitement or simply want to make a difference, the field is the best place to be.
• Language Teacher Jobs - especially as an American/British national, you will find it relatively easy to get a job as an overseas English language teacher. Don’t worry about the lack of qualifications - while you won’t earn as much as professional teachers, your main value will lie in the fact that you are a native speaker of English and can therefore offer authentic interaction in English to your students. A friend of mine was earning $35 an hour teaching English to 12-year old kids in Geneva!

International jobs are a great way to not only beat the recession, but also acquire international experience (which, by the way, a lot of recruiters look for in prospective candidates, especially for management jobs). Candidates with international exposure generally find it much easier to get promoted and secure lucrative jobs in the private sector. Besides, it gives you a fantastic new perspective on life as well!

Just Graduated? Maybe You Shouldn’t Have…

“(Recent graduates) need to be realistic about what they’re qualified to do… That sometimes means taking a longer view of [your] career by accepting an entry-level job first, with the thought that it will help [you] get to [your] perfect job later,” says Minneapolis job recruiter Catherine Byers Breet in an article published by Main Street.

In this recession, few people have been hit harder than recent graduates. Oh, sure, there’s the private bankers and Wall Street financiers who have spent the past year reeling from the impact of their own short-sighted decisions - but it’s the college grads who have seen the value of their education plummet as degrees suddenly ceased being the golden ticket to high-paying jobs and rapid career advancement.

In one of my earlier posts, I discussed the importance of flexibility, going so far as to name it one of the critical characteristics of a successful job hunter. Sadly, it seems that flexibility is one lesson that college graduates might not have picked up on during their university education.

Which is why I’d like to take this opportunity to hammer the point above - in this day and age, forget about holding out for that dream job and take whatever you can get (yes, even if you hold an Ivy League degree). With business future uncertain in most sectors, companies are unwilling to invest into new candidates with no record of achievement other than the degree itself - and they’re certainly not willing to gamble the future of their company by putting such people into decision-making managerial positions from day one.

Now, don’t get me wrong here - I’m not suggesting that you’re not qualified. I’m simply saying that today companies are looking to manage their risks - and putting a new hire into a decision-making position is risky.

So be prepared to accept entry-level jobs and spend some time doing what some would consider to be menial tasks. I know you’ll feel that you deserve better after working for years to get a degree (and I believe you) - but in this day and age, very often this is all you’re going to get. Even if you’re starting off as the photocopier boy who brings coffee for the big bosses, this is still a way in - and, at this point in time, a way into a bigger organization is more than what most people get!

Believe me when I say it - it’s better to stick it out for half a year at a menial job and get a promotion later on than to hold out for God knows how long for the job that you’re entitled to - one that may never come.

Do you have some advice or experiences to share with recent college graduates? If so, make your voice heard and leave your comment in the box below!

5 Traits of a Successful Job Hunter

With the stock market bouncing back and forth like an injured mammoth on steroids, finding a job is anything but easy. But when the chips are down, sometimes it seems that some people have much more job hunting luck than others. You’ve probably seen first-hand cases of your friends hammered with job offers left and right - while you waste hours every day blindly firing off one CV after another and getting nothing but dead silence in return.

Is it a matter of qualifications? All things being equal, it could be - but very often, it seems that people eminently less qualified than you still get all the lucrative job offers, while you still end up stuck in the rut. For example, I once watched my ex-girlfriend land several well-paying jobs in a row - despite the fact that I was far more qualified than her and, by all rights, the job should’ve gone to me.

This made me wonder - is there more to job search than just writing and sending top notch CVs and cover letters? Can we isolate the traits of a successful job hunter - and, if yes, can we adopt them ourselves?

1. A successful job hunter spends at least as much time networking as they do applying for jobs. I’ve said it before and I will say it again - networking is the best way to find a job, bar none. One hour of networking is worth ten hours of regular job search. Incidentally, this is why networks such as LinkedIn are so powerful (you can read more about using it here and here)
2. A successful job hunter is flexible. They experiment with different jobs and industries, and do not pigeon-hole themselves into one narrow category. Remember that a lot of skills are industry-transferable - for example, if you have a lot of HR experience, you can probably work in the HR departments of most industries out there. Of course, you’ll need to adjust somewhat - but it’s still better than sticking with a sector that’s plummeting through the floor (private finance, anyone?)
3. A successful job hunter brands themselves. Branding is as important in job search as it is in marketing. You’re not just a collection of knowledge, skills and experiences - you’re a holistic, success-driven, career-oriented, achievement-focused package that can deliver a unique service to his employer. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter much what your personal brand stands for - cost cutting, change implementation or inspirational leadership - so long as you stand for something.
4. A successful job hunter diversifies their job search to use several methods. He will go to a job fair one day and afterwards spend time sending out CVs, networking on LinkedIn, contacting recruitment agencies and even cold-calling prospective employers. Never rely on only one job hunting method - combine them for best results. After all, the HR Director of the company desperately looking for a candidate with your qualifications might not necessarily be on LinkedIn!
5. A successful job hunter maintains a positive outlook and doesn’t let refusals and ignored applications discourage him. If you are reading this, then you already know how hard finding a job can be. Out of 100 jobs you apply for, maybe 50 will acknowledge receipt - and of those probably around 25 will take your applications seriously, and only a precious few will take it as far as a face-to-face interview. While looking for a job does require strategy and planning, it is also a numbers game - the more CVs you send out, the higher your chances that at least one of them will reach the right desk. Sow the seeds of your career far and wide - and maybe, just maybe, some of them will blossom.

Of course, this list is not exhaustive - and I’m sure you can think up of many traits that help someone be more successful at job hunting. Which is why you need to make your voice heard and help your fellow job seekers - leave a comment below sharing with us the traits that you believe make a successful job hunter!

How to Use LinkedIn to Find a Job - Part II

Yesterday, I kicked off the discussion about the value of LinkedIn by explaining why the site works, and why more employers use it to fill vacancies than most candidates are willing to believe. So if you’re still not convinced of the power of LinkedIn as a job search tool, be sure to read this post before moving on to the next one in the series.

Completing Your Profile
The first rule of the thumb you have to stick to is to make your LinkedIn profile as complete as informative as possible. If  you used social networks like Facebook and MySpace in the past, then you’ve probably seen a lot of people who content themselves with a barebones profile that contained little more than their name and a few crazy party pictures.

This works for regular networking - but not when you’re trying to meet prospective employers. LinkedIn gives you a fantastic opportunity to make your profile as detailed as possible - much more detailed, at any rate, than your CV could be. Take advantage of this option and include every single tiny bit of information about yourself - where you’ve worked, what works you’ve published, what accomplishments you credit yourself with, etc. Bottom line is, the more information you provide, the easier it will be for recruiters to shortlist your profile for a potential phone interview.

Mercifully, LinkedIn make it easier for you to fill out your profile by showing you an indicator of profile completeness, which measures how complete your profile is and shows you what you still have to do (for example, upload a photo, provide a career summary, etc):

Tips on Completing Your LinkedIn Profile

1. As we discussed earlier, LinkedIn is not Facebook. It’s not a place to upload crazy party pictures or photos from your last summer vacation where you were spotted lounging on the beach in the company of two attractive bikini-clad blondes. Since you’re looking to get in touch with prospective employers and not the Ibiza party crowd, keep your profile picture professional and clean. Passport photographs are best. If necessary, don’t hesitate to work a bit of Photoshop magic to make yourself more presentable (alternatively, most professional photographers will happily provide you with a digital copy of your heavily retouched picture which you can later upload to LinkedIn).
2. Be sure to complete the “Summary” section of your profile and use it to highlight your professional experience. Make sure you also specify the relevant industries in the drop-down box - recruiters will often search for candidates by Industry first. Your Summary box should wrap up your entire profile in just a few words. Keep in mind that there are millions of potential candidates on LinkedIn, so you want to write a summary box that immediately grabs the recruiter’s attention and gives an overview of your professional profile in just a few words.
3. Use the “Contact Settings” feature the way it’s meant to be used - specifically, make it clear that you’re here looking for a job, and not just to reconnect with old friends. Recruiters are unlikely to contact someone only looking to get in touch with former colleagues and coworkers.
4. Make sure that your privacy settings allow your profile to be seen publicly. No one wants to have to add someone - and wait upon their approval - before figuring out if this candidate is even worth talking to. If you’re worried about privacy, remember that this is your professional profile and not your personal one - so you shouldn’t be putting any extra-sensitive information there in the first place.
5. Keywords - make sure to list as many skills as you can. Not only does it provide additional information about your profile, but recruiters will often use them as keywords to find candidates fitting the required profile. It’s a little bit like search engine optimization - you create the content of your profile in a manner to make it more friendly to search engine queries. For example, recruiters looking for a payroll administrator will likely look for “Payroll Administration” as a skill - and if you have that in your profile, you have a better chance of getting to the top of LinkedIn search results.

Coming Soon
I originally intended to make this a two-post series, but as I started writing the section on completing your LinkedIn profile, I quickly realized that, once again, the length of the post was starting to spiral out of control. For this reason, the technicalities of finding a job through LinkedIn will be explained in Part III of the series, which should be up and running in a day or two.

Make Your Voice Heard! Have you ever had any positive or negative experiences with LinkedIn? Leave your comments below and share your story - type your message in the “Speak Your Mind” box!

How to Use LinkedIn to Find a Job - Part I

Forget about printing out hundreds of business cards and handing them out to random strangers or loitering around the bar stand like a blonde looking for a one-night hook-up. Offline networking is dead and buried - and online networking is in town and kicking proverbial rear-ends, handing out jobs in the process.

There are many social sites out there - but not all of them are equally suited for networking on the professional level. For example, more often than not, the crowd you meet on MySpace will consist of teenagers more concerned with stuffing their (hideously designed) profile with music and supposedly “deep” lyrics borrowed from Eminem’s latest album.

Conversely, other sites are great for professional networking - and chief among those is LinkedIn. When I first blogged about it, I received a lot of feedback, all of which asked me for a more detailed guide on using such sites to advance your job search. And you’re right - sometimes, showing the way is only half the story, especially if you’re not there to help open the door.

Does LinkedIn Work?
The short answer is: yes. The long answer is: yes, and better than you might expect. I personally know people who had several headhunters call then within 24 hours of uploading their profile and indicating that they are looking for a job.

A lot of candidates prefer not to use LinkedIn simply because they don’t see prospective employers ever using it to find a candidate. But that’s not always true. The main reason why many outside the HR world believe that LinkedIn is unpopular with businesses is because anyone can fake their profile to their heart’s content. On the surface, it seems that LinkedIn would be filled with redundant entities from recent college graduates claiming to be anything from Microsoft CEO to Executive Assistant to President Obama, right?

In reality, this is the same situation that a lot of companies face with recruitment agencies that allow people to upload their CVs and apply for jobs directly. In fact, very few recruitment agencies I know actually bother interviewing candidates unless a job offer comes their way (which is understandable, considering how prohibitively expensive this process would be). As a result, companies still end up having to do their due diligence, both with LinkedIn and regular agency candidates. The difference is that businesses don’t have to pay the outrageous agency fee (which can often be 10% of the candidate’s annual salary) when using the social network - so the cost of interviewing a LinkedIn candidate by phone is often offset by the savings generated by not working with the recruitment agency.

In short, LinkedIn works - and it is used widely both by job hunters and recruiters. All that remains for you as a job seeker is to create a compelling profile  - and this is exactly what I will cover in Part II of this post. Stay tuned! Update: Part II of the LinkedIn series is now live and can be read here.

Should You “Be Yourself” At a Job Interview?

This write-up is inspired to a great extent by an excellent guest post over at The Unemploymentality (a great blog for anyone looking for a cheerful, tongue-in-cheek outlook on unemployment). One of the central themes of the original post was whether you should “be yourself” at a job interview, or if you should adopt and morph to the expectations of the interviewer.

And that, I think, is a question we’ve all been confronted with. After all, how many times has one of your well-meaning friends told you to “relax and be yourself” when they spotted  you being all jittery before an interview? How many times have you heard the notion that interviewers appreciate honesty in a candidate (or, worse still, that honesty is the best policy at a job interview?)

On the surface, it seems that an interview would appreciate a candidate who doesn’t exaggerate or bloat their achievements and instead tells things how they are. In fact, some believe that it would even help them distinguish themselves from all the other candidates who came to the interview solely to explain why they’re the best candidate since Bill Gates decided to have a go at running Microsoft.

And here’s the simple truth.

The interviewer will thank you for your honesty - right before they decide that you’re not qualified for the job.

You see, at a job interview, your goal is to present yourself in the best possible light - and that meanings glossing over unsuccessful efforts at previous jobs, bad experiences or uncomfortably long periods of unemployment. Whichever way you slice it, if you were to sit down and explain honestly that you got fired from  your last job for sexually harassing the secretary, you’re not going to get the position you’re applying for, no matter how good you are.

In many ways, job interviews are like public performances. Performers come to entertain - and candidates come to sell themselves to the prospective employer. In both cases, the audience doesn’t want to see a poorly-dressed guy who hasn’t shaved for a few days and stinks like they just took a swim in the sewage filtration system. They want a dazzling young bloke who can convince them that he is the right guy for the job, and has an impressive list of accomplishments to back it all up.

Needless to say, you can’t put your best foot forward and still be yourself - and, since the two terms are mutually exclusive, it makes sense to drop one in favor of the other.

Now don’t get me wrong here - I am not encouraging you to lie or mislead your prospective employer! But there’s a world of difference between glossing over some of your more uncomfortable experiences and blurting them out in a fit of honesty and being yourself.

Sure, it might make you feel better - but it won’t get you the job. Because even as you decide to be honest about everything, there’ll be ten other candidates out there who won’t - and they’re the ones who’ll get hired.

How to Explain Redundancy in Your Resume

The story behind this post is pretty straightforward - while twittering, I came across the following tweet (the username of the poster has been withheld to protect their privacy):

“I was told not to put “Made redundant” on my CV. Recent interview said I was a job hopper (7 jobs, 5 redundancies). What should I do?”

Great question - so why don’t we explore that, considering that, if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance that you were let go by your employer when the recession started.

First of all, it’s important to differentiate between being made redundant and getting fired. While a lot of people use these terms interchangeably, getting fired means losing your job for whatever reason, including poor company performance, bad relationship with your boss or spending too much time surfing the Internet instead of getting work done. In short, you can get fired for a whole bunch of reasons - and, very often, this terms carries fairly negative connotations.

Now, let’s contrast that with redundancy. A person is said to be made redundant when the company decides that the job this person is currently doing is no longer necessary. For example, if a business has a cell phone division which they decide to shut down, employees in this division could be made redundant.

The difference between the two terms is that redundancy occurs due to factors outside your control. If you were made redundant, then, by definition, you’re not responsible - with the economy in recession, companies are looking to concentrate on their core businesses and sell off or shut down the rest. In contrast, getting fired could happen due to many reasons - including poor work performance.

This means that you should neverbe embarrassed to mention redundancy on your CV! It’s a fact of life and it has happened to everyone - including the recruiter (in fact, I once read that the average employee has been made redundant 2.7 times during their professional career).

However, when you do mention redundancy on your CV, it is very important that you also specify the context in which it has occurred, and be prepared to talk about it during the interview. Were you part of an under-performing business unit that the company decided to pull the plug on, despite your best efforts? Or were you hired purely on a temporary basis to participate in the implementation of a project? To be sure, you may have some explaining to do - but it’s certainly nothing as major as you might expect.

In the end, keep in mind that being made redundant is not your fault - and that, in today’s economy, recruiters are used to dealing with candidates just like you. This doesn’t reflect badly on your resume - so long as you were actually made redundant, and not fired.

Work From Home, Kill Your Career?

For some, it’s a dream come true; for others, it’s the biggest nightmare since someone decided that toxic assets are a great investment.

If you’re a job hunter, you’ve undoubtedly come across sites offering free work from home opportunities. Whether by filling out surveys, writing articles or designing graphics, all of them offer to put you in touch with entrepreneurs willing to put a coin in your wallet in return for services that you deliver from the comfort of your armchair, sitting in your pajamas (if that) and sipping coffee from your favorite mug.

Working from home has its advantages. You retain complete control over your schedule, you don’t have to get up early to make it to work and, most importantly, you haven’t got a boss breathing down your neck, demanding status updates and reminding about missed deadlines and burning-hot issues that need to be handled yesterday.

It’s a dream come true, right?

Wrong. While working from home is a great prospect for some, nothing can kill your long-term career and chances of getting hired faster than a mishandled work-at-home arrangement.

The problem with this kind of jobs is that you gradually lose the discipline and focus that are essential at the workplace. Being your own boss is easier said than done. If you haven’t got the organizational skills and a strong sense of responsibility, your home career is likely to end up in financial ruin for everyone involved.

But, worse still, months of working at home will make you forget all about traditional, brick-and-mortar work environments. You will lose the habit of dressing up for work each morning, of waking up early, of networking with coworkers and building a good relationship with your boss. In short, some of your most essential career skills will deteriorate due to lack of use.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the main problem with work at home jobs. Anyone who has spent half a year working from home will find it incredibly difficult to reintegrate into a traditional workplace - a fact that will not be lost on a recruiter with at least half a brain. It’s a bit like the unemployment trap - the more time you spend unemployed, the less employable you become.

While personally I am a big fan of working from home, there’s also a lot to be said about the discipline, focus and responsibility that a traditional brick-and-mortar job demands - and teaches. So when you considering working from home, remember - if you haven’t got a strong sense of discipline and responsibility, your work at home job might not be something you’ll want to mention on your CV.

Make your voice heard: do you think that home-based jobs can affect your career prospects? Leave a comment below!

Next Page »