Ever wonder about what chefs eat at home?  What are their go-to foods?  Their tried-and-true recipes or products?  I do.  I figure if they’re around food all day long, they’ve got some insight into the latest products, new trends and foods to avoid.

With this in mind, I thought I’d share some of the resources this career coach (me) thought you might want to know about.

The five include: Evernote, Career Journey, Resume Builder on LinkedIn, JobScan, and Delivering Happiness Blog. Let’s get started.

Evernote

I’m constantly on the hunt for client job descriptions, helpful articles, cool resources and reference material for content development.  Most of this is done online.  I used to just bookmark pages for future reference, but this stopped being efficient long, long ago.

When I’d come across a cool job posting I wanted to save, I couldn’t just bookmark the page, knowing that it would expire/be deleted soon.  So, I’d have to cut and paste it into a Word document, which then made for a huge folder of job descriptions (it’s embarrassing how many hours I’ve spent slogging through this folder trying to find a bit of info).  I also couldn’t add my own notes or easily share the bookmarks.

Cue the curtains – enter Evernote.  I have all of my devices (phone, laptops and iPad) synched together.  As I’m wandering about the internet of things, whenever I come across something I want to save, I clip and store it in Evernote.  It’s super easy/intuitive to use, so there’s virtually no learning curve.

This is the Evernote “Clip and Store” Tool in Action

I can’t live without the Evernote clipper (highlighted here) which you download separately from the app – it will transform your life.  Especially if you’re doing that oh-so-important career research that a certain career coach tells you is so important – you can use it to organize “Companies I Like,” “Cool Job Descriptions,” and “Jobs to Research”.

Career Journey

Kaplan (the academic testing folks) and LinkedIn have partnered on a new beta program called Career Journey.  Depending on where you are career-wise, and what your goals are, you can select your “journey,” and it will guide you through relevant steps.  I’m not sure if it’s been released to everyone on LinkedIn, so this could be a sneak peek for you.

The catch?  There are two: 1)  You need a LinkedIn account, and 2) You may get tired of seeing the Kaplan logo everywhere.  Probably the most helpful info is for the job seeker – and for the newbie job seeker especially.  There are exercises and videos within each step.  If you’re just jumping into the job market, and trying to get a feel for LinkedIn at the same time, it’s a good orientation about what you’ll need to think about in order to be successful.

Resume Builder on LinkedIn

It’s been around for a few years and I’m surprised more people don’t know about it.  For some people, using  LinkedIn’s Resume Builder is a no-brainer.  Say you’ve got a well-developed (read: thorough and up-to-date) LinkedIn profile and you find yourself in a pinch to produce a printable resume.  Ta-da, Resume Builder to the rescue.

Only problem is that you’ll only have a PDF version of your resume, and PDFs are generally not recommended to be used with Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) so you’d need to convert it to Word if you wanted to used the same document for online applications.

Formats are clean and simple, but the quality of your resume will depend on the quality of your LinkedIn profile.  You can make edits.

JobScan (jobscan.co)

There are career coaches out there who recommend using word clouds (like Wordle) to compare your resume and the keywords from a target job description.   I’ve tested this idea and didn’t find the results very helpful.   I think JobScan.co is more helpful, albeit with limitations.  I tested my resume against a job description that would be a great fit for my background, and guess what?  I had very few of the suggested keywords and discovered my resume was shorter than the recommended length for the target job.

“Interpersonal skills” was one of the keywords my resume didn’t match.  Go figure – how general of a term is this?  Am I impressed?  Well, it takes A LOT to impress me, so the reason why I’m sharing this resource with you is because I think it can help when you’re first starting out developing your resume content.  Keywords aren’t going to save your resume if you have lousy content (meaning, you’ve focused on your job duties not accomplishments and focused on general experience not specific experience or exposure).

JobScan won’t help you understand the nuances of keyword searches either. (Would a recruiter ever use “interpersonal skills” to find candidates? I don’t think so.)  You get 5 free searches a month, or can spend $49.95 a month for unlimited searches plus “jobs that you match.”  I’ve only tested the free version, so buyer beware on the upgraded account.

Business Book: Delivering Happiness

A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose by Tony Hsieh

One of my very first coaches (yes, coaches have coaches) recently went to work for Zappos.com.  I knew a bit about the Zappos story, but my interest in the book wasn’t piqued until someone said I had to read it.  When I get an email late at night from this person, I pay attention.  It’s a business book and shares the ups and downs of growing a business (so very similar to the job search process, frankly).

And while I like to think that Stacey Lane, Career Coach and Consultant is a pretty damn good place to work (the polling sample was small), it’s been a while since I really thought about what I stand for (aka, my values) – both personally and professionally.    If you want a good fit career-wise, be smart and read this book and then make a short list of companies that match your own values.  That’s why I’m recommending it as a career resource.  The book website is www.deliveringhappinessbook.com

I’m Stacey Lane: Confidence Builder. Networking Smarts. Resume Wordsmith. Personal Branding Strategist. Career Coach.

I help individuals with unique backgrounds find their perfect fit and effectively market themselves so they find work that is as interesting as they are.

Contact me to get started!

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