A fully-completed LinkedIn Profile is an essential tool for today’s job search.

Why? It’s a valuable tool that employers use to gain valuable insights into your education and experience. In other words, it’s an opportunity for you to create a professional profile that provides valuable insights into who you are and what you’ve done.

This article, 20 Short Steps to Your LinkedIn profile, is a brief guide to building an effective LinkedIn profile.  One of the most important tips: make sure your Profile is 100% complete—LinkedIn says it will appear 40 more times in search results!  

In preparation for your interviews, be sure to review  Module 7 of our LifeLaunch! career course. Donald Asher has some very important interviewing tips that will help you achieve the outcome you desire.

Remember, these interviews are NOT job interviews, even though they are taking place in a professional context. You are gathering invaluable “insider” information and your industry contact is forming an impression of you based on your preparation, your listening skills and how you conduct yourself. You should not ask for a job. Your job is to ask for a referral to another industry contact at the conclusion of your interview!

Some of the benefits of your informational interview are:

• Finding out if the industry is suitable for you—are you headed in the right direction?
• Gaining confidence from industry-specific suggestions regarding how to acquire experience and knowledge in that field
• Practicing and refining interviewing skills and techniques
• Gaining access to decision-makers or insiders for internal job postings
• Finding out what it is really like in a particular industry or job title
• Expanding your network of industry contacts
• Request for referrals

Your informational interview should cover these subject areas:

• Overall Job and Company Information
• Specific or ideal skills and qualifications
• Career paths or career ladder
• Industry trends
• Rewards/challenges
• Typical compensation
• Asking for the referral

Print out the list of the informational interview questions and bring them to your interview so that you are prepared for success.

LifeLaunch! Can Help

Review Mod­ule 7 of our Life­Launch! career course to learn all of the inter­view­ing tips that will make your informational interview a success.

Although some questions may seem redundant, they may help produce different insights and perspectives. Be sure that you cover all topic areas, but it’s not necessary to ask every single question.

Overall Job and Company Information

• What is a typical day like?
• What do you do? What are the duties/functions/responsibilities of your job?
• What kind of decisions do you make?
• What percentage of your time is spent doing what?
• What was different from what you expected? What was the biggest surprise when you went into this?
• Any myths you’d like to shatter for me?
• What are the various jobs in this field or your organization?
• Why did you decide to work for this particular company?
• What do you like most about this company?
• How does your company differ from its competitors?
• Why do customers choose your company?
• Are you optimistic about the company’s future and your future with the company?
• What does your company do to contribute to its employees’ professional development?
• How does your company make use of technology for internal communication and outside marketing? (email, internet, intranets, World Wide Web page, video, conferencing, etc.)

Specific Skills and Qualifications

• What kind of preparation is typical to get into your field? Is this really required, or just the typical approach?
• Can you suggest some ways a person could obtain the necessary experience?
• What skills and qualities are most valued in your industry?

Career Path or Career Ladder

• How did you get into this line of work?
• What ensures continued advancement in your field?

Industry Trends

• What are significant issues or trends that are currently affecting your industry?

Rewards and Challenges

• Why does this type of work interest you?
• What kinds of problems do you deal with?
• What are some of the most important personal satisfactions and dissatisfactions connected with your occupation?
• What part of this job do you find most challenging?
• What do you like and not like about working in this industry?
• Do you find your job exciting or boring? Why?

Typical Compensation

• What is the typical salary range for an entry-level job in your field?
• What is the top of the salary range for a position in your field?

Catch-All Question

• Is their one question or a series of questions that I have not asked that I should be asking?

The Final Question: Asking for the Referral

• Who else does this line of work?
• What other companies?
• Who else should I be talking to?
• May I use your name?

Life­Launch! Can Help

Review Mod­ule 7 of our Life­Launch! career course to learn all of the inter­view­ing tips that will make your infor­ma­tional inter­view a success.

by Robin Glenn Jones

In Module 4 of LifeLaunch!, Resumes and Cover Letters, our resident career expert, Don Asher, identifies important information about how to structure your resume.

As Don states, “The purpose of the resume is to get an interview.” In this module Don explains the parts of a resume that are essential to land you the interview. I have listed them for you but you will need to refer to Module 4 of LIfeLaunch!, or Don’s highly acclaimed book, The Overnight Resume, in order to get a complete understanding of how best to incorporate these elements into your own resume.

One of the techniques I particularly like is removing the objective because it doesn’t really speak to who you are. A resume should be crafted as your personal story, specifically told for a desired intent.

As I recently told my daughter Madison, think of sitting across the table from someone you have been wanting to meet and now you have their full attention.

What do you want to say to them?

When you finish visiting with them, what impression do you want them to leave with?

Well, the same goes for the resume. Someone is hearing your voice for the first time and they are going to determine if they want to hear more from what you have written.

So, craft your words so that if you were reading what you had written, and comparing that to the hundreds of other resumes you might have seen, you would choose you!

The Six Parts of Your Resume

1. The Heading–your name, cell phone, and email address. City and state are optional
2. Your Profile–a list of your skills and interests related to the position
3. Special Projects–Highlight any experience or special projects related to the position
4. Education–Include relevant coursework and projects, school activities, honors and awards
5. Experience–organize this in reverse chronological order, focus experience on the job you are going after, use subheadings for types of experience, start sentences with verbs, highlight accomplishments
6. Key Words–at the bottom of your resume create a list of key words that might be searched by resume sorting software.

Ask Yourself

1. Does my resume answer the question, “What can this candidate do for me?”
2. Have I proofed a hard copy to catch any typos?
3. Is my formatting consistent and scanable?

LifeLaunch! Can Help

Check out Mod­ule 4 of ABF’s Life­Launch! course to learn more about how to create a win­ning resume.
Enroll in Life­Launch!

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What Every Resume Needs PDF

The resume goes out and nothing ever comes back!

It can be very disheartening to take the time and effort to apply for a job and have nothing to show for it–not even the slightest bit of encouragement from a recruiter or hiring manager!

Today’s companies and recruiters are using applicant tracking software to sort and sift through the hundreds of resumes they receive for job postings.  One cannot ignore the realities of online application submission.

Some companies ask screening questions.  Sometimes, not answering a screening question can knock a candidate out of consideration, but, not always.  There are some very good points in the US News & World Report Money article, “How to avoid the Resume Black Hole” about what you should know about applicant tracking software, or ATS.

LifeLaunch! Can Help

ABF’s LifeLaunch! course can help you put forward a winning resume and cover letter. Don Asher, who developed LifeLaunch! states, “The beginning of the resume should answer this question for the employer or recruiter, what can this candidate do for me?”

Check out Module 4 of LifeLaunch!, Resumes and Cover Letters—it will help you successfully answer this question in your resume and cover letter.

Enroll in LifeLaunch! to learn more about resumes and cover letters!