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You have a job interview scheduled, but you're sick, or simply can't make it. What should you do? I know how important job interviews are, but given the concerns about seasonal (or common) flu and swine flu (H1N1), even if you have just a cold you should reschedule the interview.

Showing up to a job interview sick is going to panic the interviewer not impress them. So, if you have any respiratory or flu-like symptons, including a cough, runny nose, stuffy nose, or sore throat, do both yourself and the hiring manager a favor and stay home.

There are other reasons beside illness that necessitate rescheduling an interview. What's important is to let the company know in a timely manner that you won't be able to make the interview and to try to secure a new interview date when you talk to them.

Here's how to reschedule a job interview.

Related: How to Cancel an Interview | Interview Excuses

_{Photo Copyright Ana Abejon}

How to Reschedule a Job Interview originally appeared on About.com Job Searching on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 06:00:39.

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A reader requested an article about managing deadbeat employees quite a while ago. It took me some time to write it - not because I don't think it's an important topic - I do - but here's the deal.

Deadbeat employees, for the most part, are made, not born. For most of them, it's not nature but nurture in our workplaces. The majority of your employees do not start work at your company thinking, I'd like to become a difficult, deadbeat employee. Nor, do they get up in the morning planning how to screw up their day - and yours, even if it may not always seem this way.

A carefully orchestrated hiring process should screen out the few really bad apples. Would you agree?

Favorite Quotes - More Quotes

"Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become clear and you will realize the unity of all things." --Dogen

Share a favorite quote of yours. I'll give you credit or not, as you prefer. Please tell me whether to credit you by first name, first and last name and whether you'd like me to use your company name and a link.

_{Image Copyright Joshua Blake}

More About Managing Difficult Employees

• Coaching for Improved Performance.
• Performance Improvement Strategies.
• Why Employees Don't Do What You Want Them to Do.

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Deadbeat Employees: Made or Born? originally appeared on About.com Human Resources on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 04:42:15.

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Before you can start to job search, you need a resume.  A resume is a summary of your work-related history - a written compilation of your education, work experience, credentials, and accomplishments. Writing a resume, especially the first time or if you haven't updated yours in a while, can be complicated because your resume is going to be reviewed by software as well as by hiring managers. You need to write it for both audiences.

Review these top resume tips for choosing a type of resume, selecting a resume font, customizing your resume, using resume keywords, explaining employment gaps, reviewing resume examples, and more tips for writing interview winning resumes.

I'm probably sounding like a broken record, but writing a cover letter to send or post with your resume isn't easy either. That's especially true in a competitive job market, like this one. When you need to write a cover letter, it can be the small things that can knock you out of contention, and as importantly, how you present yourself in your letter that gets you an interview.

Review these cover letter tips and techniques for writing top notch cover letters to send with your resume, including cover letter format and presentation, choosing a type of cover letter, writing custom cover letters, and cover letter examples and templates.

Next, take a look at these 10 job search tips that will help your hunt for a new job go smoothly.

Resume and Cover Letter Tips

• 10 Cover Letter Tips
• 10 Curriculum Vitae Tips
• 10 Resume Tips

_{Image Copyright Pali Rao}

Top 10 Resume and Cover Letter Tips originally appeared on About.com Job Searching on Sunday, November 1st, 2009 at 07:00:36.

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By J.T. O'Donnell First, let me mention that some great advice is being shared as part of Job Action Day 2009 by a slew of really talented career advisors. When asked what I thought the secret to getting hired in this down economy was, I decided to share 4 things I've ...[Read Entry]

Dear J.T. & Dale: I'm an experienced, educated manufacturing manager who was downsized at the age of 62 in July of last year. I have been working daily through networking, Web sites and headhunters to find a new position. My wife thinks it is my age; although I don't want ...[Read Entry]

Dear J.T. & Dale: When May came around last year, my wife was ill and I was worn out and felt that I needed some time to regroup, so I voluntarily resigned my position. Six months ago I was ready to look for something new but have been unable to ...[Read Entry]

You have found a new job and you're ready to give two weeks notice to your current employer. Or, you've lost your job. What's the best way to say goodbye? First things, first. Regardless of the circumstances of your leaving, if you are about to resign, your first responsibility is to let your employer know that you are resigning. You need to part on good terms and you don't want your boss hearing rumors of your departure through the grapevine.

The next step is to say farewell to co-workers and to let them know that you are moving on to a new position, starting a job search, retiring, or doing something else with your life.

Here's how to say goodbye diplomatically and without burning any bridges, include what to say, how to say it, and how to send a goodbye note.

More:: Goodbye Letters | Resignation Letters

How to Say Goodbye to Co-Workers originally appeared on About.com Job Searching on Saturday, October 31st, 2009 at 08:41:54.

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By CAREEREALISM-Approved Expert, Melissa C. Martin I came across some notes from a sales course that I took a few years back. Sales and the job search have a natural commonality. Remember in your history class when you heard about the Klondike days? Searching for gold? It's the same principle with ...[Read Entry]

By CAREEREALISM-Approved Expert, Rosa E. Vargas You've heard it before, "Network in order to optimize your job search." How exactly do you go about it? It depends on the way you best build relationships and the industry you are targeting. Is the industry you seek employment in best penetrated online or offline? It ...[Read Entry]

By CAREEREALISM-Approved Expert, Karen Siwak I have yet to meet a client who doesn't have at least one fascinating story to tell. Whether it's the Administrative Assistant who pulled her boss's ass out of the fire through some exceptional behind-the-scenes public relations work, or the Operations Executive who orchestrated a pre-dawn ...[Read Entry]

Dear Experts, This summer I got a DUI. Since then, I can't get hired. What do you suggest - I'm living at home with my parents, have a degree, and feel like a complete failure. CLICK HERE to see how experts answered this question on Twitter. Got a career question you'd like answered? ...[Read Entry]

 I came across  this posting on Craigslist. This guy is looking to establish a new Google Checkout account, but needs to use the EIN of someone else in order to get it. This sounds like a big time scam! When you start up a business, you everyone is supposed to get their own EIN number. If this guy was truly legit, he would do this himself. However, the fact that he needs someone else to do it for him means that he is a criminal or has been banned by Google.

Do not get suckered into giving your ID or any other personal identifying information.

You dont have to do anything. Just need your ID and Utility Bill (Boca Raton)

---

Date: 2009-10-30, 11:09AM EDT
Reply to: jamesrudy@me.com ^{[Errors when replying to ads?]}

---

 

This is real easy. For about 10 minutes worth of work I will give you $500 up front plus 1% of all future net sales. That's it!

I am looking for a partner to help me establish a new Google Checkout Account to process new sales for my new website.

I want to reinterate that this information is so Google can confirm an identity to the patriot act federal law and no credit is being applied for in any way.

I will need the following from you.

1. Driver's License or State ID
2. Utility Bill (matching address and name on license)
3. You must get an EIN number (takes 5 minutes)

To Get an EIN go to https://sa1.www4.irs.gov/modiein/individual/index.jsp

I can walk you through this 5 min application which will generate an EIN letter that you can print and provide with the rest of the documentation.

That's It!

James
561-306-6430

• Location: Boca Raton
• Compensation: $500 Today and 1% of net sales. You dont have to do anything.
• Telecommuting is ok.
• This is a part-time job.
• This is a contract job.
• This is at a non-profit organization.
• This is an internship job
• OK to highlight this job opening for persons with disabilities
• OK for recruiters to contact this job poster.
• Phone calls about this job are ok.
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

PostingID: 1444170425

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So chances are you have heard of social media and you have a strategy in place to reap the benefits of the new wave of interaction that is now available to us all.  You are using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, Xing, Delicious, Digg, ah the list goes on and on.

Your strategy is sourcing you a great deal of traffic and to date you have somewhat figured out there is a benefit in doing all of this and you are starting to see some return for your efforts.  Well done, this will and should occur with a defined plan in place.  Whilst it is still very much early days and the approach may very well change in 5 years time, we must get the most out of it's current structure while we can, why not, it's an opportunity missed otherwise and what is the business value in that?

So for now you have solved what is the puzzle of social media and recruiting.  But is that really it?  It can really be that "relatively” easy can it?

What if I was to suggest that your strategy is only 33% complete? And there should be in fact 3, yes 3, parts of your social media strategy.

1. Attraction + Engagement + onboarding

This one is a bit of a no-brainer for the first 2 uses, but who is using social media for onboarding? Attraction and engagement is great when talking about utilsing all of the above mentioned sites to spread the word about your company, the fantastic opportunities you have, and what a great business you have become. 

But what about on-boarding.  Do you encourage new employees to connect with current employees prior to starting and entice them to start getting involved in the business in any way they can.  Either just by following a conversation or getting up to date with current projects that they will be working on.

2. Retention + Engagement + Collaboration

Here is where your social media strategy provides you your greatest ROI.  You have attracted talent, hired them, they have under-gone a great on-boarding process and they are starting to hit their straps.  You're employees are all over social media as we know, however how can you harness social media internally to improve outcomes and enhance engagement and more collaboration.  We do after all enjoy the people we work with, more then the job itself most of the time.

Supplying your staff with the ability to create chat groups, pose questions to the rest of the business and move projects along with more communication is every companies dream.  Imagine allowing managers the ability to have a better understanding and the "pulse” of their staff by simply getting more involved in what they want to talk about, business or otherwise.

With meetings always cancelled or shifted to a time when not everyone can attend due to sickness or holiday, the meeting itself never resolving or covering every discussion point required, and follow up more and more difficult as some people just cannot be tracked down, why not have your staff continue moving things along with the power of a community platform.

Not only is this great for speeding up discussion and greater collaboration, but if you ever have a question why not pose it to the rest of the company in a non-intrusive manner.  Who knows what answers you will get and what other business enhancements may be raised from one conversation alone.


3. Exiting + Alumni

It is suffice to say that people move on at some stage, but does that mean your communication should cease entirely.  Understanding why people leave is never easy or straight forward, and answering surveys, being involved in discussions and simply making them feel like their voice is still being heard is crucial.

 You may not want to stay in touch as a business with every ex employees but it would be remiss not to have some connection with former employees for either future job opportunities or business deals.  You never know who might be your client or vice versa moving forward. 


 

This is just a snapshot of course, but how many of us can say, we are indeed utilizing social media and its power to its full potential.  My mum always told me if I'm going to do something do it properly, I wonder if this relates to social media and its use in recruitment as well?

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What if we had a crystal ball and could look ahead 50 years to see what the recruiting trends will be. How will people be recruiting? Will it be some with the aid of some high tech "Web 29.0" job boards?

If we go back 50 years ago, how useful would a crystal ball have been then? Had any of us had a crystal ball we could have predicted many things and by now been richer than Bill Gates and Warren Buffett 10 times over. That's because we could have foreseen the explosion of contingency recruitment, contract and temp recruitment, job boards, ATS technology and the list goes on. Recruitment as we know it today didn't exist 50 years ago, so how will it look 50 years from now?

With the internet, job board advertising and email usage dominating the contingency recruitment market over the past 14 years or so, recruiters have had more and more opportunity to be lazy.  In theory a recruiter can get a job emailed from a client, post the job on a job board, get the responses, exchange emails with potential candidates and forward the top three to the client.  In theory that recruiter can make a placement with very little interaction with either the client or the candidate. This is not recruiting!

50 years from now it's easy and scary to predict how little interaction a recruiter may need to have in the process. Maybe computers will replace the need for recruiters in 50 years? We can all argue that this could never be, but with a large percentage of contingency recruiters already working as "administrators" and not much more, we can be forgiven for observing a trend curve pointing towards automation.

I feel very fortunate though to have a crystal ball. (-: I know what effective recruiting is going to look like in 50 years, and even 100 years from now. How can I possibly know this? Well it's the same reason that in 2009 so many contingency recruiters miss a trick.  With a very high percentage of competing recruitment companies relying almost exclusively on job board advertising and their outdated databases of candidates, they're all fighting over the same candidates.

These are the 10% or less of the working population who are actively looking for work. In 50 or 100 years one thing is not going to change drastically. The percentage of people who are not actively looking for work will remain the high majority. So whether it's today or in 100 years, why go fishing in the same pond as thousands of other recruiters? Why not take a leaf out of our high end head hunting friend's book and start to focus on the population of the workforce who are not looking?

Mapping out company organization structures and headhunting shouldn't only be for board level executive positions. Just because someone is not actively looking for work, it doesn't mean to say they'll not be open minded to a conversation about a potential career move. In 50 years, picking up a phone and asking an employee of a well respected company if they are "open minded to a conversation about a potential career move right now", will be no different to doing that today. A high percentage of them may not be open to moving, but will be open to hearing about what's going on in the market.  This is where relationships starts. This is where quality referrals happen.

Of course the cynics are going to say "well it takes too long to headhunt candidates when I can just be advertising for positions". Well how long does it take to work on a position only to find out your candidate has already been forwarded? I'm not talking about giving up your job board subscriptions and focussing exclusively on headhunting. Why not do both, and over time I believe job board administrator recruiters will develop a much more rewarding career. Who knows, maybe you'll like it so much you'll be around in 50 years to tell the ERE community about your "most successful half century ever".

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In all the brouhaha about great new sourcing initiatives and Web 2.0 tools, how much have your recruiters and hiring managers improved their ability to hire great people, not average people? In my opinion, we've downplayed what it really takes to be successful in our profession â€" recruiting, counseling, and closing top people who have multiple [...][Read Entry]

At some point in most careers, you will have had a job that you hated. No matter whether your worst job offered you lousy or distasteful work, a boss you hated, or coworkers who constantly undermined you or complained, you remember the job as your worst job - ever.

I thought back over my career, and mind you, because I have been writing and consulting for years, I have not taken any jobs except for clients I loved and for whom I really thought I could make a difference, in a long time. But, in the earlier days, I worked at a GM education center as a management development specialist.

I really liked the director, the clients, and the work, but my immediate boss was petty, self-serving, and a tyrant who wanted her way all of the time. Plus, coming out of 16 years in an education setting, I was first of all, used to running things, but secondly, I felt as if I was, once again, managing another school - the environment I had just left - on purpose.

The job gave me connections, however, and I was soon able to move to a GM plant where I learned a whole new world - and even became friends with my former boss when I no longer reported to her. If that opportunity had not come up, however, I would have spent all of my time job searching to get rid of a bad boss and a public sector repeat career in an industry setting.

I also worked as a Good Humor ice cream truck substitute driver during the summer of the Detroit riots in 1967. But, I loved that job, and its unexpected dire environment, is a story for another day.

Okay, I've shared my worst job story. What's yours? Compared to the stories I regularly hear about on this website, my story is mild, and fortunately, I got out of there quickly.

Please share your worst job - ever - story.

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Describe Your Worst Job - Ever originally appeared on About.com Human Resources on Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 01:29:02.

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I keep finding that successful people have, in addition to intelligence, one key quality: focused relentlessness. They latch on a goal and then persist in a comprehensive attack on it.

For example, if I aspired to the long-shot career of sportswriter, I'd:

• identify the 20 sportswriters I most admire. For each, I'd read five or ten of their most recent articles, taking notes on what I most wanted to emulate.
• then write to each of them, explaining how much I admired them, and would include the aforementioned examples. I'd ask if they might be willing to offer me career advice and/or feedback on the articles I wrote, say, for the college newspaper.
• send profuse thanks and another clip to any sportswriters that responded to me. Eventually, I'd ask for leads and a letter of recommendation for a job or internship.
  
• read the useful articles on the websites of the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, the Baseball Writers Association of America, Football Writers Association of America, and the U.S. Basketball Writers Association. I'd network and get advice at their national conferences and local chapter meetings. And I'd keep writing a lot, ever incorporating the useful feedback I was getting.
  

Does anyone doubt that despite sportswriting being a long-shot career, if I had at least moderate talent, I'd achieve my goal of becoming a professional sportswriter?

Even in mundane fields, focused relentless is the most potent way to ensure your success. If you wait for good things to happen, unless you're brilliant or lucky, you'll likely be waiting for Godot. [Read Entry]

I received an email the other day from someone who wondered what happened to the dress code for job interviews. She said that she'd seen more applicants lately in ratty jeans and sneakers or flip-flops than dressed in interview appropriate attire.

Is there a job interview dress code, anymore, she wondered. The answer, in a nutshell, is yes. It does matter what you wear to a job interview. When you are dressing for a job interview the image you present is important, even if you're applying for a part-time job at a local store. Your image is what makes the first impression on the interviewer, so it's important to dress appropriately when interviewing.

Regardless of the type of job you're interested in, you want that first impression to be a great one. When dressing for an interview for a professional position, dress accordingly in business attire. If you're applyng for a job in a more casual environment, a store or restaurant, for example, it's still important to be neat, tidy, and well-groomed, and to present a positive image to the employer. And, even if you're a teenager going on an interview for a first job, what you wear matters, too.

More: What Not to Wear to a Job Intervew | What Not to Wear for Teens

Job Interview Dress Code originally appeared on About.com Job Searching on Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 06:00:41.

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The following post is courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap: From: CareerAlley Interviews. Sounds fairly easy, all you have to do is talk about what you've done and how that relates to the job opportunity. In fact, the interview is the...[Read Entry]

I remember the first time I had a hamburger that wasn't run-of-the-mill burger. Normally I went to Burger King or Carls Jr., which was fine. I didn't know what I was missing out on. Then, one day I was treated to a burger from a place that took a sirloin steak and ground it up.  [...][Read Entry]