Most people read thank you letters, especially hand-written ones. Thank you letters after an interview are an opportunity to contact the employer again!

In your thank you letter you may want to mention your skills, qualifications and experience that you can bring to the company that are related to the position you are applying for. Interviewers can’t remember all of the details, so you do them a favor by reminding them.

Susan Whitcomb recommends for thank you notes in her book Cover Letter Magic , “Don’t ever leave your interviewer wondering whether you can or cannot do something. Spell it out so that your qualifications are clear and readily identifiable.”

If you would like help with your cover letter and resume, email me to schedule a phone meeting. We can discuss whether or not my services would fit your needs. You can email me at Terri@SummitViewCareerCoaching.com.

Enjoy Monday morning as much as Friday morning!

High school students graduate typically without knowing their strengths, interests, life purpose, identity and personality type. Without this knowledge it would be hard to have direction on what careers would fit.

Many students base their direction on what others say they’re good at. Or, a teen may see a career on TV or on YouTube and think it looks interesting. So, they take some classes in that direction. The way I see this uneducated way of deciding on classes is the same as opening the doors to confusion and a waste of money.

What if a student took some time to figure out their strengths, what is ‘play’ to them (not for others!) and what they’re really good at. Also, what if they did a lot of job shadowing and informational interviews with a variety of people to see what it is they are really interested in. There are so many ways to research careers!

Another important part of life is figuring out what one’s identity. Answering who one is and who one wants to be 5, 10, and 20 years from now is a great start.

One other important aspect of figuring out career direction is knowing their personality type. It is an amazingly wonderful aid in accepting oneself and others.

Figuring out and knowing what was talked about in this blog can be extremly helpful in picking out career direction.

If you or a student you know would like to schedule a complimentary 20-minute coaching session, email me at Terri@SummitViewCareerCoaching.com. After the complimentary session, I will ask if the caller would like to consider career coaching. If she or he would prefer not to do so, I’d appreciate knowing since both of our time is valuable.

For more information, see Summit View Career Coaching.

Enjoy Monday morning as much as Friday afternoon!

Peter Weddle, a Recruitment Expert, wrote about his perspective of what hiring managers typically don’t know and what they think they know. I’d agree with Peter that many hiring managers find hiring a very difficult task. I’d love to hear your thoughts after reading his comments.

According to Peter Weddle, hiring managers don’t know:

• What it takes to write a reasonable and responsible description of the requirements and responsibilities of their open positions.

• When they’re asking for too much in a candidate or offering too little in compensation for the talent they need.

• What it takes to get that description translated into a recruitment ad that will engage the best talent.

• How to communicate the organization’s value proposition as an employer or how to articulate the opportunity their opening represents.

• Where to promote that message so that the best talent will actually see it. They don’t know where their target demographic hangs out online or off and in what specific venues or formats (e.g., email, networking, print) that they are most likely to be reached.

Peter Weddle goes on to say typically hiring managers they think they know…

• How to interview, but just about everyone else knows they don’t. In fact, there’s a University of Michigan study which proves that hiring managers are only 4% better than flipping a coin-they get it right 54% of the time-when it comes to selecting the best interviewee for a job.

• What it takes to attract and sell top talent, but more often than not, they are way, way out of touch. Motivating factors shift from generation to generation, and most hiring managers know their peers well, but are dumb as dirt about the younger professionals who work for them.

• What their unit must do to succeed so they focus on doing-on activity-rather than on recruiting and retaining the resources they must have (and effectively lead) in order to accomplish that activity. Most of them don’t realize that talent must be sold and resold over and over again.

Preparation for the interview is critical. How does a person prepare? That answer is for another blog. You can look up Interview tips on the left for other blogs I have written on this subject.

I’m passionate about people enjoying Monday morning as much as Friday afternoon. Packages are offered on strengths identification, career exploration, job search strategy, effective communication, career branding, networking, résumé & cover letter expertise, confidence-building interview preparation and jump-starting a new position.

Write Terri@SummitViewCareerCoaching for more information or for a 20-minute complimentary coaching session. Also, you can find out more about my services at Summit View Career Coaching.

Enjoy Monday morning as much as Friday afternoon!

William Bridges, in his book, Job Shift: How to Prosper in a Workplace Without Jobs, states that the lack of job security in today’s workplace means that we are all temporary workers and that “all jobs in today’s economy are temporary.”

Employment in our culture has changed dramatically over the past 50 years! Used to be a person would be hired young and stay with the company till retiring. The pendulum has shifted to companies using progressively more outsourcing. As a result, a trend of managing a portfolio career started in the early 1990’s and is increasing.

A portfolio career according to David B. Bohl one, “in which instead of working a traditional full-time job, you work multiple part-time jobs (including part-time employment, temporary jobs, freelancing, and self-employment) with different employers that when combined are the equivalent of a full-time position.”

In the early 1990’s, guru Charles Handy predicted that workers will be more actively in control of their careers by working lots of small jobs instead of one big one, practicing the concept of managing portfolio careers.

Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D. wrote “Portfolio careers are usually built around a collection of skills and interests, though the only consistent theme is one of career self-management. With a portfolio career you no longer have one job, one employer, but multiple jobs and employers within one or more professions.”

Managing a portfolio career may fit well with your strengths, interests, core values, life purpose, identity, and personality trait.

Packages are offered on career exploration, job search strategy, effective communication, strengths identification, career branding, networking, résumé & cover letter expertise, interview preparation and jump-starting a new position.

Complimentary 20-minute complimentary coaching session are available with no pressure to sign up (I would ask to discuss after the complimentary session for about 5 minutes how coaching works. If you’d prefer not to receive coaching, let me know. No pressure given to sign up!) Email me at Terri@SummitViewCareerCoaching to schedule a meeting (via the phone).

Enjoy Monday morning as much as Friday morning!

“If you want to have a better performance than the crowd, you must do things differently from the crowd.” John Templeten

John Templeten , who died yesterday at age 95, knew his own passion and the legacy he wanted to leave behind. It was a legacy that stood through several tests and storms of time.

According to the Wall Street Journal, on the eve of World War II, John Templeton bought stock in 104 companies selling at $1 a share or less. Only a few turned out to be worthless, while in time the rest turned large profits. Templeton went on to become one of the world’s great fund managers by investing at what he called “points of maximum pessimism.”

Yet Templeton was never himself a pessimist. As an investor, he always had confidence his picks would improve over the long term. Appropriately, the same “enthusiasm for progress,” as he put it, also made him one of the world’s great philanthropists.

Life’s spiritual dimensions were John’s passion and foundation. To that end, he established the Templeton Foundation, which supports academic research in fields like cognitive science and evolutionary biology, as well as work related to the origin and nature of spirituality. Templeton also knew that many such modern philanthropies tend to begin with good intentions and then slide away from donor intent, so he established multiple checks to ensure that his financial legacy will stay true to his vision long after he was gone.

The Templeton Foundation now has a $1.5 billion endowment and awards some $70 million every year. He was indeed an optimistic investor for the long term.

At 92, John said in an interview with NewsMax and Financial Intelligence Report, “At age 27, I formed my own investment firm, working with just five wealthy people. Eventually, when I sold out, we were helping over a million people with some part of their investments. And I felt that was a ministry, that I was doing a useful job, that I was not wasting the life God gave me. But all during that time, over 50 years, I felt that my benefit to people was not as great as if I were trying to help them get spiritual wealth.”

What is the legacy you want to leave behind? What is it you want to be remembered for? In career coaching, the legacy one wants to leave behind is a critical piece in career management and discovering career direction.

A coaching session is offered to focus in on your legacy and passions, to move these forward to benefit not only you, but others for years to come.

I work with professionals and mid-level managers who on Sunday night dread Monday morning…and would love to enjoy Monday morning as much as Friday afternoon! Email me at Terri@SummitViewCareerCoaching.com or see my website for further information.

Enjoy Monday morning as much as Friday afternoon!

Networking is, as most of us know, one of the few keys to success if you are searching for a job you enjoy Monday morning as much as Friday afternoon! There is traditional job search (4-6% success rate, DBM) and target job search (70%+ success rate, DBM).

Below are some Tips for Networking:

• Networking is about developing relationships and what you can give to the other person.

• When asked, be prepared with a short phrase or a couple sentences that invite someone to want to know more about what you excel in. I call this a branding statement.

• Know and practice saying your success stories (30 seconds long, some 2 minutes max). I wrote about how to write success stories in my Record Eagle blog.

• Consider every contact of equal importance

• Listen intently and ask thoughtful questions

• Send ‘thank you’ notes when appropriate, if possible within 24 hours

• Keep a record of your contacts and contact each 6 months

• Have your business cards or networking cards ready to give out at all times

I work with professionals and mid-level managers who on Sunday night dread Monday morning and would love to enjoy Monday morning as much as Friday afternoon.

Packages are offered on career exploration, job search strategy, effective communication, strengths identification, career branding, networking, résumé & cover letter expertise, interview preparation and jump-starting a new position.

For more information, go to my website at summitviewcareercoaching.com or email me at terri@summmitviewcareercoaching.com.

Enjoy Monday morning as much as Friday afternoon!

First of all, you may be wondering what social media is.

Social media is defined in Wikopedia as “Social media is an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and “building” of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories, and understandings.”

People who’ve attained jobs through social media:

A new grad, Andrew Cafourek, who initially responded to a blog is starting a new job at Outrider next week! Andrew’s story starts out with reading Jeremiah Owyang’s blog and seeing a post about people who were “on the move” in the social media industry. Andrew left a comment on Jeremiah’s blog basically saying “Hey, I haven’t been on the move but I would like to be!” As a result, Lisa Young from Outrider reached out to him with some information about the company and the industry as a whole. Then Andrew spent a day and a half pouring through Google and every other internet tool he could think of to absorb as much information as he could about the company. Andrew writes, “Well, over the past few weeks, about 97.4 emails, and dozens of hours spent researching different aspects of the company and industry, I decided that I really wanted to come on board with the firm and so here I go!”

In Lindsey Pollak’s blog, Lindsey Pollak cites the case of her own husband Evan, who accepted a dream job as Advertising Sales Director with Travel Zoo using LinkedIn! Evan shares that using LinkedIn was quite easy. Read about Evan’s story from Mario Sundar. Or, listen to Evan tell his story for a couple minutes at LinkedIn.

Several of my clients are starting to look at social online media such as LinkedIn and Facebook as valuable networking tools to connect with people who are in industries and companies are interested in working in.

I’m passionate about people enjoying Monday morning as much as Friday afternoon!

Packages are offered on strengths identification, career exploration, job search strategy, effective communication, career branding, networking, résumé & cover letter expertise, confidence-building interview preparation and jump-starting a new position.

You are invited to schedule a 20-minute complimentary coaching session with me and then 5-10 minutes for both of us to determine whether or not career coaching is what would best meet your goals. If at any point during the last 5-10 minutes you decide career coaching would not be a good fit, I’d value you letting me know since both of our time is valuable!

For more information, go to my website at Summit View Career Coaching or email me.

In the USA, coaching fees are typically tax deductible since they are considered an expense for continuing education undertaken to maintain and improve business and professional skills. (See Treas. Reg.1-162-5. Coughlin vs. Commissioner, 203F 2d 307) Your tax consultant can provide you with further information.

Enjoy Monday morning as much as Friday afternoon!

Sharing success stories comfortably when asked questions by the interviewer is typically the determining factor whether or not we will be offered a position. Success stories are an interesting and compelling way to share our value, skills and strengths.

What are success stories? Think of the acronym “CARS”

• C – challenge

• A – action you took

• R – results

• S – strength it shows you have

What are some success stories you’ve experienced? Sometimes they’re hard to come up with, aren’t they?!

Kathy Hansen, A Storied Career, explained companies successfully use storytelling to market their products. Interestingly, the same concept of storytelling using success stories works well when marketing oneself.

“Just as customers are inclined to participate when they can see themselves in marketing stories, employers are inclined to participate (by hiring the candidate) when they see themselves in the job-seeker’s story,” wrote Meg Guiseppi.

Rick Saia, CPRW, writes in the Career Management Alliance blog, “One suggestion: Keep a running ‘career diary’ or journal in which you document the situation or task, along with the action you took and the result. Time tends to erode one’s memory of a particularly notable situation, so keeping a diary allows you to refer back to it when it’s time to look for that next career opportunity.”

I’d love to hear what you’re doing with your success stories and how you keep track of them! Also, if you new at keeping track of success stories, write me how you are going to start recording them!

I’m passionate about people enjoying Monday morning as much as Friday afternoon. Packages are offered on strengths identification, career exploration, job search strategy, effective communication, career branding, networking, résumé & cover letter expertise, confidence-building interview preparation and jump-starting a new position.

You are invited to schedule a 20-minute complimentary coaching session with me and then 5-10 minutes for both of us to determine whether or not career coaching is what would best meet your goals. If at any point during the last 5-10 minutes you decide career coaching would not be a good fit, I’d value you letting me know since both of our time is valuable!

For more information, go to my website at Summit View Career Coaching or email me.

In the USA, coaching fees are typically tax deductible since they are considered an expense for continuing education undertaken to maintain and improve business and professional skills. (See Treas. Reg.1-162-5. Coughlin vs. Commissioner, 203F 2d 307) Your tax consultant can provide you with further information.

Enjoy Monday morning as much as Friday afternoon!

Interesting there are facts we were told and believed and later find out are wrong. For instance, the Declaration of Independence was actually voted and passed on July 2^nd rather than the 4th!

Then there is also the 1819 John Trumbull painting, “The Declaration of Independence,” the one on the back of the $2 bill. In the painting, Thomas Jefferson holds the Declaration, surrounded by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and many other signers. As Mr. de Bolla, a noted historian, notes, we have “no record of the signatories to that sheet of parchment ever coming together as a body in the room depicted by Trumbull for the express purpose of signing the document.”

Many state that the words of the Declaration were those of Thomas Jefferson alone when history shows, according to Mr. De Bolla, that about a quarter of what Jefferson wrote, in fact, was dropped from the final document, and a good portion of what remained was changed by Franklin and Adams.

One more fact. Most of us were taught in school that Betsy Ross made the first American flag. Mr. de Bolla, according to the Wall Street Journal, traced the evolution of the myth to 1870, when her grandson, William J. Canby, wrote that his maternal grandmother had made the first Stars and Stripes at George Washington’s behest and that she had helped come up with the flag’s design.

Canby based his claim on stories he had heard from family members since his childhood. He said that his grandmother made the flag after Washington visited her shop on Arch Street in Philadelphia in June 1776. Washington, Canby asserted, was there with two other members of a congressional flag-design committee.

Betsy Ross undoubtedly made flags, Mr. de Bolla acknowledges, but no credible evidence exists that she made the first one or that Congress even had a committee to design a national flag. And if there were such a committee, George Washington wouldn’t have been on it: He was not a member of the Continental Congress, and he was a little busy at the time, what with leading the fight against the British and all.

So, the truth comes to light!

I am curious. How are you able to use your core strengths in your career? Would you like some help in knowing your core strengths? How are people positively affected because of the role you have in their life? How could you use more of what you love to do in your career and activities outside of your career?

I’m passionate about people enjoying Monday morning as much as Friday afternoon. Packages are offered on strengths identification, career exploration, job search strategy, effective communication, career branding, networking, résumé & cover letter expertise, interview preparation and jump-starting a new position.

You are invited to schedule a 20-minute complimentary coaching session with me and then 5-10 minutes for both of us to determine whether or not career coaching is what would best meet your goals. If at any point during the last 5-10 minutes you decide career coaching would not be a good fit, I’d value you letting me know since both of our time is valuable!

For more information, go to my website at Summit View Career Coaching
or email me.

In the USA, coaching fees are typically tax deductible since they are considered an expense for continuing education undertaken to maintain and improve business and professional skills. (See Treas. Reg.1-162-5. Coughlin vs. Commissioner, 203F 2d 307) Your tax consultant can provide you with further information.

Enjoy Monday morning as much as Friday afternoon!

“40-Somethings” are the hot ticket for recruitment relocation according to Kennedy Recruiting Trend. “The primary targets for corporate relocations were the ‘30-somethings’ looking for career advancement. Nowadays, companies are asking the ‘40-somethings’ and seasoned veterans to relocate for the good of the company – a movement paralleling another workplace trend – the demand for higher skilled workers.”

For years I have been hearing about the War For Talent. Sainsbury’s has announced that it wants to take on 10,000 new people at its stores across the UK - but all applicants must be over 50. “Workers in this age bracket will help give customers a “quality, hassle-free festive shopping experience”, the retailer said.

The Los Angeles Times wrote that Home Depot will not divulge complete statistics on how many older workers stride the concrete floors of its huge home-improvement stores, but the number is on the rise. The company hooked up with AARP four years ago to woo a sales force that might otherwise be golfing and says it now has 5,000 employees over 70.

“They are loyal and dependable,” said Tim Crow, chief human resources officer for the Atlanta-based firm. “We look at the demographics, and everyone is getting older. This is the future workforce.”

The U.S. Department of Labor writes that, “Older Americans are staying in the labor force longer than prior trends would have predicted and many change jobs later in life. These job transitions are often within the same occupation or across occupations within wage-and-salary employment. The transition can also be out of wage-and-salary work and into self employment. Indeed, national statistics show that self employment becomes more prevalent with age, partly because self employment provides older workers with opportunities not found in traditional wage-and-salary jobs, such as flexibility in hours worked and independence.”

I’m passionate about people enjoying Monday morning as much as Friday afternoon. Packages are offered on career exploration, job search strategy, effective communication, strengths identification, career branding, networking, résumé & cover letter expertise, interview preparation and jump-starting a new position.

You are invited to schedule a 20-minute complimentary coaching session with me and then 5-10 minutes for both of us to determine whether or not career coaching is what would best meet your goals. If at any point during the last 5-10 minutes you or I decide career coaching would not be a good fit, I’ll let you know and I’d value you letting me know since both of our time is valuable!

For more information, go to my website at Summit View Career Coaching.

In the USA, coaching fees are typically tax deductible since they are considered an expense for continuing education undertaken to maintain and improve business and professional skills. (See Treas. Reg.1-162-5. Coughlin vs. Commissioner, 203F 2d 307) Your tax consultant can provide you with further information.

Enjoy Monday morning as much as Friday afternoon!