Job developer: Get your ducks in a row before filling out applications
Job developer: Get your ducks in a row before filling out applications
PHILADELPHIA — As a job developer and counselor for Goodwill Industries of Southern New Jersey and Philadelphia, Gloria Leidel, 49, has helped many people find jobs.
In this economy, they need it.
The U.S. Labor Department recently reported that the nation’s payrolls shed 247,000 jobs. While jobs are being lost at a slower rate, the average length of unemployment continues to climb. Now, one in three unemployed people is out of work for more than 27 weeks.
Some among the nation’s 14.5 million unemployed may have enough severance money to fund a high-end job coach. Others may be offered outplacement services.
But many others are simply shown the door. For them, job hunting needs to be done on the cheap. But that may be a challenge because the way to find jobs has changed dramatically in the last decade. Some turn to such agencies as Goodwill.
Question: Any tips on how to manage this new kind of job search?
Answer: The first thing you need to do is know how to fill out your application. You have to do it online. Recruiters are looking at that information. And if you don’t do that right, they’re going to bypass you.Q: What if they are going into a store and sitting down at the computer in the human resource office? What can they do to get it right?
A: When you go, you shouldn’t just have a résumé, you should have something I call a cheat sheet. And that is all your information. You should have that before you even step out the door.
Q: What’s on the cheat sheet?
A: It would be all your employers. Your start date, your end date, your reason for leaving.
Q: Employers’ addresses?
A: Yes. Some references, their phone numbers.
Q: And have it ready before you go?
A: Have it ready before you go. Because when you’re sitting at that computer, some people are intimidated by it. Because some people are not very computer literate as far as typing. But then you can just type that information in. ... It should be all accurate so that when you go and put that information in, and that recruiter opens it up, they’re going to see it right there.
Q: Anything else?
A: You need to get some information on what position you are actually applying for. Some people just go, “I need a job, I need a job.” They don’t think about their transferable skills. Say that you worked in an office and you answered phones and you have good customer-service skills. You could transfer that skill into retail because that’s an important component (for) customer service.
Q: What kind of help can an agency like yours offer?
A: We can tell them, “You’ll probably go through three interviews at Walmart.” Sonic (a fast-food restaurant) is opening. When they are interviewing you, you have to tell them what’s on the menu. If you don’t, you don’t pass. That’s the kind of thing people don’t know, but we can tell them.
Triad Careers: Gloria Leidel 081609
Gloria Leidel (left), a job counselor at Goodwill Industries of Southern Jersey and Philadelphia, helps Sumitraben S. Patel with her resume.
--Eric Mencher/Philadelphia Inquirer/MCT
