The Career Foundation

Developing Human Potential

job seeking

4 Changes You Can Make When Feeling Down in Your Job Search

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How to combat your unsuccessful job search: A man is shown looking frustrated while he uses his laptop at a coffee shop.

Job searching is one of the most stressful parts of life, especially when you’re not having any luck. Below are four key recommendations from The Career Foundation’s career counsellors on how you can take your unsuccessful job search by the horns and start making progress.

1.) Be Self-Aware

You need to be realistic about your skillset, as well as what your actual potential in the current job market is. According to our counsellors, one of the most common problems they encounter is tunnel vision. Job seekers struggling to find work might be picky and only apply to jobs in a specific field. It might be painful at first, but examining your own qualifications and the job market, itself, is vital to your success!

If you don’t have much experience in a given field, the chances of getting a job in said field are extremely slim at best. If you do have a lot of experience but most or all of it took place outside of the country where you’re applying, it’s unlikely that you’ll get the job you want off the bat. And even if you do have enough domestic experience, the number of available jobs in many specialized fields fluctuates.

It comes down to: if you really need a job, don’t set your sights on just one! Every opportunity should be treated as a positive opportunity. Your ambitions are important, and you’ll get there with time. Broaden your horizons and be open-minded.

2.) Be Willing to Change

It will almost always be necessary to adapt somehow to an employer’s needs. That isn’t to say that you need to overhaul your entire personality — if that’s the case, then the job isn’t right for you — but be willing to change your personal or work habits in order to better serve them. In job interviews, employers will be reassured knowing you’re not set in your ways. Emphasize that you’re always grateful for constructive criticism and always eager to improve.

It’s not enough to ‘talk the talk,’ either. Once you get a job, a huge part of being retained is taking constructive criticism well and making subsequent changes to yourself and your work. Don’t let criticism deter you or throw you off, and don’t take it personally. Accept that you’re not perfect and listen thoroughly to what employers say and suggest: they’ll appreciate knowing you’re someone who can maturely take and respond to criticism.

3.) Put in the Effort — A Lot of It

It seems obvious, but a job won’t just fall into your lap. Clicking ‘Apply’ on as many postings as you can and hoping for the best is not effective if you actually want results. Creating a persuasive, viable application takes both effort and time. The age-old tips for applying to jobs are true: research the company, read the job posting thoroughly, and tailor your résumé and cover letter with key words from the posting and experiences or skills that are specifically related to the job. It may seem like a labourious process when you’re applying to multiple jobs in a row, but employers will value your effort.

Counsellors also recommend branching out from broad, general job boards like Indeed. While they may be simpler to use and appear to have more postings, industry-specific jobs boards will have postings that are much more related to your search if you want a specialized job. Looking for work in a non-profit? Try Charity Village. Maybe media is more your thing? Try Mediabistro. You can keep looking on Indeed, but make sure you’re actively searching on industry-specific boards and company sites as well.

4.) Learn to Accept Failure

Counsellors often see job seekers who “shut down” as soon as anything negative happens during their search — it could be a bad interview, a typo in a cover letter, or anything in between. If someone has a bad experience interviewing for a finance position, they may lose confidence or become angry and not look as hard or even give up their search for finance jobs out of fear, frustration or even embarrassment. Don’t let that be you.

Failure is just par for the course during the job hunt. You may not want to fail; however, you should become more comfortable with the idea of failure. It might feel difficult, but all failures lead to learning experiences. Stay positive and keep motivated. The best is yet to come!

Blythe Hunter is the Participant Services Representative with The Career Foundation’s Completing the Circle-Mississauga Program. 

Think Like a Business: Promote Yourself with a Personal Website (Guest Blog)

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Decades ago you were able to get a decently-paying job straight out of high school. If you went to college or university, you had even greater prospects. I wish that were still the case.

I know I’m preaching to the choir here. We all know that it’s harder than ever to find work. You’re up against steep requirements and fierce competition. There’s no quick fix, but there is one big truth: you need to stand out. What does Google say about you?

Have you searched for yourself on Google recently? What comes up? Is it good? (Is it bad?) Is it something that you have control over?

These are the same questions I’ve been asking small business owners for the last ten years. So many of them still don’t have a website, and they’re missing out on a ton of potential growth because of it. The same is true for the rest of us who aren’t running a business. We’re missing out on growth. The only time we promote ourselves is when we’re hunting for a new job.

But what if we thought of ourselves as more than only candidates for a position? What if we thought of ourselves as businesses? What if potential employers were our potential customers? Think of yourself as a business. There are a lot of parallels between running a small business and developing your career.

Let me explain.

Many small businesses are a single-person operation, e.g. freelance designers. They’re responsible for every aspect of their business. They do their own marketing; their own sales; their own product or service development. They’re up against stiff competition: other freelancers, larger companies, and alternative solutions.

You’re in a similar position. You’re responsible for your own career. You have to get on the radar of potential employers. You have to prove that you’re the right choice for the company. And if you land the job, you have to deliver on the work. And you’re also up against competition, e.g. new hires, outsourcing, and automation.

So what can we learn from small businesses that we can apply to our own career development?

Let’s start from the beginning.

How do businesses find new customers?

There’s a framework I’ve been working on for the last few years called Reach Teach Sell. It’s a way of thinking about how businesses find and keep their customers.

It’s seven steps, and it goes like this:

  1. Reach your ideal customers where they already are.
  2. Teach, entertain, inspire, or inform them to build your reputation & credibility.
  3. Sell them something useful by understanding their goals & challenges.
  4. Support new customers with a great onboarding experience.
  5. Keep customers by delivering value over time.
  6. Refer your customers to others and encourage customers to refer others to you.
  7. Reward your customers for their loyalty and ongoing business.

Now, you might be looking at that and wondering how it applies to career development. So, let’s make some tweaks:

  1. Reach your ideal employers & colleagues where they already are.
  2. Teach, entertain, inspire, or inform them to build your reputation & credibility.
  3. Sell them on your ability to meet their goals & overcome their challenges.
  4. Support your new employer & colleagues by getting up to speed on your role.
  5. Keep your position by delivering value over time.
  6. Refer your employers & colleagues to people and resources that help them.
  7. Reward your colleagues for their support.

The Reach Teach Sell framework, in this case, is all about finding and keeping your ideal job. Potential colleagues and employers replace potential customers. Getting hired replaces making sales. Keeping your job replaces keeping customers coming back. (You get the idea.)

Where does the website come into play? A business website promotes the business.

Your personal website promotes you.

Reach your ideal employers and colleagues by joining online communities and participating in discussions. Showcase your projects and publish blog posts that show what you’re all about. If a potential employer likes what they see, give them a way to reach you, e.g. through a contact form.

Here’s the thing: Customers research businesses before they buy from them. Employers do the same. A personal website that covers this information is a goldmine for recruiters. It provides a level of context and depth that a cover letter and résumé never could.

In other words: Make it easy for potential employers to find you!

A personal website is a long-term investment in yourself.

Your personal website is a collection of your greatest hits. You have total control over what gets published. Even when things go wrong, you can turn those experiences into stories about what you’ve learned.

And the hits keep on coming.

If you’re early on in your career, your website will reflect that. Your content will focus on what you’re learning and doing. As you gain experience, your website starts including more advice and stories. Unlike Facebook or LinkedIn, your personal website is actually yours. You don’t have to worry about something beyond your control changing or happening to the platform.

Which leads me to the next point: how do you actually build a personal website?

It’s easy to get started. Here’s how you do it.

Building your personal website in 3 steps:

1.  Register a domain name. Everything starts with your domain name. You’ll use it for your professional email address and for your website. Try to grab your full name if you can. But if you have a long name that’s often misspelled, you may want to come up with a variation or abbreviation of it. For example, my last name “McIlwain” is often misspelled. So, I’ve used the abbreviation “andymci” for years. It’s easier to remember. The annual registration cost will depend on the domain extension you choose, e.g. .COM or .NET or .CA. On average you’re looking at something around $20 to $30 per year.

2.  Set up your email address. I recommend setting up an email address on your own domain name. It’s far more professional than a free @gmail.com or @outlook.com email address. And you can change your email provider without changing your address.

The cost of professional email will depend on the service you use. On average you’re looking at something in the ballpark of $5 to $10 per month for Office 365 or G Suite.

3.  Set up your WordPress website. This is the final part of the personal website hat trick. I recommend WordPress because of its massive library of free plugins and themes. This gives you more flexibility than anything you’ll find on a website builder service.

The cost of web hosting varies depending on the plan you choose. For a personal website on basic hosting, expect to spend between $5 to $10 per month.

All told, you’re looking at a total investment around $250 per year. This covers your domain name, email, and website.

Keep it going.

After you’ve built up your website, you need to give people a way to find it, and a reason for them to keep coming back.

Aside: You may have heard of the term “search engine optimization”. It’s another beefy topic beyond the scope of this post. If you’d like to learn more, check out the beginners guide to SEO from Moz.

For your personal website, there are a few small actions you can take that don’t need a lot of effort:

Connect your website to your social media profiles. Link to your social media profiles from your site, then link back to your site from your profiles. This cross-linking helps other people find your website. It also gives Google a better idea of your presence on the web.

Update your site once a week. Your website isn’t a one-and-done project. It should be growing and changing all the time. Your site updates could include a new blog post, a new portfolio entry, or even a minor tweak to your site’s design. The important thing is that you get into a habit of keeping your website fresh.

Share your site updates on social media. You’ve given people a reason to visit your website by making updates. Now you need to let people know about it! Make some noise on social media. Ask for feedback and suggestions from your friends, family, and followers. You never know – their comments could spark new ideas for you to build on.

The bottom line? Your website is a valuable asset.

Think like a business and promote yourself with a personal website. For a business, a website is like an employee that works 24 hours a day for 365 days of the year. It’s helping them with sales and marketing (and more). Wouldn’t it be great to have that kind of support?

Get out there. Build your website. Control how you show up in search engines. Give potential employers an easy way to find you and learn about you. It’s one of the best investments you can make for your career.

Andy McIlwain has spent the last 10 years helping people get online through his work in web development, training workshops, and community groups. He currently wrangles technical content and special projects for the GoDaddy blog. You can find Andy on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and his personal website.

3 Reasons I’ve Loved Working in the Skilled Trades

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Made in the Trades - Female student participating in The Career Foundation's Pre-Apprenticeship Arborist Program.

If you have a mental image when you see the word “arborist”, it’s probably not a mental image of me. For those who don’t know, an arborist is a skilled tradesperson who specializes in cultivating and managing trees and woody plants – sort of like a specialized lumberjack.  I’m 5’7”, I’m smallish by most standards, and I couldn’t grow a beard to save my life, so archetypal lumberjack I am not.  I have ended up with a career in the skilled trades, however, and would recommend anyone who likes working with their hands to give the skilled trades a shot.

The major impetus for me happened in fall 2012, when I spotted an ad for The Career Foundation’s Arborist Pre-Apprenticeship program, to which I applied for, was accepted and successfully completed. When the General Carpenter Pre-Apprenticeship program at The Career Foundation started in early 2016, I encouraged my brother, Will, to apply, and neither of us have looked back.

What has working in the trades done for me?

1) CONFIDENCE

Learning to safely use, maintain, and repair a chainsaw changed me, and not just because it’s one of the coolest power tools out there.  Before I got into the trades, I’d probably held a drill once or twice, hammered a few nails, and would have looked for someone else to do anything more involved than putting together Ikea furniture.  The first few dozen times I used a chainsaw, the uncertainty of whether I’d be able to get the thing to start put a knot in my stomach.

Fast forward a few years, and I’ve been in more situations than I can count where I had the most training and experience with tools on a job site, and was best prepared to tackle a job safely, or troubleshoot a problem effectively.  Beyond the obvious practical applications of having gained this level of skill, it also made me realize that, just because something is an enormous challenge at first, doesn’t mean I can’t overcome and eventually master it.  That feeling is infinitely transferable to other tools, to sports, to hobbies, and to challenges at work and in life.

2) EMPOWERMENT

With a couple major exceptions, most of the skilled trades have traditionally been male dominated. (Kudos to chefs and hairdressers!)  Today, the world is changing.  Every day I know that by showing up for work and being a professional in my field, I am setting an example: for my bosses and coworkers, for other women, for other skilled trades companies, for clients, for the public.

I really believe that tapping a broader pool of talent is beneficial: for individuals faced with a wider range of options, for industry, and for society.  Working in a male-dominated field as a woman certainly has its challenges, but I do so with the knowledge that I’m helping to pave the way for non-traditional demographics, including women, people of colour, and LGBT+ people, to take a shot at this really rewarding career.

3) RESULTS

Working in the trades, there is never any question at the end of the day as to what you’ve accomplished.  Your achievement is right in front of you, whether it be a tree pruned, a section framed, or a pipe laid.  As a tradesperson, you have made a measurable and tangible contribution to society by the end of every day at work.  In many cases, it will be a contribution that you’ll be able to physically show your children and grandchildren.

Kate Raycraft currently works as Pre-Apprenticeship Project Assistant with the General Carpentry Pre-Apprenticeship program at The Career Foundation’s Hamilton office. For anyone interested in our General Carpentry Pre-Apprenticeship program, please visit our website.