I was reminded of the frustration that job seekers face when I received a phone call this afternoon from an old acquaintance – an immensely talented and successful real estate executive whose company was acquired by an international conglomerate, resulting in his layoff. After eight months of looking for work, he confessed to me that he simply wasn’t marketable.

I don’t doubt that he may not know how to market himself – after all, he wasn’t a marketing executive, but a real estate expert – but I’m convinced that his problems don’t rest solely with the troubled real estate sector but with his approach to finding a new job in a changing marketplace that places a premium on specific networking and marketing skills.

A quick perusal of his online presence revealed that he has paid virtually no attention to his online persona. Although he has a LinkedIn profile, it’s obvious that it remained largely ignored. And a Google search reveals nothing online beyond his LinkedIn profile.

This means that his 25 years in the industry  has gone largely unnoticed. Just when he needs prospective employers to notice him.

I understand why he feels down, and why he feels that he’s not marketable, but he’s wrong. There are seven immediate steps that he can take to take control of both his job search and his attitude:

1. take ownership of your happiness. Employers take immediate notice of your attitude, whether on the phone or in person. If you’re despondent or lack energy, you’ll find yourself in a spiraling vortex of rejection. You are the only person who can determine your own happiness. There are days when it will require herculean effort to find a bright spot and exude happiness, but it’s necessary and it’s attainable. Own it.
2. be proactive and take charge of your job search. Your job is to find a new job. You are now the boss of Find Me Work, Inc. That means that you need to plan a job search strategy and execute it every day. Every task you accomplish, every person you add to your network, and every phone call that leads to a new prospect can boost your spirits and increase your chances of finding the job you want.
3. find job search partners. It’s not necessary, or even productive, to go through the job search process alone. You’ll find that working with others facing similar challenges can provide you with the emotional and professional support you need and keep you motivated. Find a local job search group, join them in their weekly meeting, connect with members and create your own support group.
4. build your network every day. You already know how you’re going to find a new job. It won’t be on a job board. It won’t be in response to one of the hundreds of resumes you sent out. It will almost certainly result from a connection that you make through your networking efforts. The one person who knows a person who’s looking for someone just like you. But it won’t happen if you don’t actively extend your network.
5. set goals. Want to build your network? Set a daily goal to add five people to your online network. Want people to know you’re still actively looking? Set a weekly goal to make 20 phone calls to your assorted contacts to stay in touch and keep them posted. Want to be remembered and recalled by prospective employers? Set a goal to send one actual letter per day to the executives in your industry who might hire you or know people who could hire you. Send them an article, a networking suggestion or anything that will interest them and simply let them know that you still exist.  Whatever you do, have a plan with concrete goals, and then meet them. You’ll be rewarded with a sense of accomplishment and know that every day you’ve made progress towards your ultimate goal.
6. stay active in volunteer work. Even if you’re not active in a professional capacity, you should keep busy through volunteer work. You’ll feel better about yourself, you’ll stay busy and you never know where your most important connection is going to come from.
7. keep in touch with your family and friends. You have a built-in support network, if you’re willing to reach out and rely on them. Remember, no one can help you if they don’t know you need help. If I’d received this phone call six months ago, we potentially could have avoided months of fruitless effort and increasing despair. Reach out, let people know you’re looking for work and ask for their help. You’ll likely be surprised by the support you receive and the efforts others will make to help you.

It is a near certainty that job seekers today will encounter the dreaded telephone interview during their job search. Knowing what to expect and how to prepare for the telephone interview can provide job seekers with an enormous advantage, but too many candidates make common mistakes that knock them out of consideration before getting a chance to really demonstrate their skills.

If you’re preparing for a telephone interview, check out our post on 7 Tips to Ace Your Telephone Interview and then avoid these common mistakes:

#1 you don’t understand the purpose of the telephone interview. The telephone interview is not intended to secure the job for you, it’s intended to weed out candidates from the initial pool being considered by the hiring company. You can’t win the job with a great performance, but you can lose a job with a poor performance. Your goal, then, is simply to avoid being eliminated from consideration.

Knowing this, you should provide just enough information in your responses to whet their appetite and want to learn more about you and how you can contribute to their organization.

#2 you talk too much. Recognizing that the purpose of the telephone interview is to remain in consideration and to secure a face to face interview, you can only hurt your chances of consideration if you drone on too long with your answers.

You face two risks with long, drawn out answers to interview questions. First, you may say something that raises a red flag with the interviewer. The more you talk, the greater the potential of saying something that they don’t agree with or are concerned about. So, your answers should be brief and to the point, not long and drawn out.

Moreover, the longer you talk, the greater the chance that the interviewer will become bored and distracted as you drone on and on about the details of last year’s ERP installation in Milwaukee. If they become bored, they’ll shift their attention away from you and onto other distractions on their desk – their email or their Facebook page – instead of focusing on you. Keep your answers short and on point to keep the conversation constantly moving forward.

#3 you don’t listen. Too many job seekers mistakenly think that the job interview is all about them. The fact is it’s not about you, it’s all about the hiring company and what they need. You are secondary. Your interviewer will provide detailed information about the job, its requirements and their specific needs and qualifications, but too many candidates are so focused on themselves and what they’re going to say next that they miss entirely the details and insight provided by the interviewer.

Listen carefully. If it’s a new position, find out what their expectations are. If it’s a replacement position, find out what went wrong with the previous employee. If they tell you that the last person to fill this job didn’t know how to motivate and lead his staff, you know that you have an opportunity to interject a story about your managerial skills that can set you apart.

#4 not having prepared responses. There is no excuse for any job candidate to be caught unprepared for the most common interview questions. Tell me about yourself. Why should I hire you? What is your greatest weakness? Questions like these are likely to be asked in every interview and you should be ready with a 45-60 second response to each of the most common questions. If you’re prepared with short, concise answers, you won’t make the mistake of droning on and boring the interviewer and you’ll appear alert and in command.

#5 you have a lousy mobile phone connection. Conduct your job interviews on a land line phone, not on your mobile phone. Too many interviews have been ruined by dropped calls and bad connections. Eliminate these technical problems entirely by securing a land line for your call.

#6 not displaying energy. You are at a disadvantage in a phone interview since the interviewer cannot read your body language to gauge your excitement and energy. The only thing that conveys your energy is the tone of your voice, so you must take steps to energize yourself so that your voice reflects your energy. Stand up while you’re on the phone. If you can, wear a headset so you can move around the room. By allowing yourself to move while you’re on the phone, you become physically animated, which alters and energizes your verbal presentation.

#7 not communicating interest. This is not the time to play hard to get. The objective of the telephone interview is to secure a face to face interview, so you’ve got one chance to let them know that you’re interested. The best way to show interest is to ask questions. Let them know that you’re researched their company and their products or services. Ask them about their plans for the organization, where they see growth coming from, and how they see your position contributing. Become involved in the conversation, don’t behave as a passive participant just waiting for their next question.

#8 not asking for next step. If you want to meet your interviewers personally and explore the job further, ask them. It’s that simple. As the interview winds down, tell them that you’re interested in exploring the position further and ask them What’s the next step? Too many candidates hang up without having any idea where they stand, when they’re going to hear something or who else they should meet. Don’t let this opportunity go to waste. Be assertive and try to get a commitment from their end concerning when you will hear from them and an outline of future steps.

From the hiring manager’s perspective they are looking to determine three things.

1. Are you capable of doing the job?
2. Do you want to do this job?
3. Will you fit in with the organization if I hire you?

Now there’s not much I can do to help you demonstrate that you have the skills to do the job they’re looking for. You either have the skills and experience the hiring manager’s looking for or you don’t.

However asking the right questions and showing enthusiasm and interest can help you demonstrate that you want the job with their company and that you’ll fit in with the chemistry and culture of their organization.

The most common reason for being dropped from a hiring manager’s hot list is the lack of any personal chemistry or rapport with the interviewer during the job interview. If their assessment is that you’re qualified but you simply wouldn’t fit in with their team, then you’re not going to get a job offer.

Most hiring managers believe they have an intuitive sense of who will and won’t perform well and fit in with the rest of their workgroup. However most managers aren’t formally trained to interview candidates and rely on personal intuition and subjective interpretation to select candidates.

So, your primary job during the interview with the hiring manager is to overcome their interview deficiencies and help the interviewer focus on how your unique skills can directly benefit the organization, convey your enthusiasm for the position, and engage the interviewer through thoughtful and astute questions.

Starting with a set of basic questions that can include:

• Can you explain the company’s organizational chart?
• Can you give me a more detailed understanding of what my days might be like?
• What are the specific challenges that you’re facing right now?
• What are the department’s specific objectives for the next three months/six months/one year?
• Why is the position open?

These leading questions should open up a variety of avenues for you to ask more probing questions that will help you truly establish whether you are interested in the company. The interview is a two-way street. You’re not there simply to sell yourself but to determine if you’re sold on the company.

Some of the more probing questions could include

• What are the things you’d like to see changed in your department/division/company?
• Are there plans for new products or services that I should know about?
• How is his job and performed in the past?
• What you see is the key goals for the company during the next year? For my department? For this job?
• How do you see my role in evolving in the first two years?
• What do you think my biggest challenge will be if I start working here?

Now, even if you’re comfortable with the job, the department and the company you should never underestimate the importance of the company culture and how you’ll mesh with it. So you should also ask questions that will determine whether you’ll be a comfortable fit with their organization. These would include:

• How would you describe your management style? Would you say it’s similar to others in the organization or would you consider yourself a bit of a maverick?
• In your experience what particular types of people do you seem to work best with?
• What particular traits do you value most in your subordinates?
• What kinds of people seem to succeed in this company?
• What have you enjoyed most about working here?
• What have you like least?

The answers to these questions do several things. First they help you define yourself according to the attributes of manager cites so you can position yourself as the ideal candidate possessing all the traits are looking for.

These questions should also give you a good sense of the values of the organization and the hiring manager and whether you’d be a good fit with both.

The important thing to remember is that asking cogent and insightful questions makes you stand out from the rest of the candidates and enhances the perception of your qualifications for the job.

Although you may assume that every candidate is prepared to ask intelligent questions, you’d be wrong. I get constant feedback from hiring managers who are shocked by the number of job candidates who don’t ask a single question during the interview. And not one of them gets a job offer.

By engaging in intelligent conversation with the interviewer you’ll separate yourself from the pack, make a sterling impression and hopefully get the chance to answer one final question, “When can you start?”

Many professionals have created blogs as a way to stay active and involved in their professions when between jobs, to keep their skills sharp and as a tool for self-promotion. But even the best intentions can go awry if the professional blogger doesn’t adhere to some hard and fast rules to blog by:

1. Keep your posts professional – There is room on the web for dating blogs and movie review blogs, but they don’t belong on your professional blog. Too many bloggers blur the line between personal and professional and end up with a blog that has no distinct identity. They intersperse posts about their weekend exploits with friends with professional observations concerning project management dynamics on complex software development projects. Big mistake. The readers of your professional blog are looking for insights and expertise dealing with their specific professional concerns. They’re not interested in your social life, your sporting achievements, your kids or your vacations. And make sure you maintain professional and appropriate language throughout your posts. There’s no need for profanity or vulgarity to make your points.
2. Stay on topic – Pick your topic, then write about it. Repeatedly. If you’re a professional recruiter, there are plenty of topics for you to explore without having to resort to throwing in a post about sports marketing. I understand that you may be a Renaissance Man (or Woman), but your professional blog is not the place to display your mastery of all topics, just the one that matters most to you and your professional audience.
3. Post regularly – There’s nothing more frustrating to your readers than discovering your blog and becoming interested in your perspective and ideas only to discover that you haven’t added a new post in over a month. If you’re committed to your blog, you’ve got to maintain a regular posting schedule. We understand that not every post can be an epic – and we really don’t have time to read epics every day – but we do require that you post something. Seth Godin has made a fortune and extends his international reputation daily with blog posts that are sometimes as short as a single sentence. Regular posts are essential.
4. Keep your content current – You should expect that your readers are current with the latest news and trends in their industry, so your content must be current also. If you’re writing about social media and write a post that references a study done in 2007, you appear dated and out of touch. To maintain the impression of authority you must stay on top of your industry’s news and keep your posts current and useful.
5. Engage with your readers – There’s a reason that a blog is considered social media. It provides you with an avenue to actually engage with like-minded readers around the world. Make sure that you enable comments and actually respond to every comment submitted. You’ll build actual relationships with brilliant and talented professionals who can provide expert insight, intelligent and thoughtful ideas, and useful contacts that can help build your professional network and advance your career.

The importance of the personal story was perfectly illustrated to me last week when I was approached by a friend asking for help in getting back in the job market. She had a resume and a LinkedIn profile – fulfilling the absolute minimum requirements for any job seeker – but had no idea how to jump start her search.

Initially, she wanted my help pursuing a senior development position with a local non-profit and asked for some help modifying her resume to make her more attractive to the organization’s director. However, a quick perusal of her resume convinced me that no amount of creative writing could transform her background in the hauling industry and real estate management into anything remotely appropriate for the opening she wanted to pursue.

Not wanting to dash her hopes upon the jagged rocks of reality, I sat down with her to discuss her previous work experience and asked her to recount some of her most distinctive, enjoyable and memorable moments from her previous jobs. Initially, she started to recount the tasks she performed in each of her previous positions, but I told her to put the resume aside and just tell me stories that stood out in her mind.

She described the day she was hired at the hauling company, interviewed in a dank interior office, lit by a single bulb and crammed from floor to ceiling with paper. Unopened envelopes, bills, unsent invoices, even checks, piled on every surface and jutting out of every cabinet and every drawer. The office resembled a scene from Hoarders and presented a challenge to my friend. She offered to get the entire office and business organized and running efficiently and was hired on the spot.

She then spent weeks opening every envelope, sorting payables from receivables, meeting with bankers to discuss how the company would work with the bank from that day forward, met with the accountant to clarify how the books should be kept, contacted all the clients to resolve billing issues and personally handled all client service calls. She took over the business and made it run. And she loved doing it. She faced a herculean task that would have driven me into one of the cluttered corners, whimpering in the fetal position and dove into the project headlong.

I love her story. And she had others. How she expanded their client base from 65 clients to over 3000 by herself. And how she handled all client service calls and built enduring relationships because her clients never called their hauling company, they called Paula. She became the face and voice of the company and turbocharged its growth.

Once I heard those stories, I didn’t care what accounting program she used, or how they processed payroll. I simply trusted that she could face a task – no matter how complex – dive in and get it done. And I appreciate it more because she excels at the things that I avoid. And I know dozens of business executives like me who desperately need someone who can organize their business and keep it running smoothly day to day. Is there a title for that? I don’t know. But I know there’s a story to tell that will let Paula put whatever title she wants on her business card.

So, what are your stories? The ones that are so memorable you still remember the tiniest details? They don’t have to be your greatest successes, either. Frequently they result in failures that taught you permanent lessons. As long as they continue to inspire you, they’ll inspire your listener. So jot them down. They’ll separate you from every other job seeker who focuses on their tasks without sharing the technicolor details of their real accomplishments.

For those of you still skeptical about the value of a thoughtfully written thank you note to those you interview with, I present the story of an anonymous Cleveland executive (let’s call her Jane Doe) who was told yesterday that she received a six-figure job over her competitors because she was the only candidate who followed up her interviews with individually tailored thank you notes to each person she met with.

In a job search that took nearly a year (not that unusual for someone seeking a six-figure income), and required dozens of interviews, the thing that stood out, that separated Jane Doe from the rest of the executive candidates wasn’t her degree (everyone has those), her experience (everyone has that, too), or her network (though her network helped her tremendously). What separated Jane Doe from all the other educated, talented and networked candidates was her ability to connect with each interviewer.

Her thank you notes were printed, not emailed, and were each tailored to include observations and concerns expressed by each individual interviewer. She didn’t send the same note to everyone. They checked with each other to make sure. And her ability to demonstrate her capacity to connect with each of them, to understand their priorities and concerns and to express how she would work with them to reach their personal and departmental goals made her unique. Made her stand out. Made her memorable. And made her necessary.

Assuming that her new position lasts for at least 8-10 years means that the value of her thank you notes will exceed $1 million. Not bad for a few hours work.

Are you doing the same in your job search?

So, what led to this huge inflation in value? Each item came with a unique story.

The auctions were part of the Significant Objects Project, an experiment designed to test the hypothesis that “narrative transforms the insignificant into the significant.” Or, put differently, the goal was to determine whether you could take an object worth very little and make it worth much more by giving it a story and endowing it with meaning.

The projects’s originators purchased 100 unremarkable garage sale trinkets for no more than a few dollars each and then had volunteer writers create fictional backstories for each item. They hypothesized that by attaching a creative story to the item, its objective value would increase.

They were right. The stories and associations attributed to each item increased its perceived value nearly 30x.

Job seekers can learn a tremendous lesson from this real world experiment.

When you write your cover letters and prepare for your interviews, you should prepare the stories that you’re going to recout that clearly illustrate your professional capabilities and experience. Rather than tell your interviewer that you have 14 years of product design experience, you should tell stories of the most successful, creative and rewarding projects you worked on. Rather than reciting your years spent in the accounting department, detail some of the specific successes you had working with your CFO to assemble and lead an internal team to solve complex billing issues.

Nobody remembers data, but everyone remembers compelling and meaningful stories. You won’t be just another computer programmer, but the guy who created the staffing iPhone app that was downloaded over 15,000 times. You’ll be the one who stands out, the one who solves problems, the one who’s 30x more valuable than the resume sitting under yours.

So, how can you build your personal network and increase your chances of finding your ideal job?  Here are some quick tips:

1. Create a blog that centers around your professional expertise. Then fill it with posts. Done right, your blog will be more effective than any resume in communicating the level of your professional knowledge and insight.
2. Make sure the name or tagline of your blog clearly conveys your special professional skills.
3. Create a series of posts that teach me something about what you do. Include pictures, diagrams, samples and even a portfolio of your most effective work product. No matter what your specialty, from driving a truck to running a hedge fund, there is plenty of material you can create to educate others.
4. Read and comment on other bloggers’ sites. Every day.
5. Let the other bloggers in your industry know you exist. Send them your posts. Start a conversation. And ask them to add your blog to their blogroll so the search engines find you and rank you.
6. Go to industry events. Go online and check the monthly schedules for all the professional organizations in your area. Then attend with a pocketful of business cards that includes all of  your social media contact information.
7. When you meet someone you’d like to work for, follow them on every social media channel. Read their blog, follow their tweets, read their LinkedIn profile. Learn everything you can about them so you can stay in touch and send them articles and links you know they’ll be interested in. Help them and there’s a good chance they’ll help you.
8. Follow staffing and recruiting professionals on Twitter, facebook and LinkedIn. Their blog posts and tweets are full of useful information that can help you refine your resume, hone your interviewing skills and alert you to job openings.
9. Clean up your online networking profiles to ensure that there is nothing embarrassing or potentially offensive. No photos of you drinking, smoking or engaged in any potentially disturbing activity. Untag yourself from any potentially offensive photos that exist on any of your friends’ photo pages. Remove any offensive or vulgar language. Then modify your privacy settings so your most personal information remains private and unseen except by your closest friends.
10. Search for and connect with similar professionals on all the major social media platforms. Start conversations with them, participate in online forums and contribute to their groups. Create a Twitter list that includes only these professionals so you stay focused like a laser beam.

Remember, by leveraging these social media platforms, you get a chance to reach not only your contacts, but the entire constellation of contacts that are just one or two degrees removed from you. And you never know who’s hiring.