6 Important Questions To Ask Before Quitting Your Nightmare Job

That's the third laptop this week... | iStockphoto.com (RomoloTavani)

We spend more than a third of our lives at work. What do you do if that portion of your life feels like a living hell?

Here are some nightmare scenarios you may be encountering:

Toxic Work Environment. The company sold you a bill of goods on the interview. Morale is bad, your coworkers are worse, and expectations are shifting and unrealistic. A 40-hour workweek is a pipe dream compared to the 70+ hours you’re currently logging.

Your skills no longer meet the company’s needs. Sometimes a major internal shift occurs that makes you vulnerable. For example, maybe you’re an IT manager who’s been working on 20-year-old technology that’s being sunsetted at the end of the year, and there’s no plans or budget to train you up on the new platform. This kind of thing can also happen with soft skills, too – maybe the CEO is rolling out a new service model and it’s clear you’re having difficulty adapting.

Your boss has it in for you. Perhaps you and your manager have different philosophies. Maybe he wants to replace you with somebody he worked with at his last company. Or, maybe, he’s just evil. Either way, you have a bulls-eye on your back, and when things go south you will be blamed.

You’ve burned out. Sometimes it feels like you have nothing left to offer – no passion, no interest, no energy, and no motivation.

Or, maybe, your situation is a combination of all the above. In any event, you have a knot in your stomach just thinking about work, and you’re popping Rolaids like candy in order to battle back chronic acid reflux.

A thought crosses your mind: “This job is horrible, I should just quit. I can find another job.”

Acting on this is another matter. We depend on our job in order to eat and to put a roof over our head. Here are six important questions to ask yourself before deciding to quit your nightmare job.

1. Is the situation temporary? Let’s say your manager is the primary source of your aggravation ­– is he filling in as the boss while the company has a vacancy, or is he settled into the role for the long term? If he’s an equity partner, then he’s clearly not going to move on anytime soon.
    

2. Can you fix the situation? It’s not always possible for the boss to know everything that’s going on in the organization. If a process is broken, sometimes your manager has the power to remedy it, and by telling her she can address it. If the issue is skills related, perhaps you can take a class on your own time. And if you’re having a major personality clash with a coworker that’s causing your pain, sometimes a direct conversation can resolve it. But, sometimes not.
    

3. Can you afford a break in employment? True, you’ll have time available to interview for jobs, but finding a new job takes time, and you won’t be collecting a paycheck while you’re on the hunt. Incidentally, if you quit you won’t qualify for unemployment pay.
    

4. Will my employer pay me to leave? Many senior executives negotiate a severance package prior to accepting a job – if you’re lucky enough to fall into this category, you’ll have an idea of what your financial safety net will look like. But even if you’re not a member of the executive suite, there may still be the potential of a severance package. Some companies are image conscious, and may be willing to discuss some sort of severance in order to maintain their image and provide you with a soft landing – but don’t count on this, as it’s usually the exception, rather than the rule. Severance packages tend to be offered when it’s the company’s decision to part ways, not yours.
    

5. Will my reputation take a hit? As a general rule, candidates who are currently employed tend to be more desirable, whereas candidates who are unemployed tend to generate questions and doubts by potential employers. Trust me, they’ll dig at this during the interview to see if they can uncover your flaws that contributed to your unemployment – fairly or unfairly. Also, you will damage your position during salary negotiations; instead of negotiating a package from a position of strength where the company needs to put together an attractive compensation package to entice you to leave your current opportunity, you’re in the less desirable position of negotiating with minimal leverage.
    

6. Are my skills in demand? Take a serious look at your job market. If your skills are in high demand, employers may be more ready and willing to take a chance on you. If the market for your line of work is flooded with unemployed professionals, prepare for a slow, painful ride.

---

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, and career coaching services, including a free resume review. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.

The Job Hunter's Guide To Applicant Tracking Systems – OR – Avoiding The Resume Black Hole

Learn how the ATS works, so your resume doesn't end up here. | iStockphoto.com (Mike_Kiev)

When you send your resume to an employer, you have two audiences to impress – human beings and applicant tracking systems.

As you know, human beings are the people who review your resume, such as hiring managers and recruiters, and whom you need to suitably impress in order to get an interview.

You need to impress the applicant tracking system (ATS), too. Employers use an ATS to collect, sort, process, and manage all their resumes and job postings. There are several Applicant Tracking systems on the market offered by companies such as Taleo, iCIMS, Cornerstone, and dozens of others. Keep in mind that each ATS works a little differently, but the concepts here tend to be universal. Here's your user's guide to navigating the world of ATS systems, so that you don't feel like you've thrown your resume into a black hole.

What does an ATS do?

An ATS is the Human Resources department’s window into the recruiting world. Companies use these system to store job descriptions, approve and process new jobs, and post these job opportunities to the outside world.

What kind of companies use an ATS?

Most employers use an ATS, but so do staffing firms. They need it an ATS to keep their hiring efforts organized; large organizations may be managing tens of thousands of job listings, and millions of applicants.

How does a company post jobs through an ATS?

Usually an employer's recruiters can click a few buttons to make their job posting public. The obvious place the position will appear is the employer’s external jobs website, but most employers will pay a little bit extra to have their job listings appear on Monster, CareerBuilder, Indeed, and countless other job boards with the click of a button. Increasingly, ATSs are connected to social media – not just LinkedIn, but also Facebook, Twitter, and anywhere else potential candidates may be found.

Does it matter whether I apply through the company’s web site, or if I apply through one of the other job boards?

It doesn’t make much difference. Despite minor differences in the systems, no matter how you apply, your resume will still end up funneled into the employer’s ATS. In fact, if you send your resume directly to somebody at the company through email, they'll probably upload it into the system.

What happens to my resume after I click “Apply”?

Your resume will be collected and processed by the ATS. This involves parsing out essential data such as your name, phone number, email and address, as well as sorting, indexing, and categorizing your resume to make it more easily retrievable.

I applied online for a specific job opportunity – what happens next?

Regardless of what job board you used to apply for the particular job opportunity, your resume will be placed into a single queue with all other applicants’ resumes from all other job boards and sources. It’s not unusual for that queue to contain 10,000 or more applicants if it’s a popular job with a desirable employer.

What about internal applicants? Where do they apply for new positions?

Employers often have a dedicated job posting portal for their internal applicants seeking mobility opportunities. The back end of this system will connect with – you guessed it – the ATS. These individuals go into the same queue.

Does the recruiter review all the resumes?

Probably not. A single recruiter may be assigned 20 (or more) open jobs at a given point. It’s difficult for a recruiter to find the time to look at 10,000 applicants for a single job, much less 200,000 for all 20 of their open positions.

How does the recruiter decide which resumes to review?

In concept, the ATS evaluates and sorts the resumes against the job description, and assigns each resume a ranking. While the mechanics of each system's sorting algorithms will vary, as a general concept the ATS will allocate the highest scores to resumes whose keywords most closely match the keywords found in the job description. The recruiter will then review the resumes, starting with the the highest-ranked matches, until he or she has gathered enough qualified candidates to screen – probably somewhere in the neighborhood of between five and ten resumes. Then they’ll move on to something else. Most resumes don’t get reviewed.

Why do recruiters approach it this way?

To better understand this process, consider the following allegorical example. Let’s say you’re getting ready to go out to dinner, and you want to find a good Italian Restaurant in your neighborhood. You enter the following search criteria into Google or Bing: “Italian restaurant near me.” Chances are, you'll receive dozens of pages of search results; but if you happen to identify an appealing, highly rated restaurant on page 1 or 2 of your search results, why would you keep looking?

What happens to my resume if it doesn’t get reviewed?

It stays in the ATS for a period of time as determined by the company’s document retention policy, until it’s purged (in other words, deleted). Until it’s purged, it’s searchable by recruiters as part of the general resume database. You can learn what it means when an employer says they'll keep your resume on file – here. They really do keep it on file.

What are the chances my resume will be reviewed for future opportunities?

It’s not unheard of. Sometimes recruiters look through the resume database if they need to conduct a confidential search (and don’t wish to or can’t post the job, for whatever reason) or if they’re looking for specific, hard-to-find skills.

Okay, so how can I get noticed by recruiters when applying for jobs online?

Clearly the numbers are not in your favor, so you need to do a little bit of work as you apply to jobs online. Here's the process I recommend you follow when applying for jobs online:

1. Analyze the job description. Read it. Really read it. Learn what skills the company is looking for in this role – both technical and soft skills. Those are your keywords.
    

2. Ensure that you’re a fit for the job. While it’s okay to be aspirational in your applications, you could unintentionally hurt your standing with an employer by applying to too many roles for which you clearly don’t have the skills or experience, as recruiters will eventually just skip over your resume no matter how well the system determines it matches.
    

3. Make sure the resume is ATS-friendly. Two-column resume formats, while attractive, tend to get mangled by an ATS. Other things to avoid – large tables (the parsing order can confuse the system); graphics (text in a photo format doesn’t get captured); and uncommon fonts (the employer may not have your font, and it could distort your resume's formatting and overall appearance).
    

4. Save a copy of your resume to your desktop for you to edit.
    

5. Match the title of your resume to the position. A title on the resume sets the stage for the reader, but it can also provide a valuable keyword match for the ATS. If you’re applying for a job titled “Finance Manager,” make it the same so long as it’s intellectually honest to do so.
    

6. Plug keywords from the job description into your resume. You can use a “Skills” section for this purpose. But also sprinkle the words in appropriate places in the resume.
    

7. Insert similar terminology to the job description. Here’s an example which can explain what I mean – some companies have a Staffing department, others have a Talent Acquisition department. Both terms mean similar (if not the same) things, as both departments manage the company’s recruitment, but if your resume’s terminology doesn’t match the job description, your resume's score may knocked down. Other examples: Logistics vs. Supply Chain; Training vs. Development; Human Resources vs. Personnel. And note little details, like how the company describes the degree requirements – an MBA may be the same thing as a Master of Business Administration, but it needs to match what the company lists in the description in your uploaded resume.
    

8. Save your edited resume, and apply online. Given the option your resume in a Microsoft Word version – it’s universally accepted by ATS platforms. And lastly...
    

9. Go around the system. You read this correctly. Try to identify the decision maker for the position on LinkedIn. Then send them a brief note – through LinkedIn or by email – to inform them that you’ve applied online (always follow the company's process first), you have the qualifications for the role, and would love to connect with them. Your well-timed message can potentially put your candidacy front of center, regardless of how highly or lowly the ATS scores your resume. Also, this shows initiative and creativity, and you may very well be the solution to the employer’s problem.

By the way, it's a great idea to have a premium LinkedIn subscription while you're searching for a job – the benefits far outweigh the cost.

---

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, and career coaching services, including a free resume review. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.

The 6 Traits Hiring Managers Really Want

iStockphoto.com | Monkeybusinessimages

While every hiring manager tends to look for something a little different in a candidate for their open job, here are the six traits I've consistently seen managers look for as they conduct interviews.

TRAIT #1: Job Skills and Qualifications
REASON: Seems like a no-brainer, right? But when an employee doesn't work out because they don't possess the basic requirements of the job, it can be painful (and costly) for the organization to either coach the individual up or replace them. Since hiring can be risky, hiring managers often fall back to passing on an individual if they aren't sure they have the technical and people skills.
HOW TO SHINE: Read the job description before the interview; it will give you a very clear idea of the hard and soft skills the employer needs for the role. Eliminate the hiring manager's doubt by preparing and providing concrete examples of how you have used these skills in the past.

TRAIT #2: Likeability
REASON: No secret here. People like to work with people they like, who fit into the culture of the organization. Since a hiring manager will be spending more than a third of their life with anyone they hire and team chemistry matters, they may prioritize personality as highly as they do technical skills.
HOW TO SHINE: Use the manners your mother and father gave you. Smile. Be polite. Dress nicely for the interview. Send thank you notes. Come armed with great job references from former managers and coworkers who can gush at length about what a pleasure it was to work with you. And do your research about the culture of the company, so that you can talk about how well you'll fit in.

TRAIT #3: Team Orientation
REASON: Does the candidate know how to work well with others? In this age of cross-functional collaboration, teamwork isn't just a nice-to-have, it's essential.
HOW TO SHINE: Demonstrate that you've been able to move seamlessly into different working relationships based upon the needs of the situation. Talk about the times you've led,  the times you've been led, and how you've partnered successfully with your peers to get the job done.

TRAIT #4: Energy
REASON: The workplace tends to be a fast paced environment with heavy expectations, and a low-energy interview may work against a candidate. A calm and measured demeanor may be great for some roles (librarians and brain surgeons come to mind), but positions with rapid-fire deadlines require a bit more pizazz.
HOW TO SHINE: Convey a sense of excitement and animation during the interview. Sit forward in your chair. Provide examples of how you dealt with tight deadlines, adapted to fast-moving work environments, and successfully brought programs to conclusion.

TRAIT #5: Adaptability
REASON: Companies change priorities – often – and they need employees who can change right along with them. If hired, how will the candidate deal with frequent reorganizations, new assignments, and shifting deadlines?
HOW TO SHINE: Talk about the times you've had to adjust to shifting responsibilities and expectations, and how you managed to succeed in spite of these.

TRAIT #6: Growth Potential
REASON: In other words, is the candidate promotable, or will they spend the rest of their life in the role for which they get hired? Managers are often judged for their ability to identify and groom the next superstar.
HOW TO SHINE: Provide examples of people you've managed, mentored, and coached. Make sure your resume shows career progression, with added responsibility over a period of time. Were you an individual contributor (i.e., non-manager)? Talk about projects you've managed.

---

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, and career coaching services, including a free resume review. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.