Leveraging Your Time In The World @ Work…

Technology in general, and specifically the World Wide Web, presents a wealth of resources to all of us in our pursuit of "a good FIT" within our career. Both organizations seeking highly qualified professionals and highly qualified professionals seeking affiliation with their next right work, will be well served to merge the effective use of available technical tools with the realities of "high touch" Personal Market Plan implementation.

Technology presents a seductive, siren’s song to those seeking to process high volumes of data. Technology represents an escape from the rigors of personal contact and target firm networking. Technology can be fun.

At the core of effective career continuity activity is a sense of focus and direction, represented by an individual’s Personal Market Plan. To be efficient, it is to anyone’s advantage to fully utilize available technical resources in all phases of career transition:

  • Assessment… Many of the widely used psychological profiles are available within web-based applications, skills and experience can be recorded within a spreadsheet to identify key competencies… but there seems to be no replacement for the interaction with that experienced and knowledgeable, human sounding board, the Career Consultant.
    •  The ensuing interpretive dialog is an invaluable component of objective setting and resume development.
  • Resume Development… Certainly it is easy to accept the time management that word processing, web-based resume building tools, and other software allows… but the multitude of career decisions that come in to play in order to develop a high quality resume is beyond the artificial intelligence available in today’s technology.   Getting to know ones-self through resume development is an irreplaceable component of the Personal Market Planning process.
  • Networking development… While technology can help us broaden, speed up and dig deeper in the information gathering, "keyword matching" and identification of traditional marketplace opportunities (in the published market)… There is no proven replacement for the person-to-person interactions prerequisite to effective recruitment and selection activity. This HIGH TOUCH reality can be enhanced through skilled use of the HIGH TECH tools and resources.
    •  Actual job search, and career transition in general, requires personal contact!
  • Interview and selection… It has been said that the best "FIT" is one that Candidates and hiring authorities alike can both rationalize and feel. We can reproduce much of human interaction using audio, visual and other electronic means: chat rooms, bulletin board activity, teleconferencing and video-conferencing can save a lot of time and expense. However, with much the same impact as personal networking, the multitude of subjective decision making and assessment is best done person-to-person.
  • Job and Career SATISFACTION… The acid test… IS there a HIGH TECH way to experience this desired feeling? Which leads us to my simple point:

Put technology to work for you in leveraging your time and efforts in finding your next right work … but never let it replace the High TOUCH necessary to assure your career continuity goals.

Career Transition is a contact sport!

 

                                   >> Riley on NETWORKING           >> Interviewing/ Selection

                                   >> Assessment: SkillsOne           >> Interviewing Process

Bob Maher, CMF... The Careerpilot

Bob created his online presence, www.careerpilot.com, in 1994.  He has over twenty years of successful experience in Corporate Recruitment, performance management and Career Management Services.  He is an entrepreneur and innovator in the use of information technology in the recruitment and employment process.  On the Founder's Council of the Association of Career Professionals - International and quite active in their Professional Development, Technology and Chapter Growth initiatives--a frequent speaker at industry conferences and seminars.