1. You learn more about yourself. Through a career aptitude test, you get to know about your skills, strengths and weaknesses, and from there you can explore different suitable career choices.

2. You discover things you never knew you had. Career aptitude tests usually gauge your psychological and emotional capacities towards your future. They also open doors for you to find new talents and skills that you weren’t aware of before.  You can use these new discoveries to enjoy life better, both in terms of career and leisure.

3. Career aptitude tests provide ways for you to work on your weaknesses. Everyone has weaknesses, but most of us are in denial to acknowledge and resolve them. Through these tests, you are not ridiculed for your weaknesses; rather, you are taught about the different methods in which you can improve yourself and possibly eliminate them.

4. It gives you a variety of options.  Everyone wants their “dream job,” but the idea of an aptitude test is to expose you to various career opportunities; possibly some that you haven’t even considered. It is meant to guide you, not pigeonhole you into one job.

5. Career aptitude tests can save you from job-hopping. Job-hopping can be fun and exciting, but it can also tarnish your portfolio by employers thinking that you’re having problems at work and struggling to commit to a job.

There are many career aptitude tests you may take, and some of them, especially those found on the Internet, are free to answer. Here are a few options below:

http://www.careertest.net/

http://www.quizrocket.com/career-personality-test

http://www.mycareerquizzes.com/career-personality-tests

Most cover letters are read last. But, before you stop reading this article, remember that any materials that make it as far as a “hold” pile will be read, from cover letter to references. It is then that cover letters matter most, as they have the power to distinguish intriguing possibilities from average, everyday candidates. Laura Gassner Otting suggests the following:

Top Ten Cover Letter Do’s and Don’ts

1. Do keep it to one page. Simplify, simplify, simplify.
2. Do personalize each letter.
3. Do craft each cover letter to the specific job and recruiter, mentioning the position and organization in the first sentence.
4. Do match your skills to the job responsibilities and be specific when describing your relevant job experience.
5. Do set yourself out as unique among a pool of applicants.
6. Don’t distinguish yourself by the color and texture of paper.
7. Don’t be so brief that the employer must go on safari to find information.
8. Don’t misspell the name of the person you are addressing.
9. Don’t load the letter with jargon.
10. Don’t create charts and tables.

Benefits of using a temp agency and doing temporary work according to iseek.org:

• Gain skills and work experience.
• Have a source of income while looking for work.
• Obtain free training.
• Increase networking contacts.
• Have more flexible hours or working conditions to accommodate your personal situation.
• Check out an employer or an occupation before making a commitment to it.
• It’s easier to get a job when you have a job.
• Sometimes employers offer permanent positions to temp workers who work out well.

Here are some additional tips if you are considering employment with a temp agency:

• Be professional in all dealings. Treat agencies as you would a potential employer. In the case of temp agencies, they are employers.
• Be available. Most agencies expect you to make yourself available when they offer you placement. If you turn down more than a couple of opportunities, they may not be as quick to consider you for future ones.

You want to provide people with your information and put yourself out there in the market. Mary Alice Franklin suggests putting your industry or degree on your card.  For instance: “International Relations” or “Automotive Repairs.”  If you have a specialized license or certification, include that (“Licensed Social Worker”) even if you haven’t had a job in that area yet.  All business cards should have:

-Name

-Email Address

-Phone number

-Degree or Industry

Additional items you could list:

Website URL (only if you have a professional website that relates to your field)

Job Title, if applicable

Address, if applicable

“Where can I get my business card?”

You can save money and buy the paper from an office supply store and print them yourself using Microsoft Office or a similar program.  If you want more professional cards, you can check out VistaPrint or other similar companies.

“Who should I give my cards to?”

Everyone!  Ok, maybe not everyone, but networking is the key.  If your friend says, “My uncle works in that industry, you should talk to him,” ask if you can give him your business card.  When you see an opportunity, don’t hesitate.  Doing nothing is the worst thing you can do.  Always make sure you have plenty of cards on you when you go to any type of networking event, career fair or interview.

Good luck and happy printing those business cards.

You typically get an informational interview through someone that is connected to you in some way, even if it’s a few degrees of separation (your uncle’s former coworker or so forth), but sometimes you can even get them from strangers via LinkedIn or your alumni network.

Once you have the interview set up, you want to make a great impression, so look over these helpful hints below:

1. Come prepared with relevant questions. The person you are interviewing is probably busy so don’t waste their time by showing up unprepared. Make their time count.

2. Sometimes you won’t get a person to person interview, but they are willing to talk via email or phone. Be ready with equally great questions.

3. Ask them if there are any other people they could recommend that would be willing to do informational interviews. Maybe the first person you interview cannot help, but they may have contacts that can help you.

4. Do not ask if they are hiring. (You should have already investigated public job opportunities on their website if available.) If they think you may be a possible candidate, they will let you know if there are positions open or may even take your resume.

5. Lastly, send a thank-you note afterwards. This person gave you something of value: his or her time and insights. You want to make it clear that you did not take it for granted.

• If you’re not on Facebook already, create an account immediately. Be sure that your profile is personal, but appropriate. Potential employers can and will search for your profile and inappropriate pictures or wall posts can cost you an interview or job.
• Connect with friends, family, and past co-workers. Since you can see other people’s employment history on their profile, check to see if anyone works at a company you are applying for and ask to be referred. There is also a website, InTheDoor.com, which will show you job openings at places where your Facebook friends work.
• Periodically, post status updates about your job search, mentioning you are looking for a job and asking if anyone knows of any openings. Be careful not to spam your network. They will become annoyed and tune you out.
• Join relevant Facebook groups and start networking. You can meet people in similar career fields who can offer tips to get you into that dream job.
• “Like” company pages where you want to work. Become a part of the community by commenting, liking, or sharing their posts. When a position opens up at the company that you want to apply to, write a wall comment on their page and ask who you should email if you have a question.
• Did you know companies actually post jobs on Facebook? They use the Marketplace application to post job ads. Search for them under the “Jobs” tab in the Marketplace app.

Don’t forget to like Whitman Associates on Facebook!

1. Attend networking events and follow up with the contacts you make there.
2. Tailor your resume for each job you apply for.
3. Be proactive in your job search by following up on a resume or interview.
4. Describe your accomplishments on your resume, rather than your actual tasks.
5. Don’t forget about the basics: resume, cover letter, and thank you notes.
6. Build a presence on social media and allow recruiters to find you.
7. Create a list of companies you want to work for and follow their activities (social media, press releases, news articles, events, etc.). Reach out to human resources or a specific manager and set up an informational interview.
8. Proofread everything you send to recruiters and hiring managers (resumes, cover letters, emails).
9. Learn new skills that are relevant for your desired profession.

Make sure your resolutions are measurable. For example, “I will attend three networking events a month” or “I will spend four hours a day applying to jobs.” This will set an achievable end goal for you to reach.

We’ve written before about tailoring your resume to suit the requirements in every job description, but this is a list of skills you should have on your resume, no matter the position. This list is taken from a report by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) that 244 employers took part in and was originally posted on ComeRecommended’s blog:

1. Working on a team: Consider including relevant projects or contributions created by you and your fellow coworkers or classmates.
2. Leadership: List a leadership position and accomplishments made from the position’s responsibilities
3. Written communication: Incorporate relevant writing experience you have had in a position, whether it’s writing blog entries or journalistic articles. If your experiences have not allowed for much writing, consider starting your own blog.
4. Problem solving: This is where you want to include quantitative data. Some examples to list include if you saved time or money by making a process more efficient, handling a crisis, or gaining more clients than last year.
5. Strong work ethic: This can be conveyed from your resume if you list accomplishments rather than responsibilities or having a lot of past positions. It’s about the quality, not quantity, of work you have done.

To get started, you first have to create an account. Resunate has a free basic plan that allows you to upload and manually edit an unlimited number of resumes, but you can only use the job description Auto-Focus tool three times. There are also several premium plans that offer unlimited use of the auto-focus tool.

After setting up your account, you can upload your resume or import your LinkedIn profile. You then fill in any missing information and format your resume using one of several resume templates based on industry and experience level.

Once you are comfortable with the content and style of your resume, copy and paste a job description onto the site to get your JobFocus score. This is the score that tells you, on a scale of 1-10, how suited you are for that job. Now comes the fun part: the score will highlight which sections of your resume are relevant to the job and which can be edited or deleted. You can edit your resume manually or use the Auto-Focus tool, which will reorder bullet points and remove irrelevant information for you. Once you get your score as close to 10 as possible, you can download the resume and use it to apply or, if the hiring manager has provided an email address, you can send it straight from Resunate.

According to one study, resumes that are pre-screened with Resunate were two times more likely to be called back for an interview than a candidate’s original resume. Since Resunate offers a free plan, it’s worth investing your time in creating a sharper, job-specific resume to help you land that job.

Here’s what they suggest:

Step one: Scan and filter

Ignore filler and scan quickly for significant keywords like education, experience and serious skills. If skimming an ad turns up a few interesting words that fit what you’re looking for, make sure you have the hard and fast requirements like years of experience, fluent French or a particular certification. Then, if necessary, read it carefully in full.

Step two: Read between the lines

To find out more about the jobs you’ve deemed interesting, “you need to be able to extract what hiring managers implicitly want,” according to The Wall Street Journal’s Dennis Nishi. “This requires you to read between the lines of job ads.”

Nishi’s article goes on to offer a suggestion from USC professor Mathew Curtis: “Peruse other job ads from the same employer. This can give you a better sense of the tone of a company.”

Tone is important because it’s your first clue whether you’re a good fit for a company’s culture. Noticing tone will also help should you decide to apply, allowing you to tailor your response to match the mood, vocabulary and focus of the ad.

Step three: Do the dating profile test

To check whether you’ve really gotten a sense of the ad, think of it as akin to a dating profile, full of euphemisms designed to present the opportunity in the best light. Just like you’d mentally translate “free spirited” on Match.com to mean possibly unemployed, or “vivacious” to mean loud in public, it’s worth taking a moment to try to restate job ad jargon in everyday language.

Now that you’ve scanned through the filler, read between the lines, and discovered the tone of the company, you can tailor your resume and cover letter specifically for that position. This shows not only that you read the job ad thoroughly, but also that you are enthusiastic about the job. This is a much better alternative to sending a generic resume to hundreds of job with little or no response.