Now he brought up a topic I had not heard much about, accomplishments. My initial response was, “I have held some interesting positions but I would not say I really accomplished much.” To which he responded, “Well, we’ll see.”

He told me, one of the best ways to communicate credible information to a prospective employer is through the use of accomplishment statements.  These statements, if written in the proper manner, will show that you understand the field, will show that you have a specific set of skills, and will also show that you were able to bring those skills to bear on a situation and achieve some measurable results.

Writing accomplishments is probably the most time intensive activity that you will perform in preparation for your job search.  It takes time to discover what you have accomplished.  It takes time to determine what skills you want to communicate through each accomplishment.  It takes time to determine the best way to write your accomplishment statement so that it communicates what you intend. And then it takes time to determine which accomplishments to use in your resume.  It cannot be done in an hour or two.

He went on, it takes time for you to think back to specific situations that you have been involved in throughout your career, however long that career might be.  It will help if you kept some kind of “To Do List” from your various positions.  He also said that status reports, performance goals, customer commendation letters, performance reviews and other material from previous jobs would also help. These will help you to remember some of the various activities that you have been involved in.  Without these it is a lot of work to remember the projects, the activities, the assignments, etc. that you worked on.

Discovering Accomplishments

Discovery is the first step in preparing accomplishments, he informed me.  Narration is the second.

Accomplishments are the key to your job search, he pointed out.  People are not hired because they held certain positions, or because they had specific areas of responsibility.  People are hired because of what they were able to accomplish.

As a job applicant you must expend the effort to prepare your list of accomplishments to share with prospective employers.  You will communicate these accomplishments in the interview as well as on your resume.  So the time that you invest at this point will prove very valuable throughout your search.

As you begin your work on accomplishments do not limit your thinking to your most recent position.  Begin with your most recent job and then think backwards through your career and educational experience.  When developing your list of accomplishments include everything, even if you don’t think they are worth listing.  You can sort them out after you have composed them.

The following list of questions will help you to begin to identify those situations where you were the star and did in fact accomplish something. You will no doubt think of other areas as you work through this list, but at least this is a starting point:

1.  What problems or difficult situations were you able to solve?

2.  What emergency situations did you handle successfully?

3.  What did you create or build?

4.  What ideas or concepts were you involved in developing?

5.  How did you demonstrate leadership in the face of a challenge?

6.  What situations were you involved in where you followed instructions to realize a goal?

7.  Describe the situations where you were able to identify a need and satisfy it.

8.  What decisions or changes were you involved in where you made active contributions?

9.  What programs were you involved in where you saw an increase in sales or profits?

10. What plans did you initiate to reduce costs?

11. What situations were you involved in where you assisted someone else in realizing his/her objective?

12. What suggestions did you make that helped the organization save time and/or money?

13. What awards or special commendations did you receive because of particular contributions you made? Why were you given those awards?

14. What situations were you involved in where you were able to perform within standard operating procedures (SOP) when other circumstances were against you?

15. What ideas or suggestions did you make that helped to increase the performance of a team or work group?

16. What plans did you recommend that helped to increase the efficiency of a work group?

17. What plans did you conceive to enlarge the client base?

18. What ideas did you contribute that enabled those in charge to maintain better controls?

19. What plans did you develop and/or implement that improved efficiency and enabled the reduction of staff?

20. What procedures were you able to automate that significantly contributed to the improvement of the quality of the department’s work?

Writing Accomplishments

Situations: When writing out the situations for each accomplishment, take the time to give the details and fully describe each situation.  You may want to take a full sheet for each one so that you can capture as many details as you can remember. Don’t worry about how much you write down. The more the better, because this will not only help in writing your accomplishments, it will also begin to get you ready to discuss these situations in interviews.

When you ask yourself the questions listed above, you want to think from a work and non-work related environment.

In both work and non-work related situations you will want to think about:

• Problems
• Questions
• Projects
• Plans
• Emergencies
• Leadership
• Challenges
• And all the other categories from the questions

When you think through non-work related situations, you may have used some of the same skills you used on the job, but in a non-pay kind of activity. Think about your involvement in:

• Volunteer activities
• Hobbies
• Recreation
• Social clubs
• Part-time work
• Community service
• Church
• Youth organizations
• Humanitarian organizations

Tools/Techniques: Once you have identified the situations where you excelled, and you need to shoot for 20-30 of these specific situations, you need to think about the tools and/or techniques that you used in each situation to achieve what you did. You may or may not have used specialized tools in your situations, but you want to think about it. These tools would include actual hands-on tools such as calipers, medical equipment, diagnostic equipment as well as specialized software applications.

Actions: My mentor added, in addition to the tools you also need to think through and describe what you actually did. This is one area where many people struggle. You need action verbs that talk about what you contributed in each situation. List as many as you can think of that describe the part you played. You will select which ones you want to use later, but for now capture all of them. He told me to go to Google or my favorite search engine and search for action verbs and I would find all the action verbs I could ever want. He said, just look down through the entire list for each situation and write down all that apply.

Results: When you have all of these components relating to the situation you will also want to describe the results that took place as a result of your action. This is what happened in each situation as an end result. He said, in some cases you may not know what the results were because you were only a part of the solution, but in many cases you will be able to identify the results.

When portraying the results achieved, there are two different kinds of results to consider.  Both are equally important, and you need to consider both as you think through the results that came about in the situations you were involved in.  My mentor encouraged me, do not minimize what you have done by saying that anyone could have done the same thing.  Whether or not that is true remains to be seen.  The fact is that you did it and you should take credit for it.

For each of the situations you described as you worked through the questions above, use the following list of possible results to try and identify precisely what came about in the particular situation.  If you don’t know exactly, but can give an educated guess and are able to back up that guess, it’s perfectly acceptable to use that estimate.  Once again, take the time required to think back over each of the situations you have described.  It will again take some time to try and remember the results of your work.

The first type of results is quantitative results. These are results that have to do primarily with productivity and can be describes by using numbers, dollars, percentages, and time. These results include:

• Errors
• Deficiencies
• Reworks
• Profits
• Sales
• Market share
• Headcount
• Litigation
• Costs & expenses
• Overhead
• Customer complaints

The second type of results is qualitative results. Qualitative results have to do primarily with personnel. While these could be quantified over time, it is very difficult and not really worth the effort. Instead you would use descriptive adjectives such as significant, dramatic, measurable, observable, and dynamic when referring to these. Qualtitiave results deal with such things as:

• Motivation
• Ownership
• Morale
• Teamwork
• Group identity
• Cooperation
• Volunteering
• Pride in the organization
• Attitude
• Enthusiasm
• Absenteeism & tardiness

Finished Accomplishments

My mentor went on, once you have compiled all of this data on each situation, you need to boil it down into a manageable statement that could appear on your resume. This statement should be relatively short, and not include all of the details of why, how, and all of what you did that you wrote down as you described each situation. You want to capture the attention of the reader and save the details for discussion during an interview.

In writing accomplishments it’s easy to give too much detailed information that is not necessary.  A summary of what you did and what the results were is more important than how you did it.  The how, and sometimes the why and more details of what, will be a great topics for discussion during the interview.

The STAR acronym is a good one to follow in putting your accomplishment statements together. Remember, you are the star of these stories and each demonstrates your skills, experience, accomplishment and more. STAR stands for:

• S = situation; project, challenge, question, problem, et al
• T = tools or techniques
• A = action; words that describe exactly what you did
• R = results; summary statements of what happened as a result of what you did

Here is a list of examples of completed accomplishment statements to give you some ideas of how yours may appear when completed:

1.  Supervised and coordinated complex installation of up to 1600 individual telecommunication units networked to 9 separate locations with 100% target date success and 99% customer satisfaction.

2.  Designed and implemented a corporate safety awareness program that reduced accidents by 20% within the first 12 months of implementation.

3.  Initiated and wrote a series of model response letters that reduced written response time to customer complaint letters from 12 days to 4 days.

4.  Conceived and implemented a revised customer initiation process that reduced the percentage of reworked files processed over the course of 12 months from 26% to 12%, resulting in significant cost and time savings.

5.  Researched, developed and “championed” the implementation of a major component of new technology serving 802,000 customers, which assisted in the savings of $200 million of capital expenditures.

6.  Led in the identification and resolution of quality problems estimated at $4 million in monthly unbillable revenue which enabled reversal of this situation within an extremely short time frame.

7.  Coordinated and directed removal and replacement of mainframes and peripherals, resulting in approximately 50% greater diagnostic capability and 79% faster processing with a transparent user changeover.

8.  Led in emergency response to power failure of real time TV broadcast, satisfying over 100,000 viewers by restoring transmission with minimal loss of air time.

9.  Evaluated, projected and obtained funding for real estate planning, in an organization of 5,000 employees and 2.6 million square feet of space, requiring compliance with company payback guidelines and future building and/or acquisition schedules.

10. Hired and trained entire department that realized its goal of $1.2 million in production in the first 12 months.

11.  Realized a 400% increase in profit, with minimal loss of sales volume, attributable to a thorough analysis of distribution channels, implementation of a purposeful sales strategy and positioning product line as a specialty product.

12. Designed and wrote a computerized data base for employee records, providing better controls with fewer personnel.

13. Initiated, authored and supervised a safety program that reduced accidents by 12% in the first three months.

14.  Developed, tested and implemented advertising campaign on new product line, resulting in a 300% increase in sales.

15.  Designed and implemented exclusive sales and marketing plans for major department store chains to improve S.K.U. spread and increased market share.

Go Do It

As my mentor concluded, he challenged me, okay, now you have all you need to write up your accomplishments. Now it’s time to go and do it. If only I could be so confident I thought to myself.

As I left and worked on these accomplishment statements in the days that followed I found that I did indeed have enough info to come up with first drafts of these accomplishment statements and then I sat down with my mentor and we polished them. But it really did feel good go be able to identify and describe what I did…and I found that I did actually did accomplish something after all.

You will find this true in your experience also, and if we here at MindWare can assist you through the task of identifying, describing and writing your accomplishments just use the Contact Us tab to let us know and we will be glad to work with you.

You can make a change. It is possible. It can even be fun and enlightening, but it is also a lot of work. Even the process can be fulfilling and include a sense of self-discovery. It will take time. It won’t happen overnight, but you can make it happen.

Before you decide to make a career change however, it is important to be sure that is really what you want to do. In some instances, there are other things that are playing a role in your dissatisfaction. If fixing these other things will give new life to your career, it is important to consider those before making a drastic career change. Consider:

• Are finances at the root of your distress? Is it possible with some financial counseling, and getting a better handle on your money situation, you could find happiness in your current career? Is it possible that out-of-control spending is draining your energy, hope, and enthusiasm? If so, seek out a reputable credit counselor and take control of your finances.
• Is the lack of meaningful relationships more likely the cause of your lack of fulfillment? Think about your friends, or lack of friends, and see if you need to seek relationships with a different set of people, or with people that have more going for them than those you currently spend time with. Think about where you might meet new friends with different values, and start frequenting those places. Not easy, but possible.
• Is it possible that a lack of progress in your current job is causing you the distress you are feeling? If you were able to take on new skills in your current role, or improve your performance in what you are now doing, would that increase your sense of satisfaction and fulfillment? Check out the training possibilities, and opportunities to move around within your current organization, or similar opportunities at other organizations, before you decide to completely jump ship and look for an entirely new career.
• Are you trying to make your job too much a part of your life? A job, just like a spouse, cannot fill all your needs for satisfaction and fulfillment. That puts too much weight in that one area. Are you currently involved in church or service organizations, or professional associations? You might need to look for opportunities to volunteer, mentor, or be involved in some social, professional or service organization to see what contributing to those less fortunate can do.
• Are there other areas of your life that could use some improvement before you make a significant decision to change your career? Check these out first so that you don’t make a drastic mistake in leaving your vocation that has and could continue to bring an income as well as sense of well-being.

Once you have decided that a career change is definitely what you want to pursue, you will probably ask, where do you start? Engaging a career coach is a good place to start and can be a distinct advantage to making this kind of change. Establishing a relationship with this type of professional can be well worth the investment. A coach will encourage, challenge, raise questions, prod, and prompt and add a different perspective. If you would like to explore working with a career coach, give us a no-obligation call or email and we can discuss your situation and what you would like to achieve.

While a coach can be a distinct advantage, you can do at least some of the work on your own. You can do some of the initial thinking, take some of the initial steps, and process some of the information on your own. Then when you ask for the perspective of a friend, or professional, you are that much further down the road.

The process of making a career change involves identifying what you bring to a job, where you find your greatest sense of fulfillment, and then finding opportunities that offer those, rather than looking at job announcements to see where you can find one that uses what you have. You start with you and find the job to match, rather than starting with the job and trying to match it to you and what you want.

1. You are a unique individual. There is no one else that has the same combination of personal characteristics, strengths, skills, abilities, talents, character and more that you have. The following projects are designed to help you identify just who you really are and the distinctive that make you, you and then how to weave those together into a job.Many of these projects or tasks are on-going. You start them and come up with your initial findings, and then you want to keep them going so that you can add to them as you think of other things. You develop your initial list of strengths, and just like anything you do, when you set it aside and then come back to it you can add more ideas after it has percolated in the back of your brain for awhile. So it is with many of the suggestions that follow. Don’t look at them as a one-time and done kind of assignment. Look at them as an on-going investigation.
   1. Let’s start by doing a thorough personal assessment of your strengths and weaknesses. Take a full-size sheet of paper and draw a t-chart that uses the entire page. On one side of that t-chart list your strengths and on the other side your weaknesses. List everything you can think of that you see in both categories. List what you think of yourself. List what others have told you about yourself. Include feedback from performance reviews on the job, whether you completely agree with them or not. Include input from your spouse, children, other members of your family, friends, small group members, fellow students, church members, your volunteer buddies, those you enjoy recreation with.On your first pass at listing your strengths and weaknesses you should work to have at least 10-15 strengths and an equal number of weaknesses. This is for your eyes only, so be completely, brutally honest with yourself.

      Eventually you should end up with a list of at least 30-50 strengths. Of course, all of your strengths will not be equal, some will be much stronger than others, but you can view than all as strengths. You should also end up with a good list of weaknesses. The weaknesses are important because they will help you define what you do not want your new career to focus on.

      Start your list right now, and keep adding to it in the days to come so that you eventually get to the goals described above. Use this listing of your strengths and weaknesses to begin your career change portfolio where you will keep all of the insights, projects, and work that you do as you investigate your career change. It will provide you with one go-to source that contains all of your work. This will be important when you get to the place of actually beginning a job search for your new position, so don’t take creating this portfolio lightly.

   2. Next, you will want to explore your personality traits, your personal characteristics, your temperament, and your emotional make-up. This is another way of looking at your strengths, but will give you a different perspective on yourself.Here are a few free, self-scoring online assessment instruments that will help you to gain this new insight into yourself.

      Based on Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
      http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

      Based on Kiersey Temperament Sorter
      http://www.keirsey.com/default.aspx?aspxerrorpath=/keirsey3/default.aspx

      Personality 100
      http://www.personalitybook.com/page/registration/userreg.xml

      When you have completed the assessments, print out what each assessment says about your type, your personality, your profile, or whatever they call it. Print out the reading provided about you and add it to your career portfolio.

      Take the time to read through the various articles provided to see what they have to say about your profile. You won’t agree with everything, but you will find surprising insights into who you are and the strengths and characteristics that you possess. Make some notes of the highlights of what you read to summarize what you discover.

      Attached below is another resource, a personality traits checklist for you to identify some of your most common traits. What you will find is a listing of many common personality traits. You will be able to identify many that you will feel are true of you. Follow the instructions on the sheet to complete it for your resource.

      Personality Traits Checklist (link to PDF)

      When finished, add this to your career portfolio for reference later.

   3. Your next project is to think back over your life, not just your work life, but all aspects of your life, and make a list of your top 25 personal achievements. What are the 25 things you are most proud of? If you were telling someone of the 25 highlights of your life, your personal highlight reel, what would you include?Think about projects, events, experiences, trips, relationships, accomplishments. Include work, family, volunteerism, recreation, hobbies, church, social groups, community groups, service groups, professional groups, and more. Take time and work your way backwards. Start with what you are currently involved in, and move backwards chronologically all the way into your teen years.

      Describe enough of the particular item that you will remember what it is at a glance.

   4. The next aspect of your assessment is to focus on your work life. While as a whole, it may be less than satisfying and fulfilling, there were probably some aspects of every position that you had that were engaging, motivating, and drew on your strengths.Think back over each position that you held, starting with the most recent and working backward, to find those tasks and projects in each job that used your strengths and you found fulfilling. Include experiences where you felt the most satisfied; the tasks, activities, projects where you really felt like you were engaged.

      Write a sentence or two about each one so when you read in later you will immediately know what you are referring to.

      When you have completed your most recent position, work your way back through your entire career. Include all full-time, part-time, internship, and all other positions you have held.

      Also include experiences in community college, university, graduate school, technical college, and all other post-high school education. In logging your work experience, also include volunteer activities with church, non-profit, sports, recreational, social or service organizations.

   5. Another area you want to include in your assessment is the perspective of others. Often others see things about us that we don’t see ourselves.On your list of people to talk to, you want to be sure to include:
      ·  your spouse or significant other                            ·  those you volunteer with
      ·  your children, nephews, nieces                            ·  those you engage in recreation with
      ·  parents                                                                            ·  sports buddies/girlfriends
      ·  close friends                                                                  ·  pastors/mentors
      ·  work colleagues                                                           ·  others who know you well

      When you talk to these people you want to ask them what they see as your areas of greatest strength, your skills and abilities, and jobs they think you would be good at. Ask them if they were to describe you in one sentence, what they would say. Ask them to write out that sentence and send it to you. Also ask them what projects around their house they would ask you to assist them with because of your abilities.

      The more input you get from a broad range of people in different walks of life, the wider your understanding of how people see you.

      What you will find in all likelihood is that some of your characteristics remain the same wherever you happen to be and many people will spot them, while other characteristics appear only in a specific context. This tells you that your personality is very diverse, with many different facets, and that you could be happy and find fulfillment in numerous types of jobs.

After you have completed several of these assessment activities you will have compiled quite an extensive encyclopedia describing who you are. Each of these provides a slightly different snapshot of you in the context where it occurred. This encyclopedia of events, activities, and experiences is required for the next stage of your personal assessment.

1. The next stage in your career change evaluation and planning is to begin to look for trends that form patterns that thread through your experiences. As you have been working on your assessment activities from “A” above, you may have begun to notice these already.

1. The threads you are looking for portray skills and abilities. Begin reading back through your encyclopedia of your experiences and try to identify what the skills and abilities were that you were using in each instance. Start a four-column table like the one you see below and list every new skill/ability you discover in the next to the last column from the right.In the last column on the right, include a phrase that describes the organization and/or context, whether business or personal, where you used that skill or ability. See the example below for what your table should look like. It is critically important that you list as many of these as you can because you will use what you create later in the process.

If you are creating your table by hand, you will want to leave space to add additional entries in the “Context” column. One way to do this is to start each new “Skill/Ability” on a new page. The reason you want to leave space is so you can add other instances of the same skill as you identify them. Wherever a skill/ability is repeated in another context list that in the context column. Your table with these additions will begin to look like the following as you add these entries.

1. When you have finished your chart you will have a catalog of skills and ability you have used throughout your adult lifetime. If you accurately listed the context for each for each skill/ability, you will be able to easily see which ones you used the most and which you used the least.

Go back to your table of skills/abilities now and prioritize them according to how many “contexts” appear for each. Put a #1 in the “Used” column for the skill/ability that you used the most, a #2 for those that come in second, a #3 for those next, ext. Your table now might look something like this:

Notice that you will have some rankings in the “Used” column that are duplicated because the number of times you have listed that you used them was the same. That is not a problem, and will simply create areas of equal priority.

1. Once you have prioritized the skills/abilities by how much have have used them your next activity is to indicate the level of happiness, fulfillment, and.or satisfaction you experienced using each skills/ability.One thing you may find as you identify your levels of happiness et al is that you have used a particular skill/ability quite a lot, so it has a higher priority in the “Used” column, while it did not bring as much happiness, fulfillment, or satisfaction as a “Used” priority with a lower rank. This will result in a lower value in the “Happiness” column.

   Rank your skills/abilities with:

• An “A” if it gives you a high degree of happiness, fulfillment, and/or satisfaction
• A “B” if it gives some happiness, fulfillment, and/or satisfaction
• A “C” if it gives very little or no happiness, fulfillment, and/or satisfaction

After you have ranked your skills/abilities on the happiness scale, your table may look something like this:

1. Now you are ready to identify those skills/abilities that have both a high use priority ranking and a high happiness ranking, this will be your preferred activities list. Go back through your entire skills/abilities catalog table and put an asterisk in the left margin for those that had a priory of 1 or 2 in the “Used” column, and an “A” in the happiness column.Make a separate page on your preferred activities list for each of the skills/abilities that you identify using this technique for easier reference. When you have completed your list of highest ranking catalog items that fit both the “Used” and “Happiness” criteria you have completed your assessment.
2. You are now ready to investigate the types of jobs that use the skills/abilities that you have on your preferred activities list.
   1. One resource you can use for this purpose is the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT). You can access this in paper version at lager libraries, and you can also access it online.In the online version, you can enter and search using your skills/abilities descriptions. The DOT will return titles for jobs that use those skills/abilities. When you identify these, list them on your preferred activities pages for each of the skills/abilities you identified earlier for further research. List all the positions without evaluation at this point. Evaluation will come later.

      When you have the titles of these jobs In the DOT, you can then click on each job title for a brief description of what each job entails. This will give you a thumbnail sketch of each type of position.

      Other resources you can use to investigate job titles includes:
      ·  eHow.com, just type in “jobs that require XXX skills” for each of your skills/abilities in the search field
      ·  Answers.com, just type in “jobs that require XXX skills” for each of your skills/abilities in the search field
      ·  job-search-engine.com, just type in “jobs that require XXX skills” for each of your skills/abilities in the search field

   2. On each skill/ability page in your preferred activities list, place an asterisk beside each job title that you find interesting and would like to learn more about as you read the thumbnail description in the DOT.After you complete your inventory of job titles, you are ready to find out more of the requirements, job responsibilities, job availability, as well as salary levels for those positions you marked with asterisks.

      ·  To find job requirements, responsibilities, and availability, simply type “position jobs, your city” in your favorite search engine, e.g. “technical writer jobs, Seattle.”

      To change to a new position and/or field, you may need to plan on going back to school to get a certificate, license, or even a degree, depending on the requirements for the position you are interested in. Pay attention to what the ads tell you is required to get a job in the field and then check out the educational opportunities in your area to be able to complete this necessary step in making this change. It will add some time to your transition, but it will make you much more valuable as an employee.

      ·  To find salary information you can use these online resources: salary.com, payscale.com, glassdoor.com, and careeronestop.org.

      For each of these, you will be able to enter how much experience you have, the job title you are looking for salary information for, and your geographic preference. Each site will then present what you can expect to earn for that job in that part of the country.

If you completed the various exercises and activities described above you will probably have numerous positions in different fields that you can research and apply to, change your career to, and find greater happiness, fulfillment and satisfaction.

You will now want to rewrite your resume with this new job target in mind and prepare for interviewing to answer questions that will address responsibilities in this new type of position to begin this new chapter in your life.

If MindWare Inc. can assist you with any or all of these activities, click Contact Us and send us an email with your questions or request, or give us a call for a no obligation consultation.

We at MindWare Inc. would be delighted to you in writing this new chapter in your life.

Live virtual training is here to stay and more and more companies are relying on it to train staffs scattered around the world. There is certainly much to be said for this option, but to get the most out of it you have to do it effectively.

There is great value to both the company and the employee in live virtual training. It saves the organization tremendously on the cost of travel, hotels, per diem and lost productivity. At the same time it is good for those attending training since they do not have to waste all the time traveling and can sign up for the class from virtually anywhere in the world. Employees lose very little time from their job and they can turn around and apply what they learn immediately.

However, for the instructor delivering live virtual training sessions there are several challenges to make it work effectively and attain the results you hope to attain.

• Distractions: One of the major challenges the instructor has to deal with and the student encounters is distractions. Because the training is not happening in a dedicated training environment whatever is happening around where the student is taking the course has the effect of being a distraction.
  Coworkers chatting over coffee about the game last night, or their date. Discussions of a work problem coworkers are attempting to resolve. Telephone calls, visitors, and so many more things all are distractions to what is happening in the virtual world.
• Lack of tactile contact: When students are in a virtual environment you as the instructor lose the eye contact, the hand shake, the touch on the shoulder, the confused looks on people’s faces that act as indicators to how they understand the material.
  Without these you are left with what questions or confusion may be verbalized to indicate how you are coming across and how much they understand.
• Lack of physical energy: When you have a group of students in a room it is much easier to generate energy from the interaction between you as the instructor and the group, as well as between members of the group. This adds to the level of interest, helps to keep students engaged, and makes for a much richer learning environment.
  Without the physical presence, you once again are left with what may be articulated as levels of interest or energy or questions. And all too often this just does not happen.

All of these make for more work on the part of the live virtual instructor. The instructor has to work that much harder to make happen what is so much easier in the classroom. There are several things the instructor must do to begin to even get close to the learning that takes place in the classroom. Allow me to summarize these first, and then we will discuss some very practical tips. These include:

• More attention and intentionality by the facilitator
• More verbal feedback from the students must be elicited by the instructor
• More frequent question periods
• Exercises students can do to interact with the content on their own and then give feedback sa to their success
• More interaction between students to make the virtual class into a virtual classroom

The following are more specific tips to help you make your live virtual training a success and achieve the end results you are hoping for.

1.      Use a conversational yet energizing tone and pace in your delivery style. You must achieve a balance between being too laid back and too over-the-top.

2.      Be more alert as to how you handle student’s questions. You need to handle questions from students respectfully and easily. On occasion, if you are doing application training, the system may not respond as expected, and you need to respond to these situations smoothly while requesting that students check the settings on the machines they are using.

3.      Learn to handle incorrect answers from students positively. Always a tricky situation. You want to be sure that the students understand that the response was inaccurate, but you do not want to discourage them from answering again on another question. Make a positive comment on the incorrect response by comparing it to another response, or say something about how that incorrect answer would be easy to assume.

4.      As you deliver your presentation, be sure to use material that may not be in the instructor notes but drawn from your own experience and understanding, making the course much more than just a recitation of the facts. The more on-the-job examples you can provide of what you are teaching the more real it will seem to students, and the easier it will be for them to make the transition to their own work.

5.      Address the issue of callers failing to mute their phone, and thus having a lot of background noise or conversations, by reminding everyone to mute their phones when they were not commenting or asking a question. This will happen more times than you would hope as callers forgot.

6.      Learn to move about easily in any tool you may be teaching and demonstrate the various functions that students would want to know and use. If you bounce around, move to quickly on the screen, or are unsure that will only raise confusion on the part of the viewing audience.

7.      Also practice switching between various apps and the PPT so you can do this seamlessly. This should not detract from your presentation.

8.      Give a through explanation of how to use any checklists, lab materials, exercise handouts, discussion aids, and any other material you may have the student print out ahead of time. Providing these will also help to make the live virtual training more like a classroom as students engage in these exercises.

9.      Comment on the challenges of delivery in a virtual environment, and ask that students speak up with questions and comments during the course. Remind them that no one can see if they are confused or have a question, they will need to articulate those to the group on the conference call. Encourage them to use the chat feature of your Webex presentation if they do not what to verbalize their questions.

10.    Ask questions frequently:

• Use the general question format as may be integrated into your PPT deck. (Elaboration below.)
• Ask specific questions about the content you have just discussed to see if students understand.
• Ask questions about the instructions for Labs and Exercises to ensure that students understand what they are expected to do.
• Ask other students to answer questions as well as you answering. This will keep them more on their toes and involved.
• You can ask questions generally to the group as a whole, “Who would like to answer this question?” or call on a specific person to answer. If calling on a specific person, try to choose those that seem to be getting it early on.
• Calling on specific people to answer may be threatening, but if you call on those that are responding positively or volunteer information it reduces the level of threat.

11.    Try to get students to interact with each other rather than just with you, the instructor. Ask them to comment on what others say, or questions others ask.

12.    At the beginning of the class, have students introduce themselves so others have a better sense of who is attending. Have them share briefly their names, where they reside, and why they are attending. If the class is more than 20 attendees, this may prove impractical, but think of ways to keep them involved.

13.    Be careful using filler words such as; “Uh,” “Umm,” “You know,” “Okay,” “Right” and others. It gets to be distracting even more when you can’t see the person and listeners begin to wait for the next time you use it instead of focusing on the content.

14.    Be sure to give students time to do the Classroom Exercises, and not just demo or answer for them. This is one thing that helps to keep them engaged and active in the class instead of just listening. If you ask for a response during an exercise and there is silence, wait for someone to speak. If after a time of silence, restate the question and wait again. If again there is silence, ask a follow up question such as “What about the question in unclear?” or “What seems to be the problem with this question?”

15.    Be sure to ask students if they had any difficulty during the labs or exercises. This will ensure that they are doing the work, and also give them an opportunity to verbalize issues.

16.    Remember to phrase your questions as open-ended rather than closed questions. Asking “Do you have any questions?” encourages the answer of “No” or just silence. While asking “What questions do you have?” encourages students to actually pose questions and does not presuppose that they did not get the material.

17.    Whenever you can, ask students to give input from their experience and knowledge of the current system as you do from your experience as the instructor. Ask them to give some examples from issues they have worked to help them to draw parallels between what is today and what will be tomorrow.

18.    When narrating what is on your PPT slide, be sure to do so sequentially. If there is a list of four or five bullets and you jump around in your presentation instead of delivering them sequentially, students are lost trying to figure out where you are and have a more difficult time paying attention.

19.      If you feel that a slide is worded awkwardly, or the slides do not do a good job of demonstrating the flow of the system, rather than pointing that out, which focuses the student on looking for the negative, just comment that you will supplement what is on the slides with a live demo in the app to show how it works in real life. This will integrate the PPT with your demo, rather than putting one in a negative light. BTW, it is true that you are not going to adequately capture an apps functionality in static PPT slides, but it does not help to call attention to that.

20.      Provide additional resources links in the materials that you distribute so that students can supplement their learning after the virtual class ends.

21.     If you can have a few people in front of you as a class as you deliver virtually it will make the presentation much easier. These should be actual students going through the same material as those on the call. This will have more of a classroom feel for you and you can engage both the people in your room as well as those virtual learners more readily.

22.     It is better to stand as you would in a classroom environment, and this will make more sense if you have a group in front of you. Standing gives you more instructor “presence” and you deliver differently than if you are comfortably seated.

23.     Also be sure to use facial expressions; again this is easier if there is a group of people in a class environment with you.

24.     Use a headset to deliver rather than a free-standing or open microphone. You are much less likely to drop out using a headset that positions the mic in an appropriate place to catch your voice than one where you have to continually be aware of it.

Many of the above suggestions and tips apply equally to the classroom environment as well as the virtual classroom, but are emphasized when you are remote. Virtual delivery is a skill that takes practice, so don’t be afraid to practice with a group of instructors so that you can get a better feel for it.

The following are some professional resources to help you in your role as instructor whether you deliver virtually or in the classroom.

• Claudyne Wilder; Presentation Pointers newsletter
  www.wilderpresentations.com
• Elliott Masie; Learning Trends newsletter
  www.masieweb.com/trends/subscribe-to-trends
• Bob Pike; Training and Development eZine
  www.bobpikegroup.com/pages.asp?pageid=37

If we here at MindWare can assist you in any way in putting your virtual or classroom training together just use the Contact link above to initiate a discussion and a free consultation about your needs. We are your performance improvement partner, and we would delight in helping you do your job as instructors better.

These are the things you never want to do on your resume:

1.  Never include personal information; age, marital status, gender, ethnicity, etc.

2.  Never include irrelevant information about your personal life; hobbies (unless germane to the job you are applying for), volunteer information (again unless it pertains to the job you are applying for), childhood or parental background, religious affiliation, clubs you belong to (unless they pertain to the job you are applying for), etc.

3.  Never include the phrase “References available on request.” Shows a lack of sophistication in today’s market. And for sure, never include a list of references. You lose control of this aspect of your search.

4.  Never double space your resume; use spacing to your advantage, but not to overwhelm the reader.

5.  Never include a complete list of publications if it is overwhelming; I once had a client that insisted and his resume was over 30 pages long.

6.  Never include your complete work history if it is over 12-15 years; it is a clue to your age and age discrimination does occur in the workplace.

7.  Never include dates for your education unless it is within the last 5 years.

8.  Suggested; never include your street address; theft of personal information has happened from people stealing this info.

9.  Never include a social security number.

10.  Never use a frivolous email account; e.g. prettylady@hotmail.com or beerlover@gmail.com.

11.  Never use ALL CAPS for narrative; this can work for headings but not for the prose of your resume.

12.  Never staple your resume if you happen to send one in paper form.

13.  Related; never have a frivolous voice mail message on your phone; keep it business like.

REMEMBER, your resume is to be targeted to a particular position, and all of the above will support that.

And then there are some always pointers also:

14.  Always have your name, phone number, and page number in a header of subsequent pages after page 1 of your resume.

15.  Always include accomplishment statements; these are how prospective employers actually see what you have done.

16.  Always include a computer competency section; this is essential in almost every position these days.

17.  Always include relevant training workshops, seminars, conferences beyond your formal education; demonstrates specialized training

18.  Always include professional associations you are a member of as they relate to the position you are applying for

19.  Always include a reverse chronological listing of your work history that goes back not more than 12-15 years

Be assured we are here to partner with you to prepare the best resume and other materials, and to equip you with the tools and resources to conduct an effective job search.

Use the Contact link to send us a message and we will be glad to evaluate your resume and provide a personalized estimate of how we can assist you. Our charges are always on a sliding scale so that we can be of service to everyone that needs professional career coaching.

You’re responding to job postings on Indeed, Simply Hired, and other strategic websites. You’re also networking with contacts to find hidden job opportunities not even posted in ads. But you have a number of companies that you’ve thought you would really like to work for, and you wonder if there is a way to reach out to them directly to see if there are job opportunities in these organizations.

The encouraging word is “Yes,” there are ways to contact them directly. There are three primary strategies to use in targeting these companies, and you want to use all three of these together, not in isolation.

First is LinkedIn. You can use LinkedIn in a couple of different ways. Do a search for the name of the company and it will give you a list of everyone from that company that has a LinkedIn profile. The list will also indicate the closest connections you have to someone in the company with a number informing you of the level of your connection. It could be 1^st, 2^nd, group, etc.

You can reach out to these individuals to do informational interviews and see what you can learn about the industry, the company, and specific jobs and hiring trends.

Another thing you can when you do a LinkedIn search for the company, is clink on the company profile to see what you can learn about them (we’ll refer to t hi s a little later also). Depending on how extensive the profile is, you may be able to pick up some valuable information you can use when you are ready to reach out to the company.

Second is Networking. In addition to using LinkedIn, you also want to use your networking skills to do target networking. The difference between target networking and regular networking, is that in target networking you are asking your contacts for information and any personal referrals they can provide about your target company.

The referrals may be employees, contractors, suppliers, vendors, basically anyone that has regular, on-going contact with the company. These referrals will be able to give you their personal experience about the inner workings of the company.  They will be able to answer questions about:

• The company culture
• Company management style
• Company incentive programs
• Influential people in the organization
• Projects on the horizon
• Problems they may be facing
• Staffing or other needs
• And other information

Third is Research. In addition to LinkedIn and target networking, you want to do in-depth research on the company. In you research, you want to find out as much about the company as you can. Besides what was listed above under target networking, you will also want to look for the following:

• Primary products or services
• Company locations
• Executive management information
• General news about the company
• Company financial information
• Hiring manager of the department you would work in
• Values
• Mission
• Company culture
• Stated company purpose
• Goals and objectives

To find this information you will want to use all the resources you can think of. Of course, you will use the Internet, but don’t limit your research to only online resources. More traditional sources will also furnish information on some of the topics.

 While doing your research, also jot down other questions that you will want to answer. These will provide other research topics, or begin a list of questions you can use in face-to-face conversations with company representatives.

 The following suggestions provide ideas for both online and other sources of information:

• The company website: Look for information but also other resources about the industry, associations, a general feel for the company. Explore the website in detail to see what you can find and learn.
• Search engines: Use your favorite search engines to do a search on the company name. Use multiple search engines because they will return different information.
• Company annual report: This may be available on the company website, or search for it online, or call the company and request an “investor’s packet” from the Public Relations department. They will send you all kinds of interesting and helpful resources.
• Company newsletters, press releases, product reviews and customer evaluations/feedback: If there is a way to get the company newsletter, sign up. Read the press releases. Look at product reviews, and more.
• External organizations: The Better Business Bureau, Chamber of Commerce, local business groups, professional industry associations may all have information on the company.
• Local resources: The local business journal, business news, CEO magazine and other local publications that may feature the company.
• LinkedIn contacts: LinkedIn can be a wealth of information. As mentioned earlier, you can gain information from the company’s profile, but you can also use LinkedIn contacts to dig deeper and learn more about the company.

This list of research tools will give you other ideas on additional resources you can use. If one resource mentions an article, perspective, or review, be sure to take advantage of that also. If it provides customer feedback, experience or insiht on the company, be sure to tap into that.

There are four key questions you are seeking to answer from your research. Until you have these answers you are not ready to take the next step.

• What needs does the company have in your field?
• What problems are they trying to solve, or do they need to solve?
• What future plans do they have that impact your field?
• Who is the senior manager or VP that heads the department where you would work?

After you have answers to these key questions you are ready to take the step and make contact with the senior manager in the company that you identified in your research. Your initial contact will be by letter to demonstrate an interest in addressing a specific question, need, or problem the company has (one of the key questions in your research).

Your letter should demonstrate your research by showing you know something about the company. Something beyond what is generally known by the public. Compliment them on something they have done that is creative, unique, industry leading, or innovative.

Next, in your letter, identify the need or problem you found in your research where you think you could make a contribution. Indicate this is an area where you also have a high level of interest and that you would like to meet to discuss this need or problem in greater detail.

The purpose or goal of your letter is not to sell yourself, or mention that you are looking for a job. The purpose or goal of your letter is to lay a foundation for a meeting by “baiting the hook” with the question, need or problem. This is why your research is so important. If you have identified the question, need or problem accurately you will strike a chord with the senior manager and it will be easier to set up a meeting.

Follow up your letter with a phone call to try to set up a meeting to discuss the question, need or problem. In the meeting, you are still not trying to sell yourself or what you have to offer. Use your knowledge and interest in the question, problem or need to connect with the manager and explore the area in greater detail. You want to find out as much as you can about what they have tried, why they want to solve it, what happens if they don’t, and more.

When you have explored the question, problem, or need in-depth, remind the manager of your interest in the same area and volunteer to do some research to see what you can find for them that may be of value; the next step they might want to explore. Schedule a meeting for a wee kor so later to come back and share your findings.

Before the next meeting, do your research on the question, need, or problem so you have something of real value to share with the senior manager. Use your own background and experience as well as new research you do on the topic. You want to be able to give something of value without “giving away the store” in your second meeting.

During your second meeting, you want to discuss your research and indicate that this is only the beginning of a strategic plan to address the question, need, or problem. Indicate that what you are providing won’t solve the issue, but it will get the company moving in a direction to do so. Be sure that what you are providing will indeed do this very thing.

As your second meeting is winding down, affirm your appreciation for the time the manager spent with you, what you have learned about the company, the impetus to do the research and begin to address the issue being discussed and the insights you have both picked up on the issue, and that you would consider it a distinct opportunity to work together to pursue a more complete resolution to the question, need, or problem.

Then wait.

Wait for the manager to respond. The response you hear could be anything from “As much as we would love to bring you on, we are not in a financial position to be able to do so” to “You would be a great resource to our company. Let’s talk about how we can make this happen.”

If there is no opportunity at this time, mention to the manger that you would like to stay in touch to see what the future might hold.

If there is an opportunity, remember to stay flexible. The opportunity could take several forms and you want to be able to respond positively, so think it through ahead of time. Consider the possibility of part-time, contract, or consultant fork. For each of these think about what you would need to make it work. Things such as:

• Hourly pay rate or salary
• Length of contract
• Proprietary rights to work products
• Expected work hours
• Exclusive commitment, or one client among many

In a recent study, 39% of executives secured a new position through direct contact or target marketing. That’s a very significant number! While it may not be as high for non-executive positions, it happens more often than you might be aware. It really does work.

Target marketing gives you another avenue to add to your diversified marketing campaign, and is a distinctly advantageous one because in many cases you are the only person pursuing this lead. When you eliminate the competition the results can be dramatic.

The challenge is not just to mentally acknowledge the validity of target marketing, but to actually go out and try it. You will be surprised at your results.

(See the sample target marketing letters for ideas of how to write yours.)

References can be a valuable asset in your job search. At the same time , they can be a real detriment to your success. It all depends on how you handle the whole reference process, and what they are going to say. And you won’t know what they will say unless you do some preparation.

First, you do not want to put anything about references on your resume. You want to manage this area of your search and putting the names of references on your resume so  potential employers can go ahead and contact them without your knowing is not good reference management.

Second, putting reference quotes or LinkedIn recommendations without names on your resume is a waste of time since an employer will not be able to validate what was said, and you don’t want to put the names as we mentioned previously.

So how do you manage and prepare references effectively? Follow the process described below and you will be in great shape as far as references, and managing references.

To start, make a list of about 10 people that you would like to give a reference for you. These people should be able to talk about your work, work style, intellectual capabilities, character, etc. They can be people who have volunteered to be a reference for you, or someone that has already put a recommendation on LinkedIn for you.

Next, call each of the individuals on your list and ask them if they would be willing to be a “positive” job reference for you. Be sure to use the word “positive” to give people the option of saying “No.” Thank the ones that say “No” and move on.

Then, for the ones that say “Yes,” tell them you will be sending them a letter that will be helpful when it comes time for them to provide a reference for you. In your letter include:

• A description of your relationship and why you think they are qualified to be a reference for you
• A description of some of your skills
• An indication of some of your strengths
• A listing of some of your accomplishments
• An overview of some of your personal characteristics
• A statement that you will notify them when you submit their name to a company as a reference
• A brief explanation of why you left your last position

They won’t stick to what you put in your letter as they would a script, bu tit will be a starting point for them and they will add their own perspective from there. At least you have been able to have an influence on what they will say, what they will emphasize, and what they might share with perspective employers.

Finally, when you give your reference list to a company, write an email to the references you submitted and include:

• Name of the company you gave your references to
• Title of the position you are applying for
• Brief description of the position responsibilities
• Explanation of why you see this position is a fit for you
• Request that they let you know when the company contacts them

This additional information will help them correlate their experience with you and this new opportunity, and they will be able to draw some parallels and comment on those.

To conclude, when you land a new position, contact all your references and thank them for being a part of the process.  Thank them for the important role that they played in your job search. Express your appreciation for their assistance and tell them the company and the position where you will be working.

Then make an effort to stay in touch with those that knew you best, were the most help, and that you resonate with the most so that you will be able to use them again in the future and you can be a reference for them if that would be helpful for them.

But the salary is not what you had hoped for, and not up to what you were making on your last job. What do you do?

Here are some negotiating tips for discussing salary:

1. Re-enforce that you are very interested in the position and the company. Talk a little about why you are excited by the opportunity and what there is about the company that you value.

2. Have solid reasons for asking for a higher salary. Simply because you think you are worth it or want to make more is not sufficient.

3. Always start the actual discussion of the ask with “What would you or your company think…”

4. Go out and do your research to see what the going rate is for someone with your experience and level of responsibility. Use salary.com and vault.com to get some ideas.

5. Approach the request for a higher starting salary from what you were making previously. You might say something like, “While I don’t expect you to come all the way up to the $75,000 I was making on my previous job,  what would you think of starting me at $70,000 (to give them room to counter).”

6. Be prepared to discuss the numbers if they are open to it.

7. If they want to start you closer to $60 or $65, then throw in something like, “Since I am starting at quite a cut from my previous job, what would you think of providing a $6500 signing bonus as well?” and then regardless of how they respond “…and since I expect to be able to demonstrate my value to your company, what would you think of providing early performance reviews with associated performance increases say at six, nine, and 12 month intervals?”

If it’s “No” to everything, then here are some other alternatives to consider in lieu of a higher salary”

* more flexible schedule
* wellness benefits; gym membership, yoga, personal trainer, massage
* additional vacation
* job training re-imbursement
* additional insurance
* company tickets to sporting or other events
* telecommuting
* stock in the company

Hope this gives you some things to think about.

When it comes right down to it, do the evaluation of all the specifics of the position and ask yourself, “If they don’t budge would I be willing to go to work for them anyway?”

Then you’re not using networking as effectively as you could. Recent statistics say that at least 71% of job seekers find new employment through networking. You could too.

Use the following narrative to dramatically improve your networking conversations, win loyal colleagues, and see results.

Scenario: Fred Johnson is a good friend of yours and whom you met with about a week ago to discuss your job situation. Fred was very helpful and has given you the name of a former co-worker of his named Emily Walker. He feels Emily will be willing and able to assist you in your job search. The following conversation takes place at a Tully’s coffee shop near where Emily works. You have taken copies of your resume and your target Marketing Matrix list of companies to be prepared.

Good afternoon Emily, my name is Tom Johnson. I appreciate you taking a few minutes to meet with me about my job search. You may remember, Fred Johnson suggested I talk with you because he thought you would be willing and able to give me some advice on my search.

Before we start, let me put your mind at ease. I’m not here to ask you about any jobs that you may know of that I would qualify for. From what Fred told me about you, we work in different fields and it is not too likely that you will know of openings in my field. But there are several other ways that you can help.

Before we get to that however, let me tell you a little about myself.

I have been in the Accounting field for over 15 years, most recently with Symetra Financial, a former business unit of SAFECO. While at Symetra, I worked as the Senior Accountant for the last five years or so and had about six other Accountants reporting to me. I left Symetra about three months ago as a result of a 20% downsizing they made due to economic conditions.

As I mentioned earlier, there are several ways that you can assist me.

The first is to give me some feedback on my resume. I have brought a copy with me that I will leave with you. If you could just take a look at it over the next several days and give me some feedback I would appreciate it. It would be helpful if you watch for typos, grammar errors, does it make sense, do you have a sense of what I do from reading it, and any other feedback that you would care to provide. I will contact you after several days to hear what you have to say.

Another way that you can help me is to think about any advice that you would give me as I engage in my job search. Either you or friends of yours have probably been through a job search also recently and you have learned some things to do and not to do. I can learn from you and benefit from your experience.

A couple of specific questions that I would appreciate your perspective on would be…(select two or three questions from your list of informational interviewing questions, or prepare some that deal with specific industries, leaders, or employment trends that you think Emily would be able to respond to and give you some industry insight).

In thinking about my job search, I have come up with a list of 25 companies that I am calling my target companies. These are companies that I think I would like to work for. I have a copy of this list on a Marketing Matrix that I will also leave with you. If you could simply look this list over and see if you know anyone that works for any of these companies, is a contractor, vendor, supplier, or has some other relationship with any of the companies on this list, that would also be very helpful.

When I call to ask for your feedback on my resume I will also ask you about this Marketing Matrix. There’s no pressure here. You may not know anyone on my list, and that’s okay, but if you do know someone it would be very helpful by giving me a contact where I can learn more about the inner workings of these organizations and give me a better chance of getting hired. It doesn’t matter who it is. Anyone that has contact with these companies can be helpful.

(As an option instead of the Marketing Matrix, if you have a list of individuals from target companies that you are trying to reach you can use that list of individuals in much the same way.)

One final way that you can help would be if you would give me the names and contact information for three or four other people that you feel would be willing and able to give me advice on my job search. I will meet with them and discuss basically the same things I have discussed with you.

(If one of the people that Emily gives me is a very responsible person in a position of Director or higher, then I want to add the following:

Wow Emily. That’s great! As the Director of Finance, Joseph Neumann is just the kind of person I need to talk to. If he thought I could make a contribution to his company, he probably has the authority and responsibility to be able to hire me on the spot.

However, I can see a possible problem just getting to talk to Joseph. Because of his position, he probably gets all kinds of unsolicited calls from people trying to sell him all kinds of things. And I could be seen as one of those. He probably has a very efficient “gatekeeper” that runs interference and prevents these unwanted callers from getting through to Joseph.

So would you mind doing me one other favor regarding Joseph? Would you mind contacting him and just letting him know that I will be contacting him in the next several days? That will enable me to get to talk to him and set a meeting or at least speak with him on the phone. That would be very helpful.)

When I talk to these people, I am not going to ask them for jobs they know of for the same reason that I did not ask you. I will simply ask them to review my resume, share their advice, take a look at my target companies, and give me additional referrals.

You see Emily; I feel the more people I can talk to, get advice from and have look at my resume, the better my chances are and the better prepared I will be. My resume will be that much better because I have the broad perspective of many people. I will benefit from the advice of so many people that have been through this themselves and learned how to do it better. I will have a better chance of finding people in my target companies that are actually known contacts, and I will have many referrals from people they know from all walks of life to talk to.

I appreciate you meeting with me, and I won’t take any more of your time. I look forward to hearing your perspective on my resume and any other advice you can give me when I call. I appreciate what you have shared today and I will certainly consider that in my search.

Before we leave though, do you have a business card I could have and do you have any questions for me?

Thanks again for all your help, Emily. I will talk with you again soon.

(Be sure to send a “Thank You” note a couple of days after you conversation and before you follow-up with your return call to get Emily’s feedback on your resume and other advice, and before you contact her referrals.)