By Brenda L. Peterson, The Layoff Lady

When you're looking for a new role, there is a lot to do to help move your job search along. Getting your resume where you want it to be, tracking application progress, and scheduling meetings with others can take a lot of time and effort. Here are three excellent tools to help manage, streamline, and optimize your job search. 

​The tools mentioned here all have a robust set of features in the free version with the option to pay for additional functionality. I'll focus on currently available features included as a part of the free version. ​Links for each tool are included in the "Learn More" section. 

Teal is helpful in multiple aspects of my job search. Teal enables me to save jobs of interest, evaluate highlighted qualifications, and track my application progress with roles.

Here is how I use Teal in my job search:
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• When I search for jobs on LinkedIn or Indeed, I use the Teal Chrome extension to bookmark roles of interest, which creates a record in Teal. 
• Then, I read each job description, review keywords included in the listing, and prioritize jobs by rating them from one to five stars. 
• Next, I use the keywords Teal highlights to customize my resume for the specific position. 
• Then, after applying, I update my status in Teal to Applied and include any details in the notes. 
• As I progress through the interview process, I update my job search status, add notes, and include details (like salary range and key people involved in the hiring process) to keep all information for each position in one place. 

Teal continues to evolve and add new features--and offers much more than I currently use. This is the cornerstone of how I track my current job-searching activities. 

Meeting with people during your job search can be very valuable. Whether you're meeting to learn more about a company, find out what tasks one does in a given line of work, or catch up with a former corworker, streamlining your scheduling process is a big timesaver. 

Enter Calendly. You can create a Calendly account, add your personal branding, and add language to describe yourself and what you want. You can also link Calendly with your Google Calendar and your webinar account (like Zoom or Google Meetup). Without paying an additional cost, you can select one free meeting type. I use the half-hour meeting, and I call mine "Virtual Coffee." It’s also helpful because our meeting can last as long as it needs to last (beyond that specified half hour) with no issues.

Within Calendly, you can set up your available days and times, choose how far out in the future people can schedule a meeting with you, and even decide how many meetings you are open to having on a given day. In addition, you can select the mode of the meeting (phone or online) and include a few questions to help clarify the goals of the meeting.

Here is how I use Calendly in my job search:
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• When one of my LinkedIn connections expresses interest in meeting, I send them a link to my Calendly calendar. This eliminates the 2-10 messages we would otherwise send back and forth to determine when to meet.
• They select a time that works for them from the times I provide that I know work for me. They also let me know if they would prefer to meet via Zoom or Phone, provide their contact information, and answer a couple of questions on the purpose of our meeting. 
• Calendly sends each of us a meeting invitation, including the details they specified. If we're having a webinar, Calendly includes webinar information in the meeting request. 
• Calendly has features to enable either of us to cancel or reschedule the meeting as needed. 
• I include my Calendly link on the top of my resume alongside my other contact information to make it easier for a possible hiring manager or recruiter to find a time for us to talk. 

​Calendly automates key components of scheduling. With a minor setup on the front end, I can spend less time finding a meeting time and more time on other valuable job searching and networking tasks.

Your job search is all about communicating your value to hiring managers and recruiters. Ensuring your writing is clear and correct is essential to demonstrate your professional value and credibility. Enter my new best friend, Grammarly. This spelling and grammar checker goes above and beyond what you may already have in word processing or email platforms. I run any communication I will put in front of job-searching influencers through Grammarly.

Here is how I use Calendly in my job search:
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• Each time I write or customize an email, I run it through Grammarly. It catches the times when I update a sentence to make it more applicable to a specific employer but forget to include enough of the right words to make an actual sentence. 
• Each time I update my resume, I do one last Grammarly check to ensure I'm using the correct word and that it hangs together. I also remind Grammarly in that case that my statements are written correctly.
• Each time I make a social media post, especially if I'm thinking and commenting as I write, to ensure that my final product is in actual human-readable sentences. 

Even this English major appreciates having Grammarly as a second set of eyes (or, in this case, AI) to polish my writing. 

By Brenda L. Peterson, The Layoff Lady

Whether you’re considering making a career change, are currently in the midst of a job transition, or want to be more effective in your role, increasing your self-knowledge is a great place to start. 

In other articles here on The Layoff Lady, I’ve outlined ideas for exploring your values and discovering your strengths. Knowing more about what you truly value and what you are good at will help you think about the why, what, and how of the type of work you are driven to do. Reflecting on your findings will also help you have better conversations about your skillset and what motivates you personally and professionally.

 It’s incredible how our strengths and values also show up when we are in challenging situations—often in good ways, but sometimes in more destructive ways. Learning about how you can get in your own way is a valuable strategy for making better decisions when you’re mid-crisis.

Enter Shirzad Chamine. He is a professor, professional coach, and the author of the best-selling book Positive Intelligence. He introduces strategies for how to be mindful of what we know (IQ) our overall emotional intelligence (EQ), and how to leverage our positive intelligence (abbreviated as  PQ). The end result is learning to be more effective and increase our overall.

Here arer the nine saboteurs outlind in Positive Intelligence listed in alphabetical order along with my brief description of each:
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1. Avoider: Nope. Not dealing with it. Hey—look over there!
2. Controller: I’m scared and taking charge! I’m impatience and I will run over everyone else to fix this.
3. Hyper-achiever: I will work day and night with no breaks to finish all the things by myself.
4. Hyper-rational: I’m going to logic my way out of this no matter whose stupid feelings get hurt.
5. Hyper-vigilant: I’m fighting any and all possible catastrophes non-stop. Sleep is for the weak.
6. Pleaser: I’ll make these people like me even if I make myself sick doing it.
7. Restless: That other thing looks cool. And that one. And that one. So many shiny things!
8. Stickler: I’m going to get this all exactly right to the letter if it takes me all night and day.
9. Victim: Fix my problems because I can’t (or won’t). I’ll be over her brooding and suffering.

Yikes. We're certanly not our best selves when we show up this way. Let's look at how you can identify your saboteurs and use that information to improve how you show up.

Set aside time to take the 9 Ways We Self Sabatoge Assessment from Positive Intelligence. The assessment takes 5-10 minutes to complete. In addition, I suggest giving yourself 30-45 minutes to review your results and reflect. 

This assessment consists of 45 questions. Each question includes of a statement, and you'll rate your agreement with that statement on a 5-point scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. The directions encourage you to answer each question relatively quickly and go with your initial response. 

The final 7 questions are about demographics and finding out where they will send your assessment results. 

The results you receive include a ranking of your top sabateurs and your score for each. In addition, you will receive the following information about each of your saboteurs:
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• Basic Description
• Characteristics
• Thoughts
• Feelings
• Justification Lies
• Impact On Self and Others
• Original Survival Function

I find these types of assessments fascinating. As someone who is committed to ongoing professional development, I appreciate getting insights that might be hard for someone else to share. These insights are valuable, and also help me understand why I do what I’m doing as well as helping me to recognize those non-helpful patterns so I can adjust my approach going forward.

Not at all surprising to me, my top three saboteurs are as follows:

1. Controller, 8.1
2. Hyper-Achiever, 7.5
3. Restless, 5.6

Here were my initial thoughts as I saw my top three identified saboteurs: 
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• Controller: In other assessments, Bold and Driver have been my identified characteristics. I'm someone who tends to keep things to the point, hold people accountable, and help move projects forward. Consequently, under stress, that tendency to lead a project may become overly tight-fisted control. Not good.

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• Hyper-Achiever: Achiever is on my top CliftonStrengths, so it makes sense that I may have a tendency to overfocus on that strenght and work to personally achieve my way out of a situation. 

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• Restless: I'm always excited about learning new things, and my brain is always going a million miles an hour. On the flip side, this means I sometimes take on too many new things or even interrupt myself mid-flow to work on something else because of an idea I can not clearly articulate yet. ​

Under Controller, here are a few statements resonated with me from the details included  within my report:
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• Characteristic: “Comes alive when doing the impossible and beating the odds.” Most definitely. I am SO the person who digs being able to solve the unsolvable problem. Never tell me the odds!

 

• Thought: “If I work hard enough I can and should control the situation so it goes my way.” Whereas some people need to be motivated to do more to solve a problem, I needed to learn when to stop and either let someone else jump in or realize it might not be readily fixable. I appreciated the reminder.

 

• Feeling: “Angry and intimidating when others don’t follow.” In my area of expertise, I get pushy and controlling when we’re up against the wire and something needs to get resolved. Earlier career, I never realized that my determination and confidence in getting something done was perceived as intimidating. However, after learning that a bunch of my daughter’s friends were scared to death of me when they were little, I realized I need to be mindful of how my determination comes off to others.  

By Brenda L. Peterson, The Layoff Lady

Most of us work so we can pay for our lives. When you are job searching, it’s important to determine your target salary range to make your job search more effective. 

​​Having this information will help you prioritize which jobs to apply for and help you have those early salary conversations. Let’s look at a few strategies for answering the question, “What are your salary requirements?”

First, ensure you’ve done the requisite amount of soul-searching to determine what you want to be next in your career. Have a list of what you want to do, possible job titles, relevant skills, core responsibilities, daily activities, focus areas, types of companies, and industries. Having these details on your desired job will help as you start to do salary research. 

Now that you understand your target job and what that looks like, think about what you value in a job. 

For example, some may prioritize having a specific job title, receiving tuition reimbursement money to earn their next credential, and opportunities for a promotion within the company. Another person may prioritize having interesting work while also having schedule flexibility, the ability to work remotely most days, and low health insurance premiums. Still another person may prioritize alongside colleagues in an office, having the opportunity to mentor new employees, and finding a job they can keep for the next 20 years. Think about what is the most important to you.

​In addition, think about what you value in an employer.  Working for a non-profit, government entity, start-up, family business, or Fortune 500 company will have salary, benefit, job security, and total compensation-related implications.

Overall, think about what matters to you, and be aware of the salaries that align with your overall job preferences.

When considering your salary requirements, I suggest using a range instead of one specific number. Let’s look at strategies for determining your target salary range. 

​Here are numbers you might have in mind that could impact your range:

• What you need to make to pay your core monthly bills
• The absolute minimum salary you are willing to accept
• What you need, based on your budget, savings plan, and financial goals
• The minimum salary you would happily accept
• What you’ve made previously
• What colleagues make
• What you’ve seen listed in current job postings
• What you think you are worth
• What would you like to make
• What you’d be really excited about 
• Your dream salary

I suggest the salary range you share with potential employers includes the lower number that is the minum salary you would happily accept and the maximum number is what you'd be really excited about. 

Knowing what companies are paying for what you do should also factor in to your target salary range. Here are a few strategies for finding out more:

Take these steps to find out what open positions are paying:
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1. Search for your target job title and details in a major city in a state with pay transparency laws. I often search for San Francisco, CA or Denver, CO. 
2. Find positions that most closely match your target job and details.
3. Make a note ofthe minimum and maximum salary range numbers, and any descriptors the company has on what qualifications would push a candidate towards the upper end of the salary range.
4. As needed, use a Cost of Living calculator to adjust the minum and maximum numbers for each role. Make a note of these numbers. 
5. Repeat this process a few times to identify trends. 

Many websites have salary information. Two that come highly recommended by recruiters are Salary.com and Payscale.com. In fact, Salary.com has a Know Your Worth calculator where you can add details like your job title, location, education level, and years of experience and see the impact each factor has on your potential market value. 

Find out from other job searchers, recruiters, and hiring managers what salaries companies are paying for specific roles. You can also inquire with professional development organizations to see if there are industry or job-specific studies available that include salary-related information. 

Here are a few factors that might make this process challenging:

• Salaries vary by industry, geographic region, job title, and individual company.
• Not all companies (even those that are legally required to do so) always publish salary information on job postings.
• During the application or interview process, companies may ask you for your salary requiements before you know their target salary range.
• Some companies adjust salaries by geographical area for the same role, while others do not.
• Titles are not used consistently across organizations. Titles may have varying responsibilities as well as salary levels.
• Company benefits can range from few and expensive to plentiful and low-cost. Benefit costs can impact your take home pay significantly.
• Not all interesting jobs will pay what you want them to pay.
• Some companies will pay sinificantly lower or higher than the salary information you find. 
• Not all companies, even with your target job title, will have salary ranges that align with yours.