Show Notes Episode 33: New Year, New Hustle

Episode 33:

2020 is OVER, and you need to make sure you hit 2021 running. These 3 recommendations can help make sure you have the best chance to ride the rebound (Hopefully!) that comes in 2021 for hiring and get a new job. (Guest: none)

Anthony's website:

Litbeardco.com

Support the show!

patreon.com/recruitinghell

teepublic.com/t-shirts/recruiting-hell

Free Guide Download!

Recruiting-hell.com/6strats

TIME STAMPS:

Intro 0:00

Economic Factors for 2021 2:30

3 Things for 2021 3:30

Self Investment (Resume) 5:00

Putting it in the water 9:00

Re upping your social game 10:45

The portfolio Project 16:00

Closing

Transcript (Auto Generate via YouTube):

today on recruiting hell

we are bidding goodbye to 2020 in no

less than 48 hours

and that will end the worst 365 days

that the vast majority of us have seen

in our lives in terms of

societal change social upheaval

biological threats

and environmental hazards 2021 is

looking great

and indeed it is but remember just

like a young person who turns 18 the

passing of one day

tends to not change much and it's that

challenge

we face with our new calendar year today

we're talking about how to approach 2021

as a conqueror

2020 happened there's not much we can do

about it

but what we can do is stand back up and

continue moving forward

with the correct attitude and the

correct procedures to make 2021

the complete opposite of its predecessor

[Music]

hello and welcome to recruiting hell i'm

your host rob conlon

welcome to episode 33 and i cannot

believe that only eight

short months after its debut this show

is something i'm still working on

feverishly something else that you might

be working on feverishly after eight

months though

is your job hunt whether you're facing

reduced hours

reduced workload layoffs furloughs

working from home

or complete unemployment you've likely

been hustling

in new ways that you never thought of

before i know i have

and i'm proud of you for doing that too

now it's quite possible

you're listening to this episode in the

waning hours of 2020 and

good riddance to that year now

as i've said earlier 2020s

events and effects are not just going to

end overnight

they're likely to linger for a number of

coming months and perhaps even the

entirety of 2021.

the global economy contracted by nearly

four and a half percent this year

and the initial outlooks for 2021 from

leading sites like the international

monetary fund

and forbes.com point to about a five

percent growth overall

in 2021 so what does that mean for you

the job seeker well unfortunately it

means we're still

in it for the long haul and that means

that our marathon to help get the world

back to work

continues while we don't get political

on this show there are some factors that

cannot be ignored when it comes to the

economy and the job market

joe biden's confirmation as the next

president of the united states

has provided the economy with a somewhat

sense of stability

not so much in what his economic

policies are

those are moot on this show but rather

from the certainty

that knowing that a new administration

is inbound

now bear in mind that's not a criticism

of the trump administration

simply a comment that the economy

companies and other factors

that drive job growth are now certain

who is next in line to lead the country

this helps create a more fertile

environment for companies to hire in as

well as returning opportunities to

sectors that

had seen them evaporate overnight like

hospitality and tourism

once we get this pandemic thing under

control we'll see those industries

research but until we do

that's not going to happen so

with that being said with this stage

being set for 2021 the time is now

to make sure that you're going into this

year achieving

three things a

well it's always a good idea to up your

resume having a fresh one

rebuilt from the ground up in 2021 is

gonna be key

to standing out number two upping your

social game

2020 separated us a lot of us from our

circle of friends and

a lot of our families too unfortunately

that has the nasty little side effect

of making us all a little bit more

socially awkward than we were 12 months

ago

c if you don't already have a project or

similar piece of tangible work to

show employers you need to start one now

the mutual understanding that you and i

have to have on these items

is that they take work and that work

takes effort

you've been putting in effort the last

eight months with your job hunt

you need to respect and appreciate the

journey you took to get to this point

but you're going to need to ask yourself

for more

and that is hard

digging deep going into the new year is

something that we're all going to

struggle with

most of us are worn down from endless

applications reduced spending on things

that we enjoy and

probably a little too much time with

people who can kind of drive us nuts

sometimes

but let's talk about that first to do

today that should be kicked off by new

year's day 2021

updating your resume there are a few

ways to do this

some of them are inexpensive some

involve experts that are going to take

you through a comprehensive view of your

resume

and the cover letters for a fee getting

the easier of the two paths out of the

way

if you actually haven't put any money

towards your resume this year this is an

excellent time to do it

starting off the year with a fresh

professional resume

will not only give you an excellent

template to work from in the future but

could take a completely different angle

at your job approach for 2021 here at

recruiting health we are very cautious

when we tell you to spend your resources

in this case

it's recommended that you earmark

between 100 and 150

for the production and upgrading of your

resume when working with an expert

the most difficult part of this

portion is the other half it's kind of

twofold and that's brainstorming the

most important things to have on your

resume

after 2020 has happened and ensuring

that they're as recent as possible

making sure they're relevant

to job positions remembering that you

will likely be swapping out bullet

points between

applications so you need to start

listing these

by broadest to narrowest to be really

helpful

this list should also be provided to

your resume professional as well to give

an idea of what you've accomplished

not just in your work but also in the

past year so that when they

do work with you and

are asking for the examples to pick from

outside of the brief little interview

that they'll likely be

conducting with you they have extra

work to draw from that's that's the big

thing it's also a great time

to work up an achievements page we heard

james mentioned that

in the first half of episode 31 an

achievements page

now finding your ideal career coach or

resume editor can be a real challenge

we have a few on this show who are

trusted like catherine frost and barb

walla

but making sure that you vet a career

coach or resume doctor is incredibly

important

a few questions i believe you should

probably ask every one of them even

if you go with one of the ones on the

show do you have a specialty in helping

folks in certain careers

from our episodes with them barb and the

fabulous mrs frost both had specialties

that they could put to work

for you next question would you be able

to provide me an example

of a recent client within the past 30

days or so that used your service

and told you it was because of your

edits that they landed a job

basically you're looking for the social

proof there that what they do

is uh working in the modern day job

environment question three

what's your background in history in

regards to the recruiting and hiring

area and how is that going to help my

resume when i turn it over to you

to have it reworked another excellent

place to look

for resume experts is on linkedin

however

be sure that you put them through the

same process that you would

to vet one you don't know or even to vet

one that i

on this show would trust being blinded

by

star power or high-powered resume makers

is something to watch out for and even

though they might be posting samples

on linkedin remember social media is

only the highlight reel you never hear

about the bad things from people they

tend not to make it to linkedin pages

and

featured happy customers pages now

when you get your touchdown resume back

be sure to go over it with a fine-tooth

comb

but here's the big thing you're not

looking to make any significant

structural changes to the work that's

been done

that's why you hired this person to work

on your resume

you need to trust them you're going over

the resume with a fine-tooth comb

not to improve it but simply to make

sure that it's all factually correct

and that your chosen resume upgrader got

your story right

trust what they are writing don't be

like the ceo taking a marketing email

out of the hands of the copywriter they

may pay to make it

trust the expert that you hired if there

are discrepancies

reach out and politely explain you need

to ask questions rather than make

suggestions or demands remember

you're paying them to do their best work

to bring you more knowledge and skill

and apply it to your resume

you're the one seeking information here

now once that process is complete your

resume is

updated for 2021 and it's time to get

that thing in the water

you need to make a comprehensive list of

every possible place

that your resume could be now this could

take a while

and it might involve delving into your

internet history to see the companies

and job boards that you've visited over

the past eight months

the goal here is to replace your resume

on every platform you can possibly think

of

so that this new shining example of you

and your career

are uniform across the internet now

obviously

the big five career boards are going to

be central to everyone

indeed monster linkedin career builder

and

glassdoor but you'll recall in episode

16 that we talked about finding

niche job boards boards like the big

shoes network

for marketing jobs here in the midwest

remember to search for

types of career job boards the

for-profit versus non-profit and the

actual

infield ones much like big shoes for

marketing i.t

customer service all these other niche

job boards

i'd list a whole bunch but we'd be here

for another five minutes just rattling

off

ones that you should take a look at now

the goal

is to not only have your resume the same

everywhere

but also have it readily available on

your linkedin profile as well

and speaking of which it might be a nice

idea to touch up that profile

also maybe you feature a new post on

your home page rewrite your summary in

your description

maybe change those three little words

that are underneath your name

or maybe whip up an article to feature

on your page

now this reminds me i should be adding

more of those articles

to my page from the recruiting help blog

so now we've updated the resume

check what's next re-upping your social

game

and this is possibly the most time

consuming of these three strategies

for a successful 2021 launch social

media

takes time effort and most importantly

consistency when i started this show

back in may of 2020

i barely ever went to linkedin but i

knew that was where my listeners would

likely be

so i made a concerted effort to spend

more and more time

on that platform day in and day out

now last week we talked about the 50

cent strategy

and that needs to happen every single

day with you

in 2021 and you need to keep it at it

for a

minimum a bare minimum of six months

before you're going to see the needle

move

on your engagement even just a little

flicker

this is a long game and building your

following and audience

on linkedin consists of more than just

posting willy-nilly

you need to interact with people let

them find out more about you

who you are both professionally and

personally

we focused a ton on this last week and

while i'm going to re-emphasize a few

points here and there

the social media aspect of your job is a

huge component

not only does social media connect you

to the other people in the world

and in your local area it can also bring

you content

and news that can be helpful for

building your job hunt

linkedin in particular has the ability

to follow

other profiles and this is something you

should be doing daily as well

find between two and three profiles to

follow each day

they can be big they can be small but

what they should all have in common

is that they must not only give of

themselves in what they post

but they also have to be highly relevant

to what you're searching for in your job

hunt

so case in point one of the biggest

successes of the 20th century

person wise was jack welch he was the

former ceo of ge he actually died

earlier in 2020 he grew that company

from something like 12 billion dollars

to like 400 billion it's crazy jack died

earlier this year at the age of 84 but

his management institute

has a profile on linkedin it's one of

the default ones that you follow

when you create an account along with i

think bill gates and a handful of other

really famous

business type people with really large

followings on linkedin

you can follow these but it's probably

fairly unlikely that they're going to

bring you anything other than the most

generic or general of knowledge for your

career

and on how to improve it or any news or

learning articles that are

focused on you they're going to be more

broad

what you want to dig into are the small

followings

the people in your industry groups in

your city and

individual accounts on linkedin that

bring you a narrower expertise

but still might be thought leaders i

have a few great examples of these in my

own network

as for folks that i follow joel algae

who will be on a future episode of this

show

is an excellent account to follow joel

runs headhunter media and not only live

streams about his recruiting

and hiring industry twice a week but

also has actual recommendations

for your brand growth on linkedin every

single day

now keep in mind that the profiles you

follow can also be groups

and an excellent example of one of these

that i'm a part of is pong

professional opportunities networking

group milwaukee

this is a networking group that hosts

monthly speaking events and allows

participants

to ask questions of their guest speaker

as well as kind of do a workshop for the

participants after the speaker's done

these are the kinds of groups that you

want to become a member of

the key to following up on these though

is that it's not enough to just

join the group you have to participate

this is an essential part of networking

with social media and what you need to

do

in 2021 you need to participate in the

groups that you follow

for example when i met the pong folks

they had asked me to come on and do a

talk about

age proofing your resume now that's not

only going to be a future episode of

this show that coincides with that talk

but i'm contributing to that community

in order to get the most out of social

media

and linkedin for your job search you

need to be willing to contribute

to the community as a whole this is a

bit different from being present on

other social media platforms which i

would again

encourage you to become a little bit

more active on but because linkedin

is so career focused it's the one i'm

gonna mark for the 2021 year

as the mandatory participation platform

the other platforms

twitter reddit instagram these are all

important to maintain a presence on even

if you simply do what's called

lurk lurking is simply being a user that

doesn't really participate in the

conversation

or in the general discussion thread

but reads it and may interact on sort of

a superficial level by maybe giving an

upvote or a like or something like that

using similar follower strategies that

you've used on linkedin

you can bring an amazing amount of

content and insight your way

you'll want to devote a few minutes of

your day to each of these platforms in

order to get the most out of them who

knows

you might even start participating

now the final piece of launching of 2021

is going to be deciding what type

of portfolio project or other kind of

tangible activity

you can do to bring with you to an

interview in the future

we're going to be calling this a

portfolio project just as sort of a

coverall term here

but your portfolio project might be

something that's written

it might be art it might be visual it

might be learning new concepts and

skills

it might be musical it might be any one

of a thousand things you can do

with your free time other than something

that is truly just a hobby

it's important to take care of our

day-to-day responsibilities it's

important to spend time with family and

of course

sometimes it's just nice to kick back

and relax too

the ask i want to make of you here is to

take some of that last portion of time

a time which you choose to spend at your

discretion and divert it into making

something that's lasting

portfolio pieces can take so many forms

and in fact

the show that you're listening to right

now this entire concept of recruiting

hell

started out as my portfolio piece

when i lost my job back in april i

really started to get bored after about

two weeks of

playing my heart out on my favorite

video games drinking all the beer i

wanted

and staying up until god knows what hour

in the morning it was like i was a

junior in college again

and i didn't even have the

responsibility of having to go to work

at 2pm that afternoon it was great

but something needed to happen something

needed to change i couldn't just

waste all of my time being out of work

so i decided to make a portfolio project

which turned into this show

now a good portfolio project should

accomplish three things

number one it should sharpen or hone

your existing skills number two

it should teach you new skills and

growth that are relevant to your career

and number three it should be shareable

with others

so let's talk about number one

sharpening or honing your skills this is

the absolutely easiest one

you have this talent already but when

you're building a portfolio project it's

almost a tiny bit of an invitation

to show off a bit you may perform at a

very high level when it comes to this

skill already

and a portfolio project is not only a

chance to show off the maximum amount of

skill you have with

talent but also to push yourself beyond

where you were

at the start of the project take for

example again this podcast

i have a background in broadcast media

and recording advertisements

i've recorded semi-pro and have mixed

audio in the past

what i never had access to was quality

equipment at my home

so over the course of a year i gathered

little bits and pieces of equipment

that not only let me start to produce

this show but also helped start a small

side business

that helped support this show what i

never had access to was

quality equipment at my home so over the

course of a year

i've gathered all the little equipment

that lets me not only start to produce

the show

but also helped me start a small side

business that supports this show

westport studios

being able to show a project of this

magnitude with a quality finished

product

that the public can consume as well as

being able to talk about the challenges

actually faced by working on and growing

this show has been a huge achievement

for myself and in recent discussions

with employers

it's been a major talking point this is

your chance to create a differentiator

for yourself

something that if you're in a dead heat

with another applicant this is your ace

up your sleeve

the goal of your portfolio project is to

get a hiring manager to look at it and

say

wow and then remember it down the road

when they say well who should we hire

for this position

somebody should chime in and say well

how about the guy who started his own

podcast and brand

or the gal who painted those beautiful

pictures to auction for charity

or the metal working hobbyist who had

the coolest ring on

your portfolio project is uniquely yours

and the goal of it is to take it beyond

something that you simply

enjoy doing as a hobby and elevate it to

the next level

uh adding the dimension of writing it

down

almost you know the documentation and

the skill growth

so like with this podcast i could have

simply started recording these episodes

by myself or maybe with a few of my

close friends and just keeping it in my

tight little circle of people that i

know

but contrary to that i took this

portfolio piece to market

this portfolio piece has two associated

websites

an email list a blog articles that i

write weekly dedicated social media

strategies and handles

and a host of other things that are

associated with it

and it's these things these extra steps

that can help make a portfolio project

shine you can paint a picture but until

you design

something that showcases painting that

picture

it's not really a portfolio project

so to give you a frame of reference on

all those things that i just mentioned

websites email lists blogs

articles i've never done any of those

in any meeting capacity

to give you a frame of reference of all

the things that i just mentioned the

websites the email list the blog

i've never done any of those in any

meaningful capacity before

i've done bits and pieces like created a

few little sales email sequences

but that's a far cry from putting out a

weekly newsletter

complete with articles a video and other

pieces of content that actually get

people to click on it and

open it i've learned more about

marketing social media

writing editing and networking in the

past six months or so of

running this portfolio project than i

had in the previous two years of my

professional career

this is what your project should help

you achieve

now when we're talking about portfolio

projects there's a former colleague of

mine who i have to admit i'm a

bit envious of his name is anthony and

he is now the chief customer officer

for a company that was the competitor to

the place you always hear me talk about

from a few years back

but that's not why i'm envious of him

i'm envious

of his incredible side or portfolio

project

and if you want to follow what he's

doing and see the incredible brand that

he's building

after hours from his you know

six-figure-ish high-powered job

i definitely recommend that you drop him

a follow on instagram

his project is a beard oil company

called lit

beard co it launched around the same

time as recruiting hell and from what i

can tell

anthony is killing it with this thing i

won't pretend to know at the time or the

financial effort invested into this

project

but it's an outstanding example of how

he's pushing himself

to learn more and more about creating a

product

running a business and building a brand

around something he's passionate about

and that's being a bearded guy

now something that might be catching for

you about starting a portfolio project

is that you actually might be afraid

that they cost money

in some cases they do this show is no

exception

and despite initially being run on a

shoestring budget

we've had to put a little bit of money

into it now for the first four months of

this show's existence

the entire show two websites all that

stuff i mentioned before

existed on a budget of 235 dollars

that 235 dollars went into nearly the

entire

first season of the show and i think ran

funds ran

critical the week of episode 19 and of

course we do

20 episode seasons here that 235 bucks

stretched a long way it was less than

two dollars a day to run the show

now we've obviously gotten more advanced

in the time since then

but through the use of things like open

source software

trial versions of paid software and some

incredible generosity by some of my

favorite listeners

we continue to go further if the show

had ended with those first 20 episodes

that would still have been an excellent

project and your project doesn't have to

be this

big ongoing production but it should

be something that pushes you to grow and

learn so that you come out of your time

away from your job with new skills and

not just having stagnated for the past

three to six months

we each have something in our lives that

is easily portfolio

just like this show just like anthony's

nifty beard balms

the challenge i have for you for 2021 is

to identify

what that is for you make the effort to

build this portfolio project not just

from a standpoint of

recording some audio that the world

never hears or brewing your

own beard oil for you it's that growth

aspect it's that sharing aspect start a

portfolio in

2021 and make sure that you're even more

employable

when the economy comes back and if you

can

be sure to keep up your current

portfolio project after you get hired

or at least continue it in some way

maybe even start a different one

for example if i were to land a new

position where i couldn't devote the

time weekly to having weekly versions of

this show

you can bet your boots i'd either

outsource some of the time consuming

aspects of it

or simply move on to an every other week

release

format now that's not happening so no

worries there

it's simply an example of how you can

keep a portfolio project going even when

life gets

busy so to review for 2021

to bring a new hustle to your new year

you need to do the following

a refresh and rebuild your resume from

the bottom up

and hopefully you have the opportunity

to enlist the help of a professional if

it's in the cards

only if it's in the cards b

go hard on your social media game scoop

up new contacts build your followings

network for the give and contribute to

the online communities

that you become a part of c hit that

portfolio piece

new year's day would be a great

opportunity to get some notes down

for what you want to do and to develop a

battle plan

for going throughout the rest of the

year to keep that effort

continuing now we're finally at the end

here folks

the last episode of 2020 and what a year

it's been

a quick recap for the year we've put out

nearly 1200

minutes of content to help folks get

back to work

if you would have asked me in may of

2020 if i've had would have almost 20

flipping hours of shows by

december 31st 2020 i'd have thought you

were absolutely off your rocker

across the world more than 22 different

countries have tuned in on

five of the seven continents and if

you're that listener

based in africa or antarctica and

somehow i've missed you through all of

my analytics digging

let me know no matter where you come

from

times are tough and we're a community

here in recruiting hell and we're gonna

get through this together

recently i had a little bit of feedback

from some listeners and they mentioned

they'd love to connect

in a way with other listeners from the

show

and to that end i'm investigating a few

potential options

for groups where our listeners can

congregate connect

and where i can help provide you more

assistance

to help your job search a little bit

more on that in the coming weeks as well

as other exciting ideas

like our cooperation with the network

group pong milwaukee that i mentioned

earlier

and of course new downloads new

documents to help your job hunt strategy

and even i'm going to tease this the

heli awards

thank you for spending a good chunk of

your 2020 with me

and this show i've been absolutely blown

away by some of the download numbers

recently

and whether you're a new listener or one

of my original few

or someone who's binging my entire back

catalog this weekend

you're so appreciated and i'm hopeful

that the time we spend together gets you

back on track

to happier times and more successful

days ahead

last week i gave you the gift of no

promos at the end of this show

this week we're going to do almost the

same so closing out for

us here at recruiting hell remember your

job does not dictate

your self-worth if you're in need of

help getting your job hunt going

grab our free guide to recruiting

hell.com and of course reach out to the

show however you want

whether it's via social media or you can

email us direct at the recruiting help

podcast

gmail.com we'll get back to the more

normal feel of the show in coming weeks

with a number of great guests

the holidays and some of the crunch on

my part uh pushed a few of the episodes

i wanted to get into december

back into january plus editing some of

these sometimes is just a crazy time

vampire

recruiting hell is a production of

westport studios and it is proudly made

in wisconsin and finally

as always a thank you to purple planet

music for our themes and you the

listener

for tuning in i'm rob conlon and until

we meet again

keep moving forward with your

self-betterment and your job hunt

it's a marathon not a sprint and

recruiting hell will be here to help you

keep pace

right on into the new year happy 2021

everyone