My fellow Toastmasters & Guest,

Projected in 2009 the unemployment rate in Malaysia will reach above 4% from the average of 3% annually. Basically, about 400 thousand people will be aggressively looking for a job in Malaysia. Out of that as per Ministry of Higher Education statistics, there will be about 230 thousand students from local & private universities & colleges excluding overseas graduates will be entering into the job market in 2009. However, based on the reported job vacancies as per Ministry of Human Resource statistics in Mar 2009, there are only 91 thousand vacancies available in Malaysia. Regardless if the statistic is accurate and showing the true picture, obviously these statistics are showing that the job market in Malaysia is too small for everyone to secure a job comfortably. The job market is like a “war zone” for the job seekers. Only the fittest and the luckiest will win.

Let me put these statistics aside and now focus on the main intention of my speech. As a manager for the past 4 years, the main triggering point for me to start a hiring process is when I need the right solution to a problem in my organization. Obviously, that person that I will be hiring will need to provide me the right solution to my problem.

So for the next couple of minutes I will be sharing simple steps on how to increase your winning chance to secure a job in this highly competitive job market.

The steps are ASK, TELL, FOLLOW UP & TELL AGAIN.

Let me start with ASK. What I really mean by ASK is basically ask yourself what solution you can provide to your future employer to solve their problem. Definitely, you will need to do some research about your future employer through the internet or if possible talk to them directly. For instance, if you read in the internet that your future employer is going to setup a new manufacturing plant in your area, then definitely they will need someone with knowledge and experience in setting up a manufacturing plant. If you have that experience & knowledge, then you have the right solution that your future employer needs.

Next you will need to TELL your future employer that you have that solution. One of the most common ways to TELL them is by writing a resume with a cover letter and send them in. In your resume you should TELL your future employer that you have that particular experience & knowledge and share your achievements. One of the most common mistakes done in a resume is lack of focus on your achievements but rather more focus on your job responsibilities.  Ensure your cover letter is written to support your achievements and also TELL how you can solve their problem.

Once you have TELL your future employer, then now it is time to FOLLOW UP with them. Remember that the job market is getting more competitive hence you will need to do something different from your competitors. Based on my survey found that 99% of job seekers never FOLLOW UP after submitting their resume just because there are too shy or afraid to disturb their future employer. Just ask yourself if this is true or not. Anyway by just FOLLOW UP with your future employer to enquire when you will be called in for an interview, you have created the competitive advantage for you to win in the job market.

Finally, your have to TELL AGAIN during your interview session how you can provide the right solution to your future employer’s problem. Use this opportunity to convince your future employer that you have the right solution.

Before I end my speech I would like to share what Stephen Covey, famous for his bestseller book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People mentioned in his 90/10 Principle that 10% of whatever happens in your life is already set as your destiny; you can’t change it but you still have the control on the balance 90%.

The economic downturn we are facing nowadays is the thing we can’t control but we can still control on how to make ourselves marketable by ASK, TELL, FOLLOW UP & TELL AGAIN.

Thank you.

Based on the book “To Find A Job….Start A New Career” by Marvin Rafal, PhD, there are 4 types of common career objectives which are categorized as Job Enrichment, Upward Movement, Job Exploration and Sideways Movement.

Let me briefly elaborate what does each of these categories mean:

Job Enrichment

Your career objective is to remain in your current job type but at the same time build your knowledge, skill & experience by taking more challenging responsibilities. In Job Enrichment, you will most likely be looking for a job in the same company but in a different department or entirely in a different company but doing the same type of job. Basically your career objective is to be better & skillful (become expert) in what you are currently doing to make yourself marketable for future career growth or personal ambition.

Upward Movement

Typically, once you have gone through the Job Enrichment stage, you will want an Upward Movement career objective. This is the time where you are looking for a career growth opportunity to improve your status, income and take on higher level job responsibilities. You will need to have some period of working experience with established accomplishments and at the same time possess  leadership skills to lead and manage a bigger organization.

Job Exploration

If you are a fresh graduate or you are not really sure which job type to pursue in but wanted to explore different job type before finding a suitable one then this career objective will be suitable for you. Even though you do not have a specific job type to focus on but you must at least know how to generalize your career objective to fit into the organization that you would like to join. However, you will need to be very careful not to leave an impression that you are just on trial basis and will leave if found not suitable for you. You will need to have a competitive advantage (special skills, knowledge, experience & ability to contribute) as a win-win deal with your future employer.

Sideways Movement

Specifically Sideways Movement career objective is for you if you are looking for a lateral direction career movement in the same company and wanted to learn new skills including meeting new people. With this career objective, your personality is is a sociability type and at the same time you are successful in your current position and has the ability to contribute successfully in other department in the company. The acquired skills & knowledge will help to build a good foundation for your career growth.

Now, you have 4 categories to choose your suitable career objective. Based on these brief explanation as above, you are highly recommended to do the following before finalizing your career objective:

• Learn to know yourself better. Find a realistic options worth to pursue based on your personality as a guide but not as the ultimatum.
• Asses your ability (skill, knowledge, experience, education & etc) to fit into your choice of career objective. Talk to those who has experience in the same field; ask the right question to the right people.
• If you have some thoughts about your career objective in mind, spend some time to assess the suitability by discussing with your family & friends. Take their inputs into consideration.
• Reflect on your past experience especially on what has been working well for you and what is not. Focus on your bad experience and avoid making the same mistake.
• Never choose your career objective based on the financial reward only. Consider holistically especially on the non-financial reward (health, time, family, skill, knowledge, experience).
• Get expert advice from career counselor who is able to propose some options and at the same time remind you on the consequence of the given options. Remember that even the career counselor is the best in the world but it does not mean he/she knows you better than yourself. The final decision still lies on you.

Give it a try and once your have firm up your career objective, you will find that your job search will be more effective since you are more focus and know where you want to be.

Good luck.

Now, moving forward in my next articles about “Looking for a job”, I would like to share on how to apply the result from your personality assessment to achieve the following:

• Identifying appropriate job
• Getting to where you want to be

In today’s article; Part 1, I’ll start with “Identifying appropriate job”.

Assuming by now, you should have the result of your personality test. To ease the discussion, let me take my personality test result (using MBTI) as a case study.

Based on the result, I’m a ISTJ person which are Introverted, Sensing, Thinking & Judgement.

As what I have shared in my previous article, MBTI categorized personality into attitude, perceiving, judgement & lifestyle (brief description are shown below).

Attitude
I = Introverted – thinking oriented attitude

Perceiving
S = Sensing – data oriented person

Judgement
T = Thinking – logical oriented person

Lifestyle
J = Judging -thinking or feeling lifestyle

How do I use this result to identify the appropriate job for me?

Based on a book “To find a job. Start a new career. The career and job change toolbox” by Marvin Rafal, PhD, there are 3 types of jobs which are:

People occupational – most of the time and effort is spent interacting with people. Common activities to these type of jobs are managing, consulting, counseling, influencing, teaching, negotiating, facilitating, calling, announcing, discussing & listening. Some of the characteristics of people jobs are ability to get along with variety of personalities, well developed oral & written skills, genuine interest in others and their opinions, feeling of satisfaction when sharing & working with others.

Data occupational – majority of the time & effort is spent working with facts & documentation by analyzing, interpreting, researching, computing, grouping and sorting to find the relevant data. The person in this type of job must has a systematic approach to get the job done, use logic in problem solving, accountable and has the ability & passion to search out answers.

Idea occupational – time & effort spent generating alternatives, finding new ways to do things and even find new things to do. Most of the time, a person in this job will be designing, problem solving, networking, exploring, testing, discussing, trying things out, bouncing ideas around, thinking outside of the box and planning a timeline. Major characteristic of this person is creativity, excitement, innovation, interest in the future, ability to see trends early, natural curiosity, and see things differently.

Based on my ISTJ personality, I’m responsible, loyal and hard working. I have an acute sense of right and wrong and work hard at preserving established norms and traditions. Because of my deep sense of duty I’m dedicated to everything I do and are very dependable. I also care deeply for those closest to me. Hence with this personality, I’m suitable for people & data occupational. But I can not conclude yet on what I actually want until I’ve completed the part 2: Getting to where you want to be. I’ll share on how to do that in my next article.

If you want to try this same activity as what I have done in part 1, please leave your comments or e-mail me at career_advisor@resumeweassist.com. I’m more that willing to help you attain your career goals!

“Whether it is high school, community college or a 4- year college, the emphasis needs to be on weaving more skill sets into education curriculums to provide a shot at better paying jobs.”

        For the last 20 years the government mantra has been, “Get a college education and you will get ahead.”

        Shop classes that used to be in every grade school and high school were replaced by computer labs to prepare the “new knowledge workers” for the future.

       But the big question is – will kids coming out of high school or college have the basic skills to get a job? 

        In manufacturing we have gone from a time when there were plenty of jobs that only required a high school degree and some on-the-job training, to an era of automation and sophistication requiring a variety of high skill sets. In the service industries the people making the good wages are the people with professional degrees or very specialized training.

        As the economy has changed to one that requires higher skills, more technical knowledge and specialized training, the education system has not changed very much.

“I want to make a case that a general degree from a 4-year college is often no better then a high school degree in terms of getting a job.” 

There were 1,485,252 degrees awarded in 2005/06. When I added up the various degree categories, I found that 50-60 percent (890,000) of the degrees were in the general category, and did not include enough specific skills to be termed a professional degree that could command a well paid job. I include business degrees in the general category because I don’t think they offer enough practical skills to get a good job in business.

            My bias comes from not only interviewing candidates with this degree but from talking to hundreds of waiters and waitresses in my travels who have business degrees and can’t seem to find a good job.

             A good example is Graham McConnell, who graduated from a private college in 2006 with a major in business. His first job out of college was making $7.50 an hour at Hollywood Video until he finally was hired by a clockmaker as an internet marketing assistant for $31,000 per year. His current debt load is $24,000. (Willamette Week Fleeced, May 28, 2008)

              Josh Seeds has a Masters degree in Environmental Science from Washington State University and is 31 years old. After 3 low paying jobs, he was hired by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality as a water quality analyst at $45,000 per year. His debt to pay off is $111,000, which he doesn’t expect to pay until 2043. By the time he pays off his student loans he expects to be 67 and eligible for Medicare and Social Security. (Willamette Week Fleeced, May 28, 2008)

         The problem of finding a family wage job is not limited to general college degree students:

• For the 2007/08 year there were over 3.3 million high school graduates.
• Another 25 percent either dropped out of high school or didn’t graduate on time.
• In 2005/06 approximately 713,066 students graduated from community colleges. Of this group 314,000 had technical/professional degrees.
• In 2005/06 over 1.4 million students graduated with Bachelors degrees from a 4- year college. Of this group 40 percent had professional or technical degrees. 60 percent were academic or general degrees.

             So the big question is; what will the dropouts, high school graduates and the general degree holders do to find a good paying job in the changing economy?

              In the last 35 years the art of working with your hands has been downplayed and replaced by the “go to college at any cost” movement. In contrary, Dusty Heming, a 35-year-old electrician in Portland says he earns $34 per hour working on renewable energy projects.

              Electricians, plumbers, pipefitters, masons, maintenance technicians, machinists and fabricators who go through apprentice programs can make more then $30 per hour, and the demand for these types of workers will exceed supply by 5 percent in 2012.

              I think this makes a strong case for bringing back shop classes, particularly for those who learn by doing and not through books. The 2-year vocational associates degree is the most preferred education by most manufacturers. However, community colleges need to create more industry-specific programs and state legislatures have to change funding formulas that limit the number of technical and vocational degrees.

              In manufacturing there is already a shortage of skilled workers and it will get worse as 10 million baby boomer employees retire by 2020. The training programs for manufacturing skilled workers are simply not adequate to train 10 million workers.

              Colleges need to look at their general degree categories and enhance them in providing a better chance at a higher paying job. They should also consider giving students’ credit for taking technical elective courses, even if they are taught in a different institution or community college.

              I think it would also help to increase the cost of general classes and lower the cost of technical classes. The big dark secret is that transitioning to a service economy will create jobs, but not at a high enough level of pay.

              On the first page of The Work Of Nations, Robert Reich says, “Each nation’s political task will be to cope with the centrifugal forces of the global economy which tear at the ties binding most citizens together –bestowing even greater wealth on the most skilled and insightful, while consigning the less skilled to a declining standard of living.” 

            The operating word here is skills. Whether it is high school, community college or a 4- year college, the emphasis needs to be on weaving more skill sets into education curriculums to provide a shot at better paying jobs.

Mike Collins is the author of Saving American Manufacturing. his website is www.mpcmgt.com

I do find the website by Career Key to be self explanatory; hence I’ve decided just to share the link for your own exploration. Please spend some time to go through the website. There are some charges to take the assessment but I’m sure if you really interested to learn about your personality match to your suitable job, it is a worthy investment.

Anyway if you have any comments about Career Key, feel free to drop them in the comments below for our knowledge & experience sharing purposes.

Good luck.

Regards

Yusoff

I came across to Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) last year when I was working on an international assignment with a team of colleagues from the US, UK & Malaysia. Since this was the first time we work together as a team, we definitely do not know each other before and working as a team requires us to know each others personality to effectively meet the objective of the assignment. A team coach, an American was assigned to our team and he introduced the MBTI to us. We took the MBTI personality questionnaire individually then shared our personality traits to the team. From there we started to understand each other’s personality including ourselves. At the end of the day, the team managed to work together and successfully completed the assignment as per the objective and timeline. Hooray!!!!

So how MBTI can help us in our job matching?

To answer this question let us firstly learn the history of MBTI and followed by how to link your personality to your suitable career path.

MBTI started based on Carl Jung’s theory of psychological types in 1913. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator was first introduced in 1944 in “Briggs Myers Type Indicator Handbook”. Isabel Briggs Myers developed this personality analysis by leveraging her mother’s work, Katharine Cook Briggs who has divided human personality into 4 pairs types - Attitude, Perceiving, Judging & Lifestle in 1924. Through her prize winning mystery novel “Murder Yet to Come” in 1928, Isabel adapted these 4 pair types personalities traits to solve a murder mystery. Furthermore, MBTI was also introduced believing that a knowledge of personality preferences would help women who were entering the industrial workforce during World War II for the first time able to identify the sort of war-time jobs where they would be “most comfortable and effective” in. Only after 1956, MBTI was formally introduced to the modern world.  

MBTI works based on your preferance not on your ability. The questionaire was developed based on your spontaneous response. The result from the questionaire (represented by abrevations) identify your preferance in your attitude style (E or I), your perceiving style (S or N), your judging or decision making style (T or F) & your perfered lifestyle (J or P). The result can be presented in 16

different combination as shown in the

table on your right.

Brief description for each pair of the personality style:

Attitude 

E = Extraversion – action oriented attitude

I = Introversion – thinking oriented attitude

Perceiving

S = Sensing – data oriented person

N = iNtuition – non data oriented person (based on gut feeling)

Judgement

T = Thinking – logical oriented person

F = Feeling – emotional oriented person

Lifestyle

J = Judging - thinking or feeling lifestyle

P = Perceiving - sensing or intuition lifestyle

You can take a FREE questionaire thru this link. Register yourself and start the questionaire whenever you are ready.

Note: If you are in a hurry or emotionally disturbed, please do not take the questionaire now. You can save the link and come back to it when you are ready. Your personality traits from the questionaire should be based on your spontanouse response so that it will reflect your most accurate personality traits.

Through this link, your will find a list of recommended career path for each MBTI style. Please take note this is solely based on MBTI expert recommendations. Please wisely make your judgement based on your own personality traits.

If you need to discuss furthur about your suitable career path, you can e-mail me at career_advisor@resumeweassist.com for a FREE consultation or drop your comments at below.

Good luck

Regards

Yusoff 

Previously in early May, I wrote about the importance of having an objective in looking for a job. By having some sort of short or long term objective, the action that you will be taking up next in CMS will be more pleasant and exciting and eventually lead to your success in your career.

Today, I would like to share some tools that may be helpful in accessing your personality to match your objective. If you do a Google search on “personality test – job matching” there are about 7000 sites available for you to uncover your personality to match your dream job. In practical, it does not make sense to take all of them. In fact, taking so many personality tests will just confuse us more. Ending up, you might lose your personality

In this article, I will only list down some of the recommended personality test-job matching available in the net. In my future articles, I will share my own experience taking these tests including the link for you to try it out . I will also share the pro and contra of each of these tests. I would also appreciate if you could also share your own experience by leaving your comments.

Personality test – Job mactching

1)      Myers-Briggs (MBTI)

2)      Career Key

3)      Discover Your Perfect Career Quiz

4)      Keirsey Temperament Starter

5)      Princeton Review Career Quiz

6)      Strong Interest Inventory

Word of caution: Please do not rely 100% on all these personality test-job matching to make your decision on your career path. The result from your test should only be used as a guide and it is also a part of the criteria in deciding your career path. Your final decision should include your interest and your ability not only on your personality.

Till then

Take care

Regards

Yusoff

In summary, Azizul commented on my idealistic approach on why you are looking for a job while Shafik was asking if the CMS only covers the job search process only or beyond that. He also asked a mind boggling question on the differences between ideal & suitable job.

I agree 100% with Azizul that the example given in Part 1 is an ideal scenario.  To a certain extend it is impossible to have a crystal clear reason why you are looking for a job at the beginning of your career. However, you still need to have a reason even though you are not 100% sure if the reason is the correct one. If you do not have a reason, then it means you do not need a job. No need CMS

In CMS, I would classify the objective looking for a job into a short term objective. Let me try to elaborate it with some examples. If it does not make sense, please leave your comments.

Short term objective can be any objective or reason at that point of time. For example, if you are a mechanical engineering graduate, your short team objective is to become a mechanical engineer. If you are a housewife looking for an extra income to accommodate some personal expenses, then the short term objective is to find a simple part time job. Hence, typically for a short term objective, the follow up action will also be a short term action just enough to fulfil the short term objective. Even my experience I shared in Part 1 is also a short term objective.

To recap from my experience, the reason why I’m looking for a job is just to find any engineering job vacancy (as long there is an engineer title in the post). Due to this reason in my mind, my following action is just to send out my resume to any advertised engineering vacancies in the papers. I did not spend time to understand the details such as my job responsibility or job scope. Even during the interview, I never asked what my role is. Ending up my so call engineering job ends up becoming a coordinator job.

So my point is the reason or objective to look for a job will influence the follow up action to accomplish the objective. Taken from the best seller book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, Stephen R Covey identifies one of the 7 habits is begin with the end in mind. Having an objective at the beginning or at that point of time will determine the next action to be taken and eventually meeting the objective.

Therefore CMS only covers the process to find a job. If the job is suitable or ideal, well that is the question that I can’t answer it for you. Once you get a job, it is up to you on how to adapt, learn, re-learn and improve yourself through trial & error until you settle down to your suitable or ideal job. In addition to that, after some time working, you will start to realize your long term objective on why you are looking for a job.  I’ll share some inputs on this long term objective once I cover the topic under “Continues Self Improvement”.

By the way, can anyone enlighten me the differences between suitable or ideal job. For me, they mean the same.

In my next post, I’ll cover Resume 101.

Till then, take care..Keep leaving comments for our knowledge sharing.

Thanks

Regards

Yusoff

It can be any reason (no right or wrong answer) but it must be specific and crystal clear.

Why is this question important? Well, let me share from my real life experience…

As I can recall, 8 years ago, I was a fresh graduate with an engineering degree. Like most of the fresh graduate out there, I’m excited to venture into my first job. Did I ask myself why I’m looking for a job at that time?

For sure NO…. but the only thing that I knew of at that time was; a fresh graduate must find a job.

Well, at that time, I’m too naïve to know that with a degree, it will not guarantee me to get a job. So the way I approached to start looking for a job is more or less by sending my resumes out to any engineering job vacancies available in the newspapers and hopping to be called for an interview. Yes, I get several job interviews. Finally after many unsuccessful interviews, I got a job offer and started my career as a “engineering” technical liaison or specifically my post is called “Program Engineer”. For me, as long there is an engineer word in my post, I would consider myself an engineer.

BUT my job is more like a coordinator than an engineer. At first, I’m delighted to a get a job but after 1.5 years, I started to realize that this coordinator job is not the job I’m looking for. As an engineering graduate, I just realized the reason why I’m looking for a job is to work as an engineer. Luckily for me, it was not too late and I finally got my dream job as an engineer after leaving my first job.

What is the moral from my story?

The first thing to do in CMS (Career Marketing System) is to clearly understand why you are looking for a job. From my experience, if I understand my objective earlier, I might have focused my job search for a true engineering work. But since I don’t have a clear job hunt objective, my job search became a general job search. That is why, I thought my first job is an engineering work but later found out it is more a coordinator job with an engineering title.

I will stop now and looking forward for your comments. If you have an experience to share, I would love to read it.

In my next post, I would like to continue this topic with other scenarios on why you are looking for a job.

Take care.

Best regards

Yusoff