Too often job seekers overlook the importance of a cover letter.  The cover letter is your one chance to speak directly to the hiring manager or HR gatekeeper.   It’s literally like you’ve gotten 60 seconds of their time for your elevator pitch- your quick spiel about why are so great.  Yes, your resume is very important, but in a cover letter you get the opportunity to tell an employer something about who you are, how well you write, and how much you are interested in this specific job and why. You don’t get to do that with a resume.  So the rule to follow is: if you are submitting a resume, you should be submitting a cover letter.  Always.

So now we know that the cover letter is of supreme importance.  Great.  So the question remains (as per the title of this blog) “How do I write a killer cover letter?”.  The reality is that you are probably applying for tens of jobs (hundreds these days?) so you realistically do not have time to write all of these cover letters from scratch start to finish.  That’s OK though- as long as you have a strategy, you can make the cover letter look like it’s written from scratch just for this employer for this particular job.  So your strategy will be that there will be sections of the cover letter that are standardized and sections that are custom tailored for each job and each employer.  You may even want to have a few versions of the standardized part in the same way that you probably have a few different versions of your resume depending on the job you are applying for.  For example if you are applying to both Marketing Coordinator jobs and PR Assistant jobs, you will need to talk about different things in your cover letter depending on if it’s a marketing job or a PR job.  At the end of the day, your number one goal is to make the employer feel like you are writing to them specifically about this specific job.

The standardized section of a cover letter: in this section you will write about your past relevant experience why you are interested in this field/area/sector.  It definitely helps when an employer feels like you are genuinely interested in and enthusiastic about the work.  You can also address any weaknesses or gaps in your resume.  If you have been unemployed for a long period of time or are just getting back into the workforce, you might want to address that here.  Perhaps your GPA wasn’t strong, but you took all honors courses or worked a full time job to put yourself through school.  This isn’t a place for making excuses, but it a place to provide explanations.

The custom tailored section of a cover letter:  This is where you want to make sure to do a little due diligence on the company and on the position.  Make the employer feel like this is the exact job you want, and tell them why.  If an employer feels like you don’t know anything about the company or the role and that you are just mass submitting resumes to hundreds of jobs, that’s a big turn off.  Speak intelligently about why Oracle is a good fit or interesting for you and why this specific role is particularly well-suited to your skills and past experience.  At a most basic level, make sure that you have the person’s name right at the top of the cover letter and that you have the right company and position title in the letter that you are applying for.  You might be surprised how many employers get cover letters addressed to other people at different companies for another just because the candidate wasn’t astute enough to double check the letter before sending!

So follow these steps, invest in your cover letter, and set yourself a cut above the crowd!

Let’s face it, in these tough times many of us are just happy to make it into an interview at this point. But let’s not forget that there are still Federal and State laws that protect your rights as employees- even throughout the interview process. This means that interviewers are not allowed to just ask anything they feel like in an interview- in fact they are prohibited by law from asking certain questions. Generally these illegal interview questions include questions about “protected categories”. A protected category or protected class means that federal law prohibits discrimination on the basis of any of the following:

• Race or ethnicity
• Color
• Religion
• National Origin
• Disability
• Gender or sex
• Age (40 years and older)

Different States have additional protected categories. For example in California discrimination on the basis of Sexual Orientation or Pregnancy is considered illegal. When you see that a company is an Equal Opportunity Employer (EOE), that means that they are complying with federal and state laws regarding hiring and employment. So as far as an interview is concerned, these laws mean that an interviewer is not allowed to ask you what religion you are or where you were born. The idea is that the information they would gather from questions should have no bearing on your ability to do a job. Of course you must be qualified for the position, and a potential employer can not hire you because they simply did not like you as a candidate. But they cannot refuse to hire you solely on the basis of your gender, ethnicity, age (if over 40), etc.

So what should you do if you are asked an illegal or inappropriate question in an interview? The first thing to do is to remain calm, cool and collected. Freaking out and yelling “That’s illegal! You can’t ask me that!” is a sure way to alienate yourself from your interviewer. The truth is that most interviewers are not trying to ask illegal questions- many simply are not familiar enough with the federal and state hiring and employment laws to know that they are actually violating the law. So you should assume innocent until proven guilty. If an interviewer asks you a question like “So where were you born?” you can:

1. Answer the question if you feel comfortable and think it was just being asked in the course of conversation with no discriminatory intention
2. Try to answer the question in a roundabout way such as “I was born in a great place- there was such a tight knit community of people” or something equally vague
3. Gently let the interviewer know that technically they shouldn’t be asking that question in an interview, but that you are legal to work in the U.S. (of course, you must be in order to answer that you are)

Just keep in mind that this is one of those times to tread lightly. Even if you are right and the interviewer has asked an illegal question, use your intuition to determine if it was a calculated effort to discriminate or if it was an innocent question asked in the course of conversation. You don’t want to lose the job because you have reacted badly. But if you find yourself in a situation where you do believe that you are being discriminated against because of a protected category, then you should definitely find a lawyer in your state and seek legal advice, or call the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission).

We know that this is a tough time for job seekers, and unfortunately that means that there are unscrupulous people who want to take advantage of you. At Jobnob, we’ve got your back. We just wanted to give you a little common sense reminder that before you pay for any career or employment services that they are real and on the up and up. There are a lot of job scams out there promising to get people jobs or interviews or access to employers that are just flat out bogus. The government tries to monitor some of these scams. The Consumer Protection Agency reported about 6,000 complaints in 2007 about employment agencies and recruiters/headhunters. Attorney General Offices of several states also try to stay involved and monitor illegal services. The Ohio Attorney General fined a company for charging job seekers money to get connected with employers. The only problem was that these employers didn’t exist. So job seekers were paying money to the 3rd party and never received any introductions. The Missouri Attorney General office has also seen complaints filed for both pyramid schemes and career services.

Other schemes have more serious consequences, such as identify theft. Some job search services ask job seekers for personal information such as their social security number, bank account number, and other private pieces of information. These are known as fishing schemes and can result in someone’s bank account being drained or credit card fraud. Another victimization scheme involves getting people to pay money for information on government or postal job openings. If you ever see this, you should immediately know that it is a fraud. Job openings with any sector of the U.S. government or Postal Service are always free. Sometimes these con artists advertise in classifieds or online postings that they will assist job seekers for free. But eventually they ask for money or personal information- at which point you should immediately know that it is a scam. In fact if you ever have come across one of the job scams, you should report it to the Federal Trade Commission. Here is a link to their complaint form https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/

We know that looking for a job, particularly in this environment, can be a difficult and draining process (both emotionally and financially). But you must be sure to stay alert and not fall prey to these types of job search scams, which would only compound any problems you are having. If it looks too good to be true, it might be. Before you pay money for any job search service, do your research and make sure that it is legitimate. See if there are reviews online for the services the company claims it is providing. See if they have a money back guarantee. And never give out your personal information to anyone you don’t know.

Believe it or not, there is actually good news in the job market and companies are hiring in several major industries. In fact according to job aggregator Indeed, several industries are currently hiring several hundreds of thousands of workers. While hiring is down compared to last year’s numbers, there are still plenty of jobs available for job seekers throughout the U.S. The industry trying to hiring the most employees is the Information Technology sector with over 395,000 job openings. The professions within IT that are most searched for include Project Managers, Business Analysts, Graphic Designers, Program Managers, Technical Writers, and a multitude of Engineers (Software Engineers, Manufacturing Engineers, Electrical Engineers, Process Engineers, and Java Developers to name a few). And the cities with the highest number of job seekers include New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Houston and Dallas.

Healthcare

The industry who is actually hiring the most employees is Healthcare, with over 580,000 unfilled positions available. There is only an 8% decline in positions available since last year making Healthcare the strongest industry in terms of not being drastically affected by the current economic climate. Positions people are interested in applying for include Medical Assistants, Dental Assistants, Pharmacy Technicians, Social Workers, Phlebotomists, and Pharmaceutical Sales Reps. And similar to the IT industry, the cities with the highest number of job seekers include NY, Atlanta, Houston, Chicago and Dallas. The Education Industry is almost on par with the Healthcare industry in terms of not losing ground from last year. Education has only suffered a 9% decline in the number of jobs available since 2008, also making it a very strong industry that is holding up against the economic downturn.

Retail

Other industries have mixed results in terms of raw numbers of jobs available versus a decline in last year’s numbers. The Retail sector actually has almost 300,000 positions available, but it is down 45% since last year’s job numbers. The hardest hit sectors have been the Real Estate and Accounting industries which saw declines of 58% and 53% respectively since last year. Although Accounting jobs have taken a dramatic dip in percentage terms, there are still over 100,000 jobs available, so it may not be as dire as the percentage would imply. The good news overall is that companies are definitely still hiring and some sectors such as Healthcare and Education are actually holding up quite well. So if you’re looking for a job, don’t give up!

Wouldn’t we all like to know if we are being adequately compensated? In plain language, is the person sitting next to me, doing the same job, making more than I make? Well, we can never know for sure, but now we can come pretty close. Jobnob.com comes as close as you can come without bending over the divider and asking the person in the next cubicle or office how much they make (and good luck getting honest answer if you do that!). Jobnob has the salaries for over 400,000 employees in actual jobs, in actual companies. No guesses, no general industry averages, Jobnob can tell you how much 79 industrial engineers at Intel are earning, and better yet, how much they are making at each Intel location. After all, what good is knowing what an industrial engineer makes at Intel in Silicon Valley if you are working for Intel in Portland, Oregon?

Everyone wants to know if they are being underpaid by their employer as opposed to other employees and other companies. Everyone wants to know when they are being offered a job by a particular employer at a particular location if they are starting at the high, medium or low end of the pay scale. Not only is it human nature to be curious- there’s no reason it should be a secret. Other companies have been publishing salary averages for years, but it’s not the same. These statistical averages are just that, they add up a bunch of salaries, divide by the number being totaled, and give you an average of what the job pays by industry or location. It’s not particularly helpful to know that a Marketing Manager earns on average $50,000 in San Francisco. You need to know how much on average YOUR company pays a Marketing Manager. Or if you are a soon to be graduate getting a job offer. You can look on Jobnob and see what the pay range is for that job, at that company at that geographical location is versus what the company’s competitors are paying.

So how much does this all cost? Well the good news is that Jobnob is FREE! Yep, no charge for looking up any of this information, and you aren’t required to fill out lengthy and invasive surveys that ask for all of your personal information. Other sites make you tell them your personal salary information to get access to data or even charge $20 or $30 per report. But don’t worry- we aren’t going to do that. We think everyone deserves access to this information for free, and we plan on keeping it that way. We wouldn’t mind if you shared the site with your friends though

We all dread the “salary question”. You’ve finally made it into an interview with the employer you really want to work for and they ask you the worst interview question of them all: “What kind of salary are you looking to earn?” Your heart beats faster, your mind races, and your palms get sweaty as you start to panic and think “What should I say?” If you give a salary figure that is too high, maybe they won’t be interested in you anymore. But if you give a salary figure that is too low, then you’ve just underpriced yourself. What to do? Stop and take a deep breath! Contrary to popular opinion, there actually is a right answer to this question- you just have to have the right information. What if you were interviewing at Microsoft for a Marketing Manager position and you knew exactly how much Microsoft paid their Marketing Managers? Then you would be able to judge exactly how much of a salary you should ask for. Well now you can find out the salary information for almost any company. It’s a new site called Jobnob www.jobnob.com. The answer for the Microsoft Marketing Manager salary question is: at Jobnob, based on 22 salaries for people working at Microsoft as a Marketing Manager, the average salary is $98,000 with a range from $74,000-$121,000. So if you want to play it safe, you can tell the interviewer that you would expect to make a salary of at least $98,000. If you feel that you are particularly qualified for this position, then you may want to go toward the high end of the market, say maybe $120,000. Or if you are just graduating from college, then maybe the right answer is to go with the lower range salary closer to $75,000.

Microsoft Salaries

What about throwing out a salary number that is higher than the range? You could certainly try to bump up your starting salary, but before you throw out a number that is too high, keep a few things in mind. First, many companies have official salary ranges or bands that they cannot go above, no matter how badly they want a candidate to join. So you may say that you want to earn $175,000 as a Marketing Manager at Microsoft, but that salary range may be associate with a different position level, such as a Director of Marketing (note: this is just an example, I don’t know what Microsoft’s bands are- or if they even have them). The second thing to keep in mind is that you want to appear reasonable. If you ask for a particularly high salary, the interviewer or hiring manager might get the impression that you are either unreasonable or that if you accepted their offer at a considerably lower salary that you would be dissatisfied. Of course you want to get the maximum salary offer that you can from a new employer, but just make sure that you give a compensation number within reason.

What about giving a salary figure that is too low? Well now you don’t need to worry that you’ve sorely underpriced yourself just because you had no idea what to say. Now you know that as long as you are armed with the right information, you can ace any salary question in an interview. Do your research before you go, see what the company is actually paying for the position you’re interviewing for, decide how much you want the job and what you’re willing to accept as a salary, and maybe push the boundary a little with your initial salary request. As long as it’s reasonable, even if it’s high for them, you can still be in the game and land the job you want at the right price!