Candidate Newsletter - November 2007

In this Issue:

Topic of the Month: "It's All Good"
The Big Three
NEW Feature! Ask the Construction Career Doctor!
Article: Super Speed Passenger Trains in the U.S.
This Issue's Cartoon!

Topic of the Month: It's All Good

Steven Johnson’s 2005 best-seller Everything Bad Is Good for You argues the controversial position that modern popular entertainment (video games and prime time television shows, for example) are not only not detrimental to Americans’ cognitive and moral development, but that those forms of entertainment which often capture a kid’s imagination help today’s pop-culture consumers trend ever upward. Role-playing video games and reality shows require complex and quick “cognitive work” – strategies and judgments and interaction – which games and shows of past generations did not demand.

What does that have to do with your situation?

Well, let me assume something about your situation. You are a talented construction professional who works hard and well in your particular niche in the industry, but for some legitimate reason, you are not satisfied with your status right now. Maybe you are eager to challenge yourself and take on greater responsibility, join a company of go-getters. Maybe your company is family-owned and you can’t move forward. Maybe your employer lost a few projects they were counting on and has to downsize.

So, if that’s you, and you are hoping to find a new position that will let you advance your career, think about the implications of the Steven Johnson book we discussed above. There is a very good chance that every institution, as a whole, is getting smarter.

If that’s true, then you have to be smarter, too, smarter than they are, and faster moving, to end up with the position you want.

And again, you might ask, “Why bother?”

Here’s how to do that.

1. Think a day ahead of everyone else.

• Don’t spend time perusing day-old newspapers for tomorrow’s opportunities. Instead, you need to visit ConstructionJobs.com, which is a storehouse of opportunities in your specific market.
• We add new postings every day, in every state in the union, and from leading companies.

2. Take advantage of technology that others might be ignoring.

• Post your resume on our site, and set up your account so that jobs with keywords will come to you.
• Update your information often so that your name stays prominent, and check the site frequently so that you will be among the first to reply when something seems to match your talent and aims.

3. Mine the technology for information.

• Make connections, gather names, get addresses, introduce yourself, widen your horizons.
• The Internet – and specifically a web board like ConstructionJobs.com that focuses narrowly and penetrates deeply into your field – is a tool that can work as tirelessly and creatively as you want it to.

4. Introduce yourself with confidence and clarity.

• Look at your resume. Does it introduce you to a prospective hiring authority with the kind of verve and confidence that your abilities merit?
• If your experience includes accomplishments that deserve to be on display, make sure that a hiring authority sees it instantly.
• Remember, you have ten, fifteen, maybe twenty seconds to make an impression that will force an executive to notice you.
• Lead off with your greatest achievement: a project manager who finished a job a month ahead of schedule, made an extra half a million dollars’ profit, and reduced worker’s comp claims by 25% ought to make sure that’s the first thing someone reads about him.

Remember, there’s a chance that everyone is getting smarter. If that’s true, then you must remain alert and active to position yourself to earn the opportunity you want. Everything Bad Is Good For You, someone once said, but that doesn’t include missing out on the dream job that you need.

Article by:
Kristen Ripmaster
Sales Associate, Florida
Construction Jobs, Inc

Newsletter Sponsor

The Big Three

Hiring authorities read hundreds and maybe thousands of resumes as part of their efforts to attract the finest professionals to their companies. These hiring authorities all search for one defining trait when evaluating these resumes and trying to separate the wheat from the chaff.

What is it that successful construction companies always remember to look for on a professional’s resume? A phrase we’ve heard before, and from more than one source, is that they are all looking for evidence that a candidate (you, for instance) can accomplish these big three things: Make Money, Save Time, and Solve Problems.

When yours might be one drop of water in a sea of resumes that someone has to wade through in hopes of finding a candidate who emerges due to their quality of experience and talent, we suggest that you make a point of trumpeting your successes in those areas.

If your resume does not currently reveal – clearly and quickly – how you can make a prospective employer money, save them time, or solve problems for them, you may not readily appear to be as strong a candidate as you actually are.

The Sales Associates at ConstructionJobs.com encourage the candidates who post their resumes on our website (you, for example!) to reconfigure your profile to highlight those projects and decisions in their careers that caused them to make money, save time, and solve problems for past and current employers. By doing so, you might just save yourself some time, solve a problem, and even make yourself some money by finding a great new job.

Article: Super Speed Passenger Trains – A Solution for Improved Passenger Transport in the United States

You might ask “why would the author write an article about Super Speed Passenger Train (SSPT) developments in the United States and present it on a construction jobs web site? The answer is simple. New jobs!
» Read Full Article

ConstructionJobs has helped thousands of job seekers all across America find employment. Our award-winning job board and resume database is endorsed by various top national associations (see Partners) as their preferred partner of online recruiting representing over 50,000 contractors and design firms. For more information or assistance with your account, please email us at: info@constructionjobs.com.

Happy Searching,
The ConstructionJobs Team