Major Career Goal Setting Mistakes You Are Likely Making

Executive Vice President five years in? Check. Six-figure salary by year three? Check. Corner office with a view of the city by year two? Check.

Admit it, at some point along your career path you thought one of the above (or something along those lines) was a realistic career goal expectation. We have all been there—usually when we were fresh college graduates getting ready to tackle the world for the first time.

Now, this isn’t saying you should not have big dreams or career aspirations. Trust me that is the last thing anyone wants for job seekers and professionals out there. What it is saying is that job seekers are making mistakes when it comes to setting goals for their career growth, and because some of those goals are pretty lofty to attain in such a short period of time, they are setting themselves up for disappointment before getting their feet wet.

After speaking to a recruiter in the employment industry, they provided two common career goal setting mistakes they have encountered when screening candidates and placing them with their clients. Let’s take a look at what they had to say.

It’s Not All About the Benjamins

A little known fact about the recruiting industry is that many recruiters are responsible for re-filling a job position for a client if the person hired leaves within a certain timeframe.

Why is this important? Because they usually have a good idea of when their candidates are taking a job for the wrong reasons—and this is something they detailed was a major career goal setting problem for job seekers.

“I recently had a placement leave their job within a couple of weeks, and I should have seen it coming. This person checked all of the boxes on paper, but something seemed off during the hiring process. Every time I asked them if the job would make them happy, they said the money I am getting paid will take care of that.”

The recruiter continued, “This should have been a major red flag for me, but the hiring manager loved my candidate and offered him the job on the spot in the first interview. After working there for less than a month, they told me they were not happy at the job and needed to find something else.”

The story of this placement being “all about the Benjamins” and then leaving within a month is a major cautionary tale for job seekers. We all have goals of rising up the ladder and making as much money as possible, but you must factor career happiness into your goal setting as well.

Clearly in the case of this job seeker, happiness was more important to them than they thought during the hiring process, and it not only burned the job seeker, but the company as well.

How can this be avoided in your own goal setting? Let’s ask the recruiter.

“Listen, money is important … but clearly happiness is more important. There are people out there who are going to tell people they won’t like their job, but that just is not the case. This is 2017, you have the opportunity to go to school for something you like, turn it into a career and get paid. If you are taking a job just for a paycheck, you should really re-evaluate your situation.”

Hard Work Doesn’t Always Pay Off

I can remember my family members saying this to me all the time growing up. “If you work hard, it will pay off in the end.” If they meant feeling burned out and being barely able to put together a 1,000-word article from working 10 and 12 hour days was the pay off, then they nailed that on the head—kidding.

In all seriousness, what the previous generations failed to mention to many professionals today is that there needs to be a work-life balance, and a lack of one could have a major negative impact on your life.

Speaking to our good recruiting friend from the previous section, they had an interesting quote about work-life balance. “Companies want you to eat, breathe and sleep your job, but then they wonder why so many employees are leaving their companies within a year or two. Many attribute it to the fact they couldn’t handle the work, but that is not the case when I speak to that placement when they are walking away.”

The recruiter continued, “Many of those walking away will tell me how they burned themselves out trying to make a major impact on the company right out of the gate. They kept getting positive reinforcement about how great their work was, so they pushed and pushed harder for that same sense of gratification. In the end, they could not give what they were giving early on and when the positive reinforcement went away, so did their motivation.”

The situation the recruiter detailed for us is a common one, and also a difficult line to walk for an employee. On one side, you have an employee who has goals and wants to prove themselves worthy. But on the other, you have to remember you are a person who can only burn the candle at both ends for so long.

How can you manage this?

It isn’t easy, but the best suggestion given to us by our recruiter friend was to set goals that are attainable within your required time IN the office. Sure, it is great to get that adoration from your manager for sending those emails at 8 p.m. at night and going the extra mile, but your personal life could likely be suffering at the same time—which will eventually lead to that crash and burn detailed above.

Final Word

It is never wrong to set career goals. Most job seekers want to climb the ladder, make a whole bunch of money and prove to themselves they can be the best at what they do.

But many make the mistake of forgetting to factor job happiness and work-life balance into the occasion. And when that happens, it can usually derails all of those career goals pretty quick.

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Job Resignation Mistakes: How Not to Walk Away

If you are anything like me, leaving your current company for a new opportunity is not as easy as most people think. Most of us have forged relationships with our co-workers and bosses, have dedicated countless hours to that company and want to see whatever we are working on through until it turns into something great.

However, sometimes there are circumstances that come up which cause many professionals to start looking for opportunity outside of their company. Promotion opportunities, financial reasons, family reasons, relocation and more usually power the ultimate decision to move on from your current company to a new one.

When the decision has been made to leave your company and accept a new position, there is one thing professionals do not want to do above all others—burn a bridge with their current employer. You never know who your current bosses or coworkers speak to on a regular basis or where their careers will take them, so they could end up being very valuable references and networking contacts in the near future.

With this in mind, there is a common question always asked to our team here at NexGoal—how do I quit?

Walking away is never an easy thing to do. We get even more questions from professionals we place in jobs all the time. How much time of a notice should I provide? Should I do it in person or through email? When should I tell the team? What happens if they offer to match my new salary offer?

The answers to all of the above questions are not easy, as they can change from situation to situation. But, we do have a few suggestions on how not to quit your job when you have decided to move on.

Do not send an email out of nowhere

In some situations, employers can see your move coming—but in others they have no clue. The last thing you want to do as a professional is to surprise them with an email out of nowhere to start or end their day. It could cause a knee jerk reaction and completely interrupt operations.

Instead, you should ask to speak to your direct report manager in person for a few moments. In this discussion, you should make them aware of the fact you are leaving the company right away. Thank them for the opportunity to work with them, and then inform them the new opportunity has come along and why it is important for you to take it.

Do NOT use this time as one to vent about all the things you have hated about working there, no matter how much you want to. This conversation is about being professional and maintaining a positive relationship with someone you have likely worked closely with for a long time. If you feel the need to vent about the negatives, save it for the exit interview with the human resources department.

Do not tell your colleagues before you tell your boss

In most places of employment, we become friends with the people we work with. That means you have conversations with them on the side about all things work and potential opportunities outside of the office.

While the majority of these conversations usually never amount to anything more than usual office banter, if the situation does arise where you are actually going to leave, you should wait until you have informed your boss before you tell your colleagues.

The last thing you want to do is become a distraction in the office, and that is exactly what will happen if you tell your colleagues before you tell your boss. Office gossip happens everywhere, and you will become the center point of it—up until the point where it gets back to your boss somehow before you have told him. This creates a potential feeling of disrespect and betrayal, and goes directly back to the point we made in the section above this one.

There is a time and place to tell your colleagues you are leaving, which you should discuss with your boss when you tell them first. They will likely want to call a meeting at the end of the day to inform everyone as a group that you have decided to move on, which will give you an opportunity to manage the “shock factor” all at one time.

Do not let your emotions come out in the notice

When you actually write the official notice with your intention to leave and exit date on it (after you have informed your boss), some professionals think of this as a time to inform human resources of the good and the bad of their tenure there. Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news—that is not the time either.

Your notice you should be short and to the point. A good example would be, “Please accept this as my notice of resignation from Company X. The last few years have given me great opportunities and a chance to work with a great team, but I have decided to move on. My last day of work will be (insert date here).”

I know what you are thinking right now, you have likely written that long, gushing notice where you told human resources how great it was to work there, how you will miss everyone and much more. There is absolutely nothing wrong with what you have done in the past, but moving forward you should adopt a more concise method and save all of the pleasantries for when you are talking to everyone in person.

Final Word

Leaving a company is never an easy thing to do, but no matter how you feel about your current situation you should do everything in your power not to burn bridges on the way out the door. You can ensure a smooth transition and positive relationship management for the future by taking the three steps outlined above.

Will doing these things guarantee that everyone likes you and nobody is mad at you for leaving? Absolutely not, there are always going to be bosses and colleagues that feel that way. But the more professional you act as you leave, the better you look in the long run when it comes to your career.

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Resume 101: Make These Mistakes and You Have No Shot

As a job seeker in the internet age, you have one chance to make a good first impression—and it likely will be weeks before you meet a hiring manager in person. With companies fully encompassed in accepting applications and resumes through their websites and via email, job seekers can be eliminated for jobs before having an opportunity to speak with a hiring manager in person or on the phone.

What does this mean for you as a job seeker? It means if you make a mistake on your resume, you are out before you have a chance to even talk about why you want to work at a company or why your experience makes you the best candidate for the job.

This week, we examine some of the top resume mistakes employers hate thanks to a survey from our friends over at CareerBuilder. We have also reached out to some recruiters in the industry to provide some feedback on these mistakes, and what you can do to avoid them as well.

Lying on Your Resume is a Bad Thing

For some reason, job seekers have gotten to the point where they think employers will not perform a background check. In the CareerBuilder survey, they were provided with a response that an applicant said he/she worked at a federal prison. When the employer performed the background check, they found out that applicant was actually in prison.

Technically they were not “lying,” since most prisoners do perform a job function while in prison. However, saying you work at a federal prison and actually working while in prison are two completely different things.

When we reached out to a recruiter about this matter (after they stopped laughing about the prison story), they had some choice words for job seekers.

“Sure, there may be a few companies out there who do not fact check every aspect of your resume…but why bother lying when the majority of them will? If you are lying about an experience you did not actually have in your work history and a company does not find it before you start, it is going to stand out once you get the job because you likely do not actually have that skill.”

Working in the digital world, I can vouch for what this recruiter is saying. So many people say they are proficient in things like SEO, email marketing and social media—but their experience is using a plug-in to handle SEO, sending an email to someone and composing a tweet. These people are weeded out very quickly at a new job when a website’s search ranking falls, their email marketing campaigns are not sent and they only send one or two social posts a day instead of having a complete social outreach plan.

Misspelling Words

resume-misspellings

This comic is funny, but you would not believe how many resumes have misspellings like this on them.

“One applicant said he/she had great attention to detail, but ‘attention’ was misspelled.”

That example was again from the great people at CareerBuilder and sadly is a real thing that happens with job seekers these days. I mean, think about that for a second—in a day and age where a red line appears under words that are misspelled thanks to this thing called spell check, someone still misspelled the word attention on their resume.

How can this be avoided? Well for starters, when you see a red line on your resume or cover letter, you should probably right click it to see what the issue is.

Secondly, one recruiter had this easy suggestion. “Ask a friend to read over your resume and cover letter before you hit submit. Seriously, even if your friend is not in the room with you they are likely one email away.”

Yeah, there really is not much more to say in this section. If you misspell something on your resume or cover letter, you are probably not getting the job. Also, bad grammar is something else to avoid. You should always have someone read your resume and cover letter before you hit submit.

Lack of Contact Information and Weird Hobbies

For this one, CareerBuilder actually reached out to those in the Twitter verse to ask what their biggest resume pet peeves were. Marvel Consultants responded, “Improperly and poorly formatted resumes with no contact info and sloppy/shady/shifty work history & weird listed hobbies.”

Okay first off, huh? If you are applying for a job and do not have at least three forms of contact information (phone, email and address) for a job on there, what are you doing? Your goal is to get a job if you are submitting a resume, so why would you not have contact information on there for someone to reach out to you for an interview?

Second, I want to know what constitutes as “weird listed hobbies.” I am not usually one to put hobbies on my resume to begin with, but what kind of things are people listing out there to get classified in the weird section to the point where consultants are actually turned off by their hobbies. On second thought, maybe I do not want to know.

Okay, I did want to know more about this—so I again reached out to another recruiter.

“You would not believe how many resumes I get that have bad phone numbers or email addresses on them. I always tell the candidates I am working with to verify their contact information before I submit them to a client.”

“Weird hobbies on the resume? Oh man, someone said they were proud of their gun collection on a resume once. Not that I have anything against guns, but I did not want the potential employer thinking they were going to be a future problem if something did not go their way—so I had them remove it.”

Final Word

Job seekers, your resume and cover letter are now essentially your first interview with a company. Remember how much time you put into preparing for that interview? All the research, all the question prep and your appearance? You need to put that effort into your resume and cover letter now.

There are so many templates out there for cover letters and resumes that it is almost inexcusable to not have something that is easy to read and provides all the information an employer would need before meeting you for an interview. If you are not getting called back for jobs you are applying to, maybe you need to go back to square one with your resume.

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Recruiter Reveals No. 1 Mistake Job Seekers Make in Salary Negotiations

How much are you worth?

Don’t act surprised by this question—it is one you have likely contemplated each day when you walk into your place of work. It is also a question you are going to have answer to your human resources department or a recruiter when you are negotiating your salary.

Surprisingly enough, most job seekers do not know the answer to this question when they are put on the spot. Despite numerous resources available at no charge on the internet, job seekers struggle when they are asked this question, and it could be costing them—both financially and reputation wise—when they are seeking a raise or looking to negotiate salary with a new company.

To find out just how common of an occurrence this is, we recently spoke to a member of the recruiting industry who asked to remain anonymous for the sake of the company and candidates he/she works with. This recruiter detailed a recent scenario that he/she says happens all the time for us below.

“Recently, I had an applicant reach out to me about a position I am hiring for. He seemed like a good fit for the company, so I asked what salary range he wanted to be in and he gave me the strangest answer,” stated the recruiter. The recruiter shared from his applicant, “That is a question that I have wondered, as I always leave it up to negotiation. But my criteria would be to live comfortably.”

The expression on the recruiter’s face was priceless when he shared this story with me. He had given the applicant an opportunity to say exactly how much he wanted to earn, instead the applicant gave him nothing to go back to the client with. Frustrated, the recruiter said, “This is something you should write about in your next blog post.”

So, here we are.

When it comes to negotiating salary, it seems job seekers are caught in the “great in between.” On one side of things, they want to make it worth their while if they are leaving a company, but on the other side they do not want to come off as asking for too much and not have a chance to interview and prove to the recruiter/hiring manager their worth.

This presents a problem for job seekers and hiring managers, which is why I have put together three recommendations when it comes to salary negotiations for job seekers this week.

Always know your worth

This seems like it would be common knowledge, but as detailed above most job seekers are not coming to the table with an understanding of how much to ask for. To help out, you need to determine what situation you are in.

This comic perfectly depicts the internal struggle that comes with salary negotiations.

If you are a current employee at a company looking to ask for a raise after a great year and standout performance, most in the industry suggest that companies budget five percent to give their employees as a raise, but actually give them two to three percent unless they ask for more. My suggestion? Do not go too crazy and ask for a 20 percent bump, but asking for 7.5 to 10 percent does not seem unreasonable—especially if your efforts directly correlated to large revenue gains.

On the other side, if you are considering leaving a current job for a new one you need to do a little bit more work. Research the national averages for your industry and then compare them to the region you are working in. If you have to move, factor in moving costs and expenses into your decision as well.

Before you come up with a number, it is also suggested you look at the entire package being offered. If your previous employer offered a 401k and your new employer does not, that needs to be factored in, as well as relocation, profit sharing or any other benefits you were receiving or were not receiving.

Support the sale

An article from the television show “Shark Tank” a few years back broke this down the best way possible. Barbara Corcoran (one of the Sharks) said, “You’ve got to remember that asking for a raise is a sales job. It’s not about if you deserve the raise, really. It’s how well-prepared you are, how you list your responsibilities. You should even have a category called ‘above and beyond’ on responsibilities and make sure the boss knows every little thing you’re doing above and beyond. You know what, you’ve got to sell! It’s about selling.”

While this is specifically geared to those asking for a raise, it has merit toward someone discussing salary with a recruiter or hiring manager. When discussing your asking salary, support it with facts. Show them the criteria you meet for the position they are hiring for, then tell them about how you plan on elevating their company to the next level. Sell yourself!

Be confident in your ask

Going back to the recruiting example above, the inability of the applicant to convey his ask to the recruiter can be interpreted in quite a few ways, one of them being a lack of confidence. If you as an applicant are not confident enough to say “this is how much I want and why I deserve it” when you are asked that question by a hiring manager or recruiter, how are you going to respond in their work setting? What happens when a client asks you to justify the price you are asking for whatever it is you are selling?

These questions and more are going to go through the head of the person who is tasked with recommending you for a job in their company when you are not confident enough to ask for a specific number in your salary discussions. Step up to the plate and be confident.

Final Word

When it comes to salary discussions, many job seekers seem to think providing a number is frowned upon by employers and potential employers. However, that could not be further from the truth.

Knowing your worth, selling yourself properly and having confidence in your salary negotiations approach all go a long way in getting what you feel you deserve. So take the advice above from those in the industry, and prepare yourself to the best of your abilities for your next salary negotiation.

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How We Helped a Sales Professional Find the Perfect Career Fit

At NexGoal, we take the placing of our athlete-candidates in their new careers very seriously—which is why our project coordinators spend so much time working with each candidate to put them in the best position to succeed. Once our candidates are placed, we like to take the time to share that candidate’s experience with all of you.

Recently, our team had the opportunity to work with Stephanie Riwitis to help her further a budding sales career. A former multi-sport athlete (dance, cheerleader, softball and basketball), Riwitis had the unique drive our client in the natural and engineered stone industry was looking for to join their team as an Outside Sales Representative.

When asked why she chose to work with NexGoal, Riwitis stated, They reached out to me several times. Alaryce Shea was the reason I continued to work through NexGoal.”

Next we asked Riwitis what she enjoyed most about her experience with us throughout the job placement process. “Accuracy, prompt responses, professionalism and friendly treatment.”

She continued about working with Alaryce, “Amazing … Alaryce is the only reason I even answered my email from NexGoal.”

Finally, we asked her why others should use NexGoal to help find their next career. She stated,

“Mainly because NexGoal made the process easy and also made a great fit between my new company and myself. I would have not found this company on my own.”

The team here at NexGoal would like to thank Stephanie for her kind words, and we wish her the best of luck in her new career!

If you are looking to change jobs and would like the team here at NexGoal to help you like we did Stephanie, you can start by filling out our athlete-candidate application here! We look forward to placing you in your “NexCareer!”

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