It is now proper job-seeking etiquette to send your interviewer a thank you note when the first meeting is over. In fact, many hiring managers will take notice if you don’t follow up with some sort of acknowledgment. Not only is a post-interview thank you note a great way to network, it can also help you clarify information that was discussed during (or omitted from) the meeting.

Handwritten Cards

The most common post-interview thank you notes are sent via snail mail. Any local greeting card store will sell a variety of thank you cards, but you don’t need to be creative here. Avoid anything humorous or unprofessional. Ideally, you should choose a thank you card with a conservative cover and nothing written on the inside. You will handwrite this part.

Email

If you have been corresponding with your would-be employer through email, it would not be deemed inappropriate to follow up in this fashion. Virtual correspondence is more commonplace in the business world than ever before. While you do not want to email a thank you “ecard,” you can write a professional email to follow up and thank your interviewer for his or her time.

What to Say

Whether you are using snail mail or email, the sentiment will be the same. You will want to express how much you enjoyed meeting with your interviewer and thank him or her for the opportunity. You may wish to reiterate why you feel you are a good fit for the position. If you feel you left the interview without clarifying certain points, do so now.

Thank you notes can even give you a forum to do some damage control. If you were five minutes late to the interview due to traffic, for instance, you can express your regret again for the faux pas. Remember, this will be a hiring manager’s last impression before he or she makes a decision. Use this medium wisely and you could increase your prospects of being short listed for the position.

This article is contributed by Heather Johnson, who regularly writes on the topic of career exploration. She invites your questions and writing job opportunities at her personal email address: heatherjohnson2323@ gmail.com.

The panel interview, otherwise known as the “tag-team interview” or the “team interview” causes great stress for many candidates. For those people who are already terrified of meeting one-on-one with one hiring manager, the panel interview can be a nightmare.

The key to managing interviewing stress is the same for all kinds of interviews – Preparation. Plan for your panel interview in the same way you would for all other interviews and don’t let the thought of multiple interviewers or recruiters add to your stress.

Here are a few tips for success in the panel interview.

1. Make eye contact with more than one person on the panel. One person may have asked you the question, but you are still addressing your answer to everyone on the panel.
2. Take extra copies of your resume and business cards to the interview.
3. Do not be distracted by strange or odd behaviors you perceive from the interviewers. Some may have been called in at the last minute and you really don’t know what else is happening at the company.
4. Try to get contact information for the interview panel. You will want to thank everyone.
5. Fee free to ask questions of any or all the interviewers on the panel. You may get additional insight into other areas of the company.
6. Manage your stress before, not during, the panel interview. Get there early so you will have time for some deep breathing exercises before you get before the interviewers.

Marcia Robinson writes and trains on career, workplace and employment issues for BullsEyeResumes.com. She has more than 9 years experience in higher education and 14 years of business experience in the Hospitality and Technology sectors. Robinson holds a BS in Business Management and a MBA with emphasis in Human Resources.

Mary Ellen from the Washington Post reaffirmed an important job search notion when she was asked from some of her readers whether they should still apply to a company even if there is no advertised job opening. The answer is a resounding “YES.” Job openings are not always advertised. The truth is, you never really know until you try.

Nothing’s Posted? You Should Apply Anyway, Washington Post

There is an interesting article in The Seattle Times discussing a benefit often overlooked in terms of using headhunters. The good ones can open doors that may at first glance seem closed. For instance, there is this example of a candidate who’s application got rejected by the HR department, but that the headhunter was able to get through. As the article specified, not all headhunters can do these “magic” tricks. You need a “good” one, meaning that doing background work on your headhunter would be a good idea.

Since headhunters get paid upon results, they might have a bigger incentive to land you a job. Many job applications go through the HR department, but get lost in the shuffle or in the initial screen. Some headhunters specialize in specific industries and may have connections going beyond the HR department; therefore they can lend their weight to a job application.

Headhunter Can Open Door You Can’t Get Through, The Seattle Times

Recently, I surveyed 159 job seekers by email, asking them this question: “What is the biggest problem in your job search right now?”

The responses were intriguing and I had a hard time boiling the problems down to a manageable number to answer here.
But I did.

So, here are three of the most common job-search problems — as chosen by you, my readers — with my proposed answers.

Read on to see if your problem is solved here …

To read the rest of this article, please click here: 3 Common Job Search Problems

Most articles on the Web dealing with job interviews seem to cater to new graduates or job seekers looking for entry-level positions, as if with time people suddenly become good at it… That is, obviously, wrong. Interviewing needs practice and even if someone did well in an interview few years back, he or she needs to re-practice to get in shape again. CIO.com has a refresher for executive interviews: How to Ace an Executive-Level Job Interview. This article goes through the whole interview process and gives some very good practical tips.

As a professional career marketer and coach, I have always reminded clients to market themselves into both the published and “unpublished” segments of the job market. The most effective part of reaching the unpublished segment is normally contacting potential employers with a well-crafted marketing letter.

We recently sent out 1100 mailings for a well-qualified mid-level manager, and got about the expected 2% response, with several phone calls, emails and letters. And what did half of the responses say? Basically, “Please go to our website and fill out the forms there.”

We all dread the drudgery of filling out a long list of forms on multiple websites. Here are two tricks that you can use to decrease your time in emailing resumes and cover letters in response to published openings. The best part is that both are absolutely free and one is probably already on your computer.

Responding to published openings on websites is a boring, repetitive task. But with so many openings listed, you can’t ignore this part of the job market. These tricks will speed your form-filling and emailing to a few minutes each so that you can get the coverage you need.

Write a Cover Letter with Just a Few Clicks:

Microsoft Outlook can create a cover letter for those openings that request that you send a cover letter and resume to an email address. Most of the job postings on CraigsList use this approach, so simplifying the process will allow you to respond to openings there at a rate of about one per minute. If you aren’t using CraigsList, you are missing out on a great source of immediate, local opportunities.

The exact steps will depend on what version of Outlook you are using, but the fundamentals are the same. Go to Tools/Options and click on the Mail Format tab. Click on the Signatures button to open the Create Signature dialog. Click on the “New…” button.

Enter an identifying name for the new signature, like “Employer Letter”. In the Signature Text box, write a good, basic cover letter (you can always edit it when you use it). My clients can cut-and-paste from their Published Opening cover letter into the box. You can include basic formatting here like typeface and font size, but HTML will need to be entered via the Advanced Edit button, which will open your HTML editor of choice.

Don’t let the formatting get in the way of your message though.

To use what you have created:

1. Click on the Mailto link in the job posting. This should open a new message window in Outlook with the “To:” and “Subject:” fields already filled in.
2. Click on Insert/Signature and select the signature you created in the steps above. Make any editing changes you need to make.
3. Click Insert/File (or the paper clip icon) and select the resume you want to attach. Don’t forget to attach the resume!
4. Click “Send” and you are done!

If you are targeting a specific type of job, you may only need to change “Dear Sirs” to “Dear Mr. Jones”.

Use Roboform to Auto-Fill Your Resume into Web Forms:

We have recommended the free Roboform password and form-filling software for several months. Beyond the fact that you can (and should) use different login/password combinations on different boards to avoid your personal information being stolen, you can create custom form fields and have Roboform fill them in for you. Here is how we get Roboform to automatically fill your resume into websites:

1. In Roboform, edit the Identity you are using for your job search. In the free version, you may want to have an identity called “Personal” and another called “job search”. If you have the Roboform toolbar in your browser, left-click the first icon and select Identities/Edit. This will open a tabbed window in the Identity Editor.
2. Fill out as many of the fields as you can. Phone, address, email, position, salary, etc., using the information you want to submit for job applications. This may be very different from your personal information. For example the “Business” tab will typically populate fields asking for your current position information, so change them as needed. On the “Authentication” tab, be sure to leave the “Favorite Password” field blank.
3. Select the “Custom” tab. This tab should show fields for “Field Name”, “Field Value” and “Other Match Strings”.
4. In the Field Name box, type “resume”.
5. In the Field Value box, cut and paste the text version of your resume. It may look a little strange, since the box will stretch to show the entire resume.
6. In the Other Match Strings Box, type “paste”. Since most web forms indicate “Paste your resume here”, Roboform will paste your resume into any boxes it finds asking for either “resume” or “paste”.
7. When filling out an application on Monster, CareerBuilder or employer website, Roboform should automatically populate much of the application when you select the “Job Search” identity. If it doesn’t right-click an empty part of the page, and select “Fill Forms” from the menu.

Finally, be sure to use the services on the big boards. Set search agents and post profiles/resumes on SimplyHired, Indeed, Monster, CareerBuilder, and others related to your profession, like Dice.com and JobsInTheMoney.com as appropriate. Be sure to use a separate email address when publishing your credentials publicly so you won’t have to live with the inevitable spam forever. Your ISP offers multiple email addresses, so use them. Yahoo and Hotmail email addresses are not recommended.

Websites made recruiting fast and easy for employers and search firms. There is no reason is should be any more boring and difficult for you than necessary!

Peter Dunn publishes www.Career-Hunter.info, a collection of websites and blogs aimed at providing the best career marketing techniques available to seasoned professionals.

The “CIO” had an interesting article by Phil Rosenberg in which he elaborates on what he calls “the dead zone.”  The dead zone is basically what happens to resumes which are sent in, but never read.  With the advance of technology, many multinationals now use computer programs to screen applications to retain only the ones which match specific criteria.

Many job seekers don’t know this or are just too lazy to tailor their resumes.  They might not know this, but this contravenes to one of the key rules of resume writing, which is to research the employer (including the employer’s recruiting practices) and write your resume accordingly.  This means that if a company only accepts applications online, it may be wise to assume that a computer program will be used to screen your application.  What Phil Rosenberg suggests is that you include specific keywords in your resume and customize your resume for the specific position.  That way, your resume will not end up lost in the digital world.

The Dead Zone - Why 97% of Resumes Are Never Read, CIO.com

It’s almost that time of year again, when newly graduating seniors hit the job market in search of a paycheck.

I don’t know about you, but everything I know about job hunting I learned after college. Like how to network and write an effective resume, for example.

So, to give you graduating seniors a leg up, I interviewed two career experts to uncover 5 ways for new grads to find a job faster. This is the stuff I wish they taught in school …

1) Cast a wide net

In a declining economy such as we face now, you have to expand your options. If you’ve looked only at large corporations, start looking at small businesses, non-profits, universities, government jobs — a huge area of job growth — and other types of employers,” advises Lindsey Pollak, Author of “Getting from College to Career: 90 Things to Do Before You Join the Real World.”

To read the rest of this article, please click here: 5 Job-Search Tips for New Grads

WorkBloom is accepting contributions from career coaches and HR professionals. If you are interested in being featured as a guest blogger on WorkBloom, following are the terms:

• We ask that you make at least 2 entries per month.
• Your entries will be subject to basic editing to ensure consistency (the substance will not change and probably that the only things that will be fixed will be typos).
• You can have a short biography at the end of your entry with a link to your website to promote your services.
• You must have good writing skills (warning to SEO guys, this is not for you).
• Entries can be as short as commenting on an article you read somewhere else, which we already do.
• You will be added as a “contributor” and will be able to add the entry yourself, with accompanying images if you’d like.

If you are interested, please email us at info@workbloom.com.

Thanks!!