Anne Hull comes to us with a broad background in working with federal agencies and with
professional services firms on career development issues.
She is going to talk to us first, using that background.
Anne, can you give us two tips about people’s focus when they’re looking for a job?
What are two smart things they could do to improve their chances?
Well, thank you Patra.
I think one thing is true for people who are both looking for a new job, as well as people
who are trying to further their positions within their own organizations, is knowing
that they have mastered certain technical and functional skills of the position.
Employers are also looking for some of those other competencies that they demonstrated
that are important to the organization.
Some of these competencies might include things like problem solving that have sustainable
solutions, and examples of those.
Perhaps how they have managed resources, which includes not only money and budgets.
People, time, cost, equipment.
All those types of resources as well as their communication skills.
People’s reputations are made or broken on their communication skills.
So, how have they demonstrated having good communication skills?
Not only with their colleagues but also, across departments.
Across generations in many cases.
I think the other thing is how have they demonstrated their own character, their integrity and their
ethics, which are so vitally important these days.
The other thing particularly for job seekers is know what the organization does before
you have a chat, before you interview or before you talk with people at a job fair.
You can then tailor what you’ve done to match some of the things that their looking
for in areas that I’ve just talked about, but also in their functional and technical
areas.
Know the organization’s mission and goal and then tailor your needs to how that area
supports those missions and goals.
In order to get a job with a government contracting firm, tip number one is find ways to relate
to the government contracting firm.
The people who are in the firm as well as the type of work.
For instance, we know that the population of government contracting firms is largely
systems driven.
Populated largely by engineers.
In your interview show a comfort level in interacting with those engineers.
Process driven.
Government contracting firms are process driven to accomplish an objective, not just for the
process, but towards the objective.
Therefore, in your resume relate to that firm.
Show examples of processes that you may have used to a successful conclusion of a project
or a program that you managed.
Another tip is understand and do not ignore the culture of government contracting firms.
In other words, what they’re like.
These are conservative firms.
Don’t send your resume on pink paper in order to stand out.
You will stand out, we’ll have a good chuckle.
But the problem for you the job seeker would be a clear indication that you don’t understand
our culture.
It is a process driven organization and as such every thing adheres to a process.
We don’t short cut.
Know as an interviewee that interviewing and hiring follows a process.
You’re going to need to follow all those steps.
You can’t jump across a couple of steps or shortcut that process.
And finally, these are contract driven firms.
Don’t be surprised if during an interview you are asked, can you handle living with
the here-today-gone tomorrow nature of the contract-driven world?
And a bonus, tip three.
When you hire into a government contracting firm, a star is not born.
You are not there to become star.
Your mission is to support your client and make them the star.
Thank you both very much.
Now I know that today you’ve also been talking to a lot of job seekers and giving us a hand
with that difficult process for all of us when we look for work.
Anne, is there is one thing you noticed especially that you haven’t mentioned, that you think
jobs seekers really need to pay attention to on their resumes?
I talked to some very talented, exceptional people today.
It was a pleasure to work with them.
And I think, more often than not, I talked to people who weren’t clear about the type
of work they wanted to do.
And so, it does go back to focus.
Your resume needs to be focused toward the kind of work you want to do more of.
If there are jobs that you’ve had, you need to list them on your resume, but you probably
don’t need to go into much detail if it’s not the kind of work you want to do more of
because people tend to hire for the type of work they see on your resume.
So it’s one way to help pair down your resume to that vital two pages or less.
Take out the things that are not what you want to do more of.
And Nancy, what about the people you talked to?
I second what she said and the other thing that I found today is a lack of understanding
of what you want to put into the description of the work that you did for that position.
And I’m talking about accomplishments.
It seems that the large lack in the resumes that I saw today was we have the job duties
listed.
But, the part that was lacking is “and what was the outcome of performing that duty.”
You will come across as a much stronger candidate if you will sort of complete the job, complete
the process.
Duty plus what was the outcome.
Great.
Thank you both.
I really appreciate your taking time to give our viewers a chance at improving that lovely
job search that none of them wants to do, but all of them need to succeed in.
Thank you.