TheLadders - $100K job search engine for senior-level executives

Click through for common resume errors you should fix before sending out your next resume, as identified by TheLadders .

No offense, thebigcheese@domain.com, but if nobody has told you yet, The Ladders is telling you now: That email address is not making you look particularly professional.

Unprofessional email addresses are just one way of sending hiring managers the wrong message. If you want to be taken seriously when you apply for jobs, you need to put some polish on your resume, your cover letter and everything contained therein, as hiring professionals repeatedly run across red flags that scream "unprofessional."

This slideshow features common errors recruiters and HR managers shared with TheLadders from their own professional experiences.

One of the most daunting, and potentially tricky situations during the interview process is discussing salary. Whether it's discussing your salary at your current position or negotiating a salary with a potential employer, salary negotiations are a subject you may feel like you should tread on lightly. At TheLadders we believe that everyone can become a skilled negotiator during their job hunt by approaching the situation in the correct manner. Merely spitting out any number that you feel you deserve will not guarantee positive results. Rather, knowing what you're worth and how much your potential position is paying may yield better results. Familiarizing yourself with current salary ranges for employees in your field will help you to develop a number that is both beneficial and realistic. Taking into account your personal and professional expertise will help you to develop a salary range to offer your potential employer. Remember, research is key to salary negotiation. The more informed you become, the more likely you will be to acquire that desired salary.

The Ladders helps to develop your skills to not only land you your dream job, but to achieve your preferred salary. If you're currently in the interview process, remember that salary negotiations do not have to be nerve-racking. Following the "10 Commandments of Salary Negotiation" will provide you plenty of guidance during your interview process.

Preparing for an interview usually includes preparing for questions that a potential employer may ask you. Creating a role play situation with family or close friends will help to ease the stress on the day of the interview. What many people do not prepare themselves with is questions that you may ask the potential employer.

Routinely the last question the employer will have is: "Do you have any questions for me." This allows the employer to gauge the applicant's interest and research on the company. For many companies, this is the moment of truth that may set you apart from other applicants.

The Ladders offers some great articles and tips on questions to ask your interviewer. Do not pass the opportunity over. Do your research on the company and the interviewer prior to the day of the interview. Let the interviewer know that you have done your homework. Here are some ideas on questions to ask:

-Inquire about future plans for their company. Where do they see their business in five or ten years?
-What do they perceive as their company's greatest assets?
-How do they rate or judge their competition?
-What were the pros and cons of the last person who held the position you are interviewing?
-What is the communication flow of the company? What departments oversee the different aspects of the company?
-Have people within this department moved on within the company?
-What is the room for growth within the company?
-What are the immediate challenges you as an employee will need to focus your attention?

There are many questions that you should steer away from during an interview as well. Here are topics to not bring up during the interview.

-When will I be able to get a raise?
-How do I go about taking sick or personal days?
-How many warnings do you get before you get fired?
-Will I have to work overtime?
-Is there dress down days?

Where executive jobs still are in a bleak market TheLadders.com, a job board for managers in the $100,000-a-year-and-up category, reported that more than 400 employers and recruiters signed on in the last three months of the year, looking to hire executives. "It's critical for job seekers to keep a sense of perspective about the downturn, because there are still companies hiring," says TheLadders.com president Alexandre Douzet.

This is often the question asked by employees who have just landed a new job. Should I add my coworkers on Twitter, Facebook, and/or LinkedIn? Social networking sites have recently become a popular tool used by job recruiters in an attempt to learn more information about potential candidates. Rumors have surfaced that some companies have fired employees or do not offer positions to job applicants based on the information that can be found on their social networking profiles. It turns out that these rumors are actually true. A 2009 survey by Harris Interactive, a market research firm based in New York City, reported that forty-five percent of employers use social networking sites to screen potential employees, compared to only 22 percent of employers the year prior. Eleven percent of employers planned to start using social networking sites for the screening process. You can read more about the survey in this New York Times article.

This has spurred many individuals to set up strict privacy settings on their social profiles in order to prevent the release of "unprofessional" information. But what about after you are offered a position and have worked a job for a period of time? Is it officially safe to reveal your social profiles to your coworkers and managers?

It would be justifiable to assume that you could safely add coworkers and bosses on the professional networking site LinkedIn. This is the exact reason that LinkedIn was created. Also, people rarely share any incriminating information on their LinkedIn profiles. For all intents and purposes, LinkedIn is strictly meant for business only and users typically keep it that way. Facebook and Twitter are often the sites that job seekers are most concerned about. To avoid this sticky dilemma, some users opt to create two separate accounts for each social network; a personal and a professional. But this can be time consuming and inconvenient. Facebook recently added additional privacy settings in order to secure your information from those you don't know. Manipulating your settings will allow you to hide specific details that you would rather not reveal about yourself. If you happen to add coworkers to your social networking sites after you start your new job, make sure to avoid posting material that could be considered unprofessional.

In today's world, we are all readily connected to each other through social networks. Keeping your personal and private information secret isn't as easy as it once was. If you're concerned about what coworkers may find on your social networking sites, make sure to think carefully before accepting friend requests. Most importantly, make sure to keep your personal information off of social networking sites all together. If utilized correctly, social media can be used to promote yourself. It could mean the difference between getting hired and being fired.

At The Ladders we believe that social media is an important tool for sharing your accomplishments, engaging peers and perspective employers, and building your personal brand. Make sure your social media profiles are portraying you in a positive light to potential employers. They may just help you land your next 100k job.

Want to advance your career? Are you looking for more opportunity in your current field? Sometimes the idea comes around about whether or not quitting your current job is the way to go. No one person can decide if that decision is right; weighing the pros and cons with a mate or financial advisor is the best way to decide what to do.

According to USA Today, in June of 2010 the numbers of people who quit their jobs was finally higher than the number of layoffs. Is this a sign that the economy is coming back? If people have the confidence that they can quit their job in the current economy, then things may be stabilizing on the way to normalcy.

Relying solely on internet classifieds, newspaper classifieds, and word of mouth may not be enough to land a job once you quit. The amount of people applying for a single position has increased, and "knowing before you go" is very crucial to the job market. Arming yourself with a plan can make or break your ability to procure your next position.

That's why having a company like The Ladders is so important to your success. Our business is to get people jobs. Our focus is on how to best market an individual for success, and how to market a company to hire successful employees.

When people have been at a position for an extended amount of time, simple things like resume writing become a foreign concept. We offer tips and ideas on how to keep your resume current and make you look marketable. Often times the resume is the first line of communication that a potential employer has with an applicant; first impressions are crucial.

If you decide to quit your job, make sure your reasons are valid. Stand behind your decision, and keep moving towards that next move!!

For more views of TheLadders, check out TheLadders' official Blog!

Have you ever left an interview feeling positive and confident, only to later find out that you were not offered the job? Did you rack your brain and replay the interview again and again; obsessing about what went wrong? Well, thanks to social media, employers and potential employers are not only checking references, but your social media sites as well; many times without you knowing.

When you become a Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter member you are essentially allowing the world access to your private life. In fact, according to an article by MSN.com, "a survey ran by the Ponemon Institute, a privacy think tank, 35 percent of hiring managers use Google to do online background checks on job candidates, and 23 percent look people up on social networking sites. About one-third of those Web searches lead to rejections, according to the survey." The world is different than it was ten years ago, and the approach to job hunting and hiring has changed as well.

Many people have been passed over from inappropriate pictures to incessant rants on Twitter without even knowing they were being looked at%u2026.Knowing how to set up privacy settings, as well as knowing where you appear on Google searches is a good start to make sure your reputation is "clean." The Ladders is a group of professionals that know the ins and outs of making sure that you have not left a trail of mishaps along the internet highway. We are dedicated to help people secure that dream job.

Did you make a decision to change jobs thinking that it would benefit you and your family? Did you take that leap with both feet and are you now wishing you could jump back? Already hating that new job? Well%u2026.you are not alone%u2026According to the United States Labor Department in 2010, the average time a person stays at a job is 4.1 years. Giving the estimate that college graduate will end up having between 7-10 jobs in his or her lifetime.

The days of employees staying with a company for decades has ended. Education is one career where the longevity of the job is high. Recent industries and jobs are used to people moving on and adding to their resume.

The Ladders offers serious applicants the opportunity to access 100K jobs and see what the industry of choice is offering and looking for. We also offer articles on job seeking while you currently have a job, and ways to keep it to yourself. You are not locked into any job, but each job gives you experience needed to move forward.

Identifying what you do not like about your job is your first step. Making a pros and cons list will help you to see on paper the good and bad points of your job. Having a clear view of your current situation is imperative. Bottom line%u2026..If you are not happy, then no one is going to be happy%u2026.and your job performance is going to suffer.

The job market has become more competitive in the past few years. The economy and stock market crash, it has put people at an all time low financially. Retired workers invested their money to live off of in their Golden Years, only now they are looking at dwindled bank accounts and unpaid bills. This puts them back on the job hunt.

Wisdom and experience were once thought of as a sure fire way to secure a position. Many past retirees have expressed frustration in their quest for a new job. With the advancement in technology, many younger applicants seem to have an edge on the ins and out of technology. Many careers require their applicants to have a firm knowledge of certain computer programs, and the older pool of applicants may not be as familiar with them.

Another misconception is that those with years of experience want a salary that reflects their former job. Many companies assume that applicants want to be compensated and highly regarded for their number of years of service, but for some retirees it is simply a means of a second income to offset their needs.

The Ladders offers career advice and tips if you are looking to re enter the workforce. No matter what the reason, figuring out a way to re-brand yourself is most important.

The Ladders wins Webby Award for Best Website in Employment and Best Rich Media: B to B for the $100K Experiment

TheLadders wins Webby for Employment website

TheLadders wins Webby for Rich Media: B to B

Where the six-figure jobs are Think there's no high-paying jobs out there? Think again. You just need to know where to look. Robert Turtledove, chief marketing officer at TheLadders.com, a jobs site catering to six-figure careers, says there are certain sectors of the economy full of companies looking to hire the next generation of leaders.

The Six-Figure-Job Hunt The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits may have hit a 26-year high, but there are still lots of jobs open, because no matter how grim the economic forecast, at least some workers will change jobs voluntarily or retire. "Companies may not be making expansionary or discretionary hires," says
Marc Cenedella, founder of TheLadders.com a subscription service that lists only jobs that pay $100,000 and up. "But even in a downturn, there's still 20% to 25% natural turnover per year."

U.S. survey shows executives delaying retirement As the U.S. economy buckles, executives are delaying retirement, cutting back on their pension savings and trimming contributions to their children's college funds, according to a survey released on Thursday.

A large majority of 86 percent plan to keep working an average of seven and a half years longer due to their shrinking retirement savings, said the poll by TheLadders.com, an online recruiting firm, that surveyed 1,162 executives.

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NEW YORK, Sept. 1, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- TheLadders.com, the leading recruitment solution for professional talent ($100K+), recently conducted a study that compared TheLadders and LinkedIn. The study demonstrated the enormous amount of time recruiters saved by using TheLadders services, most notably FitFinder, and the increased efficiency as a result of the reduction in time spent sourcing.

On average, recruiters using The Ladders FitFinder spent 8.6 minutes per accepted candidate versus recruiters who used LinkedIn to source talent, and spent 106.4 minutes per accepted candidate. FitFinder was as much as twelve times more efficient at finding acceptable candidates.

By using FitFinder, recruiters are teamed with specially-trained sourcing experts called "Talent Specialists" who find the most highly-qualified candidates that can be contacted immediately for a job requisition. With TheLadders FitFinder, 70% of candidates are accepted by recruiters as a fit for their position.

The focus of TheLadders is to help job seekers find the right job to fit their career goals. The full suite of job search solutions provided by TheLadders includes timely access to relevant jobs, confidential candidate-to-recruiter connections, personalized career coaching and professionally rewritten resumes.

These offerings, once exclusive to $100K+ salaried professionals, will be available to all professional careers looking for the next opportunity to move their careers forward on September 20th.

"Our talent specialists are up to the task of finding the most difficult jobs to source, and can save recruiters countless precious hours of work per week," said Alex Douzet, president of TheLadders. "The study highlights the positive impact FitFinder and TheLadders can have on recruiters to source the pivotal talent they need."

For immediate information related to staffing, recruiters can call TheLadders to speak with an enterprise representative or visit recruit.theladders.com/expansion. For professionals interested in learning more about the expanded services soon to be offered by TheLadders, please visit www.theladders.com/expansion .

About TheLadders.com

TheLadders has been committed to finding the right person for the right job since 2003. With a unique suite of personalized products and resume services, this career-focused online service helps job seekers connect with employers and recruiters more effectively and efficiently. Given its heritage as the leader in the $100K+ job search, TheLadders is dedicated to the science behind the job search and optimally positioned to help all career-driven professionals in finding the right jobs. Opening services beyond $100K+ positions allows recruiters and employers more options when looking to hire professionals at other stages of their careers. TheLadders.com is headquartered in New York with offices in London. For more information please read TheLadders Blog and visit http://www.theladders.com/ .

*About the Study

Six month study conducted between January and July 2011

Study included 33 recruiters, all paying clients of TheLadders.com and LinKedIn, from staffing /recruitment agencies as well as recruiters working for large corporations using both LinkedIn for recruiters and TheLadders FitFinder Service to fill the same $100K+ positions

On average, recruiters using TheLadders FitFinder spent 8.6 minutes per accepted candidate per job

On average, recruiters who used LinkedIn to source talent spent 106.4 minutes per accepted candidate per job

Results are statistically significant at 95% confidence level

SOURCE TheLadders.com

Copyright (C) 2011 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

You're pressed for time, pressed for budget, pressed to just get the position filled.

So why would you use a solution that takes twelve times as long and costs twelve times as much to source a qualified candidate?

We ran a six-month test across 33 recruiters - all paying clients of both TheLadders and LinkedIn - and asked them to record their results in a head-to-head comparison.
The outcome?

The Ladderscommunity is superior for filling your jobs quickly and cost-effectively:
- 5 mm career-minded professionals
- Interested in keeping abreast of the market
- Not just a modern day "phonebook" of contact info
- Full resumes where available enable easier screening for you
- Emotional profile questions let you know more about what the candidate is looking for
- Talent Specialists at TheLadders stand ready to do the work for you
All of which means your total costs of recruiting could be 12x lower and your time spent sourcing could be 12x less when you use TheLadders.

So, sure, cold-calling and spamming candidates might seem to work in the short run, but it takes too much time, too much money and is too much of a risk to your employment brand.

And in this kind of economy, you can't afford any of those risks. Give us a call, or better yet, give us another requisition, today, and we'll help get you there faster%u2026

Read more from Marc Cenedella, TheLadders, Founder & CEO Blog

This article was originally posted on Business Insider

It's so easy to get your name out these days. But to what end? Just like all corporate-branding plans, your personal-branding activities need to be a part of a well-conceived strategy - one that will help you achieve your goals and increase your professional fulfillment.

As I watch people build their personal brands on the Web, I see a lot of personal-branding disasters - efforts that detract from brand value rather than increase it. Here are the personal-branding mistakes I see repeated over and over. Avoid them to build a powerful and compelling presence that increases your brand equity.

1. Be Fake.

Personal branding is not about fabricating a persona; strong personal brands are based in authenticity. You can't start building your brand until you understand who you are, what you want and what makes you exceptional. What are your superpowers? What do others think about you? Don't create an image; be yourself - your best self. As writer/aviator Anne Morrow Lindbergh once said, "The most exhausting thing you can be is inauthentic."

2. Be Wishy-washy.

Trying to be all things to all people is the opposite of branding. Strong brands take a stand and often repel as many people as they attract. You need to know what you want to communicate and how that message differs from what your peers are communicating. What's your area of thought leadership? What's your position? How do you want to express your personality? Answer these questions, and stick to your guns.

Find other ways to stand your ground "Like" The Ladders on Facebook.

3. Act Before You Think.

Thanks to the availability and ease of social media, you can increase your visibility very quickly. But visibility is not the same as effective personal branding. If you don't have a clear plan - a message that you want to communicate consistently along with a strategy for expressing yourself - you will create confusion rather than build a fan club. Personal branding requires thinking before acting. What's your overall communications plan? Which communications vehicles are the best for you? How will you link your communications activities? Answer these questions before putting finger to key!

4. Talk Just for the Sake of It.

I see some people tweet multiple times an hour - re-tweeting anything they see, reposting their own tweets - just to seem like they have a lot to say. And I've seen similar misguided fervor on blogs. People can see through this. It's better to make a few high-quality posts to your blog or tweets that add value to your brand community than to be associated with content that is vapid, regurgitated or stale. Create content when you have something thoughtful to say that is valuable to your brand community and reinforces what you want people to know about you. Quality trumps quantity.

5. Aim for as Many Contacts as Possible.

Branding is not about fame; it's about selective fame. The only people who need to know you are those decision makers and influencers who can help you reach your goals. Trying to be everywhere with your message will exhaust you without adding much value to your brand. Think about your target audience, then research the best places on the Web to express yourself. The scattershot approach isn't very effective and it isn't very fulfilling, either.

6. Switch Tools Often.

Social media is attractive, so attractive that some people jump onto the latest social media tool with reckless abandon. I was speaking with an executive the other day who told me that he was a big fan of social media. When LinkedIn came along, he worked hard to connect with everyone he ever met. After time, he lost interest. Then Facebook gained prominence; he began "friending" all his LinkedIn contacts, and he updated his status hourly. He became tired of this as well and switched his attention to Twitter. This approach will not only wear you out, it will do little to build brand value. Choose the social media tools you are going to use and commit to using them regularly.

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7. Forget Traditional Vehicles.

The ubiquity of social media has convinced some that personal branding is an exclusively Web-based activity. Sure, social media has made it much easier to express yourself to a much larger audience, but it doesn't replace real-world relationships and communications.
I started my personal-branding business, Reach, almost a decade ago - long before Facebook, blogs and Twitter existed. Before social media, personal branding was focused on real-world activities, like public speaking and publishing books. A lot has changed in the world of personal branding since I founded Reach, but the core principles remain the same.
Those who are most effective at building their brands combine the real with the virtual. They continue to write and provide content for traditional media; they speak publicly, attend professional association events, volunteer for professional organizations, sit on boards and so on. The trick is to connect the real and the virtual - expanding what you are doing locally by making it visible on the Web.

8. Do It Yourself.

If you think people who are making decisions about you are impressed by the photo your mother took of you at last year's family picnic or the poor-quality video you posted to YouTube, you're fooling yourself. You need to invest in services and tools that will help you present your best self. The New York Times said it best in its article about video resumes: "A well-produced video can send the message that the applicant is both professional and on top of new technology, while something that looks like a home video can send the opposite message." If it's really important to you, invest in the right resources - career coaches, resume-writing services, Web designers, video producers and more. Sure, there are costs involved in these services, but what's the cost to you of damaging your reputation with poor-quality copy, images and video?

9. Talk About Yourself.

Personal branding is about giving to your brand community - value, insights, feedback, recognition. I see so many people confusing social media with billboard advertising - blatantly promoting their services 24/7. As social media expert Chris Brogan says: Use the 12:1 ratio - make 12 posts about your brand community for every one that is about you. Just as people use DVRs to skip TV ads, they will start to tune you out if you come across as an immodest self promoter.

Connect with TheLadders on LinkedIn.

10. Don't Measure Your Efforts.

Are you spending a lot of time implementing your personal-branding plan without asking yourself, "How is this helping me reach my goals?" I spent 20 years in corporate marketing and branding, and one of the most important parts of any campaign we launched was metrics. You need some way to evaluate your progress and see if your efforts are paying off. Decide on what metrics you will use upfront (onlineIDCalculator.com, Klout.com, etc.), and establish a baseline. Then remember to measure progress along the way. Have you increased the volume and relevance of your Google results? Are you growing your brand community with the right people?

If you avoid these brand busters and focus on being your best (high-quality) self, on- and offline, you'll bolster your brand with everything you do.

Do hiring professionals even read cover letters for senior candidates anymore? Some say yes; some say no, they don't bother unless the resume in question has grabbed their attention.

The simple answer is that you should assume your resume will merit a look at your cover letter; always include one (either as a separate document or an e-mail that acts as one); and make it exceptional, so you stand out from the crowd. TheLadders talked to hiring and career management professionals to find out exactly how a good cover letter is laid out and what it contains.

Dear who?

The salutation is your first chance to make contact with a hiring professional, but it's one spot where laziness often wins out over due diligence. We're talking about the "Dear Sir or Madam" approach. What this generic salutation says isn't positive: Namely, that the author couldn't be bothered to find out the hiring manager's name.

Abby Kohut, president and staffing consultant at Staffing Symphony, suggests job seekers can easily locate the right person online: "To find the name of the hiring manager, try searching on Google or LinkedIn," she said. "Even a good guess scores you points because it indicates that you tried harder than everyone else."

Why do you want to work here?

Kohut recommends that job applicants make sure to mention the name of the company in the letter, followed by an explanation of why they're interested in working there. "Make sure that you really mean what you say," she said. "Recruiters have a way of sensing when you are being less than truthful. Our goal is to hire people who sincerely want to work at our company - it's the job of your cover letter to convince us."

Bombastic claims are just as bad as insincerity. Brooke Allen, a hiring manager at Maple Securities, said he hates it when job seekers claim in their cover letters that they're his "best candidate." "How can they know without evaluating all my candidates?" he asked.

You also need to make a sales pitch as to why the employer should want to work with you, Kohut said.

"Your letter should explain what you can do for your %u201Bcustomer,' not what you are selling," she said. "The key is to give the reader a small glimpse into your background, which encourages them to want to learn more by reading your resume."

Length and format

Job coach and author Susan Kennedy, of Career Treking, provided this outline for a good, succinct cover letter:

First paragraph

Introduce yourself and state why you re writing; you are enthusiastically presenting yourself for a job, and your background makes you the best candidate. List a referral source if possible.

Second paragraph

List your value to the company. Describe how you will contribute to the company from Day One. This should be based on research of the company and job. Share knowledge of the company's goals, accomplishments and opportunities.

Third paragraph

Call to action. Ask for the interview and state when (exactly) you will follow up.

If you are responding a job posting, Kennedy recommends a column approach. Below is a sample of how that might look, with bulleted lists of requirements and descriptions of how your background matches them:

Job Requirements: 1-2 years of general accounting experience.
Your experience: Tracked expenses and all financial reporting for a government subcommittee.

Job Requirements: Attention to detail.

Your experience: Edited manuscripts to ensure American English vs. British English.

Kennedy notes that cover letters "can also be used to bridge your background and the job." She offered up an excerpt from the cover letter of a client with a degree in political science who wants to get a job in the video-gaming business:

"As you can see, my resume is attached. But what you won't see on my resume is my passion for video gaming: it is how I see the world. My analytical skills and attention to detail will enable me to help solve the caller's problems and ensure a high-quality product."

Perfect spelling and grammar are mandatory

A cover letter is "a writing-skills evaluation in disguise," Kohut said. "When recruiters are faced with large stacks of resumes for new positions, you'll never make the first cut if they notice even one spelling or grammar mistake on your resume or cover letter." Make sure that even an e-mail is scrupulously proofread.

Tactics hiring professionals love

Sometimes a gesture can impress a hiring professional. Kohut was once beguiled by a candidate who read her LinkedIn profile and saw that she had won a ping-pong tournament. "He sent me a ping-pong paddle in the mail and wrote a cover letter with ping pong-themed language in it," she said, including sentences like these:
"I'd like to get in the game."
"I bring energy, intelligence and motivation to the table."
"I now feel compelled to drive home positive business results."

For Allen, the most effective cover letters are those that do one of the following two things in one sentence or two: They make a compelling statement that begs a response, or they ask a question that must be answered.

"A good approach is to ask for clarification of a point that makes it clear they have done their homework, as in: 'Your ad said X while your Web site said Y Could you help me understand Z?' " he said. "I believe the goal of the job seeker is to start a conversation rather than just throw a resume into a pile."

Tactics that hiring professionals hate

Allen said that cover letters or cover e-mails should not only be "well written with proper spelling, grammar, punctuation and capitalization," but they should also leave out abbreviations or emoticons.

Phrases like "i dunno," lolh," "i dnt cf," "!!!," "dgms," "WTF" and using all capital letters have no place in professional correspondence, he said.

"I am not against people who are into texting, if they use it when they text," he said. "But I like the full expressiveness of our language and the keyboard."

Abbreviations are also inappropriate. They're not expressive, Allen said, and using them risks confusing your reader, who might not know what their spelled-out versions are.

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This career advice is going to you from The Ladders.

I've learned that writing a book is an exhilarating experience. Essentially an author is handed 250 blank canvasses and is allowed to create whatever he wants. However, the canvasses do have to fit under a certain theme and the chapters, while being able to stand alone in terms of their uniqueness and contribution, have to connect to one another in some meaningful way.

Your /www.theladders.com/career-advice/">career is like a book where you fill in the blank canvasses.

Writing a book requires a person to do two things:
1. Step back and visualize how the chapters fit together.

2. Step to the keyboard and fill in the words.

To build a great career you need to step back and visualize how the various jobs you take on fit together in a meaningful way and step forward to each job and execute your responsibilities masterfully. This article is about stepping back and visualizing how your next job will fit meaningfully within your overall career path.

Start by answering these questions

You have roughly 1,000 different things you can do as your next job. As a starting point to narrow your job search, I suggest that any job you take on should fit within your purpose, passions, strengths and values. Take out a sheet of paper and answer these four questions:

What is the purpose I want guiding my career?
What gets me excited when I do it?
What am I good at doing?
What beliefs determine my behaviors?

After you answer these questions you're in a much better position to select your next job. Some people might argue that in a recession money should be the driving force. In other words, the only question that should be answered is, "How much does the job pay?"

I don't think that is a good idea. If you take a job just for the money and you find no purpose in your work, you have no passion for doing it, you are not particularly good at it, and the work does not match your values, then you are destined to fail. So how worthwhile will that good paycheck be then?

Once you've found your career "center of gravity," consider which career moves fit within it. Walk through the following four career moves and picture what they would look like for you:

1. Same organization, expanded responsibilities

The grass is not always greener at the next organization. And if you keep chasing greener grass eventually you will run out of grass to chase. Sometimes the very best career move for you is to stay within your organization.

Two organizations I worked with for over a decade as a consultant are McDonald's Corporation and Marriott International. I admired these two companies long before I worked with their executives and managers, but in being side by side with these individuals I learned one of their most important keys to success: they provide opportunities for people to expand their responsibilities. At McDonald's USA, many of their top executives started working in a single restaurant. Then the person became in charge of the restaurant, and then oversaw four restaurants, then 16 restaurants, then 500 restaurants, and ultimately all 13,000 restaurants. And with each expansion of responsibilities the person's breadth and depth of leadership and management skills grew and grew. The same pattern is true within Marriott. I've seen a bellman become general manager of major Marriott hotels.

Is there a possibility that you can expand your responsibilities within your organization as your next career move?

2. Same organization, different responsibilities

I have a good friend who received her degree in economics from Northwestern University. She started her career in finance at a large national company. After a few years, her boss offered her a brilliant piece of advice: learn different parts of the business and it may help you later in your career. So she went on to take jobs in marketing, sales and operations. Today she is the chief global marketing officer of a massive company that spans countries around the world, and she never had to change employers.

If you've become a great performer within a particular function in your organization, then your next best move might be to leave that function and dive into a different one. If you know operations, apply for a job in human resources or marketing or sales or business research. Master the different aspects of your organization and make yourself dramatically more valuable.

What function within your organization could you step into to expand your skill set?

3. Same industry, different organization

Sometimes you just need to refresh your perspective, opportunities and relationships. A lateral move to a different company in your same industry may be just the ticket to reignite your career. Like a professional baseball player who finds new levels of success with a different team, you may find that people view you differently when you walk through a different door.

A friend of mine went from a sales manager position at Procter & Gamble, which was his first employer out of college, to a sales manager position at Brach's Candy. He was still in the consumer goods retail industry, but he was seen in a new light. Instead of bosses seeing him as the 21-year-old college grad with no experience, he became seen as a fast-rising 25 year old with experience at one of the world's greatest companies. Suddenly he was given opportunities that he never would have received as quickly at P&G.

Assess your situation. Are you being perceived by your boss and peers in ways that are keeping you from receiving meaningful new opportunities? Is it them or is it you that is keeping you from advancing in the organization? That's a tough call to make, but it's a crossroads we almost all face at some point.

Can you leverage your industry knowledge into a new job that may lead to an even brighter future for your career?

4. Same skills, different industry

This is the move that opens up your career chessboard considerably. It is where some careers accelerate to new heights and where others crash and burn. Leaving an industry is fraught with challenges. For one you're leaving your contacts and relationships and reputation behind you. The personal brand you've built for yourself is no longer going to win you new opportunities. You have to start over and build a brand new one for yourself. If you've been a star performer, this can be a daunting mental challenge to overcome. You also are leaving behind all of the industry knowledge you've developed that allowed you to resolve issues quickly and move forward effectively.

However, if you move forward with your enhanced experiences, maturity, sense of purpose, passions, strengths and values, you may very well build a far stronger brand in the new industry. This is certainly a viable option if you want to create a variety of new opportunities for your career. My friend went from Brach's Candy to a tremendous opportunity in the medical- device industry because he was willing to let go of one industry and step into the challenges of another industry.

Turn a dead end into an eight-lane superhighway

Invariably it was the forced stops in the game that caused some of the world's greatest performers to step back, rethink their next move, and come back with renewed focus that made them vastly more successful in their new job than in their previous ones. In 1981, at the age of 39, Michael Bloomberg was fired at Salomon Brothers. He went on to build Innovative Market Systems (later named Bloomberg L.P.) that today is worth $16 billion. In addition, he has been Mayor of New York City since 2001. None of this may have happened if he had not been forced to deal with a dead end.

If your career has suddenly run into a dramatic dead end, I encourage you to step back and start over. Go back to the original questions concerning your purpose, passions, strengths, and values. Then go through each of the career move options discussed in this article, and visualize what your next job might look like.

Do you want to seek a different position in your company, possibly in a different function?
Do you want to seek a job at a different company in your industry where you can leverage your industry knowledge?
Do you want to seek a job at a company outside of your industry where you can leverage your passions and strengths while still operating within your purpose and values?
Or do you want to start your own business where you can create an organization that reflects your purpose, passions, strengths, and values?

Your career consists of a series of chapters. Choose each job carefully, execute your responsibilities as well as you can, and take time to step back and visualize your next chapter.

The internet means you can keep tabs on grandma's vacation, the kids' soccer schedules, and your college friends' loves, losses and lives with ease. It is so easy to find out anything about anybody you know!

What's tougher is your job. Sure, it's getting easier for everybody to find anybody, but the trouble is%u2026 how do you know who will take the open position you're looking to fill?

That's why TheLadders' career network gives you closable candidates:
1) Career-minded. Our almost 5 million subscribers have made a decision to keep themselves up-to-date on their careers. In the modern world, you're a fool if you're not thinking about how the bigger picture - the economy, industry trends, your company's performance - could impact you and your family. So if you're looking for professionals who are wise enough to know they'll never know when opportunity might knock, we're here to help connect the two of you.

2) "Inside Scoop". With our Candidate Insights feature, you get the inside scoop on whether candidates are looking, whether they're happy in their current job, and how they think about the trade-offs between cash, title and responsibilities. For talent pros, this additional data - the "emotional profile" of a candidate - is like having a secret ally whispering in your ear.

3) Resumes. Details, details, details. Sure, it's great to know title and company, but you've told us over and over again that you want the details about the "what" and the "how" and the "how much" and the "how well" candidates performed their duties. That's why we offer resumes for our candidates whenever available.

4) Easy connections. Rather than playing the e-mail hokey pokey, we offer you 1-click connections that let you and the candidate figure out quickly whether you want to speak by phone or connect by e-mail. It's just one more benefit in getting the process out of your way so that you can get the position filled and the candidate closed.

Read more from The Ladders.

This article was originally posted on My Fox

The Bible says the meek shall inherit the earth. But that may not work in the job search.

If someone asks you to list your career accomplishments, are you going to say, "I've just done my job" or "I just do what they ask me." That's not gonna cut it.

A well-known career coach tells TheLadders.com that the first step is to interview yourself.

What was one of my hardest days at work?
What are you proudest of?
How would co-workers describe you?
A resume is more than a list of jobs -- it needs to tell your story, how you made money or saved time.

Give it a try, you may be surprised at what you'll find when you ask yourself some good questions.

For more career advice visit The Ladders on YouTube.

To view the original article check out Business Insider.

As the CEO of The Ladders, I've been regularly reading the replies to my weekly newsletters over the past years. The more than 320,000 e-mails I've received have given me the opportunity to learn so much about the anxiety, the angst, the anger that go along with the job hunt. I've come to understand it's as much about the fear of what is and is not happening behind the scenes, as it is about what's on the surface.

In this country, we've gone a long way toward eliminating some of the more pernicious forms of discrimination, and not yet made progress on others.

Age discrimination - the passing over of candidates, regardless of their experience and background, because of their age - creates the most anxiety for people over 50 years of age in America.

And social discrimination - the hopelessness felt by the qualified but not connected - causes despair for the professional of any age looking for their next position. If you've worked hard, followed all the rules and have something to contribute, we think you ought to be heard from, regardless of your social connections.

That's why President Obama's appearance at LinkedIn on Monday risks giving the appearance that this administration believes "who you know" is more important than "who you are."

We can't believe that this President supports social discrimination - the selection of candidates based on who they know rather than relevant criteria - and we urge him to reconsider.

LinkedIn is a social network that allows its users to display who they know, and who they are connected to, to the recruiters and HR people that do the hiring in a modern economy.

Follow TheLadders on LinkedIn.

In contrast with the trend in HR over the past four decades toward a more inclusive workforce, LinkedIn may signal a return to the "old boys' network" where the jobs and opportunities go to the favored and those with friends in high places.

The anxiety surrounding social discrimination is real. When we listen to the worst fears of professionals across America, it is the fear they won't be given a fair shake, they won't be given a fighting chance, they won't be allowed a fair hearing, as they compete for their next job.

It's the fear that the job interview is going to the person with "connections" rather than the person of character or quality. It's the fear that favor falls on the already fortunate. It's the fear that all of the efforts, all of the resumes, all of the interviews, all of the worry, all of the hope for a positive change in a professional's life are being wasted because the true decision has already been made on the basis of something other than merit.

Part of the reason the government has had so much difficulty creating jobs during this recession is because of a misplaced emphasis on efforts that believe job creation ought to be based on "who you know " rather than "who you are."

It's because the job hunt is so opaque, and there is so little information and feedback given, that even the suspicion that all is not on the up and up, causes people to suspect the worst.

And it is this rage at social discrimination, this anger over the old boys' network that makes an appearance at LinkedIn the wrong thing for us to move forward right now. It just sends the wrong message to the many millions of professionals looking for work, and I urge the President to reconsider. It's time for all of us to recommit to inclusivity and make clear that social discrimination and the old boys' network are a thing of the past.

This material was originally posted in TheLadders Marc Cenedella's, Recruiting & Job Search, Start-up blog.

They've asked you to "wait right here for just a bit" and now it's a whole three minutes past when the interview was supposed to start and you're trying (too hard) to read the tea leaves: does that mean it's a done deal and they're just putting the finishing touches on their generous offer? Or have they changed their mind and want to figure out how to let me down gently? Maybe they've found something they love on my resume? Or maybe something they hate? What should I do? Your hands are sweating, you're so uptight that you can't breathe and this big interview hasn't even started!

Of course, unbeknownst to you, the reason your interviewer is late is because the mechanic down at the garage has lost her credit card number (again) and she's patiently repeating it for him again s-l-o-w-l-y.

If you've ever felt nervous going in to an interview, take heart. (And if you've never felt nervous going in to an interview, take your pulse - you might be dead!) It happens to e-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y.

One of the benefits of writing the world's largest jobs newsletter is that people share with me their job search stories, their feats, and their fears. And I can tell you that nervousness before a job interview is the same for a million-dollar job ("think about what I have at stake, Marc!") as it is for the entry-level gig ("I've never done this before, I'm so nervous").

So here are ten things you can do to chill out and relax a little before, during and after the interview%u2026

1. Show up with a "good" level of knowledge after doing a "reasonable" amount of research. You'd be surprised at the number of people who haven't looked at the company's homepage, Googled its name, and checked out the stock ticker, before showing up for an interview. Likewise, you might be surprised at the number of people who overdo it and show up with eight pages of questions - single-spaced - and start off with an inquiry as to why margins in the Southwest region have declined by 10% since seven years ago despite favorable currency rates.

2. Be on time, unflustered, with a clean, well-presented copy of your resume. Sure, this sounds like "Interviewing 101%u2033, but you know that you've violated this rule at least once in your life because you didn't leave the house ten minutes earlier than you "thought" was safe. Do yourself a favor - it's far better to be wasting 10 minutes in the lobby than stressing out in transit.

3. Dress the part - businesslike and professional, no matter how groovy the company is. Except in cases where the culture is aggressively anti-corporate, a coat-and-tie or demure pearls never make you look bad.

4. Be kind to every employee you meet. As a matter of fact, be kind to everybody within 2 miles of the interview building - the receptionist, the parking lot guy, the janitor and the intern. When I ask our receptionists how a candidate behaved, it is shocking to hear the number of people who think good manners and kindness are only to be trotted out in the interview room.

5. Remember JFK? Or remember what your parents told you about JFK? Ask not what the company can do for you, answer instead "what can I do for this company?"

6. This isn't "Real Housewives", it's not a filming of "Biography" on A&E - it's a job interview in which you will explain and sell your ability to do the job. Stick, mostly, to the business side and how you can solve the problems your future boss is currently facing. Don't go into a half-hour long disquisition on the relative merits of Mozart and Beethoven, the reasons you love/hate (but mostly love) the Yankees, or the intricacies of your college rivalries. The interviewer does not want your life story, they want to know your business capabilities.

7. "Bad mouth thee, bad mouth me." Whenever you trash-talk your former or current employer, guess what the interviewer thinks? "Oh boy, if we hire this guy, I'm next on the firing line!" Never, ever say bad, mean, unkind or even unflattering true things if it displays your ability to be an ingrate, gossip or ne'er-do-well.

8. Save the money talk for last. You should get a range from the recruiter or HR person before going in ("in the interests of saving everybody time, I would need to know what range this position is budgeted for, before considering") and side-step the grilling about your current compensation ("my understanding is that we're talking about a future position at your company and what my skills and talents would be worth in that regard, not what I've been paid in the past for a different role, with different responsibilities, at a different company - am I correct in assuming that or am I off-base?"). Don't bring it up in interviews until after they know how excited they are about working with you, because that's when they're most likely to get excited about paying you more.

9. Thank the interviewer for their time and ask (a few) good questions (especially my "single best question to ask in an interview"). A great all-purpose question to ask at the end: "Is there anything else I should've asked about this role or my future boss that I haven't asked?"

10. Send a thank you email. Thank the interviewer again and reiterate (very briefly) what you discussed and how you can contribute. Three sentences is a good length. Five sentences maximum. Walk out of the interview with a note taken on one specific thing you discussed: "I enjoyed our conversation around the changes in the mobile ecosystem and how my background could be useful in designing the advertising strategy for the Big Mick in McDowell's upcoming national campaign." This helps the interviewer remember why they like you when time comes to make the go/no-go decision on hiring you.

I hope these tips help reduce some of the anxiety or nerves or "yips" you feel during the interview, and let you shine on through. Have a great week%u2026

Join the conversation on The Ladders, Marc Cenedella's blog.

The Ladders was previously mentioned in a article posted by The Pioneer.

Employment has lagged behind economic recovery. We need jobs and we need them now. President Obama's recent push in Washington has been for a piece of legislation known as the American Jobs Act, a piece of legislation aimed at stimulating employment.

Although the act would be an excellent step towards reigniting the jobs market in some sectors of the economy, and will certainly benefit community colleges and small business, the act does little to nothing for four-year universities and their students. The American Jobs Act should be revised so that there is more focus on college students and private corporations contribute towards solving unemployment.

The American Jobs Act contains a number of provisions that would help ease unemployment. It cuts the payroll tax in half to 3.1 percent for employers on the first $5 million in wages. This tax break is aimed at small businesses with a limited number of employees-theoretically, this would give small businesses more cash that would be used to hire workers. The plan also contains $50 billion in immediate investments in infrastructure and $5 billion for facilities modernization needs at community colleges. While all of these measures are sound possible approaches to addressing unemployment they do not go far enough in addressing the issue.

The American Jobs Act should be revised to offer incentives for corporations to aid students with their higher education, particularly master's degrees and other forms of specialized training. For too long companies have relied on states and the federal government to help students get the education and training they need to join the workforce.

Pubic instructions and private institutions of education are suffering from grave financial problems while corporations sit on huge cash reserves. The largest barrier students face to receiving the training and education they need to get jobs is cost. Corporations need trained workers and have the finances to train them. It's only natural that corporations should take a stake in their own interests.

Currently, many employers have job openings but lack qualified employees to fill these positions. According to a recent survey by Human Capital Institute and TheLadders , more than half of employers said "quality of candidates" or "availability of candidates" are their greatest challenges-despite the recession. Industries like health care, green technology and energy are having a particularly hard time filling positions that require specialized training or extensive work experience.

Corporations stand to gain from helping fund worker training and higher education. Currently corporations' large cash reserves aren't generating a return. By funding workers' education and training, companies would be able to put their capital to use in a way that would make them money.

Efforts could also be made to invest in future business. Further financing of research and development would create job opportunities for educated workers in various fields and directly contribute to future cash flows.

This kind of joint effort by private and public interests is the only way that unemployment can truly be addressed. If the public sector is left to meet the burden alone employment prospects will not improve.

Meet Reid Hoffman, the billionaire founder of LinkedIn. In this video, he shares with an audience at Davos his opinion about your privacy concerns:

Yep, I think it's just as unbelievable as you do - the founder of LinkedIn, the largest social network for professional people in the world says "all these concerns about privacy tend to be old people issues."

"Old people" issues? Are you even allowed to say something like that these days? And that's how the founder of LinkedIn feels about your privacy?

Well, I can't speak for every internet company founder, but I can tell you that most of us think privacy issues are very, very important, and that Reid's viewpoint does not represent internet executives as a whole.

Those of us in the job industry have a special duty and responsibility to treat your privacy with care, because privacy issues are especially important in the job search. When the economy is bad, and your company might be looking to cut employees, and you're trying to make your mortgage%u2026 privacy issues aren't old people issues, they're normal people issues.

So I suppose I find it offensive that a billionaire founder, speaking at Davos - the world's most discriminative "old boys' network" event, held each year in the Swiss Alps - ridicules your concerns in such a condescending way.

It's probably the most arrogant comment I've heard from a business executive since Leona Helmsley said "Only the little people pay taxes." It's sad, disappointing, and yet, characteristic.

Reid Hoffman listens to President Obama speak at his LinkedIn Town Hall.

When you signed up for LinkedIn, they never asked for your permission to sell your information to recruiters and HR departments, did they? They never told you that your actions, and your behaviors, and your privacy were going to be sold off to recruitment firms and HR departments.
Even today, their User Agreement makes no mention of executive recruiters or human resources. (I mean, c'mon, if it was all on the up-and-up, they'd mention it to you when you sign up, or at least in the User Agreement or Privacy Policy, wouldn't they?)

Layoffs have increased 212% this year compared to last year because of the lousy economy, but you shouldn't be concerned about the fact that LinkedIn has the legal right to sell your job-hunting information to advertisers, show it in their advertisements, and leak it to your current colleagues or boss, if they want to.

No, you shouldn't worry about that, at all, says Reid Hoffman, billionaire founder of LinkedIn, because "all these concerns about privacy tend to be old people issues."

At TheLadders, we don't agree.

We don't agree that you're just inventory to be pushed off to the highest bidder.

We don't believe that in this economy, companies should be so cavalier about your privacy.

We don't agree that "all these concerns about privacy tend to be old people issues."

We don't agree and that's why we've always been different.

It's why we screen every recruiter and job listing before it's allowed onto our site. That's why your co-workers, your colleagues or your boss can't see your profile on The Ladders . That's why we don't sell your private information to advertisers - because we've never accepted display advertising on our site.

It's also why we launched a survey on privacy issues last week to thousands of Americans like you, and I'll be reporting back to you on the results in the weeks ahead.

So, if you agree that all privacy issues are just "old people's issues", well, godspeed to you.

But if you'd prefer to work with a company that cares about you, your privacy, and making you successful in your job search, then we're honored by your patronage, and we thank you for it.

Have a great, safe, private week in your job search!

Jon Stewart does a funny (and to be honest - unfair) takedown on our competitor LinkedIn:

Well, Mr. President, you can't say we didn't warn you.

If you're looking for a place to send professionals looking to get a 6-month, 1-on-1, personalized job search program with a money-back guarantee of receiving a job offer within their target range, send them to The Ladders.com Signature program!

Join the conversation on Marc Cendella, TheLadders CEOs, Blog.