September is the busiest recruitment month of the year. Are you ready?

September historically marks the highest hiring season of the year. Make sure you are positioned to get hired! You will have to be prepared to answer the dreaded, ‘tell me about yourself?’ question. Over the years, many of the people I work with deliver their ‘elevator pitch’ in a flat, unmemorable way. Here are three quick tips to help you punch up your approach and make sure you stand out to anyone you meet in upcoming interviews or networking events.

1.     Read the mission statement! ‘Tell me about yourself’ does not mean someone wants to hear your life story. They are looking for any potential connections or parallels between you and what they need. Before meeting with someone or going to an event, be sure to visit their website and read the mission statement of that organization. Make sure you use their language, so that “I have worked on user experience product development” becomes “I’m really passionate about UX, and how it influences software development and web design”.

2.     Don’t summarize your resume! Don’t just rattle off all of your past positions; focus on where you are heading or what you would like to do next. Make sure your response is interesting and conveys a passion that is relevant to the job or company.  

3.     Address the curiosity upfront! If there is a characteristic about your background that often comes up when you meet people, quickly address it so that it does not distract from the objective at hand. My current assistant is a recent graduate looking for full-time work. She has a unique name and distinctive look and it often elicits inquiries from my clients about her background, and she finds it to be a distraction from her pitch. My advice to her has been to address the curiosity head on, so that she can move the conversation along to her skills and qualifications.  Plus it does not hurt to have a unique feature about you that people will remember, so use it to your advantage!

Rather than dreading the question, see it as an opportunity to make a memorable impression on someone. You won’t get that first 10 seconds back, so use it wisely!

gerberg & co. is offering a second workshop this month to help you get ready. Learn how to answer the dreaded "Tell me about yourself" question in a concise, interesting, and compelling manner.

Monday, August 25^th

6:00 – 8:00 p.m.

gerberg & co. offices

Register by Wednesday, August 20^th for the special early bird price of $95! Call 212-315-2322 or email judith@gerberg.com

Welcome to all our CCC colleagues at the annual CCC luncheon! It's a pleasure to see all of you in together again, and get a chance to catch up on the past year's events and successes.

This luncheon is an especially important gathering, too, because we're here, among other things, to discuss what the future holds for us and our profession, and what we need to do to stay current with the rapidly changing times.

One of the things that has become increasingly vital over the past few years, is the tremendous growth of social media to the job search and to career development. Who would have thought, in 2006, that within 5 years LinkedIn would become an indispensable part of the career tool kit for 120,000,000 professionals around the world?

I'd like to invite you all to comment on this blog -- whether your opinions are pro or con, positive or negative -- about your views of social media, how you teach or use them in your own practices, and whether your clients find them helpful. Your insights will be tremendously helpful to all of your colleagues in the CCC, and enable us to think, debate, and grow professionally...which is marvelous for our clients, and for us, as well!

Paula Cohen, Communications Director, Career Counselors Consortium