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Job Hunting Tips From Recruiters - Forbes.com

A successful job search is built on three basic components: focus, definition and persistence.

To succeed, you must narrow the search to a specific type of job, define skills and accomplishments that set you apart from the pack and keep at it until landing the job you want.

“Candidates must distinguish themselves from the mass of similarly qualified people,” says Ted Warren, president of Strategic Resources in Bellevue, Wash. “Working with a recruiter, the candidate must identify and quantify accomplishments. It’s not enough to say you were vice president of sales and marketing for XYZ Corp.–you’ve got to tell the prospective employer what you’ve accomplished, how you accomplished it and what you can do for them. Be prepared to back things up with facts and figures.”
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Don’t be afraid to decline a job offer

When you begin looking for a job, take the time to set some parameters as to what type of job offer, minimum benefits and salary you will accept.

There will come a time in your job search or just life in general where you will consider declining a job offer. You will often times hear people say that it is an opportunity that you can not pass up. However, is it truly an opportunity that you can not pass up? Is it an opportunity that you can afford to take?

If you define certain options right from the start, then you should not have any issues declining an offer that does not meet your minimum requirements.
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Getting through the job interview

James Milton waited through a silent pause as mock interviewers prepared an interview session at the Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center. Minton, a father of four, took an adult course to learn skills on how to apply for a better paying job. He scored well in the interview.

If the job world were “American Idol,” Cheryl Roeger and Dodi Elledge of the Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center would be its Simon Cowell. “We tell them what employers won’t,” said Elledge of job hunters. “When you call back after an interview and ask someone why you didn’t get hired, they’re not going to tell you it was because your shirt was wrinkled or because your neck was too hairy. I will.”
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Sun setting later on some careers

The American boss of the future might look a lot like Dana Cable Sr., who works 10 hours daily, worries over bills, meets customers and tinkers with inventions that won’t hit the market for years.

“It’s still too much fun to work,” says Dana Cable, so he continues to run Milwaukee-based Growing Systems Inc. even at 80. Business and demographic experts say that as the population ages, more and more executives like Cable will stay on past the traditional retirement age of 65.

Growing Systems’ president Dana Cable, shown in the research and development greenhouse of his business in the Riverwest neighborhood, works 10-hour days. At 80, Cable says he doesn’t expect to retire anytime soon.
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Hold off on salary questions until after the job interview

Q. I am wondering if it is bad form to ask a prospective employer the salary range of the position before agreeing to sit down for an interview.

P.W.

A.

In general, it’s better not to pose this question before agreeing to an interview. It can make the employer feel that the job itself isn’t interesting to you — only the money.
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Sales, marketing field may prospers

‘Things are improving, but we’re not seeing another boom like we had between 1997 to 1999,’ said Tony Beshara of Babich and Associates.

Business was up 65 percent last year from 2004 in Tony Beshara’s sales recruiting department at Babich and Associates, a Dallas placement firm. But he’s not taking credit for it.

“We’re not 65 percent better than we were last year,” said Mr. Beshara, who is Babich’s president and owner. “The economy is better.”
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Companies Struggle to Find Employees

A new survey shows that turnover increased significantly over the past year, while retention is a growing concern among employers. Just two and half years ago, Payroll Partners, a bookkeeping and accounting firm that caters to small businesses, had 14 full-time employees. It now has three.

“A lot of our clients have been downsizing, and that has a direct impact on us, too,” said Manny Cosme, who founded the Vacaville, Calif.-based company in the early 1990s.
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Tough jobs make for great workplaces:

As senior manager of FedEx’s bustling Anchorage hub, Dale Shaw oversees hundreds of employees who unload and sort up to 13,400 parcels per hour arriving from Taipei, Pudong and Hong Kong, and bound, that same day, for hubs in Memphis, Newark, and Los Angeles.

During the peak holiday season, Shaw might see upwards of 60,000 pieces during one dizzying afternoon shift. It’s enough to send some people off the deep end, but not Shaw. “This is fun!” he says, as a ground crew scurries to unload a plane from Pudong.
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The secret behind finding a dream job:

Can finding your dream job be simple?  Former editor-in-chief of Monster.com and author of the popular series of Monster career books, Doug Hardy joined Tucker Carlson on ‘Situation’ to explain how to get the job you’ve always wanted.
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MBA job hunters find Silicon Valley more welcoming

Like the swallows to Capistrano and the New England Patriots to the NFL playoffs, the MBAs are returning to Silicon Valley.

While hard data is hard to come by, MBA candidates who have been touring the Valley in recent weeks say job prospects are better now than they have been since the Valley ran into trouble with the end of the dot-com era.

“Everyone out here seems to be hiring to some degree,” said Arun Prakash, an MBA candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was among a group of college students that toured roughly 40 companies, including Intel, Yahoo and Cisco, as part of MIT’s annual “Tech Trek” to Silicon Valley. The students paid their own way for the five-day trip, and they were hardly the only job hunters in the area. MBA candidates from Harvard Business School and the Wharton School, among others, were also in town.
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