Is Your Job Search Routine?

Most people got up today thinking that it is just a normal day. Not me, though. I stayed awake until 3am watching my San Francisco 49ers beat the New Orleans Saints in a playoff game (American football for those who don’t know). What an awesome finish, the Niners got a touchdown with nine seconds left to win! So, I am especially tired, but today is a great day, not merely regular.

As a sports fan, I am by definition filled with routines; some call them superstitions. When something works previously, I stick with it. About one year and a half ago, the San Francisco Giants (baseball) were two (series) wins away from winning a championship, something that hadn’t occurred in my lifetime (and I am almost 50), so I incorporated them into my Employment in Israel article: Loyalty at Work. They ended up surprising everyone, especially San Francisco fans, by winning the World Series. So, now that the 49ers are two wins away, and I feel that their fate somehow rests within my fingertips, I have the responsibility to help push them over the top.

If you are not a sports fan, you might want to skip the next paragraph.

Actually, I am somehow feeling less nostalgic writing this article than the previous one in this series. One year and a half ago, there had been no championship for any of the Big Three of San Francisco sports in more than 30 years, and the Giants themselves hadn’t won since 1954, before I was born and before they were even playing in San Francisco. Even more importantly, after being removed from US sports since the time I made aliyah in the 1994, I reconnected to something that was almost a matter of life and death for me when I was younger. So, it was a kind of coming out party for me – I was confident enough being an Israeli to become overtly American again (not that my accent when I speak Hebrew fools anyone). Some of those components are missing this time. However, there is a big positive now. Previously I had no way to watch the games; last night I used a free website that shows the games live. Lack of sleep is a small price to pay for being able to see the action rather than just reading about it. The next improvement will be to find other San Francisco sports fans in Israel and watch together in a place where I can yell when they score, rather than restrain myself so that I don’t wake up my wife and kids.

Routines like this are building blocks in the construction of our everyday lives. In this particular case, the events themselves that make up my routine are spread apart by many months, so it is difficult to see the pattern without me hitting you over the head with it. However, the big and little things we do automatically each day without thinking about them comprise a large portion in all of our daily activities.

This seems to be especially true for those searching for work. The question is, does your routine make sense – is it the correct way to go about securing your next employment? Well, of course that depends upon what your objective is, and what you are doing to realize it. However, all job seekers should be “routinely” asking themselves these questions:

• Is your routine in tune with the realities of the 2012, or are you using what worked for you previously, before social media became so prominent in the majority of effective job searches, or before you moved to Israel? 
• Are you using resources (websites/placement companies) that someone recommended to you, even though their career objectives and yours are very different? 
• Are you focusing most of your time using job websites for your next opportunity? From what I understand after speaking with numerous job seekers, this is the routine for many people. In my opinion, this is THE number one reason why people become frustrated with job searches. Certainly people do get jobs they apply to from websites, but the majority of people working today did NOT find their job from a website. Two-thirds of all jobs are never publicly advertised, so spending so much time on job sites guarantees that you will never even be aware of the majority of available jobs. Networking is the single best investment of your time when seeking work: Employment Networking - Getting to the Other Two Thirds of the Jobs.

So, we will all know soon if my routine that began with the SF Giants will carry over to celebrating a Super Bowl victory for the 49ers. For job seekers, results of your routine usually cannot be discerned so quickly and clearly, but nonetheless, they are much more tangible to achieving your objectives than mine are.

Or maybe not…

Go Niners!

And yes, if things go according to plan, in the very near future I will be writing my third installment in the San Francisco Sports trilogy, Ode to the (Golden State) Warriors. Maybe if they sign Omri Caspi, everything will turn out good!

Israel Places Highly in Economic World Rankings - and this is not necessarily good news...

I don’t know how it can be possible!

Sure, many people have noted that Israel seems to receive a disproportionate amount of news coverage throughout the world. I grew up in America and was used to seeing Israel on the news, even though most people in the rural county where I lived would have little chance to find it on the map, let alone understand what the relevance of the situation in Israel is to them. Then, when I began to travel to different regions, including Europe, Asia, and Africa, I also found that on newscasts Israel is mentioned possibly more than any other country in the world.

Today, I read two reports ranking countries for quite different economic characteristics, and again Israel appears in both of them as one of the top ranked countries, once negatively and once positively.

Take a look for yourself:

• Countries with the Widest Gap Between Rich and Poor - Israel ranks number 5
• The Happiest Countries in the World - Israel ranks number 9

According to my quick research, there are anywhere from 189 to 196 countries in the world, depending upon how a country is defined. This confirmed my suspicion that Israel is not the only country in the world. So, what is going on here? How can it be that whatever the question, the answer includes Israel?

Maybe because in Israel we live such vibrant lives, more on the edge, this translates into extreme readings, no matter what is being measured. I remember some years ago that the Israeli stock market was the number 1 performing stock market in the world, and the following year was the worst performing stock market in the world. Economists may not find this odd, since a country with small companies and inherent security risk is by definition going to have great volatility, both positive and negative. Maybe this logic carries over into other arenas.

The report about happiness is interesting in that for many of the factors under consideration in the study, Israel ranks poorly, yet for some reason, Israelis are still inexplicitly happy. This is not strictly economic, but of course a large portion of people’s happiness is related to their current economic situation and future outlook. Without economic security, other issues seem less important.

Israel’s gap between rich and poor is worrying, as even with low unemployment, the average income of the poorest 10% of the country actually decreased, while the richest 10% income increased, thereby widening an already bad ratio. There is no way to interpret this except extremely negatively, with the trend going in the wrong direction. The richest 10% will pay a high price for this situation sooner or later if it is not rectified.

So, who are these happy people in Israel, and why are they happier than people in other countries? What do they have to be happy about? Is simply having a job enough? Or are there factors more critical than economic/employment that engender a happy person? And, if so, what could they possibly be that would cause Israel to rank highly, with just a quick look at the local news (or remembering the most recent of the many missile sirens we have heard on my moshav) being a daily reality check?

I don’t know the answers to any of these questions, but I'm sure there will be a new study soon, and that Israel will rank highly in the results.

Discrimination in Israeli Employment

Two issues have come to my attention in recent days related to discrimination in the workplace, so I thought others might benefit from considering them as well.

First is an article recently from the Jerusalem Post: http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Judaism/Article.aspx?id=247862. The issue here is whether it is acceptable, legally, morally or otherwise, for companies to discriminate against job candidates because of race (in this case, Arabic).

The second time was a question raised by a reader to a job that appeared on our website, Israemploy. The job was for a religious organization, and specified that the employee must be male.

What is allowed?

In Israel, we have the Employment (Equal Opportunities) Law, 1988. This law forms the main legal basis for prohibiting discrimination in the workplace, both in the public and private spheres:

Section 2.(a)

Employers shall not discriminate between their employees or between candidates for employment because of their sexual orientation, because they are parents, because of their age, gender, race, religion, nationality, land of origin, opinion or party, in any of the following:

- hiring;
- working conditions;
- promotion;
- professional training or studies;
- discharge or severance pay;
- benefits and payments provided for employees in connection with their retirement from employment.

Yet, there may be certain exceptions in which discrimination of a sort may be permitted:

a) In relation to women, the most important of these are 'genuine' occupational qualifications, which include:

- Reasons of physiology (not enough physical strength)
- Reasons of decency or privacy
- The provision of personal services promoting welfare or education; and jobs affected by legal/religious restrictions, where customs are such that the duties could not, or could not effectively, be performed by a woman (actually, this can be relevant for men as well – for instance, mikva attendant role)

b) In the case of ethnic minorities the exceptions are:

- Dramatic performances, where the dramatis personae requires a person of a particular racial group.
- Artists or models for advertising purposes, for reasons of authenticity
- Where services are rendered for the welfare of the particular group

So, what does this all mean?

Certainly, in the case of a religious organization where the requirements of the job are such that only one particular gender can fulfill it, this type of limitation is allowed.

And what about the newspaper article example, restricting a race from jobs for non-employment specific reasons (rather nationalistic objectives)? Well, I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that the equal opportunities law was created in part to specifically restrict such instances.

Is Your CV Perfect?

Job seekers focus their precious time resources way too much on re-working their CVs/resumes.

I have a theory about why this is true.

In the recruitment process, many elements are beyond the control of the job seeker. You send your CV in response to a job listing and then must wait to hear back for an interview request from the employer that in many cases never arrives. You identify and reach out to professionals as a part of your networking efforts, and hope some of them will agree to begin meaningful conversations with you. You go to an interview, and then wait to hear back from the company whether a job offer is on the way.

Sure, you do decide some things, such as which jobs to apply for, which companies/people to target for networking, whether to accept a job offer… , but when you think of your day-to-day job search elements, it is normal for everyone to periodically feel a lack of progress, that your efforts don’t seem to be paying off in the short-run.  This missing control and constant waiting on others is something that can be difficult to live with.

So, to solve this problem, job seekers invariably concentrate on an obvious thing that seems to return control of the process to them, a component of the initial stages of the recruitment process with employers, and oftentimes something that is sent at the early stages once a networking conversation is begun: the CV/resume.

Other reasons for the never-ending focus on the CV:

• Job Application Average Response Rate – The average response rate for applications to jobs from Internet sites is 5-10%, meaning that between one out of every 10-20 CVs you send out will generate contact back from the employer. So, the fact is that on average 90-95% of your CVs sent in answer to employment advertisements will enter into the dreaded job seekers’ black hole, never to be heard from again. With such a high rate of “failure”, it is natural to investigate where you can improve, and invariably the focus falls on the CV.

• Job Search Professional Marketing Efforts – Professional CV/resume writers are plentiful, taking advantage of the above conditions to send the message that by following their advice for CV creation, your response rate will markedly improve. Or, take a look at the cover of this book:

or of many others you can find in the career section of bookstores. In my opinion, to turn around the book title above, you would be a complete idiot to think there is such a thing as a perfect CV. :>) If you ask 10 experts for their opinion of your CV, you will receive 10 very different responses, so the concept of perfect and or even correct has no place in your thinking.

Am I saying that all CVs will serve the same purpose for you? Certainly not! There are many things you need to take into consideration when creating your CV. My point though, is that the goal should not be to create the “perfect” CV, but rather to create a CV which serves your objectives and gives you a proper chance to get to the next stage in the recruitment process. Sure, this is less sexy and will never be the title of a book, but it is a more effective strategy nonetheless.  And once you have done this, you can confidently move on to other aspects of your job search.

Remember these quick facts of CVs, illustrated by various studies:

• Average Amount of Time CV is Read: 20-30 Seconds
• First Place the Eye Falls on the CV: Top of the First Page

You must keep these factors in mind when building your CV, together with Israel-specific characteristics:

• Israeli CVs are short – one page is great; two pages is maximum
• Israeli CVs are focused/narrow – if you are targeting different professions, you will need to create different versions of your CV

To summarize my outlook in one sentence, much more important than the contents of your CV is whose hands you put it into.

For those of you that want to learn more about how to create a CV for Israel, you are welcome to read the following articles:

• A CV/Resume is not an Obituary
• CV/Resume – Chronological or Skills Based?
• Will Including “Good Team Player” on a CV Help Get You Invited to an Interview?
• Women Should Not Include Their Picture on their CV/Resume!
• CV/Resume File Type – Is it Important?

Job Seekers in Israel – Favorable Conditions Abound

The holidays are over, so employees are back from their holidays, and companies are operating full steam ahead, including recruitment departments.

The Israel unemployment rates are at historical lows (5.4% as of July 2011). Compare this with the US (9.1%), UK (8.1%), and France (9.3%).  And, the average gross national salary is NIS 8,900 as of July 2011, never higher.

This is a wonderful combination for jobs seekers in Israel, whether you are unemployed or looking to change jobs.

I have updated the Job Search in Israel site to make older articles more accessible. You are welcome to visit the new pages, which contain articles for the most popular job search topics:

• CV/Resumes & Cover Letters
• Networking
• Recruitment Process
• Sectors/Professions
• Complete Job Seeking in Israel Archive

Best of Success!

Translation Profession in Israel

In the on-going attempt to highlight professions that are most suitable for immigrants in Israel, I am delighted to introduce an article describing the translation sector written by Micaela Ziv, former chairperson of the Israel Translators Association.  

Several good things about the field of translation in Israel

• The need for translation in a variety of language pairs is ever-growing in the global marketplace and is thriving in Israel
• Translation is easier than ever before – it can be done anytime, anywhere, and now with a wealth of information and linguistic resources at your fingertips
• The Israel Translators Association welcomes newcomers and veterans in the field alike, offering professional development, mentoring and networking opportunities throughout the year

Who should consider the field of translation in Israel?

• Anyone with prior experience in translation from abroad
• Anyone who:

o writes well
o has fluent knowledge of two languages (Hebrew does not have to be one of them) and a very good grasp of their respective cultures
o is ready to keep on learning
o enjoys the idea of translating!

Remember – all your education and work experience can contribute greatly to your value in the field. A useful rule of thumb: focus on the areas you really know about – being a ‘jack-of-all-trades’ is not an advantage here.

• Fields in demand include marketing, finance, legal, academic, technical, scientific, localization and literature

Employment opportunities

There are virtually no in-house salaried positions for translations (other than a few positions with governmental bodies, such as the Bank of Israel or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and at newspaper desks). Most of us are independently self-employed, working either directly with our own clients or through translation agencies, or both. Obviously, pay rates from agencies are lower, but then they are the ones who find the clients and deal with the problems of following up on payments, advertising, and so on! Many newer translators start off working for agencies while developing their own clientele through personal contacts, networking, advertising and so forth.

Payment is usually calculated on a per page basis, with a page defined as 250 words.

It is a free market with quite a wide price range (and prices differ for different language pairs), but the ITA does have information on rates that can provide a guide.

Does knowing two languages automatically make you a potential translator?

In a word – NO!

Translation lies somewhere between a profession and an art, so a good translator should have a certain natural aptitude that can then be greatly enhanced by attending training courses. Israel offers many opportunities – academic and other – to do this. These include courses at Bar-Ilan University, Tel Aviv University, Beit Berl College, Oranim College, and programs offered by companies like WritePoint. It should be said that the commercial courses are probably less detailed (and less theory-oriented) than the academic courses.

What’s the difference between a translator and an interpreter?

A translator works with the written word and provides a written product. Interpreters work with the spoken word. Interpreting may be either simultaneous (while the person is speaking) or consecutive (speaker says a few sentences, you interpret, speaker talks some more, you interpret, and so on). This is a skill that requires prior training, which can be obtained at some of the institutions mentioned above. Payment is usually on an hourly or per-diem basis.

What other skills and equipment do you need to get started?

It’s an online profession. So you should start off with a good computer, printer, fax and scanner. You should be familiar with Word, Excel and PowerPoint (or similar programs), know how to use search engines well, use general and field specific online and printed dictionaries, and be easily reachable by email.

As for any freelance work, you should find a good accountant who can handle your questions and show you the required bookkeeping procedures. For those of you who read Hebrew there is also a software program called Avodat Milim designed specifically to make the translator’s bookkeeping easier. You will also need to be registered with the tax authorities (VAT, Income Tax and National Insurance).

If you are planning to work in areas with a lot of repetitive text (for example, legal, financial, technical) you might consider investing in a Translation Memory program. “What’s that?” you say. Don’t worry – your colleagues at the ITA will be happy to explain all this and a good many other concepts, which is another way of saying that the smart move is to become a member as soon as you have decided that translation and interpreting is going to be your field! Membership in the ITA indicates a seriousness of intention that enhances your CV and is a marketing booster, especially for beginners.

The Israel Translators Association

The ITA is the home base for the translation profession, and welcomes both self-employed and salaried translators (as well as editors, localizers, and other language-related professionals). With an informative website in both Hebrew and English, monthly lecture evenings, and an international three-day conference in February, the ITA’s mission is to help its members develop professionally as well as to upgrade the status of the profession in Israel.

To help new members of the profession hone both their translation and business skills (avoiding pitfalls, handling clients), the ITA has set up a flexible mentoring program, which also helps people gain the experience they need to be eligible for the Certificate of Recognition – the first phase of its accreditation program. The ITA is often able to offer its members discounts on certain field-related publications and software. Membership forms are available on the website. If you have questions, write to info@ita.org.il and a member of the committee will get back to you within a reasonable time (remember – they are all volunteers!).

In addition, the ITA is itself a member in LAHAV, an umbrella organization that lobbies for the rights of the self-employed and small businesses.

Job Seekers – Don’t Like What You See in the Mirror?

I heard of a study done some years ago that stuck with me. Most people, when they look in the mirror, are not happy with their appearance. According to this research, a person has a much lower evaluation of their looks than someone else does. What was the explanation for this phenomenon? Well, it seems that every person has something(s) about their face that they wish was different - for instance the color of their hair, the shape of their nose, or the size of their ears. This one aspect of their face that they don’t like is the exact area that they hone in on when looking in the mirror. However, when someone else looks at that same face, they are looking at the entire package, and most everyone seems to be put together nicely (after all, we were created in God’s image).

Job seekers can get stuck focusing on a small detail that causes them to forget the overall value that they offer.

Many people intuitively and automatically identify one or more factors that they feel are causing them to not get hired. Recently I heard the following explanations:

• Don’t have a university degree
• Live in Jerusalem (too far from the center)
• Over 50
• Don’t speak Hebrew well enough
• Don’t have work experience in the sector

Any of these issues can certainly increase the difficulty in landing work. But keeping in mind that you as a job seeker are a combination of many elements, only one of which it seems is causing you problems, may help in putting things in their proper perspective.

When an employer is seeking to fill a role, they generally have a conception of the candidate that can meet the requirements. Oftentimes it is difficult for the job seeker to infer this vision from the advertised description, but that doesn’t change the fact that it exists in the mind of the employees responsible for the hiring process.

When an employer creates their job listing, some of these profile characteristics are included and other are omitted, purposely or not. They can ultimately be divided into two categories: required and nice to have. In a perfect world, all of this would be clear to the applicant from reading the job posting. However, as we all know, we are living in a world far from ideal. For instance, sometimes in the job requirements section there is an entry for a university degree, even including the additional request “from a known university”. It is impossible to understand if this is an absolute requirement or a nice to have; being listed in the requirements section is not always an accurate indication. And whether my university is considered “known” in Israel, especially when I graduated from a university in the US, is totally unknown to me. Another possibility is a requirement for fluent Hebrew – who can accurately define what the employer considers fluent? Other examples can include a listing that previous work experience in the Internet sector is nice to have; I know some of these companies and a candidate that doesn’t possess work experience in the internet sector won’t receive even the slightest consideration, independent of the job listing wording implying it is not a requirement. The unwritten absolute job requirements are silent killers – candidates that are sure they are perfect for the job may not hear back because they don’t live in the right part of the country, are deemed overqualified and/or fall outside the age range.

Let us take a more in-depth look at a situation where the company has a candidate profile requirement that the applicant must have a university degree. You meet all of the job requirements, except this one. You have two options:

1) Don’t apply for the job
2) Apply for the job

Probably readers this far into the article can guess that I believe this job should be applied for, because nobody can know if it really is an absolute requirement, and even if it is, if it may be overcome anyway.

OK, so if you apply for the job, how should you go about it? Alternatives:

• Include on your CV a fake university and degree that fulfill this requirement
  
  • Never do this! No additional explanation required…
• Send your CV without any indication of university/education
  
  • This is not the best of all worlds, but if you have absolutely no post-high school education, you may be forced to use this approach.
• Include on your CV that education which you do have, including university courses even if you didn’t graduate.
  
  • Most people that I come across without university degrees do have some post-high school education credits, whether they be professional classes, junior college, or university courses without obtaining a degree. Listing these may get you to the next round.

I am sure some people may find the reasoning above faulty. Why waste time applying for a job if you don’t meet the requirements? In fact, as a recruiter, I generally agree with this, as many of the CVs I receive are from applicants that don’t approach the published requirements – something tremendously useless! However, if you are close, then I certainly don’t hold it against anyone for trying, and there are times when I have the ability to present a candidate that does match in all ways except for one, and help them to get invited for an interview.

And let’s remember, what is the objective of a CV? The correct answer is to get yourself called for an interview. And for any of the issues that are sensitive for you, including certainly job requirements which you don’t match, it is much better for you to be able to address them in a face-to-face (or at least telephone) interview, rather than when you are a one dimensional CV piece of paper. Keep in mind that according to studies of how CVs are processed, a CV that arrives is checked for 20-30 seconds on average. Therefore, there is no chance that the entire CV is being read in that short period of time; it is simply scanned, possibly electronically. So, if including truthful information in an education section, even if it doesn’t fully meet the requirements, is enough to get you to the next stage, then this approach makes sense.

If we return to the initial concept of thinking about the big picture rather than focusing on a single (negative) item:

• The initial objective in submitting your candidacy is to get to the next stage, giving you the ability to speak with the employer directly. Creating a CV that increases your ability to reach this goal is the only objective when considering what to include. Approaching the company in the correct manner is equally critical. In conjunction with sending your CV in response to job posting that you find on Internet, if you can develop a contact within the company (using LinkedIn or some other manner) to also submit your CV can do wonders for your response rate. An advocate inside the company oftentimes can mitigate the fact that you don’t meet all of the job requirements. I have seen many cases in which applicants arrive to the HR group via an internal company contact and go to the head of the list compared to others whose CVs arrive in response to a public job announcement. Networking is the most effective way to have the employer consider you by looking at the big picture, rather than the small individual details.
• Once you get to the interview, you now have your best chance to make a big picture impression. Yes, it may be true that you don’t have the required university degree; however you have the opportunity to show all of the value that you can deliver to the employer, which sometimes can cause them to reconsider whether the university degree is really so significant for candidates. Or, it may allow them to consider you for another position where you are appropriate.

All job seekers are made up of a variety of skills, aptitudes, and personality. Different subsets of these characteristics are relevant for each individual job, and when going through the recruitment process, if you remember to focus on the attractive overall “package” that you create, you will find that you will move from appearing defensive about particular items you perceive as negative to portraying a more rounded and positive image of yourself as a future employee to the company.

Don’t be afraid to look in the mirror – most people will find you attractive if you give them a chance, so why can’t you?