Get Hired Stay Hired blog discussing professional resume writing and all things career related.

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The only thing an employee fears more than getting laid off is getting fired. Executing a strategic career management plan is the best insurance available to protect you from being involuntarily terminated. Unfortunately, not all employees who are fired deserve it, just as there are workers that are laid off who should have been fired.

 Typically, there are two types of involuntary terminations, one covering personal misconduct or ethical violations, and another for poor job performance or absenteeism. The antidote for protecting yourself against being fired for personal misconduct or ethical violations is simple – don’t engage in that kind of behavior in the first place. The same goes for absenteeism. It can get a little stickier for an employee accused of being a poor performer, and we can hope there were clear measures in place to gauge quality of performance. 

Terminated for cause is another expression used when a company fires an employee. After my experience in corporate America, I think there is a third type – although not openly admitted – termination without cause. Often a company will veil the firing under the guise of the above reasons. When in reality, the root cause is politics, jealousy, revenge, or nepotism. Fortunately, there are tactics you can deploy to prevent becoming a target. 

Here are some career management guidelines: 

• Make yourself indispensable to your company. Have a hard to find talent or hold expertise necessary to the company’s growth. Cross-train in other departments.
• Request periodic reviews. Don’t just rely on an annual review for feedback on your performance. There is no excuse for being surprised with a bad appraisal.
• Stay ahead of the knowledge curve. Sign up for classes, learn new industry processes, and keep up with technology. Obtain a degree if you don’t have one.
• Don’t gossip or complain about your boss or co-workers. Even if your co-workers encourage it, don’t engage them.
• Volunteer and perform well on high-profile projects. This can attract the attention of managers outside your department, which can increase the odds of an inter-departmental transfer if problems arise.
• Document all your successes. The more evidence you gather the better, not only as proof you are excelling in your job, but as ammunition if neccessary.
• Become your boss’s ally, not a threat. If you are showing your manager up, even if it’s legitimate or easy to do, you may have to back off if it causes tension.
• Establish a relationship with at least two mentors. One inside the company, the other outside. Offer to be a mentor also. Your next boss may be someone you influenced on their way up who will remember.
• Be cognizant of warning signs. If there is a sudden coolness from your boss, Board Members aren’t returning your calls, and you are excluded from key meetings, it’s not an oversight.

You can reduce the odds of being fired, whether for cause or not, if you manage your career in a proactive way. If you are engaged in monitoring your performance and vigilant in reading the warning signs, you will be positioned to take corrective action, or do your best to move out of the firing line.

The allure of online job boards is undeniable. From the comfort and privacy of your home, you can search thousands of positions without ever leaving your chair. However, are they the most effective way for jobseekers to find new, full-time positions? The short answer is no. 

According to CareerXroads 8^th Annual Source of Hire Study: What Happened in 2008 and What it Means for 2009, CareerBuilder is accountable for 3.95% of external hires, Monster 3.14%, and HotJobs a paltry 1.35%. Numerous other surveys report even lower numbers, especially for 2009. Additional evidence of the decline is the rapidly decreasing ad and “pay to post” sales of all major job boards, and their aggressive search for new revenue streams and additional services to replace lost income.

 While the ineffectiveness of job boards is common knowledge in the career industry, many jobseekers aren’t aware of the low hit ratio. The major boards still heavily advertise on the TV, radio, and Internet, often supported with glowing success stories. Many job boards partner with media organizations by offering articles and services, and are often featured prominently in newspaper career sections. As this is a source of income for media outlets, some are reluctant to write revealing articles about this trend for fear of offending their partners, and risk jeopardizing much needed advertising dollars.

 Should jobseekers avoid job boards all together? No. Even if the success rate is low, it is still meaningful for the individual who obtains a new position through this medium. Just balance your online search activity with a much higher percentage of time on networking, which continues to be the number one source for securing new positions by a large margin.

 Here are several suggestions to improve your online search efforts:

•  Make sure your resume is uploaded in the exact format requested, e.g., .doc or .txt. Note that .docx is not widely accepted.
• Refresh your resume every week or two so it looks like a new submission and doesn’t get stale. Just as you search by date of position posted, sourcers search by date of resume posted.
• Use job board aggregators like Indeed.com or SimplyHired.com. These sites are great time savers as they provide an easily searchable database for thousands of boards in one location.
• Take advantage of industry association and niche job sites. And, don’t forget LinkedIn’s exclusive job postings.
• Apply directly to the company career board if possible. LinkUp.com is a nice website that features jobs aggregated exclusively from more than 22,000 company job boards.
• Create a resume that is rich with keywords that are reflected in the position description. This means you have to modify your resume for each specific position, every time.
• Label your resume document as “lastnamefirstname,” or “lastnamefirstname_position” to make it easier for the recipient to identify and remember you.
• Don’t put a date on your resume file (“resume_05-08”), as you don’t want to accentuate how long you may have been looking.

 Now that you are armed with tips to make your online search more productive, push away from the computer and get out there and network. That’s where you’ll get the biggest return on investment.

LinkedIn has served to advance the careers of numerous professionals, and while some members flourish with this premier business networking site, others just can’t seem to get it right.

Apparently forgetting the basics of good manners, along with the caveat, don’t do anything you wouldn’t want your mother (or boss) to see, some members treat LinkedIn as their personal sounding board and free sales tool. By the time the offending member is done, instead of enhancing their network and establishing a positive brand that adds value, they have become a source of ridicule and derision.

Don’t do the following if you care about your reputation:

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