“You might think that going to a recruiter, job search consultant or even an employer doesn’t require you to be as sharp as you can be.

It is their passion and love of their job.

In no other industry have I encountered so many people who absolutely love their jobs as much as those dedicated to private service and the household staffing industry.  From the executive-level Estate Managers responsible for multiple homes to the entry-level nanny, these people take on these demanding and challenging jobs because they love making a real difference every day.

It’s encouraging, uplifting and very beautiful.

Not to mention that when these nannies let their hair down, few others laugh as hard as they do!  This is a group that loves life, creativity, friendship and caring.  Being around them for the conference renewed my spirit and reminded me of why I do what I do.

I love being of service to those who serve, helping them with the challenges of writing professional resumes, developing job search strategies and providing interview coaching.  Few agencies have the time or resources to help job seekers in the domestic staffing arena in this way.  They need polished resumes that they can send to clients right away.

During my presentation yesterday, I could see the looks of enlightenment while I was teaching the techniques for an outstanding resume.  It was a mix of relief and understanding, with a lot of “ah ha!” moments.  Even better, the look of joy on their faces when I took them through an exercise about writing about their passion of their jobs.

It was beautiful.

After the workshop, one of the gals came up to me and said, “it was so helpful.  And especially because you understand what our jobs are like.  You really understand what it means to be a nanny.”

Yes, I do, ladies.  And thank you so much for sharing your beautiful spirits with me.

“Donna Shannon got sick of cutting qualified applicants from recruiting sessions because they had mistakes in their resumés or didn’t know how to act in an interview.

” ‘They didn’t seem to understand the whole process of how the hiring game works,’ she said…”

Read more: Get in the job game – Denver Business Journal:

Hungry for some new job search skills?

The Brown Bag Job Search Group Offers Practical Advice and Support

 DENVER, CO: In this competitive employment environment, job seekers need solid, practical skills and support more than ever.  To help meet this need, professional job search advisor Donna Shannon has launched the Brown Bag Job Search Group on Meetup.com. 

Designed to be convenient to both employed and unemployed job seekers, the group meets over lunchtime at the Jobing.com Denver office.  Attendees are encouraged to bring their own lunch to the meeting and are not obligated to buy anything to participate.

Every meeting will start with a presentation on an important job search topic, followed by time for participants to practice their new skills.  The first topic is “A Crash Course in Resumes.”

The first group meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, May 4, 2010 at the Denver Jobing.com office at 1391 Speer Blvd, Suite 850, Denver, CO. 

Join the Brown Bag Job Search group at http://www.meetup.com/Brown-Bag-Job-Search-Group

ABOUT MEETUP.COM: Meetup is the world’s largest network of local groups. Meetup makes it easy for anyone to organize a local group or find one of the thousands already meeting up face-to-face. More than 2,000 groups get together in local communities each day, each one with the goal of improving themselves or their communities.

Meetup’s mission is to revitalize local community and help people around the world self-organize. Meetup believes that people can change their personal world, or the whole world, by organizing themselves into groups that are powerful enough to make a difference.

“As long as your expenses relate to your same occupation, you can deduct them from your Federal income taxes,” states Donna Shannon, President of Coyote Visions and author of Get a Job Without Going Crazy.  “Some of these expenses include resume services, travel expenses and even outplacement agency fees.”

While the deductions do help relieve some of the tax burden of job seekers in 2009, there are limitations.  In particular, only expenses for the job seeker’s current occupation can be considered. First time job seekers are not eligible for the deduction.

One of the more confusing restrictions relates to the amount of time in between jobs.  If a job seeker takes a break between leaving a job and starting the search for a new one, the expenses are not deductable.  However, people who left a job for any reason and began searching for a new job immediately are eligible for the tax deduction.

A taxpayer does not have to be unemployed to take advantage of the job search expenses. Nor does the candidate have to be successful in getting a new job; what is most important is that the expenses relate to the job seekers’ established occupation.

For more information about the deductible job search expenses, see the IRS Publication 529: Miscellaneous Deductions available on-line at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p529.pdf or consult a local tax professional.

###

If you would like more information or to schedule an interview with Donna Shannon, author of Get a Job Without Going Crazy, please call 720-341-8229 or email donna@coyotevisions.com.

Originally released on November 28, 2009, Get a Job Without Going Crazy: a Practical Guide to Your Employment Search has shown strong and steady sales on Amazon.com.  With the new listing at the Tattered Cover, the book will be easily available to job seekers throughout the Denver Metro area.

“I am thrilled to be included with the Tattered Cover’s books,” stated author Donna Shannon.  “For years, I have admired the Tattered Cover’s extensive collection.  Being included on their shelves really is the culmination of a lifetime dream.  There really is no better place to experience books than this icon of Denver culture.”

As a major independent bookstore, the Tattered Cover has been serving the Denver market since 1976.  Each store offers a coffee shop, and patrons are encouraged to sit and stay as long as they like.  The Tattered Cover is committed to the local community, offering free events nearly every day.

Store locations:

The Historic LoDo Denver Store

1628 16th St, Denver, CO 80202

303-436-1070

The Colfax Avenue Store

2526 E. Colfax Ave, Denver, CO 80206

303-322-7727

The Highlands Ranch Store

9315 Dorchester St, Highlands Ranch, CO 

303-470-7050

 - At one company, there was a large glass wall leading into the suite. Candidates constantly walked into the glass – needless to say the shock of hitting the glass sent resume copies flying every time.

 - While waiting in the lobby for an interview, one candidate called her boyfriend on the cell phone, and proceeded to pick a fight with him – including plenty of “questionable” language at high volume.

 - Once a candidate was very concerned that we didn’t give parking vouchers for interviewees. About 10 minutes into the interview, he asked if we could “hurry things up” since his wife was circling the block.

 - As a job search consultant, a client once called about a recent interview she had with a conservative company. She wanted to know if she could sue the company for discrimination, since they told her that she didn’t get the job because of her facial piercings and tattoos on her hands. (Of course, this is not grounds for a lawsuit.)

 - In another situation, I was recruiting for a radio station. One of the candidates showed up in a super-sexy, low-cut white dress and ultra-high heels. She pointed out that her pierced nipples “really gave her an edge” for the job.

When your own job search looks bleak, try to find the humor in your own past.  For every crazy job seeker, there is an equally crazy recruiter.

Change is a scary thing, but we don’t have to be so dominated by our fear that we do not have the strength to follow our visions.  Sometimes it is tempting to stay in the same old ruts, doing the same old things, so that we don’t have to deal with that fear and self-doubt.

But life is not about staying in the same old rut.  In the days before white people moved westward, the Cherokee roamed the plains, following the abundant herds of buffalo and other game that sustained them.  They moved with the seasons, with nature – with their hearts.  They didn’t get caught in the ruts because there were no ruts.

The Spirit of the Universe is always calling out to us, drawing us with visions of what we can become.  Maybe it’s a professional ambition.  Maybe it’s the desire to go back to school.  Maybe it’s the risk of a brand new career, one that always haunted our dreams but that we denied with excuses – excuses that were dripping with fear.

Doing the same thing over and over is one definition of insanity.  If that is the case, cutting off our visions because of the cloud of fear is insane.

Embrace Sanity and dare to make a change!

“We are very excited to join the IAPSP,” stated president and COO, Donna Shannon. “We have supported their cause of empowering the private service professional for years, which closely aligns with our mission of providing quality job seeking advice to this under-served market.”

The private service market includes household managers, estate managers, personal assistants and other professionals who manage the private affairs for the luxury market.  Typical salaries range from $60,000 to over $100,000, employing people across the United States.

ABOUT COYOTE VISIONS:

Founded in 2004, Coyote Visions is one of the few companies in the world that offers private service resumes and job search consulting.  Based on real-world recruiting practices and employer input, the resumes address the specific questions many employers have prior to hiring a service professional for their home or estate. 

CONTACT: www.coyotevisions.com or Donna Shannon at 720-341-8229, donna@coyotevisions.com

ABOUT THE IAPSP:

Established in 2006, the IAPSP (http://www.iapsp.net) is a non-profit, member-based, trade association for private service.  It is focused on providing a platform for developing professionalism and leadership skills in the delivery of estate service.  The IAPSP works to increase confidence, competency and skill by engaging its members in leadership opportunities; providing peer-to-peer networking; and sharing service knowledge within its ranks.  It does this via its active membership, and through its website, monthly meetings and an annual trade conference which is now in its second year.  For more information please contact info@iapsp.net

The comments were meant in jest, and the professor believed that only her friends and family could see posts on her profile.  Obviously, this was not the case.

Back in December 2009, Facebook changed its privacy policies, often making members’ posts and profiles more accessible to the rest of the Facebook community.  In theory, it sounds like a good idea, especially for a media that is meant to connect people who might otherwise never meet.

But with these changes, job seekers need to be aware about everything they place online.  In private service, this is even more important.

Consider that most employers of household staff can be cautious about opening their homes and personal lives to strangers.  This is one of the reasons they like to work with agencies that pre-screen candidates for them.  It allows them to let professional and experienced recruiters handle the background checks in addition to matching them with the right person.

With the onset of social networking, any job seeker should expect that their Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace pages will be looked up.  Google searches will be conducted.  Your online persona will be scrutinized, and discrepancies will be dully noted.

Above all, in private service, your online profile MUST uphold the privacy of your past employers.   All principals want to make sure that their staff will maintain the confidential nature of the home environment.  While most private service professionals realize that they should not rant about past employers online, other factors could slip into the Experience sections of the LinkedIn profile.

In particular, listing the family name of your past employers could be frowned upon.  It’s ok to list the location, size of the home and property, and even key tasks you handled.  However, some employers are very reluctant to see their names in someone’s work history. 

Here’s one possible reason why: imagine that in your past, you worked for a top executive at AIG.  Say that some reporter decided to write an article about the spending habits of executives, especially after the government bail-outs.  Perhaps this reporter decides to contact you to ”get some dirt” about the lavish lifestyle of your former employer, all because he saw on your LinkedIn profile that you were the Estate Manager for the 30,000 sf home…

Does that make you uncomfortable?  The possiblity certainly makes future employers nervous. 

Most of us know better than to bad-mouth our past employers online.  But private service demands a higher standard than this basic rule.  As true Private Service Professionals, it is our duty to protect the integrity of our employers’ homes – both past and future.

And by the way, it is certainly acceptable to list past employers as “Confidential Family” in your online profiles.  If you are in an active job search. you can add a note in your summary that your full work history will be released to serious agencies only.  This keeps you available, while still protecting your principals’ information.