In addition to being able to search the FlexJobs database for thousands of远程、混合和福莱希ble jobs, one of the most valuable aspects of a FlexJobs membership is exclusive tips from our professional career experts.

FlexJobs’ team of career experts providesprofessional guidance and resources to help members reach their career goals. To help you get to know our fabulous career experts, we’re spotlighting their backgrounds, what they love most about their jobs, and the benefits of their career expertise for job seekers.

Here’s what Keith Spencer, a FlexJobs Career Expert from Pennsylvania, has to say!

What’s your career background?

I actually began my career as a middle school social studies teacher before transitioning into a career development-related role at the county government level. In that role, I assisted local job seekers in gaining new skills and experiences to overcome barriers to employment.

是在这个角色I began developing my career expertise. I coached individuals oneffective job search strategies,writing and editing resumesandcover letters. I taught others how to network anduse LinkedIn effectivelyand trained people inbest practices for maximizing interview success.

After completing my master’s degree at Cabrini University, I began working as a career counselor at Susquehanna University, helping college studentsresearch and identify potential career pathwaysand find and apply for internship and job opportunities.

Afterward, I transitioned to a role at Bloomsburg University. I was doing similar work while cultivating relationships with alums and employer partners. Those relationships helped to provide unique experiential learning opportunities for students that furthered theircareer development efforts.

After working remotely during the pandemic and transitioning back to in-person work full-time, I realized I wanted to finda fully remote rolethat could offer abetter work-life balancewhile still allowing me to help others. That’s how I found FlexJobs—I began using the site to find remote roles of my own.

I was delighted to discover a position within the team of career experts that aligns with my skills, experience, and expertise insupporting the career development efforts of job seekers. Now, I’m here and thrilled to be helping others through a remote, flexible environment!

Why do you enjoy being a career expert?

I’ve always gravitated toward jobs that allowed me to help others, and teaching and training people in job-searching skills is incredibly enriching. Things like writing a solid resume or cover letter, trying tomake a career change, interviewing effectively,networking, and other essential job search skills don’t come to us intuitively.

Guiding career development strategieshas a tremendous potential to impact the lives of others positively, and I find a lot of fulfillment in making confusing and frustrating topics and processes easier to understand.

我从事很多的培训和指导throughout my career, enabling me to build my expertise in job search and application strategies. I enjoy sharing that knowledge with job seekers to improve their career trajectories.

What’s one thing you want every job seeker to know?

Think about your audience! This is one of the biggest things that is often overlooked in the job search process.

Perhaps you’re thinking about whattransferable skillsto include in your resume and cover letter. Or, maybe how to convey your past experiences through your professional documents and LinkedIn profile. It could be that you’re trying to brainstorm what to discuss in an interview. Regardless of the place you’re communicating, you always need tokeep your audience in mind.

Researching industries and companies,carefully reviewing job descriptions, and talking to other professionals in similar fields can help you better understand your audience. That information can guide what is relevant and impactful to them.

Before you submit that applicationor send that email, think about whether or not you havetailored your contentto your specific audience. This takes time and can slow down your job search—at least until you become more skilled with this approach. However, the quality-over-quantity method can lead to greater success in the long run!

What’s the most common question you get asked as a career expert?

“Why am I not hearing anything back from employers?” Generally, this is the most frustrating aspect of the job search process.Job applications take a lot of timeand effort. It can be incredibly disheartening to not hear anything back from an employer or to receive an automated response telling you they are moving on with other candidates.

There are also a lot of factors that can impact the answer to this question. For instance, is your field currently oversaturated with job seekers? Do you need some education or certification commonly required or preferred in this field? Do you lack experience in these types of roles?

All of these issues can impact your success rates in job searching. Still, you can work to overcome them by intentionally conveying yourself and your experience through your resume, cover letter, andfollow-up outreach. As mentioned before, think about your audience!

You should constantlytailor your application materials to a specific role to demonstrate your fit,incorporate keywordsand phrases from the job description into your documents to help withapplicant tracking systems, and consider the employer’s needs for the person in this role so you are effectively portraying your value in your outreach to recruiters and hiring managers.

Working to improve these strategies can reduce the lack of responses you’ve been experiencing and help lead to a job offer in the future.

What’s your best piece of advice for remote job seekers?

Don’t give up! Applying for jobs takes a lot of work. Doing it well can take a lot of time and be discouraging, especially if you aren’t receiving many responses. Unfortunately,rejectionis often the name of the game when it comes to job searching, so you must mentally prepare yourself for this fact.

Just because this employer doesn’t realize your value doesn’t mean the next one, the one after that, or the one after that won’t eventually see you’re the right fit. It’s important to know thatthe average job search takes about six months. As you search, apply, and interview for jobs, pay attention to what’s working and what isn’t working and continue to adapt your strategies or find new methods you have yet to try.

There is no perfect solution for finding and obtaining the right job, but exercising patience and taking the time to adapt and improve your strategies can help increase your chances and eventually result in success.

What’s one of your favorite career success stories?

One of my favorite career success stories was from a client I worked with a few years ago. They felt incredibly hopeless because they had been out of the workforce for over 15 years to focus on raising their children. They had a few solid jobs earlier in their career, but they were worried that their skills needed to be updated and wondered if that information would add value to their resume since it had happened so long ago.

I helped this client with adding a “Planned Career Break” section to their resume toexplain their gap in employmentproactively. We included descriptions of some of therelevant volunteer workand training they had engaged in during this time.

I also showed them how to tailor their “Professional Summary and Key Skills” section for individual roles. Together, we crafted an “Additional Related Experience” section on their resume so they could include some of their earlier experiences but with the dates removed toavoid issues related to ageism.

A couple of months later, the client emailed me to tell me they had just accepted a job offer. They went from feeling hopeless to receiving a job offer for a position they thought was unattainable in just a few months!

FlexJobs IsSO Much MoreThan Just a Job Board

In addition to helpful articles like this one, members get unlimited access to:

• Highest Quality Remote & Flexible Jobs
• 200 +专业技能测试

• Virtual Job Fairs
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• And so much more…

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