Archive for Jobs in Israel
Wanted: Native English Speakers to teach English in Israel – Death to the Juice!
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I know the picture is not an exact case of horrific spelling errors in English in Israel, but it does make the point. I’m sure you have all seen grammar errors when translating Hebrew to English and to tell you the truth there is no real reason for it. There are plenty of native English speakers in Israel that you can call before pushing the print button. Put down your pride a bit and let an American help you!
Well one way to fight this epidemic is by hiring native English speakers to teach English in Israeli schools. Something that the goverment of Israel is now making a push to do. This is a good thing. So if you have the patience to teach English and need a good job, now is the time. You can read all about the opportunity in this article.
In part it says:
Every few years Israel tries unsuccessfully to lure Diaspora Jews into making aliyah and becoming English teachers in its schools. Now, they are trying again with a new angle – the economic woes in the United States.
“There is always a shortage of English teachers and you have to ask, where are you going to find new ones?” Dr. Judy Steiner, Chief Inspector for English Language Education in Israel told Haaretz.
Given the current financial problems in the United States, the Ministry of Education and the Jewish Agency hope to find more Anglos willing to consider an exciting future in teaching English to Israeli youth.
And it seems that the program “English Teachers for Israel” has succeeded before it has really begun. Several dozen people from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom have already been accepted after answering advertisements in their local aliyah centers.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ARTICLE
Create your own Job Opportunity
Posted by: | CommentsHaving trouble finding a job? Not finding a job you want to do? Why not try this on for size? Create your own job opportunity!
What do I mean by that? Let me give you an example of what I did.
As you probably read in this post about Mey Eden and Tami4 (if not you should read it if you have either one or are thinking about either one), I am a big believer in not drinking water in Israel straight from the tap. When we made Aliyah from Passaic, NJ on the very first Nefesh B’Nefesh flight in the summer of 2002, one of the first things I did was ordered Mey Eden spring water.
There was only one problem. I was right off the plane and could hardly dial a cell phone number much less talk in Hebrew well enough to order something as simple as spring water. It wouldn’t have been so bad if a live person would have picked up the phone, but the beautiful Hebrew voice system stopped me at Hello. I remember asking my neighbor to help me order the machine and a few bottles of water which she did.
But that got me thinking. I was probably not the only native English speaker that would want the delicacy of spring water and there were probably hundreds of others who would rather speak directly with a native English speaker then in broken grammar school Hebrew. So I called up Mey Eden headquarters and asked to speak with someone in marketing and I made my pitch.
I told them that I would become their Anglo representative to Anglos all over Israel. I will set up a different number with just English voice mail. They would give me a monthly budget and I would run all the advertising campaigns in perfect English and I told that I was sure to become one of the best salesmen the company had ever seen.
Well he went for the pitch, liked what I had to say and invited me to meet with him the very next day at Mey Eden. I was actually a bit excited. Here I was, just a couple of weeks off the plane and I already had an interview with one of the most successful and recognized companies in the country. It was a job opportunity I was excited about and knew I could do well.
So I went to the meeting (took a cab as I didn’t know the bus systems yet) and gave again the same pitch. I was meeting with the descision maker and he impressed. He offered me a job on the spot, but then we came to the salary situation. The truth is the starting salary he offered me wasn’t bad, but I wanted to make monthly risidual commissions on every client I brought them and he was only willing to give me a one time commission on each sale. This was a deal breaker for me as I felt why should I bring in a client who will be bringing you monthly income for several years and only get paid once? I wasn’t even asking a lot, but I knew for me to be motivated and to spend the amount of time necessary for it to be a success it would have to have potential to bring in a big and residual income.
He told me to think about it and so I went home and discussed it with my wife and the next day I called him back and turned it down.
But the point of the story is that I knew my strengths. I knew what would motivate me and what I would like to do. I saw a missing opportunity for a company and so I created a position for myself that they didn’t know they needed (and which they still need in my opinion).
So here is my challenge to you. There must be somoene reading this blog post who is in need of a job. Read my post on Mey Eden vs Tami4 and then pick up the phone and call Tami4. Explain how you feel you can become the anglo representative of the company and with the market being what it is you are 100% sure you can not only sell their product to Anglos who don’t have any solution, but that you can convince a number of people to switch from bottled water to filtered water. Someone outthere can do this and get a job from an opportunity they created with a great company with a great company. Will it be you? Why not pick up the phone and find out.
In Part 1 we talked about the importance of articulating what you do as results, not as a job title or task.
Now that you can articulate the results you can bring to the fortunate company who will hire you, it’s time to make a list of companies who can likely benefit from such results.
The idea here is to come up with a list of companies, whether you know someone there or not. Whether they’ve advertised an opening or not.
1. Make a list of companies where you believe you can make an important difference.
2. Next: Identify the person or people in that company who need the results you can create and have the authority to hire, or at least, some kind of budget.
How can you find these people? Talk to friends. Use tools like Facebook and LinkedIn. Help wanted ads. Attend events they may attend and so on. It may take some digging and persistence but when you are looking for a job, looking is your full time job. Treat it that way with focus, discipline and by being systematic.
It may take a few links to get to the end of the chain. Ask about the outcomes: “Who in your company really cares that the user interface will be the software equivalent of good poetry?”
“Why, that would be Jane Smith,” you are told.
3. Learn more about Jane, her responsibilities and interests. The better you understand someone, the easier it is to present yourself as just the person they need.
People will and should guard company information and privacy. Even so, if you ask open questions that don’t back your contact into a corner, you’ll get some useful information much of the time.
Once you know who you are looking for, the challenge is to move things along to the next step – a phone call with Jane and then a meeting. (Notice I didn’t say “interview.” More about that in Part 3.)
SOME POINTERS:
- Your list of companies could be long – and probably should be. But work on a handful at a time so that you can do a proper job.
- You can never know where success will eventually come from. While you put one foot in front of another, keep your eyes and ears open for unexpected opportunities.
- Remember to focus your conversations on results, as we discussed in Part 1.
There’s a tremendous difference between saying “I help companies implement controls and manage risks” and saying “I’m the one who ensures you won’t wake up one morning up six months from now, open a newspaper and discover that you are personally liable for someone else’s irresponsibility or outright theft.” Who would you hire?
In Part 3 we’ll share some pointers for making contact and beginning a relationship with your potential new boss.
PS – If you’d like a very simple Excel spreadsheet to track your job hunting efforts, please send me an email and I’ll get it over to you. dovgordon at gmail dot com
Elsewhere I’ve offered advice for executives and business owners who want to attract top talent on how to write a help-wanted ad that attracts talent and drives everyone else away.
In the next series of posts, I’ll share the converse: How to be the last man (or woman) standing so they point and say “You. Can you really do that for us if we hire you?”
“Why yes, of course. But you better act fast…”
There are three aspects to landing a job in tough times when jobs are scarce:
1. Articulate what you do as results, not as activities.
2. Find a company where they need someone who can create the results you can create.
3. Locate, meet and listen to the boss whose life you can brighten.
Step 1: Articulate what you do as results, not as activities.
This exercise should be your very first step in your hunt for a job. Be able to articulate clearly and with confidence the results you can produce for the right, deserving company.
This sounds easy, but people get stuck here all the time. They talk about their qualifications rather than about the results they can achieve.
If you are a programmer, don’t talk about your credentials and years of experience. Talk about how you can write code that the end user perceives as nothing short of software poetry.
If you are a receptionist, your value might be your ability to make every caller, on the phone or in person, feel welcome and valued.
If you are a marketer, your value might be your ability to get prospects talking so they share information they normally keep to themselves. Any company lucky enough to hire you will have information and understanding of details the competition just guesses about. Of course this provides measurable advantages when it comes to decisions about product design and marketing.
If you are looking for a management position, reflect on your ability to reduce time and energy wasted by your subordinates. Reflect on how you infect others with your passion and average people find themselves producing extraordinary results.
If you are a chef, looking for a job at a restaurant, it isn’t just about cooking good food. It’s about running an efficient kitchen. What is important to the restaurant owner or hotel manager about how a chef runs the kitchen?
In short: be able to able to articulate what will be objectively and observably different once you are in the picture.
Exercise:
- What results have I created in previous positions? What results can I create in my next position?
- List everything that comes to mind. What you do is multi-faceted so be sure to identify your value from several directions.
- Check you answers: Have you written about results, OUTCOMES, or activities?
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In Part 2, we’ll look at ways to find companies who can use and will appreciate your value and how to make your initial approach.
Finally, in Part 3, you’ll get fresh ideas for making people want you on their payroll.
A lot of times finding a job is about who you know, especially in Israel! That being said it would seem that the more people you know (or the more people who know you), the easier it will be to find a job. So go ahead, make yourself known! Start a blog, get involved in social networking, attend networking events! Do whatever it takes to get yourself known. Even better, become an expert in the field you represent! Write an ebook about the topic you love most in your industry, write articles to magazines, websites, and newspapers. Keep writing and keep posting until you are known as an expert in your field. Look out for events and offer to speak at them.
Yeah I know, public speaking is one of mans greatest fears:
The
fear of public speaking is always listed as one of the top three
American phobias (way above the fear of death, which is usually rated
as the seventh most common phobia). The comedian Jerry Seinfeld
observed, “Most of us would rather be in the casket than giving the
eulogy.”
That being said there are many ways to get yourself out there. In this Mashable post called "How to build the Ultimate Social Media Resume", Mashable looks at 6 different ways to build a social media resume and get yourself out there.
So don't just sit back and wait for it to happen, you need to be proactive and go out and make it happen! I believe I have mentioned before, but it is worth mentioning again. Be different! Don't send out the same boring CV that everyone else is snding in. Make it different! Use video! Send it in a Gold Plated envelope with a signature required. Even if they ask you to send in your CV dont! Give them what they really want, but don't know how to ask for! Give them a winning person, someone who shows creativity, someone that will make their company proud! Don't be like everyone else since 99.9% of everyone else also won't be getting the job!
War in Gaza + Former Gush Katif Residents + JobKatif = creative job solutions
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JobKatif is an innovative and inspiring non-profit organization that was created as a way to create and find job for former members of Gush Katif that were expelled from their homes in the Disengagement. There was and unfortunately still is a need to find Jobs for those who needed to start from scratch after their communities were destroyed. With the current war in GAZA and the general situation with the Global economy, there is a need to be innovative. JobKatif is being innovative as seen in this post below:
all of you who contributed! And it was multiplied by 4x by a generous
donor, so JobKatif did even better! Below read about its latest
wonderful project:
At JobKatif we are conducting business in unusual times. So we are conducting business unusually.
As you know, JobKatif is focused on providing employment solutions for
the former residents of Gush Katif. But who can work when there are
sirens going off every few minutes? Who can work when staff members are
being called up to the army? Who can work when your son, who grew up in
Gush Katif, and knows the terrain was sent to the front lines? And who
can think about getting a job when you are scared for your life and the
life of your neighbors.
So instead of business as ususal, we are going to have fun. Lots and
lots of fun. And we are going to help the people of Gush Katif do what
they do best?. care about the Jewish people. During Operation Cast
Lead, JobKatif has begun Operation Joy and Light. JobKatif has
requisitioned a van which will be taking entertainers to visit small
communities under fire and provide joy and respite to the children.
Both the van driver and the entertainers are from Gush Katif. And many
of them have been helped by JobKatif. So far we have lined up jumping
castles, karaoke, puppet theatre, magicians, balloon games and Jewish
telepathy.
In addition to Operation Joy and Light, which will provide work for
entertainers from Gush Katif and happiness to children from the South -
our counselors are continuing to offer support to families and we are
continuing to help Gush Katif families find alternative housing as
needed.
Visit JobKatif to Donate Today!
Help us bring respite and joy to the people of the South. Remember,
repentance, prayer and charity annul evil decrees. Go out and do a
kindness for another person. If you haven't yet donated to our $4 to $1
matching campaign, please do so now. Please pass this on to your
friends Finally, continue to keep the people of Gush Katif, the people
of the South and all of our valiant soldiers in your prayers.
In friendship,
Judy Lowy
Executive Director, JobKatif
While this idea may not make millions, I love the innovation and the never give up attitude. I strongly suggest that anyone that wants to help out should support this group and give donations. Kol HaKavod!
