About CSD Career Services:  Our Strengths
CSD Career Services is affiliated with Case | Sabatini CPAs and CSD Financial wealth management services. With these affiliations, it's only natural that our strengths lie in the financial arena for job types and in the construction and real estate development areas for industry specialization.  Placing accountants, controllers, CFOs and other financial executives at contractors and developers is a natural area of concentration for us.  However, we're also highly qualified in other broad areas such as marketing and related fields (advertising, agency staff, salespeople, etc.), nonprofit professionals, and general management.

About Your Contact at CSD Career Services
Jim Dee started with Case | Sabatini in 2001, serving as the firm's Director of Marketing and Business Development. He continues to serve the firm in this role as we roll out CSD Career Services in late 2006.  Throughout his career, Jim has been involved in, and fascinated with, the HR field in numerous ways. In the early 90s, he served on the editorial staff for many years of an HR newsletter called Flexible Benefits.  In 1997, he published a feature article in the prestigious law firm management journal, Of Counsel, describing the keys to success in working with headhunters (available here as a 551k PDF file). One of his interviewees for that piece, the managing partner of a major law firm in Boston, reportedly thought it was so good that he routinely carried it around in his briefcase to present to headhunters. In 2000, he published a well-received feature in a magazine called EM (for environmental mangers) on self-directed job hunting (available here as a 206k PDF file). (He followed this article with a well-attended one-hour presentation on the same topic.) Since joining Case, he has assisted the firm in vetting candidates for the firm and for the firm's clients.  Jim's areas of specialty for recruitment include accounting and finance, marketing and related fields (advertising, agency staff, salespeople, etc.), nonprofit professionals, and general management.

Career Resources:  How to Find a Job!
If you're a candidate, definitely send us your resume and we'll take a look.  Beyond that, we have put together a list of resources we believe are invaluable for the job seeker:

• Monster.com
• HotJobs
• CareerBuilder
• The Post-Gazette classifieds
• PA JobMatch
• Pittsburgh Technology Council
• USA Jobs (for governmental positions)
• The Ladders (for $100k+ positions)
• The Pittsburgh Business Times Book of Lists.  No link, but go to a library and Get. This. Book. It lists all of the biggest (and in many cases, the best) employers in town, and offers their web site addresses.  Don't forget to check individual web sites -- esp. for larger employers like the big manufacturers, financial institutions, and universities.  And, by all means, check that book's list of executive recruiters. If we can't place you, hopefully one of the others can! Get your resume out to everyone.
• Also check trade and professional association web sites (for those to which you belong or those in the target markets in which you'd like to work).  Many of these list open positions.
• And, finally, remember to always network!  Tell your colleagues that you're looking. You never know where your next position may come from.

Finding a job opening is only half the battle, of course. You still need to land the position. So make sure you pay attention to the following things that'll put you ahead of others:

1. Write clearly. Spend considerable time writing professional cover letters. At a minimum, if you try not to begin every sentence with "I" and make an effort to limit the number of being verbs (e.g., is, am, was, be, been, etc.), your writing will very likely improve.
2. Make sure you have a professional-looking, easy-to-read resume.  For most people, this means one page only.  (But, that's only my opinion, folks.)
3. Hone your interviewing skills.  Consult the web for guidance on this and all of the above. But, at a minimum, do as much research as you can prior to an interview -- into both the company and the industry. Imagine what they might ask you and have good answers prepared. Above all, be professional!
4. Apply only for jobs for which you're qualified! Sending out resumes based on long odds is really a waste of your time and the recipient's time.
5. Be responsive.  Respond to all inquiries, send thank notes/emails you after interviews. (Don't overdo it, though.)

   
© 2008 CSD Career Services.  For information, call Jim Dee at (412) 881-4411.