The Net-Savvy Jobseeker

This blog is moving

2006-09-20T21:11:00.000-04:00

After five months on Blogger, the Net-Savvy Jobseeker is moving to a new home at net-savvy.com/jobseeker/. The archive will remain here at Blogspot, so any links to specific posts will continue to work. If you've subscribed to the feed at Feedburner, or if you receive updates by email, those will continue to work, too.

Meet you there!

Trendy jobs seek well-rounded people

2006-09-18T10:48:00.000-04:00

Internet trends are doing some interesting things to the IT job market. Angus Loten has some insights in a Fast Company article, The Jobs of Web 2.0. The first trend is a new round of goofy job titles (PHP Ninja?). The second is jobs that require new combinations of technical and non-technical skills.

As such, standard tech job listings on cutting-edge sites like CrunchBoard or 37 Signals often call for "excellent communications skills" on top of LAMP, DRUPAL, AJAX and open source experience. They also co-mingle with listings for consumer insight directors, online audience managers and other marketing-like positions.

"People aren't just looking for a designer or a programmer anymore," said Jason Fried of 37Signals, a Chicago-based software firm that recently launched a Web 2.0 jobs board. "They're looking for programmers who appreciate design and designers who can program, among other skills. Basically, workers who are well-rounded and flexible," he said. [...]

For Pete Snyder, the CEO of New Media Strategies, an online branding firm based in Arlington, Va., most Web 2.0 employees have to speak two languages: programming and marketing.

Bottom line: Internet innovations are contributing to an IT job market recovery, but you'll need to be more than an old-fashioned code jockey to take advantage of the new trends.

Tags: IT jobs Web 2.0

Worst ways to...

2006-09-14T13:11:00.000-04:00

Jeanne Sahadi is having fun writing the Stephen King stories of the job market (only they're nonfiction). Last week she had the worst ways to get laid off (via CM Russell). This week, the worst ways to quit.

I still remember the guy whose angry resignation email announcement made the rounds. These are worse.

Update: Jim has some more suggestions of how to leave badly.

Personal career development plan

2006-09-14T11:27:00.000-04:00

What's your career development plan? The unpleasant reality of today's employment market is that every employee needs to be prepared to be back on the market. If you're just doing your job, counting on your employer to take care of you, you're setting yourself up for a big surprise. The better approach is to work actively on your own professional development, so you'll be ready if you need—or want—to look for something new.

Here's my outline for a personal development plan. Add your own details, and you'll be on your way to long-term employability. If you do it right, you'll enjoy your career more, too.

Training

Formal training isn't the easiest thing to fit into a busy schedule, but it shows a commitment to your career, and it's something specific you can point to on an application or in an interview.

If your employer offers training, take it. It doesn't get any easier than that.
Check your local community college or university extension program. Don't forget smaller schools that may offer continuing education courses.
Professional associations frequently offer or sponsor training events. You can network while you learn, too.
Training is as close as the nearest Internet connection with free online training.

Current awareness

Beyond formal training, identify sources of information to keep you aware of the world outside your cubicle. A free clipping service can bring you industry news. Newsletters and blogs can help with current practices and identify influential people in your specialty. Once you find a source you like, pay attention to its contributors and links to find other sources. Maintaining current awareness is a good use of your RSS feed reader.

Connections

Are you plugged into a community of peers? It's easy to focus your networking effort inside your own company, but that's not where you'll get the most help if the company shows you the door. Use LinkedIn as a tool for building your network. Volunteer in your community. Find a professional association or two, or a regional industry group. You'll meet interesting people at the meetings, and you'll be much better connected in the local economy if you reenter the job market. The newsletters, magazines, and other resources offered by most associations are another good source of continuing education and industry awareness, too.

Visibility

Networking is everyone's recommended way to get your next job, but don't stop there. In addition to retail networking (one-to-one), consider these ways to scale up your personal visibility:

Participate in trade show panels
Be a speaker at your association meeting
Write articles for industry publications—both print and online
Contribute comments on relevant blogs
Write your own blog
Create your own web site
Build your LinkedIn profile

As with any strategic plan, your personal development plan will benefit from a plan with smart goals. What are you doing to maximize your career this year? This month? Today?

Tags: career development

Use LinkedIn to create an online presence

2006-09-13T12:30:00.000-04:00

When you Google yourself, are you lost in a crowd of people with the same name? Would you like to be easier to find?

Todd Defren suggests using your LinkedIn profile to create a permalink for your career . As Scott Allen points out, a profile on LinkedIn may be especially useful to people with more common names who have trouble standing out in search results:

...A lot of professionals are starting to use their LinkedIn profiles as a sort of "professional home page" that's independent of their company. Because of the LinkedIn domain's popularity, these profile pages tend to do well in the search engines. This may not be a big deal for people with very distinctive names, but for those of us with more common names, that’s a good thing.

Two thoughts here: First, if you're hard to pick out of the search results on your name, this might be worth trying. Second, everyone who uses LinkedIn should know that your profile is searchable on the major search engines. The personal background you share on LinkedIn is visible to everyone, just one more bread crumb on the trail to your online reputation.

Tags: LinkedIn reputation

Legal issues of social networking background checks

2006-09-13T11:43:00.000-04:00

I've written about employers searching the Internet for information about candidates and employees. There's a debate about the ethics, but the safe assumption is that companies will search for information online, including personal information they're not supposed to use.

Besides ethics and good manners, what are the legalities of casual background checks that uncover personal information? Attorney George Lenard discusses some areas of potential liability (via MN Headhunter):

Discrimination law
Invasion of privacy
Terms of service violation
Fair Credit Reporting Act

George wraps up with some familiar-sounding advice:

I would advise applicants/employees to assume future employers will read everything you post. So when you put something about yourself out there, you can be yourself, but avoid obvious negatives like saying you hate to work or posting sleazy or drunken photos. It may help to ask yourself whether you would want your mother to see your site. Sorry to say, but you may not even want to admit homosexuality or extreme political or religious views. On a positive note, use your Internet postings, including blogs as well as social networking sites, affirmatively, to build visibility and credibility as an expert in your field (or hobby). Join more "serious" networking sites like LinkedIn even if you are still a student—and work at building a network there that can help you in future job searches.

Yep, that's about it. Just pay attention to the bread crumbs you leave for others to discover, and you won't need to worry about whether their searches are legal.

Tags: reputation ORM employment law

Living with the smart people

2006-08-31T14:47:00.000-04:00

Oh, look, I'm in one of America's smartest cities:

Raleigh, N.C., with its amalgam of great research universities and high tech companies, tied San Francisco for second place for holders of Bachelor's degrees and was seventh for advanced degrees with 16.7 percent of residents holding one."

OK, actually, I'm in nearby Apex, where we get the traditional advantages of small-town life, too.

Update: Apparently, we're wired, too (via Valleywag).

Tags: NC RTP Apex

Cross-pollinating for innovation

2006-08-31T11:29:00.000-04:00

"What's the last book you read?"

It makes the list of popular interview questions, but has anyone actually been asked that question recently? It's an interesting challenge, even if no one actually asks.

Somewhere along the way, I came across advice to read trade journals from another industry, where you might pick up new insights into your own. I like the idea, because I tend to be interested in a lot of areas, and making connections across industries or disciplines is a big part of what I do. So, naturally, I enjoyed reading Bruno Giussani's post about the surgeon who learned from mechanics (via TED Blog).

"The post-operation phase is probably the most sensitive, and until a couple of years ago it was chaotic: there was a lot of noise, everyone moved around with no coordination with the others: we've totally redesigned our way of working", [surgeon Martin Elliott] says. The Ferrari people filmed the doctors at work, then dissected the images with them. "For years we've been convinced that we were doing things pretty well, but seeing the tape it was shocking to notice our lack of coordination", says Nick Pigott of the intensive-care unit.

The world is full of specialists, and you have to specialize if you want to be accepted. But if you add some breadth to your knowledge and stay open to new ideas, you may spot opportunities that the specialists who stay in their niches miss.

If not, at least you'll be more interesting to talk to at lunch.

Help recruiters find you

2006-08-29T10:23:00.000-04:00

I've posted before on using the right keywords to show up in recruiter's Internet searches. The advice applies to résumés that you post online or submit to employers (remember, many employers are using database searches to comb through the résumés they receive). It also applies to the rest of your online presence—your web site, blog, biographies connected to articles or conference participation, and your profile on services like LinkedIn.

Now Jim Stroud has added his suggested search tips for recruiters. These are web search suggestions, so to benefit from this directly, you need to post your résumé on a web site somewhere. If you don't have your own web site, you may be able to upload your résumé somewhere, but it needs to be visible as a web page, not locked in some database.

Jim's advice for recruiters implies three tips for jobseekers:

Do include words that Jim tells recruiters to search for. Note that he suggests searching for "resume" in the title or URL of a web page. If your résumé is on the web but its name doesn't include "resume," this search wouldn't find it.
Don't include words that make your résumé look like a template or sample (e.g., submit, openings, template, tips, submission, sample).
Do include the right keywords for your specialty. This is the meat of the query, where a recruiter or employer searches on job requirements. This is why you include buzzwords, technologies, companies, and any other words that hiring managers would use if they were looking for someone just like you.

People can find your web presence in two ways: either they're looking for you, or they're looking for something about you. An online presence that works into recruiters' searches will help people find you when they're not looking for you by name, which can be a powerful way to extend your visibility in the market.

Employers use MySpace, too

2006-08-23T10:33:00.000-04:00

People are still talking about the risks of personal information in your MySpace profile. This morning, I heard Stephen Viscusi interviewed on NPR's Morning Edition: Employers tap web for employee information. He moved right past any ethical question of whether employers should be snooping through people's personal lives online to the fact that they are. The ability to discover answers to questions they can't legally ask in an interview seems to be one of the perceived benefits of these online background checks. Viscusi mentions some examples of very personal information that shouldn't be part of the hiring decision but is available on many personal profiles.

Employers and recruiters may disagree on whether it's ethical to look for personal information, but at least some will use it. It's human nature to find those personal tidbits interesting. If you don't want employers to know it, don't put it on the web. Instead, leave a trail that enhances your brand.

Tags: myspace privacy hr jobs

Career, money, happiness?

2006-08-22T12:49:00.000-04:00

Maybe it's just the end of summer, but I've seen a number of posts and articles about happiness and work lately. The one thing almost everyone agrees on: it's not about the money.

Ken Makovsky, What makes us happy (at work)?

...Despite worries about their economic future, Americans put pay, benefits, and job security lower down the list of qualities that are important to them in their job than a sense of fulfillment, opportunities to help people, and autonomy in how they accomplish their tasks.

Penelope Trunk, Three more ways to think about career happiness

Many people want fame, but it's bad for you.
Rich people are not happier but they say they are.
Keep your commute short and your TV off.

CFOs think money is the main factor in the decision to take a job; Jason Alba takes issue.

Matthew Herper, Money won't buy you happiness (ok, this one's not so recent):

According to Ed Diener, the University of Illinois researcher who surveyed the Forbes 400 and the Maasai,... happy people tend to have higher incomes later on in their lives. So, while money may not help make people happy, being happy may help them make money.

C'mon, people, let's get happy!

Tags: money happiness career values

Interactive talent shortage continues

2006-08-22T12:19:00.000-04:00

Interactive marketing is booming, creating openings that exceed the available talent pool. Matthew Creamer writes in Advertising Age yesterday, talent dearth breeds crisis:

...It's a great time to be in digital, provided you're part of the select group that has real experience in Flash development or web design and can help create the sophisticated integrated-marketing programs that agencies and their clients increasingly are demanding. Salaries are soaring, perks are proliferating and promotions are pouring in.

...It's worth observing a significant difference between the dot-com era and now. Back then, everyone prospered. These days, there's a clear advantage for a small subset of the business: those schooled in Flash, web architecture and data analytics. At all experience levels, these folks are reeling in big raises, getting chased by headhunters and being poached by bigger outfits.

It's hard to believe that a company would alienate a star in this environment.

If you're not already working in this stuff, you won't be able to cash in on the current craze at the high end, but the openings aren't exclusively at the highest levels. If your experience is in a shrinking industry or specialty, interactive may be a new direction for you to consider.

If you do have experience they're looking for, are you using the right keywords to make yourself visible? Articles like this one from Ad Age provide helpful clues on what recruiters are looking for, as well as names of people and companies in the market.

Tags: interactive advertising jobs

A random walk down employment street

2006-08-22T10:41:00.000-04:00

I can't quite decide if this is useful or just entertaining. Joel Cheesman's uCheez (via Recruiting.com) is a new website featuring a big button that shuffles visitors through a collection of career-related web sites. In my quick tour, I saw sites for Hispanic and bilingual jobs, accountants in the UK, JobCentral, and—big surprise—Joel's blog. I saw targeted job boards for local and international markets, too.

uCheez is an interesting experiment. Web sites pay for joining the shuffle, which jobseekers can use to discover new resources. With so many career-related web sites online, this could be helpful. But the site design breaks the browser's "back" button and history feature, so you'll need to be careful to keep track of the sites you like. Click on "Close uCheez" to see the original web site and URL. If you forget and want to go back to one of the sites you passed, you could end up clicking the shuffle button a lot.

Tags: uCheez

Online tools for organizing your job search

2006-08-18T11:08:00.001-04:00

Your job search is all about (pick one):

Marketing yourself
Selling yourself

I tend to focus on the marketing aspect of the job search, but the sales aspect is where you actually close the deal. It can also be a process that generates a lot of details that you have to track, such as contact details and job leads. I have an Excel workbook to track job-search activities, but better tools are out there. The professional-strength approach to tracking detailed information in sales is to use specialized software, such as GoldMine (PC) or Daylite (Mac), but new, web-based services designed just for the job search offer many of the same benefits. Most offer free versions of their services, too.

Backpack is a web-based organizer that could be useful for keeping to-do lists and notes. A paid version adds photo and file upload capabilities. It's not a specialized job search tool, but it has some interesting capabilities, such as sending reminders to your email and cell phone (via Career Hub).
Emurse is an online tool for creating, sending and tracking résumés. Once you build your résumé, Emurse generates DOC, PDF, RTF, ODT, HTML or text versions as required, helps you send them to employers, and keeps track of where you've sent it. Emurse includes an web-based résumé option with optional password protection, if you want to be found by web-searching recruiters.
Isabont has all the features you want for keeping track of your search. You enter your contacts, events, and to-do lists, upload your résumé and cover letter, and start tracking job postings. A free account gets you access to most of Isabont's features; the $9.95/month premium level adds email and cell phone reminders, email attachments and data export features (via Secrets of the Job Hunt).
JibberJobber is another complete job-search organizer, tracking contacts, jobs, and applications. It also offers a library with links, articles, and personal stories. The free version offers most of the benefits of the paid version ($9.95/month, $105/year, $190/2 years).
Job Search Log manages bookmarks for the job boards and searches you use, remembers the postings you select, and helps you track applications through the entire process. The free service also includes a contact database, customized letters, and mail merge and reporting functions (via Secrets of the Job Hunt).
Myjobtips ($14.95 for three months or $29.95/year) tracks jobs posted on the Internet and adds notes, events and reminders. A free version allows you to track up to three active jobs at a time.

It doesn't matter which tool you use—even paper and pencil can work, if you insist. But an active job search generates a lot of information, and you need quick, easy access. It's just not good form to be unable to remember that you applied for a job at a company when the recruiter calls to schedule an interview.

A little knowledge is a competitive thing

2006-08-09T13:13:00.000-04:00

In the introduction of my Beyond Job Boards presentation, I tell everyone that the talk is about tactics. I don't want anyone to think that a few Internet search tips are a substitute for a solid job search strategy. I do suggest that online sources and techniques can make you more competitive in the job market, if you're willing to expand your knowledge of what's out there.

It's probably a safe assumption that today's professionals have at least a minimal knowledge of how to use the Internet. They use email and the web, and they use Google to find things. When it comes to using the Internet in a job search, they know about employer web sites and the big job boards, but that's about it. Most people haven't discovered RSS, they don't understand blogs, and they don't discover social networking until they're in the job market. They don't benefit from these things because they're new, which creates an opportunity for those who discover their value now.

Kathy Sierra posted this diagram on Creating Passionate Users, writing about the mismatch between product capabilities and their typical use. Think of the "product" in the diagram as all of the career-related benefits of the Internet:

Whether I'm working with an individual, speaking to a group, or writing here, my goal is to expand that circle of what jobseekers can actually do with their online tools. You'll never expand the purple circle to fill the green one, but you can be better informed, find more of what you're looking for, and help the right people find you. How big is your purple circle?

Tags: social media networking career training speaker

Creative, curious, makes people crazy

2006-08-08T14:48:00.000-04:00

I like Creative Generalist because Steve recognizes the connection between creativity and curiosity, a combination that drives people crazy (follow-up posts 1, 2 and 3). It's not easy being a generalist in a world of specialists, but someone has to be able to make connections across domains, or innovations will stay in the lab. The trick is to develop a specialization that benefits from generalist traits and use your curiosity to develop insights others miss.

Other blogs that inspire me: Idea Sandbox, Information Aesthetics, Logic+Emotion,
Presentation Zen.

Tags: generalist creativity

Convenient search for career advice

2006-08-03T21:53:00.000-04:00

Have you noticed the glut of career advice on the Internet these days? If you were to try to read all of the career-related blogs, you wouldn't have any time left to find a job!

Enter CHiMBY, CM Russell's new vertical search engine for career advice (vertical search means that all of CHiMBY's results should be on topic for jobseekers). Here's the short description:

CHiMBY is a vertical search engine that indexes career advice information within a small but highly respected network of authors, bloggers and career media sources in order to provide the best answers to your career advice questions. Each source is hand-picked to ensure fresh, relevant results. The information you'll find comes from an exclusive club of career advice experts.

I'm honored that this blog is one of the over 200 indexed by CHiMBY. Next time you're looking for advice on a specific career topic, give it a try.

Tags: chimby vertical search career advice

Companies hiring in the Triangle

2006-08-02T21:47:00.000-04:00

Jason Caplain posted some links for people considering relocating to the Triangle (Raleigh / Durham / Chapel Hill, NC). Along with some of the usual good suggestions for this market, he has a convenient list of some area companies with open positions:

BrightView Technologies, Broadwick, Bronto, Centice, ChannelAdvisor, Constella Group, Cree, Hosted Solutions, HyperBrach Medical, InnerPulse, Integrian, Motricity, Nextreme Thermal Solutions, Overture Networks, Quintiles, Red Hat, rPath, SAS, SciQuest, StrikeIron

See Jason's post for the links and his other suggestions, then visit my list of Triangle resources for jobseekers for more ideas.

Tags: RTP Triangle NC jobs

Typo sends opportunity away

2006-08-02T19:02:00.000-04:00

Don't put the wrong phone number on your online résumé.

A member of a local networking group recently described getting phone calls at her work for someone who listed her office phone number on his résumé on Monster. He sometimes get a phone call every day at this wrong number. These calls have been going on for 5 months. How many leads has he lost from one typo?

Proofread your résumé, especially details like email addresses and phone numbers that are unforgiving of mistakes. A one-digit typo could send opportunity knocking on someone else's door.

Not a record, fortunately

2006-08-02T17:43:00.000-04:00

On the day forecast to be the hottest of the year, here's a moment to remember a cool afternoon with old friends at the highest point east of the Mississippi. 68º F in late July.

Well, at least we appear to have missed the forecast 100º high today.

Don't slam the door on networking

2006-07-28T12:45:00.000-04:00

Yesterday brought two discussions of successful people actively avoiding opportunities to network.

Steve Rubel wrote—some say complained—about the behind-the-scenes email among bloggers, which others defend as just networking. I've found my blogs and email to be an effective combination for meeting interesting people, and I'm happy to receive messages from people who think I'm interesting, too.

IQ Interactive recruiter Ragan Jones wrote about the rude response she's been getting from Google employees when she tries to network with them. Folks, networking is not just for the unemployed or unsuccessful, and being rude to recruiters (who know other recruiters) is short-sighted and, well, rude. Life is so much more pleasant when you're nice to people.

You plant your seeds before you need to eat. If you're happy in your job, that's the best time to build your network. If you're successful and help someone else on their way up, they'll remember your help (they may even become clients). Don't turn down those contacts just because you don't need them now. When you need the connections, they'll be harder to make.

Even if you never need another job, and if you never need new contacts in your business (yeah, right), life is better with more connections to people. You never know where a new contact will lead.

Tags: networking recruitment

Basic design for your online presence

2006-07-28T10:40:00.000-04:00

Whether you're using a blog or a web site to increase your visibility, you should avoid the ugly web site problem. Your web presence should be part of your personal marketing plan, and bad design isn't what you want to be know for. You can have a web site that looks reasonable even if you don't know anything about design. Just get good advice from someone who knows, and learn from the example of good sites.

If you want an instructor to lead you through the basics, try BusinessWeek's free online course , Graphic Design for Non-Designers (via David Armano). The course runs through August 16, so don't wait.

I like to have a book when I'm learning a new topic, especially when it's computer-related. Robin Williams has the franchise in accessible books for non-designers, from The Mac is Not a Typewriter to The Non-Designer's Design Book and The Non-Designer's Web Book. If you're still using two hyphens when the situation calls for an em dash (have you noticed that Microsoft Word changes that automatically now?), find one of Robin's books for a quick skills upgrade. Her friendly approach to design topics is perfect for non-designers who want to get it right.

If you really don't have time or the inclination to learn this stuff, you can always spend some money and get professional help. Send me a note, and I'll refer you to some people I know.

Tags: web design training

Use their snooping to build your brand

2006-07-25T23:16:00.000-04:00

Do you use some of the fun or convenient new services on the Web? You may be adding to what recruiters learn about you when you do. That can be a scary proposition, I suppose, but it also offers a subtle opportunity to enhance your brand online.

The ethics of online background research are still uncertain, and some recruiters and hiring managers are looking in unusual places to find out about candidates. The latest place is a candidate's Amazon wish list (via Penelope Trunk). People also leave an identifiable trail on del.icio.us, Furl, Digg, Technorati, Flickr, YouTube, and many others. For those keeping score, these are some of the most popular new sites on the web. To get their full value, you need to become a member, and some of what you do there is visible to the public. These sites all have the potential to be used and abused by potential (or current!) employers.

I think searching these sites as part of the hiring process crosses the ethical line, but it is way to find out what people are interested in. Jason Zimdars, whose wish list came up in an interview, described it in positive terms:

Many times in interviews, the interviewer would comment on a blog post I had written or a book on my Amazon wish list. These were great ice-breakers and really helped me to connect with potential employers on a more personal level. Well-executed online information can be a great asset in your job search as companies can learn more about you than simply by reading your resume.

These background checks provide an opportunity to thejobseeker. Knowing that potential employers may look at your online breadcrumbs, you can make a point of doing things that will help your case. Pay attention to what is visible to the public, and use some of these services to support the image you want to project. If your personal brand is honest and consistent with who you really are, this shouldn't present a problem. And if you must do something that could be a problem in the future, don't do it in a public place.

In managing your online reputation, you have a few choices: you can avoid these services altogether, you can hide your identity on these services, or you can use them in a way that enhances—or at least doesn't hurt—your career. Avoiding them deprives you of some really fun and useful services. Hiding your identity (by using different user names on each service) might work, but secrets have a way of being found out. I recommend using the sites that interest you, keeping in mind that a potential employer may take an interest in what you've done. A few well-placed breadcrumbs may even help you some day.

Tags: reputation brand recruitment Amazon

Is your day this predictable?

2006-07-18T14:18:00.000-04:00

Sure, I like Dilbert, but all I really needed to know I learned from chickens.

Protect yourself from employment scams

2006-07-13T09:08:00.000-04:00

A side effect of being visible to recruiters is being visible to scammers. The FBI recently released some tips on protecting yourself from online employment fraud (via Secrets of the Job Hunt, Information Week):

You respond to an online job ad. You’re contacted via e-mail for a fake interview. Then, you’re asked for bank account information in order to “direct deposit” your paychecks. Guess what? It’s all a ruse…and the crooks drain your account.

The FBI release has more examples and some tips to protect yourself. Fraud happens, and if your résumé is on a job board, you'll probably get one of these fake opportunities sooner or later. Here are some easy ways to protect yourself.

Minimize the personal information on your online résumé. Email, cell phone, city and state should be all the contact information recruiters need. You can share the rest once you know who you're dealing with.
Don't give a potential employer your bank account or credit card information, a scan of your driver’s license or other ID, or a detailed physical description of yourself.
Don't include your social security number or birthdate on your résumé.
When you're contacted about a job, perform a search on identifiable keywords (company names, Internet domains, abbreviations, people) from the message. Some common frauds are easy to identify with a simple Google search.
The FTC has information on fraudulent business opportunities. Check it out before your respond to that "work from home" ad.

When you're contacted by a recruiter, do a little research before submitting personal information. "I found your résumé on Monster" may be opportunity knocking, or it could be someone who wants to steal from you. A few minutes' delay won't diminish your chance at legitimate opportunities, but it may keep you from making a big mistake.

Tags: jobs fraud scams

Links as proof of qualification?

2006-07-12T16:11:00.000-04:00

Here's a new twist on employers using the Internet to identify candidates from Techdirt:

Someone recently told me that they were trying to recruit for a job opening, and he planned to find candidates not by advertising the job itself, but by putting together a list of bloggers who had a certain four or five blogs listed in their blogroll (Techdirt was one, apparently)—allowing him to pre-qualify candidates who might fit the job he was trying to fill without calling for resumes. So, even when you're not officially looking for jobs, your online presence can be important.

This search technique only works for finding bloggers, since blogrolls are found on blogs (although you could create a similar list on your personal web site). For this approach to find you, you'll need to be active online, writing about the things you do and linking to the right sources. It's a more advanced, and probably more specialized, game than posting a résumé with the right keywords and headlines.

Finding the right answer when you Google yourself is the first step. Being found by people who are searching for you by description—not by name—takes things to the next level. Do it right, and your online presence will lead people in search of your kind of expertise directly to you.

Tags: career recruitment blogging

Get your free online education

2006-07-12T13:01:00.000-04:00

I'm a strong believer in lifelong learning, both for career development and on general principle. In addition to the actual skills or knowledge you gain in a course, it makes for a good story of how you're investing in yourself—even if you're currently employed (if you don't invest in yourself, why would your employer?). It can also be a partial answer to the "what have you been doing lately" interview question.

The problem for the jobseeker is the high cost of corporate training, which can easily exceed $1,000 for a 5-day class. For the budget-constrained, here are some sources of free online education.

The HP Learning Center offers free online courses on computer topics, business skills and targeted business topics.
From aeronautics to writing, MIT OpenCourseWare provides free access to course materials from MIT courses—not watered-down online courses, the real thing. MIT is spreading the open courseware concept to other schools around the world, including Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, Tufts University and Utah State University in the U.S.
Another source of open courseware, Textbook Revolution primarily features links to free resources on other sites. It's built on a blogging base, so you can subscribe to RSS feeds by topic (such as business or computers).
Management Methods | Models | Theories and QuickMBA provide quick introductions to business topics and management vocabulary you may encounter. Find your buzzword bingo decoder here.
Financial Management Training Center offers short courses on financial management topics, with helpful additional resources to help you master financial topics.
Mind Tools sells self-study and online courses in personal development. Their web site includes free articles on leadership, problem solving, project planning, and related business skills.
BusinessWeek offers free, instructor-led courses on business and technology topics.

In addition to online sources, remember your local community college, university extension and other adult education options. Some of these are explicitly intended to help jobseekers in the employment market.

One source that's not free—but I've been a fan for years—is The Teaching Company, which sells lecture series in audio and video formats. Only a few of their courses are business-related, but all of them contribute to keeping life, and the learner, interesting.

Tags: education training career

Blogs for jobseekers

2006-07-11T14:12:00.000-04:00

I try not to do too much generic job-search advice here. My focus is on using Internet tools and techniques to advance your career or job search. Besides, I've found a healthy assortment of blogs that already do a good job of delivering job-search advice. Here's a partial list:

Secrets of the Job Hunt

Wired & Hired

Now, here's the technology reminder. You don't want to try to follow a long list of sources by going to the web page every day. These folks don't post every day, and you'll waste too much time sorting out the new stuff. This is the most basic use of RSS, so get your feed reader going and add these blogs to your subscriptions.

Recommended by the recruiter

2006-07-06T23:10:00.000-04:00

It's not just you. Recruiters have noticed that the system isn't working. Ben Gotkin summarizes the problem in recruiting technology is not flat (yet) (via Deb Dib):

The first generation of recruiting technology (job boards and applicant tracking systems) created an environment that has frustrated job seekers and recruiters alike. Job boards and applicant tracking systems have not done a good job in connecting the right people with the right jobs, and have not been effective tools to reach passive job seekers.

Ben suggests five tools that he has used successfully as a recruiter: Jobster, ZoomInfo, LinkedIn, Simply Hired and Indeed. Read his post for a quick idea of how each is useful. The key here is that Ben's recommending these tools as a recruiter, not as a job search coach. If you want to be found, be where they're looking.

Why you have to talk about money

2006-07-06T11:21:00.000-04:00

You don't have to like the money question, but you have to answer it (via Anthony J.).

Jobseeker resources for the Triangle (NC)

2006-07-05T21:39:00.000-04:00

Paul deBettignies launched Online Career Hub earlier this year. The site features local job search and career resources for a handful of major cities (beginning with Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, DC).

When you start at the top, it takes a while before you get to North Carolina's Triangle region on the list of big cities (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary... It's a funny-shaped triangle these days). I had a similar page that had started as an email listing some useful sites, and after a little editing, it became a list of jobseeker resources in the Triangle.

As with most lists, this one's not complete. I welcome any suggestions.

8 reasons recruiters don't call

2006-07-05T11:24:00.000-04:00

A bunch of blogging recruiters are trading blogs this week. Writing on Jim Durbin's StlRecruiting blog today, Jim Stroud lists eight reasons recruiters never call you:

Too many responses and not enough time.
Many resumes received are not even in the ballpark of what is being advertised.
[Your message may have been caught in a spam filter.]
The position advertised is a proactive measure by the company to solicit resumes in advance of budget approval for additional headcount.
The hiring manager wants to hire a friend, but must follow company protocol which includes publicizing the opening.
The hiring manager wants to promote someone internally, but wants to “window shop” before committing to the hire.
The hiring manager is on a never-ending quest for the non-existent “perfect candidate.”
You were submitted to the company by a searchfirm.

It's not just a list; he includes tips for jobseekers for each item.

Notice that none of the items says "it's personal." In fact, some of them are entirely out of your control, and some listings don't even represent real openings. Recruiters can be your ally if you know how to work with them.

Risk/benefit of social networking in the job market

2006-06-30T11:39:00.000-04:00

The blogging recruiters are talking about the use of social networking sites like MySpace and LinkedIn to find or screen candidates. They're having a lively discussion, but the takeaway for candidates is this:

Be careful what personal information you share online.
Be visible to recruiter searches on the business-oriented networking sites.

The big problem with the more "social" networking sites, such as MySpace, is that they're built for social purposes, not business. MySpace starts the registration process with a request for a picture—already questionable from a hiring perspective—then moves to questions that recruiters can't legally ask. The questions that recruiters are discussing in the comments to these posts are (1) what legal liability companies might incur when they find this personal information, and (2) where recruiters should draw the line at invading candidates privacy, even though the information is publicly available through these sites. Th emerging consensus seems to be that MySpace and its competitors are more dangerous than useful to companies, but candidates should be aware that some companies will search them.

LinkedIn, on the other hand, is seen as useful for "sourcing" candidates (that's recruiter jargon for finding people who would be good for the opening they're trying to fill). So, if you want to be found, join LinkedIn and use the right keywords in your profile. The nice thing about LinkedIn is that you control what it says about you, so your profile should always be consistent with the way you're marketing yourself.

While you're waiting to be found, try Liz's ideas on how to find a job using LinkedIn. It's addressed to recent graduates, but the ideas work for everyone.

Know your value in the market

2006-06-30T10:06:00.000-04:00

The money question comes up early. Whether it's a formal application that demands a salary history or a simple question about salary requirements, sometimes The Number is a roadblock on the way to meaningful discussion of the position. Whether it comes up early or late, though, you need to know your value in the market.

You're a unique and priceless individual, of course. Mom was right. But when you're negotiating a new position, sooner or later you or the company will put a price on your contribution. A certain degree of information asymmetry is unavoidable—the recruiter knows the budget for the position, and you don't. You can, though, with just a little looking, find valuable information about what your job should pay.

Salary.com is the obvious starting place. They have high visibility from some well-placed partnerships, and they're a good source. You can also find more focused results from industry- or function-specific salary surveys, such as Computerworld's annual IT salary survey or Pragmatic Marketing's technology marketing and product management survey. JobStar links to more surveys, and you can always search for "salary" and relevant keywords to see what's out there for you. The best approach is to find similar numbers from multiple sources, to lend credibility to your position.

If you're considering relocating for a job, don't forget to compare the cost of living in your new city with your current city. I like the cost of living calculator at Sperling's BestPlaces, because of the other information they offer. Other calculators are easy to find at Salary.com, the major job boards, and other locations.

I'm adding this to the list of things to do before the interview, because it always comes up early in the process.

Tags: job salary money

Networking without the sales pitch

2006-06-29T12:15:00.000-04:00

Have you heard this: "Network, Network, Network! ? Of course you have. It's the standard advice for jobseekers. But when you network, do you lead with your 30-second pitch? Liz Ryan says that's the least interesting thing about you (via Dave Taylor):

HIM: "Hello Jane - I'm Andrew. What do you do?"

YOU: "Oh, I have a full-service marketing agency, creating brand identities for clients in print and online. We do website design and create kick-ass marketing collateral materials, and so some logo design. Also—"

Oh dear. It hasn't even been ten seconds, and poor Andrew is wishing he'd chatted up that fellow in the corner with the pince-nez, instead of Jane.

Liz and Dave both make good points about conversation. It comes down to this: networking is about meeting people. Otherwise, you end up with this:

Probably not the reaction you're looking for, but that's what the elevator pitch is—advertising. Engage people in an interesting conversation. They'll be glad they talked to you, which is a lot faster way of getting them into your network than force-feeding them your elevator pitch.

Get a business card for your job search

2006-06-28T21:30:00.000-04:00

When you meet people in the course of business, you exchange business cards. When you meet them as part of your job, the card has your work information. When you're "in transition" (don't you love the euphemisms attached to the job search?), you need your own card. When you meet people who can help you, you don't want to hand them your name and contact information on a scrap of paper. Business plans on a napkin? Sure. But your name, contact information, and positioning go on a card.

Dave Taylor suggests best practices in business card design (via Dennis McDonald). I think there's room for interpretation in some of these, but it's worth reading his list to see how some people will evaluate your cards.

Have a Credible Email Address
Avoid Typos
Don't Include Too Much Information
Add Some Color
Leave The Back Blank
Have Business Cards
And A Special Category For PR Folk... "

Business cards are easy to get. I've used VistaPrint twice and been pleased with the results (though buying from them leads to an unending stream of offers and surveys in your inbox). You can design your own card or use one of their templates. I don't think most recipients will care, as long as the card looks appropriately professional for your field.

Once you have a business card for your job search, carry it with you. Once you've paid to make a positive impression with a real card, you wouldn't it to be at home when you meet someone who can help.

Use attention-getting headlines to stand out

2006-06-28T10:15:00.000-04:00

Harry Joiner has advice for candidates on getting found on Monster:

My advice to candidates: Change your headline to tell us what we need to know: Function / Company / Industry / Salary / Relocation preference.

Like this: Email Marketing / Land's End / Multichannel Retail / $85K / Will Relo

If you can add your SIC code next to your industry, so much the better. It won't matter to most recruiters, but it will matter to some. At a minimum, you should use OSHA's SIC code lookup to identify your industry, even if you don't refer to the numeric code. My point is, the more specific you can be, the better your headline will pull.

There are two steps to being found amid the résumés on Monster or other job boards. First, you have to match the search criteria that the recruiter is using. This is where using the right keywords is critical.

Once you match the search criteria, and this is Harry's point, you still have to catch the recruiter's attention from the list of matching candidates. A generic headline is much less attention-grabbing than one that summarizes the key points. As usual, it helps if you actually are what the recruiter is looking for.

Interview with the Headhunter

2006-06-23T15:47:00.000-04:00

Scott Reeves has an article on how to work with recruiters: Acing the headhunter. Anthony adds some recruiter perspective and additional tips: How to interview with a headhunter:

By treating the headhunter as your partner—not your obstacle. By being totally honest and upfront with him/her. By showing him/her that you have reasonable expectations and are willing to listen to their advice.

Don't come off as a prima donna. Don't be rude to the staff. Don't show up in casual clothes. In short don't treat the headhunter as a useless middleman.

And above all don't get hostile or refuse to answer certain questions (unless they are obviously illegal). That is a major red flag.

Whether you like the term headhunter or not, a good recruiter is good to know.

Is your knowledge deep, wide, or both?

2006-06-20T21:48:00.000-04:00

There's an interesting discussion on breadth versus depth of knowledge going on over at Successful Blog: 7 Steps to being recognized as an expert. The original post focuses on depth of knowledge—being recognized as an expert by knowing a lot about a topic:

Be the expert you are, not the expert someone else is.
Be an expert in ONE thing.
Write expert content.
Be an expert at keeping track of your niche.
Be an expert at specialized searches.
Be an expert at getting the word out.
Be an expert at going deeper into your niche.

Dan'l countered with the need for interdisciplinary breadth:

We are coming into a time where the experts who will be successful in navigating the merging of technology, business, finance, markets, media are those experts in several of the realms at once. For only those persons will be able to see and trend the impacts and effects of the increasing collapse of specialties into combined forms.

Put them together, and you arrive at the idea of the T-shaped person, who has depth of expertise within a specialty combined with broad knowledge across many subject areas. Think Renaissance Man for the 21st century, updated for buzzword compliance. See the second point of Ideo's five-point model for strategizing by design. I like this model because it explicitly values all of the other things that make us real people, in addition to the specific expertise embodied in titles and labels.

Plus, it's easy to draw.

Does consulting success help or hurt the job search?

2006-06-19T16:50:00.000-04:00

Marketing Headhunter Harry Joiner in your blog is not your resume, discussing the wisdom of approaching the employment market without a résumé:

In fact, if you're self-employed, you probably need a fresh, hard hitting, credential-rich resume more than anyone—along with a believable story as to why you would consider going back "in-house." Trust me, I applied for a handful of jobs during the last recession and couldn't get arrested. Having my own website and newsletter only made it worse.

Here's the challenge for the laid-off professional: If you're not working, hiring managers tend not to be interested. If you appear to be successful in your new consulting business, they'll want to know why you would leave a successful business of your own for a job. And if you're unsuccessful in your consulting business—well, unsuccessful is just not the word you want to bring to an interview.

I think Harry has the right answer: you need a great résumé and a solid story about why you consider this job (the one you're interviewing for) to be worth leaving your business behind. Just be prepared for interviewers who've never been laid off to be a little slow understanding that laid-off professionals have to pay the bills, too.

And while you're waiting, do everything you can to make the consulting business a success.

Other interviews can be quick and intuition-based

2006-06-16T20:30:00.000-04:00

Structured interviewing represents one end of the scale. Here's an approach that's closer to the other end.

Hiring is Tiring (Via Brand Autopsy):

1. Go with your gut. ...Sometimes you can get a feeling in those first few minutes.

2. Listen to how they speak about others. This tells a lot about a person.

I would expect these two factors to be critical even in the longer, structured approach. By the time you get to a face-to-face interview, the company has already determined that you're probably qualified for the job. So much of the interview is for people to decide if they want to work with you.

Tags: job interviewing recruitment

Will you encounter structured interviewing?

2006-06-16T14:32:00.000-04:00

Interviewing job candidates is a skill that most people just don't seem to have, and the process at most companies consists of a series of unstructured interviews with unskilled interviewers. Some companies, though, have an actual plan.

Mark Tsimelzon contributed a detailed explanation of his company's approach on Will Price's blog. Structured Interviewing (Via Dana VanDen Heuvel):

Like any complex process, the interviewing process is best structured and analyzed as a sequence of phases. At Coral8, we have four phases: email interview, phone interview, the first in-person interview (with 1-2 person), the second in-person interview (3-4 others). Whether you have the same stages or not is not important. What's important is having a clear understanding of a) why you are having each phase b) what you are trying to accomplish, and c) how you are going to evaluate the results. It helps if all the interviewers share this understanding, and keep the process as consistent across candidates as possible.

Read the post for the full explanation of what they do, and why, in each phase. There's also a warning about role-playing interviewers in on-site (group?) interviews:

Now, the candidate passed your interview, and you invited him to come again to "meet the team." Sounds innocent, but this is one of the more challenging parts of the process.

...For example, the team may agree that during the interview,
one team member will try to push the candidate a bit, disagree with him strongly on some issues, and see how the candidate handles it.

A structured process like this can be good news for the jobseeker, because it's designed to be an effective filter—much better than a simple keyword search. If you're qualified, the early knowledge test won't be a barrier, and you won't be lost in a sea of résumés from unqualified applicants. If you're unqualified, at least you won't waste your time on a job that you're not going to get.

Once you get the job, you can put everything you've learned about the hiring process to work on the other side of the table.

Tags: job interviewing recruitment

Free sources of industry news

2006-06-15T10:47:00.000-04:00

One of the companies I've worked for had a PR guy who supplied us with news clippings and interesting analyst reports, delivered by e-mail to a long list of people in marketing and business management roles. When I left the corporate embrace, I needed a new source to help me keep up with current events in the industry, and I don't have time to read everything. I subscribed to some industry-specific sources, but I also found these two sources of current news.

FierceMarkets is an advertiser-supported news summary and industry information service that arrives in the form of an e-mail newsletter. Technology is well represented in their lineup, with a variety of specialized IT/tech categories, but it's not all tech. FierceMarkets also offers their news service for biotech/biopharma, banking/asset management, and healthcare. Their web site offers sample issues, so you can see the types of information they provide.

SmartBrief offers a similar service, but their model builds on relationships with industry associations. The news service is still free, and the summary includes items from the association as well as news clippings. The service is available for a wide range of industries, including advertising, construction, food service, retail and hospitality—the list offers 61 choices this morning.

Understanding the current trends in your industry is an important part of being competitive in the job market (it's helpful in your current job, too). These sources give you a quick and easy way to keep up with each day's news.

Jobseeker summer reading list

2006-06-14T12:37:00.000-04:00

Kate Lorenz has a list of eight summer reads for the career conscious (and why they're worth reading) on MSN Careers.

Three books of advice on the job search:

What Color is Your Parachute?, Richard Bolles
Landing on the Right Side of Your Ass, Michael Laskoff
Knock 'em Dead 2006, Martin Yates

Two for the "read any good books lately?" interview question:

Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton
Blink, Malcolm Gladwell

And three for personal improvement.

Never Check E-mail in the Morning, Julie Morgenstern
The Little Red Book of Selling, Jeffrey Gitomer
Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth, T. Harv Eker

I would add Naked Conversations, by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel (review) to the second group, because it's the standard on the emerging relationship between blogging and business, and most people don't get it yet. If you're in the throes of career change, you might like Is It Too Late to Run Away and Join the Circus?, by Marti Smye, especially if you are considering leaving a corporate environment for something of your own.

Off the career track for a moment, I recommend One Bullet Away, Nate Fick's memoir of his time as a junior Marine officer in Afghanistan and Iraq. It's one of those true stories that reads like an adventure novel. And for something a bit lighter, but still possibly career-related, I plan to take Charles Wheelan's Naked Economics off the waiting shelf this summer.

Or you could amuse yourself with a beach novel, if you really just need to decompress. I'm a big fan of using the Internet to advance your career, but I would never suggest that everything worth reading is online.

How to identify confidential clients

2006-06-13T13:56:00.000-04:00

Some of the best job opportunities are hiding behind confidential searches and listings. Usually, you can find out from the recruiter who they're working for early in the process. Sometimes, though, you can find out who the client is before you talk to the recruiter. Here's how:

Any description of the client or its business that reads like a carefully tailored bit of marketing-speak probably is. Copy the entire phrase or sentence into a search engine (in quotes), and there's a good chance it will take you directly to the client.
Search on combinations of industry and location to narrow the list of possibilities.
Any abbreviations or jargon in the description may be specific to the company. People who are immersed in their own company cultures don't always realize that they even have one, and this sometimes leads to identifiable jargon in their job descriptions.
The description may include other supporting information, such as how long the company has been in business. These details aren't enough to identify a company, but they can serve to confirm its identity.

This tip will not work every time, and I wouldn't spend much time on this exercise. If you can get a quick answer, you may be able to make a more informed decision about pursuing the opening, and you can get a head start on being informed about the client and their business.

Search-engine optimization (SEO) for your career

2006-06-13T10:29:00.000-04:00

I've commented on some of the ways you can increase your visibility to recruiters and hiring managers in your market. I recently discovered Advanced Online Recruiting Techniques, a blog dedicated to teaching recruiters (and sourcers, specifically) how to use Internet tools to find candidates for their open positions. This query to find specific experience is an eye-opening example of just how sophisticated the use of search engines can be:

boolean strings and where to look online for IT Auditors:

(intitle:~CV OR inurl:~CV) audit (legal OR regulatory OR standards OR policies) (COSO OR COBIT OR "control framework" OR "control theory" OR "control design") (MIS OR CIA OR CISA OR CPA) -eoe -opening -post -preferred -reply -send -submit -your

That's a lot of search query, isn't it? The post goes into the logic of what is excluded from the results and why. The part that surprises me is searching for pages that include "CV" or "resume" in the text or title. I wonder how many résumés have the word in them? But that's nitpicking. The point here is that some recruiters, at least, are using search engines to identify possible candidates for their open positions. If you want to be found, then your online résumé—wherever it is—and the other elements of your web presence need to include the keywords that a recruiter would use to look for you.

If you want to be recruited, learn to think like a recruiter. Can a recruiter, looking for people like you, find you?

Why do so many people want to change jobs?

2006-06-09T18:16:00.000-04:00

In this month's Reach Communications newsletter, William Arruda expresses his surprise at the results of CareerBuilder's 2005 poll that found “nearly three-in-ten workers say they plan to look for new opportunities in 2006 and 41 percent plan to leave their companies by the end of 2007."

I have a partial explanation for the high numbers of people planning to change companies. There's a popular explanation that people are tired from years of stressful work environments (especially layoff survivors) and stagnant incomes (almost everyone). I think the biggest factor is deferred ordinary turnover.

I don't have the numbers to back this up, but I suspect that there's a natural rate of voluntary turnover that has been suppressed during the tough years in the employment market. When companies are outsourcing, offshoring, and generally reducing employment, employees sit tight, happy just to have a job. When they perceive the market improving, they start looking for the next opportunity.

If a company experiences 10–15% annual turnover, and voluntary turnover has been on hold for five years, that means 50–75% of the employees are overdue to leave. OK, some mathematician could probably fine-tune that number for me (41–66%?), but you see the point. In this analysis, increasing turnover is a positive indicator for the employment market and doesn't necessarily point to trouble at any particular company. It just means that we'll see a higher level of activity as the employment market strengthens.

For the jobseeker, increasing voluntary turnover means increasing competition for open positions. If you're not working, do you have a good answer for, "What have you been doing since your last job?" You're sure to get that question.

A pointed, but useful, interview question

2006-06-09T10:50:00.000-04:00

Dan Sweet poses a hard-hitting interview question in Hiring outside talent: a good culture indicator:

One of the best interview questions that I know of is, “Why aren’t you filling this position internally?” Almost NOBODY asks this, but it reveals a LOT about the company.

I don't think I'd ask it that directly if I wanted the job, but it's a thought-provoking question that you might want to get at indirectly. It gets at the internal dynamics of the company in a way that you would want to know before joining them.

My personal favorite is, "What concerns do you have about me in this position?" It invites the interviewer to bring up unspoken objections so you can deal with them.

What does your personal brand cost you?

2006-06-08T18:27:00.000-04:00

I've lost count of the times I've heard or read about how the job search is about marketing yourself or building your personal brand. Not that I disagree, mind you.

Kathy Simmons writes that a strong brand can repel as well as attract. An important part of deciding what to do (or be) is deciding what not to do (or be). If your decisions about who you are and what you will do get in the way of certain opportunities, that should mean that those opportunities were somehow wrong for you. If you've done the self-discovery and personal branding homework, your commitment to your plan should close doors—just not the doors you want to open.

The key is for your brand to attract the right people while repelling only those people you wouldn't want to attract. Mike Wagner puts it this way: your brand is in the tension.

Your brand is in the tension between your business brains, your human hearts, and the marketplace realities. That’s not going away anytime soon. Own the tension and you will always own your brand!

Marcus Buckingham on sustained individual success: "Discover what you don't like doing and stop doing it." A high-paid job opening doing what you don't like doing is not an opportunity, despite the sales jargon that is so often applied in the job search. Turning them down early may be the hardest and best thing you can do.

What doors have you closed to make your brand coherent and aligned with what you know about yourself? What have you decided not to do?

Review: The Radical Edge

2006-06-08T12:24:00.000-04:00

My review of Steve Farber's book, The Radical Edge, is up at the 800-CEO-READ blog.

Hiring boom in interactive marketing

2006-06-07T21:30:00.000-04:00

Another report of opportunities in interactive, this time from AdWeek: Interactive shops struggle to fill empty desks (Via Logic+Emotion ).

Last week's report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau... throws a spotlight on one of the biggest obstacles to meeting the demand: a dearth of qualified talent... Shortages are most notable in key areas like analytics, site design and project management, and the squeeze is worst in the middle ranks,... which are thin because the industry did not hire many new recruits during the dot-com bust five years ago.

A couple of years ago I went to an event for alumni of a telecom vendor, seeing people who had left the company in the wake of the telecom implosion. I was amazed how many had jumped into real estate and mortgage financing, which seemed to be the new bubble. Is this the new new bubble, or is the growth real?

At least it's more fun than mortgages.

7 things to do before the job interview

2006-06-04T21:43:00.000-04:00

Congratulations on your upcoming interview! Are you prepared? You probably have a collection of lists of popular (or stupid) interview questions, and you know what to say when you're asked to "tell me about yourself." Now, let's talk about some online homework you can do if you really want to be prepared.

Visit the company's web site. Spend some time getting to know the company. Read how they describe themselves and their products to their customers. Study the About Us section, learning about the company culture, the backgrounds of their senior executives, and the companies they associate with. Read their white papers and presentations. It can be a lot of work, but if you want to convince them that you really want to work there, you really should know a lot of what the company tells you on their own web site.
Study the company on the stock sites. The finance sections of the major portals (Excite, Google, Yahoo) offer a lot more than stock trading information. Look over the management and insider lists, read the company summary, look for key competitors. Skim the SEC filings, especially 10-K and 10-Q reports. Even if the tables of numbers are meaningless to you, pay attention to the text, which will include discussion of the company's business, recent history, and current challenges. Hoover's is another source of background information that can be useful. If the company is privately held, move on to:
Search for other information on the company. Use your favorite search engines. Find articles about the company, its products and its markets. Look for reviews of its products or analyst reports about the company. Find things written by people inside the company and profiles written about them.
Search the blogs, too. Use Technorati or Feedster to find blogs that mention the company. You may find blogs written by insiders or some that mention the company or its products. Look for blogs about the company's industry, too. You might find an insight into current events in the industry from an industry insider or analyst.
Set up feeds to monitor the company. One-time searches are great, but most interview processes take some time. When you find good sources of information on the company, add them to your feed reader so you'll see updated news as it's available. Kebberfegg or MonitorThis will set up a long list of feeds based on your search term, but you'll want to add the news feed from Yahoo Finance and others that you find.
Look up your interviewer(s). If you know who you will be meeting, look them up (and assume that they do the same check on you). ZoomInfo generates biographies from available documents on the web (although the automated bios can have lots of errors, so be careful). Find out if they have profiles on LinkedIn; they have complete control over LinkedIn profiles, so this is the interviewer in her own words. Look them up on Google, Yahoo, or your favorite search site. You're looking for anything they've written, professional bios from trade show appearances, quotes in articles, and anything else that will give you insight into the people you're meeting. You may find some personal details that can help you understand the person behind the job, but be careful about revealing what you learn. You wouldn't want to leave a creepy impression.
Know how to get there. You don't want to be late, and you don't want to have to call for help finding the interview location (but if you really have to call, call HR, not the hiring manager). In addition to the directions you got with the invitation to the interview, look up the company location on your favorite map site. Use the satellite photo feature to take a look at the building(s) and parking situation. Sometimes it's just nice not to be surprised by the parking layout (which driveway should I enter?) and to know where the building entrance is. If you know where to look for the building, you won't waste time driving around in a search for the building with the right number over the door.

It's a lot, but most of this is stuff you do to learn about your target companies, not things that wait until the interview is scheduled. You don't want to overwhelm yourself with research, but with so much information about companies easily available, you should have a good understanding of the company before the interviewer gets to "do you have any questions?"

Your company e-mail is not private

2006-06-02T17:18:00.000-04:00

Don't use your work e-mail to find your next job. Companies read employee e-mail. You might as well leave your résumé—or cover letter!—on the office printer. Use your home account or one of the free e-mail services instead.

Update: Employees get canned for e-mailing

Nearly one in three U.S. companies has terminated an employee for violating e-mail policy in the past year, a survey released Monday said.

Results of a Forrester survey for Proofpoint.

Better networking through professional associations

2006-06-02T12:15:00.000-04:00

Chris Russell has a great tip on Secrets of the Job Hunt: "If you want to open up opportunities for yourself and your career, consider joining a professional association." He has some specific ideas of how associations can be useful in the job search, plus links to directories of associations.

When you're out of work, it's too easy to network with other people who are looking for work. You need to make connections with people who are working, and associations can be a great place to make those connections.

Voluntary turnover creating opportunities

2006-05-24T18:00:00.000-04:00

The May issue of Business 2.0 features The Next Job Boom. Along with the standard lists of jobs in demand and fast-growing markets, I found a reference to a market indicator I've been looking for since the tech bust: an increase in voluntary turnover.

Help wanted: What the numbers say

Unlike previous job booms, this one isn't being driven primarily by the creation of new jobs. Instead, it is the ever-growing number of people quitting their jobs—to retire, or increasingly, to seek out new opportunities—that has created openings which managers need to fill.

Exactly. People are beginning to see more opportunities in the market and are less motivated to hold on to their current positions at all costs. This is a much better indicator than official unemployment numbers.

Opportunities in interactive advertising

2006-05-23T13:29:00.000-04:00

According to a BusinessWeek article, interactive ad agencies are having trouble filling their many openings. Business is up, and the agencies are ready to grow, but the candidates aren't there. Apply a little microeconomics, and you get rising salaries and lowering demands for a perfect match.

Online Ad Jobs Go Begging

Candidates can get tech advertising jobs with backgrounds in technology or advertising -- and sometimes without either.

Technology or advertising. It wasn't long ago that every opening specified a purple squirrel, and the operative conjunction was and.

10 ways to find an inside contact

2006-05-22T21:34:00.000-04:00

You can't get very far into a job search without being exposed to the usual advice that networking is the most effective way to get a new job. But how does networking apply to finding a job in a specific, targeted company where you don't know anyone?

Liz Ryan has a list of 10 good ideas on how to use Internet-based resources to how to find a contact inside a target company. Here's a quick summary, but it's worth going to the source for the long version.

The company website, under About Us.
LinkedIn.
WorldWIT email groups (for women).
Google.
Google Blog Search.
Your local business paper's online archive.
The Yahoogroups archives.
The relevant/logical professional association for the person you seek.
Mentions of community involvement and local causes on the company's website.
Your alma mater's alumni database.

Use the right keywords to be found

2006-05-21T21:20:00.000-04:00

Marc Cenedella kindly posted a list of the top 100 recruiter keyword searches on TheLadders.com.

Read that title again. He's giving you a list of the words recruiters type into the database when they're looking for candidates. Marc's list is pulled from his company's records, but if you're looking for the types of jobs found at TheLadders ("sales, marketing, finance, HR, operations, IT and general management"), the recruiters are probably using similar searches wherever they look for candidates.

Do the right keywords appear on your résumé? If your company uses unusual job titles, have you worked a more typical job title into the description somehow? Have you mentioned the specifics of your job that set you apart from the crowd?

The conventional wisdom is that everyone gets their jobs through networking, but your résumé needs to be working for you, too.

Popular recruiter blogs

2006-05-19T11:32:00.000-04:00

I mentioned recruiter blogs as a good source of insights into the recruiting process and the job market (plus the occasional job listing). For some more ideas on where you might start, take a look at Michael Specht's new web site, HRblogs.org. In particular, he lists popular blogs by category (Via Recruiting.com). Some of my favorites are listed, as well as some that I'm going to have to explore.

The key to discovering blogs that will be useful to you is to explore, and when you find one that you like, find out what that person reads. Follow the links in their posts and blogrolls, and you will find new sources for your personal information environment.

Have you Googled yourself?

2006-05-11T09:26:00.000-04:00

When you talk with a recruiter, hiring manager, or anyone these days, you should assume that they're looking you up online. What will they learn about you? Have you looked yourself up to see what information is available?

Jim Durbin wrote up a nice summary of how to get started checking up on yourself in Self-Googling:

Self-Googling
Start with your name in quotes: "Jim Durbin" James Durbin" James M Durbin"
Take the quotes out and repeat. James Durbin, Jim Durbin, James M Durbin jdurbin
Search all of your e-mail addresses and phone numbers.
Search you name and company names. (past and present) use slang and jargon. (Anheuser-Busch becomes both AB and MSG)
Type your name and your zip code. Your name and your home phone. Your name and your city (both St. Louis and your actual town)

Your goal is to find out in advance what someone else might find, in case there's anything out there you need to address. Here are some possible results from the search:

Nothing. You have managed to stay off the radar. At least there's no adverse information for you to deal with, but there's nothing to advance your cause, either.
Noise. You're lost in a sea of people with the same name. Almost the same as being off the radar entirely, except for the possibility of confusion with someone else.
Unfavorable information turns up. Possibly something you did (or wrote) years ago. Be prepared to discuss it—just in case. You might consider a personal web site or blog to position more positive information in the search results. If the information is inaccurate, you may be able to get it removed by the web site, but that can be very difficult.
Favorable information turns up. Your name appears in press releases, articles, conference panels, race results—oh, and your web site or blog—all of which reinforce your image as a great candidate for the position. The results are so good that you want to remind people to look you up.

Any doubt which outcome I prefer?

While you're looking yourself up, don't stop at Google. Check the other search engines, which may give you different results. Remember Technorati, in case your name appears in a blog somewhere. Finally, remember to update your profile at LinkedIn and anywhere else you've posted it. Everything should reinforce the message you're trying to send about yourself, and you have complete control over those profiles.

Above all, never be surprised when an interviewer knows things about you that she found through an online search.

Updating your job search bag of tricks

2006-05-02T10:36:00.000-04:00

8 Tips for Landing Your Dream Job in a Web 2.0 World (scroll down for the tips)

I'm working on a presentation for jobseekers on using Internet services in the job search. The basic themes are:

Adding RSS to your bag of tricks to get your computer to do more of the work for you
Taking advantage of free news clipping services and other sources to keep up with current topics in your industry
Using research tools to investigate your target companies
Using social networking sites and research tools to find and learn about contacts in your target companies
Increasing your visibility to the market with social media

Jason's post makes a lot of the same points in different words. Sometimes hearing the same lesson from different people helps it sink in.

Blogs 'essential' to a good career

2006-05-02T10:27:00.000-04:00

From the Boston Globe, April 16, 2006: Blogs 'essential' to a good career.

1. Blogging creates a network.
2. Blogging can get you a job.
3. Blogging is great training.
4. Blogging helps you move up quickly.
5. Blogging makes self-employment easier.
6. Blogging provides more opportunities.
7. Blogging could be your big break.
8. Blogging makes the world a better place.

Blogging ties nicely into some of the ideas in 7 Ways to Find a Job. No, 8! Aaaaah!!. If you're creating white papers or case studies, your blog is a perfect place to publicize it. At first, people will tend to find your blog because they're looking for you. Over time, though, they'll start finding it because they're looking for the topic, which leads them to you. Your blog can promote you while you're asleep—isn't that great?

7 Ways to Find a Job. No, 8! Aaaaah!!

2006-04-26T18:09:00.000-04:00

From Secrets of the Job Hunt: 7 Unique Ways to Find a Job

I particularly like #2, write a white paper (and the closely related #7, write a case study). An insightful paper on a hot topic has value to the people you want to be talking to. It transforms a cold email from "hi, I'm looking for work" into something that might get circulated inside your target company. It gives you something to talk about when the interviewer asks what you've done recently, and it gives you something substantive to add to your blog (and résumé).

Once you write your paper, be sure to put it on your web site (or blog), and use a web analytics service (such as StatCounter) to track it. The web stats will tell you who's reading the paper (typically company names or ISPs, not individual names) and how they found it. Most of your visitors will find the paper through search engines, and the stats will tell you what search terms led them to you.

Learn from recruiter blogs

2006-04-26T17:45:00.000-04:00

For a different perspective on the job search, you can read what recruiters are telling each other.

Recruiting.com and ERE Blog Central are community blog portals with contributions from lots of blogging recruiters. You can read about recruiting as an industry, hiring trends, and—my painful favorite—stupid candidate tricks. Because so many recruiters contribute to the site, it's a great source. Watch who posts, and you may get useful leads for your search. You'll certainly get links to other sites that might be on target for you.

Recruiters do realize that jobseekers are reading their blogs, of course. Wired & Hired is Talent Zoo's response: a blog for candidates by recruiters.

If you're really lucky, you may even find a blogging recruiter at a company you're interested in. The most famous examples are Microsoft recruiters' blogs on marketing and technical recruiting.

Recruiting and the job search shouldn't be an adversarial process, but it too often feels that way. Reading recruiter blogs can give you a valuable insight into the person on the other end of that call.

Looking for direction?

2006-04-26T17:12:00.000-04:00

If you're considering a career change, Money Magazine has some suggestions for you:

MONEY Magazine's Best Jobs: The Top 50

I do enjoy those silly lists. Funny thing is, Social Media Analyst doesn't seem to be on the list... yet.

Begin at the beginning...

2006-04-26T16:45:00.000-04:00

Why is it that every document starts with writer's block? Can't we take that out of the template?

Welcome to the Net-Savvy Jobseeker. I've been collecting bits of wisdom to share with people I know, and every time I send an email, I tell myself that it should be going into a blog instead. Well, this is the blog. This is my place for observations, tips, tricks, and links to some of the riches of the Internet for career management and the job search. Enjoy.