Social Networking Tools

I have to admit I personally have a mixed relationship with these tools.  I am a blogger, have an active presence on Linkedin, at least a minimum presence on Facebook and have had a twitter account for a few years, but haven’t created my own web page, and while I set up a twitter account 3 years ago, I doubt that I’ve posted a dozen tweets.  My Facebook is family facing, not business.  Well, you get the idea I think.  One of the participants in NFJS is a Social Media Coach/Mentor (Cheryl Richmond) and just an incredible resource and talent.  She is starting to get me focused on this and provided some basic guidelines that make a lot of sense.

Let’s start with an inventory:

●      Linkedin – Must have for a job seeker, this is the key location for defining your “Brand”.  It is a hub for business contacts and activities built around that brand.

●      Facebook – Might be very important for a job seeker about half a step down from Linkedin.  Primarily set up to connect people with each other on a personal level.  With that in mind, it still needs to reflect your brand.  Can be a huge time suck and there are privacy and security issues.

●      Twitter – Optional.  It is an “in-real-time” communications tool that can extend your network while making it much more responsive.  It can also be an amazing time suck.

●      Blog – Optional.  Works great if you have ideas that are relevant to your brand, but can kill you if you drift.

●      Biznik – Useful if you are an independent contractor looking at getting some level of b2b stuff going.

●       “MyPersonalDomain”  Whatever you choose this to be, from a web page to a blog to some kind of store.

●      Geolocation sites like Foursquare or Gowalla:  These provide physical location information with the goal of connecting people in a location.  There are specific situations where these can be useful, but they come with additional cautions

●      Etc.  – there are a huge number of other tools that fall under this category from MySpace to Picasa to Yelp to Meetup.    Any one of these can provide value and that value will vary on an almost infinite array of things.  The challenge with some of these (think MySpace) is that you create a permanent presence with them whether you intend it or not.  That Frat Party you went to in the 90s and that you friends posted on MySpace?  It’s still out there.

I’m sure I’m missing a ton of stuff, but even if I knew what they all were, as of May 2011, this is a great list to start with.

 

There are also some principles that need to be implemented across your internet profile:

●      As much as possible, create one consistent brand.  So use the same picture for every profile you own, represent yourself as the same person with the same skills in every profile.

●      Be prudent.  If you are looking for a job as the Pastor of a church, work as hard as you can to eliminate the pictures of you at the Atheist Convention.

●      Be safe, or at least try.  Control your permissions on all of these tools, organize your contacts/friends into relevant groups.  The Rugby Team and the Rose Garden Club will probably not understand each other or how you could belong to both, so keep them separate.

●      Set up your public profile to reinforce itself from every window.  If you claim to be a “Team Builder” in Linkedin, then your Facebook should feature people beyond yourself.

In very general terms each has a primary purpose (in the context of job search), so what are they?

●      Linkedin is central.  Define your brand here, get a good picture that you recognize, fill out a complete profile.  Focus of your contacts is business connections, but the line is not rigid.

●      Facebook, this is almost as important, but the focus is more towards family and friends.  Use the same picture as Linkedin and consider your brand as you build out your network and fill out your profile.  Be respectful of your contacts when playing the various games.  Don’t spam; accidentally or on purpose!

●      Twitter, use the same consideration when creating your profile, but then remember that this is a real time communication tool.  While Linkedin and Facebook are fundamentally static, there is nothing static about Twitter.  This provides extraordinary resources for researching companies, opportunities and people in real time. 

A key to understanding these resources is understanding that we really have only one network, and while we categorize it for a variety of reasons and in a variety of ways, there is far more overlap than separation, so we need to treat it with that in mind.  The tools we have today for the organizing our network and mining information about it are truly amazing.  So far beyond what we’ve ever had, but the central fact remains that “Network” is still just a fancy word describing our circle of friends. 

By the way, Consumer Reports published a terrific article on how to effectively stay safe in their June 2011 issue.  It should be read by pretty much everyone that spends time online.

Tools

For all of the cautions I throw out regarding internet use and getting lost in it etc. it brings some amazing resources into our homes/offices. Here are two that are new to me and that I’m really appreciating. I wish I could tell you that my amazing incisive research identified them, but in truth, it is the companies themselves and the people working there that brought these to my attention.

ActiveWords and Gist are a couple of excellent tools. ActiveWords will grow a lot more slowly than Gist, but I’m guessing it will continue to grow for a longer time. What it does is allow for the development of shortcuts. Lots of them. Do you have a blog? Working in Word and want to jump? Type in your shortcut name and – boom, you’re there. What about opening a new Word doc? Same thing. Email? Same. Do you have a bunch of stock language you use? Shortcut! This is a developers fantasy! There are programs that are as much as 50% stock code, well this eliminates the need for even something as uncomplicated as cut and paste. NFJS strongly recommends a custom resume for every opportunity, sure, but with this your template is brought up ready for modification in a few simple strokes on your keyboard. Beyond the product, I have to say the people are exceptional. They tracked me down and have put on a special training for NFJS, simply so they can help! Pretty cool.

Gist is the other part of this: One of the themes in my work with people is “Preparation”. No matter what part of the job search you are in and no matter what kind of job you want, your opportunity for success goes up in direct proportion to the amount of preparation you put in. Gist is an email plug-in and it makes that easier. Actually, quite a bit easier and it provides info that is very difficult to gather in one place. It works with Outlook or Gmail and provides an ongoing updates from a variety of sources as you communicate with you connections. It’s a “dashboard” sort of review. Covers blogs, twitter, facebook, Linkedin as well as several other tools.

The value to a job hunter is substantial. When we network and as we network, we build what can become a fairly substantial group of folks we’re connected to… Heck, if we simply connect to all of our friends it quickly becomes a fairly big number. Before I started Notes From the Job Search, before I joined Linkedin, before I went to my first “networking event, I had over 500 names on my email list! Of course, not all of those people are friends, heck I’ll bet there are 100 that I couldn’t put a face to if my life depended on it, but there are more than 200 who I do think of as friends or at the very least warm acquaintances. Do I know what those folks are doing? Heck no! Have I spoken with them in the last month? 6 months? Year? What Gist does is give a summary of the public profile of the people you are connected to.

So here are two products that are very cool and can have substantial value: ActiveWords and Gist.

Top Ten Job Search Tools

Bruce’s Top Ten List got me thinking along similar lines, so here are the 10 things I think are the best tools in job search.

1. Friends; Kind of weird to put our friends in the category of tools, but they are the single most important piece of your job search. Study after study and anecdote after anecdote tell us the same thing, The precise numbers vary, but they all say, “More than 80% of all jobs come with some level of personal introduction.” In other words, a friend introducing you to someone who introduces you to ….. So your friends are your most important tool in job search.

2. Pay-it-forward networking. This is a direct corollary to 1. We make friends by helping people we genuinely like and the people we like are those very friends reviewed in 1. Look at the book “I’m at a Networking Event, Now What” by Sandy Jones-Kaminsky, it provides simple clear tools for effective networking. Its all based on the idea of helping first. Useful networking starts with relationships that go beyond a simple business card and elevator pitch. That comes from trust and common values etc. There simply isn’t a better, faster way of doing this then helping.

3. Linkedin. Speaking of our friends or “network”, Linkedin is the best tool for documenting and mining that network. It’s work related social networking and allows us to understand how to help our friends and allow our friends to help us.

4. Internet “aggregators” . Tools that allow us to set up one search that covers a bunch of web pages on a regular basis. For example, Indeed.com covers several hundred job boards, so we can set up a single search that routinely sends the results to your email, or on an RSS feed. Another one is Linkup.com, it searches company pages with opportunities. Google Alerts does the same thing with information, so if you are focused on a particular company or job title, virtually anything, it will give you a daily list of updates

5. Work-Life DB™. This is a tool we created (and trademarked) and I haven’t found anything as effective or as complete in helping a person document their success and their history. We all know and pay at least lip service to the idea that job search is a sales position. The first step in effective, ethical sales is product knowledge, in this case that translates to the history of our success.

6. Strengths Finder. A corollary to 6. This is an outstanding test/process that helps us refocus our heads on our strengths, those things we naturally do very well… which is the same list of the things we do in a non-voluntary way. Check out my earlier post on this, it’s very cools stuff.

7. Public Libraries. Given that research is one of the crucial steps in job search, there simply isn’t a better place to do research. Locally, King County Library has this amazing list of research tools for job search and researching companies.

8. GIST. If research is one of the keys to success in the job search, then this add-in to either Gmail or Outlook is an amazing shortcut in that process. It automatically collects basic info, actually more than basic, about our contact list. Once someone is set up as a contact, Gist will provide you with an ongoing way of staying current. Is someone on Twitter? It will give you their last 5 tweets each week, Blogger? Their last posting. Linkedin? Any changes.

9. Bing/Google. Our old friends the basic search engines. What can I say that hasn’t been said? I include both because Bing has become a very useful tool and isn’t a clone of Google, so running searches in both tools provides additional information and both are very helpful.

10. Job Clubs. Groups like Notes From the Job Search (check out our schedule in the right column) provide support as we go through job search. So much of job search is incredibly difficult simply because of the isolation inherent in spending time looking for opportunities. Even the most qualified candidates can spend weeks and months sending off 10’s, 20’s even 100s of resumes without any response, so how the dickens can we remember that much of the craziness isn’t personal. Heck, it’s not even related to the quality of your applications. Finding a peer group going through this makes it much much easier.

Buzzwords

It’s amazing how persistent generalizations are. Recently, Manu Sharma posted a blog entry detailing the 10 most overused buzzwords in Linkedin Profiles in 2010.
In early 2009 Squawk Fox posted a great article titled “Six Words that Make Your Resume Suck”

What I find especially interesting is how much the two have in common. Both are spot on, but I do admit I think Squawk Fox’s is better, it is crystal clear, funny, and he provides useful alternatives to the clichés.

Start with the bad words… No, not four letter words, just meaningless ones. Manu Sharma’s list:

  1. Extensive experience
  2. Innovative
  3. Motivated
  4. Results-oriented
  5. Dynamic
  6. Proven track record
  7. Team player
  8. Fast-paced
  9. Problem solver
  10. Entrepreneurial

Now from Squawk Fox:

  1. Responsible for
  2. Experienced
  3. Excellent written communication skills
  4. Team Player
  5. Detail Oriented
  6. Successful

Notice the overlap? What do they have in common? I think it’s reasonable obvious, The words on these two lists claim characteristics, rather than demonstrating them.

There is a place on your resume where these are acceptable, even desirable. Using a “Core Competencies” section on your resume, you are telling the reader that you are claiming certain characteristics and/or skills. The rest of your resume is all about demonstrating them.

Linkedin doesn’t really have a “Core Competencies” section, so we aren’t going to be able to set up that kind of a section, and sometimes, the words/phrases above are part of likely “key words” that hiring managers may look for. So how do we balance?

Take “Team Player” which is on both lists, does that mean you were on your high school volleyball team? How about telling us about a team you were on? Plagiarizing from Squawk Fox, let’s replace “Team Player” with specifics:

• Worked with clients, software developers, technical writers, and interface designers to deliver financial reporting software three months before deadline.

In Linkedin, we could do:

• Demonstrated Team Player, having worked with clients, software developers, technical writers, and interface designers to deliver financial reporting software three months before deadline.

These are sooo much more powerful! As a hiring manager, these bullets jump off of the page and tell me why I want the guy/gal who wrote it.

So here are a couple of great links and some outstanding advice. Take a look at your profile, take a look at your resume and see if you can implement it.

Web mistakes

One of the results of the article in the Seattle Times has been that I’ve been contacted (out of the Blue) by folks with useful stuff they want to share. One of those is a group/web page named OnlineTraining.org. What they do is help people evaluate various online training resources. What specifically caused them to reach out (I suspect at least) was a desire to get a new blog post noticed.

The title is “The 10 Worst Web Mistakes to Keep You from Finding a Job” and it is worth noticing. Their choice of mistakes is spot on and goes well beyond the obvious. We all know that pictures of someone having too good a time can kill an opportunity, even if the good time was years ago, but how thoughtful are we with the contents of our Tweets?

At any rate, it’s one of those that should be required reading for all of us involved with job search.

Tuning Linkedin

Recently I ran into a really terrific video focusing on how a recruiter should use LinkedIn. This video is a blog post on http://www.booleanblackbelt.com/. The author is Glen Cathey who at least at the time this video was made was VP of Recruiting for KForce, and this is very clearly intended for KForce’srecruiting staff. This video is a whole five minutes long, so without overthinking it, this is great for job seekers as well.

So what is the magic? What does Mr.Cathey teach his troops?

There are (of course) several points to extract:

• When we have worked on tuning our profiles so we can be found, we have been somewhat mystified  by the order of who is actually returned—why am I on page two when yesterday I was on page one?. A minor part of his presentation explains it. The default is a combination of “key word” and “connections”. He doesn’t go into the full equation and he tells us how to change it, but it starts with the combination that LinkedIn labels “Relevance”.
•  He tells his workers how to develop complex searches, which translates to us as needing to tune our profiles beyond a single word.

So what do we take out of this as job seekers? The most important thing is understanding the recruiter’s point of view and not just when we build our profile in LinkedIn. In this context, LinkedIn represents any resume database and if we are to be found any of them, then we need to make it easy.

NFJS is committed to custom resume’s for every job applied for, and this is probably the most elegant argument I have seen as to why. Recruiting databases, whether it be LinkedIn or some custom DB created internally, Microsoft or GE or Apple provide recruiters the capability of identifying a pretty specific set of skills. If we are going to find the job we want and our tool is online applications, then we need to thread that needle.

Internet Tools

The longer I work in the area of job search and the more I learn about the various tools available to a job seeker, the more I realize how confusing it is.

Perhaps the biggest challenge is figuring out an appropriate balance. At NFJS, everything we’ve learned strongly reinforces that networking is the key to a successful job search. So it should be obvious, we think networking sites are much more important than any others, heck more important than all of the others combined.

There are really four kinds of web sites that we care about in job search.

Social Networking
The most useful type of web page is a social networking site: Linkedin or Facebook. Each of these provides tools to connect with your existing network. Linkedin is really optimized for your career and is almost required for an effective job search. There is lots to love here, but my favorite is what Linkedin does for allowing you to create intelligence around your network. As in, when you are interested in a particular company, a simple search in of “people” for the company will return how you are connected to the company. Linkedin is a place worth checking every day. Even here though it’s important not to get carried away. The focus of Facebook is your social network, but given that it is still your network, there are lots of ways to use this effectively. Spending time each day on these tools helps. Linkedin will get more results in job search than Facebook, but given that your network is your greatest resource, anything that nurtures your network is a good thing.

Be careful with your posts…. Everywhere. Remember that all of this stuff is permanent and the vast majority of what is posted is visible to a potential employer. You may have been at a great party over the weekend, heck it may have been your wedding, but don’t post a picture of you or any of your friends that got a little bit too happy. What has context with you and your friends doesn’t have context to a stranger.

Job Boards and listing aggregators.
One type not on the list, but very tempting and not very rewarding is job boards. You know their names. Monster.com, Dice.com, Careerbuilder.com etc. Each portrays itself as your one necessary stop on your career search, and frankly they mostly suck time without a return. Of course they actually do have real jobs being advertised…. The solution to this is the next type I do recommend: An “aggregator”. What they do is search through other pages to save you the time. The first of these that I recommend is Indeed.com. What Indeed does is search a large number (200? 300?) of job boards and report the findings back to the searcher. In addition it can be set up to redo a particular search daily then drop the findings into your email. Another one in this group is Linkup.com. It is similar to Indeed, but searches corporate boards instead. Lots of companies are less than excited to advertise on job boards, for lots of reasons, starting with cost. Linkup finds those jobs.

About Companies (as the company sees it)
The third are pages that describe a company. So it starts with the company web page, but also include things like Dunn and Bradstreet. For publicly traded companies, the web page will almost certainly have the most recent annual report and these truly are a gold mine of information. The “President’s report?” (or whatever passes for that) is usually quite accessible and will provide some great information about where the company is going and how it’s dealing with publicly known adversity. Dunn and Bradstreet is the tool companies use to check on each other, so pretty much every company that purchases anything is in here. It may be a little out of date, but never more than a few months, so it’s a resource that can be very useful.

About Companies (as others see it)
Start with Glass Door. It’s sort of rumor central, but take away the flames and the PR and you can get a pretty good idea of what a company is about. Then check stock analysts, business reporters, etc. Go to the library and ask a librarian. These people are amazing researchers and they love to help.

Networking

There is little question that the surest method for finding a new job is networking. I'm guessing most of us know that, at least at some level. So what is it? How do you do it?

Simply stated, it's engaging others in your job search: Getting other people (your friends, family and associates) to be your eyes and ears, to be your advertising campaign. We all understand the definition, unfortunately, "understanding" is different than actually doing it.

What are the tools of networking? There is no definitive list, and there is no limit. One friend of mine moved the needle a lot. When she found out she was going to be laid off, before she left work for the last time, she found all of the people she had shared the elevator with over the previous 10 years and let them know her change in status and engaged them in her search.

A partial list of networking tools includes:
· An elevator pitch – 30 second description of what you are looking for and what you bring that is special, what you bring that adds value to a prospective employer.
· Interviews for Information
· Social Networking sites
o LinkedIn – this is probably the most important tool in this category.
o Plaxo, Biznik, Spoke, etc. These are also business oriented internet networking sites. Each has value and is worth considering
o Facebook
o Twitter
· Affinity groups (professional organizations, church groups, soccer team, workout locations, etc). This is any group you spend time with that you aren’t being paid for. Your best ones are the ones you spent time with before you started looking for a new job.
· Volunteer work

In other words, your primary network is everyone you know. Your secondary network is everyone they know.

Social Networking sites are ways to document your network, mine your network for opportunities and facilitate ongoing communication.

Your “elevator pitch” is your intro to new people and a way to update people you know. An “Interview for Information” is a tool to find deep knowledge about a profession or a company or a particular stage in a profession or maybe just more about an individual; it can have the consequence of moving someone from your secondary network to your primary network, and that is normally one of the goals.

Given the simple number of places to spend time (including the myriad of job boards etc.) one of the great challenges in job search is spending time efficiently and effectively. So while every contact is networking, it is necessary to evaluate your networking time for usefulness. I’m not suggesting that you stop spending time with your in-laws, or that you only spend time with them as it relates to job search, I am suggesting you are honest with them regarding your situation (update them with your elevator pitch) and that you make time for the former boss you haven’t seen in the last few years, but that you enjoyed when you worked for him/her.
There is an especially important question to ask with every contact, “Who else should I talk to?” Write down the name and contact info you are given, then follow up. If you get the opportunity to meet, the meeting is an Interview for Information and at the end, you should have an additional member of your primary network.

One last thought: Always thank the people that help.

Linkedin

NJFS keeps coming back to internet tools. It’s pretty clear that the tool of choice for job search is Linkedin. While it has some competitors (Plaxo, Biznik, Spoke. Etc) and they all have reasonable value propositions, Linkedin is the one that has market penetration. It’s the one that recruiters scan first, the one that hiring influences check and the one your business contacts are most likely to be part of. There are also some great resources on the net to help us optimize our use of it. Check out Rita Ashley’s free white paper here.

Some things that seem sure:
· Be complete. Fill out the whole thing, including a good picture. If you need to have a pro take the photo, do it.
· In the “current” field, be honest. If what you are doing is volunteer work, put it down. If you left your last gig 4 months ago, be honest. It will be noted and you are not fooling anyone.
· Connect with everyone that seems appropriate. Becoming a Linkedin ”lion” is great for the Marketing Manager, but if you are a developer, then 1000 plus connections is probably not a good idea. Everyone does have more than 25 real connections and most of us can break over 100 while including only people we really do know.
· Recommend folks that you believe in and ask them for recommendations in return. Recommending others extends your visibility and being recommended provides you with credibility. Both need to be honest and both are important.
· Your connections are your network. If you have connected with people that you are comfortable forwarding an introduction for, then you can assume they feel the same. Understanding that you can’t recommend everyone on the list, you are not asking that of them. You are asking what you are willing to give.

A couple of great sites for volunteering: WWW.idealist.org and www.volunteermatch.org.

New Links

I've added a couple of links. Seattle Job Search Social and C & P coffee.

The Job Search Social is a straight networking gig, that I've been hearing about. They schedule something every month. At a minimum it's a chance to connect with other professionals, increasing your network. Bring business cards.

C & P coffee is where the West Seattle Pink Slips meet, and is the 2nd group bing led by Notes from the Job Search. So it's an additional chance every week to work on job search skills as well as another chance to increase the size of your network. Besides they sell great coffee. :)

Richard Bolles

Short interview with Richard Bolles, the author of What Color is your Parachute was in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer. Great stuff. He also has a website named The Job Hunters Bible, which is also a great resource.

Finances

A friend of mine was looking at the blog and asked if I had plans to include info about finances and surviving long term with significantly reduced income. The reality is that money is a very big deal for those of us who are out of work, so my friend is asking the right question. There is also no magic; spending less is what it’s all about. Doing so thoughtfully and effectively is the challenge. And let’s face it; nobody will hire us because we “need a job”, they hire us because we can provide value to their company, so if our finances are overwhelming us, it will be a lot harder to be effective in our job search.

A terrific resource is Consumer Credit Counseling Service. It’s a non-profit that’s been around for a while and has tools that are effective and time tested. There are a bunch of pretenders and even a bunch of scams talking about how they will “Fix your credit problems!!!” When you see these, quote Nancy Reagan and “Just say “No.”” Call Consumer Credit Counseling Service.

One of the pages on the CCCS site is a long list of ideas about the mechanics of reducing costs while keeping your life under control. Talks about budgeting, entertainment, travel… even has a section on throwing a wedding on a budget! All of the ideas start with being conscious about how you spend money and what you spend it on. Good luck to all of us.

CCCS web page is now added to my link list.

More resources

Amazing the amount of noise is being made about job search and loss etc. KPLU had an interesting report on this morning about “job clubs”, one in Tacoma in particular. It seems especially pertinent for this week as we start focusing on networking. You can find these on Meetup.com, just search for Job Club with your zip code.

Fortune Magazine has an interesting article as well on job search and how to find a job. They have a vested interest in saying things aren’t as bad as they seem, but, they also have a point: “Some people are getting hired”. We need to keep working on this till we find ours. J

Examples, updates

As you will undoubtedly see, I continue to fuss with the format of the blog. I've added a couple of blogs that I follow on the right side of the page, and links that I think can be especially useful. The links will probably change from time to time to stay fresh.



The group on Wednesday has been working elevator pitches for a couple of weeks now and we actually read examples to each other yesterday. My last post had our definition, I think there's more to it. A clear tight elevator pitch becomes the organizing subject for a resume. Everyone over the age of about 20 has more experience than can possibly be captured in writing, some of it relates to work, and some of it has nothing to do with it. The older we get, the more work experience we have making it even more difficult to choose and edit what we include on a resume.

For example, I've been in IT for more than 25 years. In that time, I've been a developer, analyst, resource manager, director, etc, etc. Just describing each role would take at least a couple pages, before I got to experience that is specific to me. All that will do is bore everyone who sees it and threaten an additional forest every time it's printed. Not a useful exercise.

My elevator pitch for jobs in IT is, "Every organization struggles with getting what they need from their IT department at a price they can afford. I've been building teams that deliver on this for more than eight years and would love to have the opportunity to continue." This tells me what events and roles and accomplishments to include. Time as a dev? it's a footnote. Time as an architect? it's abreviated, but bigger than the dev stuff. What I focus on is experience where I have built teams and the team has delivered.

The point here is not that mine is the only kind of pitch, but that by being clear with my pitch, I can write a cooherent resume that supports my goals and my pitch. If I have other parallel goals, then I can write other pitches and focus the experience in my resume around those goals and that pitch.