finally in your element

Do you have a dream team of employers? Maybe for you it’s just that ONE company you have always yearned to work for. My brother is a CG animator, so as you can imagine, Pixar is that place for him. I am trying to figure out who that company is for me.

What I like to do is match advertisers up with their customers on the web. Usually this means working for a publisher or media company. My current inquiry is to find a major content developer or media company that has a diverse demographic audience that advertisers would like to reach in the internet space.

BUT how do I find that one working environment, that one super boss, that one stellar crew of co-workers? First up, I figure we should look at who the best or most recognized players are. This list of Top Companies is a good start. Looking for inspiration or know who you would like to target? CareerTV has great employer profile videos for you to check out. You can find them listed in the left navigation bar under - By Company. If you don’t know someone on the inside that can give you a behind the doors tour, then these sneak peek videos are a great way to go.

OR you could be one of the lucky ones that does have an inside track to the employer of your dreams. If so, get crackin’! You got people to meet and questions to ask. Go back and review our posting on informational interviews.

BECAUSE I love you guys so much, I’ll share with you the source of my mystery interview from the last posting and her thoughts about the current standing of her awesome company.

Rosa Allen is in the HR department for the MillerCoors brewing company. Here she tells us about working for the parent company that offers brands like Coors Light, Peroni, Miller, and Miller Genuine Draft.

"My opinion is that the situation at my company is solid and stable. The company is performing as planned and forecasted and is in a good position financially, product-wise and in its market. Although sales had been on a dropping tendency for the last few years, the sales for 2008 and 2009 actually seem to be increasing. The company used to be solely Coors and since July of 2008 fused in a joint venture with Miller. So basically our company is twice as large and has twice as many resources that they did before. 

There have been various job cuts recently; however, they are not at all related to the economy, they are all products of synergies and consolidation of resources between the two companies. Some positions were duplicated during the joint venture process and had to be eliminated to cut out unnecessary manpower. All in all, I feel the company is stable and will not face any hardships either financially or with its brands in the market. People basically drink anyways; it doesn’t seem to matter if the economy is doing well or not."

There you have it. Good or bad, people keep boozin’. Maybe we should just get a job at our favorite liquor company. Hey, Brooklyn Brewery, you hiring?

let's get our arms around it

Sure enough, the President has “People”. We know that celebrities have agents and image consultants. I’m sure a whole team manages the business of Brad Pitt, but who is looking out for us? Yes, we have headhunters and professional recruiters (more on that later), but when it comes to who is looking out for you and I to become successful - all we have is each other. These days,because of social networks, that rather small or insignificant one-to-one connection between you and I has become HUGE.

Let's set the stage with a look at an interview Monster did with the authors of ‘The Virtual Handshake'. I think this is a great frame through which we should talk this week. There is an overall paradigm shift happening here as the article demonstrates. And I would love to know – are you feeling the effect?

When I moved from Cleveland to NYC, I wondered how the heck was I going to keep track of all the new people in my life. Sure, I had an address book and a [heavy and awkward] Rolodex, but I needed some kind of online people tracker. I was honestly at the brink of buying a personal software package to keep track of contacts when a site called LinkedIn popped up. Mission accomplished. I now had a FREE online tool at my fingers tips to track my professional connections. 

No social network exposure is complete without a profile on either MySpace or Facebook.  Any combination of profiles can result in a tsunami of friends. If you are fleeing from this tidal wave of long lost chums, I advise you abandon your futile efforts at running and get Friended. I am not trying to talk you into the latest electronic high school reunion, BUT the odds are that through all of these connections, we will find someone who can connect us to something to help us earn some kind of a paycheck.

Don’t stop reading now – you need to know a couple more things before you start logging on. Namely, that you should not confuse two of the sites I just named or their purposes. DO NOT post party pix on LinkedIn. Post your resume instead. DO NOT post your resume on Facebook. Post your upcoming weekend plans. Different sites – different objectives. Combine them and all your hard work could be for nothin’.



At this time, I would like to give a little shout out to the followers and folks who leave comments. In late February, Wei left a comment with a great URL pointing to many of the sites I was hoping we could take a look at – thanks again, Wei! Since they are all consolidated and in neat list form, might as well just check them out at Mashable: Top 10 Social Sites for Finding a Job.

Consider for a moment LinkedIn from the Mashable list. You might remember our ‘to remain nameless’ friend from a local NYC government agency. During our interview, "Jane" told me that she knew of twelve people that have gotten jobs in the last year through LinkedIn. That’s a healthy number of people placed based on random online connections. Right now, and at this moment, whom are you connected to that you don’t even know? You might be surprised. Don’t wait… get clickin’!