as clear as mud

Remember grade school? Remember getting back your test results in math, history, or science class? Remember wishing with every fiber of your little kid heart that you did well and got a gold star? 95 questions right - 5 questions wrong. Sure you did a good job but 5 questions were wrong. I believe this is the beginning of focusing on The Wrong instead of The Right. We spend more time looking at our weakness then our strengths.

To be clear, I love looking at the wrong and fixing it. It's part of my Restorative strengths. My Restorative strength has been identified through Gallup StrengthFinder assessment. This online resource tool is "based on a 40-year study of human strengths, Gallup created a language of the 34 most common talents and developed the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment to help people discover and describe these talents. The goal was to start a global conversation about what's right with people."

In the book, authors share that people should basically give up what they don't do well and focus on their strengths. The assessment takes 20 minutes. In the end you get a report on your strengths. My top five are: Restorative, Futuristic, Command, Intellection, and Input. What are yours?

Once you know your strengths, revisit your resume and online candidate profiles. This is a whole new context to reframe what you do well. More then likely, your happiest or most productive times at work involve you using your strengths. Your next move is to build success stories around your strengths and share.

Holler your online communities (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) about your next success story, emphasizing your strengths in the workplace and the positive impact of your results. Give prospective employers something to chew on. Demonstrate your value. Celebrate your accomplishments.

let's agree to disagree

Facebook. Reason #862 why you didn't apply to that job yesterday. Getting on the massive time suck site can really veer a job seeker off course. Never fear my employment challenged friends, a sweet justification is near! Monster.com's FB page hosts many 'getting hired' handy tools.

Last month the company asked jobseekers to submit questions about jobs and the economy they’d like to have answered by the White House. Although there is a ton of responses already, it's been said that the most interesting questions (most "likes") will actually be answered by the WH. Bring it Barack.

Need a couple more justifications to spend time on FB that don't include stalking your ex?

• Connect with the almost 11,500 people who dig Monster
• Get informed and entertained by the nearly 60 videos
• Find job events near you
• Trash talk my old employer on the Wall (on second thought, skip that)

Maybe someday YOU could be on their Success Story tab.

eat the elephant one bite at a time

Greetings Friends,

Just finished my thesis. Sorry its been awhile. Let's see what is happening out there in the world of online job employment...

Looks like Marian Schembari made headlines with her personal online ad campaign. The focus of the campaign? Herself.

For 150 bucks the college grad bought ads on Facebook that were targeted to the industry she wanted a job in. Although publishers (the target audience) took note, ultimately Marian landed a gig in PR. With that kind of online promotion initiative, I'm not surprised.

How would your FB ad read?

Digital MarCom Strategist for hire!

I'm Nikki. I recently got my masters from Columbia. My dream is to work in the health and well being industry. Can you help?

run this one up the flagpole

Monster, CB (CareerBuilder) and the other online job search big boys are big for a reason. They do have some cool job search toys to play with. Consider CB’s iPhone app. Lucky iPhone owners can bust out this app on the bus ride home from their super fun jobs to see what better positions are open in the neighborhoods they are traveling through. All thanks to the Apple geo-location capabilities. Go Mac. Head to iTunes and download today! Maybe you have been holding out for the perfect job widget. My friends, HotJobs has answered your prayers. Your desktop job search just got easier. Heck, even Facebook has a ton of job assistance applications to add to your profile. Applications or widgets, these e-tools are here to help make your job search time more streamlined and targeted. Make sure to tailor each to your preferences.

But wait! There’s more….

Another tool I find to be particularly useful are email alerts. Not to be confused with marketing messages, these tailored lists can be a quick update during your search. All the big boys provide these emails. What I suggest is finding a company that you would like to work for and signing up for their career openings notification. Note, this e-communication is usually only offered for large to mid-sized companies. This might not be offered by small businesses. 

PS - if you are more of an RSS person over emails then consider getting a companies RSS job feed. Here is an example of TW's RSS. 

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’!

everything from soup to nuts

As I sat watching the Oscars last night I wondered what some of the beautiful people’s resumes read like. What are the words that describe these folks in the dazzling tuxes and sparkling gowns? I know I can check out the always illuminating IMDB but have you ever seen an actors resume? They have to list ANYTHING that could get them a gig. I’m sure speaking foreign languages, juggling cats, crying on the spot [always wished I could do that] all pop up on the old thespian resume.

But take a look around you. Everyone is becoming a superstar online. The Internet gives us access to managing our own personal brand image. We may not be dating Leo, we may not wear Galliano but because of the web we now have the opportunity to represent online like never before. This idea plays out more around social networking which we’ll get to soon enough but where has it always been present? On paper, folks - your good old-fashioned resume.

In the last six+ years of living in the city, I have gotten the advice from several professionals about always having the resume waiting in updated form. Here in the city, there is an Always Be Looking attitude amongst young executives. Despite that advice, I really only updated my resume when a job change was just around the corner.

For me, that was managing who I looked like on paper every couple of years. Now because of sites like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIN, folks are managing what they look like on a daily basis. But let me pull back on the social networking rains for a sec. What we are talking about today is a person’s resume. That special piece of paper that can sum you up in seconds and tells the world of your accomplishments. Yes that, dear friends, is what were going to dive into now.

It’s safe to say there is a truckload of info about resumes out there on the net. Some are harmless like a mom and pop web site but others might strip you of everything, including your digital dignity. [didn’t think you had that, did you?] 

This week, I will to point you in the direction of a few different online resources. As usual, I hope you leave a comment if you happen to know of or use a service that is stellar and can help everyone else.

Just wanna be honest with you folks. There’s a few things that I do well, but can’t say that I am a pro resume writer. What I can do to assist you in this area is track down good ideas. I will not personally be telling you – This Is How You Do It. There are a lot more qualified folks out there to help. Here are some of them…

The team at Career Planning has a plethora of articles to help us. The resume section is quite robust and leads a person from start to finish. Check it out:

Resume Writing Basics
Review: The Resume Catalog
Lying On Your Resume
Putting Together An ASCII Resume
Keyword e-Resume Tutorial
Free Resume Banks
Why Employers Use Resume Banks

Don’t know about you guys, but there’s nothing I love more in the world then a super fun check list. The team at Monster walks us through the Have You's of proper resume writing:

First Impression

Appearance

Resume Sections

Career Goal

Accomplishments

Relevance

Writing Style

More 2morrow on The Wonderful World o' Resumes...