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Linkedin is defo the key tho, am getting interviews slowly
She's bloggin at http://taylorgraves.wordpress.com and really kicking ass. This is a super tough thing to have happen to someone recently out of college but by embracing the web and not running from what happened she learned a ton and came out on top with a great gig.
The social web is real and its valuable. Great post Scoble.
I'm @ryangraves on Twitter.
We're hiring JavaScript engineers as fast as we can find good ones. So if you want to work for an amazing company and have JavaScript skills, look no further. http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/2008/09/16/job-ope...
As an executive search consultant within a niche market, another site for those at 100K plus, join the Ladders. Recruiters are all over Ladders and post regularly those hidden positions that aren't easily found anywhere else.
If you add video to any online sources as a resume, it is of much value if the video is well produced. Yucky video of yourself~~ you won't see an interview.
Also, whatever works for you to become/ remain confident and upbeat~~ yoga, running, etc. Keep the "Mojo" happening
I know that there are tons of people who are facing layoffs now and in the coming months. I wish everyone the best.
Different approach, same rules of respect.
http://visualcv.com/karenmasullo
Here are some additional suggestions:
1) Your email signature should include your blog or profile
2) If you help someone pro bono, ask them to at least provide a reference or even better - interview them on your blog. Discuss what problems did you solve? What opportunities did you address?
3) DO NOT send your resume to your friends and family. Your resume is your ultimate weapon. You should ideally customize it for a specific opportunity or role to highlight *relevant experience*
4) Define your market (hat tip - Seth Godin) - it does not matter if your market is a handful of companies on the 101 freeway. But what matters is that you bring something very unique and very valuable to those companies.
5) Related to #4 and #6 - build your brand. Be known for *something*. It will help you for the next 10 years, not just the next 6 months. This would definitely differentiate you from the 20 other people vying for the same job.
6) Companies right now care about 2 things - revenue and cost. Can you leverage your experience to share ideas on your blog that help them to increase their revenues or reduce their costs? For example - how can companies develop special relationships with their customer using more personalization? how can they convert blog visits and subscriptions into sales leads etc.
7) Buy your URL - you can absolutely get a subdomain on blogger, typepad, wordpress or your latest fancy tool. But no one can take your URL away from you.
Great points and advice. A couple of additions.
[1] Title should be modified to read "If you are laid off (or ever possibly could be laid off in the future) , here’s how to socially network" . Don't forget that the LOLcats you tweet now while you are gainfully employed will still be in your google results years later when you may be on the bread line. Your advice here applies to all of us who participate in social networking, laid off and otherwise; the breadcrumbs we leave every day have a permanence we probably don't appreciate.
[2] Please work all of the online tools to your advantage, I am especially keen to the value of LinkedIn as a tool utilized by many executive recruiters. But please don't forget that true social networking happens with your right hand in a handshake, not on a mouse. A DM cannot replace an email which cannot replace a phone call which cannot replace a cup of coffee or lunch. You have to get out there and meet people. When you do, ask them what you can do for them prior to asking if they can help you. Pay it Forward works!!
Keep your chin up. The global economy is in a redistribution phase, but will settle out soon enough. Feel free to reach out to me if I can help any of you.
@JeffreyJDavis
President & COO, AGY
www.agy.com
Do we really want to work for organisations which are so shallow that they only see their employees are workerdroids? Are things really so desperate that we want to dehumanise ourselves this much?
1. When applying for a job, make sure you send a customized, relevant cover letter *in the body of the email*. Let me know exactly what experience you have that corresponds to what we're looking for. I'm looking over so many resumes at a time, I have to skim a lot of them. If someone takes the time to tell me why they think they are right for the job (or why I'd be privileged to hire them) they get bonus points in the process.
2. Attach your resume in HTML format at a minimum (PDF or an HTTP link as a secondary format). DOC-format resumes take too long to load and not all of them load properly in iMail's quickview. HTML resumes show inline in thunderbird and work well in quickview.
3. Double-check your fonts. Nothing says "I don't care" like a resume or email messages that switches fonts halfway through, showing where you cut & pasted your form letter.
4. Tell me about your cool side projects and open-source work. Someone passionate about software is someone we want to hire.
PS: We're looking for Java and Javascript wizards that are interested in helping us build out our project (http://dotspots.com/jobs/). ;)
So, if you say you are a social media marketing expert (like that exists) and you're following 2,000 people on twitter, you have 162 followers, the default background and avatar still showing, auto-DM's with spammy links and 6 tweets, you fail the credibility test.
Similarly, if you position yourself as a blogging, traffic or online marketing expert and your blog has an average 0.2 comments per post, an Alexa of 5,000,000 and 7 feedburner subscribers, you fail again.
It's okay to be a public newbie. Just because you're not a known entity doesn't mean you don't have mad skills. Own up to it, be authentic, then crank out mind-blowing, high-value content and let your content prove your worth, rather than your claims.
A blog ranking 5,000,000 on Alexa may be actually be ok if your niche is tiny and the audience is influential in your field.
Meanwhile we do have to assume that everything we write online is available to everybody, but I'd also keep in mind that there are plenty of (generally older) employers that don't track our every utterance. We can easily drown out the older bad stuff with sufficient intelligent posts.
Along with flippant posts, I'd also stay away from blogging about politics, as for sure your ideal employer is going to have at least some different views from yours.
I'm not sure (actually, I'm quite sure) that's not Scoble's point. Instead, it's making yourself more presentable and consumable. It's totally ok to love LOL cats, to blog about what you had for dinner, and to talk about your kids incessantly. But, like everything, there's a time and a place for that. It's important to make sure you have a clear professional identity aside from your personal identity. Sure, the two can overlap, and yeah, a great employer or hiring manager will both know and recognize that-- but it's also important to prove that you can have distinct, logical conversations about your field of expertise without busting out into an LOL cat reference every two seconds.
A twitter stream littered with LOL cats doesn't prove this point.
My suggestion is that if you're concerned with eliminating your true online personality, that you create a second ID that's focused on the more professional aspects of your life. Sprinkle in bits of your real personality, and then go from there.
In other news, if anyone is looking to hire an online Community Manager in the Bay Area (ex-yahoo, hit by the recent layoffs) feel free to reach out to me on my blog (http://new2oldmedia.wordpress.com ) or on Twitter where I sprinkle in my personality ;) @mndaniels
In addition, here are 3 less tech specific - but powerful - suggestions I'd offer, based on what I learned when the original Rivals.com liquidated in 2001 and it seemed like most of Seattle was laid off in the dotcom bust:
1) Now is a great time to take good care of yourself and get your body in shape.
If you are like I was then, skipping breakfast, eating instant ramen noodles from the vending machine for lunch, grabbing a few slices of pizza for dinner, then now is the time to fuel your body with healthy food. Want to have the abundant energy of Tim Ferriss (@tferris), you gotta get some better and healthier fuel. Since making this a priority, I have more energy and feel better than ever!
Along with that, now is the time to start exercising. Start with walking each day. Steve Jobs did that when was fired from Apple and he credits that with helping him relax and focus. Even Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) is starting to exercise - if the insanely busy Brogan can make time for it, so can you!
The benefit to you: you will feel more energized and less stressed. And if you are more energized and less stressed, you will have a more productive job search.
Most of us in tech spend so much time online it comes at the expense of health and fitness. In addition to all the smart health reasons I think Om Malik (@om) would suggest as reasons for better nutrition and exercise, good nutrition and fitness is a FOUNDATION for you to be able to do everything else you want to do, including getting a job.
I'll be giving a talk related to this topic at SXSW and hope to hear some of you success stories in person then.
2) At the same time you're getting your body in shape, now is the time to develop an even stronger attitude/psychology. Most of us tie our identity and self worth to our title, job, etc. and it can feel devastating after we lose the title, job, etc. This is a great time to learn how to put yourself in a peek state, where you can instantly feel 100% certainty - and unstoppable - not dependent on the external environment. Since learning how to do that, I feel like an entirely new person! People point it out to me all the time. I bet that prospective employers will notice this in you, too!
3) Keep in mind the big picture. Getting laid off could be the best thing that ever happened to you. Ask Jeff Pulver (@jeffpulver) about that, and he'll tell you that getting fired from his job saved his life. Literally. Getting laid off from my job at Rivals.com in 2001 put me on a new path I never could have predicted. I have a belief that things have a way of working out. I know people say that all the time. And when you've been laid off, it doesn't feel that way. But you've always found a way to come through hard times. And you will this time.
Net: do the smart tech and social networking things Robert is suggesting. And in addition, recognize that now is the time to innovate YOU!
@davideckoff
This matters.
Melissa (@mchang16)
This is a timely post. I'm a PR professional who experienced a layoff last week and utilizing social networking for my job search is a necessity. Thanks everyone for the additional tips.
Tiffany
http://www.womenmakingmoves.org
Twitter ID: TiffanyPR
Find your niche, start blogging and be passionate about it.
Before you even notice, you will start to monetize your blog and when you are one of these crazy techbloggers, you might also bump into Robert Scoble who will do a video interview then.
Then you are heading to your inbox the next day and you will find maybe 2 job offers, invitations to a couple of conferences as a speaker and the offer to write a book.
At this moment you realize, how hard you blogged to get a job and due to this, blogging became your job. Isn't it cool to tell one of the global players, sorry guys, thanks for your offer but i love to be independent and i just love the job i am having now...
Everything is possible when you work hard for it!
If you want to know who I am when I'm home, read the personal. If you want to know what I think and who I am at work, read the other.
Although, come to think of it, even the personal blog doesn't include any LOLCats. (My cats have their own blog.)
Your recommendations are that we consign to the memory hole all the personal stuff, and especially anything which says we're not perfect workers, because employers will look for it and reject us if they find something "bad". But then you say that you yourself have online nude photos and pics of yourself partying that haven't prevented you getting a job.
I see nothing wrong with giving potential employers a "landing page" which emphasises your strengths from their point of view. Indeed, yur advice to have a separate blog for "personal" stuff is just the same thing. But why go to all the effort of erasing the rest of your identity? Why be so paranoid about just being human?
Two final points (for now)...
1. I reckon an employer who will only employ someone who doesn't have any material online which doesn't conform to some outmoded idea of "proper behaviour" is an employer you shouldn't work for.
2. I reckon the compartmentalisation of one's life into "work" and "personal" identities is unhealthy -- especially now that mobile communications blur the boundaries.
Poorly-formed thoughts at this stage. I may blog abut this later. No LOLcats though. ;)
There is so much information on the Internet that searches need to understand what you are about.
Consistent:
Keep your story (subject) consistent on the Internet.
Industries:
Look into industries that will grow during the recession: http://bit.ly/dtBq
Remarkable:
If possible be a little bit remarkable, but not too much as it will scare off your potential boss.
Sell:
You are in Sales now: selling yourself is the hardest thing to do.
If a company is going to reject me because of my online presence, it's a good sign that they aren't a pleasant lot to work for.
Use common sense and throttle the public postings of every boring nuance in your life and make damn sure the people you align yourself with aren't going to harm you.
Privacy features are good. Use them. The world doesn't need to know your life and your future employer sure as hell doesn't either.
Thanks for sitting down and putting this together, Robert!
How would your post on twitter about wanting to get hold of software (Windows 7) regardless of the legality of doing so fit into your post above?
Terrific list!
Here is one:
If you do end up setting up a blog, don't post 5 times, and let it sit. It looks amateurish.
Chris who?
The Franchise King, Joel Libava
The other Ted Murphy out there doesn't leave a lot of social media oxygen :).
Turns out that San Jose has the most, but even places like Detroit have substantial numbers of new jobs available.
I linked to Indeed.com's "Job Map" on the following post, which I hope helps some people who are looking for work:
http://www.joemescher.com/2009/01/where-are-the...
“Scobleizer” is your professional brand and persona and you have two Facebook accounts under “Robert Scoble” one open, one protected. My guess is that the protected account isn’t truly a personal Facebook account, but more an inner-sanctum professional account.
For most of us we wouldn’t be embarrassed to have a professional associate see picts of the kids opening their Xmas presents or the family reunion bbq but as your post points out, you don’t want that to be the majority of your “professional” persona.
As personal friends and family increasingly use Facebook, Twitter, etc, what is your individual strategy? Do you have a 3rd Facebook for “friends & family”? Do you have multiple Twitter feeds? How do you manage this separation between professional and truly personal?
Thanks
Clark
There's no harm in having all the "bad" stuff out there, just make sure it's not attributed to your real name. My friends know where to find me, but my profile is always an alias.
Can't you just hire me as your assistant :-)
www.okathleen.wordpress.com
http://blog.rosenblum.info/2009/01/how-to-get-y...
Contacts who don' read your blog, don't follow you on twitter and who your don't email won't help you find your next job.
I built it because I got laid off from a startup because of funding, then three months later got laid off from another one for the same reason. So with my wide and deep experience in getting laid off, I found that being organized when job hunting really helps a lot.
My company isn't in the tech industry- we recruit in building materials, which is in a very difficult spot right now. These tips are great for any industry, though!
I just started on our blog a couple of weeks ago, so any tips/comments are welcome. http://www.buildinggurus.wordpress.com
Good blog!
Check it out
http://digg.com/tech_news/10_Questions_with_Mr_...
A guy quit his job to help those who were laid off by helping them monetizing their blogs and inturn making some quick bucks
Lol - now thats what one should do when one is laid off
Mike
Present a consistent face to all audiences by linking together your twitter update to your facebook update as well as linking together your blog to your LinkedIn profile.
Join LinkedIn groups that are relevant to your education, experiences and target industry and participate in the online discussions.
Aggressively follow the blogs of the people and companies you're interested in talking to as well as the people and companies who are specialists in your area. Comment intelligently on the blogs, but don't be a stalker.
Get involved in the developer and user group communities for the companies or technologies that interest you. In technology, nothing says "hire me" louder than being a rock star in the developer or user community.
It's a great, curmudgeonly point of view that nobody can really work as something so silly as "social media expert" and yet, this study seems to say it's a growing business in a time when there aren't many. Hah?
BTW, test our beta for adCenter Publisher.
There are ALOT of companies that don't want or allow their employees to be blogging about them. So make it clear in interviews that you follow rules about companies' use of social media.
Laws: even if your blog is your resume, you still need a resume. Companies for the most part use applicant tracking systems to track data they're required to track by law (like EEO).
Also, that's why your video resume may not be so popular (see my blog about video resumes here: http://tinyurl.com/7xwox9). Many companies are just too scared to use them.
Whatever you do, don't think in the "cool company" phase. Not all companies or industies are comprised of only cool start-ups that will let you blog or that even blog themselves. In your job search, make sure you tailor your online presence and think about it as such.
Susan Strayer, Recruiting Exec and Career Coach
Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/6gbjbj
Twitter: @DailyCareerTips and @susandstrayer
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/susanstrayer
"I have naked pictures of me out there on the Internet..."
I so do NOT want to see those. No offense.
These days you almost have to make preparing for the worst a part-time job on top of your real job.
I am the in-house recruiter for Innovation Interactive and we are looking to hire great talent for our New York and Atlanta offices. In NY we are looking for Media Managers, Associate Media Directors with search experience. We are also looking for a Director of Customer Insights to lead and grow our current team and services. In Atlanta we have an array of openings from .Net Developers to Media Interns. Please feel free to email me at with resumes and inquiries:
Kfernandez@innovationinteractive.com
www.searchignite.com
Best of luck to you in your search!
Kat Fernandez
www.360i.com
I already had a well established technology blog on ITToolbox. I created my own company and a new blog www.kavistechnology.com and started publishing PowerPoint presentations and offered to speak at numerous conferences for free. This not only gave me a great platform to promote myself but it also allowed me to attend many cool conferences at no cost.
Even though I have a steady job now, I still keep my own company's blog going and occasionally get paid opportunities to speak or give brief consulting gigs on IT strategy. If for any reason I lose my current job, I know I will have something to fall back on. So I recommend a proactive approach for those who are not looking for work. This economy is expected to shed at least another 1M jobs in 2009. If even you are employed you should prepare as if you are about to get laid off. You never know what tomorrow brings.
Thanks for your post.
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/11/15/pat...
Trust me on this one. You’re wrong.
Laurie Ruettimann @ Punk Rock HR
Your advice--it's all the sort of basic, "You should know this already" kind of info that most people "know" but rarely apply. It means so much when someone goes the extra mile & actually applies all those "oh yeah, I really should do that" things.
Nevertheless, that is a great list. I certainly need to blog more.
Limerick is doing the same: http://opencoffeeclublimerick.com/?p=43
He's begging for a lawsuit! Has he heard of the OFCCP or the EEOC's E-RACE initiative?
http://www.eeoc.gov/initiatives/e-race/goals.html
I definitely agree that recruiters should use social media, in addition to other sources that are not as heavily weighted to a particular demographic, to identify potentially qualified applicants. And smart job seekers should put their best face forward on all fronts. However, once they become a qualified candidate, no one in the company needs to be checking out their online profile. It's an invitation for a lawsuit.
See my recent item on this issue at http://blogs.imperativeinfo.com/imperative_info...
I left my job a week ago to start my own social media company in Argentina, and I still think it's the right decision. I've been very involved in social media the last year, and my team and I are pretty sure that we'll have work to do.
Thanks for those tips.
Best,
Matias Paterlini
I just finished transcribing all the interviews for The Social Media Bible, www.TheSocialMediaBible.com . I became part of the team virtually; I am a virtual transcriptionist. I only mention this as a testament to the power of social media, or as I like to call this combo, Social Media ².
Joanne Zimakas
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Thanks for this very interesting piece; should help in an upliftment in such testing times indeed.
Having been laid off *twice* in a singe year, I can perhaps perfectly relate to the context that you are providing.
[Link: http://blog.mindgap.in/2008/07/hbr-right-way-to... This analysis titled 'the right way to be fired' by Peobody and Stybel that featured in a Harvard Business Review helped me come to terms with accepting the job-market dynamics.
Best, Mil
I don't like how there is a massive void when it comes to company/employee loyalty, but it will take generations to turn this around. So, in the mean time, you are only as valuable as you are useful so hone your skills well and if you are lucky follow #17 and you may find yourself never in this position again.
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Good Luck!