employeeze

You aren’t alone. Lots of folks don’t understand what all the hype is about. So here are some suggestions for starting out on Twitter.

Like all social networking sites, Twitter is about building community. That means that people find what you have to say interesting for some reason. So the first thing you have to do is decide what your Twitter “personality” is about. In my case, it’s mostly about staffing and career with a bit of writing in there; recruiting, resume construction, job leads/openings, articles of interest. It’s also about promoting *me*. I consider Twitter a marketing tool. I am using it to establish myself as a SME (Subject Matter Expert) in the areas I am concentrating on. 

 For people to find me, I need to post information of interest. Resume tips, job hunting etiquette and tools, articles of interest. I am selective about who I follow and who follows me. It’s about quality instead of  quantity. I have a couple of hundred followers and folks I follow. Part of the “building community” aspect is forwarding other people’s tweets, commenting on things I do or don’t agree on, occasionally responding privately to someone to build relationships. 

Once you start tweeting enough, people that run searches will find your content and start watching you, following you, and sharing *your* posts. The more people that see you as a resource for valid and valuable information, the more you will get noticed and contacted for opinions and expertise. 

It is similar to the “Answers” section of LinkedIn, using 140 characters or less. 

Try it for a couple of weeks. You don’t have to continue if it doesn’t seem to be netting you any success. Oh, and if you want to follow me, I’m @employeeze.  

It’s Intern Season for college students. While I was at Microsoft, I hired over thirty Computer Science interns for Microsoft Research, from around the globe.  I still keep in contact with a couple of them as well.

Internships are one of the single best things you can do as a student to improve your resume when you leave school. An internship gives a prospective employer the impression that you are motivated and ready to learn. You come to a full time job with an understanding of the working environment and industry under your belt. You gain valuable networking and reference relationships. If it is a paid internship, you make money in your field. But probably the most important reason for *you* is that you get to see what you can expect once you graduate and are in the “real world”. It can be a way to excite and motivate you, or a vehicle for you to realize that you don’t necessarily enjoy the work you thought your education entailed.

There are a number of sources for finding internships. The best job board is probably Vault where they have a dedicated Intern section, although most of the large job boards and Craigslist have internships listed. Just use the keyword “intern”.

Your collegiate/university career center should be able to help you with researching companies and local businesses offering internships.

More and more people are getting on Twitter ; I follow Lauren Berger, who has created the site Intern Queen . She has a ton of information and resources on her website, and tweets opportunities. You can also check out Intern Bridge to see what are current Best Practices advocated for employers, and possibly to form some networking opportunities.

But internships aren’t always just decided upon and posted by large companies. You can approach smaller companies and ask them to create an internship, especially if you have done any work for them in the past. You may need to take it unpaid, but the experience can be invaluable. The key to creating an internship is to define a project or set of objectives that can be accomplished in a very set amount of time. And, if you manage to create your own opportunity, when you are updating your resume with that information, make sure you outline the steps you used to identify the need, indentified objectives, the scope of the project, timeline and the milestones. (Hint: these are all elements of Project Management.) The process of *creating* an opportunity is probably more interesting to a potential employee than the internship itself.

Check out some of the resources listed and good luck!

As college graduation season approaches, coupled with summer break, I’m going to devote some time to student concerns. With the economy being so tight, many grads are probably worried about finding a job, rightfully so.

But there *is* some good news: companies are trying to streamline their budgets and new grads are *cheaper* to employ in a lot of areas. It’s not an insult, just economics.

With that hopeful reality, here are a few tips.

1) Talk to Mom/Dad about whether or not you can return home if you are unable to find a job right out of school. Remember to address issues such as rent, expectations regarding your participation in the household. When I moved back home after I graduated, I’d been on my own for several years, was used to coming and going as I pleased. I paid a nominal rent, but my folks hadn’t dealt with an adult child and expected things to be similar to when I was a teenager. Eat with the family, help with chores, and even a curfew. I felt that I was renting a room and could live my life as I pleased. It was a tough adjustment period for all of us. Talk about these issues openly and make sure you set expectations early and realistically.

2) Be open to relocation. So many young adults return to their hometowns, only to find they cannot find a job. I know a young creative professional that got a degree in Media Arts. Her long-term goal is to work editing music videos. But she doesn’t want to move to the place she really needs to be…LA. She is insistent that she can do everything remotely from her hometown in Texas. She has been unsuccessful in finding a job over the past year and a half.

3) Don’t be too proud to accept help from your parents and their friends/colleagues. In our twenties, many of us are so focused on our independence that we refuse help from our most valuable network…our parents and their professional networks. Networking is the *single most important* way to finding a job. Your parents’ generation are often the ones making hiring decisions. Remember, they can get you the contact info, but it’s up to *you* to wow the person at the other end.

4) Speaking of networking, talk to professors, advisors, even T.A.’s at school. If you are in a fraternity/sorority, connect with your local alumni to network. Sign up for the alumni newsletters. If you are on a sports team, talk to your coach. You might find out he still keeps in touch with the goalie he coached fifteen years ago that is now a manager at a large company that has entry-level openings. Most people are always happy to help a fellow alum.

5) Consider a part-time job. Employers prefer someone working at the local movie theater in the evenings while they are job searching over someone that doesn’t do anything for the year after graduation.

6) If you are at all motivated, consider a volunteer or overseas job like teaching English in another country or joining the Peace Corps. Now is the time to have a great adventure and expand your horizons beyond imagining.

7) Your local state Unemployment Office is a great free resource for things like writing resumes, interview skills, and general information on the local economy. You don’t have to be on UI to take advantage of it.

8) Social and Business Networking sites like Twitter , LinkedIn , Facebook , and professional organizations can yield you invaluable contacts. Find a recruiter that is willing to look over your resume and give you pointers. There are *tons* of articles and blogs out there with solid advice on how to use  these networks effectively.

9) Money: save it, don’t spend it. Now is not the time to go crazy with your graduation money on things like clothes and tech toys. You’ll need some professional attire for interviews, of course. But be frugal. Don’t run up credit card bills. Shop around for apartments and roommates if you are moving out; hit Craigslist for furniture if you don’t have any. Go to garage sales for household items like dishes. Ikea is your friend. If you need a new car, try and get a serviceable vehicle you can pay cash for rather than get into debt with car payments. You can always trade it in after you start getting money from a new job.

10) Health Insurance. You are not indestructible, and you are no longer eligible for your parents’ insurance. It is absolutely *vital* that you have health insurance. Individual policies are relatively cheap for young, healthy folks. Try a site like http://esurance.com for individual rates.

11) Ask older siblings or other resources for help. Let’s be honest, your folks love you but they have not been in your position for a long time (hopefully) and they may not understand what you need and the tools you need to get there.

12) DO consider paying dues to join a professional association. Paying annual dues can give you discounts on events, access to new trends and contacts like member directories.

Most of all, keep your spirits up and don’t get frustrated if you aren’t employed by the 1st of July after graduating in June. Take time out for yourself. Get together with your friends, volunteer (great resume fodder!), enjoy nature, exercise regularly.

Twitter is the new “craze” among recruiters, social networking gurus, and just about anyone that is involved in the talent acquisition (that would be “recruiting”) industry.

Many “Average Joes” don’t have a clue what to do or how to use Twitter effectively. Luckily there are a plethora of articles, blogs, websites etc. to help with this. And where can most of these resources be found?

On Twitter, of course. Posted daily, hourly, momentarily by Tweeters.

I set up a Twitter account and have selectively chosen to follow a wide variety of Tweeters. (I didn’t invent the term.) The most effective tools I have found to use have been the application Tweet Deck (http://tweetdeck.com), an explanation of hashtags (metadata tags within the posted content signified with a #), and various blogs on the subject (rather than books and articles), URL shorteners like tinyurl or t.conquent.com (unabashed plug for my company ;).

*Everyone* that tweets their own expertise assures you they know the best way to utilize the tool.

In the spirit of blogging and information, I’m going to give you a few suggestions.

1) In an application such as Tweetdeck, set up searches with various keywords that are of interest to you, such as “job”, “resume”, “recruiter” or industry terms like “software engineer” or “architect” or “C#” or “java”. Seek common terms that appear in the job postings you are looking at that are *industry specific*.

2) It’s about building community and establishing your credentials in order to be *found* as opposed to just be *looking*. You know your skills, you know your industry. If you have a professional blog, post the link when you write a post of interest. Chances are if you are unemployed, while perusing job searches you also find interesting tidbits about not only your industry but the world at large. Post those  links with a very short descriptor. For example, I recently posted a tweet about Microsoft and Monster partnering. The # is a hashtag (or metadata tag), which means that people following content on Monster and/or Microsoft will see this post.

employeeze#Monster to partner with #Microsoft combining online Office resume template searches w/ Monster job board. http://t.conquent.com/A500

3) You are limited to 140 characters, which *includes* your profile name. When you are creating your profile, choose something as short as possible that is professional. It will precede every post you make, so you want to make sure you are identifiable. Every profile is unique, so trying jessie1 will probably yield one of those “this profile is already taken”. If you have your own business, try using some variation on the business name for your profile.

4) Newbie Tweeters have a tendency to update Twitter with every single thing they are doing all the time. Don’t do it. It gets annoying as you garner more followers. Don’t tweet “employeeze just got a cup of coffee” followed by “employeeze is answering all my email” followed by “employeeze just got a call from the DH”. The bane and the beauty of Twitter is that you can advertise yourself. Remember, if you are using Twitter to find a job or promote your services, you want to be genuine, show your expertise and personality, but not to overload interested parties with the minutiae of your everyday activities.

5) Keep it positive. Don’t use Twitter (or any other social networking tool) to constantly moan, complain, or bad-mouth people. That being said, an occasional tweet about being frustrated adds character to your profile. Especially if your frustration is either universal or specific to your industry. A good example would be “employeeze hmmm…pay mortgage/cable bill or buy Bjoel/Ejohn concert tix? Tough choice.”

Here are some other sites that I’ve found informative. Happy Tweeting!

http://twitter.pbwiki.com/Hashtags

Recruiters using Twitter

  http://tweetdeck.posterous.com/

Twitter for business

The human factor behind Twitter for jobs

http://mashable.com/2009/03/13/twitter-jobs/

Twitter personalities

A friend of mine that was recently laid off has been applying for positions online, and has followed up with former managers and colleagues who are telling him the same thing: HR has made it clear that no recommendations in writing are permitted by former coworkers or managers.

So get cell phone or home phone numbers as well as personal email addresses when you are approaching your colleagues. Ask what they prefer as far as contact method. And above all, respect their privacy and requests.

Got an interesting email from a friend of mine today. He is a Director-level IT/Software guru. He recently got laid off from Microsoft, and has been approached by several firms around the area via LinkedIn. One of the things he sent me is this:

“Yesterday I sent a lot of emails asking for LinkedIn recommendations.  *Agency* did not want any references all they wanted were the names of recommendations from LinkedIn.  Interesting move - that way you know this is a true reference as the LinkedIn person went “public” on their views.”

Now, this is interesting and of no little consequence. I personally have my LinkedIn profile URL and my Electronic Recruiting Exchange blog link on my own resume. Earlier this week we heard in the comments section from someone that advocates using your LinkedIn endorsements as quotes on your resume.  I happen to somewhat disagree with this, unless the quote is by someone really well known in your industry, or a published author for the very simple fact that I think quotes from your professional network should be used as *references*, not as marketing tools.  But, it is certainly something you can try. I give it the same weight I do for listing your references on your resume directly: many employment agencies will use the information (name, title, company) listed to build new client cold call lists.  I would never want my own references out there passed around and open to solicitation in this manner, and when I provide references I always let them know ahead of time to expect a call from XYZ company. 

But as with any other content in a resume, nothing is set in stone and experimentation might get you further along.   You never know what is going to differentiate you from Joe Smith.

Some people out there have been laid off and feel that the circumstances weren’t “fair”. I was talking to someone I used to work with. He was laid off from the company he worked for with no reason why. Now, we live in an at-will employment state, which means that either the employer or the employee can leave at any time for no reason. He feels he is still owed some vacation time, which isn’t really worth contacting an attorney, but I suggested he fill out a wage dispute with the WA State Bureau of Labor and Industry.

Since I am in the HR field, I am aware of some of the resources available to both companies and individual, but many people don’t have any idea about how to go about pursuing or even finding these resources.

If you feel you are the victim of any sort of discrimination, the State EEOC office is where you  want to start.

The key to any sort of action, be it legal or any other sort of mediated resolution, is documentation. This means you will need copies of correspondences (ie offer letter, performance reviews, separation agreement, termination letter, etc.) Include copies of emails as well. Use all this information to document your case so that an informed decision can be made. Remember that the Unemployment office can also direct you to appropriate resources as well.

There are resources out there if you look for them.

As someone that *has* a resume consulting business, obviously I believe that having your resume written professionally can be a major benefit overall. That being said, everyone that *has* a resume should ideally learn how to write their own. If you do decide to pay someone else, what should you look for?

Finally, you should have an understanding of *how* the consultant constructed your resume based on the experience. You should be able to update your own resume in the future.

I recently completed a resume review for a client. She commented “I’ve never been able to brag about myself.” That comment really caused me to think. I don’t see resumes as “brag sheets”, per se, but I guess in a certain light they can be. Many of us don’t “seek out” projects *just* to put then on our resumes; we are too busy doing our jobs. We may consciously seek out opportunities to further our careers, but by the same token, we neglect to put those very same accomplishments the one place they should be: our resumes. It’s erroneous to assume that the only time to update your resume is when you are looking for a new job. You should update your resume *every time you complete a new project or receive your annual review.*

Don’t forget the sales aspect of your job, including the marketing. As part of the “service” you provide, this includes product knowledge and expertise as well as upselling (”Can I interest you in any dessert?”) You may also be responsible as part of your job for monitoring supply levels of items like condiments and dressings. Any time you help train a new employee, that is worth mentioning on your resume.

A good way to look at some of the “buzz words” in your industry is to look at online job descriptions. Look for management jobs in your industry, even if you aren’t applying for them. Why? Because management jobs are geared for the person with *business knowledge* and will have phrases and concepts that should be applicable to multiple aspects of the business. For example, here is a job posting for a Restaurant Manager in Cleveland from Craigslist:

Key word/phrases that a *server* can take away are: “sales growth, merchandising, training.” One of the terms that would apply more to someone with *business* knowledge is P & L, which stands for “profit and loss”.  Think of the things you do as part of your job that have to do with “sales growth” and “merchandising”.  How do you build the restaurant’s business? Do you have repeat customers that come in every week and always request your section? Do you help with ordering supplies or creating product displays? Have you come up with ideas to help promote the business like special coupons or “Senior Days”? 

The reality is that you are responsible for learning about business; your industry, business principles, best practices, terminology and then learning how to apply them. Learning includes asking questions and researching. Application can and should include documentation such as…your resume.

Recently I had a friend laid off from a large local tech company. It appeared pretty obvious that the layoffs were hitting the over 40 crowd, but worded in such a way that it was for “financial” reasons.

 Now, you may or may not know how this works. So yours truly is going to illuminate the issue. First off, as a person works longer, their salary goes up. If you *really* climb the corporate ladder, say into management, your salary can *really* increase. 

Add to that the fact that the older a person gets, the more expensive it is to insure them from a health perspective, and you begin to get an idea of the reasons “financial” is the generic reason attributed to layoffs. In addition to that, there is even the philosophy that “if someone is over 50, their careers have a finite life expectancy before retirement, therefore I don’t want to invest more money in training them when they are leaving in fifteen years or less.”

Age discrimination in the US is *illegal*. However,  in a job market such as today’s, when there are so many candidates available, it fairly easy for a company to rationalize that the “best” candidate for the job is younger.   In addition to the financial aspect to hiring younger workers, there is often a belief that older workers are harder to train, that they don’t keep up with the world around them, that they are inflexible. There is some merit to this belief in many ways. I see less of that in the tech industry, by virtue of the fact that it *is* a rapidly changing industry.

So what are some things you can do if you *are* in the over 40, or for that matter the over 50 and even over 60 category?

 First of all, stay at the forefront of your industry with training and certifications. Things change, expectations morph over time to whatever the industry trends are. With the rate that technology is changing every industry, it is *vital* to stay abreast of these trends. 

 Second, make sure your *resume* and interview styles reflect current standards. I’ve devoted a *lot* of space on this blog to the tools that you can use to keep current. Guys, I’m a *recruiter*; it is my job to both look at resumes all day and to make sure I know what hiring managers are looking for in the documents that cross their desks. I know the tools in the biz today and how they work. Honest, I’m not giving you a load of doodoo with what I’m telling you. 

Third and the most sad IMHO, do your best to look as young as possible. I’m not talking about plastic surgery. But make sure your interview clothing is stylish and not outdated. Some industries and geographies require a traditional blue suit, others do not. But make sure your suit is not a throwback to the 80’s. Look at magazines and catalogues to see what is out there.  If your budget is tight, hit thrift and consignment stores or talk to friends or family members that wear your size. (Include shoes in this process as well.)

 Same thing with your hair. Women, longer hair and bangs make you look younger; shorter hair ages you.  Consider your haircolor and style. Go to a department store and have a free makeover to see what palettes and application techniques make you look younger. Men, if you are balding there isn’t much you can do, but take a hint from the younger generation: consider shaving your head all the way, at least for your interviews. It may sound bizarre, but it works. One of my exes started balding in his twenties. He shaved his head all the way at age 35 and it took 5+ years off his perceived age. Think Samuel L. Jackson a la Matrix. If you are lucky enough not to have to deal with baldness, again consider haircolor (both head and facial hair if you have it) as well. Also think about facial hair; some men look older with a beard or moustache, some younger. Maybe try growing a moustache or goatee if you haven’t in many years. You can always shave it off. And if it grows in vastly salt and pepper, again, try coloring it.

 It is a sad truth in our society that youth is more revered than wisdom. But right now your primary goal is getting the job. Who knows? You may decide you like the new look.