In the modern job search, the littlest of things can make a HUGE impact. There are tons of little things that go into making a successful online job search and the more you know the better prepared you can be when you see the ideal job posting.
Today, there are consulting services and career coaches with whom you can expect to spend thousands of dollars for advice; literally, thousands of dollars for career consulting, career coaching, interview coaching, resume consulting, personal brand coaching and much, much more.
But what about the rest of us, who are unable to spend the exorbitant sums needed for these types of services? What if I (the modern job seeker) have questions about my job search, my resume, and my upcoming interview?
The answer is MyOnlineCareerCoach.com.
After my post on this last year, Steve Gilbert, an awesome guy I know from Twitter, ended up reaching out and chatting with me for a bit. He sent me a bunch of links to some companies that are currently using video as part of their recruiting process.
The one thing I noticed with all the videos I’ve seen is that they’re almost all from a broad, company overview perspective.
What I’d love to see are videos that dig deeper. An interview with the hiring manager. An introduction to the team. A day-in-the-life with someone who currently has that job title.
There are apparently a handful of companies that put together videos like this for organizations. But there’s no reason you can’t do this yourself!
The Technology
Creating videos like this is actually pretty damn easy! Here’s what you need:
A Digital Camera. For about $200 you can buy a digital camera that takes incredible still photos and great video. I recommend either the Sony Cybershot (I own an older model of this camera) or the Canon Powershot. You should also get at least a 2 GB memory card. (amazon affiliate links)
Windows Movie Maker. This software is free from Microsoft if you have MS Office on your computer. It allows you to break up chunks of video into clips, drag and drop them into a storyboard, and save them as a new movie. You can even add background music and title slides. Download Windows Movie Maker (Vista users click here)
A YouTube Account. They’re free. Head over to YouTube and sign-up for one right now.
What Now?
Great question! Go out and interview your hiring manager. Have her explain the job… in plain english.
Chat with the team members that whoever fills this role will be working with. Have them talk about the organization, the team, and the work they do. What do they love? What should someone coming into the team expect?
These videos are only limited by your creativity.
Once you’ve captured all of your video, get it on your computer, and start editing it using Windows Movie Maker.
I know what you’re thinking: Chris, I’m not a director. I don’t know how to put together a good video. You’re right. And chances are your first video will only be sorta OK.
Know how people get good at making videos? They make videos! Practice makes perfect, so keep at it.
Your video should be five minutes long max. Go shorter if you can. Once you’ve edited your video into something you’re happy with, upload it to your YouTube account.
Now go share it with the world. Post it on Twitter. Share it on your employer branding blog. Embed it in your job postings on the job boards and your company career site.
Do this and you’ll be part of the cutting edge of social media recruiting.
In the modern job search, the littlest of things can make a HUGE impact. There are tons of little things that go into making a successful online job search and the more you know the better prepared you can be when you see the ideal job posting.
Today, there are consulting services and career coaches with whom you can expect to spend thousands of dollars for advice; literally, thousands of dollars for career consulting, career coaching, interview coaching, resume consulting, personal brand coaching and much, much more.
But what about the rest of us, who are unable to spend the exorbitant sums needed for these types of services? What if I (the modern job seeker) have questions about my job search, my resume, and my upcoming interview?
The answer is MyOnlineCareerCoach.com.
This originally appeared here in July, 2008. Since the human condition hasn’t changed since then, I thought it might prompt some much-needed and quiet reflection at a time of year that epitomizes the hopefulness of reconciliation.
Downsizing. Corruption. Bullying. Harassment. ‘Do more with less.’ Reduced benefits. Add to that list some of the people with whom you have to work every day. There’s a lot of opportunity for anger and hurt on the job.
Where you find anger, you find the need for forgiveness. Why?
It’s good for you. For your physical and mental health. For your relationships. For your ability to move on peacefully and productively.
Why forgiveness instead of revenge?
Christina M. Puchalski, M.D. is the Founder and Director of the George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health and Assistant Professor of Medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine. She says:
‘On a personal level, forgiveness of self can help us achieve an inner peace as well as peace with others and with God. Wrongdoing against others and ourselves can result in guilt and resentment. This can thenlead to self-recrimination and self-loathing; it also can create a distance or disconnect from self and others. Resentment can give away to hate and intolerance. Forgiveness is the first stage of self-love and acceptance. It is also the basic building block of loving relationships with others.’
It’s not the offense. It’s your response to it.
I confess, I’m not always a quick-to-forgive person once I’ve felt ‘wronged’. I give people a very long leash and a long time to ‘get their act together’ if things aren’t going well. But there is some point at which I just say ‘that’s it’ and cut them off from my life. It is very infrequent, but the pattern is always the same. I decide that the differences are irreconcilable. So, the relationship in its present form is finished.
Does that serve me well?
Only if I genuinely forgive. It is both possible and imperative to do that and, at the same time, acknowledge that the nature of the relationship may not be productive. This is the harder part, I think. It begs the nagging question, ‘If I can forgive, why can’t I just continue?’
Sometimes it’s possible. More often, it becomes apparent that I wasn’t seeing clearly to begin with and that continuing the relationship–without changing expectations–would not be peaceful or productive for either of us.
Dr. Frederic Luskin specializes in Learning to Forgive. He explains that:
‘The practice of forgiveness has been shown to reduce anger, hurt depression and stress and leads to greater feelings of hope, peace, compassion and self confidence. Practicing forgiveness leads to healthy relationships as well as physical health.’
Dr. Luskin’s 9 Steps to Forgiveness
1. Know exactly how you feel about what happened and be able to articulate what about the situation is not OK. Then, tell a trusted couple of people about your experience.
2. Make a commitment to yourself to do what you have to do to feel better. Forgiveness is for you and not for anyone else.
3. Forgiveness does not necessarily mean reconciliation with the person that hurt you, or condoning their action. What you are after is to find peace. Forgiveness can be defined as the ‘peace and understanding that come from blaming that which has hurt you less, taking the life experience less personally, and changing your grievance story.’
4. Get the right perspective on what is happening. Recognize that your primary distress is coming from the hurt feelings, thoughts and physical upset you are suffering now, not what offended you or hurt you two minutes–or ten years ago. Forgiveness helps to heal those hurt feelings.
5. At the moment you feel upset practice a simple stress management technique to soothe your body’s fight or flight response.
6. Give up expecting things from other people, or your life, that they do not choose to give you. Recognize that ‘unenforceable rules’ you have for your health or how you or other people must behave. Remind yourself that you can hope for health, love, peace and prosperity and work hard to get them.
7. Put your energy into looking for another way to get your positive goals met than through the experience that has hurt you. Instead of mentally replaying your hurt seek out new ways to get what you want.
8. Remember that a life well lived is your best revenge. Instead of focusing on your wounded feelings, and thereby giving the person who caused you pain power over you, learn to look for the love, beauty and kindness around you.
9. Amend your grievance story to remind you of the heroic choice to forgive.
Unfortunately, the world requires internships and it’s not fair, but I have yet to give a realistic way to get around that. So to conclude my internship series, here are my top 5 tips for getting the experience of an internship without actually being someone’s bitch:
1. Meet people. I already talk a little about how networking is a big plus regarding internships, but this is easy to do by joining professional organizations, using social media, contacting potential ‘mentors’ (alumni offices are awesome for this exact purpose) and abusing any and all connections.
2. Freelance. A lot of young people don’t even think of this as an option because it’s something more seasoned professional do, but getting freelance work through friends, using Craigslist and contacting your dream company directly puts the big names on your resume, generates contacts and builds up an impressive portfolio (which is always handy).
3. Use social media to get your name out there and establish yourself in the desired professional community. This entire blog is a result of me getting a job after college, where I used Twitter, Facebook and said blog to get people talking. This resulted in a full time job, but also a ton of freelance work (NY Times, HarperCollins and various authors).
4. Temp. Interns are really just glorified assistants, so might as well get paid for the work you’d be doing anyway. Many temp agencies can set you up with part-time gigs in the field of your choice and being a paid employee of a company is always more impressive than being an intern. This also gets around not having the ‘mandatory’ internship on your resume.
5. Become an expert. Read the top publications in your field, get books, watch webinars, make friends with bloggers – not only does this create contacts and integrates you into the professional community, but slowly establishes you as an expert (basically, all the things you can get from an internship).
In the modern job search, the littlest of things can make a HUGE impact. There are tons of little things that go into making a successful online job search and the more you know the better prepared you can be when you see the ideal job posting.
Today, there are consulting services and career coaches with whom you can expect to spend thousands of dollars for advice; literally, thousands of dollars for career consulting, career coaching, interview coaching, resume consulting, personal brand coaching and much, much more.
But what about the rest of us, who are unable to spend the exorbitant sums needed for these types of services? What if I (the modern job seeker) have questions about my job search, my resume, and my upcoming interview?
The answer is MyOnlineCareerCoach.com.
As willing (or even unwilling) citizens of the Connected Age trying to build a strong online reputation, we are constantly barraged with various communications channels such as emails, social networks, newsfeeds, and blogs. The barriers to entry are often non-existent; most accounts are free to sign-up and take only minutes to fill out some minimal information about ourselves. So we sign up again and again, filling out profile after profile, convincing ourselves that this is time well-spent. After all, we are using yet another tool to promote ourselves online and get better connected with our target audience, and that’s how we can build our brand online.
Right?
But as we try to keep up with the latest tools and newest features, we realize the time sink that we are creating for ourselves by maintaining all of these accounts. Then just as quickly, we let them drop off. Inconsistent or outdated information will then litter unattended profiles, turning potentially useful tools into a poor reflection of our professional habits and selves.
Does any of this sound familiar to you? It should, because it represents the majority of users out there. According to a recent study, anyone who says that they have an online profile will most likely have at least four profiles on sites they can name, and another four that they’ve forgotten about. Those forgotten profiles are just one example of how an unfocused and poorly maintained online identity can dilute your career brand. Your target audience can just as likely pull up a neglected profile as they can one that is well-maintained, and you run the risk of losing an opportunity of promoting yourself properly to that audience.
So what can you do to maintain a healthy online reputation? Here are a number of tips to ensure that your brand online truly represents you:
Before anything else, know your target audience(s).‘Where are you likely to intersect online, or where will they likely go online when they want to look for someone like you? Do your research on how to best reach your audience before selecting your promotional tools.
Research your tools of choice.‘Each has its own unique features, target audiences and advantages. Likewise, each also comes with their own set of trade-offs. Consider your career-branding strategy, and what combination of tools will best support that strategy while minimizing tool redundancy. When you make a tool choice, maximize its value to your strategy by learning all of its features, not just enough to get by.
When beginning, settle on 1 or 2 sites of choice, and commit to them.‘Any more will run you the risk of leaving some unattended, thus diluting your brand. It’s ok to have profiles on other sites, but on ones other than your targets, make it clear where to go for the latest updates and best way to reach you, and provide either a link or other reference to those preferred sites.
Keep your profile content trim, neat and focused.‘Treat online profiles as you would any other promotional collateral, such as a resume. Make sure that it reflects your focus. It’s ok to show diversity in skills in experience, but just remember; there’s a fine line between being viewed as a ‘renaissance’ entrepreneur or a handyman that will do anything for a buck.
Avoid a collision of your worlds.‘Since many people use social networks for personal and professional lives, it’s important to draw the line. The best practice is to keep friends on one network and colleagues on another. Sometimes a collision of the two worlds can cause issues in either one.
Be aware of privacy settings on the social networks.‘If you do choose to use one network for both personal and professional use, some such as Facebook, now have the ability to filter content by audience.
For professional networks, you will always be the loser if you play the numbers game.‘Having too many people in your network gives people the wrong message. If you’re connecting with just anyone, your network doesn’t view you as someone who puts any value on the connection. Maintaining a unwieldy network can get in the way of building and maintaining strong relationships with relevant and useful connections.
Don’t ‘friend’ people you don’t know.’Too many irrelevant connections, or connections with people you do not know well diminishes the value of your network to you and to others in your network. A good rule of thumb is that if you cannot confidently refer someone on your network to someone else, then they probably shouldn’t be in your network.
Do not start a blog that you are committed to maintaining on a very regular basis.‘If it looks like you abandoned the effort, this reflects poorly on your focus and follow-through. Establish expectations with your blogging audience on the expected posting frequency on the blog itself and commit to it.
Assess your tools of choice regularly, and trim as needed as part of your career-branding maintenance routine.‘Review their features and relevancy to your goals and strategy, and either work on improving the value you get from them, or get rid of them. But be careful; switching tools too often can confuse and frustrate audiences, so only switch if you feel confident you can get significantly more value by making a move.
Maintain your connections, or get rid of them.’If you have connected with someone over a year ago, have not communicated since, it’s time to either make the effort to renew that relationship or trim them. Remember that network relevance is key to its health. If you are afraid of offending someone, just keep in mind that many sites offer ways to remove members from your network subtly without having to notify them.
Use something to keep track of your social networking ID’s.’There are a number of tools designed to manage multiple networks, but because the space is growing and changing regularly, it’s difficult to find a truly universal tool. So sometimes the best solution is also the easiest. Simply keep your account IDs in the notes section of a ‘me’ contact in your Outlook. You’ll always know where to look, and if it syncs with other address books, it is always with you.
If you are reading this article, you already have an inkling that your online reputation is going to be an increasingly important component of your professional life. So, to that end, think of your online reputation just as you do your credit. Both need to be monitored carefully to ensure a healthy rating. Sometimes it’s necessary to correct bad or outdated information, or to close out old, unused accounts that are doing more harm than good. And just like your credit, you should be maintaining your online reputation regularly, not just when you need it.
About The Author:
For the past fifteen years,’Paul Ewinger‘has worked with corporate clients from start-up to Fortune 500 to deliver cost-effective solutions in the areas of talent acquisition, employer branding and the implementation of other recruiting strategies. Now, as founder and CEO of’build::grow, he brings that knowledge and insight to the other side of the interview table, providing senior professionals with actionable career-branding solutions that get the attention of key stakeholders and decision makers. Their’groundwork suite of solutions‘provide a detailed assessment of a client’s branding strategy, identify areas of improvement, and presents a specific set of recommendations along with a step-by-step, actionable plan.
For more career coaching, check out these articles:
In the modern job search, the littlest of things can make a HUGE impact. There are tons of little things that go into making a successful online job search and the more you know the better prepared you can be when you see the ideal job posting.
Today, there are consulting services and career coaches with whom you can expect to spend thousands of dollars for advice; literally, thousands of dollars for career consulting, career coaching, interview coaching, resume consulting, personal brand coaching and much, much more.
But what about the rest of us, who are unable to spend the exorbitant sums needed for these types of services? What if I (the modern job seeker) have questions about my job search, my resume, and my upcoming interview?
The answer is MyOnlineCareerCoach.com.
In the modern job search, the littlest of things can make a HUGE impact. There are tons of little things that go into making a successful online job search and the more you know the better prepared you can be when you see the ideal job posting.
Today, there are consulting services and career coaches with whom you can expect to spend thousands of dollars for advice; literally, thousands of dollars for career consulting, career coaching, interview coaching, resume consulting, personal brand coaching and much, much more.
But what about the rest of us, who are unable to spend the exorbitant sums needed for these types of services? What if I (the modern job seeker) have questions about my job search, my resume, and my upcoming interview?
The answer is MyOnlineCareerCoach.com.
Employees and job seekers often have similar concerns:
They Yelled at Me for Reading a Magazine
I am sure there are some jobs that are so boring and mundane that one could read on the job and still not have their work suffer too much. No, wait a minute. Actually, I can’t think of a single job where that is the case.
Just because you haven’t been told what to do, that doesn’t mean you have the option of doing whatever you want at work. Ask for more work from those around you, or go looking for extra work. I am sure the extra work is out there. Go clean something if that’s all you can fi nd. Chances are pretty good that if you ask for more work from enough people, you can fi nd something extra to do and feel more productive and helpful.
More than likely, you are being just lazy.
I Want To Quit After Only a Year, Is That OK?
Years ago that was true. If a candidate jumped around from job to job, it was certainly something to look at more closely. The thinking was that the candidate had some recurring issue or just was an unhappy sort of employee. This has changed over the past few years. Now, the entire work force is temporary in that jobs change so frequently that it is not unusual for a workforce to turn more frequently than historical averages.
What is more important is for you to have a heart to heart discussion with yourself to keep your current job and your attitude about it in perspective. Keep in mind your current company has probably made an investment in you and your training. You might be hitting your stride, becoming a more productive part of the workforce for
your employer – it’s almost unfair for you to leave after you have taken advantage of some training and development. What is apparently a good career move might actually be a step backward or down.
So it is not judged the same way as it used to be, but one cannot tell too much about a job even after one year. Give it some time, work a bit harder and smarter, see if something else at the employer might be more to your liking and, of course, you can always talk to your manager or supervisor about your feelings. You might be
surprised at their advice.
For more career coaching, check out these articles:
In the modern job search, the littlest of things can make a HUGE impact. There are tons of little things that go into making a successful online job search and the more you know the better prepared you can be when you see the ideal job posting.
Today, there are consulting services and career coaches with whom you can expect to spend thousands of dollars for advice; literally, thousands of dollars for career consulting, career coaching, interview coaching, resume consulting, personal brand coaching and much, much more.
But what about the rest of us, who are unable to spend the exorbitant sums needed for these types of services? What if I (the modern job seeker) have questions about my job search, my resume, and my upcoming interview?
The answer is MyOnlineCareerCoach.com.
Most of us have bosses who are formally ‘in charge of us.’ In addition, we have someone who infl uences, maybe even controls, our work life but, since they are NOT our direct boss, we think we can avoid managing up.
So what happens when you are working for your boss’s boss on a project? Quite obviously, this ‘boss’ is someone you need to please and satisfy. You need to do a great job but how you do it will maintain trust and respect of your boss. Here’s how:
1. Keep your boss informed every step of the way. Never assume that (your boss and his boss) two are talking and coordinating your work output. In fact, assume they are not talking.
2. Never, ever assume extra attention means you are being groomed to replace your boss. This is so tempting to think…after all, you are thinking that “finally, someone recognizes my natural abilities around here.” Leave your ego at home.
3. Do not dis your boss. I realize you don’t like him, and his boss may not too thrilled with him either. But don’t go there. The more supportive you are of him, the better. Way better.
4. Ask your boss for his help. This is more than point number 1. Do not find yourself being isolated, no matter how important the ‘project.’
5. Don’t brag about this new relationship to others. This will spell disaster.
6. Lastly, don’t read too much into a simple request. In more informal organizations, some bosses just like to make simple requests of people and they don’t particularly care about the ‘chain of command.” It might mean that you were simply the one who answered the phone or nodded your head at the right time.
The boss of your boss is the easiest one to handle. The real mouse in the room is when you don’t recognize another person’s importance and choose to ignore a request. A CEO request comes to mind, that’s easy. But a request for someone who is working with a customer? Ignore this person at your peril.
For more career coaching, check out these articles:
In the modern job search, the littlest of things can make a HUGE impact. There are tons of little things that go into making a successful online job search and the more you know the better prepared you can be when you see the ideal job posting.
Today, there are consulting services and career coaches with whom you can expect to spend thousands of dollars for advice; literally, thousands of dollars for career consulting, career coaching, interview coaching, resume consulting, personal brand coaching and much, much more.
But what about the rest of us, who are unable to spend the exorbitant sums needed for these types of services? What if I (the modern job seeker) have questions about my job search, my resume, and my upcoming interview?
The answer is MyOnlineCareerCoach.com.
In the modern job search, the littlest of things can make a HUGE impact. There are tons of little things that go into making a successful online job search and the more you know the better prepared you can be when you see the ideal job posting.
Today, there are consulting services and career coaches with whom you can expect to spend thousands of dollars for advice; literally, thousands of dollars for career consulting, career coaching, interview coaching, resume consulting, personal brand coaching and much, much more.
But what about the rest of us, who are unable to spend the exorbitant sums needed for these types of services? What if I (the modern job seeker) have questions about my job search, my resume, and my upcoming interview?
The answer is MyOnlineCareerCoach.com.
