Deliver a Better Presentation by Reminding Yourself It's Not About You [Mind Hacks]

Original Post Here [LifeHacker]

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We all give presentations in our work and lives, whether it's a one-on-one meeting with your boss or a lecture to a room full of people. Psychology Today offers a great guide to giving a successful presentation.

Photo by James Jordan.

I'm presenting a panel at SXSW this year, and the fact is, as is the case with many people, public speaking still rankles my nerves. Psychology professor Nancy Darling offers some great suggestions for giving a good presentation, and reminds us nervous speakers that it's really not about us:

There are five main components to pulling together a good presentation:

1. Choose a goal;
2. Find a storyline that will help the group reach that goal;
3. Develop a series of activities or a method of presentation that allows you to develop your storyline. Don't let your media determine your storyline!
4. Remember that your role is to facilitate the group reaching its shared goal. This is your primary responsibility!
5. Remember that it's not about you. All that matters is the experience of the other people in the room.

It's easy to get caught up in nerves when you're giving a presentation, but try to remember that the focus of the presentation is really on the information you're trying to get across, not on you. If you're confident in your information, let that boost the confidence you've got in your presentation.

Even if you're not a nervous presenter, I'd recommend giving Darling's guide a read through. It's full of solid suggestions for improving your presentations.

How to Give a Presentation Part I: It's Not About You [Psychology Today]

Top 5 Posts About How Your Facebook Profile Affects Your Job Search | Brand-Yourself.com Blog

Original Post Here by Erin Lashley • March 4, 2010

When I think of employers using Facebook to screen applicants, I admit the subject automatically brings back negative memories of things I have read about people getting in trouble at work for online indiscretions. But my next thought is that since everyone knows now that social media communication is always potentially public information, there really is no more excuse for negative outcomes to Facebook interactions as they relate to your job. If you haven’t been already, you should now officially consider yourself warned.

These five bloggers all have something important to say about the pros and cons of employers using Facebook:

1. The Facebook Snatchers: Could Your Employer Hijack Your Account? by Andrew Moshniria, The Citizen Media Law Project
Moshniria posts about the city of Bozeman, Montana’s failed attempt to get all its employees’ social networking usernames and passwords. The city had to change its policy on internet privacy because overt spying on employees goes against Montana’s state constitution. But, Moshnira points out, the US Constitution does not provide for a right to privacy, so other employers may try imposing similar rules.

2. What If a Prospective Employer Doesn’t Look at My Facebook Page? by Mike Dover, Creative Class

Dover takes an optimistic approach to the subject of employers on Facebook. Dover suggests that since we know people have lost opportunities because of inappropriate online behavior, why not use Facebook to help your career, instead of as a place to let it all hang out? Thoughtful posts and relevant link sharing add to your credibility and allow you to show people what you are like instead of trying to describe yourself on a cliche-riddled resume.

3. More Employers Use Social Networks to Check Out Applicants by Jenna Wortham, The New York Times
Jenna Wortham’s post advises us to accept the fact that employers are going to try to look at your Facebook page. Besides the obvious drinking references and provocative photos, you may be harming your career by posting seemingly harmless pictures of your beach vacation or a controversial Halloween costume. She suggests that it’s best to keep your privacy settings very tight.

4. Use Facebook Ads to Make Employers Hunt You Down by Willy Franzen, One Day One Job
Willy Franzen of One Day One Job challenged his blog’s readers to make Facebook ads to advertise themselves to employers! Although placing an ad is not free, Franzen says that the ads are inexpensive and the cost is worthwhile given the potentially wide reach.

5. Ten Ways to Use Facebook to Find a Job, The Sirona Says Blog
Blogger and HR consultant Andy gives us more than enough reasons to believe that employers and Facebook are a good combination. My favorite of his tips is “don’t be boring,” although making sure your profile photo is you “in a non-stupid pose” is a close second. His light hearted approach reminds us that the right job should make the best use of your abilities, so shouldn’t your job search do so as well?

The internet and its social networks continue to present us with new challenges regarding our online behavior and how it relates to our professional lives. The only thing certain is that technology probably won’t be regressing; however, we can learn how to protect our professional lives from being intruded upon by our social lives. Best of all, we can use social networking to improve our careers if we can find a way to make our unique online personas set us apart from all the other job seekers in our fields.

Taking a Job Search Personally

Original Post Here [TheWiseJobSearch]

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Riding the roller coaster of emotions in a job search can be emotionally draining! Even the most even keeled personality can often feel like the ups and downs of a search are affecting the positive attitude they are trying to maintain in the process.
Why?
Obviously because a job search is so personal!
Even professional sales people, who are used to handling frequent rejection in their jobs, are often deeply affected by inevitable rejections that come in the job search process. When you’re selling an external product or service, it’s easier to be objective and level headed when getting a ‘No Thanks’. When the product is yourself, it feels more like a rejection of who you are.
So what do you do?
Here are 3 things that can help…

Decide what makes you, you! Many people, when asked about who they are, lead off with their occupation (i.e. “I’m an Accountant” or “I’m a Carpenter”). When your occupation is what defines you most in your own mind, it can be devastating to your self-image when you’re unemployed. Even more so when you can’t seem to find someone willing to hire you in that occupation. Is your career really who you are?
Everyone wears multiple hats. Which ones really matter to you most? Perhaps you are a devoted husband, wife, father, or mother. Perhaps you’re a grateful son, daughter, follower of Christ, or child of God. Maybe you’re a loyal friend, a talented athlete, musician, or writer. What things define you outside of your employment? Your employment status doesn’t change your identity in those areas. Those are the things you need to recognize, define, and focus on.
If, in your mind, what you are primarily is your career, any rejections or setbacks in that career will throw you off track. Decide what really makes you, you.
Realize that it’s a business decision, not a personal one. Although a personal connection with a hiring manager and ‘chemistry’ certainly play a role in who they hire, the final decision ultimately is a business decision. They will hire the person with the best combination of relevant technical / functional skills, track record, attitude, communication skills, and personality that matches their culture. You may have had an interview that felt like it was a home run, however, you have no idea who the other candidates were. Someone else may have hit the ball out of the park. They don’t see it as being opposed to you personally, they are simply choosing who they viewed as the best fit. Understanding that helps you accept it as well.
Envision yourself as a Sales and Marketing professional! The more you realize that as a job seeker, you have a full-time job as a Sales person, you will approach your job search more professionally, more fervently, and more objectively. You are selling, and your products are the services you offer that fulfill a companies requirements and wants for a particular position.
If you view your product as external, you can approach the task with greater objectivity. Examine how you approach your ‘customers’ and what message you want them to grasp. If they don’t buy / hire you, it’s not against you personally, they just haven’t seen how you are the best solution for their need. It will make you a better candidate, as well as help you keep the right personal perspective when you understand your role, and that you are not necessarily THE solution for every open position.
Taking rejection too personally in a job search is natural, and yet can be a challenge when trying to maintain a positive attitude. Examining how you view yourself and your search can help you overcome the difficulties and help you achieve the success you are seeking.

Employers are using social media to learn about you

Just a few months ago, CareerBuilder found that 45% of employers in the USA were using social networks to research candidates. It only takes a few seconds for a recruiter to copy and paste your name into a browser to see what Google finds about you, and often enough, results from social media will appear in the first page of results.

If employers are using social media to learn about you, are you using social media to learn about them?

If you liked this article, you’ll find useful my 8 Creative Ways to Use Social Media for Your Job Search.

-- Jacob Share, Job Search Expert and Professional Blogging Consultant

image by webtreats

How to Create OCR Scannable Business Cards

Original Post Here

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More and more business people are using some form of business card scanner with OCR technology to transfer business cards into their contacts database. Whether with an iPhone app or a scanner like NeatReceipts (Mike previously reviewed the Mac version), OCR can drastically simplify the process of transferring contacts from paper to your contact management database.

But even the best OCR business card reader technology has limitations. And while adding over 100 business cards to my contact files this week using my NeatReceipts for Mac, I discovered many of them. Cards with certain design features simply didn’t scan well. And as scanning becomes more common, this is something that business card designers should keep in mind. That contact was important enough for you to give your business card to; you need to make sure you make it easy for them to accurately add you to their contacts list — or you risk your card ending up in the trash.

Here’s my list of do’s and don’ts for creating a scannable business card.

Don’t:

Use fancy fonts. These easily confuse OCR software, especially on letters like “c” and “e”. A clean font like Helvetica may seem boring, but it is easy for OCR to translate.

Combine your name and title. Names and titles separated by a comma on a single line (such as “Nancy Nally, Editor”) didn’t translate correctly in the OCR I was using.

Overlay text on a pattern. This is too confusing for OCR.

Angle text. My scanner’s OCR couldn’t translate text that wasn’t parallel to the edges of the card.

Mix orientations. Keep all the text oriented in the same direction (preferably horizontally, since my scanner had trouble reading vertically-oriented cards).

Do:

Keep it big. If you get squinty looking at your card, so will OCR software.

Give text breathing room. Keep letters nicely spaced so that the OCR can distinguish them easily from each other.

Keep it light. Cards with dark backgrounds seem impossible to scan (even those with high-contrast white text).

Put your company name somewhere in text. OCR can’t translate stylized logos, so make sure the company’s name is in text somewhere too.

Keep it on one side. Scanners only read one side of a card, so keep all the critical contact information on one side.

This last issue was a very common problem with the batch of cards I just scanned. Double-sided printing is becoming very affordable so more people are creating business cards that are printed on both sides. This creates the temptation to spread the critical contact information on both sides of the card, which makes it inaccessible to card reading technology. Ideally, you should have contact information on only one side of the card, and then use the other side for a logo or mini sales brochure. A printer like Moo.com, with its ability to print a different back on each card in a set, offers the ability to get very creative with a card back’s promotional uses. Meanwhile, the front of the card can hold all of the traditional contact information in a clean and simple (scannable) format.

7 Tips For Effective Facebook People Search

Original Post Here [make use of]
The best part about Facebook is getting back in touch with old friends. There’s no better place to reconnect with your college buddies or past coworkers than Facebook – the largest social network on the planet, with 400 million members.

Even if Facebook’s Friend Suggestions does a wonderful job of helping you discover new friends, there are better ways to conduct a Facebook people search for those you are interested in.

In this article, let us look at tips for doing a Facebook people search more effectively. We will cover both Facebook’s inbuilt FriendFinder as well as a third-party application for advanced people search. Note that these searches find people based on the information they have entered in their Facebook profile.

Facebook People Search with FriendFinder

Facebook Friend Finder is a collection of search tools to help you find people you know on Facebook. You can access the Friend Finder page from the Connect With Friends widget on the right sidebar on the Facebook homepage.

Let’s see the different ways you can conduct a Facebook people search using Friend Finder.

#1: Find People From Your Email Address Book

Facebook can find people for you from your email address book. All major webmail services like Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail are supported.

If you use desktop email apps like MS Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, or Apple Mail, click the Upload Contact File link from where you can download an app for Outlook or upload contact lists from other apps.

#2: Find Classmates

Based on information in the Education and Work section of their profiles, Facebook helps you find former or current high school or university classmates.

#3: Find Coworkers

Similar to the Classmates search, you can also search for Coworkers in your past or current organizations by entering the name of the Company.

#4: Find People From Instant Messaging (IM) Networks

You can simply enter your AOL, ICQ, or Windows Live Messenger credentials to let Facebook find your IM buddies.

Advanced Search Application

Advanced Search 2.0 is a better tool to search for friends on Facebook. Visit this link to access and install the application.

If prompted to share your email address, click No, and click Click here to add the “Advanced Search” application link at the bottom. Click Allow in the Allow Access? prompt to proceed. Advanced Search first prompts you to fill out your profile and contact information to help others find you. You can choose to enter additional information about yourself if you like or leave it blank and click Save and Continue. You can optionally invite your friends to try the app or Skip that step. Finally, click Add Bookmark to access Advanced Search quickly from your profile.

After you complete these steps, you can access Advanced Search at any time by clicking the Applications link in your Facebook sidebar.

#5: Find People by Age/Gender/Relationship Status/Star Sign

On the Find People tab, you can search for people of a specific Gender and within a certain Age group. You can search by specific Relationship Status, or by their Star Sign. You can even search for people who have the same Birthday as you.

#6: Find People by Location (Country/Region)

You can combine the above search restricting to a specific Country, Region, and City. For example, you can search for single people in your area according to their Star Sign and who they are interested in meeting.

#7: Find People with Similar Interests

For each of the above searches, you can further refine them to find people who share your interests. You can find people according to their Political preferences, or their Religious beliefs. You can restrict searches to people who are members of a Facebook Group.

Best of all, you can use this to find people who are fans of a specific Artist, Celebrity, Politician, Author, or Product/Company Facebook Fan Page.

Using Advanced Search 2.0, you can mix and match these search criteria to your hearts content. This app currently indexes profiles of about 240 million people in its database. The lesser criteria you use, the more people you will find.

What do hiring managers want?

Original Post Here

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As a recruiter, I was just talking to a client, a Director at a mid-size company, about a couple of positions he’s trying to fill and specifics of what he wants to see in a good candidate.

I wish many of the people in my job search classes could have listened in on the conversation because he clearly answered what many job seekers want to know… “What do hiring managers really want?”

Certainly, in both of the open positions he has, he needs specific skills for those roles. However, more important to him than having all the technical/functional skills were characteristics that were critical for him to find.

Those characteristics could be summarized by…

Positive Attitude, Communication Skills, and Professionalism!

He related to me how he believed those traits were the most important, and somehow the most difficult to find. He recently had to let someone on his team go because although the person had strong technical skills for the job, they did a poor job of communicating with others in their job, and their professionalism (i.e. appropriateness, and attitude) was lacking. They did a good job of executing the technical aspects of their job, but did more harm than good when it came to working with others and helping them understand the requirements and process.

He told me about multiple candidates they’ve talked to that also had the technical skills, however, fell short when it came to projecting those other qualities. He expressed concern that he couldn’t afford, in this economy, to hire average employees. He needs people that can not only do the job, but represent his department effectively and positively to the rest of the company.

People come in to interview often express sour grapes rather than optimism. They dress inappropriately or sloppily making a poor first impression. They ramble on or give one word answers to questions, or generally don’t articulate ideas well. They are unprepared and don’t know basic information about the company or position. They can’t ‘think on their feet’ well. They act intimidated when talking to superiors. They are not very self-aware about their own strengths, weaknesses, or abilities. They try too hard to impress instead of showing sincere interest in others. They come across as overly concerned with what’s in it for them.

So often I hear from job seekers something like:

“I don’t understand why I didn’t get that job! I was a perfect fit. My skills and experience matched up exactly with what they said they were looking for. They don’t know what they want!”

Actually they do know exactly what they want, and usually within a couple of minutes of talking to the job seeker it becomes clear to me why they didn’t get hired.

This market is very competitive. Hiring managers often have a number of people to choose from that have the technical or functional skills required for the position. The differentiators are the soft skills that sway them from one person to another. Don’t take those factors too lightly!

Examine yourself critically. What kind of attitude do you exude? What kind of first impression do you make? Are you well prepared? Do you articulate your answers well? Do you show sincere interest in them and the company? Do you exude professionalism?

THAT’s what managers want!

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