Minimal |

"To make people happy, you have to let them feel like they are in control of their environment. To do this, you need to correctly interpret their actions. The interface needs to behave in the way they are expecting it to behave. Thus, the cardinal axiom of all user interface design: “A user interface is well-designed when the program behaves exactly how the user thought it would.” Everything else is commentary. All the other rules of good UI design are just corollaries."

Joel Spolsky

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The Poetry of Modern Global Economics

It's a slow day in a little Lancashire town. The sun is beating down, and the streets are deserted.
Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.

On this particular day a rich tourist from down south is driving through town. He stops at the motel and lays a £100 in cash on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night.

As soon as the man walks upstairs, the owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the £100 and runs down the street to repay his debt to the sheep farmer.
The sheep farmer takes the £100 and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel.
The guy at the Farmer's Co-op takes the £100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her "services" on credit.
The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel owner.
The hotel proprietor then places the £100 back on the counter so the rich traveler will not suspect anything.

At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, picks up the £100, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town.

No one produced anything.. No one earned anything.
However, the whole town is now out of debt and now looks to the future with a lot more optimism.

photo courtesy flickr cc via Horia Varlan

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Andy's Bio

Prepared for an upcoming guest post... Read the whole bio at andywergedal.posterous.com

A pioneer in thought leadership Andy is capable technologist. His primary professional role is the communication bridge between technology and executive staff. An expert in project management methodologies Andy excels as the agent of change. Alternatively in the real world, Andy has a passion for helping people find jobs while playing a ukulele and driving a German car. He takes great pleasure in thinking out of the box and the numerous opportunities to laugh at himself. Checkout his blog at 40x50.com and on twitter @andywergedal.

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Major Findings from the 2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report | Personal Branding Blog - Dan Schawbel

The awesome crew over at SocialMediaExaminer.com just released their 2o1o Social Media Marketing Industry Report. The 33 page report is geared to marketers and has some great info for anyone looking to create and grow their personal brand.

Here are some of the major findings from the survey:

• Marketers are mostly new to social media: A significant 65% of marketers surveyed have only been involved with social media marketing for a few months or less.

• The top benefits of social media marketing: The number-one advantage of social media marketing (by a long shot) is generating exposure for the business, indicated by 85% of all marketers, followed by increasing traffic (63%) and building new business partnerships (56%).

• In 2009, only 23% of marketers were using social media for years. Now that number has grown to 31%.

• A significant 56% of marketers are using social media for 6 hours or more each week and 30% for 11 or more hours weekly. It’s interesting to note that 12.5% of marketers spend more than 20 hours each week on social media.

• People age 20 to 29 spend the most time using social media marketing (59.1% spending 6+ hours weekly), followed by 40- to 49-year-olds (58.3% spending 6+ hours weekly) and then 30- to 39-year-olds (58% spending 6+ hours weekly).

• The number-one benefit of social media marketing is gaining the all-important eyeball. A significant 85% of all marketers indicated that their social media efforts have generated exposure for their businesses. Improving traffic was the second major benefit, followed by building new partnerships.

• 

  More than half of marketers indicated a rise in search engine rankings was a benefit of social media marketing. As search engine rankings improve, so will business exposure, lead generation efforts and a reduction in overall marketing expenses. More than half of marketers found social media generated qualified leads.

• Those who invest the most time in social media marketing gain the most business partnerships. However, 53.1% of people who’ve only invested a few months with social media marketing report newpartnerships were gained.

• We asked marketers which social media tools they most want to learn more about.Social bookmarking sites slightly edged out Twitter for the number-one slot. Facebook came in third, followed closely by Digg/Reddit/Mixx/StumbleUpon and then LinkedIn.

Get ahead of the curve

By getting started with blogging, social media and inbound marketing you will be ahead of the curve. While many of us have heard of these new disciplines, there are far fewer that are implementing with a sound strategy.

Take your cue from savvy marketers and begin to use blogs, social media and search engines as a way to create more visibility and quality opportunities for yourself.

The barriers to entry have been lowered. Will you rise up?

What do you think of the major findings from the report? Where do you think all of this is heading? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

Author:

Chad Levitt is the author of the New Sales Economy blog, which focuses on how Sales 2.0 & Social Media can help you connect, create more opportunities and increase your business. Chad is also the featured Sales 2.0 blogger at SalesGravy.com, the number one web portal for sales pros, the professional athletes of the business world. Make sure to connect with him on Twitter @chadalevitt.

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Simple Tips To Improve Your Resume And Cover Letter | Brand-Yourself.com Blog

I’ve had a few conversations recently with a wide range of individuals about resumes and cover letters, and I was finding a common theme: whatever the career services people at their school taught them is not really in line with what businesses are looking for today.

To be clear, this is not a knock or insult to the university/college career services department.  They have an enormous value to many students (the ones that actually take the time to seek their input and guidance, anyway).  I am looking to provide further insight into and clarification about a few key issues.

Having said that, I think there are a few areas they miss, or do not stress enough.  The resume and cover letter are about you, but are not just about you.  They are about how you are the best candidate to help the company.  It’s about making a match!

Cover Letter

• 3 Paragraphs – This may seem short to most of you but, for the most part, recruiters don’t want to spend their day reading your cover letter.  Three paragraphs is the perfect length.  First paragraph should be an introduction to you and the role you are applying for.  Second paragraph is to discuss your experience related to the role.  Third paragraph is to close strong with a lead towards an interview.  Do not send a full page cover letter.
• Keep it simple – Please do not give your life or career story.  Convey your message in succinct sentences that highlight your experience related to the role.  Do not write a 10 sentence paragraph either.  Get to the point and show your…
• Value Proposition – You need to convey why your experience makes you the ideal candidate for the company in the particular role.  Companies do not care how they can help you achieve your personal or career goals, companies care about how you will help them achieve their goals.  You may ultimately get a lot out of the opportunity, but that is not why a company will hire you.
• Include all of your contact information

Resume

• Mission Statement – Similar to how companies create their own mission statement, you should consider creating a personal mission statement.  This is a nice way to highlight your experience and provide a little insight into you.  A nice resource to look at is from Randall Hansen that provides a 5-step plan for a personal mission statement.
• Action Words – This is such an easy point but one that so many of us don’t do well.  The majority of us use passive words such as “participated” or “assisted” instead of true action words.  This may lead you to a little revision on your resume but it is a must to highlight the work you actually performed.  Consider the action words from SeekingSuccess.com to help get you started.
• Value Proposition – Again, you must continue to assert why you are the ideal candidate for the particular role.  Your resume should reflect the work you performed and how it relates to what the position you are applying is seeking.  You will probably need to revise your resume for each position to highlight the particular experience.  This is not lying, this is responding directly to each position and treating it like an interview question.

As you can see, value is the critical thread for both the cover letter and the resume.  However, value is most important to the company to which you are applying.  Express your personal interest and why you are the right person for the job but always focus on how you will make the company better.

Image credit goes to MinorityJobs.net

Keith McIlvaine manages the recruiting social media strategy for a Fortune 500 company and is an avid networker.  He is a social media advisor, coach, speaker, blogger and an all around fanatic.  Connect with Keith on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.  (The statements posted on this site are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer)

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Tips for Sending Resume Electronically - Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters Tips Blog

Use the correct electronic version of your resume, cautions Deborah Walker in her article for Quint Careers, Is Your Resume Lost in the Great Internet Void?.

If your resume can’t be opened as an attachment, then it can’t be seen. Because of the threat of computer viruses many companies only accept resumes through their own online forms which ask you to cut and paste (rather than attach) your resume. Make sure you are sending your resume in a format that will work for the employer.

• If a resume attachment is requested: Save your resume as a Word document (.doc or .rtf), which is the standard most companies use. It should retain the formatting that you used for your resume. But just in case the employer uses a different word processing program from yours, you should still avoid using too many fancy formatting options, such as columns, boxes, and tables.
• If an email or online form is used: Use ASCII, plain text, or text only to remove formatting while preserving the content. Be sure to review your resume before sending it so that it is still easy to read and user-friendly. [Editor’s note: See our article, Your E-resume’s File Format Aligns with its Delivery Method.]

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reCareered: Resume Search Optimization

Are you getting a 25% response rate to your resume? If you are, stop reading, this article isn’t for you.

If you’re getting less than a 25% response rate to your resume, then your resume is working against you and blocking you from interviews for top positions. Unfortunately, most of the population falls into the under 5% category (NOT a typo).

Have you ever complained that your resume goes into a black hole, and that no one ever looks at it?

Guess what, you’re probably right. If you’d like to do something to change that, read on…

The database is used for word searches on the resume – not the cover letter. In most cases, the cover letter gets stripped from your resume. Most of us (Boomers, Gen X & Y) were taught to write a static resume, and customize with a cover letter. Sound familiar?

And it worked in the olden days of paper resumes. But in the internet age, where resumes are delivered electronically, loaded into an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) database, and searched, the cover letter is stripped and not included in the search. Throw out the teaching of old, and embrace a new more effective way of resume strategy – Resume Search Optimization.

If your resume is searched in a database, it’s searched for by keywords. Have you ever done a keyword search yourself? You probably do one every day of your life…it’s called Google. Companies pay big money to consultants to search optimize their web pages, to make them appear at the top of a Google search.

You can do the same thing with your resume. But it requires you to think a different way.

Start with a solid base resume that paints you as a subject matter expert in your field. Then take the job description, and load your resume with key words in the job description.

So how many resume templates will you have?

One for each job you apply to…because to search optimize your resume effectively, it turns your resume into a single use document. Each employer gets a heavily customized resume.

Yes, it takes a ton of time per resume. But it gives you an unfair advantage, of gaming the HRIS database, and forcing your resume to the top 2-3%. And gets your resume seen by humans….a much greater percentage of the time.

There’s a lot more to it, and I’ll continue with subsequent postings to describe the details.

Executives exploring Career Change: For a free 30 minute resume consultation, or career advice for executives, email your resume confidentially to reCareered (phil.reCareered@gmail.com), and we'll schedule a time to talk.

Staff, Managers, Entrepreneurs, and career changers outside the US: Send your resume to phil.reCareered@gmail.com to enroll in a free group teleseminar "Accelerate Your Job Search - tools you can use".

Source: http://reCareered.blogspot.com

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