Career Fairs: The Pros And Cons

So you say you’re thinking of going to a career fair.  Is that really a good idea?

Well, if you are smart job seeker, you are thinking about each and every networking event where you can display your brand and potentially meet new people.  Some who might be able to help you.

But if you are thinking critically.  And you should.  You should also be thinking about whether a career fair is an efficient use of your time.  If the right employers will be there.  And if there’s a chance in (you know where) that those companies will have a job opening that will fit with your job search objectives.

Because let’s face it.  A lot of job fairs are poorly attended.  By job seekers and employers.

But I’m not here to disparage career fairs.  Simply to provide an objective view.  So you can decide for yourself.

If you’ve been to a great career fair, tell us about it!  If you organize them in your local area, tell us why yours is valuable.

The Pros

• Another reason to get out of the house and get social.  Far too many job seekers network too much by e-mail and phone.
• You will learn about employers in your area – some of which you may not have considered before.
• You can meet representatives from those employers.  And you can give your elevator pitch in person instead of hoping your resume sells you on its own.
• You will meet other job seekers who may be looking for jobs in similar industries.  Lead sharing only happens when you connect with others and a job fair can be another place to do this.
• Job fairs are a lead generation and interview driver by definition.  And in order keep an active interview schedule, you need to keep stirring up the water.
• Job fairs will often be combined with other events.  A speaker schedule or a seminar series.  If you are looking for a few new ideas, these can be helpful.

The Cons

• The companies in attendance are often not the cream of the crop.  Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that companies will commit personnel to attend the fair, but they need to be quality target companies.
• The job types and salary structures offered by the companies may not satisfy your search or financial objectives.  Many fairs attract commission-only jobs or temporary jobs.  These are not the jobs that most are looking for when in transition.
• Standing in line really stinks.  A few career shows ago, I saw lines of 10-15 people waiting to talk to a company representative.  And if you are looking for work, standing in line makes you feel less than whole.  And rather unproductive.
• There may not be any jobs open with the companies in attendance.  All that work and no chance for a hire.  Of course, companies are “always looking for good people”.  But that doesn’t help if you need a job now.
• It’s hard to stand out in a crowd.  And it is hard to be memorable when a single company rep is meeting over 100 people.
• The company rep may not be highly engaged.  And the job they do is not easy.  Think about it.  It can be very tiring and emotionally draining.  Hearing all the tough stories and often being subjected to rants of frustration (i.e. why hasn’t your company called me back?).

So there you have it.  My take on the career fair.  I have two more posts planned on this topic.  They are:

1. How To Choose A Career Fair
2. How To Prepare For And Successfully Navigate A Career Fair

Which one should I write? Also let me know if you have another issue regarding career fairs you’d like to hear about.

Was this one helpful?

Photo Credit

via timsstrategy.com

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Who is Your Buyer

I know this sounds a bit crazy, but do you spend a lot of time thinking of your buyer, of your ideal customer? Do you spend your time thinking about how to satisfy her business needs? Do you think about solving her problems in new and helpful ways? Are you so totally into your clients and your new prospects that you spend sleepless nights thinking about them?

Every time I walk through an airport, I think of GoToMeeting, one of our clients at New Marketing Labs. I think of new ways to help them with Workshifting and the like. I think of SAS and their social media analytics tool, and wonder what else we can do to promote it. I think about how to help promote Edison Research and their Twitter Usage in America report.

Those people (and several more) are my clients at New Marketing Labs.

I also think about you, the professional in smaller and midsized businesses. I think about the people that John Jantsch and Becky McCray serve.

I think about my buyers and clients all the time. I think about my would-be customers all the time.

Do I Think About My Competitors?

Not very often, no. Know why? Because what will that get me? Yes, I can see if any of their offerings are better than my offerings, but then, I create my offerings for my buyers, so why would I try to copy their offerings, which are for their buyers?

I think of ways to get people to say yes. I think of ways to get the people who’ve said yes to be happier. I sometimes actually even ask the people who say yes to me what they think (crazy, I know).

Which Do You Think Gets You More Business?

That’s the question.

via chrisbrogan.com

Posted via web from AndyWergedal

The Cleverest Way to Find a Job Using Google Also Works on Facebook - Facebook - Lifehacker

Yesterday we highlighted how one clever copywriter got his name in front of the top creative directors in his industry. If the idea strikes you as worthwhile, turns out you can accomplish pretty much the same thing on Facebook.

How do I know? Because this online marketing company did exactly that to me (see the image above). Having been "targeted" with such an ad, I can say that buying ads on either Facebook or Google could likely go either way with prospective employers (Whitson described the ad when he saw it as "super creepy", and I wouldn't entirely disagree), but it is another interesting demonstration of how a little creative thinking can get your name in front of someone who may be able to hire you.

What do you think? Would you try a similar tactic for a job? Let's hear your thoughts in the comments.

Send an email to Adam Pash, the author of this post, at tips+adam@lifehacker.com.

via lifehacker.com

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30 Dangerous Personal Branding Habits | Personal Branding Blog - Dan Schawbel

Which of these bad personal branding habits have you struggled with?

Of the list that follows, here are a few that have bitten me in the past, and occasionally come back to haunt:

Over-staying in your comfort zone

Break this habit by replacing it with a good one: once you start feeling comfortable with where your personal brand is at, take that feeling as a warning sign that you need to come up with new brand-building ideas and start executing on them.

Trying to do everything by yourself

Just because it’s your personal brand doesn’t mean you need to do all the personal branding work. If you’re serious about your brand, get assistance and expertise from people who can execute better than you at specific tasks.

Letting yourself be overwhelmed into inactivity

Being overwhelmed is a result of a lack of priorities and a lack of organization. The most common example today is probably the ever-overflowing email inbox, a situation now made worse with the addition of social media messaging and cellphone text messaging. In this example, figure out which messages are most important and act on those ASAP while blocking everything else. Once you’re done, go through the latter and block as much as you can permanently. For more specific ideas, google ‘organize inbox’.

And now for the complete list…

30 bad habits

1. Outright lying.
2. Being inauthentic or just fake.
3. Not delivering on promises, or just things you said you would do.
4. Not following up.
5. Aiming for quantity, not quality.
6. Not measuring what you do, which makes it that much harder to know what you really achieved or not.
7. Spending too much time measuring, or getting caught up in analysis paralysis.
8. Not listening enough to your audience.
9. Too much self-promotion.
10. Navel gazing (too much self-focus).
11. Not dressing the part.
12. Being too aggressive.
13. Over-staying in your comfort zone.
14. Lacking confidence i.e. not being aggressive enough.
15. Not having a plan.
16. Lacking focus.
17. Being inconsistent.
18. Unintentionally frustrating potential brand loyalists.
19. Switching tools, systems and/or methodologies too often.
20. Too much branding reuse such as excessive cross-posting on social media.
21. Trying to do everything by yourself.
22. Over exposure.
23. Lack of exposure.
24. Unnecessary hyping.
25. Having unrealistic expectations.
26. Building unrealistic expectations in others.
27. Letting yourself be overwhelmed into inactivity.
28. Spending too much effort online, not enough offline.
29. Spending too much effort offline, not enough online.
30. Not spending enough effort anywhere.

Any other suggestions for the list?

Author:

Jacob Share, a job search expert, is the creator of JobMob, one of the biggest blogs in the world about finding jobs. Follow him on Twitter for job search tips and humor.

via personalbrandingblog.com

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Saddleback Leather Gadget Pouches are all Class | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

Gadget bags and cases are almost uniformly hideous. Made from neoprene, nylon and brightly-colored fabrics, they offer protection at the expense of style. Dressing well and toting a notebook or cellphone inside a standard bag is like turning up to a wedding wearing a tailored suit with a ski-jacket.

The alternatives are usually expensive. These cases, though, from Saddleback Leather, are both reasonably priced and gorgeous. Made from heavy, good-quality leather, they’re guaranteed for 100 years, so they’ll still be with you when your face starts to look like your laptop bag. And the prices? Amazingly, pretty low. The iPad sleeve, seen above with a couple of smaller pouches perched on top, is just $55.

But best of all is the website. There is a page titled “Our Rivals“, which is a list of links to other leather-makers’ sites. The FAQ is probably worth sending off to your Instapaper to read later. Some examples:

How can I get ink off of my leather?

Well, you’re pretty much screwed. One person said that hairspray worked to get their ink out, but there’s something cooler you can do. Take it to a tattoo artist and have him make a sun or cross or something like that with it. It’ll look cool and you’ll have a good story too.

and from the warranty details:

Saddleback Leather products are made to last a lifetime, but the warranty does not cover misuse or abuse such as the following: Like if you take it shark diving in salt water (see video) and a rivet corrodes.

These are the kind of people I like to do business with. All products available now, with international shipping. And if you can’t choose what color you want, there’s even a personality test to help you decide.

Gadget Pouches [Saddleback Leather via Uncrate]

via wired.com

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Is Your Personal Brand Ready for the Digital Universe? | Personal Branding Blog - Dan Schawbel

Each year IDC, an IT think tank, in sponsorship by EMC puts out a report on the state of the Digital Universe. This year’s report has just been released and there are some interesting trends that personal branders can draw from the report.

Here are some of the interesting findings from the IDC report:

• Between now and 2020, the amount of digital information created and replicated in the world will grow to an almost inconceivable 35 trillion gigabytes as all major forms of media – voice, TV, radio, print – will complete the journey from analog to digital.

• Last year despite the global recession, the Digital Universe, set a record. It grew by 62% to nearly 800,000 petabytes. A petabytes is a million gigabytes. Picture a stack of DVD’s reaching from the earth to the moon and back.

• This explosive growth means that by 2020, our Digital Universe will be 44 times as big as it was in 2009. Our stack of DVD’s would now reach halfway to Mars.

• Most of the digital universe begins with an action by a consumer – an email typed on a laptop, a digital photo taken at a wedding, a movie downloaded from Netflix. In fact more than 70% of the Digital Universe this year will be generated by users – individuals at home, work, and on the go.

• The social media invasion of the enterprise has just begun. IDC estimates that by 2020, business transactions on the internet, B2B and B2C, will reach 450 billion a day.

That is some blow your hair back data, beyond the realm of human understanding because we have no real reference point for numbers so large.

But, how do personal branders rise to the top when the waves of information keep crashing on our head’s.

Key takeaways:

1.) Begin to create content so that you can get found in search engines, social search, and the blogosphere. Do not get lost in the tsunami of digital information that is growing everyday.

2.) Learn a thing or two about SEO (search engine optimization) so that your remarkable content can be made sense of by search engines and given to the people looking for you. You want to be a search engine and opportunity magnet.

3.) Start digital networking everyday. There is more digital content available than ever before. If you read an interesting article about a company reach out to the CEO and other employees on Linkedin. If you meet someone interesting reach out to them on social networks and begin a digital conversation that can turn into a real relationship over time.

4.) Stop waiting to get into the personal branding game. The amount of content being created everyday is almost incomprehensible. The personal branders that are striving to solidify their personal brands now, will be the staples of their niche tomorrow.

The big question….

Is your personal brand ready for the digital universe?

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.

via personalbrandingblog.com

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Pounding the Keyboard for Jobs - Secrets of the Job Hunt Career Podcast

Reposted from CareerAlley

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." - Thomas A. Edison

I remember looking for my first "real" job (as opposed to those that I held during college). First of all, there were no personal computers, there were typewriters. This meant you were typing your resume and each cover letter (and if you made a mistake, you started over). Furthermore, there were few copy machines. You probably brought your resume to a printer and had them "offset printed". Research resources were generally the "want ads" in the local paper (remember the commercial tag line "I found my job through the NY Times"?). I would spend Sunday, cutting out job ads from the paper and then faxing my resume and cover letter to potential employers. Sometimes there were no fax numbers, but a P.O. box number to "snail mail" your resume (image how long this took).

Looking for a job meant that you were going (as in taking the subway or walking) from company to company, filling out job applications and attaching your resumes. You were probably going to a number of recruiting firm offices (also as a walk-in). As you might imagine, this was very time consuming and, since you were on your feet most of the day going from one place to the next, the term "pounding the pavement" was generally associated with looking for a job. For many of you, I'm sure this sounds a lot like camping in the wilderness with no running water or electricity. Today's job search includes very little "pounding the pavement" but quite a bit of "pounding the keyboard". In fact, with the popular use of telephone interviews these days, there is almost no reason to leave your house when job hunting.

So, what is your "pounding the keyboard" strategy? The first thing you need is a job hunt plan.

Make Your Research List - This is the list of companies, friends and recruiting agencies that will form a part of your daily plan.

• Fins from the Wall Street Journal - This resource is from the Wall Street Journal and provides links to a number of company research resources. You should spend some time researching the companies you would like to work for prior to starting your search. Click on Research Sectors & Companies to find the industries and companies you would like to work for. Click Manage Your Career to get strategies on finding a job, get the job and excel at the job. Finally, click Find a Great Job to link to a powerful job search engine.

• Job Search Research - Yes, research is the name of the game. This list of amazing advice is from jumpstartyourjobsearch.com (yes, a long name). The top of the site is organized by type of research (job market, salary, career, etc.) and is hyperlinked to the part of the page with the associated information. This site is jam packed with enough information to see you through your entire job search. In addition to all of the related links throughout the main page, there are additional links and resources on the right hand side of the page.

• Careers and Industries - Don't know where to begin? Wetfeet.com provides two lists: Industry Profiles and Careers. The first provides background on trends, markets and the companies involved. The second list provides requirements for each career type as well as salary trends the the outlook for that particular career choice. Each item on the items links to a full page resource.

Find a Job -

• Job Hunt Websites - This list of websites is provided by the University of Pennsylvania and it offers a wide range of websites to start your hunt. These range from your typical job search boards to the less typical sites like non-profit and government opportunities. Pick the ones that best meet your criteria and make your daily plan (see below).

• Jobs Resources in the U.S. by State - Job-Hunt.org provides this list by state. Click on your state and you will link to a list of various resources for your state. The New York link, as an example, has resource links, search support and networking links Job Sites and a list of local government jobs. But if that's not enough to keep you busy, there are links to additional resources on the left hand side of the page.

Make Your Daily Plan: You've got to have a game plan otherwise you will not be focused in your hunt. You do not want to spend too much time in any one area.

• Keep a list to keep track of which sites you’ve visited. Include your username and password for each site. You think you will remember them but you won’t. Also include the last date you visited. Include a column for notes (who you spoke to when and any follow-ups);
• Create Job Search Agents on your top 5 job search sites. This will minimize the time you spend reviewing potential matches;
• Pick several tasks you will do each day:
  • Review your top 5 job search sites every morning;
  • Register on 3-5 company websites;
  • Register on 3-5 job search sites;
  • Send your resume to 3-5 recruiters/headhunters;
• Return calls as soon as possible, start off your day doing this if there are any left over from the prior day;
• Respond to emails as appropriate (and related);
• Research, research, research – making a list of companies you would like to work for, but don't reinvent the wheel - leverage all of the lists included in this website and others;
• Register where you can and make sure you upload your resume;
• Every week, refresh your resume on your top 5 job search sites so that they look like they are new/current;
• All done with every list known to man (not likely)? Recycle the list, revisit the job search boards and try new searches.

Good luck with your search.

via secretsofthejobhunt.com

Posted via web from AndyWergedal