Need Online Reputation Tools? Try HTML & CSS | Brand-Yourself.com Blog

You know how to fire up Google and run a search. You even know how to log into email! But odds are, you don’t have a clue what Javascript and PHP actually DO. Allow me to explain.

Where The Internet Came From and How It Works

In the beginning there was Al Gore, who created the internet and saw that it was good.  Well, not quite.  The Internet was primarily born as an effort to create a survivable communications network in the event of a nuclear attack.

As the name implies, the Internet is a connection of networks.  In simple terms, this is what happens when you click on a link:

1.) Your computer (the client) requests the webpage files from another computer (called a server)

2.) The server receives the request, runs any necessary program to modify the files, then sends them to your computer.

3.) Your computer’s web browser parses (decodes) the files into the pretty image you see before you.

What’s in those files it sends back to you?  Good question.  Below are 6 terms to help you better understand the internet.

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) & CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)

HTML and CSS are designed to work together to separate presentation and content on the internet.  In an ideal world, this means that HTML should be concerned with the structure of a document by determining what content serves what purpose (titles, paragraphs, pictures, etc).  CSS, on the other hand, is presentation-focused: it determines how that content will look, from font sizes and families to how the document will be laid out on the end-user’s screen.  Basic HTML and CSS are simple to learn: all you need a text editor, a web browser, and a little bit of time on W3Schools to learn the ropes of the language.

If it’s so easy to learn, why hire a professional?  In theory, CSS and HTML are all written to a standard, but in practice there are a number of discrepancies between how each browser will display content.  Professionals have been around the block a few times and know how to get around these problems.  As well, their experience and best practices will ultimately deliver a more well-rounded and smoother experience for your customers, and the last thing you want to do is establish a web page that people leave because it works poorly.

PHP(PHP: Hypertext Processor), Perl, Ruby on Rails

Yes, the first P in PHP stands for PHP. The languages listed above are all server-side scripting.  In short, it’s a way of making your site dynamic.  When your web server receives a page request, it runs a short program to determine what goes on the page (i.e. temperature, time, rotating pictures), writes an HTML page, and sends it back.  Server-side scripting has the advantages of being relatively secure (if correctly written), not needing an special plugin by end users, and the ability to easily access databases (in fact, you will often find books on PHP and MySQL (type of database) together).  However, it is slower than client-side scripting.

Javascript

Javascript is a client-side scripting language. There are other client-side scripting languages, but Javascript is the default standard in this area.  It can do some pretty amazing things to your webpage (most of the special effects like mouse-overs are done with Javascript).  It also runs on your computer as opposed to the server, which makes it much quicker than server-side languages.  However, it has numerous security vulnerabilities, and not all browsers will run it it or run it well.  It is also the basis for AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) which allows for portions of a webpage to be dynamic without reloading the entire page (think Google’s Search Suggestions that change as you type your search terms).

Flash

Flash is an Adobe product that adds considerable flair to the internet.  It’s great for quickly making highly attractive sites, but it has numerous drawbacks.  Not all devices (i.e. iPad) will run it, it has numerous security vulnerabilities, and search engines can’t index pages with Flash.  Try to restrict Flash to movies and games, not to primary site navigation.

WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get)

WYSIWYG most commonly refers to any web page generator or editor that writes the code for you.  This includes Microsoft Frontpage, Adobe Dreamweaver, and GoDaddy’s Site Builder just to name a few.  They are roughly as easy to use as a word processor, but may cause code bloat (in turn making bigger files and slower-loading pages) and poor adherence to web standards which could affect your search ranking and make the page display improperly on different browsers and mobile devices.  One popular solution to blend the advantages of well-written code and accessibility for less web-savvy users is a  customized CMS (content management system) such as Wordpress.  A professional would design the look and feel of the site, and then you would be able to log-in and update it with an interface reminiscent of e-mail.  There are also a number of free themes and plugin’s that would allow you to get off the ground yourself if you are short of money.

Interested in learning more?  Check out W3Schools for some great tutorials and also stay tuned for future posts on understanding common Wordpress blogging issues.  A smooth website is a key factor in your reputation management.

via blog.brand-yourself.com

Posted via web from AndyWergedal

Personal Branding vs. Self-Promotion | Brand-Yourself.com Blog

In my world, personal branding should not be confused with self-promotion. A personal brand is something you work on many levels to build, first by getting to know yourself better and then by understanding what you want to communicate to your target audience before even opening your mouth (or posting in social media). Simply, it is a vision. When you do open your mouth, it becomes all about the message, not about hard-selling yourself.

Here’s what other notable personal branding bloggers say:

Dan Schawbel writes: “Certainly, self-promotion is an extremely important part of building your brand because if no one knows of your achievements or the company you work for, then how are they going to do business with you?”

Jun Loayza writes: “It seems that the biggest factor separating personal branding from shameless self-promotion is value. If a person provides value with his content, then all the self-promotion is justified because people will benefit from the content.”

My experience is that once you really understand your core values and know what you want your brand image to be, then you will understand that over-promoting your services will hurt your brand. You must align your communication and overall message with your target audience, not only the message.

That said, don’t feel that it is wrong to provide information about the content that you provide. Just make sure that it is targeted to the right audience and be personal while doing it. If you work as a lawyer, your clients (and your boss) would probably like to read about the new corporate tax law that you wrote about in your blog, and perhaps your entrepreneurial friends will as well. The engineers or doctors in your network, however, may not be as interested. They might be, but be clear about why and how to communicate to them in a way that they appreciate.

I usually tweet my new blog posts, since my Twitter followers are mainly interested in personal branding and social media. Certain posts I choose to post on Facebook and in newsletters. I also send e-mails, along with a personal note, to key people that I think may be extra-interested in a certain topic. Is this self-promotion? Or is it a way of sharing my knowledge and thoughts with the people that find it interesting? I would say the latter, but if I hadn’t done the segmentation and tweaked personal notes to different audiences, then I would be working with marketing and self-promotion rather than with brand-building.

Ola Rynge is an entrepreneur with a passion for the personal development side of personal branding (covered in this blog) as well as the application of personal branding and social media for entrepreneurs and small businesses (covered in The Rynge Blog).

His company, The Rynge Group specializes in personal branding, strategies in social media and market oriented small business and idea development.

Follow Ola on Twitter, LinkedIn & Facebook.

via blog.brand-yourself.com

Posted via web from AndyWergedal

5 Ways To Keep Networking Fresh And Productive

On Friday I wrote a post about networking burnout.  The question:  Are you getting tired of it all?

Based on reduced attendance at local networking events, burnout was suggested as a possible reason why (i.e. networking is not delivering the goods).  Or people have stopped doing it effectively.

And I’m not sure how you are feeling about it.  Because you haven’t told me yet.

Today’s post is about how to avoid the fatigue.  If that’s what you are feeling.

Fatigue, whether the cause of reduced attendance or not, is real and leads to frustration.  Because all this time you spend attending events needs to deliver value.  Some kind of progress.  If not, you might decide it’s better to go back to scouring monster.com.  At least that way you can drink your own coffee and relax at home.

So here it is:

5 Ways to Keep Networking Fresh and Productive

1. Find Some New Events – If you have become cozy at your favorite event, you may need a change.  Or an influx of new events.  If you go to meetup.com or LinkedIn, it is easy to find additional groups in your local area.   And you can even look for a group in the next town over.  If you can imagine yourself commuting there, shouldn’t you be networking there?

2.  Reinvent Yourself - It doesn’t have to be a dramatic extreme makeover.  But it is important to give yourself some new content.  Maybe you write your elevator pitch all over again.  And think of some new reasons why people should see you as memorable.  Having new content will freshen you up like an Irish Spring commercial.  And if you start whistling along, you will start feeling better about being away from home on a Monday night.

3.  Avoid Your Friends Like The Plague – Hopefully you’ve made some new friends in your networking practice.  Fellow job seekers who share your industry, passion for networking or coffee of choice at Starbucks.  How wonderful that is.  Now ditch ‘em.  Run to the hills.  Because it is likely you are spending way too much time with them.  And disengaging from the process of meeting new people.  New contacts will lead to other new contacts and potentially new job leads.  Plus it gives you inertia.

4.  Take A Productive Day Off – A reminder for some of you who’ve been reading here for a while.  But taking your focus off of “you” for a day or night will fill you with good karma and good feelings.  Of course, in this case, productive means taking a day off to focus on the needs of others.  Selfless networking.  It feels good and may add some new perspective on your own situation.  You can also take a day off to do something important around the house, with your spouse or your kids.  In fact, there are 101 (other) things you can do while looking for a job.

5.  Think Long Term – If you see networking as a means to a short term end (finding a job), then the process will feel very different.  You will have expectations that, if not met, will leave you feeling wasted.  Tired and unproductive.  But if you see networking as a long term business and contact building effort, you might find more joy in the process.   And see that while there is short term, practical value.  That the real benefit is down the road.

So yes I’d like to hear from you.  Have you experienced burnout while networking for a job?  How have you kept it fresh?

Photo Credit

No related posts.

via timsstrategy.com

Posted via web from AndyWergedal

Personal Branding Lessons | Brand-Yourself.com Blog

Have you visited your local farmer’s market recently?  If not, you are probably missing out on a couple of interesting lessons (and a few tasty vine-ripened tomatoes).  Sellers at the farmer’s market face an extremely difficult task: with similar products being offered left and right, each seller must somehow stand out from the rest to succeed.

Here are 7 valuable personal branding lessons we can all learn from a trip to the farmer’s market.

1.  Over-promoting inevitably backfires.

In a crowded marketplace such as the farmer’s market, it can be tempting to over-promote.  On my most recent trip, I heard one vendor yelling about their incredible deals while I was still 5 booths away.  The yelling continued, and I made a point to hurriedly walk past.

What about you?  Is your Twitter stream a constant barrage of over-promotion around your own blog or job search?

2.  Specialization works.

My only mandatory purchase at the farmer’s market is a big crate of dark red strawberries.  Who do I always seek out to provide these delicious treats?  The vendors who sell only strawberries. Why?  I trust that their “strawberry only” ways lead to a certain expertise that others can’t match.

Do you have an area of specialization that separates you from the pack?

3.  Familiarity breeds confidence.

Another category of vendor that I tend to gravitate to are those that I’ve purchased from before.  In general, we fear the unknown, and take comfort in the familiar.  For this reason, you will benefit from forming connections and putting your work out there for all to see.

4.  Free samples trump all else.

The free sample is really the cornerstone of the farmer’s market.  I want what you are selling – but you better prove it to me via a free of charge sample taste!  This philosophy is no different in the business world.  You want to sell me an e-book?  You better show me a hell of a blog post on the subject before I am willing to spend a dime.

This article I wrote extols the virtues of providing your network and employer with as many free samples as possible.

5.  Personality matters.

Most farmer’s market patrons aren’t fruit or vegetable connoisseurs.  But, they are all experts on one subject – people.  A smile and a friendly greeting is more likely to inspire a sale than the product itself.  If you are using social media to market a product (or your own services), the same principal applies.  Kill ‘em with kindness.

6.  Location, location, location.

The farmer’s market is proof that proper location is a powerful thing.  Set up a lemonade stand in front of your house tomorrow, and you might sell 10 lemonades.  Set one up next to the kettle corn stand at the farmer’s market, and you just might sell 1,000.

If what you are selling is your personal brand, are you doing it in the right places?  This article on how outposts improve your ecosystem offers an excellent guide.

7.  Uniqueness stands out.

I don’t like plums.  Don’t really like apricots either.  But, the first time I saw that science and nature had combined to create the “pluot”, I just had to have one.  In fact, I bought ten.  Why?  Because it was simply too unique not to try.

Have you been to the farmer’s market lately?  Any other lessons, or awesome fruit hybrids, that I haven’t mentioned here?

For personal branding tips and tricks from Ryan Rancatore and a great group of guest bloggers, visit Personal Branding 101. Or, connect with @RyanRancatore on Twitter.

Photo credit, The Ewan and RaeA.

via blog.brand-yourself.com

Posted via web from AndyWergedal

Tips on What to Do in the Interview | Brand-Yourself.com Blog

Face-to-face interviews can be intimidating, daunting and generally a little nerve-racking.  Here are 8 tips on how to nail the in-person interview that will help leave interviewers impressed and wanting to hire you:

1. Be nice to the assistants and receptionists.

According to jobspro, 90% of employers seek their assistant’s opinion when interviewing and making hiring decisions.  This is true across the board—be polite and engaging to anyone you meet in your desired company regardless of their position. A smile, pleasant greeting and a personal goodbye can go a long way.

2. Don’t fidget in the interview.

Too many job applicants get nervous and rearrange their tie, touch their face and run their hands through their hair.  Be composed and place your hands on your lap.  Composure is a quality that any company looks for in qualified job applicants. Take deep breaths, relax and project good body language at all times throughout the interview.

3. Come prepared to ask at least ten questions.

If you have no questions for the company at the end of your interview, this conveys that you aren’t concerned with learning more about the company and didn’t do your homework prior to the interview.  During the interview, be sure to ask them questions based on topics relevant to the conversation; this demonstrates to the recruiter that you are actively engaged and interested in the conversation.

4. Match the communication style of the interviewer.

Every interviewer has his/her own style and methods of conducting an interview.  Some are more intimidating, while others are more genial and make it more of a two-way conversation.  Make eye contact with the interviewer as often as he/she does with you and pace yourself according to his/her intonations, inflections and pace of the conversation.  This demonstrates that you are a respectful and socially perceptive candidate.

5. Survey your interviewer’s office.

If you happen to be in an interviewer’s office, take a look around and if something catches your eye. Perhaps you share a common interest or have unique information about something you notice–if so, comment on it when appropriate.  If your interviewer has a diploma on the wall from the University of Arizona and your sister currently attends that school, this could be a great conversation-starter and an easy way to build rapport.

6. Don’t sit down until the interviewer takes a seat.

This demonstrates to the recruiter that you are respectful and understand etiquette—both qualities that are key traits when making hiring decisions.

7. Quantify and qualify your experiences whenever possible.

This piece of advice must be applied across the board in all aspects of your personal brand, including your cover letter, resume and LinkedIn profile.  Recruiters look for candidates who are goal and results-oriented.  If you can demonstrate to employers concisely the results you produced in your past experiences, this will be much more convincing than some long-winded, non-specific response.

8. Don’t misrepresent yourself.

If an employer asks you if you are proficient in Microsoft Excel and you aren’t, be honest in your response.  It’s best to be honest about your skill-set than dishonest, especially if the follow-up question, is, “do you know how to construct pivot tables?”  If you answered yes to the first question and you aren’t proficient with them, then you look pretty foolish after the follow-up question.

An interview is often a complicated and brief interaction between two (or more) individuals who need to understand each other in a limited amount of time.  Differentiate yourself from other applicants by doing the little things in the interview while providing hiring managers with more reasons to hire you.

Jim Armstrong is a recent graduate of Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.  He now works for New York City-based advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather as an assistant search planner.

via blog.brand-yourself.com

Posted via web from AndyWergedal

Unemployed people suck, right? Let’s not hire them. | JibberJobber Blog

I must be getting grumpy in my old age, with all of this venting I’m doing!  This post really ticks me off.  I just wrote a post on Peter Newfield’s Career Resumes blog (I’ve been blogging there for the last many months) titled The Unemployed Will Not Be Considered.  WHAT??? It comes from a Huffington Post article of a similar name… go check out Peter’s blog to see what I wrote.

This practice is archaic and out of touch with reality.  Do these companies, discriminating against those who are out on the street for no good reason, really think that only looking at currently employed people is going to get them the best talent?

What a fallacy.

The companies listed in the HuffPo article include:

• An “anonymous company” that has an opening posted at The People Place recruiting board.  Who made this decision, and why?
• Benchmark Electronics, who defends the policy saying they don’t want to waste their time with unqualified applicants.  I get that… but that doesn’t mean you should cut out all unemployed people.
• Sony Ericsson temporarily had this statement on their job descriptions: “NO UNEMPLOYED CANDIDATES WILL BE CONSIDERED AT ALL.”  Seriously, what outdated recruiting book did this come from??  At least they removed it once “it was noticed.”  (oops, one mark against copy and paste).
• An unnamed restaurant in NJ, looking for an assistant restaurant manager…. must be currently employed.
• An unnamed “top 25 CPA firm” in NYC, same thing.

Judy Conti (who needs my LinkedIn DVD – just look at her Profile!)  is the federal advocacy coordinator for the National Employment Law Project, and said some awesome stuff, including (read her comments in the last 2 paragraphs of the HuffPo article):

“In the current economy, where millions of people have lost their jobs through absolutely no fault of their own, I find it beyond unconscionable that any employer would not consider unemployed workers for current job openings,”

I agree.. beyond unconscionable.

via jibberjobber.com

Posted via web from AndyWergedal

College Grads – This Ain’t Your Father’s Job Market » Blog | Great Resumes Fast

Guest Post by: CareerAlley
Author Website: http://Careeralley.com

What’s that sound you hear? Ah yes, the sound of the seconds ticking by on the “graduation clock”. And we all know how it goes down. Your father has been asking you for a year now (and, just to be clear, that is a year before you graduate) – “Have you started looking for a job yet?” But worse than that, you are getting all of this advice from the Old Man as well. And how old is your father? Probably late 40’s or early 50’s at best. What does he know about looking for a job in the 21st century? Well he may not know how to use Twitter and he (hopefully) doesn’t have a Facebook account, but believe it or not, the basic job search tools have not changed (Resume, Cover Letter, Elevator Speech, etc.). Yeah sure, the Internet was not a tool your father used for job hunting when he was your age (did they even have electricity back then?), but the process has not changed. One of the best places to start your search is on the College Career page of employers, and that is what is covered in this post.

• Internal Revenue Service – The IRS has a great College Student / Recent Grad page as part of their Careers section. There are tabs at the top for About IRS, Working at IRS and Opportunities. Center page provides an overview with a Search & Apply box. There is a short video on the right hand side of the screen (Meet Our Employees). Below this are a broad range of resources, including “Fun Career Tools”. There were 72 job opportunities when I checked the site.

• General Electric – GE is involved in way too many businesses to list here. There are over 300,000 people in over 100 locations (according to the website) and they are world-renowned for their management training programs . Their “University Students” page has links on the left hand side for Job Search, Careers, Why GE and more. Center page are links to their Undergraduate Leadership Programs, Internship and Co-ops programs and much more. To the right of this there is a link for “Start Your Job Search”. – there were 4,291 jobs opportunities when I checked the site.

• Disney Professional Internships – So we all know what Disney does, and they have a broad range of programs for High School and College Grads. Their Internships are well known and respected. Their students page has a Disney company overview followed by a listing of internship fields. Click the “Apply Now” button on the left hand side of the page to submit your details.

• The Hartford – The Hartford is known for both financial products and insurance. They employ over 31,000 employees and are in the Fortune 100. The College page of the Careers section provides a comprehensive list of links. Center page, there is a brief overview, followed by links for Full-Time Programs, Internships, Campus Recruiting and more. The left hand side of the page has similar links, plus additional links for other career related topics. Clicking on “View Opportunities for College Students” yields 13 College Student job opportunities plus 251 other job opportunities.

• Intel – Intel is know for computer chips and their college careers page is well done. The left hand side of the page is filled with relevant links (like Job Search, Intern/Grad Opportunities, a Jobs Blog and so much more). The center of the page starts “Get Started with Your Future” and has a listing of student centers by country. The left hand side of the page has a number of additional job search link. There were 480 job opportunities when I checked the page.

Good luck in your search.

Article courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching for entry level jobs and other career opportunities.

via greatresumesfast.com

Posted via web from AndyWergedal