Needle, Meet Haystack

I don’t know about you, but I hate those people who say stuff like, “Oh, I don’t own a TV.  It’s a waste of time.”  Or, “I don’t see any reason to have a cell phone.”  Or, most damning of all, “I don’t really need a computer.” It’s okay to use them less – we’ve discussed that.  And I’m not saying this because I might be biased.  But to discount an entire form of widely used technology will only doom you to failure and obsolescence.

With shared cultural experiences going on the decline, it becomes harder and harder to relate to others, much less communicate with them.  By keeping yourself voluntarily blind from books, newspapers, radio, TV and other forms of media, you’re removing yourself from the world.  And you also lose proficiency.

The more time you spend with something, the more adept you become, and the more receptive you are to new advancements and trends.  The seemingly wider gap between recent generations can be attributed to the development and prevalence of technology among young people, many of whom first learned to use a computer in elementary school (whereas previous generations were not familiar with the skill set involved, save for maybe typing).  This technological symbiosis between computers and Generations X and Y has led to a communications barrier with many of their older co-workers, save for those who took it upon themselves to keep up.

If you ignore the TV, you miss out on water cooler chats with co-workers that can strengthen your professional reputation and relationships.  If you skip out on the movies, you lose common reference points with clients.  If you abhor a cell phone, people might stop trying to contact you.  And if you keep away from the Internet, you’ll lose the race before it has even started. So go out into the world, experience everything through a variety of media, and don’t count out any of it.  You’ll only be shooting yourself in the foot.

If you’ve ever filled out a profile online for a job site, you may have noticed that it has a layout that seems familiar.  Maybe it’s because the website promises to match you with a compatible job.  Or because it asks you about your hobbies, ideal job, employment history and so on.  Maybe it’s because you get asked for a picture and a tag line to go along with your user name.  Whatever it is, eventually we all come to realize that job seeker profile sites are repurposed dating sites.

There has already been a post on this blog about the dating-employment connection, so this one will focus more on the common mistakes that users make on both job and dating profile sites.

The first mistake that most people make comes with creating silly user names.  If you’re going to go with something other than a permutation of your name, at least pick something that’s related to your career or interests.  And try to avoid using numbers; it makes you seem more original and/or professional.  So HotAndSexy567 would not be a good choice for either.

But bad writing can do much more harm than using a silly handle on the site.  When you’re writing a brief bio of yourself, starting off with things like “I usually never do this…” or “Friends and co-workers would say I’m…” or using sentence fragments (“Hard worker.  Likes a challenge.”) don’t help you stand out.  Would you go up to a potential mate or employer and say, “Hi.  If you asked my friends about me, they would say I’m polite, dedicated and punctual”?  Write your bio like you were telling someone about yourself in a conversation.  And if you do go up to people and say that, you might want to rethink your dating and employment strategy.

You should also avoid using the applications and widgets on the site that don’t help you reach your goal.  Sure, you can add your Twitter feed, set mobile connectivity, add in background themes and so on, but what’s the point?  Unless any of these features get you any closer to finding a significant other or gainful employment, you’re just postponing what you’re there to do in the first place.  Focus on your goal and only use the add-ons that will actually help you.

Lastly, you should make sure that you’re going after people and professions for whom (or which) you would be a good fit.  If you don’t have the education or experience to match the requirements for a job, you probably won’t get it even though you think the company looks nice and there’s a nice salary involved.  Similarly, if your interests, hobbies, relationship goals and beliefs are the polar opposites of someone else’s, there’s no reason for you to pursue them on the dating site, even if you think they look cute.  In both job and relationship websites, you have the chance to find something or someone who matches your specific criteria – you don’t need to settle or waste your time with vocations (or people) that don’t really interest you.

When it comes to romance and employment, there are a lot of similarities.  So if you don’t know whether to apply for the job, think about what you would do in your dating life.  And if you don’t know whether to ask someone out, think about what you would do in your work life.  You’d be surprised how much this can help you achieve personal and professional success.

As much as I know you all love reading NMH every day, there are a few other blogs on job searching/careers/Gen-Y type stuff that you might not be reading.  Here’s a few that are definitely worth your time:

I’m not gonna lie, Jenny Blake’s Life After College gets me a bit angry.  A ton of her posts have me thinking why didn’t I come up with that?, which is why sometimes I post about Flavor Flav or GI Joe.  Her posts on pretty much everything make it a must-read, especially if you’re looking for some great motivation or dating advice.

A.J. Bingham’s Blog is full of great advice, motivation, and even some music.  He has a very straightforward, concise writing style that is immensely enjoyable.  Also, he talks about the Power Glove (it’s so bad!) in a way that applies to us all, and makes an appealing argument for the power of Ed Hardy.  If nothing else, that deserves your respect.

Caitlin McCabe’s Smile Like You Mean It (which I previously mentioned here) is full of awesome advice, cool design and a good dose of wisdom.  Her post on faking organization should be mandatory reading, and so should the one on pricing yourself.  And reading her posts on design can help make you feel hip (do the kids still say ‘hip’?), so that helps too.

Life After College

A.J. Bingham

Smile Like You Mean It

After reading Caitlin McCabe‘s post this past Monday on Brazen Careerist (wow, that’s a lot of links!) on remote working, I noticed that most of the commenters were strongly in favor of such a practice.  And while it was pointed out that for certain jobs (manufacturing, medicine, security, etc) it might not be practical, for more idea-centered jobs where remote working is already possible, it is a good idea.

As someone who’s been remotely working for the better part of three years, I have to admit that I disagree.

While working without an office to go to every day cuts back on travel time and costs, overbearing bosses, pointless meetings, annoying co-workers and many of the other stereotypical cons of the workplace can produce a more effective, positive work environment, it might not create the best work environment.  Sure, I like not having to wear pants to work every morning, but even with a dedicated workspace in my own home, it’s been difficult for me to make the cognitive leap from “this is where I eat and sleep and watch TV” to “this is where I make my bones and establish my career.”

Also, by trading in the more social office atmosphere for the more solitary one of my home, I’m left holding only myself accountable for things.  I can’t blame my boss, co-workers, freelancers or underlings as easily.  And I must admit that on the days when I do go into the office, I’m more productive.

I know what you’re thinking: He obviously hasn’t tried doing [activity x] yet.  But I probably have.  In fact, I have tried, among other things:

• Getting dressed, getting in my car, driving around the block to my house and going straight to my workspace (as if I was driving to work)
• Suiting up in the home office
• Creating a “sensory deprivation chamber”-type room to make a clean separation from home and work
• Chatting with my roommate by the Brita filter in the kitchen
• Installing a web site blocker to keep me from looking at non-work-related sites
• Going through the work day with occasional chats with remote working coworkers online
• Working in another area (library, Starbucks, etc.)

The work I do does not require that I go to an office.  I’m not a fan of cubicle culture.  I realize that the future of many careers will probably be a remote working or online freelancing community setup.  And I understand that there’s more red tape and potentially productivity-killing things waiting for me.  But I have always done better work surrounded by my peers and superiors than by myself.  So what would be the ideal workplace for someone like me?

It would probably be a hypothetical office where workers from all different types of companies and career paths can rent out a workspace to go for the day.  Although one would be going to an office, the work they would do would be independent of others’ (unless the team decides to all use one of said offices).  This hypothetical office would provide enough of a cognitive disconnect for many people like me who still need the extra level of an office to remove the cognitive dissonance of working from home.

So yes, in the future, there will be a greater number of remote workers.  And hopefully it won’t become as bad as Hollywood predicted.  But there still needs to be a middle ground for the Luddites like me who aren’t quite ready to give up the old ways of the office.

Social media can be used for a lot more than playing Farmville or watching Keyboard Cat.  Here are 5 things that you can do on 5 sites to help you get a job:

So the next time you happen to be MouseHunting or tweeting, take a minute to help your job search out too!

As if there weren’t enough job search sites already, Great Place Jobs is on the scene with a new niche that is still broad enough to attract most any job seeker.  Where many job search sites don’t investigate the companies creating career postings, Great Place Jobs accepts only employers with a good history.

While I’m not sure of the evaluation process that the site’s administrators use, the vetting process does limit the chances of encountering a spam or scheme posting.  However, smaller companies with less established reputations will probably not be on the site.  Either way, if you’re looking for a job at a reputable office, this site is worth a look.

Great Place Jobs

Here are a few employment sites that are a bit more specialized and can help you with the online job search:

• Like previous site addition LinkUp, Hound also searches through employers’ career pages.  However, the code and resources are different for each site, so you should use both to maximize your search results.
• You may have seen some news stories recently that discussed the prevalence of available government jobs.  Take a look at the official government job site, USAJobs, for the best listings of government jobs in your area.
• Looking for part-time or hourly work?  Snag A Job is your best bet for finding reliable job openings in your area for non-salaried positions.

All of these sites are free, so use them to help find the career you’ve been looking for!

Hound.com

USAJobs.gov

Snag A Job.com

If you’ve ever used a social networking website, you have probably come across two related phenomena: the friend suggestion and the collection.

The friend suggestion, otherwise known as the “people you may know” page, often holds people who fit into one of several categories:

• People you know but don’t want to know online
• People you’ve heard of or might be vaguely acquainted with
• People you don’t know but somehow 50% of your friends do
• People who you don’t know at all
• People you don’t know but want to stalk over the Internet

So who should you add?

How about all of them!

It’s a good idea to send out the request with a message saying how you know them, or barring that, who you know them through.  By reaching out and developing your network outside of the usual people, you might find others who can help you with everything from finding a job to joining new activity groups.  And you’ll be making new friends.

If you’re a bit nervous about the whole experience, just use the three-second rule.

The collection is a unique phenomenon that traces back to users’ early experiences with Pogs, trading cards and Pokemon.  It’s the adding of others just for the sake of having a large number of friends and then never talking to them.  And don’t lie and say you’re not guilty of this – everyone’s done it.  In fact, if you follow through with the friend suggestion, you might wind up with a collection.

So how do you deal with a collection?  You turn it back into a list of contacts!  As an experiment earlier this week, I messaged 50 people who had become part of my “collection” on a social networking site, and I heard back from 46 of them.  That means that 92% of the time, I was able to re-initiate contact successfully.  Instead of staring at a screen of names and pictures of people I used to know, I now look at a screen full of social contacts.

Not sure who to get back in touch with or how to do it?  Use the three-second rule!

The point of a social network is to network socially, and if you don’t take advantage of the contacts you could or already have, you might be missing out on some great opportunities – and great people.

So I’m gonna gloss over the whole networking aspect of this, as I think it was covered pretty well in a previous post, and skip right on to the cold-call aspect of the job search, what with the Internets and the classifieds and the trade magazines and so on.

When considering a job to apply for, there are only two questions that one needs to be able to answer:

1. What kind of work do I want to do?
2. How far (literally and figuratively) will I be willing to go to do it?

The answer to the first question should come based off of your personal checklist and your prior work experience, education and so on.  I’m not saying that it’s a bad idea to apply outside of your comfort zone, but rather to make sure that you have some expertise/logic/reasoning to bridge the different industries.  Unless you’re prepared to jump into an entry-level position in your new field, you might want to rethink your options.

According to a recent survey I lost the link to, relocation is becoming more prevalent among today’s workers.  And while this may be a good thing for those of you who are afraid of being the only kid on the block to move because of a job, it’s also something to take into consideration in another way.  Due to the stressful economy, fewer and fewer companies are helping to fund relocation expenses for new hires, so one may have to weigh the costs and benefits of the move financially first.

Finally, you might have to think about the costs of the job.  I’m not just referring to money you might lose paying for the commute, but also the comparative value of the work.  What would you lose (besides the opportunity at a different job)?  What would you gain (besides employment and money)?  It’s essentially a pros-and-cons list, but many people gloss over this step only to be sorry that they didn’t think about these things beforehand.  After all, some jobs are almost entirely bad.

As for where to look, there are so many different job search sites that it can be confusing.  I am not much of a fan of the Big Two because of the number of unrelated jobs/pyramid schemes/repeated postings that flood their job boards.  I’ve made a list of a number of good search sites on the links bar on this site.

You can usually find a website or twitter account devoted to job searches in your particular career field, and in many cases, a social network as well.  You can use these sites to find more pertinent job postings in less time than if you were using a generic job search site.  Or, you could skip the third party stuff and go straight to the company’s website itself.  In many cases, companies will not post all of their available positions on job search sites.  So it’s to your benefit to do some industry analysis and track down the business’ web sites to see all of the positions that they really have available.

Does all of this seem a bit elementary?  Like stuff that you already know?  Of course it does, and of course it is!  It’s common sense!  But are you using it in your job search?

As some of my sharper-eyed readers may have noticed, I’ve added a new category to the link bar on the right side of the blog called “Job Tools.”  The first of these sites, and this week’s link, is a great site called Brand-Yourself.com.  The site lets you track your personal brand’s message, level of awareness, online presence and more through a variety of analytics.  It also offers suggestions on sites to join, programs to use and so on.

Paid members get access to even more features, but the basic free package will still give you a better idea of what potential employers see when they look you up, and how you can make sure that you’re getting the right message out.  It takes only minutes to get started, and you’ll be on your way to mastering your personal brand in no time!

Brand-Yourself.com