Personal Branding

LinkedIn: 300,000 recruiters are looking for you

Wendy Terwelp 1 Comment

One of the most hopeful and exciting trends in job hunting is the fact that recruiters are now looking for passive candidates online. Recently I attended an Internet Recruiting workshop where presenter, Mark Berger, stated that 300,000 recruiters use LinkedIn regularly to recruit passive candidates. “It’s not who you know, but who knows you,” said Berger. In addition, during the workshop Berger demonstrated how to use Google to find names and top candidates. About 100+ recruiters were in the room, and that was just one workshop.

 

It is key for professionals of all levels to have an online identity that is professional and demonstrates his or her expertise. Since recruiters are searching online – and not necessarily using fee-based job sites, you want to be sure your online identity is crystal clear in how it represents you – and you want to be sure that when someone Googles your name, it is truly you. And that your name is within the first 30 listings (preferably in the top 10).

 

Are you getting the right attention from recruiters? If not, visit:
http://www.knocks.com/Social_Networking_Course.html 

to help you get the most from LinkedIn and other social networking sites.

 

Attention all whiners: You’re fired!

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By Dan Kennedy, www.dankennedy.com

You’re Fired. (Dan’s favorite saying.)

This dates back to when me and my Wealth Coaching Group watched the new series premier of The Apprentice at Trump Plaza in Atlantic City. We agreed; The Donald made the right decision, fired the most deserving — the guy who whined he looked bad because he was “under-utilized.”

The next day in our meeting, Mike Walters talked about hiring a guy who had sold and delivered office furniture to their new offices and turning the guy into his top Project Manager at a good salary. The guy’s sole qualification? While there supervising the delivery of the furniture he’d sold, he observed other delivery guys, cubicle installers, phone guys and construction folk running amok and took it upon himself to take charge of the entire office set-up, staying for more than 10 hours to get ‘ er done. He demonstrated he would step up, take charge and “carry the message to Garcia.’

There are more of the whiners waiting to be told precisely what to do and then doing no more than what they are told than there are take charge, get ‘ er done’ers. Michael was right to create a position for his find. Trump was right to fire his loser forthwith.

In general, we are now mired in collective whining about jobs being outsourced, jobs being eliminated, oh-woe-is-they. In Cleveland, we still have steel workers whining about their jobs going overseas. Pretty much, that whole industry was over about ten years ago. Heck, I know air traffic controllers still whining about Reagan canning them. Geez, I hate whiners.

Once you see the writing on the wall, there’s no profit in sitting there staring at it. People need to be told: take charge of your life. Assert yourself. You were not guaranteed lifetime employment. It says the right to “pursuit of” all sorts of stuff. Key word: pursuit.

If you ARE going to have people around you, my advice is keep saying “You’re Fired” as many times as it takes, as quickly and decisively as required, until you wind up surrounded and supported by a few step up, take charge, get ‘ er done’er types. You want people alert enough to see something that needs doing, with enough initiative to go ahead and do it. I’m fortunate: My assistant does a lot without being told it needs doing or how to do it. The now-very-rare times I find myself working with a client not doing well, not going well, a quick check of the people they’ve got around them reveals the problem.

 

Dedicated To Multiplying Your Income,Dan Kennedy

www.dankennedy.com

What to do when you can’t say NO

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By Nicole Williams, www.nicolewilliams.com

Question: I have a million people asking me for favors and because I want to help I always say yes. Then I’m up all night trying to get everything done. How do I say no without making people wary of asking for my help in the future?

Answer: Repeat after me: NO. Explain that you’d love to help (if that’s true) but your schedule is jammed. Think quality instead of quantity. Select a few of the people/things you’d really like to dedicate some time to and go all out, rather than giving the half-assed effort that comes with sleepless nights and a lack of focus. I guess my question is: What would be so wrong with making people wary of asking you for anything and everything? Seems you could use a little decrease in the number of asks—a million is a lot.

How Technology Tanks an Interview

Wendy Terwelp 1 Comment

Yesterday I met with several direct hire and exec recruiters for a networking / brainstorming meeting. Pet peeves always come up during these talks and here are some direct from the recruiters’ mouths:

“Get this,” said Gary an IT recruiter. “I’m interviewing a guy and he interrupts the interview to take a call from his cell phone!” Gary went on to describe how the candidate told Gary that the call was very important – during the interview. “Needless to say,” said Gary, “the rest of the interview lasted about 5 minutes and I will not place this guy – EVER.”

Think about it, if the interview to get the job wasn’t important enough to put calls on hold for a half hour, what’s going to happen on the job?

“I want to talk about CRACKberrries,” said Gina B. “During an interview a woman is actually holding up her crackberry and typing with her thumbs like this,” she demonstrated. How important is it to answer email during an interview? Truly?

Tips:

1. Take control of your personal technology! You control it – it does not control you.

2. Turn cell phones OFF during an interview or put the ringer on silent (not vibrate).

3. Turn Blackberries off during an interview. You can email AFTER you get to your car. In fact, why not email that interviewer a thank you note when you get to your car? Use technology for good. 🙂

Of course, I do have to say how our meeting ended. As things wound up, Patrick whipped out his Sprint phone that had email, a keypad, phone access, THE WORKS. He starts emailing his candidates and returned some calls. Proudly he said, “Hey, at least I waited until the meeting wrapped up!”

You can do the same.

What to do when an Interviewer Uncovers Your Digital Dirt

Wendy Terwelp 1 Comment

Did you know that 77 percent of recruiters Google candidates? It’s true, according to a 2006 ExecuNet survey. And 35 percent of recruiters eliminate candidates based on what they find on Google.  

As a job seeker, it’s imperative you know what people can see online about you. Do you have digital dirt? You know, that fun party you were at – and the pictures that were posted on your friend’s blog. Oops! 

Two things you can do about digital dirt – bury it or sweep it under the rug. If there are incriminating photos or crazy postings – ask the blogger to remove them. If however, your misdeeds were featured in a major newspaper, say The Wall Street Journal – then you’ll need to take more dramatic action. One quick step – start your own professional blog. Blogs get higher rankings in Google and there is a chance you can quickly bury your dirt.  

However, if your dirt is uncovered by an interviewer, be prepared to explain yourself calmly and BRIEFLY during an interview. 

Challenge: Take action! Google yourself right now – and check out the dirt. Use quotes around your first and last name – so the dirt is all on you. 🙂