MyRetailCareer

Labor Day is Dead

Labor Day has passed.  Summer is over. For many, the term Labor Day, had a different meaning this year.  Lack of Labor.  Doom and gloom surround us, the days are getting shorter, darkness replaces light and I’m sure somewhere the sky just fell.

Newspapers are reporting an absurdly high unemployment rate. Then in an effort to sell more papers, less they go the way of the dinosaurs and add their staff to the line, they sensationalize this fact and tell you “Hey, its even worse than you think.” See the NY Times article “Out of Work and Too Down to Search On.”

I woke up today feeling great. I like to draw lines in the sand and then jump over them and holidays always give me that opportunity. Especially when one is linked to the change in the weather. It’s a new season baby, get out and enjoy.  Dig out the sweaters, dust off the resume.  Call people you haven’t spoken with all summer.  Think orange today.

Out with the old, in with the new.  This is a great time to refocus your career, employed or not.  Today, slow down and think.  Where am I and where do I want to be?  Now, think about the places you’ll pass between here and there, choose a close by one and figure out how to get there.  We’re not aiming for the final destination, just a place to get us one step closer. 

And stop listening to the naysayers.  Let them all proclaim their end of the world crap somewhere else.  I think we should send them to a distant location, maybe Long Island.   

Back with the Creative Job Search

A few days ago I was throwing in my 2 cents about LinkedIn.  As I said, there are numerous places to get information about how to use LinkedIn, how to write a profile, who to connect to, etc. and so forth.  Just look on the internet.

I stressed that LinkedIn gives you a chance to humanize yourself.  You can have a picture.  You can add your interests.  You can build your brand because you can include more than you would on on a resume.  You can have a link to your resume.

So why do so many people just cut and paste from their resume to create a LinkedIn profile?  I think there are a lot of reasons, unawareness and unfamiliarity come to mind as does laziness. Hey, it’s easy to cut an paste.

Think of it this way.  Any good recruiter is going to look for your profile on LinkedIn.  When someone that I don’t know sends me an email, where is the first place I go to find out about them?  It just makes complete common sense to have a decent profile and maximize it to the hilt.

Your profile doesn’t and shouldn’t be a rehash of your resume.  Yes, it needs the positions you’ve been in, the companies you’ve worked for and what you accomplished but this is a chance to give yourself some body.  You can become a person, not a 2 page sheet of paper.

A little departure, Dan Schawbel…

I had this link saved and never bothered to do anything with it but since I’m discussing social networking and LinkedIn specifically, here you go.

If you’re a job seeker, or anyone else for that matter, Dan Schawbel is someone you should follow.  No, Dan doesn't have the silver bullet (or arrow) on getting a job but he is one of the foremost experts on Personal Branding. 

 

You all know I spend a lot of my effort when working with job seekers on how to pull all the tools together and execute a seriously awesome job search.  You also all know that while I still believe it starts with the resume (no one has proven me different yet), a killer resume does you no good if no one sees or reads it. It’s the old tree in the forest thing.

I always talk about how you need to make yourself visible and differentiate yourself from everyone else and what, pray tell, do you think branding is all about? Yes, networking too.

This article is almost a year old yet is resonates as loudly, maybe even more today as it did back in November.

Success Story: Build Your Dream One LinkedIn Contact at a Time. 

Follow the links and learn about how to use Facebook and Twitter while you’re there reading and if you are really serious, buy his book, “Me 2.0.”  It’s to your right under Books I Recommend.

Here’s a more current link to another great article, this guy is simply a must read. 

Position Yourself for the Career You Want Not the Job You Have.

 

The Creative Job Search, Part 1

As you can see, I’ve made some changes in the title.  The reason being, is although I’m still focusing on how we put together a complete strategy for a creative person, there are a lot of things to be discussed that us uncreative types can learn from here too.

We’ve built a resume, a creative summary and a website.  We have explored our medium and our message.  We have begun to brand by using consistent visual reminders, the colors, the stripes and the logos as well as tie those to our message of Design, Develop and Deliver.  None of that does us any good unless people see it.  Oh yea, forgot about that…..

This really brings us to our second goal.

2.      Present this collateral in an effective and unique way to get the recipient to sit up and take notice.

What tools are available to us?  First and foremost, LinkedIn.   Nothing I know of lets you get yourself in front of more executives and recruiters than LinkedIn does.  Facebook, Twitter, US Postal Service (surprised?), networking groups, conferences, other social sites, YouTube, Flickr and a host of other places.

Tomorrow we start with LinkedIn.

PS.

If you click on the framing picture and go to the original on Flickr you will see a neat feature.  The picture has notes so when you scroll over it you can see that it will have a fireplace and flat screen TV when completed.

The Creative Resume, Part 2

Another Multiplier

Now we get to the website.  For this project we’ve been following, we used GoDaddy to register the domain name audreylowedesign.com and host the site.  There are numerous places you can go to to register a domain and host your site, feel free to look around.  I just happen to be used to using GoDaddy and find that for most beginners it’s pretty easy to learn and the support has always been good.

Why would you want a website? Why not?  For about $10 for the domain and less than $5 a month, you suddenly have a presence.  As they say, “you have a chip in the game.”  Plus, you learn something new and it demonstrates you understand technology.

As I had written earlier, my client used an existing Go Daddy template, one that I liked so much I used the design elements in both the resume and the creative summary.  My only caveat is that you give some thought to how you intend to brand yourself prior to jumping in with both feet.   A circus theme might be your favorite thing in the world but do you really want to associate yourself with clowns.

Explore Audrey’s website.  Watch the PowerPoint presentation, download a resume or her creative summary.  Most importantly, if you know someone that might benefit from visiting the site, pay it forward and send them a link.  Start networking and helping others and you’ll get back much more than you ever anticipated.

The Creative Resume, Part 2

Moving beyond the Resume (multipliers)

I kind of regret giving this series of articles the overall name of “The Creative Resume” since it’s much more that but since we’re stuck with it let’s move and explore what I term multipliers.  Multipliers are some of the additional arrows in our quiver or possibly even another method of delivering those arrows.  Think long bow, cross-bow, etc. They exponentially increase our visibility, reach and message.

Most creative types love the word “portfolio”.  Us uncreative types don’t have a portfolio, we usually have either a binder or a folder, maybe a legal pad.  We’re jealous.  Not to take anything away from you, but I happen to personally think the word sometimes can have kind of a snooty perception. I tried to create a more neutral sounding document name and came up with Creative Summary, our first multiplier.

Most portfolio’s contain a lot of information and can be presented and organized in a myriad of ways.  The creative summary is deliberately focused to give a taste of creativity while echoing and visually reinforcing the overarching theme established, in this case Design, Develop, Deliver.

“It’s the real thing.”  Make you want a cold soft drink?  It should as that phrase has been put in front of you tens of thousands of times.

Reinforcement of impressions in a consistent manner creates remembrance and ownership.  That’s my 2 cents worth of branding knowledge.  This has nothing to do with whether it’s a good brand or not, or if it appeals to you or not.  Just that you remember it.  I drink the other brand anyway.

So the creative summary is an visual expansion of the brand we’re selling today.  You didn’t hear it here first but a picture is worth a 1000 words.  Take some time to look over the creative summary and start to think how you can use this to your advantage.  I think it speaks for itself.

The Creative Resume, Part 1 Let’s Wrap it Up

Message and Medium

This week we established 3 goals for the creative resume and we worked part way through goal 1.

1. Develop the appropriate message and medium to communicate skills and abilities.

We established that the resume, loathed as it may be, is still the most widely accepted tool (or arrow in our quiver) to present ourselves with to prospective employment opportunities.

We accepted that a creative resume allows us to push the envelope (yes the photo is an envelope) with content and design but not to the point of being weird (I love that word because it breaks the “I before E, except after C” rule which goes on to say, “unless sounded as A as in neighbor or weigh, except either, neither, seizure, leisure and weird”).

We touched on the the mediums we would use to convey our personal branding message from traditional (resume) to new (twitter).

We discovered that along the journey of putting together the resume, things change and evolve.  That by working on a visual branding tool, the website (an arrow in the quiver), we stumbled upon design elements and graphics for the resume and the creative summary (more on that next week).

The message and the medium became one and we created a powerful yet simple message of “Design, Develop and Deliver".”

Early next week, more arrows.  We’ll look at the creative summary, pick apart the website, discuss LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.  If we have time, we’ll look at Goal 2 which is;

1. Present this collateral in an effective and unique way to get the recipient to sit up and take notice.

This is where we’ll figure out how to get all this great stuff looked at by the right people. 

Happy Friday!

PS

I had to include this list.  I think the concept is great.  It’s only a shopping list but replace “buy” in the middle with “Get Job".”  When you look at this carefully, he has lentils in 2 places and salads separate from produce but the list makes sense because you can look at things from several perspectives at once. I always try to make linear lists and then get caught up on where to put things, Jonny has this solved plus he seems to eat pretty healthy.

Jonny Goldstein has a cool blog with 100 days of lists, charts and other stuff. 

Check out his blog here.  http://envizualize.com/blog/

The Creative Resume, Part 1 continued again…

Message and Medium (creative strategy)

If you just dropped by, go back and read the first two posts

• The Creative Resume, Part 1
• The Creative Resume, Part 1 continued

Before we get into creating the message, we need to give some thought to what it is we need to create our message on.  You already know my stance about the resume, so listed below are my thoughts about what and where you need to be.

1. Resume (need I say more)
2. Creative Summary (this is a snapshot of your portfolio)
3. LinkedIn (gotta be here and I’ll devote a full article to this)
4. Web site and/or blog (another item I’ll discuss further)
5. Facebook
6. Twitter
7. Flickr, Picassa or something else (Photos say a 1000 words)

Yesterday I ended by talking about creative strategy which really is the though process that goes on behind creatively branding yourself.  We want to develop (going to use one of my favorite metaphors here) a quiver of arrows, each arrow being a tool you can use to target friends, associates, peers, HR, past and future supervisors, industry leaders and so forth.

From the list above, and it isn’t a complete list, Resume, Creative Summary and Web Site/blog all will contain important visual aspects of design.  The other items on the list might contain pictures and some design elements but we can set them aside for now.

Take a look at this revised resume and compare it to the original.  This is just to get the creative juices flowing, tomorrow we’ll focus on where the inspiration started & how it developed.

The Best Laid Plans

Two days ago, I had told you all that I was going to start talking about how to develop a resume and personal marketing plan if you were in a creative industry or job.

You might have noticed but that didn’t happen.  I got sidetracked.  Hubspot had a old webinar that I hadn’t had time to look at about building a business Facebook page and I made the mistake of printing it out and setting one up.

Setting it up was the easy part but I’m no Facebook expert and I’ve been trying to get this blog to show up over on my new page.  Needless to say, I’m still working on it a day later.

I read about using networkedblogs.com and started down that road but I need 10 people to “vouch” that I in-fact, write this blog (who else in their right mind would)?  Also, as you can see by the right hand side of this, signups have been pretty slow.  I have one friend of my new Facebook page and that’s me. 

I’ll keep working on it and let you know when I figure it out.  The creative stuff will start Monday, so hang in there and go out and create something in the meantime.

It's Friday, forget the Resume

Lazy time again, vacation starts tomorrow but I was in vacation mood by Tuesday.  Jason Alba over at JibberJobber has again blogged about one of my favorite subjects and I started to write a comment but it got so long I decided to write it here instead. 

Why Resumes are Relevant (and will be for a long time) from the JibberJobber blog.

Here are my thoughts about the resume….

No matter what, the resume still remains the single most significant and easy way to communicate your background, skills and accomplishments.  I equate the resume to the car.  It has 4 wheels and gets you from point A to point B, and it does it’s job well.  Has it evolved?  Certainly. 

I’m going to hit 50 next year yet I can remember reading Popular Science (nerd) at the age of 12 and there was an article about how flying cars were right around the corner.  Look up, see any?  Not yet, maybe someday, but even then, they’ll still have some type of ground mechanism (probably tires) and their main purpose will still be to get you from point A to point B.

Social Networking = Turn Signals (the model A didn’t come with them but you can buy them now here).

Video Resumes = Onboard GPS (nice feature but so is the skill of reading a map).  Don’t even get me started here because if you have a bad resume on paper what makes you think you’re going to have a great video resume?  All those mind altering drugs?  Better take them while you are recording.

When I work with my clients, I always tell them the following (just to confuse them).  “It’s not about the resume but it’s entirely about the resume”.  Huh?  If you want to know what I mean by that, take advantage of my FREE 10pt, no obligation, confidential resume review.

Being visible is critical to getting the position you deserve but just throwing yourself out there hoping to be discovered is fool’s play. Does anyone here think that an overworked HR person, screening hundreds and hundreds of resumes a week is going to take the time to look for you on the great World Wide Web?  I don’t care if you have a Social Footprint the size of Texas, if they are in Oklahoma looking North, they ain’t going to see you.  Not in a million years. But they just might Google you if a networking contact of yours shoves a well written, compelling resume under their nose. Now you have a chance providing you have something worth Googling.

Back to cars, why do you think car companies spend so much friggin money on advertising? Because, every car does the same thing, it gets you from point A to point B.  They have to differentiate themselves……Duh!  So do you.

How do they do that?  I’m not a marketing genius by any account but I watch commercials

• Features and Benefits (this car has heated leather seats to warm your rear).
• Accomplishments (this car goes from 0 to 60 in minus 2.45 seconds, you’re there before you start).
• Sexy (drive this and the opposite sex will throw themselves at you).
• Uniqueness (no other car gives you this level performance; all the rest don’t get to point B?).
• History (our cars are designed by pilots). Saab read the same Popular Mechanics I did.

How do car companies communicate this stuff?  They still run newspaper ads even though newspapers are allegedly dead.  They still print really glossy nice brochures even though nobody reads anymore.  They still use direct mail even though email killed it. 

Thy also use technology and social media.  Go the the website and virtually sit in the car and get a 360 degree view.  Facebook, twitter and everything else.  They didn’t abandon one thing for something else, they augmented and re-allocated. 

Same thing with your career and your search.  People talk about having multiple tools, I always say you have a lot of arrows in the quiver.  You’re first arrow is the resume.  It needs to hit its mark so the other arrows get a chance to make contact.  I don’t want to hear any comments on the “killer resume” because I don’t believe it exists anymore.  What you need is for the arrow to slow the person down.  A good leg shot will work, get ‘em limping.  A great resume makes the reader want to know more, to Google you, look at your LinkedIn profile , read your blog, visit your website. 

Sunny beaches, here I come.