I am a big fan of the site: Get Rich Slowly. The other day they ventured into career territory with a post from April Dykman (I like her bio): Five Career Moves with Exponential Returns. If you earn and spend money you should be reading GRS. It has helped put me and my wife (and family) on a MUCH better financial path.

Anyway….love the tips here.

1. Send out hand-written thank you notes on nice stationery. I still have the last one I received – from Jen Sertl.
2. Invite a mentor out to lunch. Yes! And I need to do this. I realized the other day that I have been lax in following my own preachings.
3. Keep your resume current. Seriously, if I have to tell you why you need to do this please leave now and don’t come back.
4. Keep a brag folder. I like this one because its not included in lists typical of this nature. April points out: “keep positive notes, e-mails about a job well-done, and kudos from your boss, and file them away in a folder.” Do it. Refer it. Often.
5. Read an industry-related book. Love it. Or a magazine or a journal. Keep current. You have to keep feeding your brain. Don’t get stuck.

April goes on to remind us that we are the CEOs of our selves. Indeed. Thank you.

I am in the woods. I don’t know how to get out just yet. But at least I know I am in the woods.

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I took my brother to Career Sherpa’s Employment Club meeting last night. She walked through her presentation on Using Social Media in Your Job Search. This made me feel guilty, because I was working on an update for this same subject. So – here it is. This goes into a lot more detail this time around. This isn’t just about searching for a job, this is about managing your career and your online identity. Enjoy! Drop a comment and/or share if you like it!

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I started writing “a” blog on this day in 2004. I cannot believe it has been six years. I’ve been through a lot in that time.  I was running a telemarketing operation at the time. Then I had back surgery. I tried to launch an outsourcing business with some partners. That failed. I went to a major telecom provider where I spent a year commuting to Florida helping to launch a 500 seat call center. I went to a learning solutions company to become a product manager. I got laid off after one year. I spent a year out of work. My daughter spent 15 days in the hospital with what we now know was H1N1. Now I am doing account management/project management for a software company.

Whew.

In ’04 I started it all off by referencing Tom Peter’s Brand You Survival Kit from FC. ALL of what TP says in this article is still relevant. Lots of us STILL aren’t hearing it. To re-cap:

• Turn every project into something the recruiter or person doing the hiring is going to get excited about.
• You must market yourself. Accomplishments on a resume are NOT ENOUGH.
• Don’t settle for being a jack of all trades. Master something. But be able to adapt at a breakneck pace.
• Loyalty to the “company” is dead. Loyalty to your peers is crucial. Build your contacts.
• New technology is useless for the first five years. But you need to know its out there and be ready to use it when it becomes useful.
• Constantly re-invent yourself.

The funny thing is that in my original post I said that you should build your contacts in your Palm Pilot. I also said “rolodex” but I think in 2010 I have a better shot at people snickering at the dinosaur that is Palm Pilot versus the Rolodex (the modern day equivalent of writing on stone tablets.)

But DAMN, Tom is right. Was right. WILL CONTINUE TO BE RIGHT.

You have to be marketing/re-inventing. You have to be a hammer as Harry Joiner says. Loyalty to your peers IS critical. Your network is your future.

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I have been chewing on a few ideas for awhile now. Earlier this week I attended a Meetup for readers of Seth Godin’s “Linchpin”. The event helped me solidify some ideas.

I liked the event. There were less than 20 people there. There was opportunities for “networking”. Welcome networking. Not 100 people in a room all looking for a job. That has gotten frustrating. Even when I was the one looking for a job. The event needed a better plan. Which is what has gotten me thinking…

Idea 1: Mastermind/Greenlight Group.
Keith Ferazzi updated the Mastermind group concpet in “Who’s Got Your Back”. Mastermind is like a personal Board of Directors. You assemble a small group and hold each other accountable across your personal key performance indicators. I continue to try to put a group like this together. Harder than it would seem.

Idea 2: UN-Networking Event.
I want to put 20 people in a room and see what happens. After attending the Linchpin Meetup, it became clear that I need a better plan. An agenda. A GOAL. I think this even would be supported by a website. My plan right now is:
a) pick 20 people
b) have them name a movie/book/fictional character they think represents them well. That name becomes their name tag.
c) the goal of the evening is to meet 5 people. You would be “attracted” by the movie character.
d) Meet the person. Figure out who they are, what they do, what they are working on, what they need help with.
e) ensure that EVERYONE gets met with.
f) compile results on the website and see if we can find some synergies.

Actually, I just formulated that plan as I typed. But I think it may actually work. I want to do it in the coffee shop of the building I work in. I think they would stay open after hours.

Idea3: Open Source TEC
I used to belong to an organization called TEC (now Vistage). I LOVED my time with the group. TEC took small company CEOs and business owners, got them together once a month for a full day. 6 times a year they had a speaker for half the day. They would also go around the room and put forth business issues/problems they were working on. Then the group would work the problems together.

I want to do something similar. But not have to pay $1000+ a month for it.

Take the Mastermind concept a step further. 6-12 high performers. Holding each other accountable. I do think there needs to be a facilitator. But they get expensive. As do speakers. I don’t know. I open to ideas.

I am open to your thoughts on ALL of the above.

Share in the comments.

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I just signed an offer letter for a small company looking to do big things here in Rochester. (In fact it is about 3 minutes from my house! Bye Bye Jefferson Road!) I had been out of work for a little over one year. That is a long time.

I had/have some immediate thoughts on what I/my family did to survive this past year. Yes…survive. I am deliberately using that word.

1. Get your finances under control. In a hurry. We went to Defcon 1 on day 2 of my unemployment. What does D1 look like? It looks like cutting all non-essential spending. Satellite bill cut down dramatically. (Come on…you need SOME tv.) Meal planning started. No dinners out. This let us keep Family Friday Pizza Night.
2. Don’t let it affect your kids. Our goal was to not disrupt our daughter’s life. We had to cut violin lessons. (I think she was happy about this actually). But I went the extra mile in ensuring she was living a balanced life.
3. Exercise. Every day. We joined the local YMCA and practically LIVED there. This was $90 a month WELL spent. Especially in the summer. We ROCKED that place. And continue to do so. We extracted more ROI out of that $90 than anyone.
4. Work your network. I say this with the assumption that you already have a network built. If you didn’t have a network in place – an ACTIVE network by the end of 2008 – you are beyond screwed. I was volunteering at a place in the Summer. It didn’t work out. I got a new job earlier this week. BOTH came through my EXISTING network. I battle with the networking gurus all the time on constantly expanding your network. I like to grow organically and farm, farm, farm my relationships.
5. Have an internet presence. This helps with number 4 but it also helps you CLOSE the deal. I could SEE the hits on my Linkedin page. I could see the traffic on this site jump after I talked to people. I can’t tell you the number of times people have referenced my site, my linkedin, or my twitter (which I don’t use all that much) during conversations. It works.
6. Volunteer – work with kids. It will humble you. I worked a lot with my daughter’s second grade class. I worked with a non-profit that worked with kids teaching them entrepreneurial skills. I coached a group of 8 and 9 year olds in a flag football league. It gives you perspective. It will keep your head on straight.
7. Open yourself up. Possibly the hardest part. Under stress, I tend to hunker down and get inside myself. Fight that urge. Let people love you. Let people help you. And most importantly ASK for their help. So easy yet near impossible. Trust me. I know.
8. Learn. Every day. I had a teacher in highschool. Freshman year. All boys school. Priest. Taught Latin. (Now you have some insight about me. Only man I have ever really feared. But he said something profound. He told us to make sure we read something every day. Even if it is the comics. When you read – you learn. I made sure I was using my gray matter. I took on projects that FORCED me to learn.
9. Stay positive. As the great prophet Bob Marley used to say – “Everythings gonna be all right.” You have to keep a positive mental attitude. Even when you are bruised and battered. You HAVE to get up. You have to put your helmet on. And you have to go attack that rock and keep pushing it up the hill. Because ONE DAY it will not roll back down on top of you.

I hope this helps someone. If you are in this place – talk to me. I get it. I can help. Give me some love on this post – add your own tips – crab at me about how wrong I am.

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Last night I gave an updated version of my “Managing Your Online Identity: Using Social Media in Your Job Search” presentation to Hannah Morgan’s Career Club in Canandaigua, NY. It is really aimed at anyone who needs to manage their career not just job seekers.

Give me some love if you found this interesting or yell at me if you think I missed the mark.

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Just read  a July 8th article from Knowledge@Wharton: Caught in the Middle: Rising Unemployment Takes Its Toll on Older Managers that will cause you to lose some sleep. Especially if you are believing the hype that “it is getting better out there.”

It isn’t.

And it won’t.

The opening paragraph sets the pace:

U.S. recessions since the oil crisis in the early 1970s each had their own special causes and victims, but they also had something in common: They were over relatively quickly. The current downturn, however, is deeper and already longer than any since World War II. This spells trouble for one especially vulnerable group — managers in their 40s and early 50s. They tend to be more expensive than their younger counterparts; they may lack some of the high-tech savvy needed to succeed in a more efficient workplace; and they face a downsized job market that will stay that way much longer than usual.

Peter Capelli, HR Guru, continues the bleak picture for older, middle managers. In the past, there was always something happening to offset and absorb these people. The last time around, there were a zillion startups. This time – not so much.

More bad news:

A survey in June by Watson Wyatt Worldwide reports that 52% of companies will employ fewer people than they did before the recession began. One third of the 179 U.S.-based companies polled indicated they still anticipate further layoffs…

And here is the killing blow and the stat that should make EVERYONE sit up and take notice according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics:

• 14.7 million people were unemployed (9.5%) as of June 2009 compared 8.7 million (5.6%) one year ago.

• The number of long-term unemployed — people without work for 27 weeks or more — increased from 1,621,000 in June 2008 to 4,381,000 in June 2009.

• Meanwhile, approximately 6.5 million jobs have been lost since the recession started 19 months ago.

• And the “underemployment” rate — which includes those too discouraged to look for work as well as those working part-time because they can’t find a fulltime job — increased to a staggering 16.5% in June compared to 10.1% a year earlier.

I think we all need to pause and digest these numbers. Especially the long term unemployed number and the length of this DEPRESSION. (There, I said it.) Unemployment Insurance is paying through 12 months (correct me if I am wrong). If the recession is 19 months old, there are a WHOLE BUNCH of people not showing up in these numbers.

Millions.

Older people, myself included, you’re old and your skills are out-dated. Someone younger, LESS EXPENSIVE, and with better, more current skills is going to get the job you want.

The article talks about people that have been out of work more than 9 months that are just now finding work. The article cautions that you should expect a 15% – 30% salary cut. And that 60% of the jobs will NOT be posted anywhere. You MUST NETWORK!

Be prepared for a total shift in how you view “work”.

Stewart Friedman, a Wharton management professor, “sees project-based employment as part of a larger structural change in the way people look for, and find, work. ‘It’s about switching from an organization-based economy to a network-based one,’ which he describes as ‘the movement to employment that can be done on a contract basis where you are part of a labor pool that is organized, not by firm, but by networks.’

Network, network, network. Get in the game.

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Interesting read from the Career Strategies section of the WSJ Online  in the last week or so. Beyond Job Boards: Targeting the Source provides me with some more cannon fodder for my Using Social Media in Your Job Search presentation I am trying to give.

I was arguing with CareerSherpa’s Hannah Morgan the other day (we do that…a lot over job boards and their increasing irrelevance due to an increase in the use of social networking by companies.

Along comes this WSJ piece that adds to it by saying are focusing inward and tightening up their OWN pages. Why do they need job boards when they can do a BETTER job on their own of finding TARGETED, SPECIFIC people.

Companies say they are scaling back advertising on online job boards, which saves them money. By focusing more on their own career pages, companies also reduce the number of applications they need to sift through. And, they say, people applying through a prospective employer’s own Web site are on average better-qualified than applicants coming through job boards.

The article offers a scary but SOBERING stat: “In May, 22.9 million unique visitors searched for work on job boards…”

MILLION.

UNIQUE.

37% increase from last year.

How are you getting through all of that NOISE?

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John Porcaro directed my attention to a Time magazine posting about the future of work.

“The Last Days of Cubicle Life” paints a compelling picture of our work future. Like John, I like this quote:

Most of the best jobs will be for people who manage customers, who organize fans, who do digital community management.

The article asks a very critical question. It asks if you are ESSENTIAL. Because, friends, if you are NOT, then you should start getting into a position where you are considered MISSION CRITICAL.

And I just realized that Seth Godin wrote this article. DUH. He is all about TRIBES. Makes sense.

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