Website Review: Jobvent.com

Call me crazy, but when I first came across this site and started browsing through it, I swear I heard a deep announcer’s voice in the background saying: “In the world of cyberspace, noone can hide…”

Jobvent.com is one of the growing number of websites (another popular one is Glassdoor.com) designed to “level the playing field” and give job candidates the chance to read about companies, and their cultures, before deciding to work for them.  It allows people to anonymously post comments regarding their experience working for any given company, in addition to rating their current or past employers in various areas such as pay, respect, work/life balance, career growth potential, and co-worker competence.  Are these ratings scientifically valid?  Obviously not.  Are they likely to be more negative than positive?  No question about it, given that most people visit these types of sites to complain, not to throw compliments around and pat companies on the back.  And yet, Jobvent’s data shouldn’t be taken lightly, since they appear to do a good job at removing any company reviews that appear blindly hateful or where the person submitting the review does not justify their ratings in any way.

At present, Jobvent appears to have at least several hundred reviews related to employers in the Puget Sound area, and one of the things I like about this site, compared to others, is that you can easily sort the reviews by the city and state where each company is located.  Additionally, it’s nice that all of the content of the site is easy to access and free of charge.  You don’t have to submit any reviews yourself in order to read what others have to say, unlike Glassdoor.com, where you can only access a limited amount of content as a casual visitor. This makes it easy to use the tool as a routine part of your pre-interview or pre-negotiation research, where it can be extremely valuable in avoiding hidden land mines and making sure that you ask all the right due diligence questions before accepting an offer.

As for the overall role of these types of sites in today’s marketplace?  Barring some cataclysmic change, they’re here to stay, and job seekers should embrace them as one more way to investigate an employer before deciding to sign on the bottom line.  Used properly, and taken with a grain of salt, they can help people avoid organizations that might not be doing business on the up-and-up or where a particular corporate culture might not be an appropriate fit.  It also seems only fair that candidates should have access to these kinds of tools, too, given how much information companies are able to demand about the background of a potential employee before hiring them.

5 Tips for Achieving “Maximum Referability”

It doesn’t really matter who you are, where you live, or what you do for a living — the odds are, a large portion of your ongoing success is going to boil down to your ability to generate a consistent stream of quality referrals from your network.

As a job seeker, personal referrals are vital to helping you get a foot in the door before positions get advertised, as well as in helping you secure some “special consideration” even after an opportunity has been announced to the public at large.  And if you’re a business owner or consultant, instead, referrals will almost certainly be the lifeblood of your business development efforts, and your success will be heavily dependent on your ability to convert each satisfied client into a series of additional leads and prospects.

In light of this reality, I thought I’d take a moment to pass along five tips that might be helpful to those of you out there who are somewhat new to the networking game.  These tips derive from the hundreds of successful (and unsuccessful) networking interactions I witness among my client base each month — as well as through my own business development efforts — and I feel strongly that adopting these principles will help almost anybody increase the number of quality referrals they generate on a regular basis.

1)  Entitlement is out

First of all, more than anything else, I’d emphasize that nobody “owes” anybody referrals — so don’t ever pressure your contacts for names or act like you’re entitled to dive-bomb their Rolodex!  Even when people pay for some of the high-end programs I offer, which cost a thousand dollars or more, I make it absolutely clear up front that people are paying for advice, not introductions.  Relationships, whether mine or yours, are far too precious to be exploited or taken lightly.  They require huge infusions of time, energy, and trust to build, yet can be destroyed overnight through a single bad referral or an introduction that goes awry.  So if you’re running around out there projecting even an ounce of entitlement in this respect, ditch it, and focus instead on “earning” quality introductions from those around you.

2)  Provide a compelling reason for the introduction

Another critical networking factor a lot of people overlook is that in many cases, even between two people who know each other well, the success of a referral isn’t automatic.  In many cases, your contact may need to “sell” the connection to a certain extent and explain why they’re passing your name along; otherwise, the introduction will seem random and the person on the receiving end will be less motivated to respond.  So if you were to come to me and ask for a referral, for example, I’d need to have a crystal-clear answer to the question “Why you, and why them?” in order to feel 100% comfortable moving forward.  What relevant reason can I pass along to my contact to get them excited to meet with you? What’s the relevance between your background and their wants, needs, or expertise?

There’s a world of difference, in other words, between somebody asking “Can you introduce me to your contact at The Gates Foundation?” and “Can you introduce me to your contact at the Gates Foundation, because I see that they’re working on an initiative there that is highly similar to one that I tackled for my last company…”

By helping your contacts in this capacity, and painting a clear picture about your reasons for requesting a particular referral, to a particular individual, you’ll get far better results.  All involve will benefit and it will make it much easier for folks to pass your name along and tee things up properly for success.  Frankly, too, this is also the reason I use the setting on LinkedIn that allows one to “hide” their contacts from casual browsing.  While people are still able to find anybody I may know in the system, and request an introduction, they need to do this using a specific “People Search” on the site (so they know what they’re looking for) instead of just flipping through a list of my contacts, at random, seeking targets of opportunity.

3)  Get coached on the right approach

When somebody offers to make an introduction, you should always ask them what method of contact would be most convenient and appropriate for the situation.  Would they be willing to call or e-mail the person on your behalf?  Would they prefer that you initiate things, instead?  Would going through a site like LinkedIn make sense, under the circumstances?  Different people have different preferences when it comes to communicating, so ask your contact to “coach” you on what method of approach will work best.  They are in a much better position than you are to know whether the referral target is somebody who lives and dies by e-mail — is a social networking site junkie — or is somebody who prefers the immediacy of a phone call.

As for myself, I almost always recommend the usage of LinkedIn when I make referrals, assuming that the two people in question are both linked to me on the system.  Not only does this put the ball in the court of the person requesting the favor to initiate things, but I also believe this approach warms the introduction up, since both parties can read each others’ profiles and get to know each other a little bit before the connection occurs.  Additionally, when an introduction request comes through LinkedIn, you know for absolute certain that the referring party is genuinely sponsoring the intro (since they have to approve it first) and you can also read whatever notes they attach to the message, explaining the reasons behind the referral.

4)  Forgive those who forget

Even the best of us make promises, at times, and then forget to carry them out.  Or we offer to facilitate an introduction, then procrastinate around it for weeks, until we get a nudge that tells us we need to make the referral a priority again.  So you should expect, in advance, that this is going to happen to you a few times during the course of your job search or business development efforts.

The key in these situations is to not get angry or take things personally, but to make a point to gently remind people, if necessary, that you’re still very interested in being granted the favor that they had initially offered.  Give them a few days to come through for you, and if no action seems to take place, touch base with them and tell them again how thankful you’d be if they could make the connection that you had talked about with them earlier.  Don’t embarrass them, don’t give them a guilt trip, and don’t imply that they’ve let you down in any way.  If anything, go the extra mile to make it as easy as possible for them to comply with your request.  Tell them that you’d be happy to call the person yourself, if they’re too busy, or to e-mail along some further thoughts or reasons as to why you think the connection would be highly productive.

5) Don’t get greedy; start with one solid referral and ace it!

Have you ever heard the old saying “pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered?”  When it comes to networking, you definitely don’t want to be perceived as a hog.  While people can certainly feel free to offer you multiple contacts of their own accord, it’s somewhat impolite to ask for more than one referral at a time, yourself — especially when you’re networking with people you’ve only known for a limited period of time.

So my advice when seeking referrals is to start by trying to earn one solid introduction from each of the people you know, and when that happens, make sure to pull out all the stops to “ace” the referral and convince them you’re a worthy person with whom to share additional names.  In terms of specific behaviors, this means that you should respect (i.e. not waste) the referral person’s time, be clear about your objectives, express gratitude for their help, and follow up with all parties, appropriately, to communicate the status of the referral discussion — as well as your ongoing appreciation.

At the end of the day, great networkers do whatever it takes to make the people they know look like superstars for passing their names along, and this creates both an unbeatable positive feedback loop and an incredibly solid platform for success, whether you’re a professional in transition or an aspiring entrepreneur!

City University: Laid-Off Worker Scholarships

I just heard from my good friends over at City University of Seattle that they are in the process of launching a special new Laid-Off Worker Scholarship program that will provide over $2.7 million in tuition grants to help unemployed professionals participate in some of the school’s outstanding graduate/undergraduate degree programs.

I salute the university for this effort — and wanted to send out this quick post announcing the news, since I figured this program might be an excellent opportunity for those folks out there who are thinking of acquiring some further schooling, but may not have the financial resources available at the moment to pay “full freight” for a degree, themselves.  And as most of you know, additional education can be a terrific catalyst both for making a significant career change, as well as increasing your overall marketability for available positions!

If you’re interested in learning more about this innovative program, additional details can be found here…

Beware the “Passive Networking” Trap!

Back in the nineties, when I started a new coaching or outplacement engagement with a client, I would often have to educate them on the important role that networking plays in job search success — and then explain what the word “networking” actually meant, since at the time, this was a fairly new buzzword that was entering the marketplace!

Fast-forward a decade or so, however, and you’ll find the term “networking” firmly embedded in the lexicon of almost every professional, since it’s hard to imagine that any human being could possibly have avoided the onslaught of books, articles, websites, and news stories devoted to the topic in recent years.  Most professionals have also now finally come to appreciate and accept the fact, at long last, that the vast majority of all hiring (as well as most business transactions) takes place under the radar screen, driven by an invisible web of trusted referral relationships.

There’s trouble in paradise, however.  Now that the concept of networking has gained a status of “cozy familiarity” among so many of us, I’m starting to see a trend that concerns me.  What I’ve observed in recent months, and had brought into sharp focus by a few recent examples among my own client base, is that many people think they’re networking appropriately, and actively, but actually aren’t.  At least not in the manner most likely to produce results.  What I’ve observed is that many people now seem to treat the word networking as synonymous with “going to lots of events” and/or “having coffee with lots of people.”  I would argue, however, that this is a very imperfect and ineffective way to view the concept, since it completely disregards the volitional aspect involved in true quality networking.  In other words, you can’t simply hang around a bunch of people, passively, and pat yourself on the back for a “networking job” well done.  If you’re not getting out of your comfort zone and routinely requesting referrals, favors, and specific advice from people, on a daily basis, you’re likely cheating the process — and as a consequence, cheating yourself.

For example, when I watch true networking-minded professionals in action, these people always have a crystal-clear agenda in mind and are working some angle that they believe will help them get closer to their goals.  They call you not just to say hello and shoot the breeze, but to ask whether you can point them to any specific companies in town who are working on new robotics technology…or selling outdoor industry products…or offering web marketing solutions…or developing alternative energy technologies.  Or they send you a copy of their cover letter and say “would you tear this apart and let me know how you’d respond to it, if you received a note like this?”  Or they ask you how much you know about writing a business plan, and if you don’t know much, who you’d recommend that does have this particular expertise.  Or best of all, following the advice I’ve been spewing for years, they’ll whip out a list of specific local companies and say “Hey, I need your help.  I’ve done a ton of research lately to isolate the 25 companies in town I could add the most value to, given my background and expertise, and was hoping you could look through this list to see what you might know about these firms — or better yet, who you might know that could help me get a foot in the door.”

On the other hand, I also know hundreds of people who are simply milling around out there in the community, having pleasant interactions with people, but never actually taking the initiative to ask for what they want and need — or to figure out what these specific wants and needs should be, in the first place!  These are the people with whom you’ll have a nice chat over coffee, and with whom you’ll trade quips about the weather or the latest college basketball scores, but where you’ll leave the meeting wondering “what is that person actually trying to do?” or “what did that person actually want from me?”  These are also the people who are currently enrolled in as many as a half-dozen networking groups or clubs around town (including, admittedly, ones I host) where they’ll surround themselves with other supportive and well-intentioned job hunters, but fail to realize that there’s only so much tangible benefit to be gained within the comfortable womb of these types of environments.  Should such groups be part of one’s networking strategy?  Absolutely.  But I’m sure we’d all admit that there’s likely much more to be gained by participating in organizations where people come together to celebrate a shared passion — or where the other attendees are actually working and positioned more favorably to make introductions to actual decision-makers.

So if you’ve been out of work for a while, it’s time to have a heart-to-heart chat with yourself around this issue.  Are you truly engaged in an active regimen of goal-oriented “power” networking or are you simply going through the motions, attending a bunch of softball events and hoping that somehow, miraculously, another unemployed professional will drop a red-hot lead in your lap?  I’m afraid to say that I know many people who are drifting into the latter camp, as of late, and I’m quite concerned about how this will impact both the success and speed of their overall employment search…

Interviews: Are You Proving Your Case?

While writing one’s resume can be a tricky business, and cover letters continue to bamboozle even the best of us, I doubt anybody out there looking for work at the moment would disagree with me when I maintain that the hardest part of the job hunting process, at least in the current climate, relates to landing interviews.

Interviews are so challenging to pin down at the moment, in fact, I wanted to re-emphasize the importance of conducting uncommonly thorough preparation in order to maximize your odds of a successful outcome.  Sure, there will be cases when the deck is stacked against you and they’re going to end up hiring the CEO’s mentally-deficient nephew, no matter what you say or do, but in most cases you owe it to yourself to put in at least several hours of preparation — if not several days — in order to tip the scales in your favor.  Think of it as a $100,000 sales presentation.  Or as a court case where the burden of proof is going to rest on you to prove you’re the best available candidate for the job.  How can you go the extra mile to show the employer you want the job more than the next person?  And will work harder at it?  And have the skills, talents, and strengths to excel in each of the responsibilities the job will entail?

How can you use preparation as a strategic weapon to take the risk out of hiring you, from the employer’s standpoint?

One of the reasons that interview prep is even more crucial right now, compared to other times, is that few candidates at the moment can assume that their resume alone (and the data it communicates) is going to set them apart convincingly from the other “options” the employer has available to them.  With hundreds of resumes getting sent in to most published leads, it’s a safe bet that there will be somebody out there who can beat you out on paper credentials alone or who can offer direct experience in the employer’s industry, if you cannot.  So you simply can’t afford to rest on your laurels or assume that the interview prep you’ve done in the past (or lack thereof) will get the job done again, this time around.

If you’ve got an interview coming up, therefore, it’s time to round up all of those great qualities you claim to possess — i.e. creativity, praoctivity, results-orientation, etc. — and put them to work for you in the preparation process.  For starters, you should scour the web until you feel you have a totally clear picture of the company’s business model, what they offer, who they sell to, what sets them apart from their competition, and how they make money.  It doesn’t matter whether you’re targeting a receptionist position or a senior VP role; nothing is more attractive than a candidate who understands the nature of business and is already searching for ways to increase a company’s profitability.

Beyond this basic digging, you should then consider arriving at the hiring conversation with a sample work outline, some relevant work samples, a list of ideas related to the company’s needs, or some form of tangible evidence that demonstrates your competency for the job.  Few people take their prep efforts to this level, but it can make all the difference in the world, since it shifts the interview beyond just idle chatter and sends the signal “I’m willing to work hard for you even before you decide to offer me a paycheck.”

I’m even a big fan of candidates putting together a short PowerPoint presentation (perhaps 4-5 slides) demonstrating their qualifications for a job — and then asking the hiring manager for permission to walk through these slides either at the start of the interview or at the very end.  Few employers will be able to resist this assertive request, and assuming that what you put together is quality work, it will leave a memorably positive impression!  If you really want to be slick, in fact, try uploading your PowerPoint file to a free Microsoft Office Live or Google Documents account where the employer can then log into it after the interview to review it again — and share it with others.

The bottom-line?  As stated earlier, landing an interview is a big deal right now.  So don’t let these precious opportunities go to waste with a laissez-faire attitude or anything less than full-court-press preparation!

Those Who Can, Teach!

Looking for a job with more meaning?  Want to have a hand in shaping the next generation?  If so, perhaps the timing is right to take your years of hands-on industry experience and translate them into the teaching profession!

During a recent coffee catch-up meeting with a good friend of mine, Horst Momber, the Director of Career and Technical Education for the Bellevue School District, I was informed that there are some great new programs in Washington State that can help people from private industry break into the teaching field with little or no previous teaching certification.  Specifically, the State is making a targeted push to attract qualified instructors in various vocational disciplines and subjects, now referred to under the name CTE (Career & Technical Education) programs.  For more information about this exciting category of high school instruction, you can refer to the State’s CTE web page here.

Should you read through this information, and decide to take a run at this option, the next step would be to review the employment websites of your local school districts and apply directly to any opportunities that seem like they’d be a fit with your skills.  The CTE positions in question are available on a statewide basis, but for your convenience, here are some links to the job pages of the largest Districts in the Seattle/Bellevue area: Bellevue, Seattle, Issaquah, Lake Washington (Redmond), Everett, and Northshore (Bothell).

When reviewing the position listings on these sites, make sure to watch for the CTE acronym, since this is the key identifier that signifies the specific opportunities for which someone coming directly out of private industry might apply.  As for what to expect in terms of compensation, the starting salary for Bellevue School District openings is $42,300, with other districts likely being somewhat similar, and at the moment there are openings out there in areas that range from Business, Marketing, and Accounting to positions in Computer Programming, Web Design, Engineering, Construction, and Multi-Media Development.

Upon getting accepted into the CTE program, non-certified teachers would first start out with a probationary certificate, issued by the hiring school district and certifying that they have the requisite expertise to instruct students in the subject matter at hand.  From there, if I understand the process correctly, program members can slowly earn their full teaching certificate over time by passing a series of ongoing tests and classroom evaluations.

Personally, I’m very excited by the fact that the school districts are making a concentrated effort to recruit new instructors directly from the business world to help round out the education (especially the vocational component) available to students today.  I think there’s much to be gained through this approach, especially in terms of helping students gain direct exposure to a variety of real-world job and career options that they can aspire to later in life.  And as far as the current availability of the CTE positions, I’m told that schools typically start posting their upcoming listings in April and continue running them through the beginning of the next school year.  Apparently, however, the timeline for this year may be slightly different because school districts are still getting their budgets in order — and don’t know what kind of staffing cuts, if any, might need to be made later in the year.  So you may not see a ton of CTE leads listed, quite yet, but keep checking on a regular basis and more are sure to appear!

Questions about the process?  Want to learn more?  Please feel free to contact Horst via e-mail here since he was kind enough to volunteer to assist people in exploring this potential direction, if interested…

Career Q&A: Executive MBA Programs?

“Matt: I am pleased to report that I’ve been accepted into the Wharton School’s Executive MBA Program.  Should I decide to enroll, however, I’ll be on the hook for $160,000!  Do you think this would be a wise investment, especially in this economy?”

First of all, good for you!!!  Regardless of whether you move forward or not, you should give yourself a hearty pat on the back for getting accepted into one of the most competitive business schools in the country.  Wharton’s EMBA program was recently ranked #2 in the country by the Wall Street Journal, beating out every other program aside from the one offered by Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.

Acceptance aside, however, the question of whether this program would be a good investment for you is a tricky one.  For starters, it’s extremely difficult to value the direct financial benefits one stands to receive from obtaining an advanced degree, especially an MBA, which is a much more “generalized” credential than other Masters-level qualifications one could pursue such as a Masters in Teaching or a Masters in Public Health.  And for those of us to whom $160K would be a princely sum (that would be most of us, I’d assume!) I think it’s smart to do some serious pre-acceptance analysis, rather than get swept into the program on a current of emotions.  If nothing else, it will help you rationalize your decision, after the fact, each time you’re writing that hefty tuition check…

So how would I go about determining the ROI of this educational investment?  Typically, whenever I’m faced with these kinds of questions, I follow a two-pronged strategy.  I first conduct a sweep of “secondary research” and see what useful resources I can find on the Internet at large.  In this case, a quick Google search on “the value of an MBA” turned up a number of useful links.  For example, I discovered that Forbes magazine has a handy “Business School ROI Calculator” available here that purports to be able to directly calculate the break-even point of an MBA investment.  To turn up statistics for Wharton, however, you’ll need to search using the word “Pennsylvania” and you should note also that these figures are for standard MBA degrees, not Executive ones.  There is a link on the left side offering some more information about EMBA programs, though.

Additional web-based resources that looked relevant to your query include a bullish article on the value of an MBA degrees here, a cautionary article on the same topic here, and a theoretically “neutral” article from Monster.com here that cites some specific statistics about what MBA grads earn compare to non-MBA grads.  So long story short, anybody about to make a $160,000 investment should probably surf through all of these divergent opinions, first, to get a detailed sense of the pro-and-con arguments that exist out there.  You might also e-mail a top salary survey site like Payscale.com, too, asking them whether they have any way of isolating the value of an Executive MBA from the millions of bytes of real-time salary data they track.

After this first wave of web-based research is completed, I’d then shift gears and engage in some primary research — which involves direct conversations with people who have obtained these degrees in the past.  The Wharton Alumni Club of Seattle would be a great place to start, and additionally, I’d recommend you jump on LinkedIn.com’s “People” page and run a search for Wharton in the School field, while simultaneously including the phrase “Executive MBA”  OR EMBA in the Keywords field.  When I tried this search in my own network, 281 distinct names came up — more than enough to get a tremendous cross-section advice on the value of this particular degree!  You could also post a relevant question to LinkedIn’s “Answers” page and see what kinds of responses you get.  I’m sure there would be plenty of people willing to chime in on the subject…

Ultimately, of course, it’s unrealistic to expect that there will be one “right” answer or that everybody will consistently praise or pan the value of the degree you’re considering.  Hopefully, however, you’ll see a strong leaning one way or another — or will find some individuals in a very similar situation to your own (in terms of job title, industry, etc.) and whose input might therefore be more valid than that of other people, facing different scenarios.

As for my own opinion, for what it’s worth, I’ll admit that I haven’t seen much of a direct correlation between the pay a candidate receives and whether they have an MBA or not.  I don’t think one magically starts making $20-30K more per year, in other words, by simply adding these four letters to their resume.  I do believe, however, that there is tremendous value in the network one is able to build through a first-rate MBA or EMBA program — especially through a top school like Wharton — and that it’s also hard to argue with the benefits of being able to discuss cutting-edge concepts with some of the brightest minds in the business world.  Money aside, this is a major life accomplishment that nobody would ever be able to take away from you!

Elevator Pitch: Is Yours Made to Stick?

When companies hire new sales professionals, they typically put them through a rigorous course of training that includes specific instruction on how best to “pitch” the company’s products to customers.  They then coach the new hire through many rounds of practice, often videotaped, until the individual can deliver the desired sales pitch smoothly, successfully, and effortlessly when circumstances require it.

Unfortunately, most job hunters don’t have sales backgrounds, so they fail to recognize the importance of going through this same intensive pitch-shaping process, themselves.  The parallels are unmistakable, however.  Just as a company needs to make the world aware of what they offer, and get their customer base buzzing about their products, job hunters need to get as many people as possible (aka “their network”) engaged in their employment quest — and must prime the people around them to be a source of useful referrals in the weeks and months to come.

This is where a great “elevator pitch” comes in.  Job seekers of all stripes should carve out the time necessary to whip up a list of the 5-7 strategic talking points that will best communicate their career goals to their network and make them highly memorable (in a good way) so that the message has staying power.  Once these key talking points are assembled, the individual in question should then practice delivering the pitch at least 10-15 times until it really starts to flow and they can  weave the talking points together, appropriately and effortlessly, in almost any networking context.

How do you ensure that your pitch is a good one, however?  How do you make it truly “sticky” when so many job hunters are out there reciting dull, dreary messages that are just as likely to be hurting their cause, as much as helping it?  It certainly takes some work to accomplish, but as a starting point, I’d encourage everybody to borrow a few proven storytelling techniques in crafting this all-important marketing message:

• Inject Passion (“I’d love to help a company embrace the power of blogging” or “I’d kill for the chance to help an organization develop its first-ever Project Management Office” or “If you ever come across a company looking to recruit more female engineers, let me know, since I could absolutely blow the doors off a challenge like that.”)

• Use Imagery & Metaphors (“My last boss always called me the ‘rock’ because of my ability to stay calm, composed, and focused under pressure” or “I pride myself on ‘defibrillating’ sales departments that might be getting a bit stagnant” or “As the CEO, I specialize in getting every individual in the organization, from the board room on down to the shop floor, rowing the oars in the same direction.”

• Try Some Light Humor (“I’m a recovering CPA who now focuses on recruiting accountants” or “I’m a teacher, and if you think herding cats is hard, you should try herding junior high kids” or “I get doors slammed in my face all day; did I mention I’m in sales?”)

Additionally, while perhaps not a bonafide storytelling technique, it’s imperative that your elevator pitch…

• Shows Excitement About the Future (“I’m seeking to make the jump from Controller to CFO, since I think I’ve got all the skills needed now to lead the finance function for a growing $10-20 million organization” or “I’ve been a sustainability nut for many years and am now concentrating on helping companies become more eco-friendly as their Director of Corporate Responsibility” or “I’m brushing up on my web design skills, since my goal is to marry these skills with my psychology background and break into the user interface design field”)

Incorporating these types of techniques into your pitch is critical, because without them, it’s going to be tough to “wake up peoples’ brains” and get them to pay as much attention to your elevator pitch as you ideally would hope.  Additionally, since 60 seconds (the recommended length of a pitch) goes by extremely quickly, you will need to rely on language forms like humor, passion, and imagery to convey a lasting and powerful impression in a limited amount of words.

Once you put in the hard work necessary to get your pitch in order, however, and test it out on a few people, you’ll be way ahead of the game — and will instantly stand out from the thousands of transitioning professionals out there whose networking efforts are starting with a whimper, not a bang!

To Twitter or Not To Twitter?

Now HERE’S a post that might stir up some lively debate…

When it comes to social networking websites and their role in job hunting, I’ll confess, I’ve pretty much “only got eyes” for LinkedIn at this point — but have been seeing increased chatter out there about the importance of using other networking sites to generate connections, especially Twitter.  For those who may not know much about Twitter, it basically involves exchanging brief text messages throughout the day with a number of fellow users on the system who you decide to “follow” on a regular basis.  For those unfamiliar with the tool, click here and you can watch a short little video that explains how the site works and some of its unique capabilities.

But back to the key question I want to ask: “Does it make sense for the average job hunter to invest the time to join, learn, and start using Twitter, in addition to all of the other critical job hunting activities and resources people need to be concentrating on?”

Now before you rush to respond, let me issue a big disclaimer.  Clearly, anybody whose professional career is directly related to the new media field (e.g. marketing executives, web programmers, recruiters, etc.) will need to pay careful attention to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and the other similar technologies out there.  These sites have become a major part of the Internet landscape and will only be growing in importance in the coming years as a way for companies to communicate with their customers, recruit new employees, and so forth.  My specific question, however, is whether Twitter has now reached the point that it should be viewed as a mainstream job hunting tool, able to generate good networking and job hunting results for a broad range of professionals in transition.  Should a Manufacturing CFO sign up for Twitter, in other words?  How about a copier salesperson?  Or a property manager?  Or an admin assistant?  Is this a technology that’s still on the bleeding edge or something that has become truly meaningful to the masses?

Based on my own outside observations, I don’t think we’re quite there yet.  While the site is definitely attracting a huge following (over 1 million users, reportedly) and is the current “darling” of the social networking scene, I’m still not hearing any stories of consistent, concrete breakthroughs that the site’s users are enjoying in their job search efforts.  This is in stark contrast to LinkedIn.com, where I could cite hundreds of examples of people using the tool to lasso a job, generate useful referrals, identify appropriate target companies, and the like.  And while Twitter strikes me as a technology people are flocking to because it’s fun, addictive, and inarguably “cool” in many respects, I’m still not convinced of its raw productivity in a job hunting context.  Have you had a different experience?  If so, please let me know, since I’m completely open to being convinced to the contrary!

As for the basic premise of Twitter and the notion that anybody in their right mind would be interested in keeping track of what other people are doing at all hours of the day, I’ll confess that this concept first struck me as utterly, absolutely ridiculous.  Slowly but surely, however, I’m starting to be won over.  For example, I’ve caught myself many times scanning through the “status reports” section on the Home page of LinkedIn, where people in your network are able to publish short notes related to what they’re working on.  In a sense, these notes are something of a “Twitter lite” and I’ve certainly been intrigued to see what kinds of jobs people are doing, what books they’re reading, what events they’re attending, and the the like.  So who knows?  If I’m seeing value in this basic simulation of the Twitter experience, perhaps I’d be blown away by the real thing, if I gave it a fighting chance.

Twitter veterans out there, your thoughts?

Compassion: Let’s Raise the Bar!

We’re all busy.  We’re all stressed.  We’re all worried about the economy, our jobs, and our futures.  And we all feel badly that we there isn’t more we can do, directly, to help the many anxious job seekers out there get plugged back into a suitable opportunity.  And while those of us in the career coaching profession can arguably give people a better fighting chance of landing certain leads they come across, we have no special mojo (at least I don’t!) that can compel employers to add more jobs to their payroll, as opposed to hunkering down with a “wait and see” mentality.

While there may not be much direct help of the here’s-a-perfect-job-lead-for-you variety that the average person can offer to their unemployed colleagues at the moment, however, this doesn’t mean we’re helpless to lend a hand.  If nothing else, every single one of us can make a commitment to offer those professionals in transition an extra-hearty helping of respect, compassion, and responsiveness.  There are a lot of scared people out there right now, after all, trying hard to keep their chins up, and nothing kicks their legs out from under them more then when they count on a friend to do them a favor and that friend doesn’t come through for them.  Or when a hiring manager promises to return a phone call and then doesn’t.  Or when a recruiter makes a bunch of hopeful promises and then disappears.  Or when an employer runs a job advertisement that isn’t “real” or that has already been promised to somebody within their inner circle.

Sadly, however, I’m hearing more and more reports of this kind of behavior these days, not less.  There seems to be a surge of “flakiness” going around where people are dropping the ball on promises made, referrals offered, or other basic tenets of common courtesy.  I’m even seeing the levels of responsiveness on LinkedIn drop dramatically as the standard 70-80% response rate on introduction requests (2nd Degree ones, at least) seems to have sunk down to a significantly lower percentage in recent months.

So while I certainly don’t mean to sit here on my high horse and indict anyone personally, I’d merely like to send out a general reminder to any of us who may be guilty of letting our manners and compassion slide a little bit during these turbulent times.  Along these lines, here are a few relevant thoughts that might help us all pay some extra attention to this issue in the foreseeable future:

•  It doesn’t take long to be polite: While sure, it may take a few extra minutes to return some phone calls or to respond via e-mail to any folks in transition who might be contacting you, it’s still the right thing to do — and enormously valuable to the self-confidence and psyche of those people between jobs.  Nothing is worse than summoning up the courage to ask for help and then getting met with abject silence.  Also, aside from a few exceptions, remember that most of the people trying to network with you are likely mature, realistic adults.  They’ll understand that there may not be a lot of concrete things you can do right at the moment to help them, but will greatly appreciate your time and responsiveness, nonetheless.

•  Remember the Golden Rule: Have you ever been frustrated when somebody you know hasn’t responded to you in a timely manner or has turned a cold shoulder in your direction?  If so, you know what it feels like, and should have no problem empathizing with the many job hunters right now who are equally frustrated and becoming highly sensitive to the “rejection” issue.  So make an extra effort to treat those around you with respect at all times.  That way, even if this recession doesn’t peter out any time soon, we’ll all at least be able to look ourselves in the mirror and know we carried ourselves with dignity during these difficult times!

•  What comes around, goes around: Okay, this last one might depend on your worldview a bit, but for eons people have been observing that people tend to “reap what they sow” in terms of their behavior to others.  So if you’re a believer in karma, make sure you don’t tick off the powers that be by acting in a less than professional manner toward the people around you who might be in need.  And if you’re on the more secular side of the house, remember that the people you blow off now might end up being your coworkers…or your boss…or your customer one day.  And will have long memories in terms of who gave them a helping hand during their job search — and who gave them the persona non grata treatment!

Sorry for sounding so preachy, but again, it’s disappointing for me to be hearing so many stories lately of people dropping the ball in the networking process or not communicating with job applicants in a civilized manner.  So let’s all do whatever little things we can to help stem this tide.  By no means, too, does this ignore (or exonerate) the bad behavior that many job hunters display, themselves.  Make sure when you reach out to people for help that you are clear about what you want, give them ample time to respond, and maintain a realistic perspective of what they may (or may not) be able to do for you.

In this job market, “there but for the grace…” is a reality none of us can afford to ignore!