How Facebook Can Be Your Friend During Job Search

How Facebook Can Be Your Friend During Job Search By Jacqui Barrett-PoindexterFor some, Facebook is a natural extension of your career and personal brand, adding value to your story. For others, Facebook is a locked-down arsenal used solely to swap pictures and personal updates with your innermost circle.For careerists who have chosen the second option, you may want to reconsider your strategy. Being hidden from potential hiring decision  makers, influencers, opinion leaders and recruiters may result in missed opportunities.According to The Undercover Recruiter, there are 1.1 billion users per month on Facebook; and, of recruiters using Facebook, 85% would recommend Facebook as a tool to other recruiters.So, if you want to be seen professionally beyond your own inner circle, you might consider being more Facebook public. Some ways to do this:1. Set Your Privacy Settings to Public.  Remember, being public means everything you publish to Facebook will be seen  by anyone who searches your name and profile, so if you choose this setting , you will obviously want to be prudent with your posts.However, cautious (but authentic) posting may net positive results. By creating a public Facebook persona, you may mesh your values  with those hunting for new talent.And in todays workplace environment, where culture fit  is an important attribute valued by employees and employers, a casual, easy-to-inform and simple to access venue like Facebook is attractive.For two additional ways to make Facebook your friend during job search, visit: 3 Ways to Make Facebook Your Friend During Your Job Search.

Writing Sample For Job

Writing Sample For JobWriting samples for jobs is an essential requirement for anyone that wants to succeed in this business. The requirements are simple; you have to have a great product to sell and provide to your clients, and you have to make it as impressive as possible. If you don't give them what they want then no one will buy it and that's the end of you.If you find that you have no money to get started in this business then you need to write a great writing sample for the job. It is important to have a good first impression and a great first impression can be enhanced by having a good writing sample for the job. The price of your first sale is a lot cheaper than buying a boat or jet skis. Write down a little about yourself and the reason why you want to write a sample for the job.Once you have decided to become a writer, you need to show the world that you have a creative potential. You can get some great writing samples for jobs for free and many times it is free to get into . The great thing about this is that there is no obligation so do not feel obliged to send them in.Write down what you can about yourself and why you are different from your friends and family and also how you compare to your own competition. Remember that every person on this planet has something to offer to a reader. Find what they have and use it to show the world.A great way to get a good writing sample for a job is to go to the library and look at their books. In fact, there are some online where you can download samples from. Once you have a good list of examples you can start looking at how the different writers wrote them. This can be a good starting point.Start off by choosing the top companies that you know have a great writing sample for the job. To make this easier, you can take a look at other reviews that have been written by people that like your writing style. Check out any sites that deal with the business and try to learn a little about them. You will find that thi s will help to get a better writing sample for the job.It is very important to think about who your target market is. There are people that won't even read your content if you don't get that right. It is imperative that you understand who your audience is and start thinking about ways to appeal to them. This means they will buy from you and tell their friends.Finally, you should write a great writing sample for a job that they will find useful. Make sure you don't forget to put your own name to the copyright page. Make sure that the writing sample for a job is professionally done and that it showcases your talents.

10 Ways to Master LinkedIn Publishing

10 Ways to Master LinkedIn Publishing Are you publishing long-form content (articles) on LinkedIn yet? The ability to publish was recently made available to everyone with an English-language profile and its something that LinkedIn are heavily pushing. LinkedIn members are increasingly creating content, and the platform  recently surpassed one million total long-form posts and 50,000 posts per week. Through the publishing platform, Pulse, and SlideShare, LinkedIn  seeks to make the world’s professional knowledge available online. Thats all well and good, but  how do you cut through the noise and make sure your posts get seen, shared, commented on?  OkDork and Search Wilderness  looked at the 3,000 most successful LinkedIn publishing posts  and were able to collect some interesting data. Our friend Melanie Dorado put these stats into an infographic. 10  tips to master LinkedIn publishing: The optimal title length is between 40 and 49 characters, if you go any longer than this you risk LinkedIn cutting the title off in some places on the platform. Also, any shorter than this and  you may be missing out on important keywords. Your posts should have 8 images, posts with exactly 8 images performed 2.4 times better than those with 7 or less. For  image inspiration, have a look at Liz Ryans published posts which all have beautiful illustrations. Forget about video and other multimedia. The more video and multimedia posts tend to have, the less views they get according to the data. I wonder why this might be, surely LinkedIn would want to highlight people that put a SlideShare embed in their articles? SlideShare is of course owned by LinkedIn. Use 5 sub-headers for optimal views, posts with 5 headings that divide its sections performed best with 9 headings coming in as a close second. This makes total sense as it makes a post easier on the eye and skimmable. The optimal length is 1,900-2,000 words. Posts with between 1,900 and  2,000 words performed 50% better than the next best word count (1,800 words) and at least 100% better of any word counts beneath it. This is very interesting, as most bloggers would say shorter posts tend to perform better but it could indicate that the audience on LinkedIn wants  well-researched information. Stay neutral. By having a neutral sentiment, you tend to perform 70% better than those with either positive or negative sentiments. This goes contrary to what bloggers would say again and indicates LinkedIn members are not on the platform to read strong opinions, rather to get better informed. An 11 year-old should be able to read it. Posts on LinkedIn with a Flesch-Kindkaid Readability Score of 80-89 performed best, considered Easy and requiring the education level of an 11 year old.  This again is slightly contrary as people who want to consume well-researched content should also be wanting high-quality writing? Likes are the most significant driver of success. Getting that thumbs up on your LinkedIn posts has a strong correlation with higher overall views. Yes, you might get comments and shares but apparently likes is what you want. Every time someone likes your post, it goes into their feed for their connections to see. Publish your LinkedIn posts on Thursdays.  Its the end of the week, but not too late so that people have switched off. Most traffic on the Undercover Recruiter LinkedIn page will happen Tuesday through Thursday so this sounds right. Questions dont make great titles. Go for statements instead of questions, people have their own questions and can tap those into Google instead. RELATED: RECRUITERS: Use LinkedIn Publisher, Even if You Don’t Have it!

A 16-Year-Old Entrepreneur Tells Us How to Make eMillions - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

A 16-Year-Old Entrepreneur Tells Us How to Make eMillions - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Today, I spoke with Stanley Tang, who is a 16-year-old rockstar entrepreneur.   He makes me wish I knew this personal branding stuff ten years ago.   Stanley is very ambitious and has earned a lot of respect for a young Gen-Yer.   To be able to interview millionaire players for a book isnt something most high schools students get involved with.   The interview below will inspire you to drop age and to pickup drive, to accomplish your dreams. Stanley, what got you started in internet marketing?   I first got into this whole concept of business when I picked up the book Rich Dad Poor Dad in 2005. That was when I first got interested and inspired, so I began to do more research on the internet. Then one day in 2006, I received a spam email in my inbox which said something like How to make money online without spending a single dime I opened it and it was basically a series of screen-capture videos going through the whole concept of Google Adsense. That was how I got into internet marketing. What obstacles have you faced as a 15-year-old marketer living in Hong Kong? Wow tons of obstacles. First off, the fact that youre only 15 years old is a major obstacle. There are many issues you have to deal with regarding stuff like Adsense, Paypal, Taxes etc, which you need parent consent. Also, its difficult trying to make contacts and deal with all these adult entrepreneurs.   Many are reluctant to do business with you if they find out youre actually just this teenager. Youve also got to take into the account of school stuff like homework, exams, courseworks etc. The disadvantage of living in Hong Kong is that, firstly, you are half way across the world from the US (which is my main market) so there are differences in things like timezone etc. Its also pretty difficult to try and network with all these people offline as there are very few internet marketing seminars here in Hong Kong. (Im actually turning 16 next week) Your book has done quite well.   What book marketing strategies have you employed to make it so successful? Thanks. So far, Ive been trying to build up some buzz during the prelaunch phase by letting my subscribers and readers know about it via my email list and my blogs. Ive created a specific blog over at emillionsblog.com which actually documents the exact steps I take to try and turn my book into a bestseller (sort of like a behind-the-scenes look at a bestselling book in the making). So the blog itself has already attracted a lot of attention. Ive also got in touch with the local press and media here in Hong Kong, trying to get interviews with those journalists. In fact, I recently got on to the frontpage of AppleDaily, which is the second largest newspaper in Hong Kong, so that brought me tons of exposure and buzz. I believe that the key to any buzz campaign is that youve got to have a story. In this case, it was a 15 year-old entrepreneur interviewing a bunch of internet millionaires and trying to inspire others and make a difference. Can you talk about ShoeMoneys success story and how people can model it? Jeremy Schoemaker is a great role model when it comes to internet marketing. He was one of those people who never gave up and never settled for less. He was able to go from the corporate day job to unemployment then to internet millionaire status in less than 5 years which is absolutely incredible. You can read the interview I conducted with Shoemoney over at emillionsblog.com/interview-with-shoemoney-part-1. Where do you see yourself going in the future, aside from making six figures and above?   What lasting presence do you want to leave on the world? I definitely see myself doing bigger things and doing more than just internet marketing and creating information products. My dream is to hopefully one day be able to create a new technology start-up somewhere in Silicon Valley, create something of value and take it to a multi-billion dollar level, something like Google, Amazon, Apple etc. I feel right now its still too early to ask the question what presence I want to leave, but I definitely want to leave with some sort of impact and make a difference. Stanley Tang is a 16-year-old entrepreneur, author and student from Hong Kong. Hes not a millionaire yet but he does expect to make a comfortable income online through things like information marketing, affiliate marketing and list building.   By July 2006, he made his first $100 and first $1000 by January 2007. Between January 2007 and December 2007, my “business” generated over 5-figures in sales (not bad for a 14 year old). And currently it’s on track to do 6-figures by the end of 2008. His current venture is his book eMillions: Behind-The-Scenes Stories of 14 Successful Internet Millionaires.

There Are No Jobs at the Musc Resume Writing Center

There Are No Jobs at the Musc Resume Writing CenterHave you looked into getting a job with a place called the Musc Resume Writing Center? If so, what you need to know is that there are no jobs at all at this site, and it seems that music doesn't have a very good track record when it comes to training employees to write actual resumes.However, if you do go ahead and pay to get a resume from the Music Center, what you will find is that they have templates that are completely inappropriate for use on your resume. You might as well be using a template for an email marketing campaign and trying to market to someone who has never used an Internet marketing tool like an email list. As much as I wish I were joking, I'm not.What happens is that if you go to the Music Center and try to create a resume, you are basically handed a bunch of chunks of text that are filled with grammatical errors and all sorts of other things that make it hard to even begin to make a real resume. In fact, you reall y need to ask some professional resume writers if they will give you the services of one of their best and most experienced writers to do a resume. I think you'll be shocked at how few people are actually willing to do this, and most of them are more than happy to give you a resume without paying anything.What you need to know is that if you go to the Musc Resume Writing Center and you have ever even tried to write a resume, you are not in any position to be using the templates that they provide for people to use. If you are, you should be paying them, because they are not going to help you with your resume. They will just leave your resume out there, and in turn you will be contacted by anyone else who is using a template at all. Now, I have to say that it is a good thing that many of these companies are making money off of hiring people, but they also need to understand that their resumes need to be accurate.The reason why you want to use a template for your resume is so that you can ensure that it is going to be perfectly worded for your specific position or job that you are applying for. The last thing you want to do is to hire a resume writer and then use their template because you think that it is going to work, and instead you end up with something that is going to cost you money in terms of trying to hire someone to proofread it before you hand it over. Your resume needs to be perfect, and you need to be careful that it is worded correctly.Now, if you think that you cannot afford to pay the fee to hire a resume writer, then go ahead and avoid the place and look for others out there that offer online resume services. These places are plentiful, and you are sure to find a few that are truly legitimate. I would not expect you to pay a huge fee to get a resume from one of these, because you really should only pay to get a resume from someone who can get you a resume that is written properly and that you can use for your future job searches.What you should be doing is calling a few of these companies and telling them that you have never used the place and are looking for a way to get a resume that is worded correctly. They will most likely be glad to write you one for free, and will offer you a resume for a small fee. In fact, you probably don't even need to worry about paying anything if you are searching online.Now, if you really want to go to the writing center, you better be prepared to spend some money. If you don't, you will end up spending much more time than necessary trying to get your resume from there, and you could end up wasting your time on a scammer that is offering to write your resume for free.

Understanding Millennials- A New Study

Understanding Millennials- A New Study Millennials  often get a bad rap for being tech-obsessed, having an entitlement mind-set and poor work ethic. And while some of this  might be true, there are other things you need to understand and appreciate about this generation of 18-34  year olds. You will work with Millennials who are projected to  make up 75 percent of the workforce by 2025. In fact, you are working with them right now. How well do you understand Millennials? The PreparedU Project’s Report on Millennial Minds Bentley University commissioned  a study in 2014 of over 1,000 Millennials to find out what they want out of their career and about  their own preparedness for professional  life. (This study was a follow-up to the first survey of business leaders, recruiters, and educators on their perception of Millennials preparedness.) Here is a summary of the findings from surveying Millennials: 51%  of millennials say they would  rather communicate with a  colleague in person 77% say flexible hours would  make the workplace more  productive for people their age 96% say great healthcare  benefits would be the most  important factor when choosing  between two otherwise equal  jobs 80% of millennials believe  they’ll work for four or fewer  companies in their career 79%  expect a pay raise every year 66% of millennials would like  to start their own business 50% of millennials say  the main reason people their age are  unprepared for their first job is a poor  work ethic What Does All This Mean? Greater flexibility in working hours, healthcare benefits, pay raises, job stability what does this all mean? Bentley professors and administrators decipher the findings in the report, but here are four  things  I think we should ponder and discuss. Millennials Speak Out It means they are not marching to the drum of business-as-usual. This generation seems to be saying they want more. Maybe it is idealistic, but maybe Millennials are savvier than previous generations. Maybe they are speaking out on the same things  every previous generation really wanted too, but just didnt think we could ask for. Who doesnt want a raise every year and good healthcare benefits? Feed Them Praise In-person communication is important to Millennials, despite their reliance on technology.  Ian Cross, director of Bentley’s Center for Marketing Technology,  says that millennials  like  praise, and they want clear direction as to what a manager may  be asking of them, especially early in their career. This could  explain the desire to speak to a  colleague in person. Independence and Entrepreneurship Millennials arent so interested in climbing the corporate ladder (which, by the way, has fallen). The study found 66% of millennials are interested in starting their  own business and 37% would like to work on their own. Only 13% said they’d like to be a CEO or company president.  Naive? Overly ambitious? Perhaps, but it should send a message. Millennials seem to want to be affiliated with something they create, not something other people create. This independent thinking could help spur more job growth down the road. The trick will be preparing them with the business acumen to build these new companies. Poor Work Ethic Is A Problem Even Millennials agree that what holds them back is poor work ethic. But what constitutes work ethic? Tricky question. Work ethic is a complex set of behaviours and beliefs. It can be defined in many different ways. How do companies measure work ethic anyway?  What can we do to help  Millennials  improve their work ethic? This needs further definition and exploration for sure. Infographic Bentley University provided this infographic to help understand the studys findings! The Bentley study concludes with: As the millennial generation continues to join the nation’s  working ranks and soon comes to dominate them, it is critical for leaders in  higher education and business to work together in creating an environment  where millennials can thrive and ultimately succeed. The future of our economy  depends on it. Share your thoughts, ideas and comments!

Are You Researching to Get Inside the Companys Door - Hire Imaging

Are You Researching to Get Inside the Company’s Door - Hire Imaging Online research can reveal rich resources Even if researching organizations and their people during your job search is as appealing as a root canal, you must do it â€" or hire someone to do it for you. It’s that important. What are the benefits? You’ll capture hard facts and seize data indicating alignment between your qualifications and the job’s criteria. You’ll be armed with dazzling answers when asked, “What do you know about our company?” You’ll gain footing to soak up new facts during the interview. Your preparedness will illustrate you’re an “A” list candidate who should be seriously considered. Online research can reveal rich resources Filling your coffers online with useful (and often free) information on most public and some private companies is pretty much as basic as following directions to “click here.” In a few hours or an evening, you can at least look at these resources: Financial data Annual reports News releases Information about products and services Industry trends Competitor information And you may well find through digging: Corporate culture Pending layoffs Pending mergers and acquisitions Employee views on a company Shifts in management or key leadership Outlooks for the company from financial sites, i.e. Wall Street Journal, etc. Size and growth The size of a company and the scope of its operations can often give you good insight into its mission and opportunities. Strive to answer the following questions: What is the company’s industry? Has the company expanded globally? Is it expanding or downsizing? What are its divisions and subsidiaries? How many employees does it have? How many customers does it serve? What kind? How many locations does it have? Are there foreign-based sites? Strategy and direction Sleuthing for information on a company’s development and planning efforts can often be found at its website, annual report, news pages, or the industry’s trade publications. Try answering these questions in your research: What are the company’s current priorities? What is its mission? What are its top issues and problems? What are its top prospects and opportunities? Is it introducing any new products or services? Products or services You will at the very least, want to know the staple products and services for the company that you’re interviewing with. Dig for these types of answers: What services or products does the company offer? What are the company’s areas of expertise? How does the company invigorate the industry â€" by pioneering products, cutting costs, entering new markets, or what? Culture and reputation What’s the pace like at this organization? Laid-back? Informal? Formal? Aggressive? Whirlwind? You may well need to talk to folks, but for starters, you can often shed light on an organization’s culture through sites like Glassdoor.com and others: What’s its reputation? What types of employees does it hire? How does it treat employees? Is there a generational imbalance? A history of pushing out older workers? What’s the scoop on its management? Is it going through â€" or has recently gone through, mergers and acquisition? Does it operate on lean staffing? Competitive profile Try and get a sense of the company’s place in the work universe. How is it positioned within its industry? A company’s competitive stance often speaks volumes about its stability and hiring people â€" like you. Get to the bottom with questions like these: Who are the company’s competitors? What are the company’s current initiatives and projects? What have its greatest successes been? What setbacks has it had? Will technology be its friend or foe? Does it operate with the latest technology now? Does it hire cheap labor? Outsource jobs to other places? Does it develop, engage and empower its talent? Financials Gathering timely and correct information about financials is not a quick effort, but it’s advisable to learn about a company’s precarious financial picture before you’re hired than after you’re laid off. Deep dive for these gems: What are the company’s sales? Earnings? Assets? How secure is its financial base? Is its profit trending up or down? How much of its earnings go to pay staff? Is it a subsidiary or a division of a bigger company? Are there recent mergers or acquisitions on the horizon that might shift financials? How deep in debt in the company? As you gather information for your job search, there will be a plethora of websites and resources to help you. In my next post, I’ll share some of those additional resources to investigate situations like startups, where employees talk, and more. What are your thoughts on doing company research? I’d love to hear from you. Please comment below.