While there are very few hard and fast rules on social networking sites, there are guidelines and protocols you should follow to ensure a positive experience and avoid problems, conflicts, and confrontations:
• If you're going to participate in social networking, do it properly: Participate frequently, respond to questions, and portray your brand in a positive way.
• Don't sell: People want to know about you as a person first and that takes some time.
• The best strategy: Spend time watching and learning to get a "feel" for the dialog; then, gradually start participating.
• Always try to determine how you can add value to the comment stream.
• It's not about making impressions, it's about making friends! Friends will share the truth with you.
• Always begin by seeking advice or asking some questions.
Make it happen … I know you can!
Next Week:
• I will see you on the radio this Sunday, January 29th at 8am (EST) with “Careers in STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math” with HISPA Founder, Dr. Ivonne Diaz-Claisse on Your Career Is Calling on 107.7 FM and online on www.1077TheBronc.com. I look forward to taking your calls at 877.900.1077.
Best wishes and keep networking alive,
Coach Rod
Friday, January 27, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
How To Work The Hidden Job Market as the CEO of ME, Inc.
The Hidden Job Market is the name given to all the opportunities out there that are unadvertised, either because a company wants to find candidates through its employees' networks or because no such position currently exists. In the last case, you must depend on your own ingenuity to identify potential opportunities at an intriguing company, do your homework to determine what that company truly needs, then figure out how to create an attractive, value-added position. Finally, you need to “sell the concept.”
How Do You Access It?
Due to the sheer volume of applicants competing for a fixed number of positions, many employers don’t even bother registering their openings on big-name job boards like Monster, Dice, and CareerBuilder.
Instead, they turn to their existing employee network to help recruit qualified candidates. This means there may be great opportunities at a company of interest, but you’ll never find out about them via the traditional approach of querying Internet job boards.
Why would an employer do this?
There are two immediate advantages. First, hiring managers can avoid the torrent of paperwork from job seekers who aren’t even remotely qualified for a position. Second, they can bypass the registration process with the job boards and confine interview time to a bare minimum.
There's something else you need to know about The Hidden Job Market. Step 2 of the 7-Step Job Search Methodology is based on the spot market. In other words, it uses today's market conditions to determine what positions are currently available. By contrast, The Hidden Job Market is based on the futures market, that is, the potential for positions that might exist or that could be created in the future — your future.
The Role of Networking in The Hidden Job Market
You’ve built a network of trusted relationships. But why bother to network if you never plan to leverage it? It’s now time to do some asking because you’ve earned the right to do so. You’ve followed the rules and observed the connection protocols. It’s time to tap your network’s connection horsepower to help you find a position.
In order to set you up with the proper mind-set for exploring the Hidden Job Market, I’d like you to consider the following somewhat offbeat illustrative scenario:
Let’s say you’re a surgeon who has been assigned the task of finding and removing a dangerous tumor somewhere in the lower abdomen of a 52-year-old man. Theoretically, you could start performing exploratory surgery right away, reaching in through various incisions to feel for any lumps or masses that don’t belong there.
But is that really a medically sound practice? Before performing surgery, wouldn’t it be better to gather as much information about the soft tissue in the patient with a CT-Scan or an MRI? Wouldn’t these diagnostic procedures give you far greater intelligence about the size, shape, and precise location of the tumor? And wouldn’t it make much more sense to have all of the diagnostic work completed before the first incision is ever made?
The point is this: While investigating the Hidden Job Market, your primary function will be networking, not selling, and your aim is to gather intelligence from those individuals you’ve identified as being reliable but only in the specific area in which your skills are a precise match. Your job is to connect with individuals who can truly help you because they’re in the same industry, not going on some fishing expedition inside industries that have no relevance to yours.
To put it in slightly different terms, it’s not going to do you any good to tap into a pipeline of business intelligence for the pharmaceutical industry if you’re seeking a position as a tax accountant. You need to refine and refine again the “filtering” of your contacts to make sure you’re picking up intelligence for the industry — and, if possible, even the precise niche — in which you want to work.
Your ultimate goal is to answer two very specific questions:
1. Who does what you do?
2. Who hires people who do what you do?
Once you’ve mastered this “precision targeting” technique, the flow of your conversation will be along these lines:
“Where do you see the industry heading? What’s going on? What’s hot? What’s not? What groups should I belong to? This is what I’m hearing; what are you hearing?”
Finally, when you judge it to be the correct time to do some asking, you must do it as an assertive CEO, not a spineless wimp. It must be a direct request for a specific action to achieve a targeted goal. Don’t worry, you’ve earned the right to ask because of your golden reciprocity track record. Furthermore, most business owners appreciate direct, straightforward requests.
Make it happen … I know you can!
• I will see you on the radio this Sunday, January 22th at 8am (EST) with “Managing the Financial Side of ME, INC.” with CPA and Business Owner, Surekha Vaidya on Your Career Is Calling on 107.7 FM and online on www.1077TheBronc.com. I look forward to taking your calls at 877.900.1077.
• HPNG is having their monthly meeting on January 26 at 6pm in New York City. See you there!
• I am giving my next speech “The Brand Called U” on Tuesday January 24 at 7:30pm in Lakewood, NJ. For details visit Lakewood Piners.
• Go Giants!
Best wishes and keep networking alive,
Coach Rod
How Do You Access It?
Due to the sheer volume of applicants competing for a fixed number of positions, many employers don’t even bother registering their openings on big-name job boards like Monster, Dice, and CareerBuilder.
Instead, they turn to their existing employee network to help recruit qualified candidates. This means there may be great opportunities at a company of interest, but you’ll never find out about them via the traditional approach of querying Internet job boards.
Why would an employer do this?
There are two immediate advantages. First, hiring managers can avoid the torrent of paperwork from job seekers who aren’t even remotely qualified for a position. Second, they can bypass the registration process with the job boards and confine interview time to a bare minimum.
There's something else you need to know about The Hidden Job Market. Step 2 of the 7-Step Job Search Methodology is based on the spot market. In other words, it uses today's market conditions to determine what positions are currently available. By contrast, The Hidden Job Market is based on the futures market, that is, the potential for positions that might exist or that could be created in the future — your future.
The Role of Networking in The Hidden Job Market
You’ve built a network of trusted relationships. But why bother to network if you never plan to leverage it? It’s now time to do some asking because you’ve earned the right to do so. You’ve followed the rules and observed the connection protocols. It’s time to tap your network’s connection horsepower to help you find a position.
In order to set you up with the proper mind-set for exploring the Hidden Job Market, I’d like you to consider the following somewhat offbeat illustrative scenario:
Let’s say you’re a surgeon who has been assigned the task of finding and removing a dangerous tumor somewhere in the lower abdomen of a 52-year-old man. Theoretically, you could start performing exploratory surgery right away, reaching in through various incisions to feel for any lumps or masses that don’t belong there.
But is that really a medically sound practice? Before performing surgery, wouldn’t it be better to gather as much information about the soft tissue in the patient with a CT-Scan or an MRI? Wouldn’t these diagnostic procedures give you far greater intelligence about the size, shape, and precise location of the tumor? And wouldn’t it make much more sense to have all of the diagnostic work completed before the first incision is ever made?
The point is this: While investigating the Hidden Job Market, your primary function will be networking, not selling, and your aim is to gather intelligence from those individuals you’ve identified as being reliable but only in the specific area in which your skills are a precise match. Your job is to connect with individuals who can truly help you because they’re in the same industry, not going on some fishing expedition inside industries that have no relevance to yours.
To put it in slightly different terms, it’s not going to do you any good to tap into a pipeline of business intelligence for the pharmaceutical industry if you’re seeking a position as a tax accountant. You need to refine and refine again the “filtering” of your contacts to make sure you’re picking up intelligence for the industry — and, if possible, even the precise niche — in which you want to work.
Your ultimate goal is to answer two very specific questions:
1. Who does what you do?
2. Who hires people who do what you do?
Once you’ve mastered this “precision targeting” technique, the flow of your conversation will be along these lines:
“Where do you see the industry heading? What’s going on? What’s hot? What’s not? What groups should I belong to? This is what I’m hearing; what are you hearing?”
Finally, when you judge it to be the correct time to do some asking, you must do it as an assertive CEO, not a spineless wimp. It must be a direct request for a specific action to achieve a targeted goal. Don’t worry, you’ve earned the right to ask because of your golden reciprocity track record. Furthermore, most business owners appreciate direct, straightforward requests.
Make it happen … I know you can!
• I will see you on the radio this Sunday, January 22th at 8am (EST) with “Managing the Financial Side of ME, INC.” with CPA and Business Owner, Surekha Vaidya on Your Career Is Calling on 107.7 FM and online on www.1077TheBronc.com. I look forward to taking your calls at 877.900.1077.
• HPNG is having their monthly meeting on January 26 at 6pm in New York City. See you there!
• I am giving my next speech “The Brand Called U” on Tuesday January 24 at 7:30pm in Lakewood, NJ. For details visit Lakewood Piners.
• Go Giants!
Best wishes and keep networking alive,
Coach Rod
Monday, January 9, 2012
Plan Before You Brand
For generations, cattle ranchers “branded” their stock to prevent theft and to provide a measure of security for their business ventures. It was the only way to ensure that the “inventory” remained safe and quantifiable.
For many of us, the old-time “TV westerns” included a scene in which a cowhand heated up a branding iron then applied it to the animal in one quick motion.
The action of applying that hot brand (remember the logo for the “Lazy S Ranch”?) meant putting a unique mark on an animal that represented part of the rancher’s assets. It was both necessary and permanent.
Your personal brand carries the same impact. Once established, it’s permanent. Whatever else happens after you brand yourself becomes either a reinforcement of your brand (a good thing) or a contradiction of your brand (a very, very bad thing). Because of its ability to form permanent impressions in the minds of consumers, branding must be preceded by the development of a brand strategy.
Simply put, a brand strategy will involve items such as the following:
• Determine your brand expectations (what do you want it to achieve?)
• Evaluate any existing brand-related assets or collateral
• Determine the costs for developing a brand
• Understand how branding affect the development of a business plan
Your specific branding goals will probably include answers to these questions: How will your personal brand:
• build awareness?
• create an emotional connection with the business community?
• accurately deliver your true distinguishing characteristics?
• establish credibility, trust, and confidence?
• generate buyer preference?
For many of us, the old-time “TV westerns” included a scene in which a cowhand heated up a branding iron then applied it to the animal in one quick motion.
The action of applying that hot brand (remember the logo for the “Lazy S Ranch”?) meant putting a unique mark on an animal that represented part of the rancher’s assets. It was both necessary and permanent.
Your personal brand carries the same impact. Once established, it’s permanent. Whatever else happens after you brand yourself becomes either a reinforcement of your brand (a good thing) or a contradiction of your brand (a very, very bad thing). Because of its ability to form permanent impressions in the minds of consumers, branding must be preceded by the development of a brand strategy.
Simply put, a brand strategy will involve items such as the following:
• Determine your brand expectations (what do you want it to achieve?)
• Evaluate any existing brand-related assets or collateral
• Determine the costs for developing a brand
• Understand how branding affect the development of a business plan
Your specific branding goals will probably include answers to these questions: How will your personal brand:
• build awareness?
• create an emotional connection with the business community?
• accurately deliver your true distinguishing characteristics?
• establish credibility, trust, and confidence?
• generate buyer preference?
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
The 7-Steps to Career Empowerment
Happy New Year! I wish you all the best in 2012 and that you resolve to take control over your career and become the CEO of ME, Inc. Enterprises – managing your career as a business. You can do it!
Second, incorporate my 7-Step Job Search Methodology into your core competencies in 2012. It can be used for internal or external positions and by students and professionals. It doesn’t matter if you live in New York City or Beijing. It works! The process is tweaked to near-perfection over the past seven years but will undoubtedly be tweaked many more times whenever improvements are discovered, tested, and evaluated.
7-Step Job Search Methodology
Step 1
First, you will determine what your core skills are. Everyone is good at something; so what are your skills, talents, and abilities? What would be a suitable title for someone who does your kind of work?
Step 2
You call your work by a particular name; now it’s time to find out what the marketplace calls it. Are you a Java Developer? A Financial Analyst? You’ll make good use of a web site called Indeed.com to perform this task. You’ll also get a first look at opportunities that may be a good fit for you. The importance of this step is that it helps you determine the market demand for your skills (i.e., the spot market; a snapshot of what the prevailing market conditions look like).
Step 3
Now, using LinkedIn and your networking skills, try to identify advocates; these are people either in your network or in the networks of friends, business contacts, etc… who can “connect the dots” for you within a targeted company to get your name circulated among key decision-makers. At this step, you are performing “networking research”, that is, you are not actually reaching out to these advocates yet, just identifying who they are.
Step 4
You will then develop your value proposition consisting of: 1) a targeted resume; 2) a cover letter (or T-Letter), and 3) the job description itself. In this step you are building your case for the job. Since these documents will either make or break you, you will want to have them as close to perfection as possible.
Note: Although the value proposition consists of 1) the job description, 2) the targeted resume, and 3) the T-Letter, you will only actually submit the resume and cover letter. Decision-makers don’t need to see the job description. We include it as part of the value proposition to make sure that we keep ourselves properly tracked with its requirements while engaging advocates.
Step 5
Once you’re SURE you understand the position for which you’ve identified suitable advocates, prepare to connect with them. For advocates who are in a decision-making role, you'll place a call to them and sell, i.e., your “Sales & Marketing Team” swings into gear. With advocates who are friends, or friends of friends, you'll network to establish a communications chain to the decision makers (your “Research & Development Team” manages this). In all cases, you will document all contact with advocates to ensure timely and appropriate follow-up.
Step 6
After that, you will submit your value proposition as instructed and set up a specific follow-up schedule. You will track your contact with all advocates to ensure that no follow-up calls or e-mails are forgotten.
Step 7
Finally, you will repeat the process. As the CEO of a business, you never settle for having just one client. When you’re in transition and actively looking for work, your goal should be to find at least one new client a day.
Here are a few questions to determine your current work satisfaction:
1. How satisfied are you with your current work?
2. To what degree do you have the skills necessary to flourish? What skills are needed?
3. How long do you believe to stay in your current line of work?
4. How do you define “success”? To what extent are you achieving your version of success?
5. What is the biggest problem you have in your career?
6. What are you doing about question #5?
7. What decision are you trying to make about your career?
Make it happen … I know you can!
I will see you on the radio this Sunday, January 8th at 8am (EST) with Networking Expert, Boxer and Author, Michael Goldberg on “Knock-Out Networking” on Your Career Is Calling on 107.7 FM and online on www.1077TheBronc.com. I look forward to taking your calls at 877.900.1077.
Best wishes and keep networking alive,
Coach Rod
Second, incorporate my 7-Step Job Search Methodology into your core competencies in 2012. It can be used for internal or external positions and by students and professionals. It doesn’t matter if you live in New York City or Beijing. It works! The process is tweaked to near-perfection over the past seven years but will undoubtedly be tweaked many more times whenever improvements are discovered, tested, and evaluated.
7-Step Job Search Methodology
Step 1
First, you will determine what your core skills are. Everyone is good at something; so what are your skills, talents, and abilities? What would be a suitable title for someone who does your kind of work?
Step 2
You call your work by a particular name; now it’s time to find out what the marketplace calls it. Are you a Java Developer? A Financial Analyst? You’ll make good use of a web site called Indeed.com to perform this task. You’ll also get a first look at opportunities that may be a good fit for you. The importance of this step is that it helps you determine the market demand for your skills (i.e., the spot market; a snapshot of what the prevailing market conditions look like).
Step 3
Now, using LinkedIn and your networking skills, try to identify advocates; these are people either in your network or in the networks of friends, business contacts, etc… who can “connect the dots” for you within a targeted company to get your name circulated among key decision-makers. At this step, you are performing “networking research”, that is, you are not actually reaching out to these advocates yet, just identifying who they are.
Step 4
You will then develop your value proposition consisting of: 1) a targeted resume; 2) a cover letter (or T-Letter), and 3) the job description itself. In this step you are building your case for the job. Since these documents will either make or break you, you will want to have them as close to perfection as possible.
Note: Although the value proposition consists of 1) the job description, 2) the targeted resume, and 3) the T-Letter, you will only actually submit the resume and cover letter. Decision-makers don’t need to see the job description. We include it as part of the value proposition to make sure that we keep ourselves properly tracked with its requirements while engaging advocates.
Step 5
Once you’re SURE you understand the position for which you’ve identified suitable advocates, prepare to connect with them. For advocates who are in a decision-making role, you'll place a call to them and sell, i.e., your “Sales & Marketing Team” swings into gear. With advocates who are friends, or friends of friends, you'll network to establish a communications chain to the decision makers (your “Research & Development Team” manages this). In all cases, you will document all contact with advocates to ensure timely and appropriate follow-up.
Step 6
After that, you will submit your value proposition as instructed and set up a specific follow-up schedule. You will track your contact with all advocates to ensure that no follow-up calls or e-mails are forgotten.
Step 7
Finally, you will repeat the process. As the CEO of a business, you never settle for having just one client. When you’re in transition and actively looking for work, your goal should be to find at least one new client a day.
Here are a few questions to determine your current work satisfaction:
1. How satisfied are you with your current work?
2. To what degree do you have the skills necessary to flourish? What skills are needed?
3. How long do you believe to stay in your current line of work?
4. How do you define “success”? To what extent are you achieving your version of success?
5. What is the biggest problem you have in your career?
6. What are you doing about question #5?
7. What decision are you trying to make about your career?
Make it happen … I know you can!
I will see you on the radio this Sunday, January 8th at 8am (EST) with Networking Expert, Boxer and Author, Michael Goldberg on “Knock-Out Networking” on Your Career Is Calling on 107.7 FM and online on www.1077TheBronc.com. I look forward to taking your calls at 877.900.1077.
Best wishes and keep networking alive,
Coach Rod
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