Career Hub

Hooked Up or Unhooked?

This morning on the Today Show, they did a fun story about a Forbes' executive who agreed to give up his primary means of communication for one week. No Internet, no e-mail, no cell, no Blackberry. How long do you think he lasted before a tearful plea of "please give me my *#$%^&*  cell phone?" 

The answer: 40 hours, that's it! How many days (hours) would you last if you tried this little experiment?

Did You Lie On Your Resume?

Lisa Lerner shines a light on the embarrassment of lies proliferating on resumes of the well-known in her February 7 article for Forbes (www.Forbes.com). Certainly we all remember the fiasco of coach George O'Leary and his notorious five-day career with Notre Dame before a lie about his falsified master's degree was discovered. Presidential hopeful (again) Joe Biden misstated his class rank at Syracuse (significantly) and overreported scholarship funding (he actually graduated near the very bottom of his class). Michael Brown's botched handling of post-Katrina relief efforts by FEMA overshadowed, for a short while, his extensive exaggeration about his background and qualifications. And Lerner reports on numerous tall tales by CEOs and others in this very sad report. Why do they do it? That's probably a question best left to their consciences ... or psychologists.

The takeaway: Lying on your resume never is the right thing to do. Lerner quotes a Careerbuilder.com survey of decision makers that reported "93% of candidates caught lying were not hired." Why take the chance? Instead, clarify your brand, understand and present your signature strengths, and back it up with authentic, quantified accomplishments. When you can honestly take credit for what you have contributed, what you have achieved, and the results you have produced, you are a very strong candidate indeed.

Networking OnLine

If you have not checked out Zoominfo as part of building your personal brand and your job search or career marketing you should - first see if you are there (if not get your web summary posted), then if anyone you know (or perhaps have lost contact with) is there and then people that you might want more information on.

Also they just made this publication available How to Intelligently Network Online by Shally Steckerl, some good tips.

The BIG Problem with Video Resumes

Video resumes are all the latest craze in the job hunting world. While they can be an excellent vehicle for showcasing your personality, creativity and communication skills, video resumes also have the potential to hurt your chances of employment. No, I'm not just talking about famously bad attempts of self promotion like the video resume of Yale student, Aleksey Vayner, who became famous throughout the online world for his lack of humility and cheesy motivational slogans. There's a lesser known, but equally detrimental consequence of distributing a video resume.

Because of equal employment opportunity requirements in the workplace, many HR professionals-especially those in large companies-are trained not to even watch video resumes.

Why? "Video can reveal information-race, religion, disabilities-that shouldn't figure into who gets an interview and who doesn't." Peggy Mastroianni, an associate legal counsel at the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission told NPR. "Employers have got to be more careful. The fact that they have seen a video resume requires that they think harder about the decisions they're making than they would if they had a paper resume."

Still not convinced? If you insist on sending a video resume to potential employers, BE SURE to include a written resume that details all the important information contained in the video. This way, if an employer is required NOT to view the video, he or she will still be able to read the paper version.

Cross Posted From www.JobHelper.com.

The Day Everyone Received an Offer

The Day Everyone Received an Offer          

In January and February 1978, a series of three storms hit the United States Midwest or the Northeast. These storms were some of the most severe winter events to occur in recent history, and collectively are known as the Blizzard of 1978. Like so many times in life we don’t really see the impact of today until tomorrow. I remember the snow. I remember the difficulty on the roads, but as an Executive Recruiter my office was across the street from my condo and I couldn’t take any time off. With candidates scheduled for interviews I went to work. 

The first storm avoided Ohio, targeting the Northeast. From January 19 to 21, twenty-one inches of snow fell in parts of the region. This was a forty-eight-hour record for snowfall.The second storm found Ohio in its path. From January 25 to 27, between one and three feet of snow fell in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Winds averaged between fifty and seventy miles per hour, creating snowdrifts as deep as twenty-five feet. With temperatures already hovering near zero, the wind chill was deadly, reaching sixty degrees Fahrenheit below zero. Thousands of people were stranded in their cars and in their homes. For the first time in its history, the entire Ohio Turnpike closed due to the blizzard's severity. One semi-truck driver was buried inside of his truck by a snowdrift. Rescuers did not discover him for almost one week.

Here in Columbus on January 25,  temperatures did not drop like they did in Northern Ohio; people went to work and some of my job seekers kept their interview appointments. They arrived late, wet and wind-blown. But that January day was the one day that I can honestly say that every one of my job seekers that chose to fight the elements got hired. Without exception.  Reckless or brave?  It’s still difficult for me to really judge but many who stayed home stayed unemployed. I remember those job seekers and nearly 30 years later, during the snow emergency of the past week, I still admire their guts.

Courtesy of the Ohio Historical Society

What's Love Got To Do With It?

Remember Tina Turner's hit What's Love Got To Do With It? Well, today is the big day to celebrate love. And talk about love. Maybe even a hot topic at the office today? Love, what an interesting word, huh? In your world, is love a noun or a verb, or both? Earlier today, I was chatting with a professional colleague and he expressed his disenchantment with the "whole Cupid thing."

Speaking of love, then, as it pertains to you and the workplace, here's something to think about. Do you love your job? Do you love your career and the way it's going? Do you love the tasks and activities that you carry out on a daily basis? Do you love the role that you serve with your employer? Do you love (or at least sort of like) your boss? Do you love where you work -- the environment, the people, the values, the mission? Do you love the commute? Do you love the place you live? Do you love your colleagues -- the people that you work with, collaborate with, disagree with, create with? Do you love the amount of money you make? What would you love to change? Do you love what you do so much that you would do it for free?

Lots of love-related questions to contemplate this day. Wishing you a Happy Valentine's 2007!

Brands that Get My Vote on Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is tomorrow - the one day each year that we celebrate who and what we love. So it is natural that my friend Winnie Anderson from Abiah Designs posted on "Brands We Love" on the Brand Return blog.

Winnie, you asked about the brands we love...here are 5 brands that I love. There are probably more, but these were the first 5 that came to mind and isn't that what a good brand should do? Of course, I could not limit myself to only 3 (you know me - always pushing the envelop).

1. The Beatles - I think they got the whole branding thing down to a "T" decades ago. Their songs embodied a whole era and just plain made us feel good. They certainly discovered their brand, and then expressed and exuded it perfectly...becoming the benchmark for rock stars, both then and now.

2. Red Lobster - what can I say - I love seafood (especially shrimp) and those delicious breads they serve! The ambiance says "nautical" and "fresh seafood" no matter where the Red Lobster branch is located (there are more than 600 of them nationwide) - even here in the remote wilds of northern Wisconsin.

3. Alex Anderson - she's sort of like the Martha Stewart of the quilting world. I will admit to being a "quilt-aholic". Alex Anderson's TV programs, books, "how-to" columns in the quilting magazines, and now podcasts have all helped me tremendously in moving along the pathway from "Is that what you call that? A quilt?" to "Wow! Can you make me one like that to put on my entry-way wall?"

4. Career Directors International - this association for careers-industry professionals, like career coaches, recruiters, resume writers, career counselors, educators, and employers, just "sings" with pizzaz! It's high-touch branding is truly a reflection of the personality of the Executive Director, Laura DeCarlo. Combined with cutting-edge resources, information, surveys, and strategic alliances, CDI has revitalized my
commitment and willingness to "give back" to the careers community and serve my clients to the highest level of quality possible.

5. William Arruda - the "guru" of personal branding and co-founder of the Reach Branding Club, is my pick for a personal brand you can love. As genuine as they come, William exudes his personal brand of enthusiasm, energy, passion, and inspiration in his personal branding presentations to large corporate groups, as well as his one-on-one conversations, articles and blog posts, and audio recordings. His brand resonates with my own "Career Assessment Goddess" brand and he clearly sets the standard for personal branding authenticity.

Kudos to ALL my picks! Did you notice that 2 out of these 5 are people with strong personal brands? What brands get YOUR vote? Any people in that mix?

Cross posted at Career Goddess Blog

You Say Tomato, I Say Tomahtoe

You Say Tomato, I Say Tomahtoe…

Is it ‘e-mail’ or ‘email’? One of my clients asked me this question today, expressing his concern about being totally correct in his references to electronic mail as he conducts his employment search campaign.

I’ve been using ‘e-mail’ for years simply because it was the original form of the word, but I conducted a bit of online (or ‘on-line’) research and found that ‘email’ seems to have overtaken ‘e-mail’ in terms of usage. Wired Magazine and the Associated Press say the proper form is ‘e-mail.’

Looking at it as a popularity contest, here are some statistics to consider: If you do a keyword search in Google for ‘email’ you’ll get about 87 million results, whereas a search for ‘e-mail’ yields about 2.6 billion results! To confuse the issue, on Yahoo you’ll get about 2.8 billion for ‘email’ and 1.8 billion for ‘e-mail’. On MSN Live Search, it’s 574 million for ‘email’ and 216 million for ‘e-mail’ (more than 2 to 1). The tide seems to have turned toward ‘email’ on both Yahoo and MSN.

Then again, even the software giants seem to be schizophrenic on the subject. On Apple’s website, a search of their Store using ‘e-mail’ yields just 2 results, but without the hyphen there are 18 returns. Microsoft’s website returns 372,000 results for ‘e-mail’ and less than half that for ‘email’ at 142,000. Even Bill Gates seems to be confused. His official website displays a heading “Executive E-mail” followed soon after by “Executive Email.”

The normal progression of language development seems to be from the hyphenated form of a word to non-hyphenated, with hyphenated being deemed simply more formal and non-hyphenated more casual for a transitional period. With the statistics noted above, I would say that the word form ‘email’ has a way to go before becoming universally accepted. I do think we’re at the stage where choosing either is OK, as long as you make your choice and stick with it consistently—particularly within a single document or e-mail.

Now that we're opening the electronic age terminology can of worms, is it 'e-commerce' or 'ecommerce'? 'Web site' or 'website'? ......

Posted by Laurie Smith

Personal Branding -- Is it You or is it Spin?

I just read an article in Forbes (February 26,2007 issue) entitled Image Doctor.

The Forbes reporter, although interviewing William Arruda, one of the world's foremost authorities on personal branding, seemingly missed the point of personal branding. She seemed to speak from the perspective of "repackaging' as a marketing device -- one that could be changed for different circumstances. What she seemed to miss is that personal branding is not "packaging," it's who you are -- but "who you are" identified and leveraged.

A strong personal brand is not "spin." It's a force that attracts and repels exactly because of its strength. And that's exactly what it should do. It attracts the people and opportunities that appreciate and need it and it repels those that don't.

In fact, check out William Arruda's blog post for his take on the power of authenticity in branding.

In regard to employment, candidates and companies are so used to seeing hires in terms of “what can you do to make money for my company” that they often don’t consciously realize that the “who you are” and the “how you do what you do” are just as important for optimum hiring.

Yet, a Korn Ferry survey from a year or so ago discovered that once a candidate was on the short list, the things that got the candidate the job were chemistry and fit.

Branding makes the intangibles of chemistry and fit visible, viable, and valuable.

It's simple really -- at its core, hiring is all about money and fit. Accomplishments and skills demo the money and the brand demos the fit. You need both for a great hire that works for the candidate and the company.

Branding works really well in interviews because it helps with a natural selection process -- meaning that a company/job where your accomplishments and brand fit will allow you to be yourself -- in fact that's why you’ll be hired. And a company that's not looking for your kind of brand won't hire you

While that might lead to short-term disappointment it also leads to more effective and satisfying hires. There's great potential in a hire where the personal and corporate brand mesh. Being who you are in the interview -- letting your authentic self shine -- means you can be who you are on the job, every day.

Your authenticity resonates and gives you great credibility and potential to succeed. And if you manage your brand, have a powerful value proposition, and keep visible in the marketplace, your brand helps you build a strong reputation – which leads to more visibility – which leads to you becoming the “hunted not the hunter.” Companies and recruiters will know who you are and come to you. And who wouldn't’t love a process that delivers that kind of power? Well, that’s what well-managed personal branding does.

My clients are typically C-level corporate leaders -- they're savvy and they are bottom-line-oriented. They have NO patience for spin and NO patience for anything that is fluff, or that doesn't work. When they go through the personal branding process they know it isn't spin. They see how branding works in their companies and they want that power and visibility for themselves.

Once they understand and use their brand they are energized and laser focused on who they are and what they offer. That translates into even more success, compensation, and satisfaction on the job -- and in their careers.

What's been your experience with personal branding? Do you think it is spin, or an authentic and powerful career tool? What's your opinion?

Posted by Deb Dib

Sane Advice on Career Change

Some of us fall into a career, some of us choose a career, and most of us will do one or both of these activities at least three times in our lives.

If choosing a new (or first) career is on your mind, I recommend you read this post from Penelope Trunk's blog, Brazen Careerist.

There are about 6087 assorted bits of advice about how to choose a career out there, and Penelope manages to summarize the really good ones all in one post.

A sampling of wisdom:

• Choose your lifestyle first.
• Find out what career areas are growing.
• Don't over-analyze; take action and try things.

This is one of the few articles on career change I've read that emphasizes relaxing into the process and foregoing perfectionism. I'm all for that!

There's a reason that I talk with my clients about what they want in their lives (for example, time with the kids or opportunities for travel) before we spend a moment talking about what they want in a job. Most people I work with want to feel an increased sense of well-being, and that happens when you build your career plans around your life plans.