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Personal Branding, Job Search, and Interviewing Resources - Part Three

The topic of interviewing, just like job search, can seem like a bottomless pit of information. But the really crucial information revolves around 3 concepts:

1. KNOW YOURSELF
   - What is it you really want in a job or self-employment? What will make you eager to get up in the morning to get to work?
   - Do you know your motivated skills, interests, life and career values, behavioral style (personality), and personal brand attributes?
   - What about your wants and needs? Are you able to prioritize them?
   - Can you define the kind of career or entrepreneurship area that would be a good fit?



2. KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
   - What organizations would offer the best match with YOU?
   - How does company culture, job function, compensation, work setting, company mission and vision, and any other factors important to you factor into your search?
   - Can you define your ideal employer or self-employed situation?
   - What can you find out about them that would be relevant to your job search and your interview(s)?



3. KNOW HOW TO SELF-MARKET
   - Can you articulate your value proposition verbally and in writing?
   - Do you know your personal branding "uniqueness" and how to capitalize on it?
   - Are you able to use your time effectively and efficiently to land interviews quickly?
   - What modes of communication are "in sync" with your brand?
   - Do you have a self-marketing communications plan?
   - What must you learn or what skills need polishing for your interview success?

Here's a short YouTube video describing the Google interview process. Would Google be a good match for you? If so, could you "sell" yourself in the interview?

From HRWorld online check out this article about illegal interview questions for pointers from HR folks on what can and cannot be asked by an interviewer. Read the comments section too for some fascinating retorts.

Finally, the absolute "must-have" for your career / job search toolbox is CareerHub's no-cost Insider's Guide to Interviewing with articles from career experts that address factors for interview success. You will note the linked page also contains 3 other valuable (and no-charge) e-books: Insider's Guide to Networking, Insider's Guide to Resume Writing, and Insider's Guide to Job Search. All of these resources will aid you in answering the key questions listed above for ultimate interview AND career success.

Cross-Posted at Career Goddess Blog

Your Boss: Naughty or Nice?

I have a couple of clients who play Santa during the holiday season and you know Santa Claus...gonna find out who's naughty or nice. Speaking of naughty or nice, Asher Adelman over at eBossWatch and JerkFreeJobs recently launched a Boss Contest site.

The eBossWatch Boss Contest is an opportunity for people to share their stories about working with toxic bosses, as well as with excellent bosses. Visitors can post comments. Story winners for either Best Boss of the Month or The Toxic Boss of the Month will be announced at the end of the month. Winners will receive a copy of Bullying Bosses: A Survivor's Guide or The Power of Nice: How to Conquer the Business World with Kindness.

So, has your boss been naughty or nice?

posted by: billiesucher

Take the Presidential Candidate Logo Quiz

Check out the websites of the candidates for president. Branding is evident in taglines, site look-and-feel, and content, but also in logos. If the candidates for president believe that using logos will help them get them a job, why not the rest of us?

NPR's Day To Day had a segment about presidential candidate logos yesterday and what they say about the individual. Take the brand quiz: match the message (as I read it) with the candidate logo at the bottom of this post.

"American symbol of soaring"
"Strong in crisis and BOLD"
"Solid experienced American"
"Hope"
"Military experience"
"Into the future"

Do some of these logos communicate a distinctive message better than others? What does all this mean for you and me? Do we put a logo in our email signatures? How about on our websites, blogs and portfolios? How do we make our logo truly distinctive to powerfully transmit our brand? I know I'll be thinking about: Our Logos, Our Selves.

Your Second Life

What's next for you? Are you ready to do something wildly different from what you've done your entire career? Fed up with climbing the corporate ladder? Eager to give back or pursue your lifelong passion?

Whatever it is you want to do, be prepared to invest time, effort, and money into the process. It might require retraining or an investment in business ownership. It will demand a lot of you before you ever know if you're going to succeed. Case in point: the surge in people wanting to be cheese makers, according to a story in today's Boston Globe. There's a 200-person waiting list for training at a New England cheese-making company!

The end of the year is a great time to take stock of who you are ... what you do ... where you're headed ... and where you really want to be. Before you get caught up in the end-of-year rush, schedule some time for self-reflection to determine if you're pursuing the right path. Here are some interesting options:

• Cheesemaking
• Costume Design
• Flutemaking
• Life Coaching
• Log Home Building

Of course, there's absolutely nothing wrong with continuing to do what you've been doing, if it uses your talents and provides satisfaction. I've been a resume writer for more than 20 years and don't feel compelled to change careers! It is nice to mix it up a bit with writing, training, and other opportunities to stretch my abilities and share my knowledge, but you won't find me making cheese any time soon!

Posted by Louise Kursmark

Making A List, Checking It Twice

It's that time of year again -- the holiday season -- where you may find yourself in the midst of making lists, shopping, wrapping, entertaining, cooking, traveling and oh, did I mention trying to do your day job?

If you celebrate the holidays and participate in gift-gifting, perhaps you're wondering what to give your friend or loved one who's looking for a new employment opportunity? Consider these ideas and maybe one of them will be just the thing for that special person in your life:

1. A good career-related book

2. Career Hub eBooks (download them for free; they're good, too!)

3. Gift card for coffee

4. Postage Stamps

5. Personalized (or plain) Thank You cards

6. Resume kit (paper, envelopes)

7. Dry-cleaning gift certificate

8. Massage gift certificate

9. Manicure

10. Hair Salon / barber-stylist gift certificate

11. Box of chocolates

12. Bookstore gift card

13. Gift certificate for career coaching, resume writing, interview training (visit Career Management Alliance for career professionals  in your area)

14. Calling card (especially if your friend/family member's former employer kept the cell phone)

15. Movie tickets

16. Gasoline gift card

17. Gift certificate for two to your favorite restaurant

18. Business cards gift certificate

19. Paul Potts CD - beautiful music (and inspirational career story)

20. Gift certificate to local tailor

21. Sticky notes (plain or personalized)

22. A good pen

23. A diary / journal

Have fun shopping; delight in the giving!

posted by: billiesucher

Will Facebook Build Your Personal Brand?

The 'discussion' continues with another on line article at the Globe & Mail about the negative aspects of Facebook and personal branding.

Having been interviewed by both the Toronto Star and National Post recently on the whole subject of building a personal brand on line this is becoming a very hot topic as people start to look for new ways to connect and share information.

Its best to look at the whole subject with two hats on;

1. What personal brand do you want to be known for professionally? How do you want to be seen on line by those who might hire you? Then make a plan to ensure that all you do on line reflects that brand authentically.

2. How do you want to connect and network socially? How much personal information are you prepared to share? Make a separate plan that addresses this and make sure if you are using public access sites like Facebook that you have all the necessary filters in place.

Finally be mindful of the fact that applications and additions you download to your computer like Alexa rankings or to portals like Facebook are being used to gather information about your web habbits and preferences - there is no value in this unless it is going to make money - its business, not personal.

Cross posted on Reflections of a Square Peg blog.

Personal Branding, Job Search, and Interviewing Resources - Part Two

Want to hear an amazing speaker on personal branding in the workplace? The second installment to my series features Anita Bruzzese, a nationally syndicated columnist for USAToday.com and Gannett News Service, and the author of 45 Things You Do That Drive Your Boss Crazy...and How to Avoid Them.

To my great delight, I connected a few months ago with Anita to invite her to expound as an expert speaker for the Brand You World (BYW) 2007 Global Telesummit on Personal Branding. Just some background...Anita has a combined newspaper and online readership in excess of 38 million people - and she wrote one of the first columns directed to careers and the workplace. As one of the organizers of the BYW ground-breaking event on personal brands, I had the pleasure of "recruiting" speakers for the Career Management stream and she was the first to positively respond.

Later, to my even greater delight, I interviewed Anita "live" on her one-hour BYW presentation "How Finding and Developing Your Brand Helps Your Career". In case you missed her "live", you can listen to the recording, jam-packed with highly useful tidbits about branding in the workplace, via MP3 or iTunes podcast. Just go to Personal Branding Telesummit and look for the links to the recordings.

Grab the rest of the recordings for the other 23 hours too! Whether you are already employed, a job-seeker, a budding or growing entrepreneur, or an HR professional or recruiter, these recordings can literally change the way you think about personal branding. I know because I have already gotten feedback from listeners expressing that sentiment.

But wait...there's more! Anita kindly offered to email a sample chapter from her 45 Things book. Just email Anita@AnitaBruzzese.com and indicate "Sample Chapter" in the subject line. Thank you Anita - and Thank You to all the exceptional speakers who all volunteered their time and expertise for this event.

Cross-Posted at Career Goddess Blog

Are you working or surfing?

According to a recent Accountemps survey, 21% of workers are going to be spending up to 3 hours at work doing their on line holiday shopping and employers are not going to be too happy.

I can remember in my corporate time a few years ago when we were given half a day near Christmas to do some shopping.

With Black Friday in the US fast approaching and Christmas just aorund the corner perhaps letting employees do a little surfing to shop is a way of showing some thanks and festive cheer. It might be remembered longer than the recent IT policy to block access to Facebook!

Cross posted on Reflections of a Square Peg

Did Someone Not Come in to Work Today?

Chances are that if someone is not coming in this week today is the more likely day. According to a recent CareerBuilder.com survey Monday is the most popular day for calling in sick and 32% of adults called in last year even tohugh they were not ill enough to miss a day.

When asked to share the most unusual excuses employees gave for missing work, employers offered the following real-life examples:

• Employee said he was crabby


• Employee got whiplash from brushing her hair


• Employee said her psychic told her to stay home or something awful would happen to her


• Employee said he wasn't feeling well and wanted to rest up for the company's holiday party that night


• Employee said her chickens' feet were frozen to the driveway


• At her sister's wedding, the employee chipped her tooth on a mint julep, bent over to spit it out, hit her head on a keg and was knocked unconscious with a mild concussion


• Employee claimed to have met a movie star and was spending the day with him


• Employee was injured while getting a haircut


• Employee tasted some dog food because the dog was not feeling well and now the employee is sick


• Employee's roommate locked all his clothes in a shed for spite


• A groundhog bit the employee's car tire, causing it to go flat


• Employee had been up all night because their favorite "American Idol" contestant was voted off

Mastering the Phone Interview

Over on the Brazen Careerist blog, Penelope Trunk has an informative post about the top five interview blunders. One of her blunders is not being prepared for a phone interview. Here are ten additional tips for mastering the phone interview.

Schedule the meeting during a time when you won’t be distracted.

A phone interview should be scheduled like any other interview. At the designated appointment time, make sure the dog is in the backyard and someone else is watching the kids. If a recruiter or hiring manager calls you without advance notice and wants to interview you on the spot, use caution. If the interview “conditions” are not optimal at the time of the call, it is best to tell the interviewer that you are very interested in the position, but need to schedule another time to have a conversation. That time can be as soon as ten minutes later, just make sure that you can take the call without being distracted.

Conduct interviews from a landline.

Cell phones are a boon to modern communication, but the quality is still not the same as that from a land line. You don’t want to frustrate the recruiter or the hiring manager with a bad connection. Plan your interview from a reliable phone line.

Create an office space.

Dedicate an area as your office. This could be as simple as a card table with a phone and your documents. Conduct your interviews from your “office”. Being seated at a desk or table allows you to create an environment similar to an in-person interview.

Put a mirror in front of you.

This helps you focus and it anchors your conversation to the visual representation of a person.  Monitoring your facial expressions helps you see if you are communicating your enthusiasm to the recruiter.

Have a glass of water nearby.

If your throat is dry or you get a tickle you can take care of it before it turns into a cough and disrupts the flow of the interview.

Have your notes in front of you.

A phone interview is like an open book test. You can have your company research and answers to potential interview questions right in front of you. Try putting key information on colored index cards and organize by category.

Vary Your Voice.

Since the other person can’t see you, it is critical that you vary the tone and cadence of your voice to communicate interest and develop rapport.

Use pauses effectively.

Pauses in an interview situation are always difficult and they can be especially awkward during a phone interview. Rather than wondering what the person on the other end is doing or if they are still there, use the silence to ask a question. For example, if the interviewer has just asked you about your strengths and your response is met with silence, make that an opportunity to ask a question like “What are the key strengths of your ideal candidate?” This takes care of the silence and allows you to learn more about the position.

Don’t multi-task.

We have grown so accustomed to multi-tasking, however it can be counterproductive during a phone interview.  Don’t check your email or stick a casserole in the oven while you are engaged in a phone interview. Act the same way you would for an in-office interview and maintain your focus.

Practice.

Record some of your answers to prospective interview questions. Play them back and critique. Are you easy to understand? Is your presentation riddled with long pauses and “ums?” Do you communicate interest and enthusiasm? If necessary, rework your answers and your presentation.

Posted by Barbara Safani