Transition means saying good bye, saying hello, shaking hands, making decisions, and reaching out for new connections, contacts, engagement, and validation…it’s about engagement, goals, decision making, and even packing, and moving…it all requires one important thing and that’s the ability to let go.

Letting go of an old job, a relationship, or even a city where you used to live requires an innate ability to release the past, both good memories and bad. William Bridges, author of ‘You & Company,’ says every new beginning begins with a good ending. Sometimes we can’t change the way things ‘end,’ but we can reframe it in our minds so we can learn the necessary insights so that we actually can start anew.

It’s a new year. I didn’t write a ‘predictions’ or ‘best of’ posts. Instead, I want to focus on the most important thing, more important than resolutions, and it’s simply this: LET GO, so you can move forward. All those new year’s resolutions won’t amount to a hill of beans until you can effectively let go of the behavior that keeps you bound to the behavior you resolve to change.

It isn’t magic, it is hard, it requires support, inspiration, care, and even friendship at times…the bottom line is this…if you want to change, be sure you are ready to act on the changes you want to make. I say, it begins with letting go.

Are you ready?

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LinkedIn And You

LinkedIn, Your Job Search, and You!

Some people say LinkedIn is a glorified job board.  Some say it’s where salespeople connect.  LinkedIn wants you to think of their site as a business search engine.  Of course, it’s a place to advance your career, a hub for job posting, a mecca for recruiters, and candidate sourcers.  The bottom line is this:  How can you leverage LinkedIn to meet your specific needs.

First you have to answer a few questions:

1)   Why are you on LinkedIn?

2)   What are your career goals?

3)   What are your business goals?

4)   How can you develop a strategy and tactics to help you reach your goals.

Any good project begins with clear goals.  If you don’t know where you are going, how will you know when you get there?  All roads lead to nowhere.  So, know where you want to go.

Here’s some definite do’s to get your LinkedIn profile started:

1)   Make sure your profile is 100% complete

2)   Present a clear, professional picture

3)   Don’t use tired cliché’s and overused words

4)   Embed key words and phrases throughout your profile-this makes you findable

5)   Use the first person singular when creating in your introduction

6)   If you are an active job seeker, list it in your heading

7)   List the bullet points that precisely address the job you want

8)   Be honest-Make sure the dates on your LinkedIn profile match those on your resume

9)   Join groups, it’s a great place to hear about jobs, and connect with peers who can get you connected to people in their companies

10)                   Take advantage of the skills, and activities, again its one more place you can list the key words that will help you get found

11)                   Personalize each LinkedIn invite, it increases your chances of acceptance

12)                   Let the person know why you want to be connected and what’s in it for them

13)                   Don’t over email.  People consider it to be spam.  Pace yourself

14)                   Don’t update your status on LinkedIn more than once a day.

15)                   Gerry Crispin from Career XRoads recommends that you should only apply for jobs where you have a connection.  While this may seem impossible in some cases, it makes absolute perfect sense.  It might take a lot of research on your part, but when you apply for a job with a warm lead, the chances of you getting an interview increases exponentially.

Eric Jaquith, conference speaker, and nationally recognized recruiter thinks you should only update your status once a week.  The debate on that rages, but I say do it once a day because some people only check in on LinkedIn once a week.  If someone thinks you are updating too frequently, they can hide you from their stream.

I firmly believe the point of LinkedIn, or any social network for that matter is to meet people who can be helpful to your business, industry, or occupation,  connect with them, and then meet them.  Schedule a phone call, or a meeting.  Don’t be a connection hoarder.  Be generous with your information, and as Chris Brogan says, just be helpful.

Consider these best practices by Neal Schaeffer, author of Windmill Networking: Understanding, Leveraging, And Maximizing your Presence On LinkedIn.

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When Deborah Shane agreed to be on Compassionate HR (on blogtalkradio Monday, May 26) I was over joyed.  We will reveal secret tips from her new book: Make The Shift-5 Steps to Career Reinvention now available on Amazon.

Deborah Shane is a motivator, an educator,  a catalyst and an advocate. It is who she is and what she does.

But make no mistake, she’s been where you are. Doubtful, unsure, scared … all of these feelings have plagued her at one time or another, and yet she pushed through and came out the other side stronger and more sure of herself.

Her career has been anything but a smooth ride, but at least she can say it’s been an adventure!

Don’t let career transition intimidate you! Deborah Shane is here to emPOWER you, to help you believe you can succeed and become the best you and the best at what you do!

Deborah’s career has spanned many industries, including entertainment, teaching, sales and mentoring. She spent two decades in broadcast radio, specifically in sales, management and training, in corporate America with Cox Radio and Clear Channel.

Deborah has successfully transformed herself from a rockin’ singer and published songwriter, teacher and award-winning broadcast radio sales professional into a gutsy author, speaker, radio host, expert and entrepreneur, as the leader of her company, Train with Shane. In this exciting venture, Deborah has combined all of her skills and talents—entertainment, marketing, sales, mentoring, teaching and more—into a business that guides and motivates others through their career transition, business development and professional empowerment.

In February 2007, she took a chance and launched Train with Shane after an unexpected series of professional events occurred. Train with Shane was born out of Deborah’s passion for creating and presenting seminars, training events, dynamic motivational speaking, and insightful consulting. It was the right time and the right decision for her. It felt like home.

Her career transition story and process is an example and testimonial that life is a continuum of beginnings and adventures at any age! Her new book Career Transition-make the shift-the 5 steps to successful career reinvention is now available on Amazon.com.  Join us Monday, May 26th for an amazing discussion about career transition.  You can learn more about Deborah at http://trainwithshane.com.

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HFChat: Marketing Yourself! It's You & Company.

Do you know how to package your skills, knowledge, and abilities like a best selling product?  Career expert, William Bridges, wrote a phenomenal book entitled, “You & Company: Think Like The CEO of Your Own Career.” If you haven’t read this book, you might want to consider putting it on your reading list for 2011.  On 1/14  The HireFriday’s #HFChat will address the salient points of marketing & packaging you in the highest light possible. We want you to be able to utilize the best practices offered by the recruitment, executive coaching, and career development community.  Of course, each of you bring your own skills, and voice to the Twitter chat as well.  Won’t you please join us?  I offer the following questions for your consideration:

Questions:

1. How do you (or how should a job seeker) market their career campaign?  Follow up to this question-How is this different than marketing a product?
2. What commercial marketing techniques and tools do you employ (or should you employ) to promote your personal message?
3. How do you track, measure, and fine-tune the message for a successful job search?
4. What speed bumps have you encountered on the road to a successful hire, and how can they be overcome?
5. In general, how do you feel about the concept of “being the CEO of your own career?”   How does this fit into your job search strategy?  How is it different than what you are currently doing?

In my experience from facilitating and participating in Twitter chats, it is helpful to have guidelines for participation.  Here are my suggestions:

• Be respectful.  If you disagree, feel free to say so, and say why, but no personal attacks please.
• Engage, and encourage others to join in the conversation.  If you like what someone is saying, by all means feel free to retweet them.
• Chats are a great way to place to get to know your fellow job seekers, and professionals in our industry that can help you.
• The best strategy is to engage in a friendly and meaningful way.
• Add value to the conversation.  Share your experience.  Ask questions.  If possible, stay on topic, but if you have a question, by all means ask it.

If you need my help in your career search process, send me your resume, and I’ll be happy to give a referral to someone in my contact network.  In addition, if you have derived value from HireFriday, or HFChat would you please consider helping us out by giving us a testimonial?  We are also looking for guest posts by both job seekers, human resource professionals, executive coaches, leadership consultants, and most of all recruiters.  Thank you in advance for being a part of the HireFriday & #HFChat team.

OUR GOAL IN 2011: TO BUILD THE HIREFRIDAY COMMUNITY TO ONE MILLION STRONG BY THE END OF THE YEAR! You can help us reach this goal by:

• Telling your family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, colleagues in professional associations, job seekers, and career development professionals to join our community, and get involved.
• You’ll derive value by expanding your contact network.
• You’ll receive the good feeling that only comes from being helpful, and generous in spirit.
• You’ll increase your networking equity.
• You’ll make new friends (and in some cases, really good friends)
• You’ll create, and build deep and meaningful relationships with people who will support you, and be your sounding board.
• You’ll come to realize that most people genuinely want to help you.  All you have to do is politely tell them how.
• You’ll get new business.
• You’ll get a job.
• You’ll find out about free resources.
• You’ll learn out to put together a strategic marketing campaign for your career search.
• You’ll be able to take all the skills you learn in our community, and apply them to your life, and your career.
• You’ll find gratitude, and an emotional paycheck.  You’ll come to realize that the emotional paycheck pays great dividends in (heaven) or if you are an atheist, right here on earth.
• You might just discover your true purpose in life…follow your dream…manifest your passion into a business…and empower your heart to do the next right thing.

These are the values I hold dear.  Yes, I believe in HireFriday.  More importantly I believe in you.  I believe in our community.  I affirm your worth, and honor your path.  I value your contribution to our community.  I appreciate you positive thinking, and energy.  I also believe that we can be 1 million strong by the end of 2011.  All we need are people who have a lot of followers to retweet something nice about HireFriday, and we’ll be there in no time.  It’s about team work.  It’s about community.  We are here for you.

I’d like to personally thank my co-moderator, Tom Bolt for helping me with #HFChat, and Steve Levy, my mentor, who worked with me to refine this topic.  Most of all, thank you so much for participating in HireFriday.

Sincerely,

HR Margo Rose

Founder & CEO of HireFriday

@HRMargo on Twitter: Follow Me Please

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Margo Rose, Founder & CEO of HireFriday and the brand new website http://hirefriday.com launching in 2011.

Gratitude is an action word. As you review the people, and thing for which you give thanks, consider matching your thankfulness with compassionate action. Unemployment is Hard. HireFriday can help. Lend a hand and encourage a heart.  We are the only stream on Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin that focuses solely on job seekers.  I  keep the focus on unemployed people, and those interested in making a career change because I believe the power of HireFriday is based on community building for people who need our help!

HireFriday is a people stream, not a job stream that focuses on commercial profit.  We want to get our candidates HireFriday by providing access, and connections to employers, recruiters, and people that are in a position to hire.  I connect people to me on a variety of social networks.  I offer resume review, job search coaching, occupational personality assessment, and assessment tools that will guide you in making an informed decision about your next job, or even career.  On my new website, http://hirefriday.com, I will offer videos, books, e-books, HireFriday Bootcamp webinars.  In addition, I will provide I am launching the HireFriday podcast.  I will interview world-famous career professions that will help you with your career transition.

My podcast will give you access to me, and all that I have learned about career development outplacement, job search strategy, networking, marketing, and branding yourself as a stellar candidate for any employer.  I will make you shine, and I will make you famous among the people in my contact network.  I will encourage people in my community network to amplify your search by recommending, and retweeting , and giving you visibility to their networks on Facebook, and Linkedin.  Your credentials will be seen around the world  The next thing you know is that your credentials are being seen, and considered to hundreds, and thousands of people globally. world.

I will introduce you to recruiters, employers, and human resource professionals based upon your interests, and needs.  I offer you the first 15 minutes of my time free of charge.  I will even review your resume before we meet.  Once we meet, I will conduct an assessment to determine targeted, and strategic next steps.  My website, my videos, podcasts, webinars, seminars, and books will accelerate your job search.  I will help you get HiredFriday.  I have your best interests at heart.  I believe passionately in Compassionate HR, infact that is the theme of my blogtalkradio where I interview industry leaders about strategic philanthropy, service learning, and the path to career satisfaction.

Unemployment is hard. HireFriday can help.

My goal is simple.  I want to change the world for the better.  My passion is to use social media for social good.  The service I provide on public networks, such as #HireFriday and #HFChat on Twitter will be free of charge.  Access to our facebook page, group, and linkedin group will also be pro-bono.  I will only charge for the time I invest in you.  All I want to do is make an honest living that is in keeping with my values of respect, dignity, compassion, and integrity.  I believe in the concept of right livelihood, and in so doing serve humankind.  I hope to monetize HireFriday in a way that supports our community in a meaningful, and truly helpful way.

Won’t you please give me a minute of your time.  As I explore ways to monetize HireFriday with maximum integrity, how do you think I should go about it.  What would be the best method.  What services would you buy?  What services do you think are the most meaningful.  What do you like most about my presence as a leader of the HireFriday community.  I honestly need your feedback and advice, because it is people like you that will determine my future success.  Please help me out.  Give me your opinion, and comments.

Thank you,

Margo Rose,

Founder & CEO of HireFriday

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