Posts Tagged ‘job hunting’

Mobile or Noble? You Can Be Both!

You don’t have to be noble to go mobile.  On the other hand some people think they are too noble to go mobile.  Mobile apps for job search, you can love them, you can hate them, but they aren’t going away.  Tonight I spent most of the evening digging into the Facebook Apps Chachinko, Beknown, and BranchOut. Monster, and Career Builder have mobile apps, as do big corporations like Starbucks, and AT&T.  I wanted to test just a few.  I downloaded LinkUp and played with the Indeed Mobile App on my iPhone.  I built out my networks, beefed up my Google+ connections, linked it all to my smart phone.  Then I spent a chunk of time testing these apps.  Here’s what I found.

LinkUp is my favorite mobile job app because it leads you ONLY to jobs posted by companies.  No spam, just jobs, good jobs at that. It’s on my iPhone, and I like a lot.

Beyond.com is an iPhone app that allows you to surf jobs at lightening speed.  I was really bothered by the push Ads you had to scroll through to see jobs. (Not cool, but I guess they have to pay for it somehow). I also noticed their jobs were not current.

Indeed is a great aggregator, and the jobs on their mobile app are easy to access.  The iPhone app works great, it’s smooth, and simple to navigate.  You can easily email jobs to yourself if your resume isn’t saved on your smartphone for distribution.  Indeed had the largest database for social media jobs, and I was impressed.

Mashable is an amazing app, particularly if you want to find out about jobs in social media, and the digital space.

LunchMeet is one of my new favorite mobile apps, you can contact any of your LinkedIn contacts, and set up lunch, or coffee meetings with a few clicks on your mobile phone.  Very smart indeed.

Chachinko lured me into applying for a very cool position that sent me to a spam site where in order to apply for a job, I  had to sign up for an ‘educational assessment.’  In other words, it’s was spam.  I reported it on their Facebook page.  That’s the fun part of being a cyber sleuth and checking out the jobs these apps lead you to-it’s hit or miss…but as a secret shopper, I’m often surprised that the newer mobile and Facebook job apps aren’t more careful. Chachinko is the new kid on the block, and they are going through growing pains.  It’s still worthwhile to check them out on Facebook.

Talent.me is in my top 5. As a social media recruiter, I love it because it is easy to find people, as a job seeker, I love it because the profile buildout is robust, and the ability to shine on that Facebook App is great.  A lot of recruiters are watching this one, so get on it.  Make sure you profile on this (or any App is 100% complete).

BeKnown is much cooler than I originally thought.  I had fun building my network, recommending my friends, and their jobs looked pretty good.  Downloading it to my iPhone was easy, and fun.

BranchOut has a lot of potential.  They are on the right track.  I like the way they connect people, and relevant networks. They have  1 million monthly users.  Not too shabby.  (I’m also partial because they recently hosted an HFChat on Twitter). You can import your resume. Watch it because when it imported mine, it eliminated my recent jobs, and aggregated my experience under the oldest job on my resume.  I  opted to cut and paste my LinkedIn summary instead. Sometimes you have to tweak your strategy.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be watching the mobile, and Facebook job app world, as I’m giving three presentations in Jan/Feb.  I’ll keep you posted about what I find.

I purposely didn’t link back to all these apps until my research is finish, but it’s easy enough to find them yourself, just search any of the above mentioned in the App store on your smartphone, or on Facebook.

Happy hunting,

Margo

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Do you have job search fatigue

Job Search Fatigue.  What is it?  If you find yourself identifying with any of the following statements,  you might have it:

“I’m tired, I give up, I’m sick of job hunting.”  ”I couldn’t possibly apply for one more job.”   “If I have to spend 45 minutes filling out yet another online job application, I’ll scream.”  ”I’ve talked to that recruiter twice, and he never called me back to let me know what happened.” “I’ve passed out so many business cards at networking events, my hands hurt.”  ”I’ve attended so many professional associations in the past two months, I’m practically broke.” “If feel as if my resume’s been lost in a black hole, I never hear back”.

Job search fatigue is real.  In fact, it’s a job hunt killer.  Job search fatigue can not only slow you down, it can murder your morale.  If you’ve been looking for a job for more than 3 to 6 months, you’ve probably grown weary of the job hunt.  If you’ve been looking for a job for a year or longer, you’re probably exhausted.  Some job seekers get so fatigued from the search they give up, retreat, or distract themselves with other activities that keep them from getting the job they want.  One thing’s for sure, job search fatigue is real.  How do you combat it?  How can you transform your discouragement into encouragement?  Where can you replenish your well-spring of support?  That is precisely what we are going to discuss on HFChat this Friday.  Please join us 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Pacific, 11-12 Central and Noon-1 Eastern time.  All you have to do is logon to Twitter, and follow the hashtag #HFChat.   Here are this week’s questions.  Think about these questions, and bring your own.

1. What are the common symptoms of job search fatigue?
2. How can you overcome job search fatigue?
3. Where can you go for help?
4. What can you do to prevent job search fatigue?

These questions will certainly bring up a lot of feelings, and opinions from job seekers, and career professionals alike.  I look forward to hearing from you.  Please bring your questions.  I’ll be hosting this week.  As the Founder of HireFriday, and HFChat I look forward to being of service to you and our entire community.  We’ve had some amazing guest hosts this year from a variety of disciplines.  Next year promises to be even better.  You are what makes HFChat special.  Won’t you please join us, and tell your friends?

Thanks so much!

HRMargo

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How To Get A Job You Will Love

Hope For The Holidays: This Series Continues With A Very Special Learning Opportunity For The HireFriday Candidate Community.

We are a community, and a social media movement where job seekers connect.  We connect people to resources, and opportunities that advance your career, and help you land a job in the shortest time possible.  That’s why I’m thrilled to be joining the team of world-class career professionals for The Brazen Careerist “Brazen U” Job Search Boot Camp.

I hope you’ll join me and Brazen U for a two-week “How to Get a Job You Will Love” bootcamp. We will teach you how to form a successful job search strategy, how to leverage social media in your search, insider secrets on how to interview with top recruiters, how to shape your resume and cover letter, speed resume review, and much more.  You’ll learn from the famous people human resources, recruiting, and social media.  Such luminaries included Dan Schwabel, Joshua Waldman, Jodi Glickman, Dain Lewis, and Rebecca Rapple.

I firmly believe that everyone should have a job they love.  Most people just need to learn how to get it.  The reason I’m teaching during this bootcamp is that I am fully committed to seeing candidates land in the right job, at the right time, for the right reason.  Job seekers, deserve to be happy.  We will teach you how.

I will be offering three scholarships to the Brazen U’s Job Search Bootcamp during the next Social Media Club’s Tweet Up on January 19, 2012.  The Social Media Club of Nashville is  partnering with the Nashville Career Transitions Group, and our HireFriday’s #HFChat community.  This will be a nation-wide event/tweet-up for our entire online community.  On January 19th, I’m on a panel with Jennifer Way from Way Solutions, Mathew LeBlanc a recruiter for ADP, and Shannon VanCuren is a trainer with Airs The Right Thing.  Our topic is one you won’t want to miss: Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile.  Job seekers, please don’t miss this event. It will be live on Twitter from 6-8 p.m. Central Time, and 7-9 p.m. Eastern Time.  I will be live podcasting from the event, and career transitions groups around the US will be joining in on the fun.  We will be broadcasting this event over UStream.

So that’s my holiday gift to you: two great learning opportunities that will take you from HireFriday to HiredFriday.

Get the Early Bird rate from now through Dec. 31!

Your job search pal,

HRMargo

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Be The Life Of The Party, Not The "Talk" Of The Party

It’s December.  You are looking for a job.  Are you thinking about the most creative, and interesting ways to find one?  Have you considered jump starting your job search by launching a high profile professional presence on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn?  Listen job seekers, if you are a member of our HireFriday Community, participate in HFChat, this is no time to be shy.  It’s ok to toot your horn. In fact, I implore you to toot it so loud that everyone hears you…you can do this without being noisy. In fact you can be quite slick in how you present yourself at holiday parties, networking events, coffee shops, informational interviews, meetings, and professional association events.  You can, and should participate in Twitter chats. This is an excellent way to get noticed, and found by recruiters, and companies.    You don’t have to be an extrovert to be creative your job search campaign. Introverts are very successful with their online presence because they have the safety of the computer screen to shield them from over stimulation.  You have to ask yourself one critical question: How and where do you recharge your inner battery, and where can you make the biggest splash.

Here’s my top 5 tips for staying on top of your game:

1. Secure speaking engagements for the coming year with the organizations to which you belong: This is a cool way to get your name out there in your industry, and get some personal brand recognition. Public speaking is a brilliant way to position yourself in the market place, and can be a great way to receive the recognition you deserve.
2. Create a list of questions in advance targeted toward the people you want to meet. Make these questions industry specific, and relevant to the person you want to meet. People like to talk about themselves.
3. Ask questions: come prepared with a few conversation starters in case you find yourself suddenly scared, or feeling insecure: It happens to the best of us, we are in a crowd of people we don’t know at a holiday party, and suddenly we are overcome with the jitters.  You can overcome this by finding out in advance who is going to be at the party.  Run a Google search on the people you want to meet. Find out about their background, interests and accomplishments.
4. Don’t drink too much at holiday parties, or events: You never know who has a camera, or whether or not an unflattering picture will wind up on Facebook, or Twitter. Beware of people who can be “brand killers.”
5. Be the smart one at the party, not the life of the party. There’s a time and place for everything.  If you love working the room, by all means do so, particularly if that’s one of your skills.  However, don’t be the goon who dances like a fool, or worse who thinks s/he looks good while dancing.  If you don’t know how you look when you dance, be sure to check it out before it winds up on YouTube without you even knowing it.  There’s good publicity and bad publicity.

You are not Brett Michaels, Sorry. He Can Get Away With It, You Can't.

When you are looking for a job, you have to be the guardian of your image, and online reputation. No one will take better care of you than you.  So be sure you are the smart one at the party.  Make sure that don’t do or say anything that will offend or embarrass your boss.  If you are passively looking for a job while employed, that’s incredibly important.  The last thing you want is to find yourself fired before you are ready to leave.  If you are unemployed, and in an active pursuit of a job, the holidays are a monumental opportunity to find and secure a position…or at the very least get on the short list for the position you want when it comes open.

Tomorrow, I will continue the series with more secret sauce…job search tips…and encouragement.  Encouragement, is perhaps what we need most when job hunting, so hang in there.

Your job search pal,

@HRMargo

Margo Rose

Hey are we connected on LinkedIn?  Mention HireFriday in your invitation, and I will gladly accept http://linkedin.com/in/margorose

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