Out of Work Bum

Personal branding, a buzzword used a lot in the current recessionary job market is simply identifying and communicating your value to people who can help your career.  Essentially it is using social networking sites like Linkedin, twitter, and Facebook to promote your personal “brand” or identity to the people who can offer you a job, the hiring managers and  recruiters of the world.

The first thing you need to do is to consider what you want your brand to be.  Think long term – remember the Internet is forever.  What ever footprint you leave will never go away.  Once you determine what you are or want to be you need to go to work building your brand.  This requires a lot of thought and effort.  As any good marketing person will tell you (and I am one) is that branding is an ongoing effort.  You can’t simply start a twitter page and not tweet.  Also, you need to carefully manage your brand.  If you are trying to position yourself as highly professional on Linkedin you can’t go on a rant or post pictures of Saturday’s keg party on your Facebook page.  You need to keep the image you are trying to project in your brand at the top of your mind in everything you do online.  Remember, the Internet is forever.

There is and interesting article on personal branding that I link to on the job search page of this blog.  The article, written by Meridith Levinson talks about common personal branding mistakes.  Read  it before you launch your own brand.

Just before I took my Christmas hiatus from being blogging about being unemployed I was encouraged by the unemployment figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  The unemployment rate actually fell.  It was only a couple of tenths but it was moving in the right direction.  In fact the Labor Department reported that the economy added 4,000 jobs in November breaking the streak of consecutive losses that started two years before.  In a reversal of that trend December lost 85,000 jobs.  The unemployment rate remains at 10%.  The fact that there is so much talk about such relatively small numbers, there are over 14 million unemployed workers after all, shows how sensitive the economy and the markets are about unemployment. Because our economy relies so heavily on consumer spending, the unemployment rate is a critical statistic for the economy.

What does this mean for all of us unemployed?  As I said before this is going to be a very slow recovery.  While the pundits are saying the recession is over businesses are being very cautious about hiring workers.  We need to just hunker down and not give up.  Companies are hiring some new employees.  We just need to focus on becoming of of them.

The holidays are over.  We said goodbye to one of the worst years and decades in recent history.  Now is the time to be hopeful and start our job search anew. 

Before my well deserved holiday respite (being  a bum is hard work) I posted about using search keywords in you resume and using social networking sites in your job search.  In this post I will talk about another online job search tool -  the personal website/online resume.

It has never been easier to build a presence on the web.  With the release of Montenegro’s Internet country extension (.me) to the public you can create your own personal Internet brand.  Think JohnDoe.me.  Once you have your own domain you can use a variety of simple tools and templates to create your online resume.

If you don’t have the time, skill, or inclination to create your own online resume you can use a free online resume service like My Resume Online. For something really innovative you can check out Executive Preview. 

Executive Preview has put a new spin on the traditional online resume.  The fee-based site allows you to create a professional video introduction to your resume.  The site’s creators say they use a new technology called i-Vo to overlay your introduction video right on your personal page on their site.  Executive Preview has developed a network of professional studios where you can record your intro.   Once your video and resume are posted you can use them in all of your job search communications.  The recruiters get a look at you and you get a chance to personally pitch your qualifications very early in the process.

The site publisher tells me that they are just launching the site but the inital feedback is positive.  This looks to be a creative to differentiate yourself from the pack.  Check it out.

I have read a couple of articles lately saying not to take it easy in your job search over the holidays.  While it is tempting to fall back on the comfort of family during the Christmas season, I have to agree with them.  There are a variety of reasons given in the articles but I think it is a combination of factors.  Business travel for most people slows down over the holidays.  As a long time global traveller I always tried not to travel around the big travel holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Business travel these days is unpleasant enough without having to compete with holiday travelers at airport security.  But I digress.

I think there are a number of factors which bode well for aggressive job seekers this time of year.  As I already said, hiring managers are more likely to be in the office and have more time to focus on filling their positions.  Also most companies run on a calendar fiscal year.  This means that there is additional pressure on filling vacancies rather than risk losing the budget in the new year.

I also think that people tend to be in better spirits this time of year.  Maybe it is the holiday parties or being with family but people seem happier.  I would much rather interview with a happy, relaxed manager than a harried, unhappy one any day.

Maybe is is just coincidence but I have gotten more calls about possible jobs in the last two weeks than I have in the previous two months, but I think not.

So, don’t let up on your search.  Miracles happen this time of year.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Back in September I wrote a post about how job seekers can learn a few things from online marketeers by using SEO techniques in there resume.  It seems that I was not the only one thinking that way.  According to an article by Lisa Vaas of the fee-based job site The Ladders,   “The importance of keywords in a resume can’t be overstated. They not only help connect resumes with current openings, they also ensure that searches for future job openings will pull appropriate resumes out of the database and put them in front of hiring professionals.”  The article goes on to stress the importance of identifying the proper keywords for the position you are seeking and  including them in your resume. 

According to Christine Bolzan, CEO of Graduate Career Coaching here are some tips:

• Include relevant professional groups or associations.
• Embed keywords in cover letters in case they’re also being scanned.
• Use keywords in social-media profiles as well as resumes. For example, LinkedIn provides a summary section for keywords and specialties. Bolzan said that anywhere from 50% to 80% of employers are searching for keywords on LinkedIn, Facebook and other social-networking sites.

With an ever increasing number of employers and recruiters using search engine based HR tools including keywords and treating your resume like a Google search has never been more important.

According to Vaas’ article here are the top ten keywords being searched by recruiters:

1. Sales
2. CPA
3. Tax
4. Business Development
5. Marketing
6. Controller
7. Healthcare
8. Human Resources
9. Insurance
10. Software

Back in August I wrote about the hazards of social networking and the unemployed.  The flip side to that is that with the rapid growth of social networking, especially for those over 35, it has become an essential tool for finding a job as well.  Over the last few years Linkedin has been somewhat of the defacto site for business people to network.  Now more traditionally social sites like Facebook and twitter have gained wider acceptance as business communications tools.

What this means to the unemployed is that they can be used as tools to research companies and network with people who can help in our job search.  Additionally, if used as a carefully crafted marketing tool the can also give recruiters and prospective employers a favorable impression of us as candidates.

I posted in the job search section a couple of articles I came across talking about how to use social networking sites in a job search.  Check them out.  They might be helpful.

I also want to reiterate the cautions I talked about the in the August post.  Take care in what you put on your Facebook page or write in your tweets.  A wise man once cautioned me about the contents of emails.  He said, “When you write and email imagine it beginning with ‘Dear ladies and gentlemen of the jury. . .’ If you wouldn’t say it that venue don’t write it in an email.”

Remember folks – the Internet is forever.  Nothing on the net ever goes away.

I am always looking for ways to help in my job search.  I recently began scouring news sites for information that may help.  Every once in a while I come across an article that I find interesting or helpful.  I have begun posting them on the Job Search category page.  I hope you find them useful as well.  We all need all the help we can get finding a job in the current economy.

According to the latest numbers from the Department of Labor unemployment topped 10.2% in October, the highest in over 26 years.  This was worse than expected. 

The pundits have said that the recession is ending and the economy is recovering.  They also say that this looks to be a jobless recovery — one that doesn’t create jobs even though the economy is growing.  According to  Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist for New York-based investment firm Miller Tabak & Co., “What we’re seeing is a validation of the idea that a jobless recovery is perfectly on track.”  Ultimately this hurts not only the unemployed but the economy as a whole.  Consumer spending accounts for 70% of our economy.  People without jobs don’t spend money.

According to the numbers we lost another 589,000 jobs in October, about 190,000 more than expected. This swells the number of the unemployed to 15.7 million.  This doesn’t include those who are underemployed.  If you count the number of people who have quit looking the unemployment figure exceeds 17.5%.  Experts see this number rising through the middle of next year. 

The conclusion I draw is that the recovery is going to be slow but hiring is going to be even slower.  It could be years before those of us who want a job can get a job.  For someone who has held a steady job since I was 14 this is incredibly disheartening.  Oh well, maybe it is time to revisit “anything for a buck.”

According to the Department of Labor productivity rose to an annual rate of  9.5% last quarter.  This is compared to the economist’s estimates of 6.4%.  This is the quickest pace for increases in the last six years.  This is great news for companies.  They are producing more with fewer workers.  Note I said with fewer workers.  In the long run this will be great for everyone.  But in the short term this is bad news for those of us that are looking for a job.  It means that companies will be slower in hiring.    Some experts agree with that assessment.  Joel Naroff, chief economistat Naroff Economic Advisors believes that hiring could be sluggish for several more months.  On the brighter side, not everyone agrees with him.  Michelle Meyer, an economist at Barclays Capital was quoted as saying, “We believe businesses will have to start to increase hours worked and payrolls around the turn of the year since they cannot expect their current work force to sustain such rapid productivity growth.”  Who you believe depends on whether you are a glass-half-full or a glass -half-empty kind of person. Looks like another bleak Christmas season either way. I haven’t seen any improvement yet but  I will wait to see what the Labor Department has to say. For convenience I post their latest unemployment figures on the Labor Statistics page.

Let’s hope that the glass-half-full pundits are right.  I, like many of us, need a job.

I seem to be stuck on this theme.  I promise that this will be the last “anything for a buck” post for a while.  In previous posts I have talked about taking odd jobs to try and generate some income – however small.  I recently ventured into online auctions.  We all know someone who says you can make money buying and selling stuff on Ebay.   I have always filed those comments under “making money on the Internet bull….”  While I am sure that there are people who make money this way I never bothered to look into it.

Given that I have a lot of time on my hands (I am an out of work bum, after all) I have been going through and cleaning out the closets.  In the process I came across a lot of reasonably valuable stuff that I never use.  No, I didn’t go on a wild spending spree in the past to accumulate junk that I would never use.  Most of the surplus stuff I got from my former employers.  I have been fairly successful in the past.  As a result I have won my share of sales incentives, contests,  trips, etc.  I won a great trip to Tahiti once but that is another story.  I have collected a small assortment of watches, luggage, pens, and such that are still in their original packaging.  I decided to put some of the stuff up on Ebay to see what happened.  Most of the stuff sold for well below its retail value but given my cost basis was zero I couldn’t lose.

My conclusion to my foray into online auctions is that you probably can make money here with a lot of time and experience.  As for me, I now have cleaner closets and enough money to pay the electric bill.