Keppie Careers

Social media speaker, social media consultant, job search coach

The most important thing a job seeker can do

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Being able to tell your story — and to tell it well — is one of the most important skills a job seeker can have. My friend, Ken Revenaugh’s blog, Fast Track Tools, shares information about how to tell good career stories. He reminds us that being a good communicator relies on collecting factoids and being able to share them with an audience.

Another resource for job search storytelling is fellow Career Collective member, Katharine Hansen’s book, Tell Me About Yourself. You may not have realized that interviewing is mainly about being able to tell a story well.

The most important thing for job seekers? Learning how to SHOW, not just TELL. This applies to the resume, all written correspondence, networking meetings, online profiles — any place where you have an opportunity to detail exactly how you can help the organization solve its problems. Maybe you can touch on problems the organization does not even know that it has? If you can network your way into a company, you have a chance to show why they need you.

A great example of how to show, not tell is the OnStar commercials. They say, “Whether you need help to get to where you’re going, or want peace of mind with safety and security in an emergency situation, OnStar has your back.” But, they don’t leave it at that. Their commercials vividly recount situations when having their system made the difference between life and death. I admit that most of the commercials give me goosebumps. (No, this is not a sponsored post!)

Take a look at their latest ad and think about how you can do a better job of being the person your target organization cannot do without.

If you want to learn how to look for a job today, check out The Career Summit…more than a dozen online presentations to help you land that next job!

Learn how social media can help with your job hunt

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I am excited to share details about a webinar panel that JobAngels founder Mark Stelzner invited me to join. The topic is one of my favorites! Details and a link to sign up for the free webinar are below:

Social Media for Job Seekers: A Career Coaches Panel

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Noon EST | 9:00 am PST

If you believe the hype, it would seem that all you need to do is turn on your computer, log into your favorite social media account and your dream job will be waiting for you. For many of you, reality is much different, as social media for job seeking is something you have yet to meaningfully pursue. Our distinguished panel of experts will help you separate fact from fiction and embrace social media as one of many tools in your career arsenal. We will address common questions, including:

  • How do I prepare for a social media job search?
  • How can I avoid common mistakes?
  • Which tools are right for me?
  • What should I share publicly?
  • Will this actually work?

Moderated by JobAngels founder Mark Stelzner, our panel will answer these questions and more, including an opportunity for you to pose your own questions directly to our experts. Please welcome coaches Miriam Salpeter, Dawn Bugni and Shahrzad Arasteh as they join Mark for a taste of what these new and exciting tools have to offer. And if you’re on Twitter already, follow our hashtag #voc10 to participate in real-time with your fellow attendees. This is sure to be a popular event so sign up today!

illustration by Matt Hamm

Don’t make these online job hunting mistakes

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In an article for the Wall Street Journal, Elizabeth Garone shared five tips to help job seekers avoid typical social networking mistakes. While there are a lot of ways to use social media tools to help land an opportunity, it’s easy to make newbie mistakes when just getting started. I’m sure you’ve heard of or read about people who have been fired for what they posted on Facebook. Maybe you’ve seen the compilations of unwise posts from Twitter, such as ResumeBear’s 30 ways to lose a job on Twitter.

As a proponent of using social networking to enhance job seeking opportunities, I encourage people to jump in and take advantage of all the great tools, but it’s important to remember what NOT to do.

These are the mistakes Elizabeth highlights in her article. Be sure to READ THE FULL POST for specific advice and details.

1. Forgetting manners.

I was delighted to be quoted in this section! In short – “Assume your future boss is reading everything you share online.”

2. Overkill.

Signing up for too many networks and not making an effort to complete your profiles does not move your search forward.

3. Not getting the word out.

It’s important to let your networks know you are looking.

4. Quantity over quality.

Connect carefully and personalize your invitations.

5. Online exclusivity.

Don’t spend all of your time searching online; many jobs are not posted.

Don’t miss the expert advice from Sree Sreenivasan, dean of students at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Krista Canfield, a LinkedIn spokesperson, author Emily Bennington and personal branding expert Dan Schawbel in the Wall Street Journal’s FULL POST.

Twitter chats – a great way to expand your network

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If you have not been using Twitter to expand your networking community and broaden your network – why not?

Even if you did not already know that the word  “Twitter” is the fastest growing term to appear in job postings appearing in job boards (per Indeed.com), you should still be using Twitter because it is an amazing place to connect and learn and to grow the number of people who *know* you and are able and willing to help you (with your job hunt or your workout routine).

Thanks to Christina Brown, I recently learned about a resource I had not used before – the Twitter Chat Schedule.  Another resource to find chats is Tweetreports.

A Twitter chat is a time when people who have similar interests hop on Twitter and tweet using a hashtag (a hashtag is a # along with a word or acronym) that helps everyone interested get in on the conversation. I have participated in #JobHuntChat (Monday nights at 10-11 pm eastern), which is a great opportunity to network and learn from career coaches, hiring managers, recruiters and other job seekers. Clearly, I follow the job searching community on Twitter pretty closely, which is how I knew about this chat.

However, I would never have imagined that there was a chat about strength training (#sbgym) or pharmaceutical marketing and social media (#socpharm), a chat for foodies (#SOSfood) and one to discuss fashion and style (#styletalk). The list goes on and on. Of course, there are a lot of chats having to do with social media, and there are several other career oriented chats – #internchat, for example…

The great thing about joining chats and communities pertaining to your hobbies and interests is that it gives you an opportunity to connect with other people about things that have nothing to do with jobs. Just as it is a good idea for job seekers to join a biking club if they enjoy biking, or an art class if artistically talented, Twitter provides an unprecedented way to reach out to new people and to extend your “loose” network – people you would otherwise never meet.

Don’t be shy – take a look at the schedule and find a fun chat…You will be surprised at how generous people are once you exchange a few tweets. The next-door neighbor of the person who may need to hire you may be on Twitter chatting right now!

Haven’t gotten started on Twitter? Read this post that I wrote to encourage job seekers to dive into this amazing network.

photo by joelaz