Keppie Careers

Social media speaker, social media consultant, job search coach

Keppie Careers selected a “Monster 11 for 2011” best job seeker resource

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Somewhat ironically (maybe?) my friend Hannah Morgan, also known as @CareerSherpa, posted a blog yesterday acknowledging that it is important to take credit where credit is due, about the best way to keep track of your accomplishments at work. For those of us who aren’t about tooting our own horn, this is a good reminder.

Why is Hannah’s timing ironic? It was posted the same day that Monster.com announced “The Monster 11 for 2011: Career Experts Who Can Help Your Job Search.” I was thrilled and flattered to be named to the list, along with my good friends Hannah and Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter (@valueintowords) as well as  colleagues: Heather Huhman (@heatherhuhman) (all also of the Career Collective), Penelope Trunk (@brazencareerist), Eve Tahmincioglu (who tweets in rhyme @careerdiva), J.T. O’Donnell (@careerealism), Chris Perry (@careerrocketeer), Donna Svei (@avidcareerist), Abby Kohut (@absolutely_abby) and Louise Fletcher (@louise_fletcher).

As Monster notes, there are many, many other great career pros who write and tweet advice for job seekers. (Be sure to follow the #CareerCollective hashtag for some of them!) I am proud to have been named on this list with these terrific colleagues. I’ll use this post to help me track my accomplishment, as Hannah suggests. Have you considered creating a blog or website to help you track and share your milestone career moments? Contact me….I am creating a product to help you do just that – even if you don’t know anything about starting a blog or creating a site!

Monster suggests you follow them on Twitter: @HotJobs_editor or @MonsterCareers, where they often reference these and other career experts’ work! Also, be sure to check out Monster’s HR and Recruitment Bloggers top 11 for 2011 list. It was exciting to see so many of my Twitter friends and colleagues listed there.

photo by unfurl

http://monster.typepad.com/monsterblog/2010/12/monster-11-for-2011.html

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.

Announcement: New social media job search expert at Job-Hunt.org

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I am very excited to announce that I have joined the terrific team of professionals at Job-Hunt.org as the Social Media Job Search expert! Thank you very much to Susan Joyce, editor and publisher of Job-Hunt.org since 1998, for inviting me to contribute to such a valuable resource for job seekers.

I have to admit that I had a “brush with fame” moment when I first spoke to Susan! Job-hunt.org is a site I have used and recommended for my entire career, so it was a special honor when she welcomed me on board.

When I say I am humbled to be joining an amazing team, I really mean it. The experts on board at Job-hunt.org represent a real brain trust of career advisors. I am pleased to count many of them as my friends. Be sure to visit Job-Hunt.org’s home page and review the list on the left – “help from job search experts” – to read their advice and to learn about a slew of career advice topics.

Read my first article here – about how LinkedIn allows you to follow companies, and why you might want to take them up on it!

photo uploaded by matthamm

Review of The Twitter Book

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thetwitterbook4166iaPKDKL._SL500_AA240_You didn’t think you needed another social network to propel your job search? You’re on LinkedIn – isn’t that enough? If you are a regular reader, you know that I am a bit of a Twitter evangelist! I think that Twitter is a terrific resource for job seekers, entrepreneurs and all professionals for connecting and network expanding.

While I think of using Twitter as second nature, there are many “ins and outs,” and it really is not all that obvious to everyone. So, I was excited to receive The Twitter Book, by Tim O’Reilly and Sarah Milstein. As the authors note in Chapter 1, “Twitter lives a dual life. On one hand, it’s a simple service. Besides letting you share and read very short messages, it has few bells and whistles. On the other hand, it can be surprisingly hard to figure out. The screens aren’t particularly intuitive and the jargon and symbols are obscure.”

So, I read the book both as an expert user and as a coach looking for resources to help my clients become more frequent and successful Tweeps. I was not disappointed on either count!

For new users, the book offers a tutorial on how to get signed up and started and how to create a profile. I was surprised and delighted to find that Sarah and Tim actually quoted my Twitter profile as an example of a bio that tells a story (see page 23)!

The book covers all of the terminology that Twitter users need to know and provides pictures and examples throughout. Need to know how to find people? Done. How to tweeet from the road? Done. What’s a RT (retweet) and can you edit it if it is too long to send? (Yes, but consider using “via” if you change it substantially,” p. 115).

Power users – did YOU know that there is an opp called 140it that “uses common cutting conventions to whittle down” your posts if they are too long? (It doesn’t work for every post, but I had never heard about it, and I’ve been tweeting up a storm for a while now.)

Suffice to say that any detail you need to know is available in this handy, easy to use reference.

But, using Twitter successfully requires more than just a list of “how to,” practical concerns. There are many nuanced aspects, and Sarah and Tim don’t forget about them in this book. Included in the book: discussions about how many people to follow, how to have great conversations, how to @ reply so the user will know what you mean, how often to tweet and how to go beyond “what are you doing?” to be a contributing member of your Twitter community and more.

I’d recommend this book to anyone hesitant to try Twitter because it seems overwhelming and current “tweeps” who would like to pick up some tips from the pros. You can follow the authors at @timoreilly and @SarahM and you can follow the book’s hashtag (“demystified” on page 41) -  #twitterbook.

Need help getting started using Twitter for your job hunt? Your resume isn’t doing the job it needs to do? Click here for informtion about how I can help with your search.

How to overcome the "overqualified" label

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WXIA, the Atlanta NBC affiliate's present logo
Image via Wikipedia

Chris Sweigart from Atlanta’s local NBC affiliate station, 11 Alive, interviewed me for a piece that aired on the 6:00 pm newscast about how job seekers can address the issue of being considered “overqualified” for the job.

I suggested that it is important for job seekers to realize why employers are concerned about hiring “overqualified” applicants.

Some reasons:

– They worry the candidate will be “too expensive.”

– Concern the overqualified applicant will leave at the first sign of a better opportunity.

– A desire to avoid hiring a potential “grumpy Gus” or “sad Sally” if the job does not meet the candidate’s needs.

So, how should job seekers address these concerns?

Take salary off the table. Explain that, at this stage of your career, you recognize there are more important things than a high salary. Identify positives, such as work-life balance (if appropriate), the opportunity to work for an organization with a good reputation and/or with a set of talented colleagues. Give good reasons for wanting the job that don’t make you sound desperate for a paycheck.

Make a time commitment. Offer to stay for one or two years – make it clear that this job is a destination, not a jumping off point for you.

Make a convincing case for why the job is a good match. The onus is on the candidate to point out what skills and tasks involved in the job resonate with him or her and explain why those are a good fit. The fact is, while job seekers might have been doing higher level, high powered jobs with a lot of responsibility, those tasks may not necessarily be the things they really enjoy doing. Make the case that this job, at this stage of your career, is what you know you’d like to do and convince the employer of that.

Watch the clip here:

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Unemployment in the state of Georgia is now at 10.7% and predicted to go even higher. If you are looking for a job, or thinking you should be, join me and Stephanie A. Lloyd of Radiant Veracity for a series of job search interventions. Save time, money and YOUR SANITY by learning optimum job hunting tips and tricks. Learn more about our program how you can be better at job seeking HERE.

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