Keppie Careers

Social media speaker, social media consultant, job search coach

How can your past inform your career future?

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I attended the National Career Development Association (NCDA) conference last week, and I wanted to share some information from one of the keynote speakers, Mark Guterman. He spoke about the importance of memory when focusing on future career decisions in his discussion, “In Remembrance Lies the Secret . . . .”

He shared some great quotes:

“Memory is the soul’s witness to the capricious mind.” – Heschel

“If you’re lucky, putting together your life is a process that will last throught every single day you’re alive.” – Ann Patchett

“The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” – Churchill

Mark suggested using memory to help craft the future. These were some points he suggested considering:

  • Take responsibility
  • Stay relaxed and alert
  • Keep goals focused and diffused
  • Trust the process
  • Maintain a sense of humor
  • Allow for moments of inspiration and awe

You can learn more about Mark at his website.

photo by Ilyas

On the radio on SIRIUS/XM with Maggie Mistal

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I’m excited to announce I’m Maggie Mistal’s guest on her radio program, “Making a Living” on Martha Stewart Living Radio, SIRIUS/XM 110 this week. Maggie’s show airs Fridays 4PM Eastern/1PM Pacific, and you can catch me this Friday, July 8th.

We’ll be talking about my new book, Social Networking for Career Success, and I’ll be offering tips and advice for job seekers and entrepreneurs about the right social networks to join and use.

If you haven’t listened in to Maggie’s show, you are missing out! Her past guests include: Martha Stewart, Deepak Chopra, Stephen Covey, Sally Field, Patricia Heaton, Ty Pennington, Barbara Corcoran, Dilbert creator Scott Adams and Henry Winkler.

Get your career questions answered on the career hotline by calling 1-866-675-6675. Tune in with a FREE trial of SIRIUS!

Photo by CarbonNYC

Monster’s BeKnown adds to the mix of professional Facebook uses

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If you have an ear to Twitter or the career/HR blogosphere, you already know Monster just launched a new social network for job seekers via a new Facebook application called “BeKnown.” Along with many, many of my colleagues, I joined a preview conference call to learn about BeKnown.

Many on the call were thinking, “This sounds an awful lot like another Facebook app, Branchout.” (I know I was thinking it!) In fact, I’ve written about Branchout, which Mashable notes has more than 800,000 users (compared to LinkedIn, with more than 100 million members). Both Branchout and BeKnown try to leverage Facebook’s more than 750 million (!) members and hope to provide a go-to, “professional” space within Facebook. Since statistics show so many more people use and spend time on (in) Facebook, I’ve been advising job seekers to clean up their Facebook profiles for job-hunting purposes for some time now. I devoted an entire chapter to Facebook in Social Networking for Career Success, because I believe it’s important to “go where the people are” when it comes to networking online, and the people are on Facebook!

Having a professional profile on Facebook helps allow job seekers to connect with companies hosting Facebook pages and helps make it easier to connect with recruiters on Facebook.

While a professional online profile is a good idea, Monster makes a point to note its app allows Facebook users to:

·         Easily invite contacts from other social networks to expand their BeKnown network beyond their existing Facebook friends

·         Keep social activity with friends and family separate from work-related activity with professional contacts

·         See who among their professional contacts on BeKnown is connected to a company or job opportunity of interest

·         Connect professional networking to Monster’s job search and browse tools and import their Monster profile to BeKnown from right within the app

For companies, Monster explains that BeKnown:

·         Opens up a vast source of potential global talent on Facebook – Facebook’s estimated 750 million members span ages, income levels and ethnic groups

·         Creates new recruitment-focused visibility opportunities and extends job posting reach in a high engagement environment

·         Increases engagement opportunities with so-called passive job seekers, as BeKnown users follow company job and network activity

·         Activates recruiter and employee networks as referral sources

What’s especially unique about BeKnown compared to other apps?

Monster explains it will include a “Social Referral Program (SRP), which encourages BeKnown users to pass along specific jobs through their BeKnown network.  The Social Referral Program amplifies a company’s employee referral network and extends reach to passive candidates.  Currently in beta, the referral program will be rolled out to select Monster customers.”

I had a chance to ask a few questions I thought would be important for readers to know.

My first question: “Is this an application marketed for job seekers, since it’s from a company best known for its job board?”

The answer was “No, it’s for anyone who wants to build a network.” In particular, it aims to offer a tool to people who have not already grown their LinkedIn network, for example.

My second question related to the jobs that will be posted on the site. I was concerned about verifying the companies and avoiding scam artists from moving in to collect information from unsuspecting job seekers. I understand there will be some verification. (We’ll see how this all plays out.)

I started using BeKnown, and, so far, I like it! Stay tuned for my first impressions. In the meantime, if you’d like to try it out:

For more information, follow these links to join BeKnown (http://www.beknown.com/landing) and to learn more about how it works (http://www.beknown.com/landing/howitworks). And, feel free to connect with me there. I’m planning to have an “open” network on BeKnown.

Tips to consider when evaluating your LinkedIn network

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What’s the most important thing to consider when building your network? Size? Quality of connections? Other factors? LinkedIn published a study that said men are better online networkers than women because they tend to have a greater ratio of connections compared to women.

The study did not look into the quality of the connections for the various groups. But when it comes to networking, having a large network isn’t always the key factor to success. Job seekers and others should always take into account the depth and breadth of their contacts in addition to the number of people in their circle. In other words, consider the quality of your connections in addition to quantity.

Watch this short video with tips to help you evaluate your network to be sure it will be ready to work for you when you need it!

For more details, click through to my U.S. News & World Report post on the topic.

photo by Roberto Verzo

Prepare in advance for the job that may come knocking

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Last week, a prospective client contacted me. He was thinking about solidifying his “personal brand” and thought he could use some help firming up his job search plans. We spoke briefly, I explained how I could help him identify the stories that would relate and appeal to his target audience and how I could teach him to propagate those stories via social media. I agreed to outline a strategy/proposal while he interviewed other coaches (!), but the next thing I knew, he was contacting me with an urgent email:

“My dream job just came knocking on the door.”

All of the sudden, a longer-term, “let’s think about it” plan became an immediate need — how to impress the telephone screener to land a chance at an interview for the job he’d been yearning to have. (Incidentally, this was the second client in a week I’d convinced NOT to offer to “scrub toilets” for the privilege of working someplace!)

Luckily, I was able to schedule a just-in-time coaching session and identified the salient points from the job description I believed would be most valuable to highlight and discuss in an introductory meeting. Success! The meeting went well; the client is waiting to firm a date for the second interview — and is ready for the next “just-in-time” session to help him hone in on what he wants to say.

Could this be you? Absolutely! Do you need to wait to the 11th hour to get some help to get you where you want to go? No! Start preparing now.

Are you ready to present yourself — in line with what your audience wants to hear? Could you pass an initial screen? If not, maybe it’s time for a coaching session?

photo by Feuillu